Upcoming Class Change Highlights (Part 3)

[Boubouille]

Upcoming Class Change Highlights (Part 3)
Part 3 is here! I guess I was right a few weeks ago when I mentioned new ammunitions for hunters ... Also today:

• Upcoming Class Change Highlights (Part 1) ( Rogue, Priest, Shaman)
• Upcoming Class Change Highlights (Part 2) ( Warlock, Druid, Warrior)
• Upcoming Changes to Mana Regeneration

Also today

• WoW/MMO Glider Update
• Sapphiron and Malygos Hotfixes
• Arena Matchmaking System FAQ

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 third in the series: Mages, Paladins, Hunters, and Death Knights. Please keep in mind, that this list is not at all comprehensive, and subject to change.

Mage (Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)

• 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 (Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)

• 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 (Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)

• 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 (Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)

• 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.

[Xetrov]

lol they're buffing dks even more, great. :X

new pala change is nice but mage? how about some arcane nerf? come on =x

[Fortuitous]

Baseline kings, oh god yes.

[SFJake]

• 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.

Holy shit?

I don't understand kings. I guess it just annoyed them too much they are just giving it to everyone. Everyone wanted it anyway.

Exorcism on everything? Does that mean a powerfull ranged attack for PvP? I don't think non-pally will enjoy this.

[Significa]

Seriously? Every spec except holy is getting buffed, which is getting nerfed. How exactly does this lower the burst damage in PvP and make heals more useful? I understand the game is PvE orientated but comeon >.> Non-talent kings is nice though.

EDIT: Anyone else think Prot might be a viable PvP spec now? It'll be for those outlasting teams obviously.

[juelz]

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.



Thats an interesting mechanic

[Elektrik]

• Gargoyle and Unholy Blight have swapped talent positions. Gargoyle’s damage has increased and runic power cost per time has decreased.

hahahahaha

[Hokuto]

No more ammo, what a blessing.

[Langebrød]

hahahahaha

Indeed.

[SATANtheKOREANdinosaur]

unbelievable. palis got a BUFF!

[bunnyhat]

Am I reading this right?


Prot pallys will have a 6 second stun on a 10 second cooldown now and a 3 second silence on a 6 second cooldown that does amazing damage?


Hell Prot pally pvp.

[Boblet]

# 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.

Haven't heard any of those before.

[afkalmighty]

Geez, I've got a pally almost to 80 that I plan to PvP as ret but.. WTF? Exorcism on all targets?
Guess after 3.1 my mage will have to run screaming in terror upon sighting any rets :P


But I do look foward to fire PvP changes, hope they make it somwhat less dependant on RNG

[mathay86]

As a horde Ret since BC release with my interest in the game being mostly PVE related, I have to say there is no way a change to exorcism is going to solve the problem. Against undead in Naxx in order to stay competitive with other dps classes a Ret pally has to work both exorcism and holy wrath into a rotation that already includes divine storm and constant consecration(these 2 abilities were claimed at one point to hopefully be non necessary for general purpose raid dps for Ret). Blizz's efforts to thwart paladin burst in pvp has severely hampered a class who's pve dps is based on that same burst.

I have often wondered if maybe some kind of dmg cap per ability given certain variables might be a decent fix for pvp issues...having been hit with a 10k starfire in my foray's into the arena I have to say my burst feels almost negligible

[Jide]

I think blizzard likes to talk buffs rather then nerfs when it comes to sneak peaks for class changes.

Maybe they're fixing paladin judgments so they don't get double bonus from crit rating, could be the reason they're giving paladins the ability to exorcism all types.

[Vehemence]

FREEEEEEEEEEE AMMO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CHANGE HAS COME TO WORLD OF WARCRAFT!

[DarkZero]

This new arena matchmaking system seems like it's going to work, but I wouldn't like to have a team rating of 1000 or even less.

[Imbashiethz]

Paladin (Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)

* 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.

IS THIS A JOKE? WTF!!!

[sainthubbins]

IS THIS A JOKE? WTF!!!

This is the clearest and most insightful post I've read all day.

Really though, why are you upset about a list of protection buffs?

[Elementium]

Omg wtf blizzard..

baseline kings?! now what am i gonna do with my 5 extra points!? *shakes fist* damn you blizzard.


for being awesome.

also exorcism FTW.