Class changes

[valdeko]

Druid:

In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm weââ,¬â,,¢ll be making several changes to class  talents and abilities. Here you will get a glimpse into some of the  changes we have in store for the druid. The information youââ,¬â,,¢re about to  read is certainly not complete, and is only meant to act as a preview of  some of the exciting new things to come. Letââ,¬â,,¢s kick things off by  checking out some of the new druid spells and abilities!

New  Druid Abilities

Thrash (Level 81): Thrash deals damage  and causes all targets within 10 yards to bleed every 2 seconds for 6  seconds. The intent here is to give bears another button to hit while  tanking. Talents will affect the bleed, such as causing Swipe to deal  more damage to bleeding targets. 5-second cooldown. 25 Rage.

Stampeding  Roar (Level 83): The druid roars, increasing the movement of all  allies within 10 yards by 40% for 8 seconds. Stampeding Roar can be used  in cat or bear form, but bears might have a talent to drop the  cooldown. The goal of this ability is to give both bears and cats a  little more situational group utility. 3-minute cooldown. No cost.

Wild  Mushroom (Level 85): Grows a magical mushroom at the target  location. After 4 seconds the mushroom becomes invisible. Enemies who  cross the mushroom detonate it, causing it to deal area-of-effect  damage, though its damage component will remain very effective against  single targets. The druid can also choose to detonate the mushroom ahead  of time. This is primarily a tool for the Balance druid, and there will  be talents that play off of it. No cooldown. 40-yard range. Instant  cast.


Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

In  addition to the new abilities listed above, we intend to make changes to  some of the other abilities and mechanics with which youââ,¬â,,¢re already  familiar. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no  means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of our goals  for each spec.

• All  heal-over-time spells (HoTs) will benefit from crit and haste innately  in Cataclysm. Hasted HoTs do not reduce their duration, but instead add  additional HoT ticks. Haste will also benefit Energy generation while in  cat form.
• Unlike the other healers, Restoration druids will not  be receiving any new spells. They have plenty to work with already, and  our challenge instead is to make sure all of them have a well-defined  niche. A druid should be able to tank-heal with stacks of Lifebloom,  spot-heal a group with Nourish and Regrowth, and top off lightly wounded  targets with Rejuvenation.
• We want to add tools to cat form and  depth to bear form. If a Feral cat is going to fill a very similar  niche to that of a rogue, warrior or Enhancement shaman, it needs a few  more tools -- primarily a reliable interrupt. Bears need to be pushing a  few more buttons just so the contrast between tanking and  damage-dealing is not so steep.
• Barkskin will be innately  undispellable.
• We will be buffing the damage of Mangle (cat)  significantly so that when cat druids cannot Shred, they are not at such  a damage-dealing loss.
• Druids will lose Abolish Poison with the  dispel mechanics change, but Restoration druids will gain Dispel Magic  (on friendly targets) as a talent. All druids can still remove poisons  with Cure Poison and remove curses with Remove Curse.

New  Talents and Talent Changes

• Tree of Life is changing from a passive talent  to a cooldown-based talent, similar to Metamorphosis. Mechanically, it  feels unfair for a druid to have to give up so much offense and utility  in order to be just as good at healing as the other classes who are not  asked to make that trade. We are exploring the exact benefit the druid  gets from Tree of Life. It could strictly be better healing, or it could  be that each heal behaves slightly different. You also will not be able  to be banished in Tree of Life form (this will probably be true of  Metamorphosis as well). Additionally, we would like to update the Tree  of Life model so that it feels more exciting when you do decide to go  into that form. Our feeling is that druids rarely actually get to show  off their armor, so it would be nice to have at least one spec that  looked like a night elf or tauren (and soon troll or worgen) for most of  the time.
• We want to make the Feral cat damage rotation  slightly more forgiving. We do not want to remove what druids like about  their gameplay, but we do want to make it less punishing to miss, say, a  Savage Roar or Rake. The changes here will be on par with increasing  the duration of Mangle like we did for patch 3.3.3.
• Balance  druids will have a new talent ability called Natureââ,¬â,,¢s Torrent, which  strikes for either Nature or Arcane damage depending on which will do  the most damage (or possibly both), and moves the Eclipse meter more  (details below). The improved version of Natureââ,¬â,,¢s Torrent also reduces  the target's movement speed. 10-second cooldown.
• Restoration  druids will have a new talent called Efflorescence, which causes a bed  of healing flora to sprout beneath targets that are critically healed by  Regrowth.
• We plan on giving Feral cats and bears a Kick/Pummel  equivalent -- an interrupt that is off the global cooldown and does no  damage. We feel like they need this utility to be able to fill the melee  role in a dungeon or raid group, and to give them more PvP utility.
• We  want to make sure Feral and Balance druids feel like good options for  an Arena team. They need the tools to where you might consider a Feral  druid over an Arms warrior, or a Balance druid over a mage or warlock.  Remember that the PvP landscape will probably look pretty different for  Cataclysm with a focus on rated, competitive Battlegrounds.

Mastery  Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Balance

• Spell Damage
• Spell  Haste
• Eclipse

Eclipse: We are moving  Eclipse from a talent into a core mechanic of the class and making it  less random. Balance druids will have a new UI element that shows a sun  and a moon. Whenever they cast an Arcane spell, it will move the UI  closer to the sun, and buff their Nature damage. Whenever they cast a  Nature spell, it will move the UI closer to the moon, and buff their  Arcane damage. The gameplay intention is to alternate Arcane and Nature  spells (largely Starfire and Wrath) to maintain the balance.

Feral  (Cat)

• Melee  Damage
• Melee Critical Damage
• Bleed Damage

Feral  (Bear)

• Damage  Reduction
• Vengeance
• Savage Defense

Bleed  Damage and Savage Defense: Feral druids will receive two sets of  passive bonuses depending on whether the druid is in cat or bear form.  Bleed Damage will be improved for cats. Savage Defense is the current  bear mechanic for converting crits into damage absorption and will be  improved for bears.

Vengeance: This is a mechanic to  ensure that tank damage (and therefore threat) doesnââ,¬â,,¢t fall behind as  damage-dealing classes improve their gear during the course of the  expansion. All tanking specs will have Vengeance as their second talent  tree passive bonus. Whenever a tank gets hit, Vengeance will give them a  stacking attack power buff equal to 5% of the damage done, up to a  maximum of 10% of the characterââ,¬â,,¢s unbuffed health. For boss encounters  we expect that tanks will always have the attack power bonus equal to  10% of their health. The 5% and 10% bonuses assume 51 talent points have  been put into the Feral tree and the druid is in bear form -- these  values will be smaller at lower levels. Remember, you only get this  bonus if you have spent the most talent points in the Feral tree and are  in bear form, so you wonââ,¬â,,¢t see Balance, Restoration, or Feral druids in  cat form running around with it. Vengeance will let us continue to make  tank gear more or less the way we do today -- there will be some  damage-dealing stats, but mostly survival-oriented stats. Druids  typically have more damage-dealing stats even on their tanking gear, so  the Vengeance benefit may be smaller, but overall the goal is that all  four tanks do about the same damage when tanking.

Restoration

• Healing
• Meditation
• HoT  Scale Healing

HoT Scale Healing: HoTs will do  increased healing on more wounded targets. The mechanic is similar to  that of the Restoration shaman, but with HoTs instead of direct heals.  In Cataclysm, we anticipate druids using a greater variety of their  spells so there is a distinction between healing and HoT healing.

We  hope you enjoyed this preview, and ask that you provide your initial  thoughts and feedback on what was presented here. Please keep in mind,  what youââ,¬â,,¢ve just reviewed is a work in progress and as we move closer to  the Cataclysm beta, youââ,¬â,,¢ll see these changes as well as others continue  to develop in response to testing and feedback.

[valdeko]

Mage:

In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, weââ,¬â,,¢ll be making lots of changes and  additions to class talents and abilities across the board. In this  preview, youââ,¬â,,¢ll get an early look at what's in store for the mage class,  including a rundown of some of the new spells, abilities, and talents,  and an overview of how the new Mastery system will work with the  different talent specs.

New Mage Spells

Flame  Orb (available at level 81): Inspired by Prince Taldaramââ,¬â,,¢s abilities  in Ahn'kahet and Icecrown Citadel, this spell allows the mage to cast a  flaming orb that travels in front in a straight line, sending beams  that cause fire damage to passing targets. Once itââ,¬â,,¢s cast, the mage is  free to begin casting other spells as the Flame Orb travels. While the  spell will be useful to any spec, Fire mages will have talents that  improve it, possibly causing the Flame Orb to explode when it reaches  its destination.

Time Warp (level 83): Grants a passive  Haste effect much like Bloodlust or Heroism to party or raid members. It  also temporarily increases the mage's own movement speed. Time Warp  will be exclusive with Bloodlust and Heroism, meaning you canââ,¬â,,¢t benefit  from both if youââ,¬â,,¢ve got the Exhaustion debuff, though the movement-speed  increase will still work even when under the effects of Exhaustion.

Wall  of Fog (level 85): Creates a line of frost in front of the mage, 30  yards from end to end. Enemies who cross the line are snared and take  damage. The mana cost will be designed to make Wall of Fog efficient  against groups, not individuals. This spell is intended to give mages a  way to help control the battlefield, whether the mage is damaging  incoming enemies (Blizzard can be channeled on top of Wall of Fog) or  protecting a flag in a Battleground. 10-second duration. 30-second  cooldown.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

In  addition to introducing new spells, we're planning to make changes to  some of the other abilities and mechanics you're familiar with. This  list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means  comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we intend  for each spec.

• Arcane  Missiles is being redesigned to become a proc-based spell. Whenever the  mage does damage with any spell, there is a chance for Arcane Missiles  to become available, similar to how the warriorââ,¬â,,¢s Overpower works. The  damage and mana cost of this spell will be reworked to make it very  desirable to use when available. This change should make gameplay more  dynamic for the mage, particularly at low levels.
• We are  planning to remove spells that don't have a clear purpose. Amplify  Magic, Dampen Magic, Fire Ward, and Frost Ward are being removed from  the game, and we may remove more.
• The ability to conjure food  and water will not become available until higher levels (likely around  level 40), as we're making changes to ensure mages generally wonââ,¬â,,¢t run  out of mana at lower levels. Once mages learn how to conjure food and  water, the conjured item will restore both health and mana.
• Scorch  will provide a damage bonus to the mage's fire spells. Our goal is for  Scorch to be part of the mage's rotation and a useful damage-dealing  ability, even if someone else is supplying the group with the spell  Critical Strike debuff. Scorch will provide the mage with more specific  benefits, which can also be improved through talents.

New  Talents and Talent Changes

• Arcane Focus will now return mana for each  spell that fails to hit your target, including Arcane Missiles that fail  to launch. We want Arcane mages to have several talents that play off  of how much mana the character has and give the player enough tools to  manage mana.
• The talent Playing with Fire will reduce the  cooldown of Blast Wave when hit by a melee attack, instead of its  current effect.
• Pyromaniac will grant Haste when three or more  targets are getting damaged by the effects of your damage-over-time  (DoT) fire spells.
• The Burnout talent will allow mages to cast  spells using health when they run out of mana.

Mastery  Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Arcane

• Spell damage
• Spell  Haste
• Mana Adept

Mana Adept: Arcane will  deal damage based how much mana the mage has. For example, Arcane mages  will do much more damage at 100% mana than at 50% mana. If they begin to  get low on mana, they will likely want to use an ability or mechanic to  bring their mana up to increase their damage.

Fire

• Spell damage
• Spell  Crit
• Ignite

Ignite: All direct-damage fire  spells will add a damage-over-time (DoT) component when cast. The flavor  will be similar to how Fireball works; however, the DoT component will  be much stronger.

Frost

• Spell damage
• Spell Crit damage
• Deathfrost

Deathfrost:  Casting Frostbolt places a buff on the mage that increases the  damage for all frost, fire, and arcane spells. The only damage spell  that won't be affected by this buff is Frostbolt.

We hope you  enjoyed this preview, and weââ,¬â,,¢re looking forward to hearing your initial  thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in  mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject  to change as development on Cataclysm continues.

[Bellanie]

Mage:


Time Warp (level 83): Grants a passive  Haste effect much like Bloodlust or Heroism to party or raid members. It  also temporarily increases the mage's own movement speed. Time Warp  will be exclusive with Bloodlust and Heroism, meaning you canââ,¬â,,¢t benefit  from both if youââ,¬â,,¢ve got the Exhaustion debuff, though the movement-speed  increase will still work even when under the effects of Exhaustion.

.

RIGHT! thats settles it time for a reroll i think!. But it does mean that shamans will no longer be the only ones with a haste buff, but alas means i can now decide to reroll with the new expansion.

[Tirkad]

• The Burnout talent will allow mages to cast  spells using health when they run out of mana.

Oh crap... like life tapping frenzy locks weren't enough to annoy healers...

[valdeko]

Paladin:

In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm weââ,¬â,,¢ll be making several changes to class  talents and abilities across the board. While this list only outlines  some of our plans for the paladin class, we want to give you a look at  the new high-level abilities and an overview of how the new Mastery  system will work with each talent spec.

New Paladin Spells

Blinding  Shield (level 81): Causes damage and blinds all nearby targets.  This effect might end up only damaging those facing the paladinââ,¬â,,¢s  shield, in a manner similar to Eadric the Pure's ability Radiance in  Trial of the Champion. The Holy tree will have a talent to increase the  damage and critical strike chance, while the Protection tree will have a  talent to make this spell instant cast. 2-second base cast time.  Requires a shield.

Healing Hands (level 83): Healing Hands  is a new healing spell. The paladin radiates heals from him or herself,  almost like a Healing Stream Totem. It has a short range, but a long  enough duration that the paladin can cast other heals while Healing  Hands remains active. 15-second cooldown. 6-second duration.

Guardian  of Ancient Kings (level 85): Summons a temporary guardian that  looks like a winged creature of light armed with a sword. The visual is  similar to that of the Resurrection spell used by the paladin in  Warcraft III. The guardian has a different effect depending on the  talent spec of the paladin. For Holy paladins, the guardian heals the  most wounded ally in the area. For Protection paladins, the guardian  absorbs some incoming damage. For Retribution paladins, it damages an  enemy, similar to the death knight Gargoyle or the Nibelung staff.  3-minute cooldown. 30-second duration (this might vary depending on  which guardian appears).

Next you will find a list of some of the  paladin spell and ability changes, followed by our intentions for  improving each talent tree for the release of Cataclysm. There will be  further changes, but those revealed below should offer some insight into  our goals.


Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

• Crusader Strike will  be a core ability for all paladins, gained at level 1. We think the  paladin leveling experience is hurt by not having an instant attack.  Retribution will be getting a new talent in its place that either  modifies Crusader Strike or replaces it completely.
• Cleanse is  being rebalanced to work with the new dispel system. It will dispel  defensive magic (debuffs on friendly targets), diseases, and poisons.
• Blessing  of Might will provide the benefit of Wisdom as well. If you have two  paladins in your group, one will do Kings on everyone and the other will  do Might on everyone. There should be much less need, and ideally no  need, to provide specific buffs to specific classes.
• Holy Shock  will be a core healing spell available to all paladins.

New  Talents and Talent Changes

• We want to ease off the defensive capabilities  of Retribution and Holy paladins slightly. We think the powerful paladin  defenses have been one of the things holding Retribution paladins back,  especially in Arenas. One change weââ,¬â,,¢re considering is lowering Divine  Shieldââ,¬â,,¢s duration by a couple of seconds. Having said that, Retribution  does pretty well in Battlegrounds, and Battlegrounds will be a much  bigger focus in Cataclysm since they can provide the best PvP rewards.  Furthermore, the healing environment of Cataclysm is going to be  different such that a paladin may not be able to fully heal themselves  during the duration of Divine Shield to begin with, so this may not be a  problem.
• We feel Retribution paladins need one more mechanic  which involves some risk of the player pushing the wrong button, making  the rotation a bit less forgiving. In addition, we want to add to this  spec more PvP utility. Right now the successes of the Retribution  paladin in PvP seem to be reduced to either doing decent burst damage,  or just being good at staying alive.
• We want to increase the  duration of Sacred Shield to 30 minutes and keep the limit to one  target. The intention is that the paladin can use it on their main  healing target. That said, we would like to improve the Holy paladin  toolbox and niche so that they donââ,¬â,,¢t feel quite like the obvious choice  for tank healing while perceived as a weak group healer.
• We want  to add to the Holy tree a nice big heal to correspond with Greater  Heal. Flash of Light remains the expensive, fast heal and Holy Light is  the go-to heal that has average efficiency and throughput. Beacon of  Light will be changed to work with Flash of Light. We like the ability,  but want paladins to use it intelligently and not be constantly healing  for twice as much.
• Holy paladins will use spirit as their mana  regeneration stat.
• Protection paladins need a different rotation  between single-target and multi-target tanking. Likewise, we're looking  to add the necessity to use an additional cooldown in each rotation.
• Holy  Shield will no longer have charges. It will be designed to improve  block chance while active, and will continue to provide a small amount  of damage and threat.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree  Bonuses

Holy

• Healing
• Meditation
  
• Critical  Healing Effect
  

Meditation: This is the  spirit-to-mana conversion that the priest, druid, and shaman healers  also share.

Critical Healing Effect: When the paladin gets  a crit on a heal, it will heal for more.

Protection

• Damage Reduction
• Vengeance
  
• Block  Amount
  

Vengeance: This is the  damage-received-to-attack-power conversion that all tanks share.

Block  Amount: We want to keep the kit of the paladin as a tank who blocks  a lot. So by contrast, the warrior tank will sometimes get critical  blocks, but the paladin will absorb more damage with normal blocks.

Retribution

• Melee Damage
• Melee  Critical Damage
• Holy Damage
  

Holy Damage:  Any attack that does Holy damage will have its damage increased.

Here's a bit more clarification on some of these changes. Also, please  keep in mind that this is merely a preview and we'll still have more to  go in testing up to and including any other changes that aren't listed  here in the preview.

We've updated the Flash of Light reference  to make it a bit more clear in the original post as follows.

• Flash of Light remains a  fast heal, but will be more expensive to justify the cast speed. Holy  Light will be the go-to heal that has average efficiency and throughput.  Beacon of Light needs to be changed so that its benefit is letting the  paladin heal two targets at once, not letting the paladin get two heals  for the mana cost of one. Itââ,¬â,,¢s intended to save GCDs and targeting time,  not mana.

In addition weââ,¬â,,¢re changing the paladin heal  design to match that of the other healers. Holy Light is the middle  heal. Itââ,¬â,,¢s very efficient, but not particularly fast and doesnââ,¬â,,¢t have a  lot of throughput. Flash of Light will be the faster heal that costs  more mana. (Currently paladins sort of flip the model around by having a  fast, efficient heal.) Holy paladins can talent into an additional heal  that is like a giant Holy Light. It might take three of these big heals  (or two crits) to get a tank from deathââ,¬â,,¢s door back to 100% health.

Currently  on live, Beacon of Light is a tool that allows paladins to target more  than just the main tank. In Cataclysm if it just doubles their healing,  it is going to be overpowered. We have two ways we might handle this and  weââ,¬â,,¢ll experiment to see which feels better. The first is that Beacon  only works on some heals, such as Flash of Light or Holy Light (but not  the big one). An alternative idea is that Beacon increases the mana cost  of a heal cast on a beaconed target, since youââ,¬â,,¢re essentially getting a  double heal. Under this model, Beacon itself would cost no mana.

Also  on the live realms currently, paladins have huge mana pools and massive  throughput. The trade-off is that they are excellent single target  healers and much weaker in other roles. We want paladins to be slightly  more interchangeable with other healers. In Cataclysm, you should be  able to have a Holy priest on the tank and a Holy paladin on the raid.  Weââ,¬â,,¢re not sure weââ,¬â,,¢ll back off of the current healing roles completely,  but we definitely want to add more breadth to those whose roles are  currently too narrow.

As for the Guardian of Ancient Kings.  First, it's important to understand that this is not a pet nor does it  have a pet bar associated with it. Second, it's also not meant to last  for very long. So, it's not a pet in the traditional sense. It's a  friend in need when you need it, but not a permanent companion.

This  concludes this Cataclysm preview for the paladin class. The  development  of these changes will continue to evolve in the coming  months. Please  be sure to provide any feedback and thoughts you might  have on what was  covered here.