World of Warcraft : class

Upcoming Class Changes, Mount Speed, Items and Blues

Zyuu — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:22:21 GMT

Upcoming Shaman Changes

Quote from: Koraa (Source)

Elemental
- Elemental Fury and Call of Thunder are switching places. Call of Thunder will be a 1-point talent, and Elemental Fury will be a 5-point talent. For Elemental Shaman this won't mean much, for Enhancement it means they can have easier access to 100% spell crit damage.
- Lava Burst's cast time has been increased to 2.5 seconds, but Lightning Mastery will reduce that cast time by 0.5 sec with 5 points. Thus, the coefficient of Lava Burst has been improved to match it's new cast time.
- Lava Bursts base damage numbers have been significantly increased.

Enhancement
- Mental Quickness and Unleashed Rage have swapped places.
- Spectral Transformation renamed "Earthen Power". It causes your Earthbind Totem totem to have a 50/100% dispel all snare effects when it pulses.
- Weapon Mastery: Now a 3-point talent (4/7/10%)
- Stormstrike - New animation, also now increases all Fire, Frost and Nature damage done by the Shaman instead of just Nature.
- New Talent (Tier-8) - Lava Lash: You charge your off-hand weapon with lava, instantly dealing 75% off-hand Weapon damage. Damage is increased by 25% if your off-hand weapon is enchanted with Flametongue. 3 second cooldown. 4% base mana cost. (Also note: Lava Lash does Fire damage, also procs Maelstrom Weapon)
- Maelstrom Weapon: Can now be used for Healing Wave and Lesser Healing Wave.
- Feral Spirit - Many bugs with Spirit Wolves fixed, also increased the damage done by the Spirit Wolves

Restoration
- Ancestral Awakening improved to 10/20/30%

Upcoming Priest Changes

Quote from: Koraa (Source)

Holy
- We're going to make Holy Concentration scale with spell crit instead of just a flat %
- Divine Hymn now does a short duration heal over time effect in addition to it's crowd-control capability, and is now baked into a lot of Holy talents (Holy Reach, Divine Providence etc.)
- We improved Blessed Recovery so that it now works like Ignite (Mage), where each crit gets added into the periodic heal over time and refreshes the duration.
- Lightwell - You can now see how many charges are left in the Lightwell by clicking on it.

Discipline
- Grace will now provide 2% healing for the Priest, stacks up 3 times. So 6% increased healing taken from that target who has Grace (but only by you, the Priest).
- Twin Disciplines will now work with Mind Flay.

Shadow
- Shadow Resilience re-designed. Now called Mind Melt - Increases the critical strike chance of your Mind Flay, Mind Sear and Mind Blast spells by 2/4%.
- Shadow Power: Now 20/40/60/80/100% critical strike damage bonus, also works with Mind Flay.
- Improved Shadowform - The chance to remove all movement impairing effects when you Fade is now restored.
- Psychic Horror - Redesigned. Now reduces all damage done by targets when Psychic Scream ends by 15/30%. Lasts 6 sec.
- Dispersion - 90% damage reduction is restored.
- Misery - Now has 5/10/15% bonus spell power to Mind Flay, Mind Sear and Mind Blast.

Class Balance in Build 8926

Quote from: Ghostcrawler (Source)

Sorry we could not get this out ahead of time to give you a head's up.

We have posted in many of the class forums already explaining why you saw so many changes to abilities and numbers this time around. The designers sat down and ran through every spell and talent in the game. We were looking for the following:

-- Mechanics that we didn't think we'd be able to get working right. They might feel off or buggy. For some of these, it was time to change them and move on.
-- Talents that were confusing, trying to do too many things or just weird for some reason.
-- Talents or abilites that gave too much of one class' special abilities to another class. This is a tough one. Sometimes an ability feels so useful that we need to spread the love. Other times we fear the classes are just blending too much together if everyone does the same thing.
-- Looking for talents or abilities that were under or over budget.

Let me explain that last part in a little more detail. We balance most of the game to a budget. We have an idea for example that a talent point should be worth around a 1% dps increase. For a variety of reasons, it doesn't always work out that way and there are plenty of examples of talents that violate that goal -- it's not a hard and fast rule. But there were many talents that were doing too much for their cost. Talents that offer so much for their points quickly become mandatory. They may be fun in that you get a lot for your money, but they work against the design goal of being able to build a customized talent tree for your character. They also make spec parity or class balance a lot harder when there are these inflated numbers scattered throughout the talent trees. Some talents were under-budget and were buffed, but to be fair, most were over-budget, which is just the human nature of designers when we're trying to come up with something cool and exciting.

What this patch was NOT was a comprehensive numbers pass. We didn't nerf you because your healing, dps or mitigation was too good compared to other classes. We really don't have enough data yet to make those conclusions (especially in PvP), but we're getting more and over every day, both internally and from helpful beta testers.

What can you do? Get out there and try out the build. There are probably some cases where we nerfed an ability too far. These changes are not set in stone. The game isn't done. Please try and be clear and concise in your feedback because that makes it a lot easier for the designers and community managers to quickly read your posts. If you lost an ability that you felt you desperately needed or were really excited about, that's useful feedback.

We love all of the classes, and ultimately the best outcome from our point of view is for everyone to be excited to start leveling when Lich King goes live. That means giving you mechanics you're excited about, but it also means not getting destroyed or totally outdone by other classes with talents or spells that are too good.

Hopefully the next patch or two will have more numbers changes to get everyone closer to parity. But I don't need to remind you that this is a big, complex game, and it's going to take some time.

PvE-to-PvP Paid Character Transfers Now Open

In case you were on another planet yesterday.

Quote from: Bornakk (Source)

Providing a smooth and enjoyable experience for all players is always a priority for us, and we are continually re-evaluating our policies and programs to do so. As the state of the game has matured substantially since the inception of Paid Character Transfers, we will now be allowing PvE-to-PvP transfers on a full-time basis to provide players with more mobility and freedom to easily play with their friends.

Keep in mind that all of the other standard cooldowns and restrictions will continue to apply; we’re just opening the option to transfer characters on Normal realms to Player-vs.-Player realms. Please review the Paid Character Transfer FAQ if you have any questions on how this service works.

You can use this service at any time by visiting your Account Management page and selecting the “Paid Character Transfer” button.

Important change to mount speed improvements

Quote from: Ghostcrawler (Source)

Any items or enchants that affect mounted speed will no longer affect any character over level 70. This includes the Riding Crop, Mithril Spurs, Riding Glove Enchant, Carrot on a Stick, Skybreaker Whip and all similar effects. Talents or spells that affect mounted speed will continue to do. In part, we thought it had become a hassle for players to have to equip (or macro) riding trinkets. We have new plans for how to improve mounted speed that we will unveil eventually.

About the new Heirloom items

Quote from: Tigole & Verimonde (src)

You guys have discovered our Heirloom items. These (as you know) are Bound to account, which means you can mail them to any character on the same realm. They also scale with level. So you can mail these to a level one character and it will have appropriate stats (although slightly uber) for about 10 levels and then the item scales in power again, all the way up to how you're seeing it now.

We're also going to add some Bind on Account non-scaling items for higher level alts. in the future.

Let me elaborate on how these work for everyone.

1) Heirloom items Bind to Account. This means you can mail them between other characters on your account of the same faction.

2) Heirloom items' stats scale to the level of the person wearing them.

3) Heirlooms' power is equivalent to a blue item of the characters level.

4) Heirloom armor pieces will transform based on the type of the gear the character is capable of wearing. That is to say Heirlooms that are Plate on a level 80 character will be mail when equipped by a level 1-39 character who can wear plate. Items that are Mail on a level 80 character, such as Herod's Shoulders, will be equippable by people who can wear Mail armor at level 40.

We wanted to add something to the game for people interested in trying new classes or who just generally love playing alts, and what's more fun than using an Arcanite Reaper on your level 1 Warrior ;)

We are intending to expand where we use the "Account Bound" flag over time but for now Heirlooms are the only items that work this way. We also intend to expand the types of ways that Heirlooms can be attained but for now they are only purchasable via Emblems of Heroism (the new BoJ) and Stone Keeper's Shards, which are attained by killing any dungeon boss in Northrend while your faction controls Wintergrasp.

As for enchanting these items, they can only be the recipient of anything that you could put on a level one item.

Originally we wanted these to be transferable to any character on any account you own. Unfortunately we were unable to make this happen for Lich King. Ideally I would like to see these transferable to any same server same faction character on any account a player owns. If this becomes possible in the future it is certainly something we will look into. I own five accounts myself so I'm right there with you all.

Heirlooms do not cross any boundaries except those that you would expect them to. Plate items become mail pre-40, pail items become leather pre-40. A cloth Heirloom is still a cloth item. Currently the only Heirloom types available are weapons, shoulders, and trinkets, in time we will expand on this.

As far as how they are attained, your point is definitely something that we are aware of and after the system has had more time to solidify itself in game we will consider expanding the number of ways that they can be attained.

WotLK Beta - Blue Posts

Icecrown
It's partially implemented. Work is still ongoing but we felt like it was stable enough to at least get some feedback.

Because it is not completely finished, you'll want to adventure there at your own risk. Quests will have some bugs or be unfinished and it's likely that creatures are either under-tuned or over-tuned. Also, rewards might be few and far between.

We'd love to hear feedback on the zone in the Quest Forum. (src)

Dalaran Feedback Q/A
If I want to go to dragonblight via my flying mount, I have to take off from krasus landing and go AROUND dalaran to avoid the debuff before I make my way south. it would be nice if we could fly over it, but not around/through it.
We are working on a solution for this. No promises, but it's on the list. We also know about all the small areas that are dismounting you guys in the wrong spots. We will get these cleared up. The intention is for people to be able to fly into the city from anywhere and get the dismount debuff so they have time to land. You can leave the city on your flying mount from either Krassus Landing or the exit pipe in the sewers.

I assume getting stuck in the well will be fixed?
The well should be fixed in the next push. Jumping in the well will teleport you to one of 5 random spots in the sewer. It's a magical well, what else did you expect...

I've seen quite a number of times where Horde will walk up and just start killing the alliance Innkeeper.
This has been fixed. NPC's should not be able to be attacked anymore.

I think a huge concern will be the fact that there is only one conventional exit to Dalaran without taking a flight; and the exit is not a sanctuary. On a PvP server, nothing is to stop a crew of people from ganking everyone that uses the crystal to port out.
We will be spawning guards down in Crystalsong to deal with this.

I like the city but cant stand looking around in different shops and seeing the same old stuff. All GREY ITEMS or lvl 20 arrows(example)... I mean keep that stuff for org or ironforge, I dont see lvl 20 coming to dalaran to get arrows or some other lowbie grey item. Throw some nice items in there so i get excited to look around in the shops.
The current plan is to have the correct vendors in the city selling the items you would expect. For instance, The Hunters Reach will sell standard ranged weapons but it will also sell high end Honor and Badge gear as well. We are going to try and do this as much as possible around the city.

General lack of lore and personality. Rhonin and Veressa should have something to say. There should be more "characters" within the city, having conversations with one another ("FRUIT VENDOR! Your days are numbered!").
This is coming for sure. Don't worry, we have a ton of stuff planned to make Dalaran feel bustling and alive. As an example, we are planning to have an NPC walk around the city each night starting at 6pm to light all of the lamps using a magic spell. Things like this are awesome but we just can't work on that stuff until the basics of the city are locked down and working as expected.

Everything you mentioned was for performance reasons. Many players have had difficulty navigating the city as a result of the inability to move around without lagging severely from both network lag and FPS issues.
We have made an extended effort to make sure that Dalaran performs just as well or better than Shattrath did in Burning Crusade. We have had programmers reviewing the city every step of the way to insure that it does not cause any gamebreaking lag or framerate issues. If you do find either of these things happening to you, please report it ASAP. (src)

Battlemaster Achievement
Arena Master will be it's own achievement with title. Battlemaster will now only include the Battleground Achievements and will have its own title.
We'd still like to add a World PvP meta-achievement with some type of reward. (src)

Death Knight
Death Knight DPS comparaison
We are in the process of comparing dps in a variety of situations, focusing first on PvE and then on PvP (because in this case, the tests for PvP are a lot more complicated). If we find out then that the DK damage is much lower than some other classes, as many of you suspect it is, then we'll adjust. (src)

Druid
Eclipse icon to show which buff is up?
We'll be doing this. (src)

Barskin in Feral
It's not Bearwall, but Barskin in Feral might help.
We can buff the avoidance and mitigation if it's too low.
What we're talking about right now is Barkskin in all forms and increasing the threat of Feral Faerie Fire so it isn't so terrible at pulling.
We'll have to keep an eye on AE tanking. Swipe is easy to buff, but it's also easy to buff it too much so that you only Swipe, even vs. 1 target. (src)

Balance Talent Feedback
There have been some good Balance threads already, but here is a chance to consolidate a lot of them into one area. For purposes of this thread, let's avoid discussions of things like dps relative to other classes or mana concerns. All Balance talents are open to discussion. (src)

Hunter
Cunning Pets
We originally implemented the Cunning pets with lower stats because we imagined their CC would be too good. But the cooldowns are reasonably long and the durations short enough that this may not be an issue. We'll consider improving them to make up for the deficiency. (src)

Kill Shot
It will not cause the knockback effect any longer. It's now balanced to be around 2X the damage of steady shot. (src)

Midirection
Cooldown reduced to 30 seconds. (src)

Pet taunt & cooldown sharing
We removed the pet Taunt from sharing a cooldown with Growl and Cower. (src)

Aspect of the Viper
Our intent was not really to reduce it's power, but make it equally powerful for the guy in green gear vs the guy in epics. We'll do some more tuning on it. (src)

Pet talent feedback
We need to finalize the pet talents pretty soon, so I wanted to created a thread that focused on their discussion. There are already some good posts on the topic, but they are mixed in with threads on various aspects of hunters.
Focus on specific talents, and on how the trees are put together. Please don't use this particular thread to discuss more global pet issues (like feeding, leveling or PvP burstability) or pet stats in general. (src)

Shaman
Adding totem pusles to combat log?
We'll look into the combat log idea. (src)

Warlock
Drain Soul
Drain Soul at level 71 will also do 4X damage against targets at or below 20% health. (src)

Corruption
Will be instant in the build after this one. (src)

WotLK -- Class information

Zyuu — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 02:58:07 GMT

Many players are vouching their concerns and also sharing their thoughts on how the new spells, abilities and talent trees are working out in Wrath of the Lich King so far. Blizzard employees have been very active in replying and sharing information on how the current status of each class is and what the plans are for the future.

Death Knight - New Frost disease called Frost Fever

DKs now have a disease called Frost Fever. Icy Touch is a delivery mechanism for Frost Fever, and the disease's debuff is basically the old Icy Touch debuff. A lot of Frost abilities now key off of enemies infected with Frost Fever, similar to the way Blood Strike works. This solves a lot of problems while still getting the fun shatter-like combos, and it has way more synergy with the other DK abilities. The guys who have tried it think that everything just flows better now. Hungering Cold and Chains of Ice still do bona fide freezes, so the frost mages will still like to hang out with you. It's very... ahem... cool.

[Source]

Death Knight - Mind Freeze is no longer affected by the global cooldown

Mind Freeze does no damage now and is off the GCD.

[Source]

Death Knight - About the DK kitability

AMS hasn't got a lot of attention since it's a high-level spell and we haven't had a number of high-level DKs yet. It should not be dispelled and it should affect dots and AEs. Silence preventing it is by design (at least for now). DK kitability is something we're keeping a close eye on. We don't want them to be charging around the battlefield -- that's the warrior kit. We gave the DK a number of ranged abilities for a reason, but I'm not going to argue that they are 100% effective yet.

[Source]

Death Knight - Tanking/Threat and Taunt Mechanics

Blood Boil and Death Grip are both true taunts. We discuss a lot whether the DK needs a simple warrior-like taunt. Blood Boil and Death Grip are both fun abilities, but they serve multiple purposes. Death Grip for example would be way too powerful with a 10-sec cooldown. I will note that with the upcoming disease changes that getting a disease on targets is much easier now. That will make managing groups a little easier, but it may not be enough for moments when the mage accidentally pulls. It's something to keep in mind as you guys run more Lich King instances.

Death Knight - Why don't Strikes that use 2 runes give x2 Runic Power?

The logic is that double rune abilities are already packing twice as much damage (or equivalent power) into the same unit time. If they also generated twice as much runic power, there would be an even bigger incentive to use them instead of single rune abilities.

[Source]

Hunter - About the Devilsaur pet size

The devilsaur is an exotic pet that will ultimately require 51-BM to tame. There are several other exotic pets that are not implemented yet. (The moth is not an exotic pet.)

The size of the devilsaur is not a bug, but I also can't promise it's going to stay that way. It would be awesome if it did, but only if it doesn't cause a bunch of other problems, like clipping through terrain and making it impossible to see mailboxes in Dalaran.

[Source]

Mage - New ability to replace Shatter Shield

We nuked Shatter Shield and put it into a talent instead (as you've noticed). The new Mage ability has yet to be unveiled... ;)

[Source]

Mage - Mana Shield future changes

We're talking about it...

[Source]

Mage - Living Bomb is unfinished

We've considered giving it a knock back or *ahem* "knock up" but we felt that probably wouldn't be desired for what Living Bomb is made for. It works for Thunderstorm (Elemental Shaman Talent) because Shaman's aren't an AOE class, and because it's cooldown controlled. I don't think we're done yet with Living Bomb, just not completely sure with what we want with it yet.

[Source9

Paladin - Beacon of Light being tweaked

We're working on tweaking this spell a bit to make it fit the Paladin's "kit" a bit more... look for the change in an upcoming build.

[Source]

Paladin - New abilities still need to be polished

Like I promised, the paladin changes were more sweeping than most changes. As such, it's going to take us some time to go through a second pass on the abilities and get everything polished up enough to evaluate the shiny, new paladin. I expect we'll be a lot more active on this forum when that happens.

[Source]

Priest - Mind Sear's mana cost too high?

If you've noticed a lot of the ranks have similar mana costs, though I do agree Mind Sear's mana cost seems particularly high... I've been assured that the mana costs for the new ranks of spells and for the new spells are accurate in relation to the mana pools players will have with the new itemization. We'll make sure the mana cost isn't offensive when we do some internal raid testing in the coming weeks. We also made the ability not work on the primary target because we didn't want Mind Sear to be used as a ghetto Mind Flay and because we found it was annoying when the target you were casting Mind Sear on died, causing you to re-cast it. There's also some interesting gameplay for the ability that you may not of thought of yet :)

[Source]

Priest - Threat generation of Aegis/Shields

I am concerned about this, and will make sure it's not too much of a problem. If it is, we can always do a glyph or talent that causes the target to regen rage/runic power etc. when they absorb damage through your spells. That will be a last resort, however.

[Source]

Priest - Glyphs soon

We're actually doing Priest glyphs now, get your ideas in before it's too late!!

[Source]

Warrior - Protection Tree Information

Anticipation - Defense is usually a pretty easy stat to max out with gear, whereas you can't really do that on dodge. We saw some tanks actually spec out of Anticipation at the T6 or so level because it just stops being as useful as your gear improves. Hit is another stat we don't really like to hit in talent trees, since it's possible to hit the cap with gear alone.

Improved Shield Block - The problem with the old Shield Block was it was never a choice. It was available so often, and always so useful, that you could just about put a brick on the key you use for Shield Block. We're trying to get Shield Block to feel more like a mini-Shield Wall. Use it when Something Bad is about to happen. We're not trying to nerf it -- we're trying to make it more fun.

Improved Taunt - This has always been a delicate talent to balance. The more you run with pugs and the more 5-player instances you do in general, the more useful it is. In raids, especially with people who really know your play style and manage their threat, it's a lot less valuable.

Stalwart Protector - We have to be careful with this talent because prot warriors are going to generate a lot more rage than before, just because their dps is going to be higher. A lot of tanking gear comes with strength now. Strength is a good stat, and even before the shield block change, it was probably the best +threat stat you have. I sort of feel that for too long we have all emphasized mitigation as the primary role of a tank, when in reality it's only half the job. Doing more dps will let tanks be more fun when not-tanking, and for warriors, might make a lot of rage starvation issues go away.

New Hero Class Revealed: Bard

Zyuu — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 01:16:49 GMT

Today Blizzard announced a second hero class that will be available with Wrath of the Lich King: The Bard!

The deeds of every great hero inspire countless songs of triumph, virtue, and epic adventure. But although a hero’s glory endures in song, the creators of those songs are seldom remembered. After ages spent singing of the heroic exploits of others, the bards of Azeroth are finally stepping into the spotlight on their own terms, proving once and for all that while just about anyone can pick up a sword or cast a spell, only a true hero can vanquish evil with the power of ROCK!

Armed with a trusty axe, killer riffs, and a ton of attitude, the guitar-wielding bard is the second hero class to be introduced in the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion for World of Warcraft. The bard excels both as a solo performer and as part of a solid group lineup, able to front in a number of roles as varied as his musical repertoire. The bard’s extensive Metal skill line grants the potent transformational ability "I Am Murloc," as well as direct damage effects like "Epic Solo" that will rock foes into oblivion while powerful Indie debuffs such as "Tape Jam" and "Shoegazer" keep them in check. If things heat up, the bard’s Punk tree can support the party with a wide range of abilities, such as "Nonconformity," which dispels fear, mind control, and similar effects, or "Mosh Pit," which briefly boosts the group’s movement speed while its members stay within range.

To fuel his or her powers, the bard uses a brand-new resource system called "groove." Selecting an ability launches the Fret Bar, which will display a number of riffs the player needs to activate using a new guitar-based keyboard peripheral that will ship with Wrath of the Lich King (a special Frostmourne-themed axe will be sold separately). The better the player’s accuracy and timing, the more powerful the resulting ability becomes. The riffs also become more difficult as the bard’s abilities progress, ensuring that the bard gameplay experience remains fast-paced and skill-oriented. Executing abilities also builds up groove, which further fuels the bard’s epic rock powers. Some abilities such as "Epic Solo" require a certain amount of groove to be unleashed, and the more groove, the more powerful the effect.

The time has come for the bards to claim glory for themselves. No longer will they remain shrouded in obscurity while less-talented adventurers are hailed by the masses.

Always wanted to be a Bard?

Check out the official Wrath of the Lich King Bard website.

Necromancer Class? It's more possible than you think.

Kody — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 01:40:00 GMT

According to this news by World of Raids, Necromancer could very well be a class in the future for World of Warcraft, as it's already been considered by the development team when tossing around class ideas.

We've already seen a few Necromancer NPCs in the game, with the most notable being Kel'Thuzad. His lackies from Naxxramas, Gothik the Harvester, Heigan the Unclean and Noth the Plaguebringer were also Necromancers.

There are others of course, which you can find here, but this brings an interesting question. What spells would a Necromancer possess in their arsenal; could this be the Dark Knight's "Priestly" brother class -- one of the next Hero classes? WoWWiki notes that the class was definitely planned for the original World of Warcraft game, but it didn't make it into release -- as was the Death Knight.

The three spells from Warcraft III's unit would be a nice addition to the game's class balance dynamics -- with some of them obviously needing to be toned down, but what other abilities could you conjure up in your mind for a Necromancer class, if it were added?

Feel free to share your ideas in the comments below!

Blizzard Wants Your Feedback

Kody — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 08:18:26 GMT

They really do! For the longest time we've seen players suggest that Blizzard ignores the playerbase when balancing classes or making changes, but today's forum activity by the Blizzard Community Managers suggests otherwise.

Blizzard wants feedback regarding the classes you play for Wrath of the Lich King. If you'd like to submit feedback for your class, be sure to do so fast -- the threads will be locked once there is deemed to be enough feedback gathered, and also make sure to pay attention to the rules of submitting feedback:

Eyonix wrote:

We're currently gathering class feedback from players for Wrath of the Lich King concerning thoughts on the areas of each class that is perceived to be most in need of improvement. This thread is not intended for discussion purposes and we ask that you please review the below format before presenting your feedback. It's very important for us to be able to review all provided feedback and as a result, not following the required format will very likely result in your post being removed.

Threads have been created on both the North American and European forums, so regardless of where your account is set up, you'll be able to voice your opinion!

For North American players, click through on the following links:

And for European players, you can visit any of the following links:

Get in there fast -- the threads are filling up quickly. The Rogue thread, for example, is up to 10 pages already as of this news posting.

WoW 2.3 class Changes

Lothaer — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 21:32:40 GMT

This is a list of changes for all classes in Patch 2.3

Druid

The Restoration talent Intensity will be increased to 10/20/30% mana regeneration.
Rebirth cooldown will be changed from 30 minutes to 20 minutes.
Moonkin can cast Remove Curse.
Tree of Life Form can cast Cure Poison and Abolish Poison.
Tranquility will receive additional additional benefit from spell damage and healing bonuses.

source

Hunter

Serpent Sting, Immolation Trap and Explosive Trap will gain additional damage based on ranged attack power
Wyvern Sting becoming an instant cast
Arcane Shot will dispel one magic effect in addition to its normal damage
Trueshot Aura no longer costs mana to cast and will last until cancelled

source

Mage

Ritual of Refreshment will allow players to pick up their own stacks of food and water
Damage coefficient reduction removed from Improved Fireball and Improved Frostbolt
Evocation changed to restore 15% of your total mana every 2 seconds
Arcane Meditation increased to 10/20/30% mana regeneration
Ice Barrior gains additional benefit from spell damage bonuses
Fire Ward and Frost Ward now gain additional benefit from spell damage bonuses
Detect Magic removed, all players will see their target's beneficial effects at all times

source

Paladin

Mana cost for Exorcism, Holy Wrath, and Hammer of Wrath lowered
Vengeance duration increased to 30 seconds
Improved Seal of Crusader benefits put into base spell, talent benefits replaced with those of Sancitified Crusader
Sanctified Crusader renamed to Sanctified Seals, which increases chance to critically hit with all spells and melee attacks by 1/2/3% and reduces the chance your Seals will be dispelled by 33/66/100%
Crusader Strike cooldown reduced to 6 seconds
Vindication frequency and duration increased and reduces all attributes by 5/10/15%
Pursuit of Justice is now 3 ranks and increases movement speed by 5/10/15% and reduces the chance to be hit by spells by 1/2/3%.

source

Priest

Pain Suppression changes to be targetable on others, give 40% damage reduction and 5% threat reduction Meditation to increase to 10/20/30% mana regen
Power Word: Shield to gain additional benefit from spell damage and healing bonuses
Prayer of Healing, Circle of Healing and Holy Nova (healing effect) will gain additional benefit from damage and healing bonuses
Priest Racials- Change to Fear Ward and the Addition of Chastise for Dwarf and Draenei priests
Priest Racials- Change to Elune's Grace to reduce the chance to be hit by melee and ranged attacks by 20% for 15 seconds
Reduction in Mana Cost for Power Word: Fortitude, Divine Spirit, Prayer of Fortitude, and Prayer of Spirit

source

Rogue

Blind is now a physical attackand the reagent requirement removed
Fleet Footed changed to increase movement speed by 8/15%
Shadowstep usable at any time, not only while stealthed.
Threat caused by next Ambush, Garrote or Backstab is reduced by 50% and cooldown increased to 40 seconds
Dirty Deeds specials cause 20% extra damage against targets that are below 35% health
Deadly Throw missile speed increased significantly and snare duration increased slightly
Ruthlessness only affects melee finish moves
All poisons now last for one hour

source

Shaman

Shamanistic Rage will reduce all damage taken by 30% for the duration
Frost Shock no longer subject to diminishing returns
Two handed weapons trainable (axes/maces) for Shaman and a new talent elemental focus added
New relics being added for Shaman, Paladins, and Druids
Lightning Overload, Mana Spring Totem, Water Shield, Elemental Focus, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Overload, Lightning Mastery

source

Warlock

Change to Ritual of Souls which will significantly reduce the time to cast and complete it
Healing reduction effects will now affect health drain spells and abilities.
Banish can no longer be cast on targets tapped by other players or groups

source

Warrior

All Disarm immunity effects, including the Arms talent Weapon Mastery, will be changed to reduce the duration of Disarm effects.
Healing reduction effects will now affect health drain spells and abilities.
Mace Specialization (Arms) now has a reduced chance to occur but will generate 7 rage instead of 6.
The talent Tactical mastery (Protection) will also provide additional threat for the abilities Mortal Strike and Bloodthirst while in Defensive Stance.
The talent Devastate (Protection) will combine the effects of Sunder Armor into its effect and it will also be affected by all talents and items that affect Sunder Armor.

source

Major 2.3 changes - UPDATE: 9/27 9:33AM PST

Kody — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 01:18:30 GMT

The community team is very active today, giving out tidbits of information on class changes coming in patch 2.3. This news update is huge and will be continually updated today as more info as found!
9/27 UPDATE 1: Hunter ammo pouch/quiver info added; patch note version updated.

Head here for the patch notes version: http://wow.curse.com/c/patch230-changes/

General Info

Drysc clarifies the numbers for converting +healing to +spell damage as a new mechanic for healers.

Drysc wrote:

No, it's about a third. So 1500 +heal would give about +500 +spell damage.

Drysc on "Selling Arena Teams" and official Weapon/Shoulder rating requirements.

Drysc wrote:

Well to start we'll just let everyone know that the arena ratings required for the season 3 items will be 1850 for the weapons, and 2000 for shoulders. Now, most people have expected the weapon rating since we announced it at BlizzCon, and it's a bit lower than we had initially said, but the shoulders are obviously going to raise some questions. The shoulders for any set are commonly the most visually representative, they're the most visible at any distance, and as they allow a lot of space compared to say a leg or bracer item, we commonly take them and really create something visually impressive. We want that visually impressive item to represent what a player has achieved, and so the achievement of being a contender in the arena at a higher level will be visually distinguished. The shoulders are also average in the benefit they provide, as compared to a chest or leg item for example, and without them the set bonuses can still be completed.

This raises the question of a player finding a team that is of a skill level higher than their own, and simply buying the item with points they've gained at a lower rating. To restrict this we're implementing a personal rating system in patch 2.3. This is an additional arena rating that is unique to each character for each team they belong to. This rating rises and declines using the same formula as the arena team rating, but only in games that character participates in. You'll also be able to track this rating through the PvP interface. The personal rating will be used for purchasing items that require a specific rating, and also be used to determine eligibility for the end of season rewards. So, a player will have to achieve a specific rating, and not just get into a team to see the rewards that are meant to visually distinguish the high-rated players.

More relic choices are being added for Druids, Paladins and Shaman.

Eyonix wrote:

We're adding new relics to support all talent trees in patch 2.3 for Shaman, Paladins and Druids. In addition, (not that this will sweep you off your feet), most of the arena-system relics have been renamed so there is a more consistent naming convention.

Eyonix talks about a special title for completing the Tempest Keep raid attunement quest chain.

Eyonix wrote:

We're adding something better, well, at least in my opinion. Those who completed the attunement process will have access to the title "Champion of the Naaru". Also, the plan is to hard-cap it at 70, meaning you can't go back at 80 and "cheese" the title.

Druid

Bornakk on Intensity upgrade to provide 10%/20%/30% rate.

Bornakk wrote:

Hmmm... we will make it so.

Rebirth cooldown reduced from 30 to 20 minutes.

Bornakk wrote:

We want to whack the cooldown from 30 minutes down to 20 minutes.

Hunters

Hunters have 20 and 24 slot ammo pouches and quivers coming!

Drysc wrote:

How about 20 and 24 slot ammo pouches and quivers?

Drysc on Hunter improvements.

Drysc wrote:

There are quite a few changes in 2.3 for all classes, even Hunters. They're not all nerfs even!

For example, Serpent Sting, Immolation Trap and Explosive Trap are going to gain additional damage based on ranged attack power. I think everyone enjoys scaling.

Drysc on Wyvern Sting improvement.

Drysc wrote:

Well it's not going to hit everything you want, but we are planning to change Wyvern Sting so that it will be instant cast.

Higher ranks of Arcane Shot buff!

Drysc wrote:

Arcane Shot (ranks 6+) will dispel 1 magic effect in addition to the normal damage.

Mage

Drysc on Evocation getting a buff.

Drysc wrote:

The only change I'm aware of for Evocation in 2.2 was so you're always guaranteed four full mana ticks, as it was possible to only get three if timed correctly (incorrectly?). It's always possible a fix may affect something else, but there was certainly no intended change. I'll look into a bit further.

It may not matter for much longer though as we're changing Evocation in 2.3 to instead restore 15% of your total mana every 2 seconds, instead of being a Spirit-based mana regen increase.

Drysc talks about various changes.

Regarding the water well and muffin factories.

Drysc wrote:

It's called Ritual of Refreshment and will allow players to pick up their own stacks of food/water, similar to a Soulwell.

Coefficient tax removal

Drysc wrote:

Obliterated. Damage coefficient reduction removed from Improved Fireball/Frostbolt.

Possible Spirit changes in 2.3

Drysc wrote:

It's been a while since I've asked, but I don't believe any sweeping Spirit based changes are planned for 2.3. I'll have to check. They're still planned, but I believe it's for a patch after 2.3.

Paladin

Drysc on Retribution buffs.

Drysc wrote:

Well along with a few other Ret changes we're putting the benefits of Improved Seal of the Crusader right into the base spell, and the talent will instead give the benefit of Sanctified Crusader. That of course means Sanctified Crusader needs something else, and it's being renamed Sanctified Seals, which will increase your change to critically hit will all spells and melee by 1/2/3% and reduces the chance your Seals can be dispelled by 33/66/100%

Drysc on another Ret change and mana reduction on Exorcism, Holy Wrath and Hammer of Wrath.

Drysc wrote:

We're pretty much focused on Retribution with 2.3, but some more general changes are being made like lowering the mana cost for Exorcism, Holy Wrath, and Hammer of Wrath.

Another Ret change (just to keep the momentum going) will be an increase to the duration of Vengeance to 30 seconds.

Crusader Strike cooldown reduced to 6 seconds.

comon blue guys give us some teasers! Cursader strike cool down lowered to 6?

Drysc wrote:

You're amazing, that's absolutely correct.

Priest

All priests get Fear Ward!

Drysc wrote:

Fear Ward will be available to all priests at level 20, but there are some changes in addition. Current plans are to reduce duration to 3 minutes, and increase the cooldown to 3 minutes.

To give the dwarves and draenei something else to even it out, they'll see a new ability called Chastise (also given at level 20) which will cause holy damage and incapacitate the target for 2 seconds.

Nethaera on Pain Suppression and Meditation improvements!

Nethaera wrote:

For instance, Pain Suppression is getting changed a bit to have more utility beyond personal use. You'll be able to cast it on a friendly target and it will do a couple of things. First it's going to reduce the target's threat by 5%. and next it's going to reduce the damage that person takes by 40%. The cooldown is also going to be reduced to 2 minutes. The intent is to give it more utility while still making it viable for multiple targets. When you're trying to protect an AoEing mage in a raid, this could become a very useful tool.

Meditation is also going to geta bit of a bump up and it will increase to 10/20/30% mana regen as well.

Nethaera on Power Word: Shield.

Nethaera wrote:

On the survivability end, we're going to be having Power Word: Shield gain additional benefit from spell damage and healing bonuses. Base absorb values for ranks 10, 11 and 12 have been reduced though to go with that as a balancing factor for it. Unfortunately I don't have any concrete information on what the values will end up being right now.

Nethaera on Group heal improvements.

Nethaera wrote:

In addition to what I didn't mention, Prayer of Healing, Circle of Healing and Holy Nova (healing effect) will gain additional benefit from damage and healing bonuses.

Circle of Healing is having a change to the base amount of healing though, and will be reduced but it will have the increase in the bonus it receives from bonus healing effects. So if you have more than 1338 healing, you'll see it heal for more. Less than that, you will see a reduction. Please keep in mind that these numbers could change on further testing but this is where we are as of right now for the patch.

Rogue

Drysc on upgrades to Blind.

Drysc wrote:

I'm not sure why the change may have been implemented and then removed, there could be any number of reasons. I don't think it's really an important question at the moment though as the change is still planned to go in.

In 2.3 Blind will no longer require a reagent. It will also be changed to a physical attack, will share the same diminish category as Cyclone, and diminish in PvE as well as PvP.

Kalgan jumps in to announce more upgrades!

Kalgan wrote:

Technically it's still a ranged attack that is part of the nature spell school, it just isn't a poison anymore.

(edit) Scratch that, we've updated it to be a ranged physical attack (also no longer counts as a poison).

Drysc on upgrades to Deadly Throw.

Drysc wrote:

I'm glad you asked, we actually have some changes coming in 2.3 for Deadly Throw. The speed at which it travels is being increased significantly, so it will reach your target much faster, and the snare duration is being increased slightly. One second longer if I remember correctly. It will, however, no longer have the ability to trigger Ruthlessness.

With that Ruthlessness mention I'll elaborate that we'll be changing it so that Ruthlessness will only affect melee finishing moves as a whole.

Drysc on buffs to Shadowstep and Dirty Deeds.

Drysc wrote:

Do you mean the amazing change to Shadowstep so that it can now be used at any time, not only while stealthed? In addition, after use of Shadowstep threat caused by the next Ambush, Garrote or Backstab will be reduced by 50%. The cooldown will however be increased to 40 seconds.

Also on the Subtlety front is a change to Dirty Deeds so that it will also be increasing damage of special attacks by 10/20% against targets that are below 35% health.

We're also taking a look at bumping up Hemorrhage a bit, but no details yet on what that may be.

Kalgan on a nerf to Deadly Throw and Ruthlessness.

Kalgan wrote:

It won't be able to activate Ruthlessness anymore though, no more chain deadly throws.

Fleet Footed being buffed to 15%!

Kalgan wrote:

Fleet Footed will now be a 15% speed increase instead of 8%.

Shaman

Eyonix on Shaman buffs.

Eyonix wrote:

An example of one helpful adjustment surrounds shamanistic rage, which will also reduces all damage taken by 30% for the duration of the ability (30 seconds), in addition to its current effect. Spirit Weapons will also reduce melee threat by a total of 30% rather than 15%. More improvements should be expected as well.

Eyonix says improvements will be made to all talent specs.

Eyonix wrote:

There will be changes that benfefit the elemental and restoration shaman as well. And yes, more enchancement improvements are absolutely going into patch 2.3.

Shaman can train 2-handed axes and maces without talents!

Eyonix wrote:

Yes, all shaman will be able to equip 2-handed axes and maces (proper training required of course), without having to spend a talent. In it's place, a seemingly solid replacement talent called elemental focus. Basically, what it offers is this -- after landing a melee critical strike, you'll enter a "focused state". The focused state will reduce the mana cost of your next shock spell by 60%.

Frost Shock no longer subject to diminishing returns!

Eyonix wrote:

You're welcome. No changes to those abilities, and while not the same, in patch 2.3 frost shock will no longer be subject to diminishing returns. This should prove useful.

Warlock

Nethaera on reduction of Ritual of Souls cast time.

Nethaera wrote:

The one thing I can give you for the next patch right now is that there is a change for Ritual of Souls which will significantly reduce the time to cast and complete it.

Warrior

Bornakk on Mace Stun nerf.

Bornakk wrote:

Yes, we do plan to reduce the chance for Mace Specialization to occur in patch 2.3, but it will provide 7 rage instead of 6.

Mortal Strike will now affect Drain Life and other drain-based heals.

Bornakk wrote:

We also plan to have healing reduction effects affect all drain spells and abilities. As the example that most people bring up, Mortal Strike will affect Drain Life.

Tactical Mastery buff to increase Mortal Strike/Bloodthirst threat in Defensive Stance.

Bornakk wrote:

While arms/fury warriors aren't meant to be as good as protection warriors at tanking, we do plan to make an additional to Tactical Mastery that may help them out. This talent will grant greatly increased threat from Mortal Strike and Bloodthirst when in Defensive Stance.

Devastate will now apply Sunder Armor!

Bornakk wrote:

It may also simplify things a bit to when we make Devastate combine the effects of Sunder Armor into it's effect and be affected by all talents and items that affect Sunder Armor. We plan to make this happen in 2.3.

Professions

Engineers get a flying mount!

Bornakk wrote:

And for your dedication, flying mounts for engineers only will be available in patch 2.3. There will be normal and epic versions of this mount for you to parade around and show how proud you are to have passed all the exams and call yourself an engineer.

A new repair bot is being added that sells goods!

Bornakk wrote:

I also heard this rumor that some Gan'arg Analyzers in Blade's Edge Mountains stumbled upon plans of a new Field Repair Bot and are hoarding them for their own purposes. Anybody plan to investigate this in patch 2.3?

Drysc on new Fishing content being added.

Drysc wrote:

Awesome, yeah it's good to see those going in and getting a good reaction. They're not huge, amazing, awesome changes, but they're those little fixes that just make playing that much more enjoyable and easy.

You might be pleased to learn about some fishing changes planned for 2.3 then too!

Fishermen, and Fisherladies, will be able to track fishing nodes, similar to herbalism and mining. The ability will be learned from a journal you can find in fished-up crates.

There will also be a couple new types of fish found near Karazhan and Zul'Aman, with associated cooking recipes, one of which is a mana-regenerative soup on-par with Purified Draenic Water, but with a well-fed buff to boot.

No More Class Reviews

Cyanize — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 08:39:41 GMT

In a US warrior forum thread, Tseric revealed a few changes to the way how Blizzard will handle class changes/balancing in the future.

Tseric:

'Class Reviews' as they have been known in the past, are a thing of the past. The devs will make adjustments as they feel are merited, but they will likely be sprinkled between classes and delivered over patches. There will not be a future patch which will be deemed a 'class patch'.

This might very well mean the end of all QQ threads in the class forums, or create even more of them. Patch 2.0.6 already showed some signs of this new policy. Let's just hope the devs at Blizzard know what they're doing :)