Druid Cataclysm Class Talent Changes

Don’t forget to check out the other class changes as well.

edit: added more about tree of life and lifebloom

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Druid Cataclysm Talent Preview

In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm we’ll be making several changes to class talents and abilities. Here you will get a glimpse into some of the changes we have in store for the druid. The information you’re about to read is certainly not complete, and is only meant to act as a preview of some of the exciting new things to come. Let’s kick things off by checking out some of the new druid spells and abilities!

New Druid Abilities

Thrash (Level 81): Thrash deals damage and causes all targets within 10 yards to bleed every 2 seconds for 6 seconds. The intent here is to give bears another button to hit while tanking. Talents will affect the bleed, such as causing Swipe to deal more damage to bleeding targets. 5-second cooldown. 25 Rage.

Stampeding Roar (Level 83): The druid roars, increasing the movement of all allies within 10 yards by 40% for 8 seconds. Stampeding Roar can be used in cat or bear form, but bears might have a talent to drop the cooldown. The goal of this ability is to give both bears and cats a little more situational group utility. 3-minute cooldown. No cost.

Wild Mushroom (Level 85): Grows a magical mushroom at the target location. After 4 seconds the mushroom becomes invisible. Enemies who cross the mushroom detonate it, causing it to deal area-of-effect damage, though its damage component will remain very effective against single targets. The druid can also choose to detonate the mushroom ahead of time. This is primarily a tool for the Balance druid, and there will be talents that play off of it. No cooldown. 40-yard range. Instant cast.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

In addition to the new abilities listed above, we intend to make changes to some of the other abilities and mechanics with which you’re already familiar. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of our goals for each spec.

• All heal-over-time spells (HoTs) will benefit from crit and haste innately in Cataclysm. Hasted HoTs do not reduce their duration, but instead add additional HoT ticks. Haste will also benefit Energy generation while in cat form.
• Unlike the other healers, Restoration druids will not be receiving any new spells. They have plenty to work with already, and our challenge instead is to make sure all of them have a well-defined niche. A druid should be able to tank-heal with stacks of Lifebloom, spot-heal a group with Nourish and Regrowth, and top off lightly wounded targets with Rejuvenation.
• We want to add tools to cat form and depth to bear form. If a Feral cat is going to fill a very similar niche to that of a rogue, warrior or Enhancement shaman, it needs a few more tools — primarily a reliable interrupt. Bears need to be pushing a few more buttons just so the contrast between tanking and damage-dealing is not so steep.
• Barkskin will be innately undispellable.
• We will be buffing the damage of Mangle (cat) significantly so that when cat druids cannot Shred, they are not at such a damage-dealing loss.
• Druids will lose Abolish Poison with the dispel mechanics change, but Restoration druids will gain Dispel Magic (on friendly targets) as a talent. All druids can still remove poisons with Cure Poison and remove curses with Remove Curse.

New Talents and Talent Changes

• Tree of Life is changing from a passive talent to a cooldown-based talent, similar to Metamorphosis. Mechanically, it feels unfair for a druid to have to give up so much offense and utility in order to be just as good at healing as the other classes who are not asked to make that trade. We are exploring the exact benefit the druid gets from Tree of Life. It could strictly be better healing, or it could be that each heal behaves slightly different. You also will not be able to be banished in Tree of Life form (this will probably be true of Metamorphosis as well). Additionally, we would like to update the Tree of Life model so that it feels more exciting when you do decide to go into that form. Our feeling is that druids rarely actually get to show off their armor, so it would be nice to have at least one spec that looked like a night elf or tauren (and soon troll or worgen) for most of the time.
• We want to make the Feral cat damage rotation slightly more forgiving. We do not want to remove what druids like about their gameplay, but we do want to make it less punishing to miss, say, a Savage Roar or Rake. The changes here will be on par with increasing the duration of Mangle like we did for patch 3.3.3.
• Balance druids will have a new talent ability called Nature’s Torrent, which strikes for either Nature or Arcane damage depending on which will do the most damage (or possibly both), and moves the Eclipse meter more (details below). The improved version of Nature’s Torrent also reduces the target’s movement speed. 10-second cooldown.
• Restoration druids will have a new talent called Efflorescence, which causes a bed of healing flora to sprout beneath targets that are critically healed by Regrowth.
• We plan on giving Feral cats and bears a Kick/Pummel equivalent — an interrupt that is off the global cooldown and does no damage. We feel like they need this utility to be able to fill the melee role in a dungeon or raid group, and to give them more PvP utility.
• We want to make sure Feral and Balance druids feel like good options for an Arena team. They need the tools to where you might consider a Feral druid over an Arms warrior, or a Balance druid over a mage or warlock. Remember that the PvP landscape will probably look pretty different for Cataclysm with a focus on rated, competitive Battlegrounds.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Balance
Spell Damage
Spell Haste
Eclipse

Feral (Cat)
Melee Damage
Melee Critical Damage
Bleed Damage

Feral (Bear)
Damage Reduction
Vengeance
Savage Defense

Restoration
Healing
Meditation
HoT Scale Healing

Eclipse: We are moving Eclipse from a talent into a core mechanic of the class and making it less random. Balance druids will have a new UI element that shows a sun and a moon. Whenever they cast an Arcane spell, it will move the UI closer to the sun, and buff their Nature damage. Whenever they cast a Nature spell, it will move the UI closer to the moon, and buff their Arcane damage. The gameplay intention is to alternate Arcane and Nature spells (largely Starfire and Wrath) to maintain the balance.

Bleed Damage and Savage Defense: Feral druids will receive two sets of passive bonuses depending on whether the druid is in cat or bear form. Bleed Damage will be improved for cats. Savage Defense is the current bear mechanic for converting crits into damage absorption and will be improved for bears.

HoT Scale Healing: HoTs will do increased healing on more wounded targets. The mechanic is similar to that of the Restoration shaman, but with HoTs instead of direct heals. In Cataclysm, we anticipate druids using a greater variety of their spells so there is a distinction between healing and HoT healing.

Vengeance: This is a mechanic to ensure that tank damage (and therefore threat) doesn’t fall behind as damage-dealing classes improve their gear during the course of the expansion. All tanking specs will have Vengeance as their second talent tree passive bonus. Whenever a tank gets hit, Vengeance will give them a stacking attack power buff equal to 5% of the damage done, up to a maximum of 10% of the character’s unbuffed health. For boss encounters we expect that tanks will always have the attack power bonus equal to 10% of their health. The 5% and 10% bonuses assume 51 talent points have been put into the Feral tree and the druid is in bear form — these values will be smaller at lower levels. Remember, you only get this bonus if you have spent the most talent points in the Feral tree and are in bear form, so you won’t see Balance, Restoration, or Feral druids in cat form running around with it. Vengeance will let us continue to make tank gear more or less the way we do today — there will be some damage-dealing stats, but mostly survival-oriented stats. Druids typically have more damage-dealing stats even on their tanking gear, so the Vengeance benefit may be smaller, but overall the goal is that all four tanks do about the same damage when tanking.

We hope you enjoyed this preview, and ask that you provide your initial thoughts and feedback on what was presented here. Please keep in mind, what you’ve just reviewed is a work in progress and as we move closer to the Cataclysm beta, you’ll see these changes as well as others continue to develop in response to testing and feedback.

Cataclysm Stat & System Changes: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=23425636414&sid=1%3Cbr%20/%3E

Mastery System Preview: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=23710210871&sid=1%3Cbr%20/%3E

Druid Developer Mini Q & A

Here is a short list of answers and feedback to some of the questions and concerns that have been forwarded to the developers regarding this preview:

Removal of Tree Form:
We knew changing Tree of Life to a cooldown was going to be controversial. There was just no way a change this big would be unanimously accepted. My apologies if being a tree was what really drew you to the class.

We didn’t add new rotational spells to Restoration or Feral cat because, good lord, you have enough buttons already. We tried hard with Cataclysm to not add new spells just because. The specs that got new spells were ones we think had big holes in their rotation. You’ll still get new talents and mechanics so I expect there will be a lot to learn when the big game-changing patch rolls around.

This is what we’re trying to do. On live today, druids are balanced around healing in tree form, meaning they give up a lot of utility just to be as good as other healers. When Tree of Life is a cooldown, then you’ll be balanced healing in night elf, troll, worgen or tauren form, and then you’ll be more powerful when in tree form. The nice thing about cooldowns is the difference can be pretty significant while active.

We might (*might*) consider a minor glyph that kept the visual of the old tree form in some fashion even when not using the Tree of Life cooldown.

Levels for Cat and Bear Form:
It won’t be super low level, but we might switch the levels at which you get cat and bear.

Feral Ability Changes:
The recent Mangle change is a good example. Other candidates include letting Rake last longer, changing Mangle’s damage such that it’s not such a gigantic dps loss not to Shred, and / or changing the bonus of Savage Roar so that it’s not such a crippling dps loss if it falls off. Using Savage Roar after a target with cps on it has died will help too.

We still want the John Madden crowd to be able to try and maximize their dps. We just want players not playing at that level to not be so far behind (though behind is fine).

Form Updates for Moonkin and Tree:
We would like to. Those are on the list, but they’re expensive tasks because they require so much art time. You might be willing to have one fewer new boss models in order to get the forms updated, but if we did that and we added a new demon for warlocks and a couple of new models for other class needs here and there and pretty soon all of those bosses are going to end up looking pretty recycled.

It will stay on the list though. If we don’t get to it for 4.0, there’s always 4.1.

What Will the Eclipse Mastery Bonus Be:
The bonus will be increased damage to Nature spells or to Arcane spells. We’re not sure of the magnitude yet, but it will need to be hefty enough for you to actually want to switch.

It will need some kind of decay — we don’t want you farming naga or whatever before you step into the raid with a full meter — but it shouldn’t decay fast enough that you find normal encounter movement very troubling (for that reason anyway).

Cataclysm Tree of Life / Lifebloom

Lifebloom
Lifebloom is positioned as a tank-healing tool in PvE. We don’t think there will be much use for using single stacks on non-tanks given how many other heals you have available that will likely do the job better. In PvE, you will likely get a 3 stack up, and then shift to Nourish to maintain the stack, throwing out Swiftmends or Healing Touch as necessary. In PvP, Lifebloom will still probably get use because of its bloom mechanic.

Tree of Life
1. With the addition of the tree of life cooldown, will trees still be under the elemental heading and therefore bannishable by locks?
No. You won’t open yourself up to new forms of crowd control, and neither will locks or DKs using their abilities.

GC, care to comment on the ToL speed reduction returning? Snaring yourself doesnt’ seem like a good design, neither in PvE nor PvP.
The speed reduction thing is something we’re trying again. We know it’s going to be controversial and it’s possible it won’t stick. We really want the ability to be used at the right time, not just on cooldown. There has to be a wrong time to use it. In PvP, we want there to be a way to counter the druid, especially given that the built-in crowd control is gone. The other consideration is that we plan on getting a new model that looks more like an ancient and less like a treant, so moving slower might fit.

Will I be able to cancel ToL form after activating it, and if so will I be able to return to it before the duration is up?
I imagine you can cancel it. Like all cooldowns though, if you waste it, you waste it.

WotLK Feral Druid Changes

Upcoming WotLK Feral Druid Changes

ARMOR
We are changing the way bear armor works so that bonus armor on items does not receive the bear armor multiplier. Specifically this means that trinkets, rings, necks and cloaks with bonus armor will not be multiplied by the bear bonus. The normal armor on leather will still be multiplied by this bonus. We are also going to remove bonus armor from Feral staves. You’ll get your bonus armor from the leather you acquire.

Examples:
1) A ring that grants 100 bonus armor will now grant a bear 100 armor (not ~470 armor).
2) Leather legs with 253 armor will still grant a bear ~1190 armor (not 253 armor).
3) A feral staff will now grant 0 armor.

We are making this change because armor is such a good stat for bears that it makes taking pieces with bonus armor a non-decision and we don’t want acquiring these pieces, which tend to not be common, to be so much of a barrier to a druid who wants to tank a raid.

This change will NOT be in effect when Lich King ships. We are letting you know this now so that you don’t go through heroic efforts to acquire items like the Badge of Tenacity, or Defender’s Code. Defender’s Code, with 850 armor, will still be a good trinket. But it won’t be an insanely good trinket for a bear.

We will adjust the bear armor modifiers so that your net mitigation does NOT go down with these changes. Let me repeat: this is not a nerf to Feral armor. It is a change to the amount of armor you get from gear with bonus armor.

MANA
We are adding an effect to a deep Feral talent (something like Primal Tenacity) to further reduce the cost of shapeshifting into cat or bear by 50%. This talent will stack with Natural Shapeshifter for a total cost reduction of 80%. PvP-focused druids can get both talents to shift easily and often despite, no longer having Int on gear at level 80.

PROTECTOR OF THE PACK
We are removing the group requirements from this talent. The new tooltip will say: “Increases your attack power by X and reduces the damage you take in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form by Y.” The values of X and Y themselves are not changing.

Again, these changes will NOT be in Nov 13 for Lich King’s launch. We will add them in a patch that will come out sometime before the major Ulduar content patch. We’re letting you know now so that you can choose quest rewards and loot drops accordingly.

Source: Blizzard

WotLK Druid Changes – Feral Tanking and Bugs

I think it’s fair to say there is a lot of work to be done before the druid class is ready to go live. Clearly the issue with feral tanking druids is still up the air. The nerf to predatory instincts is not surprising, and certainly justifiable. Allowing a tank a percentage based mitigation ability of that magnitude was bound to be imbalanced.

The message I got from these blue posts was one more of uncertainty than anything else. They clearly have some underlying tanking issues that will need to be resolved in order for the class to fit into the current model for tanks in WotLK.

Most of these changes and bug fixed will be included in the build 9038 druid changes.

Feral Tanking
With regard to abilities, we have been torn between giving bears (and cats) more unique abilities versus giving them tanking abilities that many players considered “core.” We could have certainly come up with something more original than Last Stand for bears, but at the time, a lot of bears were comparing laundry lists of buttons and said bears wouln’t be invited to raids because they didn’t have an oh snap button like Last Stand. We put that functionality in Berserk, then later backed off of that so that we could make Berserk a more fun button to push as bear. (Source)

Typhoon
I’m not aware of any changes to Typhoon’s damage. If you’re just talking about Rank 5, we had to just temporarily yank it to make sure it was becoming untrained — despite the last hotfix, druids were still ending up with it when we added the rank back in. We should be able to add it back next patch.

Also understand that if it hadn’t been abused so much that we wouldn’t have had to yank it. It’s not terribly fair or helpful to complain about not having access to the ability when it was being used to overpower bosses and other players to such extremes. While the bug was ours (mine in all likelihood), we’re not going to be able to get back all of those busted battles, yanno?

Predatory Instincts
Reducing AoE Damage by 30% instead of 15%
Predatory Instincts is a huge nerf. You just haven’t seen it yet. It only works in cat form.

I hinted that this might happen before, but as it was, a druid was going to be the only tank people took for dragons like Malygos. That would have been particularly true for any encounter that was supposed to be a resist fight, because the druid could skip a lot of the resist gear. Your health pool should still make sure you handle those fights sufficiently.

Treants
The Treant health appears to be too low. They aren’t updating correctly from your Stamina or level or something. We’ll get it fixed.

Rogue / Druid vs. Warrior / Druid 2v2 Arena Strategy

Probably one of the most common match ups you are going to be facing in arena. Also, one of the more difficult teams. The strategy my team employs here is fairly simply, just train the druid. Any druid based 2v2 team’s success or failure will be largely determined by the ability of the druid. As the rogue your strategy is very easy.

Rogue’s Arena Tactics

You have one goal and one goal alone here, slay the druid. The druid and warrior are going to do everything they can to prevent you from getting to / staying on the druid. So there will be a carefully balanced dance between you and your druid to make certain…

1. the warrior is crowd controlled as much as possible
2. the druid is prevented from crowd controlling you

As the rogue you’ll be in charge of eliminating much of the CC. For this reason it’s important you do not turn and gouge or hemo the warrior (unless you have no CP on the druid anyway), you always want to try to maintain you combo points on the druid. Always having a few combo points on the druid will be a crucial element in your victory.

• Deadly throw the druid to prevent entangling roots and cyclone
• If the druid is attempting to run away and drink you can use slice and dice to bring them back into combat, even if you are a long ways away. This will only last for a few seconds though, so make sure you get to the druid quickly.

Druid’s Arena Tactics

The druid’s job here is incredibly more difficult than the rogues. For your rogue to have any success on the druid you absolutely must nail your crowd control rotations and healing / spell interrupts. These include:

• Your cyclone, root, feral charge, bash combo will be essential in keeping the warrior off of your rogue. Learing to use this fluidly and throughout an arena match is a must.
• A bit more on the advanced side of things, at least from the perspective of timing is concerned. You’ll want to always be watching for when you think you can get a kill on the druid. If your rogue just cannot catch the druid you may need to throw a cyclone on him to allow your rogue the time to catch up.
• Consider using cyclone as a means to stop the druids CC rotation, druids heals, immune his HoTs if he’s fully HoT’d himself, interrupt heals with feral charge, etc.

This is NOT an easy combo for rogue druid, not by any stretch. If we are able to go 50 and 50 against high rated teams then we’re feeling pretty good. The warrior’s mobility and overall damage output are much higher than the rogues, but the rogue can level the playing field through well timed use of crowd controls.

Above all, do not panic. This is a very slow and methodical match. You probably are not going to bomb the druid down in a KS, you’ll likely just need to beat him out of mana and keep the pressure up until you’ve slowly one of the match. Stay focused, stay on the druid and nail your CCs. if you can remember these few points you’ll be well on your way to victory.

Looking for more rogue / druid strats? Check out the complete Rogue / Druid 2v2 Arena Strategy!

WotLK Druid Changes – Build 9038

The big discussion regarding druids the past few weeks has been heavily centered around the tanking situation. Quite frankly, druids are the most dominating tank in WotLK. They are on par as far as avoidance and threat generation go, but the overall damage mitigation is simply too high. The 30% decrease should bring feral druids back in line with other tanks.

The restoration changes are quite good, particularly wild growth which will likely become a staple for druid PvE healing, an area that druids have been anything but stellar in for the Burning Crusade.

Druid

Balance

• Typhoon - Max rank damage reduced to 735 Nature damage. 3 ranks added for a total of 4.
• Insect Swarm – Wording changed to “decreasing their chance to hit with melee and ranged attacks” from “decreasing their chance to hit”.
• Moonkin Form – Now increases armor contribution from items by 370%. Down from 400%.

Feral

• Predatory Instincts – Now reduces the damage taken from area of effect attacks by 10/20/30%. Up from 5/10/15%.
• Dire Bear Form – Now increases armor contribution from items by 370%. Down from 400%.
• Growl - Now has a 20 yard range. Up from 5.

Restoration

• Nourish - Mana cost reduced to 18% of base mana, down from 22%.
• Wild Growth – All ranks saw healing increase and mana cost reduction. Now 23% of base mana, down from 35%. Max Rank: Heals up to 5 friendly party or raid members within 15 yards of the target for 1442 over 7 sec. The amount healed is applied quickly at first, and slows down as the Wild Growth reaches its full duration.

WotLK Druid Restoration Changes

Some very nice changes for restoration druids coming our way in the next WotLK beta build.

Here are the changes we’re making next patch. See how they feel.

• Wild Growth: Coefficient and healing increased. Mana cost decreased. Cost should be about the same as Circle of Healing. It doesn’t heal instantly, but will heal for about double what CoH does over its duration.
• Nourish: Reduced mana cost by somewhere between 15 and 20%. This is supposed to be your Flash Heal, but we recognize that it doesn’t have the same versatility — you can’t just drop one on a wounded rogue or something since you need the hot up first. Hence the lower price.

Druids have quite an arsenal of healing spells now, and it can be tricky to find niches for all of them.

Normally I’m the last to call druid buffs anything but ridiculous. However, in this case think they are more than justified, particularly the wild growth changes. With as amazing as druids are in arena they are pretty much the worst of any PvE healer. Wild growth should dramatically improve druid’s healing output in PvE without creating additional PvP imbalances.

As far as nourish is concerned…well, I’m not really sure. I don’t agree with Ghostcrawler’s assertation that it doesn’t have the same utility. Let’s face it, druid’s are always going to have the target HoT’d. We won’t know how amazing or horrible the change is until we actually get to see it in action during the next beta build.

WotLK Beta Build 9014 Class Changes

Death Knight WotLK Changes

Blood

• Bloody Vengeance – No longer increases frost and shadow damage.
• Blood Tap – Tooltip Fix : Duration changed to 20 seconds. (Old 47802d.)
• Bladed Armor – Now increases attack power by 1/2/3/4/5 for every 180 armor value. (Old 1/2/3/4/5 strength for every 400 armor)
• Bloody Vengeance – Now gives you a 1/2/3% bonus to physical damage (no longer effects frost and shadow) you deal for 30 sec after dealing a critical strike from a weapon swing, spell, or ability. Now stacks up to 1 times (down from 49).
• Abomination’s Might – Range of attack power increase now 45 yds (Old 20 yds)

Frost

• Obliterate Damage lowered. (Now Rank 3 – 100% weapon damage plus 238.5, and an additional 119.25 bonus damage per disease) (Old Rank 3 – 100% weapon damage plus 252, 126 bonus damage per disease.)
• Tundra Stalker – Now gives a passive bonus increase to your Icy Touch. (20/40/60/80/100%)
• Guile of Gorefiend – No longer gives bonus to Rune Strike critical damage.
• Howling Blast – Damage increased on all ranks. (Now Rank 5 – 259 to 281) (Old Rank 5 – 192 to 208)
• Runic Focus – Description changed to : “Unlike most casters, a Death Knight’s spells cause double damage on critical hits.”

Unholy

• Death and Decay – Damage Increased (Now Rank 4 – 62 Damage) (Old Rank 4 – 52 Damage)
• Blood-Caked Blade – Damage increased to 25% of weapon damage. (Old 20% of weapon damage.)
• Blood Plague – Chance to remove a Heal over Time effect reduced to 25% (Old 50%)
• Reaping – Pestilence removed, Blood Strike added.

Druid WotLK Changes

Balance

• Starfall – Now has a 30 yard range. Instant cast.
• Nature’s Splendor – Now increases the duration of your Insect Swarm by 2.0 sec (down from 3.0)
• Typhoon – Rank 4 now does 1010 Nature damage (formerly bugged at 1 damage).

Feral

• Rake – DoT damage increased for all ranks.
• Swipe – No longer has a target limit. Now: (Rank 1) Swipe nearby enemies, inflicting 9 damage. Damage increased by attack power.
• Mangle (Cat) – Now does 200% normal damage (up from 160%). Additional damage increased for all ranks.
• Protector of the Pack – Now reduced damage per party member by 1/2/3% instead of a flat 3% for all ranks.

Hunter WotLK Changes

Beast Mastery

• Aspect of the Viper reworded – Now: The hunter takes on the aspect of the viper, causing ranged attacks to regenerate mana but reducing your total damage done by 50%. Mana gained is based on the speed of your ranged weapon. Only one Aspect can be active at a time.
• Aspect of the Wild – Rank 4 now increases Nature resistance by 130 (up from 70).
• Kindred Spirits – Description now includes “This does not stack with other movement speed increasing effects.”

Marksmanship

• Aimed Shot – Mana cost reduced from 16% to 12% of base mana. Now instant cast. Cooldown increased from 6 seconds to 10 seconds. Ranged damage increase reduced for all ranks.
• Concussive Shot – Now has a 12 sec cooldown.
• Kill Shot – Now deals 200% weapon damage (down from 205%). Base damage reduced by approx 50% on all ranks.
• Multi-Shot – Mana cost increased for 12% to 13% of base mana.
• Focused Aim – No longer effects Aimed Shot. Now also increases your chance to hit by 1/2/3%.
• Marked for Death – Now increases your damage done by your shots and the damage done by your pet’s special abilities by 1/2/3/4/5% (down from 2/4/6/8/10%) on marked targets.
• Scatter Shot – Moved from Tier 5 to Tier 3, changed trees to Survival.

Survival

• Freezing Arrow – The trap placed by the arrow now breaks on any damage (instead of having a chance to break).
• Freezing Trap – Trap now breaks on any damage once again, instead of having a chance to break. (“Any damage caused will break the ice.”)
• Lock and Load – Now has a 2/4/6% proc chance on periodic damage (down from 5/10/15%).
• Point of No Escape – Changes from 3 to 2 points. Now also effects Freezing Arrow. Critical strike chance increase on affected targets is now 3/6% instead of 2/4/6%.
• Readiness – Moved from Tier 9 to Tier 5, changed trees to Marksmanship.
• Surefooted – Moved from Tier 4 to Tier 2. No longer increases hit chance.
• T.N.T. – Moved from Tier 2 to Tier 4
• Trap Mastery – Moved from Tier 3 to Tier 9. Now effects Freezing Trap in the same way as Frost Trap (duration increase, instead of root effect on dispell).

Mage WotLK Changes

Arcane

• Sound Effect Spell – Polymorph Penguin and Polymorph Sheep added
• Missile Barrage – Now affects Arcane Barrage. Now has a 3/6/9/12/20% chance to reduce the channeled duration of the next Arcane Missiles spell by 2.5 secs and missiles will fire every .5 secs.

Fire

• Empowered Fireball – Renamed Empowered Fire. Now affects Frostfire Bolt.
• Living Bomb – Now has no knockup.

Frost

• Deep Freeze – Now does no damage.
• Frost Warding – Moved from Tier 1 to Tier 2
• Frostbite – Moved from Tier 2 to Tier 1

Paladin WotLK Changes

Holy

• Divine Plea – Now you gain 25% of your total mana over 15 sec (up from 10 sec), but the amount healed by your spells is reduced by 100% (up from 50%).
• Infusion of Light – Now your Holy Shock critical hits reduce the cast time of your next Holy Light spell by -0.50/-1 secs (down from -1.25/-2.5 sec).
• Judgements of the Pure – Now lasts 60 sec (up from 30 sec).

Retribution

• Judgements of the Wise – Now immediately grants you 33% of your base mana (instead of 20% of your maximum mana).

Priest WotLK Changes

Discipline

• Improved Inner Fire – Moved from Tier 3 to Tier 2.
• Improved Power Word: Fortitude – Moved from Tier 2 to Tier 3.
• Silent Resolve – Ranks 4 and 5 removed.
• Twin Disciplines – Now increases “damage and healing” instead of “spellpower”.

Holy

• Guardian Spirit – This sacrifice terminates the effect but heals the target of 50% of their maximum health. Up from 10%.
• Holy Nova – Mana cost reduced to 25% of base mana from 33% of base mana for higher ranks. Lower ranks also had a mana cost reduction.

Shadow

• Devouring Plague – Amount of damage that heals you now specified, 15% of damage caused by the Devouring Plague heals the caster.
• Twisted Faith – Now works if your target is afflicted by your Shadow Word: Pain instead of Mind Flay.

Rogue WotLK Changes

Assassination

• Focused Attacks – Your melee critical strikes have a 33/66/100% chance to give you 2 energy (up from 1).

Combat

• Gouge – Damage now scales with attack power.
• Aggression – Moved from Tier 5 to Tier 4. Now increases the damage of your Sinister Strike, Backstab, and Eviscerate abilities by 3/6/9/12/15% (up from 2/4/6/8/10%).
• Blade Twisting – Now also increases the damage dealt by Sinister Strike and Backstab by 5/10%.
• Vitality – Now regens 8/16/25% energy (up from 3/7/10%).

Shaman WotLK Changes

Elemental

• Fire Nova Totem – Mana cost now 33% of base mana. (Old 26%)
• Fire Nova Totem – New ranks added. (Level 75 rank 8 – 755 to 843 damage) (Level 80 Rank 9 – 893 to 997 damage)

Enhancement

• Unleashed Rage – Now increases all attack power and has a 45 yard range.
• Dual Wield Specialization – Now increases your chance to hit while dual wielding by an additional 1/2/3% (down from 2/4/6%).
• Flurry – Attack speed increase lowered by 5% (Now 5/10/15/20/25) (Old 10/15/20/25/30).
• Stormstrike – 20% damage increase now only effects Nature spells.
• Maelstrom Weapon – Chance for buff to apply lowered, now can proc on any melee weapon hit (noncrit or crit). Duration increased to 30 seconds. (New 3/6/9/12/15) (Old 20/40/60/80/100)
• Spirit Wolves – Spirit Hunt – Duration removed.

Restoration

• Improved Water Shield – Now works on Riptide Critical Hits.
• Ancestral Awakening – Now works on Riptide Critical Hits.

Totems

• Frost Resistance Totem – Duration fixed to be 5 minutes.
• Totem of Wrath – Duration fixed to be 5 minutes.
• Fire Resistance Totem – Duration fixed to be 5 minutes.

Warlock WotLK Changes

Affliction

• Everlasting Affliction – Now Drain Life and Haunt will reset Corruption instead of Drain Life and Shadow Bolt.
• Drain Soul – Drains the soul of the target, causing 426 Shadow damage over 15 sec. If the target is at or below 25% health, Drain Soul causes four times the normal damage. If the target dies while being drained, and yields experience or honor, the caster gains a Soul Shard. Soul Shards are required for other spells.
• Curse of Doom – If the target yields experience or honor when it dies from this damage, a Doomguard will be summoned. Cannot be cast on players.
• Haunt – Now heals for 100% of damage done. Down from 200%.

Demonology

• Enslave Demon – Lasts up to 60 sec. Down from 300 sec.
• Demonic Pact – Does not work on Enslaved demons.

Destruction

• Chaos Bolt – Now does fire damage instead of chaos damage.
• Conflagrate – Now works with Shadowflame as well as Immolate.

Warrior WotLK Changes

Arms

• Sword Specialization – This effect cannot occur more than once every 6 seconds.

Fury

• Armored to the Teeth – Attack Power instead of Strength armor value require lowered. (Now 1/2/3 AP for every 180 armor.) (Old 1/2/3 strength for every 400 armor)

Protection

• Thunder Clap – Maximum targets removed.
• Revenge – Damage increased (Now Rank 9 – [1454.0 + AP * 0.207] to [1776.0 + AP * 0.207]) (Old Rank 9 – [652.0 + AP * 0.093] to [796.0 + AP * 0.093])
• Sword and Board – Now effects Revenge.
• Shield Slam – Damage increased (Now Rank 8 – 990 to 1040 damage) (Old Rank 8 – 756 to 794 Damage)

Updated WotLK Glyphs

A few new glyphs added in the most recent beta build. Very disappointing to see the glyph of preparation has been changed (previously it reduced the cooldown of prep by 2 minutes). A 3 minute preparation would have been pretty insane though (new talent reduces it by 2.5/5 minutes).

Make to check out wotlk glyphs compiled for additional class inscription glyphs.

Warrior

• Glyph of Resonating Power – Reduces the rage cost of your Thunder Clap ability by 5.0.

Death Knight

• Glyph of Rune Strike – Increases the critical strike chance of your Rune Strike by 10% but increases cost by 5.0 runic power. Down from 50.

Priest

• Glyph of Fading – Reduces the mana cost of your Fade spell by 30%. Down from 50%.
• Glyph of Spirit of Redemption – All heals cast while Spirit of Redemption is active have a 20% chance to increase the remaining duration of Spirit of Redemption by 5 sec. Down from 20 sec.

Rogue

• Glyph of Preparation – Your Preparation ability also instantly resets the cooldown of Blade Flurry, Dismantle, and Kick.
• Glyph of Garrote – Reduces the duration of your Garrote ability by 3.0 sec and increases the total damage it deals by 20%. Down from 45%.

Hunter

• Glyph of Aimed Shot – Reduces the mana cost of your Aimed Shot ability by 20%.

Druid

• Glyph of Aquatic Form – Increases your swim speed by 50% while in Aquatic Form. Up from 20%.
• Glyph of Thorns – Removed.
• Glyph of Regrowth – Increases the healing of your Regrowth spell by 20% if your Regrowth effect is still active on the target. Down from 50%.

Paladin

• Glyph of Exorcism – Your Exorcism also interrupts spellcasting for 2 sec.
• Glyph of Flash of Light – Your Flash of Light heals for 50% less initially, but also heals for 140.0% of its inital effect over 15 sec.
• Glyph of the Warhorse – Removed
• Glyph of the Wise – Reduces the mana cost of your Seal of Wisdom spell by 50%.

WotLK Tanking Change – Major AoE Buffs

There’s been a lot of discussion recently regarding tanking, specifically how each tank in the WotLK will be able to effectively handle AoE pulls. Druids in particular are probably the worst off in this respect, but a major change to druid’s swipe ability should help quell some of these concerns.

Swipe Limit Removed – Ghostcrawler

We are going to remove the target limit on Swipe.

Swipe should not be limited by targets. This goes for Thunderclap too.

Any LK encounter really. We know the BC encounters were not designed to be tanked by any tank.

Druid Focus Macros

If you’re a druid and not using focus macros then you’re not not playing at your maximum potential. Focus macros are the easiest way to quickly improve your play, both from PvP and PvE perspectives. If you aren’t already up on focus macros I strongly encourage you go ahead and read my fundamentals for focus macros guide, this will teach you how to setup and use focus macros.

Additionally, make sure you check out my druid macro guide for non-focus druid macros.

Crowd Control Druid Macros

Focus Cyclone Macro

/cast [target=focus] Cyclone

Focus Root Macro

/cast [target=focus] Entangling Roots

Focus Feral Charge Macro

/cast [target=focus] Feral Charge

Focus Hibernate Macro

/cast [target=focus] Hibernate

In my opinion the above 4 macros are absolutely crucial for all druids, particularly PvP druids. These will allow you to efficiently crowd control and / or heal multiple targets since without having to worry about constant target switching. At the very minimum you should be using the focus cyclone macro or arena / pvp purposes.

Modifier Crowd Control Macros

Focus Cyclone Macro + Modifier

/cast [target=focus, modifier:shift] Cyclone; Cyclone

Focus Root Macro + Modifier

/cast [target=focus, modifier:shift] Entangling Roots; Entangling Roots

Focus Feral Charge Macro + Modifier

/cast [target=focus, modifier:shift] Feral Charge; Feral Charge

Focus Hibernate Macro + Modifier

/cast [target=focus, modifier:shift] Hibernate; Hibernate

I prefer this second set of focus cc macros above the first. These will allow you use the focus version of the spell with a regular button press, or a standard target=target spell with a shift modifier. Note: you can change the “shift” to control or alt, or any combination of these three.

Healing Druid Macros

Nature’s Swiftness Focus Macros

/cast Nature’s Swiftness
/stopcasting
/cast [target=focus] Healing Touch

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