upcoming class changes

by **Darth_Kitsune** Sat 07 Feb 2009, 6:16 pm

PRIEST

Divine Spirit – this spell is now a core ability available to all priests.

Discipline has access to a new talent, Power Word: Barrier. (Think of it as Power Word: Shield for your whole group).

Several area of effect (AOE) heal spells have been
improved: Prayer of Healing can be cast on any groups in your raid
party. Holy Nova’s mana cost has been reduced. Circle of Healing now
heals for more.

Shadow priest PvP survivability has been improved:
Shadow Form now reduces magic as well as physical damage. Dispersion
now removes snares.

Penance – this spell can now be targeted on the priest.

Serendipity – this talent now reduces the cast time of
Greater Heal and Prayer of Healing when Binding Heal or Flash Heal are
cast.

We are also working to give Holy additional PvP utility.

ROGUE

Hunger for Blood – instead of a self-buff, this ability
can only be used when there is a bleed effect on the target. However,
it has no stacks and grants a 15% damage bonus.

Adrenaline Rush – the cooldown on this ability has been lowered.

Lightning Reflexes – reduced to 3 ranks. In addition to 2/4/6% dodge, this talent now also grants 4/7/10% passive melee haste.

Killing Spree – while this ability is active, the rogue does 20% additional damage.

Savage Combat – now causes 2/4% physical damage done.

Mace Specialization – this talent now grants haste in addition to armor penetration.

SHAMAN

Chain Lightning – now jumps to 4 targets but does less
damage. We wanted to make the distinction between Lightning Bolt and
Chain Lightning more clear.

Storm, Earth and Fire – this talent now increases all damage done by Flame Shock, not just periodic damage.

Spirit Weapons – now reduces all threat, not just melee threat.

Unleashed Rage – reduced to 2 ranks, now also increases your critical strike chance with melee attacks by 1/2%.

Totem streamlining: The Mana Spring and Healing Stream
Totems have been combined. The Disease Cleansing and Poison Cleansing
Totems have been combined.

We are also working on giving Enhancement and Elemental more PvP utility.

WARLOCK

Improved Shadow Bolt – this talent now provides a 5% spell critical strike buff (similar to Improved Scorch).

Improved Soul Leech – this talent now provides Replenishment (similar to shadow priests)

Drain Soul now has a chance to produce Soul Shards even if the target doesn’t die.

Siphon Life no longer as an active ability but the talent grants the old Siphon Life effect to Corruption.

Curse of Recklessness and Curse of Weakness have been combined into one spell

Consume Shadows – this Voidwalker ability is no longer channeled but has a cooldown.

Several other warlock talents have had their ranks
reduced, their effects changed or removed. This list includes but is
not limited to Demonic Empathy, Shadow Embrace, Eradication,
Suppression, and Pandemic.

Additional new talents have been added.

DRUID

Savage Defense – this is a new passive ability. When a
druid in Dire Bear form deals a melee critical strike, the druid gains
a damage shield equal to 25% of their attack power. The next hit
completely removes the shield regardless of how much damage was done.

Survival of the Fittest has had its bonus armor reduced to compensate for the above increase in damage mitigation.

Faerie Fire (and similar debuffs) now reduces armor by 5%. See Sunder Armor in the warrior update below for additional details.

Thorns and Nature’s Grasp can be cast in Tree of Life form.

Survival Instincts now works in Moonkin form.

Replenish – to avoid confusion, this talent has been renamed “Revitalize.” It now also works with Wild Growth.

We are also looking at increasing the sustained (not burst) damage of feral druids in cat form.

WARRIOR

Changing stances now has a much reduced cost: you lose a
maximum of 20 rage (10 with Tactical Mastery). For example, if you have
100 rage and change stances, you will have 80 rage remaining. If you
have 10 rage and change stances, all of your rage is lost. In addition,
we may change the penalties associated with some stances.

You now gain rage when damage done to you is absorbed, such as through a Power Word: Shield.

Blood Frenzy now causes 2/4% physical damage done.

Sunder Armor (and similar debuffs) now reduces armor by 4%
per application, and is now a single rank. Creature armor has been
globally reduced so that debuffed targets should take about the same
damage from physical attacks that they did before this change. The net
effect should be that this debuff is slightly less mandatory in PvE and
is not disproportionately more powerful against cloth targets in PvP.

We are also adding increased damage to Arms, possibly through Overpower or Slam.

We are also looking at granting rage when the warrior blocks, dodges or parries.

MAGE

Improved Water Elemental – this talent has been removed and
replaced with a new talent that grants Replenishment (similar to Shadow
priests).

We are also working on a way to give frost mages Ice Lance “Shatter combos” in PvE.

We are also working on more survivability for Fire spec in PvP.

We are also working on making Spirit a more useful and interesting stat for all mages.

PALADIN

Blessing of Kings – this spell is now a base ability trainable by all paladins.

Exorcism – this spell now causes damage to all types of
enemy targets. However, it always critical strikes undead or demon
targets. This change should make sure paladin damage doesn’t drop when
going from Naxxramas to later tiers of content.

Shield of the Templar now causes your Avenger’s Shield
and Shield of the Righteousness to silence targets for 3 sec. The old
damage bonus of this talent has been folded into Holy Shield, Avenger’s
Shield, and Shield of the Righteousness.

Ardent Defender, Improved Hammer of Justice, One-Handed Weapon Specialization and more have had their ranks reduced.

Guarded by the Light – no longer reduces the mana cost of
shield spells, but now has a 50/100% chance to refresh Divine Plea
duration.

Judgements of the Just – now also reduces the cooldown
of Hammer of Justice by 10/20 seconds and increases the duration of the
Seal of Justice stun effect by 0.5/1 second.

HUNTER

Consumable ammunition has been removed from the game.
Arrows and bullets no longer stack, but are not consumed. Ranged attack
speed bonus gained from quivers and ammo bags will be preserved in a
different capacity.

A new tier of hunter pet talents have been added. In
particular, this allows Beastmaster hunters to improve their damage per
second (DPS) with their 51 point talent.

Hunting Party – this talent has been reduced to 3 ranks and also grants a passive bonus to the hunter.

Piercing Shots – this talent has been changed. Your Aimed,
Steady and Chimera Shots cause the target to bleed for 10/20/30% of
damage dealt for 8 sec.

Sniper Training – this talent has been changed. After
standing still for 6 sec, you gain a 2/4/6% damage bonus to Steady,
Aimed and Explosive Shot.

We are also looking to add additional trap functionality to Survival.

DEATH KNIGHT

Gargoyle and Unholy Blight have swapped talent positions.
Gargoyle’s damage has increased and runic power cost per time has
decreased.

Pestilence – this spell no longer causes damage but just
spreads diseases. Blood Boil is intended to be the general area attack,
and has been changed to be castable on targets with no diseases on
them, but does extra damage if diseases are present.

Unbreakable Armor now absorbs a flat amount of damage that increases as your armor increases. It no longer boosts armor.

The Frost tree has been shuffled. Among other things, PvP
talents such as Endless Winter are closer to the top of the tree where
Blood and Unholy death knights can access them.

Sudden Doom – this talent now procs a Death Coil rather
than requiring an additional button click. It works similarly to
shamans’ Lightning Overload.

Magic Suppression and Blood of the North have been reduced to 3 ranks for the same benefit.

Blood Gorged now grants armor penetration instead of expertise.

by **Alcatraz** Sat 07 Feb 2009, 8:52 pm

Darth_Kitsune wrote:PRIEST

Divine Spirit – this spell is now a core ability available to all priests.
Several area of effect (AOE) heal spells have been
improved: Prayer of Healing can be cast on any groups in your raid
party. Holy Nova’s mana cost has been reduced. Circle of Healing now
heals for more.
Penance – this spell can now be targeted on the priest.

Serendipity – this talent now reduces the cast time of
Greater Heal and Prayer of Healing when Binding Heal or Flash Heal are
cast.
We are also working to give Holy additional PvP utility.

DEATH KNIGHT

Gargoyle and Unholy Blight have swapped talent positions.
Gargoyle’s damage has increased and runic power cost per time has
decreased.
Pestilence – this spell no longer causes damage but just
spreads diseases. Blood Boil is intended to be the general area attack,
and has been changed to be castable on targets with no diseases on
them, but does extra damage if diseases are present.
Sudden Doom – this talent now procs a Death Coil rather
than requiring an additional button click. It works similarly to
shamans’ Lightning Overload.
Magic Suppression and Blood of the North have been reduced to 3 ranks for the same benefit.

Blood Gorged now grants armor penetration instead of expertise.

I'm extremely excited about the priest changes, really gives me a reason to enjoy holy again. And the DK stuff is really nice too, kind of upsetting about gargoyle switching, cause now I cant get it for pvp without changing my spec, but the sudden doom thing for the blood tree is AMAZING. Means I dont have to waste GCD's on death coils.

by **0pp0siti0n** Sat 07 Feb 2009, 9:32 pm

Alcatraz wrote:
Darth_Kitsune wrote:PRIEST

Divine Spirit – this spell is now a core ability available to all priests.
Several area of effect (AOE) heal spells have been
improved: Prayer of Healing can be cast on any groups in your raid
party. Holy Nova’s mana cost has been reduced. Circle of Healing now
heals for more.
Penance – this spell can now be targeted on the priest.

Serendipity – this talent now reduces the cast time of
Greater Heal and Prayer of Healing when Binding Heal or Flash Heal are
cast.
We are also working to give Holy additional PvP utility.

DEATH KNIGHT

Gargoyle and Unholy Blight have swapped talent positions.
Gargoyle’s damage has increased and runic power cost per time has
decreased.
Pestilence – this spell no longer causes damage but just
spreads diseases. Blood Boil is intended to be the general area attack,
and has been changed to be castable on targets with no diseases on
them, but does extra damage if diseases are present.
Sudden Doom – this talent now procs a Death Coil rather
than requiring an additional button click. It works similarly to
shamans’ Lightning Overload.
Magic Suppression and Blood of the North have been reduced to 3 ranks for the same benefit.

Blood Gorged now grants armor penetration instead of expertise.

I'm extremely excited about the priest changes, really gives me a reason to enjoy holy again. And the DK stuff is really nice too, kind of upsetting about gargoyle switching, cause now I cant get it for pvp without changing my spec, but the sudden doom thing for the blood tree is AMAZING. Means I dont have to waste GCD's on death coils.

Didn't you quit?
Also, they're removing bullets and arrows? What the hell is that?

by **Darth_Kitsune** Sun 08 Feb 2009, 9:42 am

0pp0siti0n wrote:
Didn't you quit?
Also, they're removing bullets and arrows? What the hell is that?

i believe he quit to finish school and then will be coming back

by **Aceofspades** Tue 10 Feb 2009, 1:01 pm

Op... i totally feel you there dude! its not right that the one thing they have never changed in the umpteen years that i've been playing this game is about to be ripped from under my feet... v_v

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