World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

We've seen a lot of discussion and debate over the new set bonuses. Just so everyone is aware, we're still assessing the set bonuses for tier 12 as we go through more testing and gathering more feedback.

To give you a heads up on what we're looking at so far though, here are the most recent bonuses we have in mind for some of the sets (some of what's listed below are amendments to the existing bonuses on the PTR).

Some of these bonuses might already be live as of the build pushed earlier this week, while some are yet to be implemented. If your class/specialization isn't listed here, it means the bonuses either haven't changed, or the changes haven't been solidified. Just the same, all of this is subject to ch-ch-changes over the course of the PTR process. Your feedback is appreciated!

• Blood Death Knight 4-Piece: The bonus to parry from Dancing Rune Weapon now begins when Dancing Rune Weapon wears off, instead of lasting while Dancing Rune Weapon is active.
  
  
• Frost/Unholy Death Knight 4-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced -- Your Obliterate and Scourge Strike abilities deal 6% additional damage as Fire damage over 4 seconds.
  
  
• Feral Druid 4-Piece: The bonus to dodge from Barkskin now begins when Barkskin wears off, instead of lasting while Barkskin is active.
  
  
• Restoration Druid 4-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced -- Your Swiftmend also heals an injured target within 8 yards for the same amount.
  
  
• Holy Paladin 2-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced -- Healing with Holy Shock has a 40% chance to grant you 6% of your base mana.
  
  
• Holy Paladin 4-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced -- Your Divine Light, Flash of Light, and Holy Light spells also heal an injured target within 8 yards for 10% of the amount healed.
  
  
• Protection Paladin 4-Piece: The bonus to parry from Divine Protection now begins when Divine Protection wears off, instead of lasting while Divine Protection is active.
  
  
• Holy/Discipline Priest 2-Piece: Now also triggers from casting Prayer of Mending.
  
  
• Holy/Discipline Priest 4-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced -- You have a chance when you cast a helpful spell to summon a Cauterizing Flame at the target’s location. Each second the Cauterizing Flame will heal an injured party member within 20 yards for 9250 to 10750 health. Lasts 5 seconds.
  
  
• Shadow Priest 2-Piece: Now requires the priest to be in Shadowform to be active.
  
  
• Warlock 4-Piece: Now also triggers from casting Drain Soul.
  
  
• Arms/Fury Warrior 2-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced -- Your Battle Shout and Commanding Shout abilities grant you an additional 35 rage. Cannot occur more often than once every 60 seconds.
  
  
• Protection Warrior 4-Piece: The bonus to parry from Shield Wall now begins when Shield Wall wears off, instead of lasting while Shield Wall is active.

We've been repeatedly saying in various threads recently that we are listening, even if we're not acting on every piece of feedback we read. Well readers, listen up!

With the help of Ghostcrawler, the following will be added to the patch notes for the next PTR update:

• Players are once again free to dance in combat (without causing graphic errors). Other animations, such as attacks, will take precedence over dancing. The dance animation will be suppressed until the higher priority animation is complete. Fun has been unnerfed.

The concerns of the people vanished. And there was much dancing.

Patch 4.2 Conquest Points Changes
So, as many of you are interpreting this change, it is to encourage more participation in Rated Battlegrounds. We see the fact that participating in Arenas is by far the superior way of obtaining top-notch PvP gear, in terms of time investment, as a problem. If you want to maximize your Conquest Point gains in patch 4.2, you'll need to participate at least a little bit in Rated Battlegrounds.

We know this may not sound very appealing to those of you who have grown accustomed to spending as little as an hour a week getting the top PvP currency in the game via Arenas over the last couple of expansions. To put things in perspective though, the total number of items that can be purchased with Conquest Points today is much larger than what you used to be able to buy with Arena Points pre-Deathwing world explosion. And there is no longer a requirement to “grind” unrated BGs for Honor each season, so the real time investment isn't changing as much as some players are perceiving it to be.

On top of that, the frank reality is that the total time investment required in season 9 to get all your points has been much, much too low, as you could do that from a few 2v2 Arena games each week completed in less than an hour’s time. It shows that Rated Battlegrounds are currently sub-par in terms of the rate at which points can be accumulated.

We do feel this change is necessary to keep the time investment vs. high-quality item accumulation in check, even if it doesn't read well on paper. However, as always, your constructive feedback is welcomed. :) (Source)

Paladin (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Holy Paladins Nerf in 4.2
We increased paladin mana costs because they were too efficient at healing. In raid encounters, for instance, paladins were sitting at 40% of their mana while the other healers were flat out of mana. Paladins were casting Divine Light as their main heal because they didn’t need the efficiency of Holy Light. You personally may not have been in that situation, but when looking at the overall picture, as well as running plenty of tests, this was our conclusion overall. It is entirely possible this will hurt Holy paladins in PvP, where mana can be harder to come by. It is our hope that the recent Speed of Light change as well as another change or two coming will help offset that.

We did not make these mana cost changes because of the change to critical heals or because of any upcoming set bonuses (which are still being designed, by the way). We made the changes only because paladins were too efficient compared to druids, priests and shaman.

As a postscript, we see a lot of paladins advocating a strategy of Beacon the tank, heal the off-tank with Divine Light, and never ever do anything else... and if you ever heal the Beacon target, you fail. That’s just not a realistic goal. Stuff is going to happen that is unpredictable, or else you’d probably win every fight. You should make the most of Beacon, absolutely. It’s a great tool. But you shouldn’t consider anything that doesn’t maximize Beacon to be a class design or personal performance failure. Sometimes you’re going to want to heal the Beacon target directly. It happens.(Source)