Warlords of Draenor Alpha Patch Notes Update - Jun 13, Recent Bloody Coins Hotfixes

Warlords of Draenor Alpha Patch Notes Update - Jun 13
You can find a full version of the notes with more context on the Blue Post Tracker.



Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Itemization Changes
General
  • New secondary stats added:
    • Bonus Armor: Increases Armor and Attack Power for tanking specializations.

Hit and Expertise Removal
Druid
  • Balance of Power has been removed. A new level-100 talent with the same name has been added.

Secondary Stat Attunements
A new concept that we’re introducing is each specialization having an attunement to a particular secondary stat. These take the form of a passive ability that grants a 5% increase to the amount of a specific secondary stat gained. This provides a good starting point for where to focus your secondary stats. Usually, it will be your highest throughput stat (not counting Spirit for Healers, and Bonus Armor for Tanks, which is an optimal secondary stat in most cases). There are exceptions, and raw throughput may not even be the biggest concern in some situations. Treat this as a guideline, not a rule, about which secondary stat to favor.

  • New passive abilities granting a 5% bonus to specific secondary stat bonuses received from equipped items have been added for all specializations.
  • Death Knight
    • Blood: Multistrike
    • Frost: Haste
    • Unholy: Multistrike
  • Druid
    • Balance: Mastery
    • Feral: Critical Strike
    • Guardian: Mastery
    • Restoration: Haste
  • Hunter
    • Beast Mastery: Mastery
    • Marksmanship: Critical Strike
    • Survival: Multistrike
  • Mage
    • Arcane: Mastery
    • Fire: Critical Strike
    • Frost: Multistrike
  • Monk
    • Brewmaster: Critical Strike
    • Mistweaver: Multistrike
    • Windwalker: Multistrike
  • Paladin
    • Holy: Critical Strike
    • Protection: Haste
    • Retribution: Mastery
  • Priest
    • Discipline: Critical Strike
    • Holy: Multistrike
    • Shadow: Haste
  • Rogue
    • Assassination: Mastery
    • Combat: Haste
    • Subtlety: Multistrike
  • Shaman
    • Elemental: Multistrike
    • Enhancement: Haste
    • Restoration: Mastery
  • Warlock
    • Affliction: Haste
    • Demonology: Mastery
    • Destruction: Critical Strike
  • Warrior
    • Arms: Mastery
    • Fury: Critical Strike
    • Protection: Mastery

Active Mana Regeneration (Section Removed)
Another part of the changes to healing is providing a way for them to better manage their mana. There are ways to spend more mana for more healing but we’re also adding methods for healers to trade extra time, healing, or more mana to use later in a fight when they really need it.
  • Druid
    • Innervate has been redesigned to now have a 2-second cast time with no cooldown, and restore 2.5% of the Druid's maximum mana every 4 seconds for 8 seconds. Spending any mana on a healing spell will cancel this effect.
  • Monk
  • Paladin
    • Divine Plea has been redesigned to be instant cast ability with no cooldown, and consume 3 Holy Power to immediately regain 7% of the Paladin's maximum mana.
  • Priest
    • Atonement is no longer triggered by Penance.
    • Chakra: Chastise in addition to existing effects, now also causes Smite and Holy Fire to restore 0.75% of the Priest's maximum mana each time they are cast instead of costing mana.
    • Penance now also refunds 1.1% of the Priest’s maximum mana each time it deals damage.
  • Shaman
    • Telluric Currents is now a passive ability for Restoration Shaman and causes Lightning Bolt to restore 1.25% of the Shaman's maximum mana each time it is cast instead of costing mana.
    • Glyph of Telluric Currents has been removed.

Ability Pruning
We attempt to prune abilities with the intent to reduce the amount of keybind/macro bloat and merging abilities that served a similar purpose but are otherwise redundant together.

  • Death Knight
  • Druid
    • Barkskin is now available only to Guardian Druids, and no longer provides pushback protection, but its base cooldown has been reduced to 30 seconds.
    • Entangling Roots is now available only to Balance and Restoration Druids.
    • Faerie Fire is now available only to Feral and Guardian Druids.
    • Innervate has been removed (again). is now available only to Restoration Druids. Mana costs for Druids have been adjusted accordingly.
    • Hibernate has been removed.
    • Hurricane is now available only to Balance and Restoration Druids.
    • Lacerate is now available only to Guardian Druids.
    • Leader of the Pack no longer restores Mana.
      • Mana regeneration for Feral and Guardian Druids has been increased by 100%.
    • Lifebloom can no longer stack. Its healing has been increased to compensate.
    • Maim is now available only to Feral Druids.
    • Maul is now available only to Guardian Druids.
    • Might of Ursoc is now available only to Guardian Druids, and no longer automatically activates Bear Form.
    • Moonfire is now available only to Balance and Restoration Druids.
    • Nature’s Grasp has been removed.
    • Nature’s Swiftness is now available only to Restoration Druids.
    • Nourish has been removed.
    • Omen of Clarity (Feral) now affects all Druid spells and abilities.
    • Owlkin Frenzy has been removed.
    • Rake is now only available to Feral Druids and also stuns the target for 4 seconds when used while stealthed.
      • Pounce has been removed. Abilities which modified Pounce now modify Rake instead.
    • Regrowth now has a duration of 12 seconds (up from 6 second), but no longer refreshes itself on targets below 50% health.
    • Rejuvenation is no longer available to Guardian Druids.
    • Rip is now available only to Feral Druids.
    • Shred is now available to all Druid specializations and now deals an additional 35% damage in addition to having twice the normal chance to critically strike while stealthed. Additionally, both Shred and Mangle now naturally apply the Infected Wounds snare for Feral and Guardian Druids.
    • Skull Bash no longer increases the mana cost of the victim’s spells.
    • Swipe is now available only to Feral Druids, and is only usable in Cat Form. Swipe (Bear Form) has been removed. Swipe (Cat Form) remains unchanged.
    • Thick Hide has been removed.
      • Bear Form now increases armor by 330% for all Druid specializations. For Guardian Druids, it also naturally reduces magical damage taken by 25%, reduces physical damage taken by 12%, reduces the chance to be critically hit by 6%, and reduces the chance for attacks to be parried by 3%.
    • Track Humanoids has been removed.
    • Travel Form now automatically transitions between Aquatic, Land, and Flight versions, as is appropriate to the Druid’s location.
      • Glyph of the Stag now teaches the Druid a separate shapeshift ability, Stag Form. Stag Form will not switch between different Travel Form, and allows the Druid to act as a mount for other players.
  • Hunter
  • Mage
    • Combustion now replaces Deep Freeze for Fire Mages, and no longer deals direct damage or stuns.
  • Paladin
  • Priest
    • Binding Heal is now only available to Holy Priests. no longer available to Shadow Priests.
    • Borrowed Time has been removed.
    • Dispersion and Vampiric Touch no longer restores mana.
      • Base mana regeneration rate for Shadow Priest has been increased by 200%, Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch mana costs have been reduced by 50% to compensate.
    • Divine Hymn now heals all party or raid members instead of a variable number depending on raid size. Its healing has been adjusted to compensate.
    • Evangelism is now available only to Discipline Priests and no longer affects the damage or mana cost of spells. Damage of affected spells have been adjusted to compensate.
    • Focused Will now triggers from any damage taken instead of being limited to being the victim of any damage above 5% of total health or being critically hit by non-periodic attacks.
    • Inner Focus has been removed. no longer provides any mana cost reduction.
    • Inner Will has been removed.
    • Lightwell’s healing effect is no longer canceled if the target takes enough damage.
    • Pain Suppression no longer reduces the target’s threat by 5%.
    • Shadowform no longer allows any healing spells to be cast but also no longer has a restriction on casting other Holy spells.
    • Spirit Shell has been removed.
    • Strength of Soul has been removed.
    • Train of Thought has been removed.
    • Vampiric Embrace now heals all party and raid members for 10% of damage done, and this healing is no longer split between targets (up from 75% of damage done, split between targets).
  • Rogue
  • Shaman
    • Bind Elemental has been removed.
    • Burning Wrath has been removed.
    • Chain Heal is now available only to Restoration Shamans.
    • Chain Lightning is no longer available to Restoration Shamans.
    • Earth Shock is now available only to Elemental Shamans. Enhancement and Restoration Shamans should use Frost Shock in its place.
    • Earthliving Weapon has been removed.
    • Earthquake has been removed.
    • Elemental Focus has been removed.
    • Elemental Fury has been removed. Elemental Shamans now naturally have critical strike damage increased to 250% of normal damage.
    • Elemental Oath and Unleashed Rage have been removed.
      • Grace of Air now also provides 5% Haste to all party and raid members.
    • Flametongue Weapon and Windfury Weapon have been removed. is no longer available to Restoration Shaman, and only causes damage on weapon swings for Enhancement Shaman.
      • Enhanced Weapons is a new passive ability available to Enhancement Shamans, causing main-hand weapon attacks to have a chance to trigger 3 extra attacks, and off-hand weapon attacks to deal additional fire damage.
      • Lava Lash’s damage done is no longer increased by Flametongue Weapon, and its damage has been increased to compensate.
    • Flurry’s duration has been increased to 30 seconds.
    • Frost Shock no longer generates additional threat.
    • Healing Tide Totem now heals all party or raid members, but amount healed per target has been reduced to compensate.
    • Mana Tide Totem has been removed.
      • Restoration Shaman Mana costs have been adjusted to compensate.
    • Primal Wisdom has been removed.
      • Enhancement Shaman mana regeneration has been increased by 100% to compensate.
    • Rolling Thunder has been removed.
      • Elemental Shaman Mana regeneration has been increased by 50% to compensate.
      • Fulmination now causes Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning damage and multistrike damage to always generate an additional Lightning Shield charge, up to a maximum of 15. Earth Shock will consume any charges beyond 1, dealing their total damage to the enemy target.
    • Shamanistic Rage no longer reduces Mana costs while active.
    • Spiritwalker’s Grace is no longer available to Enhancement Shaman.
    • Thunderstorm no longer regenerates Mana.
    • Totemic Recall has been removed.
      • Totems will no longer cause hostile creatures to enter combat with the Shaman based on proximity.
    • Unleashed Fury has been split into different versions based on specialization. It now modifies Unleash Elements for Enhancement, modifies Unleash Life for Restoration, and modifies Unleash Flame for Elemental.
      • Unleash Elements is now available only to Enhancement Shaman, and always provides the previous benefits of Unleash Elements with Windfury and Flametongue.
      • Unleash Flame has been made into a separate ability available only to Elemental Shaman, and always provides the previous benefits of Unleash Elements with Flametongue.
      • Unleash Life has been made into a separate ability available only to Restoration Shaman, and always provides the previous benefits of Unleash Elements with Earthliving.
    • Water Shield is now available only to Restoration Shaman, replaces Lightning Shield, and now only triggers from melee attacks.
      • Mana costs for Restoration Shaman have been adjusted to compensate.
      • Resurgence no longer requires Water Shield to be active.

Crowd Control and Diminishing Returns
  • Shaman
    • Hex’s cast time has been increased to 1.7 seconds.

Buffs and Debuffs
All specializations provide some common buffs and debuffs. These are important to the game because they encourage cooperation, make you stronger when you work together with others, and promote Raid composition diversity. However, we saw room to revise these buffs and debuffs. In addition to the above changes, we revised which buffs and debuffs are provided by Hunter pets. Please see the Hunter Pet Abilities section for a full list of changes.

Two new stats have been added that benefitted all players. Also added were three new debuffs (Weakened Armor, Physical Vulnerability, and Magic Vulnerability) that each benefitted only half of the group. While that could be interesting, the two physical debuffs were redundant, and felt that the two new stats would be better suited as raid buffs. So, we made that replacement.

  • Weakened Armor, Physical Vulnerability, and Magic Vulnerability
    • Physical Vulnerability increases physical damage taken by 5% (up from 4%).
    • The following abilities no longer apply the Weakened Armor effect.
    • Death Knight (Frost): Brittle Bones has been removed.
    • Death Knight (Unholy): Ebon Plaguebringer no longer causes Physical Vulnerability.
    • Druid: Faerie Fire longer applies Weakened Armor. now applies Physical Vulnerability, increasing Physical damage taken by 5% for 30 seconds.
    • Hunter Pets: Tallstrider: Dust Cloud, Raptor: Tear Armor (See the Hunter Pet Abilities section.)
    • Paladin (Retribution): Judgments of the Bold no longer causes Physical Vulnerability.
    • Rogue: Expose Armor no longer applies Weakened Armor.
    • Rogue: Master Poisoner has been removed.
    • Warlock: Curse of the Elements has been removed.
    • Warrior: Sunder Armor no longer applies Weakened Armor.
    • Warrior (Arms, Fury): Colossus Smash no longer causes Physical Vulnerability.
    • Warrior (Protection): Devastate no longer applies Weakened Armor.
  • Versatility
    • Death Knight (Frost, Unholy): Unholy Aura now also provides 3% Versatility.
    • Druid: Mark of the Wild now also provides 3% Versatility.
    • Paladin (Retribution): Sanctity Aura is a new passive ability for Retribution Paladins which grants 3% Versatility to the Paladin and all allies within 100 yards.
    • Warrior (Arms, Fury): Inspiring Presence is a new passive ability for Arms and Fury Warriors which grants 3% Versatility to the Warrior and all allies within 100 yards.
  • Multistrike
    • Monk (Windwalker): Windflurry is a new passive ability for Windwalker Monks which grants 5% Multistrike to the Monk and all allies within 100 yards.
    • Priest (Shadow): Mind Quickening now also grants 5% Multistrike.
    • Rogue: Swiftblade’s Cunning now also grants 5% Multistrike.
    • Warlock: Dark Intent now grants 5% Multistrike instead of 10% Stamina.
      • Blood Pact is a new passive ability for Warlocks which grants 10% Stamina to the Warlock and all allies within 10 yards.

Weakened Blows was a debuff that mattered almost exclusively to tanks, and that every tank automatically applied. We removed the debuff and reduced creature damage to compensate.

The following abilities have been removed.
  • Hunter Pets, Bear: Demoralizing Roar; Carrion Bird: Demoralizing Screech (See the Hunter Pet Abilities section.)

The Cast Speed Slow was a debuff type that mattered almost exclusively to PvP, and made combat much less fun for casters in addition to encouraging the use of instant-cast spells. We decided that it was best to remove casting speed debuffs.

The following abilities have been removed.
  • Hunter Pets, Core Hound: Lava Breath; Fox: Tailspin; Goat: Trample; Sporebat: Spore Cloud (See the Hunter Pet Abilities section.)

As part of a push to combine the different types of Haste in the game as much as possible, we merged Spell Haste and Attack Speed into just Haste, which benefits everyone.

  • Spell Haste and Attack Speed
    • The following abilities now provide a 5% increase to melee, ranged, and spell Haste to all Party and Raid members (previously they only increased spell Haste).
      • Druid (Balance): Moonkin Form
      • Hunter Pet (Sporebat): Energizing Spores (See the Hunter Pet Abilities section.)
    • The following Hunter pet abilities have been removed.
      • Hyena: Cackling Howl; Serpent: Serpent's Swiftness (See the Hunter Pet Abilities section.)

Some classes received new abilities to provide some of harder-to-find buffs/debuffs, increasing their utility to the Party or Raid.
  • Other
    • The following abilities now also increase magic damage taken by the target by 5% for 15 seconds.

Instant Cast Heals
  • Priest
    • Divine Star now has a 1.5-second cast time (up from instant cast), but can be cast while moving.

Tank Vengeance and Resolve
Then, to keep tank DPS meaningful, we'll be raising their damage, since it would be meager with no Vengeance Attack Power (Vengeance accounted for 70-90% of a tank's damage on high-tank-damage fights in Mists). To do that, we're increasing the damage of several prominent tank abilities, as well as having tanks also gain increased Attack Power from Mastery and Bonus Armor, in addition to the stat’s existing benefits. For plate-wearing Tank specializations, Riposte has been redesigned to convert Critical Strike into Parry, a defensive stat. That also helps keep secondary stats balanced in offensive value for them.
  • General
    • Bladed Armor is a new passive ability for Blood Death Knights, Guardian Druids, Brewmaster Monks, Protection Paladins, and Protection Warriors.
      • Bladed Armor increases Attack Power by 100% of the character's Bonus Armor.

Tooltip Clarity
Being able to quickly understand what an ability does by glancing at the tooltip is of paramount importance to learn how to play with a given class or specialization. We’ve taken an extensive look at the tooltips for all class abilities, and revised them to be as clear and concise as possible.

In some rare cases, we’ve removed mention of niche information that we don’t think is needed. If that's the case, please note that a change to the ability's tooltip does not mean that functionality has changed. If the change in question is not mentioned in the Patch Notes, there has been no change to the ability.
  • Tooltips for nearly all class abilities have been revised for increased clarity.

Self-Sustainability
Another area of gameplay that we polished is how characters are able to sustain their own health, primarily when frequently killing enemies, such as in solo questing.
  • Death Knight
    • Dark Succor is now a passive ability learned by all Death Knights at level 60 (instead of being a glyph).
  • Druid
  • Hunter
    • Kill Shot now heals the Hunter for 15% of maximum health if it kills the target.
    • Survivalist is a new passive ability learned by Survival Hunters at level 10:
      • Survivalist: After killing a target, the Hunter gains 15% health over 10 seconds.
  • Monk
  • Paladin
  • Priest
  • Rogue
    • Recuperate now heals for 5% of maximum health per tick (up from 3%).
  • Shaman
  • Warrior
  • Warlock
    • Drain Life now heals for 1.5% of maximum health per tick (up from 1.0%).
    • Harvest Life now increases the healing from Drain Life to 3% of maximum health per tick (up from 2.5%).

Glyphs
At level 25, the following Glyphs are automatically learned by characters of the appropriate class:

At level 60, the following Glyphs are automatically learned by characters of the appropriate class:
  • Dark Succor, Shifting Presences

Class Changes

Death Knight
  • Rune Tap now grants an absorption shield equal to 30% of your missing health. It also now has 2 charges, with a 30-second recharge time.

Druid
The loss of Symbiosis (see Ability Pruning above) will primarily impact druids’ survival, as many of the abilities received through Symbiosis were defensive cooldowns. To compensate for that change, and for the removal of Barkskin for non-Guardian Druids, we buffed Survival Instincts significantly and the ability is now available for all specializations.
  • Survival Instincts 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 for Feral and Guardian specializations can have up to 2 charges (up from 1 charge).

Guardian Changes
  • Mangle now generates 30 Rage, and its cooldown is reduced by Haste.

Feral Changes
Feral Druids received one major change, and few tweaks beyond what's been mentioned above in Ability Pruning and Facing Requirements. Combo Points are now stored "on the player", meaning that when you switch targets, any accumulated Combo Points remain with you. Pounce was buffed significantly, in order to bring it up to par with Ravage. Primal Fury was changed to let it affect area attacks as well. Critical strike chance of Ferocious Bite was changed in order to increase the value of Critical Strike. Glyph of Savage Roar was reworked to better achieve its intended effect.

  • Mangle now generates 15 Rage (up from 5 Rage), and its cooldown is reduced by Haste.
  • Pounce damage has been increased by 100%.
  • Ferocious Bite now has double the normal chance to critically strike against bleeding targets (instead of having an additional 25% chance to critically strike).

Balance Rebalanced
  • Astral Showers no longer increases direct dmg. (Source)
  • Balance Energy system has been redesigned. Balance Energy is a bar that cycles back and forth between Lunar and Solar sides, like night and day, with a 40 second cycle time (from Lunar to Solar and back to Lunar).
  • Moonfire now has a base duration of 20 seconds (up from 14 seconds), but is no longer extended by Starfire and Starsurge critical strikes.
  • Sunfire now has a base duration of 20 seconds (up from 14 seconds), but is no longer extended by Wrath and Starsurge critical strikes. Additionally, Sunfire is no longer its own spell. Sunfire replaces Moonfire on the action bar whenever Balance Energy is on the Solar side. Enemies may still suffer from both Moonfire and Sunfire’s periodic damage components simultaneously.
  • Astral Showers calls upon greater Lunar and Solar energy to permanently empower the Druid's Moonfire and Sunfire spells.
    • Moonfire's initial damage is increased by 100%, and The duration of it's periodic damage effect duration is increased by 100%.
    • Sunfire's initial damage is increased by 100%, and its periodic damage effect is now applied to all enemies within 5 yards of the target.
  • Shooting Stars now adds 1 full charge of Starsurge and Starfall when it triggers, and now has a 5% chance to trigger when the most recent Moonfire or and Sunfire deals periodic damage. This chance is doubled on critical strikes.
  • Celestial Alignment has been redesigned.
  • Euphoria has been removed. A new level-100 talent with the same name has been added.
  • Equinox has been replaced with a new talent, Balance of Power.
  • Sunfall has been replaced with a new talent, Euphoria.
    • Euphoria grants the Druid a deeper connection to the stars, causing Balance Energy to cycle 50% faster. Additionally, Lunar and Solar Empowerments also reduce the cast time of affected spells by 20%.
  • Several Glyphs and Draenor Perks will be redesigned in a future build, and so are currently TBD.
    • Glyph of Omens
    • Glyph of Sudden Eclipse
    • Empowered Starfall
    • Enhanced Mushrooms
    • Enhanced Starsurge
    • Enhanced Storms

Restoration Changes
Genesis and Wild Mushroom: Bloom fill a similar need for burst healing, so Wild Mushroom: Bloom has been removed, leaving Wild Mushroom to focus on the Efflorescence effect.

  • Genesis has been redesigned.
    • Genesis now consumes all of the Druid's Rejuvenation effects on party or raid members within 60 yards and applies the Genesis effect to them instead. Genesis heals the target for an amount equal to the remaining healing from the consumed Rejuvenation effects over 3 seconds. Healing from Genesis counts toward Wild Mushroom as if it was from Rejuvenation.
  • Wild Mushroom (Restoration) now has a 30-second cooldown, lasts for 30 seconds, provides periodic healing to nearby allies, and no longer collects Rejuvenation overhealing.
  • Swiftmend no longer causes Efflorescence. Instead, Wild Mushroom (Restoration) now causes Efflorescence to appear at the mushroom’s location.

And the Druid changes are capped off by merging Glyph of Stampede effects into Glyph of Stampeding Roar.

Hunter

Burst Damage Cooldowns
Each specialization received a revision to the burst-damage-cooldowns that they have access to. All specializations now have one burst-damage-cooldown available baseline, and can add to that through talent choices.

Beast Mastery Hunters retain Bestial Wrath. Rapid Fire is a good fit for Marksmanship, and we improved it. Survival opts to focus on sustained damage without burst cooldowns. However, if the situation calls for a burst-damage-cooldown, there are a few available via talents. we wanted to both increase the prominence of their traps, and give them a new damage cooldown. So, a new trap called Bear Trap has been created to fit that role. Note that Bear Trap's base cooldown can be reduced by other passive abilities and perks, such that it has roughly a 2 minute-cooldown afterwards.

  • Bear Trap is a new ability for Survival Hunters.
    • Bear Trap places a trap with duration of 1 minute that immobilizes the first enemy that triggers it for 8 seconds and deals heavy bleed damage over 20 seconds. Damage from other sources may break the immobilization effect. The ability has a 4 minute cooldown.
  • Careful Aim now also provides its effect against all targets when Rapid Fire is active, and increases critical strike chance by 60% (down from 75%).

Hunter Pet Abilities
  • Increased Multistrike buff Magic Damage Taken debuff: Basilisk, Bat, Chimaera, Core Hound, Dragonhawk, Fox, Rhino, Wind Serpent
  • Increased versatility buff Physical Damage Taken debuff: Bird of Prey, Boar, Porcupine, Ravager, Rhino, Worm
  • An ability that increases dodge chance of the pet by 30% for 10 seconds: Bat, Fox, Monkey


Mage
Presence of Mind was extremely strong for instant CC, which we wanted to curtail. Rather than completely remove Presence of Mind or make it not affect CC abilities, we made it a base Arcane spell, where we don't expect that it will be a problem, since Arcane has less CC than the other Mage specs already. In its place, we've added a new talent, Evanesce. It may seem out of place on a movement-focused talent row at first. In practice, we expect that the similarity will bear out as Mages use it instead of moving away from avoidable damage.

The right level-75 Talent slot is now filled by a new Talent that varies by specialization.
  • Blast Wave: Cause an explosion of fiery force around the target enemy or ally, dealing Fire damage to all enemies within 8 yards, and dazing them, reducing their movement speed by 70% for 4 seconds. If the primary target is an enemy, they take 100% increased damage. Replaces Frost Nova. Instant cast ability with a 25-second cooldown and 2 charges.
  • Ice Nova: Cause a whirl of icy wind around the target enemy or ally, dealing Frost damage to all enemies within 8 yards, and freezing them for 4 seconds. If the primary target is an enemy, they take 100% increased damage. Replaces Frost Nova. Instant cast ability with a 20-second cooldown and 2 charges.
  • Supernova: Cause a pulse of Arcane energy around the target enemy or ally, dealing Arcane damage to all enemies within 8 yards, and knocking them into the air. If the primary target is an enemy, they take 100% increased damage. Replaces Frost Nova. Instant cast ability with a 25-second cooldown and 2 charges.

Monk

Mistweaver Changes

Paladin

Holy Changes
We adjusted the critical strike chance of Holy Shock, to increase the value of Critical Strike for Holy Paladins.

  • Holy Shock now has twice the normal chance to critically strike (instead of having an additional 25% chance to critically strike).

Miscellaneous
We also revised how Eternal Flame interacts with Holy Power, and allowed it to once again trigger Illuminated Healing. One big change for Retribution that isn't mentioned here is the removal of Inquisition (see Ability Pruning), which will have a notable effect on their rotation.

  • Eternal Flame’s periodic healing effect has been changed. Its duration now scales with Holy Power, instead of its healing. Its effect at 3 Holy Power remains unchanged.
  • Illuminated Healing can once again be triggered by Eternal Flame.

Priest

Level-90 Talents and Atonement
To get back to a balanced place, we've reapplied the AoE caps to the level-90 Talents, making them consistent with all other AoE heals, and reduced their effectiveness across the board. We’ve compensated for this in the tuning of Priest baseline heals.

Holy Changes

Shadow Changes
The cooldown of Mind Blast has also been adjusted to make Haste more valuable for Shadow, and removes Haste breakpoints.
  • Mind Blast’s cooldown is now reduced by haste, but its base cooldown is now 9 seconds (up from 8 seconds).

Talent Revisions
Several talents were split into different versions by specialization. We revised the effectiveness of some of these talents to better balance talent choices on their row. We also swapped the Level-15 and Level-60 talent rows so players are presented with core Priest themed abilities earlier in the leveling process.
  • Divine Insight’s effects have been split based on specialization.
  • From Darkness, Comes Light has been split into Surge of Light for Discipline and Holy, and Surge of Darkness for Shadow for Shadow.
    • Surge of Darkness now has a maximum of 3 charges (up from 2).
  • Power Infusion now grants 25% Haste (up from 20%), but no longer increases damage (down from 5%).

Miscellaneous
We removed the Mana generation from Shadowfiend, in order to simplify it to being a burst-damage-cooldown.

  • Inner Focus: No longer provides immunity to Dispels, Interrupts, and Silence. This effect will be returning as a Major Glyph.

Shaman

Elemental and Enhancement Changes
  • Fire Nova now has a cooldown of 4.5 second (up from 4.0 seconds).
  • Flurry has been redesigned. Melee haste effects now reduce the global cooldown and cooldowns of Stormstrike, Lava Lash, Shocks, Unleash Elements, and Fire Nova.
  • Lava Lash now has a cooldown of 10.5 seconds (up from 10 seconds).
  • Stormstrike now has a cooldown of 7.5 seconds (down from 8 seconds).
  • Earthquake damage has been increased by 36%.
  • Frost Shock’s damage has been reduced by 50%.
  • Magma Totem’s damage has been increased by 100%.
  • Unleash Frost no longer deals direct damage, but now always snares the target by 70% (rather than only when the target is already snared by a Frost spell).

Warrior

Burst Damage Cooldowns
  • Heroic Throw is now a high-threat ability, generating 300% extra threat, has a 6-second cooldown (down from 30 seconds), but now has a 15 yard minimum range.

Haste for Warriors

Talent Changes
We adjusted the effects of a few talents in order to make them more competitive with the talents on their row.

Recent Bloody Coins Hotfixes
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
When we were developing the Timeless Isle, we wanted to add some incentive for players to engage in world PvP independently of faction balance. To that end, we created the Censer of Eternal Agony and Bloody Coin mechanic. This created a “third faction” of sorts on the Isle, and brought an extra element of danger to players adventuring there.

We’re happy with how that worked out when Patch 5.4 released, but as time has passed, the general atmosphere of the Timeless Isle has changed. The majority of players who venture there today are either gearing up alts, or chasing after rare drops. As a result, we feel that it’s time to let the sun set on the Censer of Eternal Agony, and have increased its cooldown to 1 hour. Players who want to use it for its original purpose still can, but it will be a much larger setback when they’re defeated in battle.

That said, we still want players to be able to collect Bloody Coins (and the rewards that come with them), so we’re making some adjustments to the Fire-Watcher’s Oath item, which can now be purchased from Speaker Gulan for 100 Timeless Coins. The Fire-Watcher’s Oath allows the collection of Bloody Coins from PvP kills, doesn’t change your faction, and it can be used anywhere – including Battlegrounds. We’ve reduced its cooldown to 10 minutes (which matches its duration), removed the mounting restrictions, and have dramatically increased the ability to earn coins from PvP kills while it’s active. We want players interested in earning Bloody Coins to seek them out in a Battleground with use of the Fire-Watcher’s Oath.

Overall, we feel that these changes will not only make the Timeless Isle more attractive to players interested in its rewards, but will also give players collecting Bloody Coins a better way to earn them. We’re monitoring your feedback, and will continue to make adjustments as necessary.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Warlords of Draenor Alpha Patch Notes Update - Jun 13, Recent Bloody Coins Hotfixes started by chaud View original post
Published on 2014-06-13 09:55 PM
205 Comments
Comments 205 Comments
  1. mmoc89f47ddd80's Avatar
    I'm really looking forward to seeing how this feels in action. for all we know this could be the best thing to happen to WoW. People complain that certain abilities are being removed without thinking about other classes abilities being removed. They ain't just randomly choosing what's removed from the ability list they are trying to make the game easier to balance, which in the end is what we all want. If it goes down to the simplicity of childstar then we have a problem.
  1. Kazureus's Avatar
    Eeee... dafuq? At this rate, soon we won't be able to tell the difference between the normal gameplay and Pet Battles. Am I the only one feeling that the target audience for WoW seems to be steadily changing to "Kids and Tards"? For me, the cold pap of the watered down RPG elements they're trying to serve me, feels less and less appealing.

    WRONG DIRECTION BLIZZ.
    Edit:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cjYoqxYNBk

    Get ready everyone!
  1. Orkwuzhere's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Aestophas View Post
    As someone who has played RDruid since 2005 as well as a lot of RShaman lately (the two classes that got the hardest hit), all I can say is: go Blizzard! Lots of abilities do not necessarily equal more depth. The game was best as well as most challenging during TBC, with a lot less abilities than we have now. If they keep this up we might just be going back to the glory days of WoW
    Doesn't mean the class is any good either. Symbiosis with Shaman was great when you had to move around and heal. They shouldn't have bothered to give RDruids Symbiosis or anything in the MoP expansion if they were going to get rid of everything for WoD. Druids got screwed over.

    By glory days you mean where only 2% of the community experienced any of the game content let alone had any fun (good luck getting that dragon rep without epic flying during the bc days)? I don't miss Ikiss being bugged and a painful fight, nor do I miss the bullshit from Shadowmoon and Shattered Halls. Shadowmoon valley was a horrible endgame zone.

    Games should be challenging, but not bullshit at the same time.
  1. Polyamorous's Avatar
    If this is the direction the game is going - sacrificing flavor and fun so that specs can all be homogeneous and played with 4 buttons and made easier for noobs, I'm done. Its been a fun 9 years but it honestly makes me sad to see the classes getting butchered like this.
  1. Nosori's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Orkwuzhere View Post
    Symbiosis with Shaman was great when you had to move around and heal.
    ->
    Games should be challenging.
    Something is wrong with the way you think.... You throw a tantrum when they remove abilities that make healing available while moving (as if druid's weren't mobile enough even without it). Doesn't that make healing easier, no? Then in the same post you say that games should be challenging...? Wait, what?
  1. Theupsman's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Maleficents View Post
    Warlords of Draenor has been removed.
    For continuity purposes.
  1. Sanctuaryu's Avatar
    At last the Spirit Shell is removed!
  1. grexly75's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Polyamorous View Post
    If this is the direction the game is going - sacrificing flavor and fun so that specs can all be homogeneous and played with 4 buttons and made easier for noobs, I'm done. Its been a fun 9 years but it honestly makes me sad to see the classes getting butchered like this.
    But as Axislip said above I will wait and see in either beta or live before I pass judgement on whether all of this will be good or bad, at the moment we just don't know how the classes will play until we see what it is like in action..

    I was like WTF myself with what they were doing but then I thought about it and well and as I said above I will wait and see whether all of these changes are good or bad..
  1. mmoccc2c4457a1's Avatar
    Remember when Blizzard introduced the new secondary stats? The new, "fun" stats that weren't mandatory in any way? You could simply pick whatever you wanted?

    Yea, 5% bonusses to specific secondary stats for all specs does not help with that. GG Blizzard. The fact that I unsubbed months ago is only turning out into an even better decision.

    Of course there's also the ability pruning... But come on. I don't even need to say anything anymore. Even the lowliest noob can see that Blizzard is screwing up royal.
  1. mmoc2274093d7b's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Orkwuzhere View Post
    Doesn't mean the class is any good either. Symbiosis with Shaman was great when you had to move around and heal. They shouldn't have bothered to give RDruids Symbiosis or anything in the MoP expansion if they were going to get rid of everything for WoD. Druids got screwed over.

    By glory days you mean where only 2% of the community experienced any of the game content let alone had any fun (good luck getting that dragon rep without epic flying during the bc days)? I don't miss Ikiss being bugged and a painful fight, nor do I miss the bullshit from Shadowmoon and Shattered Halls. Shadowmoon valley was a horrible endgame zone.

    Games should be challenging, but not bullshit at the same time.
    What does encounter and zone design have to do with class balance and the metagame (and the latter is what the ability pruning is about)?

    I also fail to see how having four instead of five buttons in your main rotation plus one instead of three throughput cooldowns makes the game any less interesting or demanding. Quite frankly, doing a damage, healing or tanking rotation is ridiculuously easy either way, any semi-competent player who stumbled his way to level 90 should be able to remember how to press five buttons in the right order. Good players separate themselves from bad ones because of their situational awareness, responding to changing conditions immediately and correctly and keeping their cool no matter how heated the fight gets, NOT because they are able to press CTRL + ALT + 8 without breaking their hand. This is true for both PvE and PvP.

    The main benefit of the ability pruning is PvP in my opinion. In the last two Xpacs, the game has turned into a giant clusterfuck, with a counter to every ability, a counter to the counter, tons of instant CC and whatnot. In TBC, everyone had fewer abilities and as a result, the game was far more strategic and skill-demanding.

    Oh and one more thing: How on earth can people seriously believe that the ability pruning will actually change the RELATIVE strength of classes to each other? Of course Blizzard will adjust the numbers before release so that all specs perform very closely to each other, at least in PvE. They have done that since WotLK. And PvP will also be easier to balance simply because of the reduction of abilities which are OP in one situation and completely useless in another. The removal of Symbiosis, Necrotic Strike, Hibernate, blanket Silences and other CC alone (and that's just off the top of my head) will make things so much easier to keep balanced.
  1. Tobizzhere's Avatar
    I just have a VERY hard time believing that Blizz will find a way to adequately compensate resto shamans for the loss of MTT. The variable on how much spirit a person stacks .. where will they baseline this "lowering of spell cost". Based on which resto shaman criteria ? in addition the loss of proc on water shield from ranged attacks. Also a very difficult criteria to quantify. We don't stand in melee as a rule so it would seem to me that a large portion of water shield proc IS from ranged attacks. But again difficult to quantify based on differences in fight mechanics. So from fight to fight this would be a WIDELY varying loss of mana regen.

    The one thing i can usually count on is that the first half of an expac will cause half of resto shamans to go running for the hills. This seems no different.
  1. Brewhan's Avatar
    I have a mana tide totem in Hearthstone on my shaman. I dont have mana tide in WOD... go figure
  1. Super Kami Dende's Avatar
    Protip: WoD is an Expansion with a considerably big change to how Spells/Abilities/Talents all scale. WoD is also an expansion with a considerably big change to Gear/Ilvl/Available Secondary stats. Throwing a tantrum because you try to liken it to how your character plays RIGHT NOW to how your Class is being changed in an ALPHA makes your tantrum completely null and void.

    But as usual with every cycle of Patch notes the Tards slither out of the cracks in the wall and speak incoherent shit for a few months.
  1. Beet's Avatar
    Out of all the abilities they've removed there's still one left I despise and that's Colossus Smash. Why oh why can't they just make it a talent or something.
  1. Laylriana's Avatar
    Why are both critical chance and multistrike in the game? Did they toss coins to see which spec got crit and which got ms? From what I can find online ms is weaker than crit, so are they being used as a buff to one spec and a nerf to the other?
  1. Super Kami Dende's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Laylriana View Post
    Why are both critical chance and multistrike in the game? Did they toss coins to see which spec got crit and which got ms? From what I can find online ms is weaker than crit, so are they being used as a buff to one spec and a nerf to the other?
    Crit does more damage on chance, Multistrike can proc other abilities whilst doing more damage but not as much as Crit. 2 different stats so comparing them as if they were the same is just asinine, since whilst they both increase damage they do it in different ways.
  1. Crazozourus's Avatar
    Wildstar is a perfect example that you don't need a lot of buttons to make game challenging. Maybe Blizzard is going that way? It is still alpha a lot will change so there is no point in getting angry and frustrated. Also post on the official forum, there is small chance that Blizzard will actually care.
  1. kamuimac's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Kazureus View Post
    Eeee... dafuq? At this rate, soon we won't be able to tell the difference between the normal gameplay and Pet Battles. Am I the only one feeling that the target audience for WoW seems to be steadily changing to "Kids and Tards"? For me, the cold pap of the watered down RPG elements they're trying to serve me, feels less and less appealing.

    WRONG DIRECTION BLIZZ.
    Edit:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cjYoqxYNBk

    Get ready everyone!

    and by get ready u mean get ready for each class to use 3-4 buttons as in this video and "being ready for pve" at least according to blizz ? - ye this is exackly what is coming with wod - and worst is ... idiots will still smash those 3 buttons wrong way and do shitty dps -_-

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Orkwuzhere View Post

    By glory days you mean where only 2% of the community experienced any of the game content let alone had any fun (good luck getting that dragon rep without epic flying during the bc days)? I don't miss Ikiss being bugged and a painful fight, nor do I miss the bullshit from Shadowmoon and Shattered Halls. Shadowmoon valley was a horrible endgame zone.

    Games should be challenging, but not bullshit at the same time.
    strange thing is now eveyrbody can experience content - and nearly eveeybody complains about it like fuck - people complain that they are deadly bored people complain how many times they unsub during expansion people complain that they cant be full raid ready geared 2 hours after they ding 90 people complain how blizz is forcing them to do this aviable for everyboy content to gear up - itsi aviable for eveyrone and .... and people still complain cause they are to retarded to do anything beynd lfr. and blizzard is failing again in wod - hc dungeons were supposed to be alternative way of gearing up for good players who want to skip lfr - well guess what blizzard is still forcing people to do this aviable for eveyrone content cause they know that retards and idiots in lfr wont be able to clear it without being carried

    its dumbing game down with each expansion and guess what each year they loose 1-2 mln players and not geting new ones no matter how "retard-friendly" politics they address.

    At some point catering to idiots in game needs to stop - they got enough content over last 5 years - time to cater a bit to this 10% on top who actually want chalenge in game.
    Cause those 10% are those who advice guide and drag those 90 % of idiots through eveyr content which was supposedly designed for themU can clearly see it in SoO lfr what happened when those top 10% skiped it to flex straight - utter frikin failure - to the point that blizzard is making lfr even more retard-proff tourist mode in WoD
  1. Drathnir's Avatar
    So, I've gone about 24 KBs in a row, without a single Bloody Coin, and only one coin the entire night of farming AV. Are we sure they "dramatically increased" the drop rate via the Oath, or did they break it instead?
  1. Puntar's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Fuhok View Post
    I think the way it will work is that if you're in an area that has no flying, you'll go into travel form. If you are in an area that you can fly in, you'll go flight form. And if you're swimming, you'll go aquatic form. So all three forms can be used, just will depend on where you are. If you're in MoP lands but don't have the MoP flying, you'll go travel form. Once you get the flying there, you'll be able to go flight form. And with WoD having no flying, you'll be travel forming it most times

    At least, that's how I think it will work.
    Hmmm, I actually do wonder how will Blizz address changing into flying form. I do hope it would NOT work as you suggested for flying, because that would mean I would need to click twice If I wanted to change into travel form.

    Many Druids (and also me) just instinctively jump and change into flying form. I do hope that sequence become the norm to change into flying where player is allowed to.

    Jump + Travel form > Flying form
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