Dropping a 5 second stun on someone every 45 seconds is pretty good, remember Conc Blow doesn't require D-stance anymore.

If they are trying to streamline the trees I don't understand why the talent that reduced disarm is going to Fury, Enrage is still in fury, Imp Slam is still in fury (and I guess you could count Blood Craze...). If they are going to start something like this, they might as well finish it and do it properly.

loot the dog!!

Because the talent for disarm also has Weapon Expertise with it.

Re: starshards
It's about time. NE priests have never had 2 even remotely useful racials, and when they buffed Elunes Grace they somehow manage to redesign starshards so it was less useful. This new form should at least give you something to cast when you're locked out of shadow, although I guess it's biggest use will be on Leo :P

Re: expertise
Presumably feral weapon skill will get changed to expertise. While the change was unexpected, it certainly makes sense. It was pretty annoying how much easier it was for some toons to get the weapon skill they needed. Its effects were also highly non-intuitive, the new scheme should be better. How much do bosses dodge and parry? Is there an effective cap? Correct me if I'm wrong, but 73s will dodge (and if attacked from in front parry) 5.6% of the time. So to never be dodged you'll need 5.6/0.25 = 22.4 expertise or 87.4 expertise rating. However that does nothing to your chance to hit, does it?

In retrospect, I'm some what confused, as to why you needed 9% hit when attacking from behind to never miss or dodge rather than a certain amount of weapon skill (to remove the 5.6& dodge), and a certain amount of hit to remove the rest of the 5.6 chance to miss.

I can see how this would be a great advantage for pet management when someone else is tanking the target. Somehow, though, i can't shake the feeling something will go wrong.

Dodge and parry seems to be much higher when you look at WWS of tanks trying to hit bosses.
Take a look at this one:
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Teron parried the tank on about 15% of the attacks, while dodge and miss were more like 5% each. (That parse was a dwarf using a mallet of the tides, and probably 2-3%+ hit, for what it's worth)

Wasn't it always a common knowledge that each weapon skill reduces parry chance by 0.04?

They certainly haven't just changed names. They figured weapon skill was getting too over-complicated and that it was not efficient enough to counter dodges and parries and now are changing it.


Anyways, Haven't read the entire thread but judging from the first 2 pages it seems like people forgot that this new skill also will have a very positive effect on yellow attacks as well, unlike the old weapon skill. It's a nice addition in my opinion.

The Death Wish change is so bad.....there's no way it can make it to live, is there?

Seems like the hunter changes are either not updated yet..... or hunters are only getting a couple small changes that don't help at all with their arena problem.......

Seriously nerf Concussion Blow. Mortal strike + a 5 second stun every 45 seconds... my priest is crying. And my warrior is laughing.

When the PTR comes out, someone is going to have to check and see if the dispell comes before or after the damage. Priests are not going to be a big fan of this improvement in PvP. Take into consideration, dispelling PW:Shield then adding the Arcane Shot damage. I guess this is one of the reason Blizzard has PTR.

- Soul Siphon (Affliction) now increases damage by 2/4% and no longer affects Drain Mana.

I'm very impressed.

Personally, I'd like to see it moved to the Holy tree, if it stays in its "PTR Patchnotes Theorycraft" form, so it doesn't provide free DPS to shadowpriests, but Healing priests can still pop a GCD every 30s and get some free DPS.

Same. I have a sinking suspicion this will react the way the pet speed normalization went down, where you'll have your pet moving instead of attacking. Still, I'm willing to give it a shot.

Beyond that though, the hunter changes are thoroughly underwhelming, and the hunter community is currently, atempting, to let Blizzard know.

I hate to say it, but, as a hunter, the only thing I'm looking forward to in this patch is the lowered XP of leveling an alt.

Making it a holy spell would probably do this as well, and seems like the best solution, to me - free DPS for healypriests when bored or soloing, but not worthwhile for shadow, unless you're out of mana. :P

I, for one, didn't think of this until thinking about the change while I was taking a shower. If this affects yellow attacks and if everything is converted over at 1:1 ratios, then this will actually be a reasonable change. (Not a buff for non-tanking classes, but at least not a large nerf either.)

You also didn't derive any serious benefit from weaponskill v2.0 unless you were attacking a mob 3 levels higher than you. You'll get a dodge reduction against every opponent with the new expertise.

Obviously it affects yellow attacks as well. There is no difference between yellow attacks and white attacks when it comes to the hit table, beside the fact that yellow attacks aren't considered dual-wield hits and therefor don't have the 19% miss penalty.

I sill don't understand the "nerf" screams though even if that wasn't the case. Being able to efficiently counter dodges is huge and I am really happy that finally they are fixing this.

Keep in mind though, it is arcane school. Many shadow priests are busy stacking +shadow.

This point has been made and rebutted more than once already.

This has already been addressed several times.

edit: Gurg beat me by precious seconds.