There is definitely a lot of AE (area effect damage) going on in World of Warcraft dungeon runs at the moment. We’re not too worried about it for now – on the contrary it’s nice to see so many people doing the level-up dungeons on the way to level 80. If we find that AE tank + AE damage strategy (with no sheeping, sapping or other crowd control) is the only way people are running heroics and raids, then we’ll probably make some changes, but for now we’re content to just see what happens.

Having said all that, we feel like a few groups are being left out of the AE fun, which makes them of less utility in the 5-player dungeons. We aren’t able to provide a lot of details yet, but here are some upcoming changes we’re making.

• Shaman – we are removing the threat component from Fire Nova Totem and Magma Totem and increasing the damage from Magma Totem. This should provide the Elemental shamans in particular with some formidable AE.
• Rogue – we are removing the cooldown from Fan of Knives and adjusting the damage calculation slightly to make daggers more useful for this ability.
• Druid – we are adding Swipe (Cat) as a baseline ability.

As is the case with most multi-target abilities, these three should be something you want to use when faced with groups, but never against single targets. Fan of Knives and Swipe, for example, don’t grant combo points so they should never be a core part of the rotation against single targets (like most bosses).

These changes will be available in the next minor content update, so keep an eye out for the next PTR push.

We might still do an AE spell for Elemental as well, but that is further down the road. Let me be clear that shamans are intended to be a totem-using class. I would not expect a lot of changes that let you opt out of using totems. Instead we want to make them fun, easy and worth the effort. We did consider the problem of having to run up to AE, but this is what several specs do already -- mages to use Arcane Explosion for example. We talked to a lot of Elemental shamans who thought it wouldn't be a problem. Also remember than when a mage channels Blizzard, that is all she is doing. Totems do damage in addition to your spells.

Our goal is not to make every spec in the game awesome at AE damage. Our goal is to give you a button you can push to contribute in some way. We think Elemental shamans need to fill this role more than the rogues or Feral druids however, since they tend to compete for slots more against warlocks and mages, who have excellent AE. Our goal is for Elemental to be there as well. This may not get them there 100%, but it's a good improvement over nearly 0% which is where they stand today.

As far as whether you can AE too much, as I said, that is something we're keeping an eye on. Even Naxx is considered an entry-level raid and not the kind of place that requires Sunwell (or even Black Temple) -level coordination. For now it's nice to see so many players with the option to run 5-player instances and entry level raids. I would not expect the strategy in Ulduar and Icecrown to be "I'll Swipe while you guys Blizzard. Volley and Hurricane down all the trash."

We have already announced or suggested all of these changes would be forthcoming in the next minor content patch. I thought I would list them all in one place for ease of use.

• Divine Shield: Penalty changed so that all damage done is reduced by 50% instead of a attack speed penalty.
• Divine Protection no longer causes an attack penalty. Divine Shield's penalty was changed to 50% less damage done by the paladin.
• Sacred Duty: This Protection talent no longer affects the attack penalty of Divine Shield and Divine Protection, but grants additional bonus Stamina.
• Avenging Wrath, Divine Shield, Divine Protection, and Hand of Protection have a shared, 30-second cooldown. The Forbearance effect is no longer triggered by Avenging Wrath.
• Judgement of Wisdom now returns a percentage of base mana instead of a percentage of max mana.
• All mana drain effects now return a percentage of max enemy mana (making mana drains less punishing to paladins and other characters without large mana pools.)
• Judgements of the Pure: This Holy talent now increases the damage done by Seals and Judgements.
• All paladins receive a single-target taunt (name TBD) as a base ability.

Since this seems confusing:

Before:
Drain Mana on a mage with 15,000 mana drains 2500 mana (16% of their mana)
Drain Mana on a paladin with 5000 mana drains 2500 mana (50% of their mana)

After:
Drain Mana on a mage with 15,000 mana drains 3000 mana (20% of their mana)
Drain Mana on a paladin with 5000 mana drains 1000 mana (20% of their mana)

Those are not real numbers -- just indicating the concept of what the change will do.