WotLK Racial Abilities Changes

Kalgan has recently dropped the ball on some new racial changes that we can expect to see tested out in upcoming patches:

Changes that should be in the next beta push. Bear in mind that some of these may change somewhat or entirely, and there may also be other changes coming in subsequent pushes:

Orc
- Hardiness now reduces the duration of stun effects by 15%

Troll
- Racial Passive “The Voodoo Shuffle”: Reduces the duration of all movement impairing effects by 15%. Trolls be flippin’ out mon!

- Berserking: no longer has an activation cost of energy/rage/etc

Draenei
- Gift of the Naaru: now scales based on the higher of either the caster’s Attack Power or Spell Power

- Shadow Resistance: reduces the chance to be hit by Shadow spells by 2%

Dwarf
- Frost Resistance: reduces the chance to be hit by Frost spells by 2%

- Racial Passive “Mace Specialization”: Expertise with Maces and Two-Handed Maces increased by 5.

Undead
- Shadow Resistance: reduces the chance to be hit by Shadow spells by 1% (yes, this is lower than the other resistance racials)

- Will of the Forsaken: removes any fear, sleep, or charm effect (no longer has a lasting immunity).

Night Elf
- Quickness: reduces the chance to be hit by melee or ranged attacks by 2%

- Nature Resistance: reduces the chance to be hit by Nature spells by 3%

-shadowmeld: Activate to slip into the shadows, reducing the chance for enemies to detect your presence. Lasts until cancelled or upon moving. Any threat is restored versus enemies still in combat upon cancellation of this effect.

Tauren
- Endurance: now scales based on base health, to be tuned to approximately a 5% heath increase if the player were wearing green quality gear

- Nature Resistance: reduces the chance to be hit by Nature spells by 2%

Gnome
- Escape Artist: the freeing effect can no longer be resisted

- Arcane Resistance: reduces the chance to be hit by Arcane spells by 2%

Blood Elf
- Mana Tap: ability removed (partially integrated into Arcane Torrent)

- Arcane Torrent: restores 15 energy, 15 runic power, or 6% of mana to the Blood Elf (along with the current 2s silence effect)

- Magic Resistance: reduces the chance to be hit by spells by 2%

Human
- Perception: changed to a passive, now grants one character level of passive stealth detection

- Racial “The Fall of Humanity”: Feign death which may trick enemies into ignoring you. Any threat is restored versus enemies still in combat upon cancellation of this effect. 5min cooldown

- Racial Passive “Human Supremacy”: The dominance of Humanity is evidenced by having one more racial bonus than normal. Actually, make that two counting this one. (just a tooltip, no actual functionality)

-UPDATED - The fall of humanity has been removed in the most recent beta patch and replaced with “Every man for himself”, effectively works just like a PvP trinket, though it’s on the same cool down as PvP trinkets.

- The Human Spirit: spirit bonus lowered to 5%

Wrath of the Lich King Warrior Changes

It was only a matter of time before warriors finally started to get their turn along the buff table. Blizzard poster Gamnin made a massive post regarding some of these changes that are expected to be introduced in the next beta build.

Overall most of these changes are very reasonable. The very nature of the warrior class always seems to lead down the same road though…without gear it’s pretty miserable, but with proper weapons, itemization, and ideally a good healer the class becomes one of the highest pvp damage dealers in the game.

Finding a way to balance this is no easy task, but I’m hopeful Blizzard will find a happy medium. My only major concern with the class at this point is titan grip. While this talent makes fury a great substitute to traditional mortal strike builds I think it’d be difficult to find the gray area where it could be good enough to convince some warriors to change from arms without making it insanely overpowered.

But this point has been the underlying problem with WoW talent builds from the beginning. There is always going to be “the” spec you have to be if you want to participate in X, be it PvP, Raiding, etc. This type of min / max theorcrafting has certainly helped players achieve their goals much quicker, but it’s very sad to see so many talents, skills, play styles and hybrid builds go unused for the greater part of WoW existence.

Hello Warriors,

I’ve got a sneak preview of things coming up in the beta for you to discuss. We still have lots of polish and bug fixing to do and we’re still wrestling with a few elements of the warrior abilities and talents so do not consider this an exhaustive list. As always, post any concerns or suggestions you have.

General

• Enraged Assault redesigned, now Enraged Regeneration: You regenerate 30% of your total health over 10 sec. This ability consumes all Enrage effects and prevents any from affecting you for the full duration. Must be enraged to use. Cost 15 rage, 3 min cooldown.
• Slam – We’re working to change this ability to suspend the swing timer when you are using the ability. In other words, if you’re .5 sec away from swinging your weapon when you start using Slam you’ll be .5 sec from swinging your weapon after Slam goes off.

Arms

• Improved Charge now generates 5/10 rage.
• Mace Specialization now ignores 3/6/9/12/15% of target’s armor.
• Sudden Death and Trauma swapped locations.
• Bladestorm now lasts 6 seconds, causing a whirlwind every second.

Protection

• Toughness now also reduces duration of movement slowing effects by 10/20/30/40/50%.
• Improved Sunder Armor renamed Puncture, reduced to 2 ranks for 1/2 rage cost reduction.
• Improved Disarm reduced to 2 ranks, now reduces the cooldown of Disarm by 10/20 sec and increases damage taken by disarmed targets by 5/10%.
• Improved Defensive Stance reduced to 2 ranks, now reduces spell damage taken by 3/6% and any block/parry/dodge has a 50/100% chance to enrage the warrior causing 5/10% more damage for 12 sec.
• Vigilance will soon transfer the 10% threat lost to the warrior. It will also have 3 charges to curb using it on targets that are being hit constantly. We’re still polishing this element to get it to feel right.
• (NEW) Warbringer is a new one point talent on Tier 9 that allows Charge to be used in combat. Did I mention the change to Improved Charge?
• Critical Block now also increases your chance to critically hit with your Shield Slam by 5/10/15%.
• Sword and Board no longer triggers when Shield Slam is used, but the chance to trigger has increased to 3/6/9/12/15%. Note these are not final numbers.

Fury

• Intensify Rage and Precision swapped locations.
• Enrage now increases damage done by 3/6/9/12/15%, limitation on number of attacks removed.
• Improved Whirlwind now increases damage of Whirlwind by 10/20%, no longer reduces cooldown.
• Focused Attacks changed to use PPM (procs per minute) to make it trigger at the same rate regardless of weapon speed. Note that dual-wielding and haste still improve your chances.
• Titan’s Grip still needs a counterbalancing element, but what it will entail and how severe it will be is still being evaluated.

Thanks for reading!
To answer a few questions:

- Yes, I meant Furious Attacks, not Focused Attacks.
- Some notes are already in the beta, some are not updated yet on the calculator so wanted to give additional visibility to anyone else reading the forums.
- Warbringer: What we don’t want to see is Charge becoming part of a tanking rotation. At the moment it will remain usable only in Battle Stance. An experimental idea to be sure.
- Stance Dancing: The short answer here is we want just the right amount of it. :)
- Final numbers are not in yet for the various talent trees. We want all trees to be viable in PvP and PvE so expect further number tuning across all classes/specs.
- The important upcoming change to Vigilance is the threat transfer. 10% of the target’s generated threat will go to your threat total.
- Bladestorm consuming rage every second is a bug that’s been fixed.

WotLK Weapons vs. Burning Crusade Weapons

In any expansion there is always going to be a distinct shift in what gear is actually worth anything. This was certainly the case when the Burning Crusade was released. Even the very best T3 items from Naxxaramas were quickly replaced during the 60 to 70 leveling process.

Even with very few level 71-80 weapons known it already appears this type of dramatic gear drop off will occur again when Wrath of the Lich King is released this fall. A part of me misses the hardcore raiding scene, but when we get to this point in the expansion and you see all that you’ve worked for has amounted to a better than average piece of leveling gear…well, it hurts.

It’s just nuts to see the very best pieces of Sunwell loot already matched (or close to it) while you’re still leveling.

Also, sorry to all you healers out there. I was unable to locate any healer items, but I’ll keep an eye out.

Top Tier Level 70 Melee Weapons
Crux of the Apocalypse - (sunwell loot, compare this to the dagger below! crazy!)
Brutal Gladiator’s Bonecracker - (season 4 mace)
Apolyon, the Soul Render - (sunwell loot, also…compare this to the 2h sword below)

Level 75-80 Blue Melee Weapons

Unrelenting Blade (dagger - level 78)
Dragonjaw Mauler (mace - level 76)
Summoner’s Stone Gavel (mace - level 75)
Troll Butcherer (2 hand sword - level 75)

Top Tier Level 70 Ranged Weapons

Golden Bow of Quel’Thalas - (Sunwell loot)

Level 75-80 Blue Ranged Weapons

Roc-Feather Longbow - (bow - level 75)

Top Tier Level 70 Caster Weapons

Sunflare - (Sunwell loot, damage dagger)
Golden Staff of the Sin’Dorei - (Sunwell loot, damage staff)

Level 75-80 Blue Caster Weapons

Malina’s Magnificent Scepter (damage mace - level 75)
Zabra’s Misplaced Staff (damage staff - level 77)
Bloodwood Greatstaff (feral staff - level 75)

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

This can be a difficult fight against well played rogue/priest combos. The druid should be particularly careful of using his trinket at the wrong time, because blind+ vanish sap will be the end of your warrior. I would have to suggest to kill the priest first. Mana burn will lose these matches for you. Now, 9 times out of 10 the rogue will be attempting to lock you down but use your CDs initially to bring the priest down, put as much pressure as you can so he can’t mana burn, locking the priest down also helps with mace spec. As for the druid perspective, LoS mana burns but don’t forget to stay in the LoS of your warrior. A rogue can out DPS a warrior very fast.

Using Deathwish early to force them to play defensively is also a good idea. If you communicate early about how much damage you are taking, your Druid can get in and out of range of the Rogue’s blind to drop roots/cyclone/HoTs. Remember to cyclone the rogue if he is locking down the warrior so that he can’t stay on the priest at all. As with most fights, communication and good CC will allow you to win this. If in the case that the druid gets Blind + vanish sapped, then you need do all you can to survive, this means that you equip a shield and sword then mitigate his damage as much as possible. This can be a cookie-cutter fight if you remember to save trinkets for the blind and keep the Druid away from the Priest.

Looking for more strategies? Check out the complete druid / warrior 2v2 arena guide!

Strategy courtesy of Neurotik

Warrior Arena Talent Specs

Mortal Strike Talent Specs
35/23/3
or
33/28/0
The mortal strike build is without a doubt the best and most effective build for warriors in arena. The healing debuff is simply too powerful to even considering spec’ing into any other tree. If there were a downside to playing the mortal strike warrior in PvP it’d have to be the linear nature of the class. Though what a warrior lacks in overall group utility he will more than make up for in raw damage output.

The mortal strike spec allows for you to take full advantage of this and put out incredible amounts of damage while also snare controlling as many members of the opposing team for short durations via hamstring, intercept stun, fear, etc. As with any spec there is going to be room for variation, if you’re not a fan of improved hamstring throw the points in a more viable talent for your play style, however the basics of the spec are presented above and I strongly encourage this spec.

Obviously you’ll spec into the weapon mastery of the current weapon you are wielding, though if possible I strongly encourage the use of maces, the tier 2 or tier 3 blacksmithing if these are accessible to you. The 4-second stun proc combined with the mace spec talent is simply overpowered. Not only is your focus target unable to avoid any damage you are throwing at them, but all your teammates are now also doing more damage. The benefits of the mace spec for the team are huge.

Rogue Arena Talent Specs

There are two major specs for rogues in arena, there is room for some variance in each, though the basics should be kept the same to maximize your ability to play the class at the highest level.

Rogue Combat Arena Talent Specs
20/41/0 Combat (vile poison version)
20/41/0 Combat (vile poison, no riposte version)
18/43/0 Combat (imp. EA version)
16/45/0 Combat (my preference)

The basic combat talent spec offers you a great deal of utility, survivability, and damage. My talent spec has been a variation of the 20/41 build since the latter half of season one. I like the spec because it offers solid burst damage during the AR as well as great-sustained damage throughout the fight. If surprise attacks wasn’t reason enough to spec deep combat the additional bonuses of combat potency, nerves of steel, improved sprint, and improved kick should be. With so much stun resist in the game landing your kidney shot has become of utmost importance, IE I don’t want to have to worry about a dodged KS, surprise attacks takes care of that.

With 20/41 you have a bit of flexibility, first in the choice of weapons. You can choose from mace spec, sword spec, or fist spec. My recommendation, if you have the weapons, would be to spec maces. The stun proc on top of the +10 weapon skill puts it far beyond the benefits gained from sword or fist spec. Control for a rogue has always been the most important attribute for a rogue in pvp, and mace spec helps you extend that control even more. In the event Blizzard changes sword spec back to a yellow damage proc, which would remove the current dual wield miss penalty imposed on white attacks, you could make a cast for swords. Though I currently cannot see any reason to spec anything other than maces so long as you have quality weapons. With as much resilience in the game as there is now fist spec is virtually useless, and so long as sword spec procs are white damage I’d shy away from them as well for pvp.

There’s a bit of room for variation in the spec, and it really depends on what your preference abilities are. Personally I’ve chosen to go with 19/42 on my rogue, which allows me to get all the regular talents in assassination, but also gives me room to pickup improved expose armor, which I find myself using quite frequently vs. priests and a selection of other classes where I’m able to stick to a target for long durations. The key to this build is obviously the 41-point combat talent; so long as you’ve got that then you have a bit of room to play in the assassination tree and are able to customize it according to your play style.

Rogue Arena Mutilate Specs
41/20/0 Mutilate (I’m not a big imp. KS fan, if you are you can work points around from murder / ruthlessness / vile poisons to get it)
50/0/11 Mutilate (Heavy poisons, ideal for 2v2 with a healer)
49/0/12 Mutilate (Heavy poisons, full MoD)

In my opinion mutilate is the only other truly viable arena specs, there are a few strange hybrid builds which are available, though if you are going combat I’d suggest looking at the build above, else if you are a dagger fan go for mutilate. The great thing about mutilate is quite simply the great damage and combo point generation is supplies even when you aren’t critting. In addition it’s got fantastic burst damage during a Kidney shot, which actives both your improved KS (+9% damage) and expose weakness (+10% damage). Let me tell you, anything which modifies by percent in this game is overpowered, simply because the only balancing limitation imposed is via the quality of weapons you are able to attain.

The major dilemma for me here was always whether to choose the 1.4 speed traditional off-hand dagger, or go with the bomb dropping pair of main hand 1.8 speeds. Your biggest draw back to mutilate is the poison application, though for the most part shiv is able to at least get you started and then, so long as you stay on the target, your poisons should hold pretty well. So if you aren’t worried too much about having to spam shiv, as the energy cost is marginally higher with the 1.8 over the 1.4, then go for a pair of main hand daggers. The +50% damage from off-hand specialization in the combat tree will allow your off-hand to hit nearly as hard, and sometimes harder, than your main-hand dagger. For example, cs, mutilate, it crits, 5 cps, wait for energy tick, ks, +19% damage, cold blood, mutilate. Quite simply put this combo, or similar combos to this, is why mutilate is such a strong spec. You’ve got great sustainable damage, awesome combo point generation, and the ability to through some of the highest burst damage combos in the game.

Rogue Shadowstep Arena Specs
20/0/41 Shadowstep
18/0/43 Shadowstep (imp. EA, ideal for double melee teams)

For virtually all of the Burning Crusade subtly talent specs were pretty horrible. Though patch 2.3 changed it all.

While shadowstep is viable it may not be the best choice for your teams makeup. You’ll want to develop a variety of fast target switching mechanics with your team in order to extract maximum benefit from the spec.

Rogue Hybrid Arena Specs
26/0/35 Hybrid Hemo

This is the type of spec that is ideal for your double melee rush down teams. In essence, rogue / warrior / druid teams. With this type of rush down combo you really don’t need shadowstep, so having the extra points in assassination really helps to give you that extra bit of on command damage you need to drop the bombs.