New Soulbind abilities on PTR are looking absolutely broken! Here’s an inside scoop! Find out which ones you need to know about for patch 9.1.
1:19 BROKEN SOULBINDS
WoW head has released an updated soulbind calculator. So if you haven’t downloaded the test realm yet you can preview some of the broken soulbinds coming with the patch.
One of the most broken things we’ve seen so far is from Naya and her new ability called Survivor’s Rally. With Mages and Warlocks having Night Fae as their best covenant, both classes will be gaining some additional defensive power with this ability. When combined with the buffs to Warlocks and Frost Mages, it is likely going to make Mage Lock an absolutely broken comp. With many players eyeing comps like MLD, I personally have my eyes set on MLS which I predict will be one of the strongest comps in Season 2. The buff to Frost Mage and Destro Warlock damage will be a huge problem when combined with Sky Fury Totem. Now that Mage and Warlock has some additional auto proc heal, I anticipate that MLS will be the comp to beat.
There is also a new end cap ability capped Bonded Hearts which will passively heal the entire team during the arena game. And if we are able to learn anything from the past, Resto Shamans do incredibly well when they have lots of passive healing on the team.
2:16 Speaking of Resto Shamans, they will be getting some much needed coverage against melee DPS as they gain a new soulbind ability for Necrolord called Viscous Trail. This will make it much more difficult for melee DPS to train Shamans through a 70% AOE snare.
And speaking of melee DPS, both Ret Paladins and Windwalker Monks will be getting even more burst damage with their Pelagos soulbind. Their new end cap ability called Newfound Resolve will give them a 12% increase to their primary stat. The ability will spawn a Shadow Fiend during combat. And if the player faces it, they will get a 12% increase to their primary stat. Since both Monks and Paladins cooldown stack with damage modifiers anyway, this additional buff will only increase their damage even further. Looks like the damage of Ret Paladin might be even scarier in the next patch.
3:03 On top of that Kyrian players are getting another new passive called Path of the Devoted which will decrease their damage taken and make them almost invulnerable to snares after they get out of a CC. This will help directly counter the popular Mage covenant passive called Soothing Voice which snares you for 90% when you leave Polymorph or Frost Nova.
And to cap this update, both BM Hunters and Arms Warriors are about to see some huge damage increases. Despite being some of the best DPS in the game at the moment. Venthyr is gaining a new end cap ability for Nadjia the Mistblade called Fatal Flaw which will grant them 20% versatility when their euphoria ends. And while the sustained damage of both these classes is already high as it is, this will make their damage even more threatening especially during War Breaker or Bestial Wrath.
3:46 PATCH 9.1 PREDICTIONS
We have some pretty bold predictions as to what comps will be absolutely broken next season. As mentioned, the buffs to both Frost Mage and Destro Warlock will likely elevate both MLD and MLS to high tier status. So if you are waiting for the Wizard meta this patch is for you.
Assassination Rogues are also looking really promising. Mostly due to their ability called Hemotoxin. With the bust Arcane and Frost, we can definitely see Assass Arcane be the primary Rogue Mage comp in the patch. Arcane has been heavily slept on so for this season mostly due to how broken Fire has been since the start of the expansion. Arcane has some of the highest bursts possible in arena with its new Arcanosphere ability and will definitely scale the tier list next patch.
Finally, I wouldn’t count Warriors and Rets out quite yet. They don’t seem to be getting any significant nerfs so far in the patch so they will likely remain some of the most dominant melee DPS specs in the arena. The only thing that might hold Ret back is the increase of Mage and Warlock spell cleaves that we might see next season.
6:46 TBC ARENAS
Last 20th, arenas are now live in The Burning Crusade beta servers. Those of you who are lucky enough to have the BC Beta can now make a group to cue Arena Skirmishes. From some of the games we’ve seen so far, the meta is surprisingly fast. A lot of people are anticipating that BC games would be long and slow but currently damage is high enough that most games are lasting under a minute. Of course that might change once players get more resilience in queuing 3v3. So bear in mind that the games you see on streams don’t paint a complete picture of the meta.
As predicted it seems like a lot of players are playing Rogues, Warlocks, Mages and Warriors. Not only were these some of the best specs 14 years ago but they continue to be quite dominant even with a higher skill capped player base. The damage and control from Rogues is almost unmatched and with debuffs like Wound Poison and Mortal Strike giving a 50% healing reduction, we anticipate that the most popular comps will have some combination of these classes.