Late Night Blue Posts, DLST, Consortium Bags

Holy & Protection Paladin Thoughts

We are concerned that Holy and Protection may have lost too much dps as “collateral damage” from the Ret nerfs. It is something we’re working on now, though I do believe Holy dps is still a lot better than it was in BC. Healers will always level more slowly than dps specs since using your abilities may keep you alive but doesn’t always kill stuff faster. (source)

Healing Gear and Spell Power

There are still pieces which are more appropriate for one class or spec than another. Some of the changes we made, such as spell power, will blur the lines slightly more. Our goal with that was more to help say an undergeared paladin get healing gear or an undergeared warlock be able to benefit from the “healing” cloth rather than just sharding it.

I’ve played a priest enough (I’ve played every class) to know that it can be frustrating when a paladin wants to roll on a piece of cloth, but most of the time the raid leaders I have run with tend to let the cloth-wearers get first dibs. I agree that there is a big social aspect to loot distribution. To some extent, that is by design. (source)

11-Point Protection Talent Thoughts

We’re not sure if we’re going to do this or not. If we do it (make an 11-point Prot talent that is attractive to Ret) it would be for these reasons:

– It would be cooler if the talent was something fun for Prot and not something they “need” to tank.
– In our experience, Ret paladins who PvP often go down into Prot anyway to get Imp Hammer of Justice.
– I suggested we might offer Ret more PvP utility since we are stripping some of the burst damage, so PvE Retadins might not want this ability anyway.
– We wouldn’t want this talent to be something Prot would never get and Ret would always get. If anything we need to err on the side of something Prot definitely wants. (source)

Day Light Savings Time

Don’t forget that day light savings time comes to an end tonight. So at 2:00 a.m. on 11/1/08 you’ll want to set your clocks back 1 hour if you live a location that adheres to DLST.

Consortium Gem Bags

One final reminder, it’s the 1st of the month so don’t forget to pick up your consortium gem bag for this month from the NPC out in nagrand.

Patch 3.0.2 Release Date Confirmed

Everyone’s speculations were finally laid to rest today as Blizzard officially confirmed the release date for the massive patch 3.0.2…./drum roll

This Tuesday! October 14th, 2008.

The announcement came during day 2 of Blizzcon and was quite down played. Possibly meaning they aren’t 100% sure, but who really knows. Either way the current launch day for patch 3.0.2 is this Tuesday the 14th.

What are the big features for patch 3.0.2?

• Free talent respec for everyone
• Dalaran no longer resides in Hillsbrad, it has been moved to Northrend.
• Barber shops have been introduced to all capital cities.
• Achievement system has been implemented.
• Hit, critical strike, and haste rating now modify both melee and casters.
• Spell pushback has been changed.
  • When casting a spell:
    • The first and second hit will add .5 secs each to the cast time.
    • All hits after the second will have no effect.
  • When channeling a spell:
    • The first and second hit reduces current duration by 25% of total duration each.
    • All hits after the second will have no effect.
• Spell Power has been implemented. Read this guide for a full break down on how this works, spellpower changes explained.
• Inscription has been implemented and you can train it up to 375

Additional Patch 3.0.2 Information

• Analysis and Breakdown
• Patch 3.0.2 Notes

WotLK Shaman Changes - Build 8982

More changes from build 8982, this time for the shaman class.

Skills
Elemental Combat

• Stoneclaw totem also protects your other totems, causing them to absorb damage.

Restoration

• Riptide heal value has been increased. (764-826 to 1015-1099 for Rank 4, 668-722 to 888-960 for Rank 3, etc …)
• Mana Spring Totem now restores 30 mana every 2 seconds. (Old - 90 mana every 5 seconds)

Talents
Elemental

• Storm, Earth, and Fire doesn’t increase the effect of spell power on your Lightning Bolt but reduces the cooldown of Chain Lightning by 0.5/1/1.5/2/2.5 sec instead.

Seemingly minor changes to the class, but the new stoneclaw totem in particular is very interesting. Having what essentially amounts to a shield totem, should increase the strategic element of totem placement, particularly in arena. If anything else this should make it a bit more difficult for other players to just snipe an entire totem forest in 3 seconds. Though this will all be dependent on the amount of the absorb.

Riptide just looks better and better every time I see it. Now with nearly +300 healing added to it it’s just looking stacked! (as it shoulder considering it’s so deep in the talent tree). A friend of mine who was lucky enough get a beta invite tried out the new talent earlier today, check out his results. Note: he would have had approximately 2500 healing on live with this gear / trinket / earthweapon.

Additionally, earth shield was healing for around 1300 with trinket up, and that’s without the new improved shields talent, which adds another 15%. All in all, restoration is just looking very improved for expansion.

WotLK Spellpower Change

As many of you know I’ve been watching these WotLK changes come pouring in for weeks now, however one change did happen to slip through my radar, and it’s a pretty big one. As some of you may have read, +healing and +damage will be merged into a single stat called “spellpower” when patch 3.0 is released. The spellpower on your current weapon will be determined by the following formula.

Spellpower = +Healing * 0.532

The .532 value for this formula was derived using an average of the top 10 +healing items in the game. Fellow WoW blogger Phaelia from resto4life.com included this table in his recent post on the druid implications of these spell power changes.

	+Healing Before	Spell Power After	+Damage Before	Conversion Ratio	Spell Damage Gain
[Nightstaff of the Everliving]	348	185	116	0.532	59%
[Rod of the Blazing Light]	348	185	116	0.532	59%
[Exodar Life-Staff]	364	194	122	0.533	59%
[Crystalheart Pulse-Staff]	382	204	128	0.534	59%
[Staff of Dark Mending]	407	216	136	0.531	59%
[Ethereum Life-Staff]	415	221	138	0.533	60%
[Staff of Immaculate Recovery]	443	236	148	0.533	59%
[Apostle of Argus]	486	259	162	0.533	60%
[Crystal Spire of Karabor]	486	259	162	0.533	60%
[Golden Staff of the Sin'dorei]	550	293	183	0.533	60%
Average				0.532	60%

As you can see, the spellpower changes will completely revamp the way healing and damage are calculated. In order to compensate for the spellpower changes healing coefficients will be adjusted to make up for the difference. You shouldn’t notice any reduction in your effective healing.

However, it’s happy days for caster DPS! Currently it does not look like blizzard has any plans to change damage coefficients for +damage spells…meaning all casters should receive a 60% damage increase.

Though don’t get to excited, I would expect the inflated damage values to level out by the time everyone hits level 80. This change should make healer hybrid’s lives much easier as all your gear will be centered around a single stat.

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%

WotLK Leatherworking Recipes

With any expansion you can typically expect to see some additions and improvements to all the professions, but I’m particularly excited about the recent change to leatherworking. Several new recipes have already been confirmed to exist in beta, check them out below.

• Fur Lining - Attack Power — Permanently enchant bracers to increase attack power by 120.  Can only be used on the leatherworker’s bracers, and doing so will cause them to become soulbound.
• Fur Lining - Stamina — Permanently enchant bracers to increase stamina by 90. Can only be used on the leatherworker’s bracers, and doing so will cause them to become soulbound.
• Fur Lining - Spell Damage — Permanently enchant bracers to increase spell power by 70. Can only be used on the leatherworker’s bracers, and doing so will cause them to become soulbound.
• Fur Lining - Fire Resist — Permanently enchant bracers to increase your fire resistance by 60. Can only be used on the leatherworker’s bracers, and doing so will cause them to become soulbound.
• Fur Lining - Frost Resist — Permanently enchant bracers to increase your frost resistance by 60. Can only be used on the leatherworker’s bracers, and doing so will cause them to become soulbound.
• Fur Lining - Shadow Resist — Permanently enchant bracers to increase your shadow resistance by 60. Can only be used on the leatherworker’s bracers, and doing so will cause them to become soulbound.
• Fur Lining - Nature Resist – Permanently enchant bracers to increase your nature resistance by 60. Can only be used on the leatherworker’s bracers, and doing so will cause them to become soulbound.
• Fur Lining - Arcane Resist — Permanently enchant bracers to increase your arcane resistance by 60. Can only be used on the leatherworker’s bracers, and doing so will cause them to become soulbound.

While it may seem like a small step it’s certainly a move in the right direction. Leatherworking is one of several professions that have been somewhat neglected. Generally speaking it’s these type of crafting professions that end up offering little to no benefit end game. These include tailoring, blacksmithing and leatherworking. This early leatherworking buff leads me to believe there will be similar changes in store for the all the other professions.

In Burning Crusade these crafting professions were great to have when you initially hit 70, but as soon as you get some of the even better armor and items these quickly become dated and worthless. Thus leaving with you a profession that amounted to basically nothing for the last 75% of the expansion. It will be difficult for Blizzard to create enough reason for me seriously consider going a crafting profession, but with additional benefits like this it certainly will peak my interest in the future. Hopefully we’ll see more of this.

Updated WotLK Patch Notes - Build 8788

Another major wrath of the lich king patch update today. Once again I’m in a state of “wow…”. We all knew there were going to be some huge upgrades coming for WotLK, but just looking at the new gems and new profession items I think it’s going to be bigger than I imagined.

Among the class changes the death knight just becomes increasingly more and more of an interesting class. More than anything else it’s awesome to see Blizzard build a class from the ground up, and we’re all here to watch. Just the sheer utility of the class makes it a desirable addition to both raiding and pvp types alike.

Don’t believe, check out this recent post made by my friends over at DeathKnight.info. All Death Knight groups? You Bet!

General

• Downranking change via blue poster. Source
• Almost every class specific spell had their mana cost changed, they now have a % instead of a flat amount. This is base mana cost, not total modified by int cost.

Blacksmithing

• New Weapon Chain: Titanium Weapon Chain
• The 1 handed epic weapons have been buffed

1. Titansteel Bonecrusher
2. Titansteel Destroyer
3. Titansteel Guardian

Jewelcrafting

• Dalaran Jewelcrafter’s Token can be used in Dalaran to buy jewelcrafting designs, you get these tokens from your professions daily quests.
• 18 New Epic Gems added to the game. (note: I couldn’t get an item link for all of these, but here’s the screenshot of them, courtesy of WoR.com. WotLK Gems)

1. Bright Dragon’s Eye
2. Solid Dragon’s Eye

Tailoring

• 3 New Cloths: Ebonweave, Moonshroud, Spellweave
• New Bags: Frostweave Bag, Abyssal Bag, Glacial Bag, Mysterious Bag
• New “Crowd Control” Item: Frostweave Net
• Brilliant Spellthread, Sapphire Spellthread
• Master’s Spellthread: Permanently embroiders your pants with master’s spellthread, increasing spell power by 50 and Stamina by 30.
• Sanctified Spellthread: Permanently embroiders your pants with sanctified spellthread, increasing spell power by 50 and Spirit by 20.

Quests

• The rewards for the Amphitheater of Anguish questline (similar to Ring of Blood) have been added to the game.

1. De-Raged Waraxe (2h Axe)
2. Wodin’s Second-Best Shanker (1h Dagger)
3. Icied Barbed Spear (Polearm)
4. Chilly Slobberknocker (Staff
5. Screw-Sprung Fixer-Upper (Main Hand Mace)
6. Crimson Cranium Crusher (1h Mace)

Death Knight
Blood

• Bloodworms: 3/3 Your weapon hits have a 12% chance to spawn 2-4 Bloodworms. Bloodworms attack your enemies, healing you as they do damage for 20 sec or until killed. (Healing amount remains the same)
• Sudden Doom now lasts 15 seconds (was 10 seconds).

Frost

• Chains of Ice cooldown has been removed.
• Icy Talons description changed: You leech heat from victims of your Frost Fever (old: your Icy Touch), so that when their melee speed is reduced, yours increases by 20% for the next 20 sec.
• Lichborne cooldown lowered from 5 minutes to 1 minute. Duration reduced from 30 seconds to 10 seconds.
• Aneurysm has been removed.
• Endless Winter has been reworked and moved to Aneurysm’s position, it now requires Chillblains: Your Chains of Ice has a 50/100% chance to cause Frost Fever and the cost of your Mind Freeze is reduced to 20/0 runic power.
• Frigid Dreadplate changed: Enemies who hit you in melee have a 30/60/100% chance to become unsettled, decreasing their chance to hit for 5% for the next 12 sec. (old: decreasing their attack speed)
• Runic Power Mastery stats changed: Scaling runic power abilities behave as if you had an additional 20% runic power. (old: 2% runic power)
• Acclimation now affects the whole raid.

Unholy

• Anti-Magic Shell: Runic Power cost increased from 10 RP to 20 RP.
• Morbidity moved to Tier 1 in unholy
• Virulence moved to Tier 2 in unholy
• Blood-Caked Blade: Your autoattacks have a 5/10/15% chance to cause Blood-Caked Strike, which hits for 50% weapon damage times the number of your diseases on the target. (Was 60%)
• Night of the Dead: Hitting a target with Plague Strike or Scourge Strike reduces the cooldown of your next Raise Dead and your next Army of the Dead by 30 sec / 1 min. This effect stacks up to 5 times. (was bugged to be 1 min for both ranks)
• Desecration range component increased from 2 yards to 7 yards around the target.

Druid
Feral

• Savage Roar: Attack power increased from 25% to 35%.

Hunter
Beast Mastery

• Animal Handler (Beast Mastery): No longer increases speed while mounted, but now reduces the cooldown of your Master’s Call ability by 5/10 sec.
• Beastial Swiftness is now a pet talent tree talent, and has been removed from the Beast Mastery Hunter tree.
• New Talent - Aspect Mastery (Beast Mastery)
• Pathfinding (Beast Mastery): Now also increases the movement speed while mounted by 5/10%.
• Spirit Bond (Beast Mastery): Also increases healing done to you and your pet by 5/10%.

Mage
Arcane

• Torment of the Weak description changed: All damage you cause to Ensared targets is increased by 2/4/6%. (old version: All damage done to slowed targets is increased by 2/4/6%.)

Fire

• New Frostfire Bolt animation.

Frost

• Fingers of Frost description/duration changed: Gives your Frost damage spells a 5/10% chance to apply the Fingers of Frost effect, which treat your Frost spells cast on the target as if the target were Frozen. Lasts 4 sec. (old version: Gives your Frost damage spells a 5/10% chance to apply the Fingers of Frost effect, which treat your next 2 Frost spells cast on the target as if the target were Frozen. Lasts 10 sec.)

Paladin
Protection

• Stoicism (Protection) moved to tier 2, now reduces duration of Stun effects by 10/20/30% and reduces chance your spells will be resisted by 10/20/30%.
• Divine Shield wording change: Protects the paladin from all damage and spells for 12 sec, but increases the time between his or her attacks (old: your attacks) by 100%. Once protected, the target cannot be made invulnerable by Divine Shield, Divine Protection or Hand of Protection again for 3 min.

Priest

• No Talent changes.

Rogue

• No Talent changes.

Shaman
No Talent changes.

Warlock
Affliction

• Improved Felhunter description changed: Your Felhunter gains mana equal to 100/200% (old: 50/100%) of the damage done by it’s Shadow Bite ability, and increases the effect of your Felhunter’s Fel Intelligence by 1/2%.
• Dark Pact: Drains 700 of your summoned demon’s Mana, returning 200% (old: 100%) to you.
• Haunt description changed: You send a ghostly soul into the target, dealing 645 to 754 Shadow damage and increasing all damage done by your damage-over-time effects on the target by 20% (old: 0%) for 12 sec. When the Haunt spell ends or is dispelled, the soul returns to you, healing you for 20% of all damage done to the target.

Warrior
No Talent changes.

WotLK Shaman Changes

Quite honestly, It’s hard to get excited about the most recent round of shaman changes to hit the WotLK beta. We’ve basically got a few balance issues fixed and that’s it. That said I do find these changes a bit annoying from the restoration side.

I mean, let’s take a brief look at the resto tree. We get tital force, which is pretty lack luster in my book. It basically is amounting to a 3 critical heals, no big deal. I suppose you can’t be too hard on tidal force, considering it’s a tier 3 talent. But then on top of that they cut Nature’s blessing in half?! I really don’t care for Blizzard’s explanation there either. I mean c’mon, it’s a tier 8 talent. If you’re going to go that deep into the restoration tree there should be some legitimate benefits to the last few talents.

While I’m not exactly angry with the totem mastery removal it does take away from a variety of potential hybrid specs. For most specs it’s pretty much a staple, the 20 yard totem range just doesn’t cut it. So giving this to all shamans certainly works as a nice buff for all elemental and enhancement shamans.

Guess I shouldn’t gripe too much since I play elemental.

• Flametongue Weapon: Now has a passive spell damage.
• Nature’s Blessing no longer increases spell damage from Intellect, and the effect has been reduced to 5/10/15% from 10/20/30%. This is in result of the new spell power system. Players should notice little to no change in the power of the spell relevant to healing spells.
• New Talent: Tidal Force- Increases the critical effect chance of your Healing Wave, Lesser Healing Wave and Chain Heal by 60%. Each critical heal reduces the chance by 20% and lasts 20 seconds.
• Stoneclaw Totem: Health of the Stoneclaw totem is increased by 5% of the Shaman’s total health.
• The range of all “friendly totems” has been increased to 30 yards, up from 20.
• Totemic Mastery talent removed and replaced with “Tidal Force”.

WotLK Mage Changes

So a lot of very interesting changes WotLK mage changes coming up. Netheara made a brief forum post detailing these changes that appeared in the most recent beta update. Generally speaking most of these changes are pretty tame talent tree movements, nothing ground breaking.

Though I really like what Blizzard is doing with blast wave, the addition of a knock back will certainly entise a large percentage of players to consider playing the spec. Overall, I really feel like this is Blizzard’s goal for mage talent specs.

Creating 3 equally viable talent trees, including both PvE and PvP considerations. If they can accomplish this feat by the Wrath of the Lich King’s release, then just well done.

• Arcane Fortitude moved to tier 2, increased to 3 ranks, now increases armor equal to 50/100/150% of Intellect.
• Arcane Subtlety now reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by 15/35%, and no longer reduces the resistance of targets.
• Arctic Reach now also affects Deep Freeze.
• Blast Wave now knocks all affected targets back.
• Elemental Precision moved to tier 2.
• Empowered Fireball reduced to 3 ranks, now increases damage by 5/10/15% of spell power.
• Empowered Frostbolt reduced to 2 ranks, increases damage by 5/10% of spell power and increases critical hit chance by 2/4%.
• Flame Throwing moved to tier 3.
• Frost Channeling now reduces mana cost of all spells by 4/7/10%.
• Frost Warding now increases armor and resistances of Frost/Ice Armor by 25/50%, now gives Frost Ward and Fire Ward a 15/30/5 chance to negate damage caused and restore mana equal to damage caused by the warded spell.
• Ice Floes renamed Cold as Ice, now reduces cooldown of Cold Snap, Ice Barrier, Summon Water Elemental, and Deep Freeze by 10/20%.
• Improved Counterspell now always silences the target for 2/4 seconds.
• Improved Fire Blast moved to tier 1, reduced to 2 ranks, reduces the cooldown by 1/2 seconds.
• Improved Flamestrike moved to tier 2, renamed World in Flames, now increases the critical hit chance of Flamestrike, Blast Wave, Dragon’s Breath, Living Bomb, Blizzard, and Arcane Explosion by 2/4/6%.
• Improved Frost Nova renamed Ice Floes, moved to tier 1, increased to 3 ranks, now reduces cooldown of Frost Nova, Cone of Cold, Ice Block, and Icy Veins by 7/14/20%.
• Magic Absorption reduced to 2 ranks, increases resistances by .5/1 point per level, and restores 1/3% of total mana on a resist.
• Master of Elements now affects all spell criticals.
• Mind Mastery reduced to 3/6/9/12/15%.
• Molten Shields now gives Fire Ward and Frost Ward spells a 15/30% chance to reflect the warded spell.
• Prismatic Cloak (Arcane) increased to 3 ranks for 1/2/3% and now also reduces the fade time of Invisibility by 1/2 seconds.
• Pyroblast cast time has been reduced to 5 seconds.
• Shatter no longer has a prerequisite.

WotLK Patch Notes Update

Hey guys, directly from the front lines, check out the most recently updated Wrath of the Lich King patch notes. Certainly a lot more changes to the classes than I expected, but good to see Blizzard is making a strong effort to really work at balancing some of the more problematic classes.

Racial Abilities

• Arcane Torrent (Blood Elf) global cooldown removed.

Death Knights

• Death Knight spells that cost runes will now display the rune cooldowns on the spell buttons.

Mages

• Arcane Blast effect duration reduced to 3 seconds, and now increases damage by 15/30/45% instead of reducing cast time.
• Arcane Impact renamed Spell Impact and now affects Blast Wave, Fire Blast, Cone of Cold, and Ice Lance.
• Arcane Potency now applies when Presence of Mind is active, talent prerequisite changed to Presence of Mind.
• Conjured mana gems no longer disappear from your backpack after being logged out for more than 15 minutes. Higher ranks of Conjure Mana Gem will recharge an existing mana gem to maximum charges.
• Empowered Arcane Missiles renamed Arcane Empowerment and no longer increases mana cost. It now also increases damage caused by Arcane Blast.
• Improved Blink now also reduces mana cost by 25/50%.
• Improved Mana Shield has been renamed to Arcane Shielding and now also increases resistances granged by Mage Armor by 25/50%.
• Remove Lesser Curse has been renamed to Remove Curse.

Paladins

• Consecration now scales with attack power and spell power.
• Divine Protection now reduces all damage taken by 50% and increases time between attacks by 100%.
• Exorcism mana cost reduced and now scales with attack power and spell power.
• Eye for an Eye now reflects 10/20% damage from all critical hits.
• Fanaticism now increases chance to critically hit by 5/10/15/20/25%.
• Forbearance duration increased to 3 minutes.
• Improved Blessing of Might increased to 10/20/30/40/50%.
• Judgement has been replaced with 3 new spells; Judgement of Light, Judgement of Wisdom, and Judgement of Justice. All Judgement spells are considered ranged attacks for purposes of how they hit and how they critically hit. All cause damage based on attack power and spell power.
  
  • Judgement of Light now heals based on the Paladin’s attack power and spell power, the effect can not trigger more than once ever 4 seconds.
  • Judgement of Justice will no longer prevent Fear effects, but will only prevent NPCs from fleeing (e.g. at low health).
  • Judgement of Wisdom now restores mana based on the Paladin’s attack power and spell power, the effect can not trigger more than once every 4 seconds.
• Precision has been removed.
• Pursuit of Justice reduced to 2 ranks for 8/15% movement increase and 1/2% less chance to be hit by spells.
• Righteous Defense no longer costs mana and the global cooldown has been removed.
• Sacred Duty now also reduces the cooldown of Divine Protection.
• All Seals have been reduced to 1 rank and now cost 14% of base mana. The duration has been increased to 2 minutes and are no longer consumed when a Judgement spell is cast. The effects can be triggered from all weapon based special abilities.
  
  • Seal of Blood now increases Judgement damabe by 45% of weapon damage.
  • Seal of Command now increases Judgement damage by 30% of weapon damage, 60% on stunned targets.
  • Seal of Righteousness deals damage based on weapons peed plus an amount based on attack power and spell power, increases Judgement damage by 25%.
  • Seal of Vengeance damage over time effect duration increased to 18 seconds and now applies its effect on every swing, causes damage based on attack power and spell power, and increases Judgement damage by 10% per stack of the damage over time effect.
• Summon Warhorse and Summon Charger mana cost removed and no longer causes a global cooldown.
• Vindication reduced to 2 ranks for 10/20% attribute reduction.

Priests

• Silence (Shadow) global cooldown removed.

Rogues

• Energy regeneration should now be smoother.

Warlocks

• Avoidance (Felguard): Now reduces damage taken from area of effect attacks by an additional 80% and is automatically learned for the Succubus, Imp, Voidwalker, and Felhunter at level 10.
• Bane now reduces the cast time of your Haunt spell.
• Consume Shadows (Voidwalker): Duration reduced to 6 seconds, and effect increased 66%. Now also greatly increases all nearby allies’ stealth detection while channeled.
• Demonic Sacrifice: Succubus effect reduced to 10% increased shadow damage, down from 15%. Imp effect reduced to 10% increased fire damage, down from 15%. Felguard effect now increases Fire and Shadow damage, instead of just Shadow.
• Doomguard: Health increased 20%, mana increased 24%.
• Emberstorm now reduces the cast time of your incinerate by 0.1/0.2/0.3/0.4/0.5 seconds.
• Fel Armor - Now increases your spell damage equal to 30% of your total Spirit, but no longer increases healing done by spells and effects by 20%.
• Felguard: Health increased by 10%.
• Felhunter: Paranoia and Tainted Blood have been replaced with Fel Intelligence and Shadow Bite.
• Fel Intelligence (Felhunter): Increases total Intellect and Spirit of party and raid members by 3%. Lasts until cancelled.
• Infernal: Cooldown reduced to 15 minutes, down from 1 hour. Duration reduced to 1 minute, down from 5 minutes+. Health increased by 30%, damage increased by 60%, and armor increased by 30%.
• Imp: Health increased by 20% , Armor increased 16%, mana regeneration increased 200%.
• Master Demonologist (Demonology) - Most effects have been altered.
  
  • Master Demonologist – Felguard (Demonology) - Now increases all damage by 1/2/3/4/5%, and reduces all damage done to you by 1/2/3/4/5%.
  • Master Demonologist – Imp (Demonology) - Now increases Fire damage by 1/2/3/4/5%, and critical hit chance with Fire spells by 1/2/3/4/5%.
  • Master Demonologist – Succubus (Demonology) - Now increases Shadow damage by 1/2/3/4/5%, and critical hit chance with Shadow spells by 1/2/3/4/5%.
  • Master Demonologist (Demonology) - Most effects have been altered.
• Nether Protection has been reworked. It now has a 10/20/30% chance when you’re hit with a spell to reduce all damage by that spell school by 60% for 10 seconds.
• New Talent: Improved Felhunter (Affliction): Your Felhunter gains mana equal to 50/100% of the damage done by its Shadow Bite ability, and increases the effect of your Felhunter’s Fel Intelligence by 1/2%.
• Rain of Fire (Doomguard): A bug has been fixed which caused each tick of Rain of Fire to consume its mana cost.
• Shadow Bite (Felhunter): Deals Shadow damage plus an additional 5% Shadow damage over time effect on the target. 6 second cooldown.
• Soulstone now generates a log entry indicating who casted and received a soulstone.
• Spell Lock (Felhunter) global cooldown removed.
• Succubus: Health increased by 20%, armor increased 22%.
• Summon Dreadsteed/Felsteed: Mana cost removed, global cooldown removed.
• Voidwalker: Health increased by 20%, Damage increased by 16%. The amount of attack power the Voidwalker gains from its master’s spell damage has been increased by 45%.

PvP

• Medallion of the Horde and Insignia of the Alliance are now available for purchase on PvP vendors. For the purposes of testing these currently cost only gold to buy.

Professions

• Leatherworking
  
  • Drums now cause a Tinnitus effect, preventing affected targets from receiving beneficial effects from other drums for two minutes.
• Mining
  
  • Smelt Elementium must be relearned by players who still wish to know the spell by visiting a trainer in Blackwing Lair.

Quests

• Alliance characters on the “Check in With Bizie” quest in Borean Tundra can now ask Kara Thricestar for a flying machine ride out to Bizie Wrenchshanker.
• The “Escape from Winterfin Retreat” quest is now named, “Escape from the Winterfin Caverns”. The escort is shorter and no longer requires a pre-requisite quest to get a key.
• There is now a new murloc questgiver named Glrglrglr within the Winterfin Caverns. This questgiver needs you to ge the key to his cage so that he can be set free. This is not an escort quest.
• Fewer cannonballs are now required for the Alliance quest, “Danger! Explosives!”.
• Petrov’s Cluster Bombs no longer cause caster procs during the Alliance quest, “Break the Blockade”.
• The Alliance quest, “Break the Blockade” no longer caps out at revered Valiance Expedition faction.
• During the Alliance quest, “Hah…You’re Not So Big Now!”, Crafty’s Ultra-Advanced Proto-Typical Shortening Blaster no longer has a chance to transform the character into a magnataur. Instead it has a chance to transform the character into the likeness of Crafty Wobblesprocket.
• In Dragonblight, the “Ley Line” questline was reworked so that players are led into and must first complete the quests at the Ruby Dragonshrine before they will be given an audience with Queen Alexstrasza.
• The quest character Kor’ghan (Finding the Antidote) was moved to just outside the Cleft of Shadow’s poison vendor.

User Interface

• New Calendar feature: Players will be able to access the new Calendar feature by clicking on the new icon located in the top right corner of their mini map. The calendar will track in game events, allow raid scheduling, and more.
• New Vanity Pet and Mount changes: Players will now be able to access their non-combat pets and mounts by clicking on the pets tab in the Character Info panel. These pets and mounts will be now learnable much like spells or abilities. Once a vanity pet or mount is learned, the icon will disappear from within a player’s inventory and reappear in the appropriate tab under the pet tab under Character Info. Say goodbye to your vanity pets and mounts taking up bag and bank slots!
• Error messages should play less frequently
• Tradeskills can now be linked by shift-clicking the tradeskill icon
• Quests can be shared with party members at any distance
• Quests can be shared with party members by linking the quest into party chat
• Quests can be shared in raids but not battlegrounds
• A 5 minute timer will appear over the player’s unit frame showing the countdown until your PvP flag is cleared

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