Posted by iTZKooPA on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 - 38 Comments
Tags: blizzard poster, blue, buffs, bugs, class changes, content patch, eyonix, ghostcrawler, hunger for blood, nerfs, old gods, Patch, patch v3.1, power word: barrier, priests, rogues, shamans, Ulduar, v3.1, yogg-saron
Everyone’s favorite class designer hit the official forums during maintenance day to inform us that class changes for Patch 3.1 would be announced soon. For those who don’t already know it, Patch v3.1 will be Wrath’s first content patch, with the main feature being the addition of an all-new raid known as Ulduar. Popular speculation has Yogg-Saron - the second known “Old God” - or parts of him as the final boss. Piggy-backing on the big content patch are numerous other tweaks, such as the classes changes discussed below.
Making good on Ghostcrawler’s promise, Eyonix threw up Part 1 of the upcoming changes. However, only Rogues (yahoo), Priests and Shamans currently have a short-list of changes, every other class is “coming soon.” I am no Shaman, nor am I an expert Priest, but it seems pretty obvious that both classes have been buffed overall in the listed changes. As for what my lovable little gnome thinks about his upcoming changes? Awesome.
PvP, that is the big change for Priests. The notes specifically state that Shadow PvPers will see increased survivability thanks to a buff to Shadow Form which reduces magic damage along with physical damage. Although no specific modifications were detailed, Eyonix notes that the developers are looking into making Holy have “additional PvP utility.” All the Discipline Priests shouldn’t feel left out though, they get an entirely new ability, Power Word: Barrier, which is essentially a PW:S for their group. Blizzard even through in some love for the whole class, adding Divine Spirit as a core ability.
Shamans of the Elemental and Enhancement varieties also scored some additional, although undefined, PvP utility. Following that, Dalaran’s lag should be slightly lower come v3.1 thanks to the streamlining of Totems. Mana Spring / Healing Stream Totems and Disease Cleansing / Poison Cleansing Totems have been combined. They are now two totems rather than four separate lag-inducing pillars of doom. The nature-friendly class has received one modification that might be viewed as a nerf, Chain Lightning will jump to four targets, but do less damage. The less damage could mean for the fourth jump or that the overall DPS output by CL will be lowered
The number one change I was looking forward to for Rogues was how Blizzard planned to tackle the annoyance of keeping Hunger for Blood active. For the none rogues out there, the spell had to be spammed three times, wasting two extra global cooldowns and 60 energy, to max it out. Then it had to be refreshed every 30 seconds to keep it up. While refreshing didn’t break stealth - you could refresh while creeping to the next mob - it was incredibly annoying to worry about an ability with such a short duration that was so desperately needed. The new HfB is a self-buff that can only be used when a bleed effect (anyone’s bleed) is active. While the need for a bleed is indeed a nerf, the 6% damage increase - from 9% with three stacks to 15% with no need for stacking - should help soothe that irritated skin.
Like the other classes, rogues have also seen a selection of buffs beyond the HfB change. Added haste, lower cooldowns and additional damage to various talents and abilities should make every rogue happy. However, we do not know the exact amount these favorable changes will impact us, due to the numbers on a few of tweaks not being unveiled.
The rest of the classes will be revealed in the upcoming parts of Eyonix’s post. Please hold off on the complaints until you see your own buffs. Remember, these notes are not comprehensive and therefore do not list all the changes. On the flip side, they can also be thrown out the window at a moment’s notice.
All of the changes do seem to be buffs, so perhaps Blizzard is saving all the nerfs for one giant post to get all the QQ out at once…Sly devils.
In other news, numerous bugs have been found in WoW recently, but the developers are already hard at work on hotfixes.
Update: Eyonix has posted more class changes. Warriors, Warlocks and Druids should check out the post covering Part 2 of the changes.
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By Kendall on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
WOOT FIRST
By Nextgener on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Interesting. But I’m more curious on the Warrior aspect of all these changes.
Ontop of that, UDUAR!!!!!
By cocopuff on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
2nd
By cocopuff on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
3rd
By cocopuff on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
let me guass whear ulduar is gointo be hmmm thats a tuff one but my guass in that area that allready 2 dungeons whats it called oh ya uldaur
By Carlos on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Ulduar is going to be in Storm Peaks, and there’s no reason to spam “SECOND” or “THIRD”.
By ryan kubo on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
I hope the hunter, and mage aren’t changed to much
By andy25100 on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
iTZKooPA i would love to see you be part of the gaming videos since you are my favorite poster on this site
By cocopuff on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
hey i have a question why did you choose the picture with the old man from “old school” who got a a heart attack from watching to women jumping oround
By iTZKooPA on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
You know all that about the old man but not his name?
By Naasuk(Andrew) on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Divine Plea.:(
By kevin on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
well uludar sounds interesting but i wana know what kind of changes i will see for my huntard
By churchill on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Death Knight changes please
By Joenips on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
idk if the change of HfB is good or bad it makes me wonder if i should just use the talent point somewhere else
By Joenips on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
just read the notes….it seems like blizzard keeps buffing the the combat rogues and has no real love for us mutilate rogues
By Dyra on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Well from my holy priest POV being able to possibly play in PvP, AoE healing improvements are all good and having Divine Spirit without having to spec into Discipline I like…….
There is just one thing still missing…. where is the priest’s poison dispell/cleanse? I mean seriously now , 2 talent trees dedicated towards healing but not a cure all cleanse or at the very least a poison cure, a lack of which is more which is more likely to wipe a party.
I like abolish disease, but I don’t think I’ve ever used my aoe magic dispell as my single target dispell does the job just as well.
WTT AOE magic dispell for Poison cleanse pls Blizz.
By elionor on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
how does the picture in any way relate to that post your talking about the talent cahnges for classes and a new raid and u have a picture of an old man wearing head gear
By Socram on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
The picture is a metaphor for be ready when the new patch comes out or you will end up having a heart attack like the old man did after watching those hot chicks… LOL
By Alayea on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
IMO, my class has (and still does) always suffered from having a cluttered buffing system. The combining of Mana/Healing and Poison/Disease is a good start to remedying this issue.
By cocopuff on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
be more specific churchill their are 2 types of changes nerf and buffs what do you want before the wotlk release blizz promised us a new pawning class and to me blizz did no deliver yea DKs are quickly catching up to the huntards and they ceep heading the way they are now they will have a “cool” little name like that to you can never have anough dps so far only seen improvements to tanking unholy got nerfed and blood was made more like a tank spec tankiing spec with vaperic blood and heart strike while all the other classes are sky rocketing
blood and unholy and dks DPS in general needs a serious buff to ake their rightful place at the top or atleast ceep up with all the changes shamans you know what they kneed stuns extand teh effect of chains of ice freeze the target for 5 seconds and than slowdown movement speed for 5 more saconds that be awsome that whould be good allround in pvp pve dungeons raids for these bastards that just cant stay still to even it out put a coolwown on it not to long though like 15 or 20 saconds the cooldown starts when you activate the ability
By cocopuff on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
oops not should realy go over what i tye i was gointo say somthing about shamans and started typing it but than i figured let the shman worry about the buffs and nerfs guass i forgot to erase the word shamans shamans have anough i ment DKS need stuns
By cocopuff on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
i am so bad at this
By Rokokos on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
I have been waiting a LONG time for the healing/mana totems to be combined! The chain lightning isnt a big deal. awesome sauce of unleashed rage, taking up my 5 talent points… and PvP utility? i dont understand… maybe more natural resilience?
By opus on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
“four separate lag-inducing pillars of doom” i laughed alittle when he said that and i checked on wow head there seem to be a few new changes to warlocks which makes me a little happy even just to know that warlocks are getting a bit of a change is a welcome since the last patch seem like it did nothing except give us a fancy portal.
By Dooz on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
I HATE people who spam “First” “Second” “Third”. Please, grow up. No one cares that you’re “first”.
By sevink on Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 12:46 am
@Dooz
Amen
By Thelmaris on Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 4:49 am
@ People asking about the picture: That old man is Blue from Old School, as many of you know. A post by a Blizzard member is commonly known as a Blue post because of the color of their text.
and 2+2=…?
Back on topic: I’m liking where this little hint of the class changes is going, as the changes for the classes I play that have been announced (Read: Shaman, Warrior, Druid) have been pretty good so far as I’m concerned.
Just need to wait for the Mage teaser to come and I’ll be all set.
By Hatell on Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 5:14 am
third one is up now, just read through it.
By Keikura on Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 8:25 am
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=7913091638&sid=1
WoW Europe site, but meh all class changes in one place. Enjoy.
By cocopuff on Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
cant u do better than that DKS want love to common geez you promised us a awsome class well we are waiting HURRY UP!!!!!!!! i checked the link tanking is good anough start working on dps not that iam complaining but lately its been real easy to find tanks thats the WOW way of saying tanking is good anough but incase you dint get the memo the TANKING IS FINE!!!!!!!!! all you kneed now is give tanks ability to heal and they will be able to solo dungeons sure your happy about that but what about the rest of us huh? immagine eating a moldy sandwich no topins
By Crusade on Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
cocopuff can you learn to spell please I can’t even get through your comments
oh and P.S
Divine Plea /cry
well I guess I knew it was coming
By Ryan Kubo on Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Just want any changes,
By Ryan Kubo on Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
Improved changes to the warrior and the hunter would be good also
By Snaggly on Saturday, February 7th, 2009 at 9:48 am
Cocopuff not only can’t you spell (I think I figured out what you said, all spelling aside it still makes you look like a 7 year old with down syndrome) but you clearly don’t know the DK class. Most people are finding it had to reach the 540 Defense cap while personally I find DK’s dps overpowered.
By Moggafogga teh shaman dude! on Sunday, February 8th, 2009 at 5:41 am
Cocopuff, i have one word for you… HUH?!?!?!?
Did anybody get anything of what he just wrote? i mean seriously.. You must have a badass without the ass english teacher O_o
And about the patch, i’d love to see warriors get less points to spend in fury since its impossible to make a good raiding specc with TG atm.. and i hate the lvl 75 spell, i mean.. for example shamans, lava burst.. now elemental is like FTW but enhancement.. and Frostfire bolts for mages? i mean.. and warrior get some enrage shit? its okay for leveling i suppose, but come on.. get a grip Blizzard.
- Kristianxx troll warrior kilrogg
- Moggafogga Draenei Shaman Stormreaver.
And keep up the good work Koopa! ^^
By cocopuff on Sunday, February 8th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
i never said DKSdps sucks i said that that al the classes are getting buffs while the DKS aregetting left behind espacialy teh dps and if you cant read you must have a worst teacher than i do DKS started at of at the top and slided down and it doesnt look like their finished sliding
By Owenharper (Eitrigg) on Monday, February 9th, 2009 at 7:05 am
Just saw the patch notes for hunters: “Consumable ammo has been removed from the game. Ammo no longer stacks, but is not consumed”. What up?????
As a hunter, I am very happy to never run out of ammo, and to have another bag slot. As an engineer, however… not so much. Bullets will not be selling for nearly as much as they used to.
Still… very worth it.
New bosses should be fun as well. (though I am nowhere near geared for them.
)
By Tommy on Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
ulduar finaly came out today =/ the maintanience isnt letting up tho its 8:20 at my place and i been home for atleast 5 hours rediculous much. it better be because of lag, glitch’s or bugs other whise im pissed.