Patch 3.1  

patch 3.1

Class changes

We are planning a lot of exciting content for patch 3.1.0, and we are doing a three-part preview series on upcoming class changes. This is the first in the series: Priests, Rogues, and Shaman. Please keep in mind, that this list is not at all comprehensive, and subject to change.

PRIEST

Divine Spirit – this spell is now a core ability available to all priests. Discipline has access to a new talent, Power Word: Barrier. (Think of it as Power Word: Shield for your whole group). Several area of effect (AOE) heal spells have been improved: Prayer of Healing can be cast on any groups in your raid party. Holy Nova’s mana cost has been reduced. Circle of Healing now heals for more. Shadow priest PvP survivability has been improved: Shadow Form now reduces magic as well as physical damage. Dispersion now removes snares. Penance – this spell can now be targeted on the priest. Serendipity – this talent now reduces the cast time of Greater Heal and Prayer of Healing when Binding Heal or Flash Heal are cast. We are also working to give Holy additional PvP utility.

ROGUE

Hunger for Blood – instead of a self-buff, this ability can only be used when there is a bleed effect on the target. However, it has no stacks and grants a 15% damage bonus. Adrenaline Rush – the cooldown on this ability has been lowered. Lightning Reflexes – reduced to 3 ranks. In addition to 2/4/6% dodge, this talent now also grants 4/7/10% passive melee haste. Killing Spree – while this ability is active, the rogue does 20% additional damage. Savage Combat – now causes 2/4% physical damage done. Mace Specialization – this talent now grants haste in addition to armor penetration.

SHAMAN

Chain Lightning – now jumps to 4 targets but does less damage. We wanted to make the distinction between Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning more clear. Storm, Earth and Fire – this talent now increases all damage done by Flame Shock, not just periodic damage. Spirit Weapons – now reduces all threat, not just melee threat. Unleashed Rage – reduced to 2 ranks, now also increases your critical strike chance with melee attacks by 1/2%. Totem streamlining: The Mana Spring and Healing Stream Totems have been combined. The Disease Cleansing and Poison Cleansing Totems have been combined. We are also working on giving Enhancement and Elemental more PvP utility.

WARLOCK

Improved Shadow Bolt – this talent now provides a 5% spell critical strike buff (similar to Improved Scorch). Improved Soul Leech – this talent now provides Replenishment (similar to shadow priests) Drain Soul now has a chance to produce Soul Shards even if the target doesn’t die. Siphon Life no longer as an active ability but the talent grants the old Siphon Life effect to Corruption. Curse of Recklessness and Curse of Weakness have been combined into one spell [1]Consume Shadows – this Voidwalker ability is no longer channeled but has a cooldown. Several other warlock talents have had their ranks reduced, their effects changed or removed. This list includes but is not limited to Demonic Empathy, Shadow Embrace, Eradication, Suppression, and Pandemic. Additional new talents have been added.

DRUID

Savage Defense – this is a new passive ability. When a druid in Dire Bear form deals a melee critical strike, the druid gains a damage shield equal to 25% of their attack power. The next hit completely removes the shield regardless of how much damage was done. Survival of the Fittest has had its bonus armor reduced to compensate for the above increase in damage mitigation. Faerie Fire (and similar debuffs) now reduces armor by 5%. See Sunder Armor in the warrior update below for additional details. Thorns and Nature’s Grasp can be cast in Tree of Life form. Survival Instincts now works in Moonkin form. Replenish – to avoid confusion, this talent has been renamed “Revitalize.” It now also works with Wild Growth. We are also looking at increasing the sustained (not burst) damage of feral druids in cat form.

WARRIOR

Changing stances now has a much reduced cost: you lose a maximum of 20 rage (10 with Tactical Mastery). For example, if you have 100 rage and change stances, you will have 80 rage remaining. If you have 10 rage and change stances, all of your rage is lost. In addition, we may change the penalties associated with some stances. You now gain rage when damage done to you is absorbed, such as through a Power Word: Shield. Blood Frenzy now causes 2/4% physical damage done. Sunder Armor (and similar debuffs) now reduces armor by 4% per application, and is now a single rank. Creature armor has been globally reduced so that debuffed targets should take about the same damage from physical attacks that they did before this change. The net effect should be that this debuff is slightly less mandatory in PvE and is not disproportionately more powerful against cloth targets in PvP. We are also adding increased damage to Arms, possibly through Overpower or Slam. We are also looking at granting rage when the warrior blocks, dodges or parries.

COMING SOON

Hunter Death Knight Mage Paladin

Mana Regen

Regeneration while not casting (outside of the “five second rule”) will be decreased. We think that (1) the ability to cast heal over time spells and then sit back and (2) benefitting from a clearcasting proc that also gets you out of the five second rule both provide too much mana regeneration, even over short time periods.

• To make this change, we are reducing mana regeneration granted by Spirit across the board. However we are also boosting the effects of talents such as Meditation that increase regeneration while casting. The net result should be that your regeneration while casting will stay about the same, but your not-casting regeneration will be reduced. This change will have little impact on dps casters, since they are basically always casting.

• The specific talents and abilities being boosted are: Arcane Meditation, Improved Spirit Tap, Intensity, Mage Armor, Meditation, Pyromaniac and Spirit Tap. Yes this makes these “mandatory” talents even more mandatory, if such a thing is possible.

• Since paladins rely less on Spirit as a mana-regeneration stat, we have to address them in other ways. We don’t want to change Illumination or Replenishment. However, we are going to increase the healing penalty on Divine Plea from 20% to 50%. Divine Plea was originally intended to help Protection and Retribution paladins stay full on mana. It should be a decision for Holy paladins, not something that is automatically used every cooldown.

• In addition, we are also changing the way Spiritual Attunement works. In situations with a large amount of outgoing raid damage, as well as in PvP, this passive ability was responsible for more mana regeneration than we would like. We want to keep the necessary benefit it grants to tanking Protection paladins, while making it less powerful for Holy paladins in PvP or raid encounters with a lot of group damage.

• We are also taking a close look at clearcasting procs themselves. One likely outcome is to change them to an Innervate-like surge of mana so that the net benefit is the same, but healers won’t shift to out-of-casting regeneration so often.

• We balance around the assumption that even 10-player groups have someone offering Replenishment. To make this even easier on players we are likely to offer this ability to additional classes, as well as make sure that existing sources of Replenishment are more equitable.