Alpha Patch Notes - June 18 Update, Blue Posts, Blue Tweets, The Voice of Gazlowe

Ability Pruning

• Druid
  
  • Leader of the Pack is now only available to Feral Druids, and no longer restores Mana.
• Monk
  
  • Dematerialize has been removed.
  • Sparring has been removed.
  • Stance of the Fierce Tiger now also provides the benefits of Combo Breaker and Combat Conditioning, and is replaced by another stance for non-Windwalkers. (See Monk class section for additional details.)
    
    • Brewmaster: Stance of the Sturdy Ox replaces Stance of the Fierce Tiger.
    • Mistweaver: Stance of the Spirited Crane now replaces Stance of the Fierce Tiger.
    • Combat Conditioning has been removed.
    • Combo Breaker has been removed.
  • Stance of the Sturdy Ox now also provides the benefits of Brewmaster Training and Desperate Measures.
    
    • Brewmaster Training has been removed.
    • Desperate Measures has been removed.
  • Stance of the Wise Serpent now also causes Spinning Crane Kick to heal allies instead of dealing damage.
    
    • Teachings of the Monastery has been removed.
  • Swift Reflexes has been removed.
  • Touch of Death is no longer available to Mistweaver Monks.
  • Transcendence is no longer available to Mistweaver Monks.
  • Zen Meditation is no longer available to Mistweaver Monks, and no longer redirects harmful spells cast against party and raid members.
• Warrior
  
  • Berserker Rage no longer Enrage the Warrior, generates Rage or increases Physical damage dealt. It now functions to break and provide immunity from Fear, Incapacitates, and Sap.
  • Crazed Berserker now includes the functionality of Single-Minded Fury and Titan’s Grip.
    
    • Single-Minded Fury has been removed.
    • Titan’s Grip has been removed.
  • Deep Wounds is now available only to Protection Warriors.
  • Devastate now naturally has a 30% chance to reset the cooldown of Shield Slam.
    
    • Sword and Board has been removed.
  • Enraged Regeneration healing has been increased by 100%, but no longer is increased by being Enraged.
  • Flurry has been removed.
  • Hamstring now costs 10 Rage and deals 20% weapon damage in addition to reducing movement speed, and is only usable in Battle Stance or Gladiator Stance. is now a passive ability that causes Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst, Revenge, and Raging Blow to also reduce the target’s movement speed by 50% for 15 seconds.
  • Mass Spell Reflection now requires Defensive Stance.
  • Meat Cleaver has been removed.
  • Mocking Banner now requires Defensive Stance.
  • Rallying Cry is no longer available to Protection Warriors, and requires Defensive Stance.
  • Revenge now requires Defensive Stance or Gladiator Stance.
  • Safeguard now requires Defensive Stance.
  • Shield Slam now requires Defensive Stance or Gladiator Stance.
  • Spell Reflection now requires Defensive Stance.
  • Sweeping Strikes now requires Battle Stance.
  • Taunt now requires Defensive Stance.
  • Thunder Clap now costs 30 Rage, and also reduces the movement speed of nearby enemies by 50% for 6 seconds. Requires Defensive Stance or Gladiator Stance and is no longer available to Fury Warriors.
  • Ultimatum has been removed.
  • Vigilance now requires Defensive Stance.
  • Warrior Stances once again have their own action bars.
  • Whirlwind now requires Battle Stance and is available only to Fury and Arms Warriors.
  • Wild Strike now costs no resources to use with a global cooldown of 1 second, but is not usable normally. Bloodthirst hits have a 20% chance of making Wild Strike usable with 3 charges.
    
    • Bloodsurge has been removed.

Buffs and Debuffs

• Moonkin Form now grants increased Mastery instead of 5% to Spell Haste.

Self-Sustainability

• Mage
  
  • Conjured Refreshments now restores 100% health and Mana over 20 seconds, regardless of level.

Druid

• Survival Instincts no longer requires or forces the Druid into Cat or Bear Form, and is now available to all Druid specializations. Survival Instincts now reduces damage taken by 70% (up from 50%) with a 2-minute cooldown (down from 3 minutes), and can have up to 2 charges (up from 1 charge).

Monk

• All abilities available to Mistweavers now have a 1.5-second global cooldown (up from 1 second).
  
  • Stance of the Sturdy Ox and Stance of the Fierce Tiger now reduce the global cooldown of the Monk’s abilities by 0.5 seconds.
  • Stance of the Wise Serpent now causes Haste to reduce global cooldown of the Monk’s abilities.
• Focus and Harmony is a new passive ability for Mistweaver Monks and causes Haste effects to reduce the global cooldown of spells and abilities.
  
• Stance of the Spirited Crane is a new ability for Mistweaver Monks, which replaces Stance of the Fierce Tiger, and provides the following effects.
  
  • The Spell-Power-to-Attack-Power conversion effect has been moved from Stance of the Wise Serpent to Stance of the Spirited Crane.
  • The Eminence effect has been moved from Stance of the Wise Serpent to Stance of the Spirited Crane.
    
    • Eminence now causes a nearby target to be healed for 35% of all damage caused by the Monk and includes auto attacks.
  • The Monk's Attack Power is equal to 100% of their Spell Power, and they no longer benefit from other sources of Attack Power.
    
    • Stance of the Wise Serpent no longer provides this benefit.
  • The Monk gains Eminence, causing all damage dealt to also heal nearby allies.
    
    • Eminence now causes a nearby target to be healed for 35% of all damage caused by the Monk and includes auto attacks.
    • Stance of the Wise Serpent no longer provides this benefit.
  • Haste reduces the global cooldown of the Monk’s abilities.
  • The Monk gains a stack of Vital Mists for every Chi consumed. Vital Mists reduces the cast time and Mana cost of the next Surging Mist by 20% per stack up to a maximum of 5 stacks.
  • Muscle Memory has been removed.
  • Serpent’s Zeal has been removed.
  • Vital Mists has been removed.
• Muscle Memory, Serpent's Zeal, and Vital Mists have been replaced with a new passive ability, Crane Style Techniques. Crane Style Techniques enhances several of the Monk's combat abilities while in Crane Stance.
• Rising Sun Kick is now available to Mistweaver and Windwalker Monks. However, it does not cause Mortal Wounds for Mistweavers.
  
  • The Windwalker passive ability, Combat Conditioning, Stance of the Fierce Tiger now causes Rising Sun Kick to cause Mortal Wounds, instead of it causing Mortal Wounds naturally.
• Teachings of the Monastery now makes Spinning Crane Kick heal friends instead of damaging enemies, while in Stance of the Wise Serpent (previously, it would heal allies in addition to damaging enemies).

Priest

• Devouring Plague now always costs 3 Shadow Orbs.

Warrior
Developer's Note: Arms is still undergoing heavy revision and additional information will be made available later.

• Battle Stance for Arms Warriors now generates increased 100% Rage from auto-attacks and Critical Strikes now generate double Rage.
• Defensive Stance for Arms Warriors now generates 50% as much Rage from auto-attacks as in Battle Stance.
• Mastery: Strikes of Opportunity has been removed, and replaced with a new ability, Mastery: Weapons Master.
  
  • Mastery: Weapons Master increases the damage of Colossus Smash, Slam, Mortal Strike, and Execute abilities by 20% (increasing with Mastery).
• Blood and Thunder has been removed.
  
  • Deep Wounds is now available only to Protection Warriors, and naturally triggers from Thunder Clap.
  • Thunder Clap is now available only to Protection Warriors, and its damage has been increased by 50%.
• Executioner is a new passive ability for Arms Warriors.
  
  • Executioner causes the Warrior's auto attack hits to generate an additional 40 Rage against targets with less than 20% health remaining. Additionally, the Execute ability no longer requires the target to be below 20% health to use, but its Rage cost is increased by 100%.
• Colossus Smash now costs 30 Rage, deals 225% increased damage, and no longer increases the damage of Slam.
• Enrage is no longer available to Arms Warriors.
• Execute for Arms Warriors now costs 20 Rage, and consumes up to 40 additional Rage to deal additional damage.
• Mortal Strike now costs 30 Rage (instead of generating 10 Rage). generates 20 Rage (up from 10 Rage).
• Slam has been removed. now costs 15 Rage (down from 25 Rage) and no longer has additional effects when Sweeping Strikes is active.
• Sudden Death has been removed.
• Unbridled Wrath has been removed.
• Whirlwind is now available to Arms Warriors.

Another question I've seen asked...

Baseline healer mana regen with no Spirit
0.8%/sec for level 1-90.
Drops by 0.04%/sec per level past 90.
0.4%/sec at level 100.

Is the radius of lava lash's flame shock spread centered on the shaman or on the target that's being lava lashed with flame shock on it?
Centered on the target that's being Lava Lashed.

Could you elaborate on this?

-Say I have 0 stacks of SoB, and am about to begin AoEing. My main target has BP/FF at 20s, while another nearby target has them at 28 seconds. Pestilence, in this case, will take the 28 second DoTs and apply them to everything?
Still a bit murky about how 0 stack SoB works with NP, since on Alpha it starts by spreading at 1 stack/30s and then adds stacks after- is this all intended?

-Now say I have 2 stacks of SoB- instead of looking for a target with longer diseases, Pestilence will automatically refresh BP/FF on all nearby targets or spread them at full duration. In addition, it will add one stack to existing Necrotic Plague infections OR spread 1 stack/30 second Necrotic Plague to any targets without the disease.

I was referring to Scent of Blood, the passive, not the stacks. The SoB passive is what says the "your Pestilence refreshes your diseases" effect.

Vereesa (Verestrasz) has noticed that Pestilence for Unholy/Frost DKs seems to be spreading diseases at current durations instead of spreading them at new durations- is this intended, or a bug? If it's intended, could you elaborate on Pestilence's functionality for both DPS specs- assuming BP/FF and Necrotic Plague?

Also, will Pestilence behave better with big boss models and adds from now on? Thinking ones like Ragnaros, Al'Akir and Immerseus here.
Yes, intended. That's why I said it *clones* the diseases to the other targets.

Pestilence hits all units who have any part of their hit box within 10yd of you.

Related to your multistrike conversation with Collision, Shining Protector is also acting in an anomalous way. It's not really a theorycrafting issue though, so no point in discussing the details here. Bug thread thisaway: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/13183868324

Yep, Shining Protector was bugged, still using the old 2x (X/2)% style. Fixed, for the build after next.

Does the cloned dot include the current ongoing time-to-tick on the new target?
Yup.

What is the spirit regen formula/scaling at level 100?
It's 0.412207024 Mana per second, per Spirit.

What's the mana regen rate of arcane mages now that the 90 tier is decoupled from mana?
(1+Haste)*1.8% of base max mana per second.
EDIT: Fixed. Originally said 0.4%, but forgot that Mages have a hidden passive which gives them 4.5x.

Can multistrike melee hits proc "on melee hit" procs like killing machine and sudden doom?
No. Multistrikes cannot proc other things, unless those other things specifically call out that they proc from Multistrikes.

How will Blood in the Water (feral execute, rip refresh on FB) work with the panedmic mechanic. Will it grant a longer 130% duration Rip, or will it always reset to the base duration like it does now?
Fixed Blood in the Water and Touch of Chaos to be able to refresh up to 1.3x base duration. That'll be in the build after next.

Reminder for anyone working on Recount, Skada, etc... Filter out damage done to Prismatic Crystal. The Mage will cast an additional spell that does damage to enemies based on damage they deal to Prismatic Crystal, so if you include both, you'll be double-counting them.

Please confirm this. My current level 92 fire mage on alpha has 1.8% mana per second, which is almost an order of magnitude higher. My template 90 arcane mage also has much higher mana regen than this quoted number.

EDIT: 3330 combat regen mp5 according to tooltip on naked template 90 orc arcane mage. Mana pool is 37000, which gives 1.8% mana per second. Is the quoted mana regen implemented yet?

EDIT2: Fix numbers and here's a screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/Gz5oH0C.jpg
3330 mp5 over 37000 mana pool, 3330/5 = 666, 666/37000 = 1.8%. This does not agree with quoted 0.4% figure.
Whoops. There's a passive that gives them 4.5x Mana regen, but I forgot that it's hidden, you don't see it. Yes, it's 1.8%, not 0.4%. Fixed the post above.

Thanks. Does this mana regen rate decay from level 90 to 100?
It does not.

#2 and #3 are currently not working. Sweeping strikes never multistrike, and multistrikes are not added to the ignite.
Yep, I fixed those late last week; check next build.

What is the mechanical philosophy behind Eminence and Atonement?
It varies. All stats benefit healing, but it's alright if only some stats benefit Atonement/Eminence, or only competitively benefit Atonement/Eminence. But lets keep this thread about theorycrafting, and leave the "why" and philosophy for other threads. Feel free to state what the values of each stat are (based on theorycraft) are to Atonement/Eminence though here, that's good data.

noticed that if Blood Craze is procced on consecutive autoattacks, it seems to become an ignite? It looked like it was adding the leftover dot into the next 3 ticks. Does that sound right?
Yep.

Classes
I noticed Resolve isn't meant to affect life% heals,but it affects Empowered Seals-->Insight(which is op anyway at 5%hp/2 secs)
Resolve will actually affect % heals, in most cases. (Celestalon)
Ok, the thread just said Resolve does not affect percent-based heals (i.e. "heals you for 20% of your life" would be unaffected
Oh, it does say that. I wrote that a bit ago; we're still discussing, and think it's worth trying if it does work on % heals. (Celestalon)

Why do tanks need vengeance/resolve? Can't you just get rid of it?
It's so % reduction abilities (ie Shield Block) and flat reduction abilities (ie Shield Barrier) stay competitive with each other. (Celestalon)
From a healer point of view, it makes them NPC that don't require much attention unless they have no idea what they're doing :/
That's not Resolve; that's the overall defensive power of tanks, which was too strong in Mists, and is coming way down in Warlords. (Celestalon)

Druid (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
is sunfire + astral showers getting a graphical update to reflect it's aoe effect?
It will not drop a beam on each target, just the center one; it does an impact visual on each other hit target though. (Celestalon)

Can't post on us forum. What's the shooting stars chance for multiple moonfires? Still: base_chance * sqrt(x)/x ?
No, Shooting Stars is only the most recent Moonfire and Sunfire now. (Celestalon)
Still 2.5% chance to proc? Seems farily low compared to 30% chance on crit live version.
No, 5%. (Celestalon)

is there a way to recalculate, so that mastery procs doesnt count? it would be a shame if snapshot going away bc this
Yeah, we're working on a change to make it snapshot Balance Energy, and then dynamically turn that into Eclipse per tick (Celestalon)

Do you have any plans of capping the amount you can extend MF/SF with Balance of Power like the old Starfire glyph?
You can extend it an infinite number of times, but the debuffs can never have a duration longer than 1.3x their normal duration. (Celestalon)
These Q's confuse me. Lots of boomkin chatter but I can probably count the # of boomies I've seen in randoms on my fingers. WTH?
Seems like these changes will help the problem, no? (Celestalon)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Possible to add a combatlog entry with the name of who Misdirection was cast on? Impossible to track with WeakAuras and others.
I believe it does in 6.0; test it when you get access and let me know if it doesn't. (Celestalon)

Can we talk less about pets and more about why Bear Trap is such a terrible idea for a 2 minute cooldown?
I don't think it was a terrible idea, but its big reason for existing was removed, so we cut it. (Celestalon)

Mage (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
carrion swarm & supernova both could be used as an interrupt, yet the former is something you dont want warlocks to have, why?
Supernova is an alternate of Frost Nova; giving up Frost Nova is a big deal. (Celestalon)

And on the back end of that, why not for arcane either, shouldn't arcane multis gain dmg from mastery and/or arcane charges?
Arcane's multistrikes do benefit from Mastery and Arcane Charges. (Celestalon)

Are frosts frostbolt multistrikes supposed to proc the icicles? If so why do they work for ignite but not frost.
Multistrikes will be create Icicles and Ignites in the build after next. (Celestalon)

Could you explain what the Supernova is supposed to do exactly? The knock-up looks tiny and doesn't seem to serve much purpose.
It may be on the weak side still. It's a short CC, but doesn't break on damage like freezes do, always interrupts, etc. (Celestalon)
Not a bad idea though its going to need a pretty sizable shot in the arm to be useful. Thanks for the reply.
Ah, there's one change coming soon that I don't think has been mentioned yet: Supernova/Ice Nova/Blast Wave all have 2 charges now. (Celestalon)

Nether Tempest appears to snapshot arcane charges, but update with mana and SP changes, tooltip confirms, intended?
Intended. (Celestalon)

Monk (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Will monk's +20% Blackout Kick perk work with Chi Explosion?
I believe so, though it doesn't really matter in practice; it'll be tuned around whichever way it is. Always have the perk. (Celestalon)

Versatility: Will fistweaving double dip? How will it work for heals based on damage?
No; it affects them exactly once. 100dmg->100healing. With 10% Versatility, 110dmg->110healing. (Celestalon)

Paladin (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Cant you make the talent gives the effects of Readiness without it being a stat?
Without the stat to support it, that's a significant amount of additional complexity. (Celestalon)

Priest (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Should Devouring Plague's duration decrease with Haste? Bonus orb talents and more DPs vs. smaller MF:I window.
No, Haste reduces the period and duration of Devouring Plague. Results in a consistent number of GCDs in each DP. (Celestalon)
I thought haste wasn't going to be reducing dot durations, only moding the period? That not a thing?
Devouring Plague changed; it's not that kind of DoT anymore. (Celestalon)
so its a nice nerf to shadow. Another one.
No, it's not a nerf. That's a change, not a nerf. (Celestalon)

Rogue (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Currently, Death from Above sometimes only works when you're 10y away or so. Isn't it supposed to be used while in melee?
Ah, that's not range, that's the low ceiling; it's failing to path to the point in the air it's trying to get to. Will fix that. (Celestalon)
Aye my bad. There's something to fix though, so I guess uploading the clip wasn't so useless after all. Thanks anyway.
No, not useless at all, good testing. Still a bug, just wasn't the cause you thought it was. (Celestalon)

Saw Death from above on yt. Any chance we get a cool anim with it? Right now it's the plain jump anim with pull to trg
It has a unique visual; it's not even remotely the plain jump anim. (Celestalon)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Sudden Death: will it proc from white only going forward, or is there a chance for Multistrike to replace SoO's contribution?
White only, and tuned accordingly. (Celestalon)

Any thought what might replace Anger Management talent for warriors since Readiness isn't going to be put in the game?
It's staying (for now, anyway), we'll just list the abilities on its tooltip, instead of saying to reference Readiness. (Celestalon)

Character / Items
will the proc chance of WoD RPPM trinkets scale with haste? Or case by case basis?
General rule is that either the proc rate or the proc benefit scales with haste, not both. (Celestalon)

Warlords of Draenor Stats
I thought the dps pots were still primary stat
Yeah, potions are primaries. (Celestalon)

Also, does multi-strike trigger "on hit" effects, like killing machine (proc off white hit) or DK T75(rune regen tier?)
Not unless specifically called out as such. (Celestalon)
is there an example spell that does call out for "on multistrike hit" you can give me? Thanks for the quick replies.
Blood Craze is one. Few more in next build. Plans to add some to a few more specs. (Celestalon)

Does that mean 66 ms rating will give two 1% chances to do an additional 30% dmg? And 80 haste rating = 1% haste?
Yes. Versatility undecided yet, but I'd guess somewhere around 130. (Celestalon)

is armor mitigation going to be 75% or 85% in 6.0?
The cap will be 85%. (Celestalon)
so using armor/armor+k_value means we'll see 29650 being the 85% cap?
Armor/(Armor+K), but yeah. And it'd be 29660 with rounding. (Celestalon)

PvP
Arent you afraid, that ne new sec. Stats will have a huge Impact in PvP? Even if these Stats are low? If not, why?
That's not a fear, that's an expectation. They most certainly will have an effect on PvP. That's not a bad thing, though. (Celestalon)
Ah ok, you seems to be very relaxed. Why are you bringing these Stats in the Game, if you know, these can be "bad" for PvP?
It's a good thing when we add new content and systems to the game, especially in expansions. It keeps the game from getting stale (Celestalon)
For sure! But doesent some Speccs sacle more with these stats than other? I think of "bursty" classes, which benefit too much.
We're tuning with these stats in mind. (Celestalon)

World
I bet it's not tuned yet. per post on spell damage tuning.
No, it's tuned and consciously deadlier. Going for a leisurely swim in lava is silly. (WatcherDev)

Misc
GC's Law: In social games, players fear the perception that they are uninformed more than the perception that they play badly.
Sort of an aside, but once I bought a recommended item and my friends busted my balls. That was a bad experience. (holinka)
We will see win rates increase when we change recommended items.
It contributes to the original point that even though the choice was fine, the social element made it feel bad. (holinka)
We see high ban rates for champions with low win rates, we assume because the pros are doing it.
This legit confuses the crap out of me. What makes people think the meta is the same at every skill level?
Back to Greg's original point, the fear of picking the "wrong champ" as defined by "the best" drives behavior (holinka)