I think you meant Shamanistic Rage (Unleashead Rage being 10% AP Buff).

Mana issues might already be eased by using the new Blessing of Sacrifice on a tank which combined with Judgement of Wisdom from a holy Paladin, Seal of Blood and Spiritual Attunement might be enough mana return already.

Good point. Ret paladins should even have the free GCD to rebless sacrifice via some focus/target macros easily. While this might be enough for raiding it won't help soloing at all. Shamanistic Rage and similar spells (Shadow Fiend, Innervate etc.) are usable out of raid environment too.

If Blizzard changes paladin class to be less balanced around SA that would help all specs (assuming they give us other tools to gain mana). At the same time they might fix some of our abysmal "2nd in threat"-tanking too.

I think the DK starting gear (which is plastered on half a dozen leak sites) is a pretty strong indication that Spellpower is NOT a DK stat, since that gear does not include any spellpower, even though it is intended to serve as basis for all "three specs" (or mix thereof).

Unlike normal classes, who get gear along with their specs, DK spring fully formed at 55. Having a specialisation that rely on spell power primarily, but having absolutely none to begin with would bar that specialisation to people until they amassed enough gear. Which, given the amount of quest plate with heal/spellpower (read: none) requires them to wait until they finish Hellfire Peninsula to switch to that specialisation.

It's likely real, I actually datamined all those spells a couple of weeks ago, though I didn't have the information to directly link them to the Druid class, they were the most likely recipient.

Here's are my thoughts on this screenshot, and why I think it's not real.

I very recently studied base mana calculus. What I got was the following base mana values (@70)

• Druid: 2320
• Priest: 2620
• Paladin: 2953
• Shaman: 2958

For OOC rez spells, their cost is expressed in percentage of base mana, and only the returned health and mana values change for each rank. I assume it's the same for Revive. Based on the values for Revive Rank 7, it's very likely that the level for this spell is at least 75.

Note that Resurrection corresponds to 60% of base mana, Redemption 64% and Ancestral Spirit 72%.

Finally, note that 72% of 2320 is 1706, the cost of the spell in the screenshot. I think it's not a coincidence. Most likely, the Revive spell cost is 72% of base mana and the character whose Spellbook we see is 70, and shouldn't be able to have a level 75+ spell.

If the spell is already datamined from the client there is not very much question if it's real or not.

I don't claim that the spell does not exists. It's in the spell database of wotlk. But I don't think it's available for all druids at their trainer, and certainly not the spell as the cost described by the screenshot. If Revive follows the level curve of Resurrection, then Rank 7 is post 70 (most likely 78 or 80, maybe 76). I think the alpha is still limited to level 75, so that's a first problem. Now that it's confirmed that it's 72% of base mana, then either the base mana of druid have been completly changed, which is unlikely, or druid gains 0 mana for each new level past 70, which is even more unlikely.

In conclusion, the screenshot is a fake. At least we know that Blizzard is seriously considering adding an OOC rez to druids, which would be an excellent idea.

This is already used for some spells. For example Steady Shot tooltip looks internally like "A steady shot that causes base weapon damage plus ${$RAP*0.2+$m1}. Causes an additional $s2 against Dazed targets." with the client calculating the value from your RAP when it's shown. No real reason not to do something similar for all the other spells.

That could very well be the case, I'm not saying that DKs will use SD, I'm just not ruling it out. My point was more about how people tend to take small tidbits of information and end up using them to come up with assumptions about the whole. I'm currently leveling my Paladin Alt, and yet I have not come across one piece of +Healing plate in HFP...not one. Spell Damage? Yep, I have three pieces already, but not one without healing. Based on that information am I to assume that there is no +Healing plate in TBC? Obviously not because I know that isn't true.

Remember back when TBC beta was out and some people complained that there was no Spirit on gear from lvl 61-69 and therefore assumed that there'd be no spirit on end game gear? Remember also when one or two items were leaked and some people were convinced that T3 would disappear by lvl 65?

Granted Blizzard facilitates this by not releasing very much information, but I think what has happened in the past is they've found that when they do release any information it just gets twisted into whatever X member of angry <class, faction, server type, etc.> wants it to be. Just look at the Warrior joke by Tom Chilton and what it did to the WoW Pally Forums as a prime example where many people comparing him to a racist (yes, a racist). Point being, people really see what they want to see and until something goes so far to the opposite end of the spectrum that they are forced to change, they rarely will. It's human nature.

Back to the issue at hand, we have three plate wearing classes with nine specs. We know DPS warriors are going to share gear with DKs and Ret Pallies (which they already do with the latter anyways). Obviously Warriors have zero use for +SD, but we don't know about DKs yet. People can make an educated guess that they won't, but hammering their fists down and saying "No, they won't! This won't happen!" six months before release of a class they've never played, leveled let alone experienced any end game content with just seems like putting the cart in front of the horse to me.

Even if it doesn't work out that way (which is a good possibility), everyone will still get their gear anyways, so it's really not a big problem.

I understand what you're saying, it's Alpha, most of us haven't played DK and things can change a lot between now and live. However, you don't have to play the class to read up on it and so far, DK's spells are all based on AP. The spells have an attack power coefficient, similar to Arcane Shot for hunters. Spell power doesn't have an effect on DK spells as of right now.

Yes, I understand that, but we've seen Ret Paladins have some of their abilites go from +SD based to AP based since the release of TBC. Of course, it's easy to argue that not enough of their abilites have changed (JoCasino comes to mind), but there has been change since Blizzard decided that "hey, we should just let Ret use DPS Plate, it'll make our lives a lot easier".

I'm in no way saying that it's inevitable that DKs will use SD, all I'm saying is that we shouldn't rule it out.

Since DK's have no mana bar and all the spell damage gear has int on it, I'd say it's pretty much certain that DK's will not use spell damage gear.

Actually, most of the paladin tanking gear released after 2.3 doesn't have intellect on it.

The itemization looks solid except for Holy Paladins which are the odd man out. I hate to say it but the most likely course will be Blizzard expecting Holy/Restoration/Elemental to use the same mail gear.

There was some spell power plate posted on the previous page of this thread, so it doesn't look that way at the moment.

It's not reasonable to make assumptions like that. There is very little gear sharing right now, and yet holy paladins still get items. Gear sharing is a noble goal and will certainly make itemization a bit easier for the developers, but you can't assume that Blizzard will just screw over classes for whom gear sharing isn't optimally implemented or convenient.

Crazy on the DeathKnight.info forums has an Alpha account and has rather helpfully run some little tests within the game when asked. He was asked to test the effect of spell damage on DK abilities, and he responded that it had no effect. I can't see any reason why they'd make spell damage affect DK spells given that they're supposed to share armor with Warriors so I think it's basically a forgone conclusion at this point that DKs will not need SD.

You can even look at Sunwell as a very recent example of continuing poor itemization for balance druids and enhance shaman (Amongst others). There is balance druid leather; but at the same ilevel as the dps cloth and mail, it has significantly less in the way of DPS stats (and in some cases stats in general) for no apparent reason. Enhancement shaman still seem to be expected to share the exact same gear as hunters, and it's rarely the best way to spend their ilevel points.


One of my worries as a balance druid (And perhaps a continuing enhance shaman worry) is that with the gear homogonization, I'll have to pickup subpar stated leather or be put into the cloth caster pool. I don't mind wearing cloth, but that puts way too many classes/specs of a raid in one gear pool. Enhance shaman may be able to do the same with the feral/rogue leather, but it's still frustrating to not have any gear tailor made for your spec.

So something in Alpha is guarenteed to be the same once it's released? Why people feel they need to take such a hard stance on something so trivial when history has show us that things change during development stages. Hell, things change between the printing of the game manual and the game release...I know because my manual says I could roll a Dwarven Mage.

No, it would make no sense logically to introduce SD scaling to a DK's spells. If you want another example of a spell that is increased by AP and not SD you need only look to Arcane Shot. It's not a guarantee that it will reach it to Live like that but more likely than not it won't, why would they change the mechanics at all when it works for Arcane Shot? I know it's speculation but it's still logical extrapolation given what we know from Alpha, what we know about how the devs want to itemise the class and what we know from current existing abilities. It would not be trivial to introduce SD scaling as it would require a whole new class of SD gear with no intellect to be created for DKs which is at odds with the current trend of loot consolidation for Wrath.

It's like you are trying to convince me that DKs won't use SD when I never said they would, all I said we shouldn't rule it out based on the fact that the game still the Alpha build stage. The only difference between our standpoints is I'm saying that will "probably" be how it works out were you are stating it as a fact. May I remind you that the list of changed between Alphas and final releases of Vanilla and TBC is longer than the list of things that stayed the same.

You also must have missed where more than once I said that even if the mechanics don't change and Holy/Shockadin Paladins are the only ones getting +SD Plate, that they'll still get their gear. In fact, it'll be easier for us (I have a Pally too) because we won't have to fight DKs for it.

There is absolutly no indication anywhere that DKs will use spell damage, and much information, some of it explicit, stating that they will not use spell damage.

Saying a DK "might" use SD in the future is akin to saying Warriors might use SD in the future. It's within the realm of possibility but basicly pointless to discuss as there is only a very very small chance of it happening.

I think it's time to get past the hangup and move on. DKs should not be included in a discussion about SD untill the point that there is any reason to think that they might use it. That time is not now.