by Sascha “Yiska” Heinisch
The 3.3.2 patch recently hit the live servers and as always it brought a huge change to the WoW meta game. Despite the prot warrior nerfs, Blizzard surprised everyone with not only the resilience buffs but also with the introduction of an across the board healing nerf by 10% in all PvP situations. On the other hand, shield abilities such as Ice Barrier, Sacred Shield or Holy Shield remain untouched, ultimately buffing these classes. While comps who win games with a limited amount of burst windows like RMP got nerfed in that sense, their shields will still be as effective as large patch. It is extremely hard to predict what the new flavor of the month will be, and what will still be viable as well as what will just simply not be competitive anymore.
With the ESL Global finals on the horizon, some teams will need to adapt. We asked a couple of pro players what they think of the new patch, both in regards to live servers and the tournament realm. Is their comp nerfed? What are the big winners in 3.3.2?
SK. Inflame (plays DK/Lock/Driud): “Better for sure, but so will TSG.”
H2K.Instance: “In my opinion, warriors and locks are the big winners of the new patch, because the longer the game, the better warriors and locks become. Warriors are also the best scaling class in the game, so the resilience buff favors them more than it hits them, due to the fact that they simply survive longer, but don’t do as less overall damage as other classes. WLD seems the right comp choice, but with the 10% healing nerf, druids take a big hit in comparison to paladins (sacred shield and if paladin got heals through, they most likely healed a target from nothing to full) and with warriors being so dominant in damage right now, I see paladin/lock/warrior being extremely awesome because of the offensive warrior support. Biggest loser is definatelly dk – their single target dmg without ms is a joke, so I don’t see them competing without a warrior or hunter after all.* “
*Referring to live server performence
EG.Azael: “Biggest winner’s class wise, in my opinion, are arms warriors and affliction warlocks and comp wise probably WLD. The Biggest losers are burst reliant classes, mages, destro locks and such as well as feral druids too. Biggest losers comp wise maybe RMP and Wizard cleave? I don’t know, that’s just off the top of my head. I think melee cleave teams will be greatly buffed by it too.”
Dignitas.Kalimist: “Rogues, DKs, Shamans and Paladin are the losers. Winners are affliction warlocks shadow priests.”
Dignitas.Hydra: “With the shields not being effected by the healing nerfs, it could be an RMP buff.”
coL.Black Twixz: “It’s really too early to tell. I dont think any comp will be completely OP cause of the buff nor do I think any comp will be completely crap now. The big losers, however, are prot warriors.”
Keep in mind, most of these players didn’t play more than 30 Arena matches yet. Still, it is interesting to see how the opinions differ. With the complex meta game and the different gear sets in WoW, it’s really hard even for the pros to predict what will happen until they have actually tried the the new patch. Every opinion has a point though, but we’ll likely have to wait until the next offline tournament to see who’s right. I guess the Asians will be the first lucky ones to try it out.