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
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.
MAGE
Improved Water Elemental – this talent has been removed and replaced with a new talent that grants Replenishment (similar to Shadow priests).
We are also working on a way to give frost mages Ice Lance “Shatter combos” in PvE.
We are also working on more survivability for Fire spec in PvP.
We are also working on making Spirit a more useful and interesting stat for all mages.
PALADIN
Blessing of Kings – this spell is now a base ability trainable by all paladins.
Exorcism – this spell now causes damage to all types of enemy targets. However, it always critical strikes undead or demon targets. This change should make sure paladin damage doesn’t drop when going from Naxxramas to later tiers of content.
Shield of the Templar now causes your Avenger’s Shield and Shield of the Righteousness to silence targets for 3 sec. The old damage bonus of this talent has been folded into Holy Shield, Avenger’s Shield, and Shield of the Righteousness.
Ardent Defender, Improved Hammer of Justice, One-Handed Weapon Specialization and more have had their ranks reduced.
Guarded by the Light – no longer reduces the mana cost of shield spells, but now has a 50/100% chance to refresh Divine Plea duration.
Judgements of the Just – now also reduces the cooldown of Hammer of Justice by 10/20 seconds and increases the duration of the Seal of Justice stun effect by 0.5/1 second.
HUNTER
Consumable ammunition has been removed from the game. Arrows and bullets no longer stack, but are not consumed. Ranged attack speed bonus gained from quivers and ammo bags will be preserved in a different capacity.
A new tier of hunter pet talents have been added. In particular, this allows Beastmaster hunters to improve their damage per second (DPS) with their 51 point talent.
Hunting Party – this talent has been reduced to 3 ranks and also grants a passive bonus to the hunter.
Piercing Shots – this talent has been changed. Your Aimed, Steady and Chimera Shots cause the target to bleed for 10/20/30% of damage dealt for 8 sec.
Sniper Training – this talent has been changed. After standing still for 6 sec, you gain a 2/4/6% damage bonus to Steady, Aimed and Explosive Shot.
We are also looking to add additional trap functionality to Survival.
DEATH KNIGHT
Gargoyle and Unholy Blight have swapped talent positions. Gargoyle’s damage has increased and runic power cost per time has decreased.
Pestilence – this spell no longer causes damage but just spreads diseases. Blood Boil is intended to be the general area attack, and has been changed to be castable on targets with no diseases on them, but does extra damage if diseases are present.
Unbreakable Armor now absorbs a flat amount of damage that increases as your armor increases. It no longer boosts armor.
The Frost tree has been shuffled. Among other things, PvP talents such as Endless Winter are closer to the top of the tree where Blood and Unholy death knights can access them.
Sudden Doom – this talent now procs a Death Coil rather than requiring an additional button click. It works similarly to shamans’ Lightning Overload.
Magic Suppression and Blood of the North have been reduced to 3 ranks for the same benefit.
Blood Gorged now grants armor penetration instead of expertise.
Disclaimer about these notes.
Quote from: Ghostcrawler (World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Request for a Status Report on Mages)
We are going to be announcing some of our plans for classes in 3.1 fairly soon. The announcements will be prominent. They will not be comprehensive. We are not going to announce every change we are going to make. We are going to risk giving you some insight into a work in progress, even though we may ultimately decide not to make some of the changes. You guys can help me remind other players of that when they get angry because we didn't deliver a change that they were "promised."
Last edited by Spink : 02/05/09 at 11:26 PM.
Reason: adding disclaimer/formatting.
One thing that stuck out to me, is that the wording implies Prayer of Healing is affecting the groups of the target, while the recently explicitly said they were trying to move away from group composition within a raid.
I assume Blood Frenzy (Arms) got buffed with Savage Combat.
Does Hunger for Blood eat a bleed effect or just require one? Does it have to be yours?
Improved Divine Spirit, if it still exists, seems like it's looking for a selfish benefit.
One thing that stuck out to me, is that the wording implies Prayer of Healing is affecting the groups of the target, while the recently explicitly said they were trying to move away from group composition within a raid.
Considering you can cast it on any group of your choice, I'm not sure composition will really be affected all that much. Totems continue to be the primary group composition driver at the moment.
ed: when I say totems, I mean cleansing and mana tide.
I imagine that Mace Specialization/Savage Combat(Blood Frenzy) change for Rogues will double up for Warriors as well.
I'd also think it's a safe bet that any changes they post will be all positive. IE Hiding any nerfs until it hits the PTR.
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One thing that stuck out to me, is that the wording implies Prayer of Healing is affecting the groups of the target, while the recently explicitly said they were trying to move away from group composition within a raid.
In fact this change does exactly that -- it matters not what group your priest is in now.
It reads to me as if Prayer of Healing is becoming like the old CoH, but with a cast time. It will matter less what group your priests are in, but you will still need to put say, all your melee in the same group (though I would not be surprised if most guilds still do this out of habit, if nothing else).
I find the combination of Healing Stream totem and Mana Spring totem intriegueing for a number of reasons: firstly that I believe at the moment one of these totems effects the whole raid and the other just your group, and secondly that it removes what is, at least in a 5 man, somewhat of an interesting decision (ie. which one is more efficient to put down).
It reads to me as if Prayer of Healing is becoming like the old CoH, but with a cast time. It will matter less what group your priests are in, but you will still need to put say, all your melee in the same group (though I would not be surprised if most guilds still do this out of habit, if nothing else).
I find the combination of Healing Stream totem and Mana Spring totem intriegueing for a number of reasons: firstly that I believe at the moment one of these totems effects the whole raid and the other just your group, and secondly that it removes what is, at least in a 5 man, somewhat of an interesting decision (ie. which one is more efficient to put down).
That is the problem with a group-targeted spell. However, Prayer of Healing has a reasonable radius (36 yards talented), so the only group mix that will fail on it is 2 rogues + 3 hunters (which has become our defacto Group #2 in raids). But for a group like that, you're better off using CoH or PoM anyway, or letting a shaman CHeal through the melee. For ranged healing, PoH just became a *whole* lot better. Perfect change, especially with the Light's Grace-esque "priming" being added to Serendipity. 2.0 second PoH, targeted, will become a perfect supplement to CHeal.
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Disc Priests are getting some really nice pvp buffs, being able to cast Penance on yourself is godly and the aoe priest bubble and serendipity functioning like Tidal Waves also seems really nice. Right now the worst pvp healer seems to be resto druid (in my eyes anyways, I can't remember the last time I've lost to a team with a resto druid simply because they are pretty squishy and respond horribly to switches in this kind of bursty environment) so I'm hoping they get some buffs.
I'm kind of indifferent on Shaman buffs because I play Resto which I think is fine in all aspects of the game right now (except we get absolutely power fucked by rogues). I'm anticipating (praying) for a pvp holy paladin nerf (probably to divine plea, holy shock and/or divine favor), Survival Hunter (TnT needs to be removed period, I think LnL could use a nerf too or maybe they could just make ES hit with fire damage and then have the ticks do bleed so armor mitigates it similar to what they did with divine storm), Arcane Mages (shouldn't even have to explain this one) and I'd like to say rogues but I really think that shamans are the only class that has issues with them and I shouldn't be able to tank every class 1v1.
Edited for wall of text.
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Disc Priests are getting some really nice pvp buffs, being able to cast Penance on yourself is godly and the aoe priest bubble and serendipity functioning like Tidal Waves also seems really nice. Right now the worst pvp healer seems to be resto druid (in my eyes anyways, I can't remember the last time I've lost to a team with a resto druid simply because they are pretty squishy and respond horribly to switches in this kind of bursty environment) so I'm hoping they get some buffs.
Edited for wall of text.
I completely disagree--right now Priests are the worst PvP healer (check the top 100), though druids are pretty bad.
But that's not what I completely disagree with...I disagree that they're really nice PvP buffs. Being able to group PW:S is not a major buff in PvP (rarely would I even consider doing it, given its likely mana cost). Being able to cast penance on myself IS a buff--vs. good players it means I'll be able to self-heal for one, maybe two ticks before getting interrupted.
No--the biggest problem is what was NOT changed: Priests vs. Poisons. Until that's addressed, priests will always be a broken class, extra-hard-countered by Rogues and Hunters, balanced (maybe) otherwise. Deadly Brew and Viper Sting are balanced as if all healers can dispel poison, but only three of them can. Nothing else in the game is so obviously too-powerful against one class and fair against everyone else. And before someone claims "priests are fine": No, they're not. Hard-counters are NOT fine. It is NOT ok to go in to a match and know you'll lose 100% of the time because your opponent is a Hunter.
Additionally, Rogue talents that needed to be changed (Overkill, Dirty Deeds) were left alone, which does nothing to alleviate the concerns of Rogues doing ridiculous burst out of stealth, and being arguably underpowered when out of Vanishes.
Other than self-Penance, not a single one of the listed changes makes a dent in PvP balance. I am profoundly unimpressed with these notes. Hopefully they're PvE-centric changes only, otherwise Arena will not be improved for anyone.
I'm actually a little concerned about what Ulduar will be like after reading the patch notes. If Blizzard are improving priest AOE healing ability, then it seems like a return to the tired mechanic where raid difficulty is measured by the amount of AOE damage that the boss puts out might be imminent.
Additionally, Rogue talents that needed to be changed (Overkill, Dirty Deeds) were left alone, which does nothing to alleviate the concerns of Rogues doing ridiculous burst out of stealth, and being arguably underpowered when out of Vanishes.
As someone mentioned above, you should notice that these patch notes are almost entirely buffs. The one thing that appears to be a nurf, that being Hunger for Blood, is still a buff in many situations. There will be nurfs to come, they just aren't announced yet: these patch notes are simply to make us excited about some of the cool things coming for our classes. You can't say that, for example, every priest getting DS and disc getting a cool new toy is a negative in any way, its something to make everyone happy. These are they types of things we are seeing at the moment.
It reads to me as if Prayer of Healing is becoming like the old CoH, but with a cast time. It will matter less what group your priests are in, but you will still need to put say, all your melee in the same group (though I would not be surprised if most guilds still do this out of habit, if nothing else).
I find the combination of Healing Stream totem and Mana Spring totem intriegueing for a number of reasons: firstly that I believe at the moment one of these totems effects the whole raid and the other just your group, and secondly that it removes what is, at least in a 5 man, somewhat of an interesting decision (ie. which one is more efficient to put down).
I really like the idea of PoH being an "unintelligent" heal restricted to groups - it definitely has it's use in many situations but is not overwhelming enough to be a spammed ability at the expense of the other heals at a priests disposal.
Totems, well, the changes seem a little lackluster to me. I would suggest that these changes are being made for solo and five man utility, giving (say) the enhance shaman doing his dailies or the resto shaman doing a heroic slightly less buttons to press in any given situation.
Having never played a Priest, I'd like to clarify how Prayer of Healing works:
Right now, on Live, it is completely untargeted. When it goes off, the Priest and the 4 other people in the Priest's group get healed, provided they're within range.
The change implies that POH will become a targeted spell in 3.1. When it goes off, the target and the 4 other people in the target's group get healed, provided they're within range.
Did I get that right?
Originally Posted by PSGarak
Does Hunger for Blood eat a bleed effect or just require one? Does it have to be yours?
The wording as well as the blue clarification* following the initial posting of these changes seem to indicate that:
1. The presence of a bleed effect lights up HFB for use, just like you need an Immolate before Conflagrate will light up.
2. It will not consume the bleed effect.
3. Any bleed effect will do. You could always open up with a Garrote, but then a really early Deep Wounds crit could beat you to the punch anyway.
The idea with Hunger for Blood is you will probably have bleeds available from other classes in a raid setting (and even if you didn't you can add them yourself)
The wording as well as the blue clarification* following the initial posting of these changes seem to indicate that:
1. The presence of a bleed effect lights up HFB for use, just like you need an Immolate before Conflagrate will light up.
2. It will not consume the bleed effect.
3. Any bleed effect will do. You could always open up with a Garrote, but then a really early Deep Wounds crit could beat you to the punch anyway.
That's pretty cool, Mut Rogues and Warriors will get some synergy in PvP again.
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Having never played a Priest, I'd like to clarify how Prayer of Healing works:
Right now, on Live, it is completely untargeted. When it goes off, the Priest and the 4 other people in the Priest's group get healed, provided they're within range.
The change implies that POH will become a targeted spell in 3.1. When it goes off, the target and the 4 other people in the target's group get healed, provided they're within range.
Did I get that right?
That's correct.
As for earlier posters, I don't think you should worry too much about that for Ulduar. Priests can do an interesting Binding Heal->PoH->CoH combo to top up the raid, but I don't think you're going to see priests chain casting PoH. Without the BH->PoH combo, it still casts fairly slow and the fact that it's restricted to a group might limit it's ultimate effectiveness as opposed to the old spammable CoH, which is a smart target.
Finally, the Shadow Priest survivability "buff" is rather underwhelming, to put it mildly. The Dispersion change is completely useless, as if a rogue or a warrior is on me, the snare will be reapplied while Dispersed for 6 seconds -- unless we're immune to snares while Dispersed. We have Fade to remove it anyways when we need it, one would never use Dispersion simply to remove a snare. Shadowform working on magical damage is nice (and in fact is even nicer for PvE -- think Sunwell all over again) but in all honesty it's not casters that worry spriests.
(Constantius) Perfect change, especially with the Light's Grace-esque "priming" being added to Serendipity. 2.0 second PoH, targeted, will become a perfect supplement to CHeal.
Is this actually added or are they changing the tallent completely and removing the mana regen component? My reading of the notes is that it is actually a replacement which makes it less valuable but probably still a buff overall on any content that is actually difficult. Will reserve judgement until we see exactly how much haste you gain through this. Considering that at least 50% of raiding priests just got a 94 spirit buff as now everyone has DS a reduction on regen may not be totally out of line in the developers eyes.
(minorthreat) I'm actually a little concerned about what Ulduar will be like after reading the patch notes. If Blizzard are improving priest AOE healing ability, then it seems like a return to the tired mechanic where raid difficulty is measured by the amount of AOE damage that the boss puts out might be imminent.
This is basically inevitable as even with patch you are pushing the edge of how much more tank damage you can throw at a raid without instagibbing the tanks. Also fights like patch have to have a tight DPS enrage as healer mana at those levels is the limiting factor even today when literally chain casting. There may be some more multitank, multiphase fights but to be honest apart from saph the raid healing requirements of most naxx bosses is very very low.
As for earlier posters, I don't think you should worry too much about that for Ulduar. Priests can do an interesting Binding Heal->PoH->CoH combo to top up the raid, but I don't think you're going to see priests chain casting PoH. Without the BH->PoH combo, it still casts fairly slow and the fact that it's restricted to a group might limit it's ultimate effectiveness as opposed to the old spammable CoH, which is a smart target.
Also, they might tinker with the range and/or coefficient. Today it has 36 yards range (with 2/2 holy reach), which would be quite crazy when targetted. I can't think of a fight where you would ever miss anyone in the targetted group with that kind of range, if you took some care into targetting the right person.
No--the biggest problem is what was NOT changed: Priests vs. Poisons. Until that's addressed, priests will always be a broken class, extra-hard-countered by Rogues and Hunters, balanced (maybe) otherwise. Deadly Brew and Viper Sting are balanced as if all healers can dispel poison, but only three of them can.
Deadly brew isn't balanced period. I agree with your assessment of viper sting however. The shaman changes are disappointing, however I do like poison and disease cleansing being on the same totem. Hopefully the disease/poison totem functions like "Cleanse Spirit", in that it removes a poison AND a disease. If it only removes one (and is random) I will like it less in PvP as I need to know what I am dispelling.
I completely disagree--right now Priests are the worst PvP healer (check the top 100), though druids are pretty bad.
But that's not what I completely disagree with...I disagree that they're really nice PvP buffs. Being able to group PW:S is not a major buff in PvP (rarely would I even consider doing it, given its likely mana cost). Being able to cast penance on myself IS a buff--vs. good players it means I'll be able to self-heal for one, maybe two ticks before getting interrupted.
No--the biggest problem is what was NOT changed: Priests vs. Poisons. Until that's addressed, priests will always be a broken class, extra-hard-countered by Rogues and Hunters, balanced (maybe) otherwise. Deadly Brew and Viper Sting are balanced as if all healers can dispel poison, but only three of them can. Nothing else in the game is so obviously too-powerful against one class and fair against everyone else. And before someone claims "priests are fine": No, they're not. Hard-counters are NOT fine. It is NOT ok to go in to a match and know you'll lose 100% of the time because your opponent is a Hunter.
Additionally, Rogue talents that needed to be changed (Overkill, Dirty Deeds) were left alone, which does nothing to alleviate the concerns of Rogues doing ridiculous burst out of stealth, and being arguably underpowered when out of Vanishes.
Other than self-Penance, not a single one of the listed changes makes a dent in PvP balance. I am profoundly unimpressed with these notes. Hopefully they're PvE-centric changes only, otherwise Arena will not be improved for anyone.
Arena is a team game, just because you can't remove poisons doesn't mean your partner can't.
If we assume the Savage Combat change will be mirrored to Arms warriors, note that this is essentially a buff across the spectrum for physical DPS classes in PVE.
Arena is a team game, just because you can't remove poisons doesn't mean your partner can't.
Come on, this isn't a fair statement. There are so many situations that can arise, even with a partner who can dispell poisons (and how many classes do you exclude?) that this is not a reasonable statement.
Likely though (as they have talked about) they are going to overhaul the dispell system, which as I see it most likely will mean a more uniform defensive dispell mechanism (something like cleanse).
Other than self-Penance, not a single one of the listed changes makes a dent in PvP balance. I am profoundly unimpressed with these notes. Hopefully they're PvE-centric changes only, otherwise Arena will not be improved for anyone.
It is extremely important to remember that these notes are preliminary, deliberately vague and intentionally incomplete.
From a Shaman point of view: while having streamlined totems is certainly nice to have, its major impact will probably be the ability to drop 2 keybinds. I'm really disappointed if they don't do something more radical to the restoration tree which I feel right now is a conceptual mess even though its performance is somehow adequate.
Nevertheless it seems they try to put buffing classes on a more equal footing as evidenced by the unleashed rage changes (which are pretty nice). Also having aggro reduction on all abilities is a solid change that aknowledges that the enhancer damage is coming from two source now.
Regarding those rogue changes: i'm not convinced that HfB is really responsible for the assasination burst - seeing how every single rogue in the arena is playing mutilate/preparation right now. We will see how it pans out once more changes are announced but right now those actions won't change a lot in arenas. It will be interesting how HfB work out for PVE though, really looking forward to this change, the talent feels slightly underpowered for an ultimate right now.
Regarding those rogue changes: i'm not convinced that HfB is really responsible for the assasination burst - seeing how every single rogue in the arena is playing mutilate/preparation right now. We will see how it pans out once more changes are announced but right now those actions won't change a lot in arenas. It will be interesting how HfB work out for PVE though, really looking forward to this change, the talent feels slightly underpowered for an ultimate right now.
Rogue's haven't been and won't be speccing into HfB for pvp besides the occasional pve specced rogue joining a battleground. Alot of our bursts comes from 4 piece pvp set+overkill+vigor (glyphed)+dirty deeds giving us acces to more abilities for the first 6 seconds then we should be capable of using. The first 25 points in sub are so powerful that speccing deeper into assassination is just not worth it. MoD, Relentless Strikes, Opportunity, Heightened Senses, Dirty Deeds, Preparation, Elusiveness and serrated blades to a certain extent are all great talents and can all be gotten with 25 points in sub. Our reliance for pvp on these talents means we will still ignore the high end talents in other trees.
02/04/09, 11:40 PM
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