The patch on test has been brewing for awhile now, so I think it’s time to take a look at it. I’ll tend to focus a lot on PvP changes, mostly because PvE changes are boring to me. Blizzard generally does a decent job keeping all of the classes within 10% of each other in PvE. While you certainly have merit to complain if you end up at the bottom on that scale, it’s just not all that interesting to me. Without further ado, let’s highlight some of the more major changes!
All healing critical strikes now heal for 2 times a normal heal (+100%), up from 1.5 times a normal heal (+50%).
That’s a tough one to call. Obviously, healers will have a better ability to get lucky and heal someone up in a hurry. Which healer it will favor more remains to be seen though.
Death Knight
Hungering Cold now has a 1.5-second cast time.
Now that’s a bit of a doozy. The word I’ve been hearing from test is that it can be interrupted, and it actually does lock out their frost abilities. Ouch. While DK’s can still death grip and then immediately start casting hungering cold to land it a lot of the time, it’ll definitely become a problem against good opponents. The Paladin’s rebuke suddenly looks a lot more useful, as DKs will actually have to try and juke a pally to HC them. I like that hidden buff to pallies there. I don’t like that wind shear will also be good at stopping it, continuing the resto shaman dominance. Overall, I’m not a huge fan of this change. Their damage is the problem in my opinion, not hungering cold. All melees have an unavoidable CC, so I never quite understood the mega QQ around this.
Glyph of Dark Succor has been redesigned. Rather than placing a 15% maximum health floor on Death Strike healing while in Frost or Unholy Presence, it causes the next Death Strike within 15 seconds after killing a foe that yields experience or Honor Points to heal for at least 20% of the death knight’s maximum health (still requires Frost or Unholy Presence).
More frost DK nerfs. I’m not sure I love this one. Glyph of Dark Succor did need to be nerfed, no question about it, but to something like 10-12%. Turning it into a crappy leveling glyph is pretty lame. This will definitely be a big nerf to frost DKs though. Currently they have crazy survivability while using runes for death strike spam, yet still have devestating offense because they can use runic power for frost strike spam. Personally, I thought they needed to tone down frost strike instead, making it so they can survive using death strike if they like, but their offense would be crippled. I suppose this still gets the job done though.
Druid
Tons of druid damage changes.
Ok, that’s not the real patch note. Druids are my real weak point, knowledge wise, so somebody else will have to fill in what all that stuff means.
Hunter
Traps now scale with hunter stats such as hit, expertise, spell penetration and attack power as intended.
I read that as, “no more trap resists.” Hopefully that’s how it’s working.
Mage
Spellsteal mana cost has been increased by 100%.
People will bring this up as a PvP nerf, but is it really? I rarely see frost mages in PvP low on mana. Instead of finishing a long match at 50% mana, they’ll finish it at 25% mana. Who cares?
Deep Freeze and Ring of Frost will cause diminishing returns on each other, in addition to the spells they normally share diminishing returns with.
No more deep > ring. Hoozah. I think everybody saw this coming eventually, it was just too long of a CC chain (combined with blanket CS if the time was right) from nothing but instants.
Paladin
Beacon of Light can no longer be dispelled. In addition, it now transfers 100% of the heal from Holy Light, but still 50% of the heal from other spells.
Not bad.
Denounce has been redesigned. It still reduces the mana cost of Exorcism. However, it no longer has a chance on Holy Shock of making Exorcism free and instant. Instead, it has a 50/100% chance to prevent the Exorcism target from causing critical effects for the next 6 seconds. This effect can be dispelled.
Most pallies don’t seem too excited by this. The main problem being pallies don’t have much time to spend doing things other than healing already and it leaving them open to a lockout. It does have some potential imo though. A teammate with dispel protection would be nice. This could stop shatters and with crit heals being 100% now, pretty handy for crippling a healer at a key moment. Not spectacular, but I think it’ll grow on people over time. At least it’s something a tad more interesting for Holy Paladins to play with, since they’ve been pretty bland lately.
Infusion of Light can now lower the cast time of Flash of Light by 0.75/1.5 seconds, in addition to Holy Light and Divine Light. In addition, the old Denounce spell overlay effect has been transferred to Infusion of Light since Denounce is no longer a proc.
Instant Flash of Lights. Nice.
Walk in the Light now improves Word of Glory healing by 30%, in addition to its current effects.
…and bigger instants. Holy Paladins might be back in the ballgame next patch.
Selfless Healer can no longer be dispelled and cannot be stolen via Spellsteal; and, in addition to its current effects, it lowers the cooldown of Word of Glory by 5/10 seconds.
Not major, but I think rets will appreciate getting their word of glory cooldown lowered.
Priest
Devouring Plague damage done has been decreased by 12%.
Mind Blast damage done has been increased by 12%.
Shadow Word: Death damage done has been increased by 12%.
Shadow Word: Pain damage done has been decreased by 12%.Mind Flay damage done has been increased by 12%.
Vampiric Touch damage done has been decreased by 12%.
PvE changes creeping into PvP. Multi dotting is all the rage in PvE, so they’re trying to axe that. This lowers the pressure a priest can put out when he’s being trained, while increasing his burst. Seems backwards for PvP. As if shadow priests need bigger mind blasts.
Sin and Punishment’s Vampiric Touch backlash fear effect no longer has diminishing returns.
Finally sin and punishment isn’t garbage. Nice, nice. More than anything, this will open up more viable comps for shadow priests, as opposed to the current “If you aren’t playing with an aff lock, you’re doing it wrong” motto spriests are stuck with.
Rogue
Cloak of Shadows cooldown is now 2 minutes, up from 90 seconds. In addition, Cloak of Shadows is no longer on the global cooldown.
Combat Readiness and Cloak of Shadows now share a cooldown.
Ouch. I don’t think too many people will deny rogues are a bit too hard to kill, but I personally think that’s because recuperate is too good of an offensive and defensive move for subtly rogues. I really don’t see the need for either of these, especially not a longer cooldown on cloak.
Elusiveness now reduces the cooldown of Cloak of Shadows by 15/30 seconds, up from 10/20, and now also reduces the cooldown of Combat Readiness by 15/30 seconds.
Semi offset to above, but still lame.
Shaman
Lava Flows now grants a 30/60/90% haste buff when a Flame Shock effect is dispelled, up from 10/20/30%.
Bahahahaha is all I’ll say to that. Screw LSD 2.0, let’s bring back the real deal. How about we try 20/40/60 instead? 90% is just insanity.
Thunderstorm now reduces the movement speed of players it knocks back by 40% for 5 seconds.
A good change.
Glyph of Unleashed Lightning (new Prime glyph) allows Lightning Bolt to be cast while moving.
Wait, now they can knock you back, snare you, and kite while casting damage? Ouch.
Warrior
Recklessness and Deadly Calm can no longer be used at the same time. One cannot be used while the other is active, but using one does not put the other on its full cooldown.
Lowering warrior burst, pretty handy. I think most warriors can live with this…
Retaliation, Recklessness and Shield Wall no longer have stance requirements.
…especially because they get this. It will generate screams of “DUMBING DOWN THE GAME”, but it’s nice imo. I think they’re trying to turn warrior stances into things more like DK presences.
Two-Handed Weapon Specialization weapon damage increase has been lowered to 12%, down from 20%.
Seems a little unnecessary given the nerfs above, but warriors do tend to scale crazy with new weapons. They might be playing this one safe.
Phew, that was fun. At any rate, flame away. I’m sure I’m wrong. I’m wrong a lot. At least according to the internet and every woman I’ve ever dated (don’t look at me like that, I’ve dated before…maybe…).
