Updated Patch 2.3 Test notes with more class changes
The PTR isn't up for another hour, but changes are already happening for Patch 2.3. First, the Guild Banks will not be active yet and will be turned on later in the Testing process.Also, many new class changes have been added to the notes. Here are all the class notes with the new changes in bold:
Druids
* Barkskin: It is no longer possible to cast this spell while Cycloned.
* Cure Poison and Abolish Poison are now usable in Tree of Life Form.
* Cure Poison, Abolish Poison and Remove Curse range increased to 40 yards.
* Entangling Roots: It is no longer possible for multiple Druids to have Entangling Roots on the same target. In addition, it will now always be removed correctly if multiple Druids overwrite each other's Entangling Roots.
* Feral Attack Power: Items that granted bonus attack power in Cat, Bear, Dire Bear, and Moonkin forms have been re-evaluated. In almost all cases, the attack power on the item has been increased. This change corrects an issue where feral weapon damage was not keeping up with other classes in its rate of increase.
Druid notes (and all other classes) continued in full after the jump!
* Force of Nature: This ability will no longer automatically break stealth on victims in its casting area. Nearby stealthed characters may still be attacked if they are too close to the summoned Treants.
* Heart of the Wild: This talent no longer provides 4/8/12/16/20% bonus Strength in Cat Form. Instead it provides 2/4/6/8/10% bonus attack power.
* Hibernate: This spell will now always be removed correctly if multiple Druids overwrite each other's Hibernate.
* Intensity (Restoration) increased to 10/20/30% mana regeneration.
* Primal Fury: This talent will now be learned correctly even if purchased while the Druid is dead.
* Rebirth cooldown reduced to 20 minutes, from 30 minutes.
* Remove Curse is now usable in Moonkin Form.
* Shapeshifting Spells: Some of these spells were causing additional unintended threat. That additional unintended threat has been removed.
* Soothe Animal: This spell now properly consumes Nature's Swiftness.
* Tranquility now gains additional benefit from spell damage and healing bonuses.
Hunters
* Arcane Shot (Ranks 6 and above) now dispel 1 Magic effect in addition to their normal damage.
* Explosive Trap: The initial damage dealt by this trap is now also increased by 10% of your ranged attack power.
* Immolation Trap: The total damage dealt by this trap is now also increased by 10% of your ranged attack power.
* Misdirection: This spell will now always be removed correctly if multiple Hunters overwrite each other's Misdirection.
* Readiness: This talent now finishes the cooldown on Kill Command.
* Serpent Sting, Immolation Trap and Explosive Trap all gain additional damage based on ranged attack power.
* Serpent Sting: The total damage dealt by this sting is now also increased by 10% of your ranged attack power.
* Steady Shot: Tooltip clarified to indicate base weapon damage is used in the damage calculation.
* Trueshot Aura (Marksmanship) no longer costs mana to cast and will last until cancelled.
* Wyvern Sting (Survival) is now instant cast and has a maximum duration of 10 seconds in PvP.
Mages
* Arcane Intellect and Arcane Brilliance mana costs reduced.
* Arcane Meditation (Arcane) increased to 10/20/30% mana regeneration.
* Detect Magic removed. All players may now see their target's beneficial effects at all times.
* Evocation now regenerates 15% of total mana every 2 seconds rather than increase Spirit based regeneration.
* Fire Ward and Frost Ward now gain additional benefit from spell damage bonuses. Base absorb values of ranks 5 and 6 have been reduced.
* Hypothermia duration increased to 45 sec.
* Ice Barrier now gains additional benefit from spell damage bonuses. Base absorb values of ranks 5 and 6 have been reduced.
* Improved Fireball: The reduction in damage coefficient caused by this talent has been removed.
* Improved Frostbolt: The reduction in damage coefficient caused by this talent has been removed.
* Polymorph: It is no longer possible to polymorph a player and have that player remain mounted. In addition, it will now always be removed correctly if multiple Mages overwrite each other's Polymorph.
* Portal Spells: Portal spells to capital cities can no longer be cast in battlegrounds.
* Remove Curse range increased to 40 yards.
* (NEW SPELL) Ritual of Refreshment available on trainers at level 70.
Paladins
* Blessing of Light: Lower ranks of Flash of Light and Holy Light are now properly penalized when used with this Blessing.
* Cleanse and Purify range increased to 40 yards.
* Crusader Strike (Retribution) cooldown reduced from 10 to 6 seconds.
* Exorcism mana cost reduced.
* Hammer of Wrath mana cost reduced.
* Holy Wrath mana cost reduced.
* Improved Seal of the Crusader (Retribution) benefits folded into the base spell. This talent now gives the benefits of the Sanctified Crusader talent instead.
* Judgement of Light: The combat log will now show the mana gained from rank 5 of this ability as Judgement of Light instead of Seal of Light.
* Pursuit of Justice (Retribution) is now 3 ranks and increases movement speed by 5/10/15% and also reduces the chance you'll be hit by spells by 1/2/3%.
* Sanctified Crusader (Retribution) renamed Sanctified Seals, which now increases your chance to critically hit with all spells and melee attacks by 1/2/3% and reduces the chance your Seals will be dispelled by 33/66/100%.
* Vengeance (Retribution) duration increased from 15 to 30 seconds.
* Vindication (Retribution) frequency and duration increased and now reduces all attributes by 5/10/15%, not just Strength and Agility.
* Weapon Expertise (Protection) renamed Combat Expertise, now increases expertise by 1/2/3/4/5 and total Stamina by 2/4/6/8/10%.
Priests
* Chastise (NEW) is now available to Dwarf and Draenei priests at level 20. Chastise causes Holy damage and incapacitates the target for 2 seconds.
* Circle of Healing: The base amount of healing from this spell has been reduced along with increasing the bonus it receives from bonus healing effects. Characters with more than 1338 healing will see their Circle of Healing heal for more than previous patches. Characters with less than 1338 healing will see their Circle of Healing heal for less.
* Cure Disease and Abolish Disease range increased to 40 yards.
* Divine Spirit: It is no longer possible for a target to simultaneously have Divine Spirit rank 5 and Prayer of Spirit Rank 1 icons showing at the same time.
* Elune's Grace (Night Elf) effect changed to reduce chance to be hit by melee and ranged attacks by 20% for 15 seconds. There is now only 1 rank of the spell.
* Fear Ward is now available to all priests at level 20. Duration reduced to 3 minutes, cooldown increased to 3 minutes.
* Fixed a bug where the global cooldown was triggered when shifting out of Shadowform.
* Holy Fire: The tooltip on rank 4 has been adjusted.
* Inner Focus: Rank 4 will now properly affect Lightwell.
* Inner Focus: This effect is now properly consumed by casting Mind Soothe.
* Meditation (Discipline) increased to 10/20/30% mana regeneration.
* Pain Suppression (Discipline Talent) is now usable on friendly targets, instantly reduces the target's threat by 5%, reduces damage taken by 40% and its cooldown has been reduced to 2 minutes.
* Prayer of Healing, Circle of Healing and Holy Nova (healing effect) now gain additional benefit from spell damage and healing bonuses.
* Power Word: Fortitude, Divine Spirit, Prayer of Fortitude and Prayer of Spirit mana costs reduced.
* Power Word: Shield now gains additional benefit from spell damage and healing bonuses. Base absorb values of ranks 10, 11 and 12 have been reduced.
* Shackle Undead: This spell will now always be removed correctly if multiple Priests overwrite each other's Shackle Undead.
* Shadow Word: Death: Resilience no longer reduces the backlash damage from this spell.
* Starshards (Night Elf) is no longer channeled, costs 0 mana, is now a Magic effect, lasts 15 seconds, causes damage every 3 seconds and has a 30 second cooldown.
Rogues
* All poisons will now enchant the weapon for 1 hour, increased from 30 minutes
* Blind is now a physical (no longer a poison) attack. Reagent requirement removed. Now shares the same diminish category as Cyclone and is now diminished in PvE as well as PvP.
* Fleet Footed (Assassination) now increases movement speed by 8/15%.
* Kick: Interrupting a channeled spell with this ability will now always properly prevent casting spells from the same spell school for 5 sec.
* Precision: This talent now also applies to ranged weapons.
* Remorseless Attacks: This talent can no longer be triggered by the death of a rogue's target dummy or other pet.
* Riposte is now subject to diminishing returns in PvP.
* Rogue's Deadly Throw missile speed increased significantly and snare duration increased slightly.
* Ruthlessness now only affects melee finishing moves. It no longer works with Deadly Throw.
* Shadowstep (Subtlety) can now be used at any time, not only while stealthed. Threat caused by next Ambush, Garrote or Backstab is reduced by 50%. Cooldown increased to 40 seconds.
Shaman
* Chain Heal: The tooltips on tanks 1-3 have been adjusted.
* Chain Lightning cast time reduced to 2.0 (from 2.5), mana costs reduced, benefit from spell damage reduced appropriately.
* Cure Poison and Cure Disease range increased to 40 yards.
* Earth Shield: This spell will now always be removed correctly if multiple Shaman overwrite each other's Earth Shield.
* Earth Shock: Interrupting a channeled spell with this spell will now always properly prevent casting spells from the same spell school for 2 sec.
* Elemental Focus (Elemental) now reduces the mana cost of the next 2 damage spells by 40%.
* Frost Shock is no longer subject to diminishing returns.
* Grounding Totem: This totem is now destroyed upon redirecting any spell to itself.
* Lightning Bolt cast time reduced to 2.5 (from 3.0 where applicable), mana costs reduced, benefit from spell damage reduced appropriately.
* Lightning Mastery (Elemental) cast time reduction reduced to .1/.2/.3/.4/.5 seconds.
* Lightning Overload (Elemental) now has a 4/8/12/16/20% chance to occur and the additional spell causes half damage and no additional threat.
* Mana Spring Totem effect increased.
* Mental Quickness (Enhancement) now also increases spell damage and healing equal to 10/20/30% of your attack power.
* Two-Handed Axes and Two-Handed Maces are now trainable by all Shaman at the appropriate weapon masters. The Enhancement talent has been replaced by Shamanistic Focus.
* Shamanistic Focus (New Enhancement Talent): After landing a melee critical strike, you enter a Focused state. The Focused state reduces the mana cost of your next Shock spell by 60%.
* Shamanistic Rage (Enhancement) now also reduces all damage taken by 30% for the duration.
* Spirit Weapons (Enhancement) threat reduction increased to 30% from 15%.
* Rockbiter Weapon: For ranks 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 the increased damage resulting from this enchantment has been reduced slightly to match the intended numbers given in the tooltip. Ranks 1, 2, 3, and 9 are unchanged.
* Water Shield: This spell no longer costs any mana to cast and its duration has been shortened. At the end of its duration, it now grants mana for any remaining globes. In addition, the mana granted per globe has been substantially increased.
* Windfury Weapon: This enchantment can no longer be triggered while you are disarmed.
Warlock
* Banish can no longer be cast on targets tapped by other players or groups.
* Conflagrate: The Immolate debuff will now always be removed correctly when this spell is cast.
* Drain Life and Siphon Life now reduce the amount healed when the warlock is affected by healing reducing effects (e.g. Mortal Strike, Wounding Poison).
* Hellfire: This spell will no longer cause enemy spells to increase casting time or reduce channel time. It will also no longer prevent flag captures in Battlegrounds.
* Nether Protection (Destruction) now has a new, more distinct visual effect.
* Ritual of Souls now takes significantly less time to cast and complete.
* Seed of Corruption detonation will now obey line of sight.
* Shadow Embrace: This talent's effect can no longer trigger other effects.
* Shadow Ward: This spell now gains additional benefit from spell damage bonuses. Base absorb value of rank 4 has been reduced.
* Soul Siphon (Affliction) now increases damage by 2/4% and no longer affects Drain Mana.
Warrior
* Charge will work more often when targets are up against unpathable areas like walls and poles.
* Defiance (Protection) now also grants 2/4/6 weapon expertise.
* Devastate (Protection) now combines the effects of Sunder Armor into its effect. It is also now affected by all talents and items that affect Sunder Armor.
* Disarm is now subject to diminishing returns in PvP.
* Improved Berserker Stance (Fury) now also reduces all threat caused while in Berserker Stance by 2/4/6/8/10%
* Improved Intercept and Weapon Mastery have swapped locations in the talent trees.
* Intervene will no longer place you in combat.
* Hamstring now has a 10 second duration when used on PvP targets.
* Mace Specialization (Arms) now has a reduced chance to occur but generates 7 rage instead of 6.
* Pummel: Interrupting a channeled spell with this ability will now always properly prevent casting spells from the same spell school for 4 sec.
* Shield Bash: Interrupting a channeled spell with this ability will now always properly prevent casting spells from the same spell school for 6 sec.
* Shield Slam (Protection) now always tries to dispel one Magic effect on the target.
* Sweeping Strikes and Deathwish have swapped locations in the talent trees.
* Sweeping Strikes (Fury) now lasts 10 seconds and affects your next 10 swings.
* Tactical Mastery: This talent also now grants greatly increased threat from Mortal Strike and Bloodthirst when in Defensive Stance.
* Weapon Mastery (Arms) now reduces duration of Disarm effects against you by 25/50% rather than giving you a 50% chance to avoid or full immunity to Disarm effects.
* Whirlwind: This ability now strikes with both weapons when a Warrior is dual-wielding.
Filed under: Patches, News items, Classes






Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Arangar - Uldaman Oct 11th 2007 8:02PM
Some love for the prot warrior...did they hire someone new at Blizz?
twh Oct 11th 2007 8:16PM
Still no threat reduction for Ret paladins!
Sky_Paladin Oct 11th 2007 8:21PM
With respect to weapon expertise, the Paladin (protection) talent really should be in the ret tree, not the protection tree. Expertise (effectively) improves your chance to hit, something Paladin tanks don't care about.
The entire talent, including it's 10% stamina buff, should be relocated to the Retribution tree.
At this point, to be viable as a tank, a Paladin needs to invest 50 points in the Protection tree. With the proposed changes, Paladins will be expected to burn up 55. Having Improved Righteous Crusader now act as the default mode does sweeten this slightly (since you are effectively getting those talent points for free now), however it would be even better if the 10% stamina boost was bundled with another talent that isn't quite worth it's points - Ardent Defender.
Protection Paladin's don't need more offense. They need better mitigation AND stamina. This change is a step in the right direction, but one more step and it would be a good fix.
Crypt King Oct 11th 2007 8:39PM
And yet another nerf to Holy Paladins
Bandagespec Oct 11th 2007 8:59PM
@3 sorry bud, you're wrong WE is an excellent talent, it decreases our chance to be parried/blocked/dodged, effectively increasing our threat gen, decreasing our chance to be parried actually decreases our damage taken by bosses, did you know a good ret pally will be behind the mob, thus only effected by the miss mechanic. 10% is godly for my protection paladin who already has 932 stam unbuffed and is uncrushable.
Hyrican Oct 11th 2007 9:02PM
You are ignorant when you are saying prot paladins don't need less chance to parry/dodge from the opponent and also the 10% Stam from the same talent!
Weapon Expertise is half as effective as a Stat when used while behind a target because it does indeed decrease 0.25% chance to dodge but also to parry BUT from behind there is 0% parry already.
So WE is for upfront like a Tank or Solocombat. That is why Prot warrior and paladin get a tool that help increase the chance of hitting the target. Which is more aggro for both of them on single targets.
popeguilty Oct 11th 2007 9:13PM
So they still haven't got around to making the PW:F and PoF tooltips to update with talents?
Johan Forn Oct 11th 2007 9:37PM
According to the WoW forums, the warrior changes for fury and arms are, generally speaking, considered nerfs.
I'm confused! My main is an Arms pvp warrior, and as far as I can predict, most changes will be quite beneficial to both me and the Fury pve player. Now normally I do not let the shouting push my opinion in any direction, but a large majority in the forum seem to be concerned about the changes..
Can someone enlighten me and point out what part I am missing?
Toukon Oct 11th 2007 9:53PM
Oh no!!!!! Don't take away my death wish :'(
Grais Oct 11th 2007 9:54PM
**Improved Intercept and Weapon Mastery have swapped locations in the talent trees.
**Whirlwind: This ability now strikes with both weapons when a Warrior is dual-wielding.
Wow... what'd you Fury Warriors do to make Bliz so mad at ya? As an Arms Warrior I'm quite happy with this buff.
Matthew Rossi Oct 11th 2007 10:15PM
Wow, fury got Sweeping Strikes? But SS is a preq for MS.
Sherief Oct 11th 2007 10:25PM
Swapping Deathwish and Sweeping strikes will buff MS warriors in PvP signficantly, and buff a Fury warrior's multi-target dps. However, it is a nerf to single-target dps, notably in raids.
I'm confused as to why this change is needed in the first place.
Joe P Oct 11th 2007 10:41PM
"Rebirth cooldown reduced to 20 minutes, from 30 minutes."
*hums the "Hallelujah chorus"
Leshrac Oct 11th 2007 11:32PM
SOS, I am about to cancel my WoW subs after almost 3 years of playing, not including the beta. After all this time they're still fucking tweaking classes? Holy sh1t, get over it already.
Rob Pardo is no longer involved, that is obvious, Jeff Kaplan has turned this game into a PVE grindfest up the ass, Jeff was an old die hard PVE EQ player that loved spending 6-8 months perfecting dungeon techniques. The game died for me with TBC, I hit 70 and realized that I wasn't going to grind meaningless faction rep just for the sake of grinding meaningless faction rep.
Sad day indeed, say goodbye to my 4 WoW accts Blizzard, u fucktards, and Jeff Kaplan is the anti-christ.
Serivas Oct 11th 2007 11:34PM
WHAT?! They're nerfing Sooth Animal?!?! now I'll NEVER use it! Oh wait...
Marlus Oct 11th 2007 11:42PM
Primal Fury: This talent will now be learned correctly even if purchased while the Druid is dead.
oh rly?! now I can learn spell while dead?!
Heraclea Oct 12th 2007 1:00AM
@8 -
Sweeping Strikes is no adequate replacement for Deathwish. Warriors have no way to escape unwanted combats, what kills us are adds, so we learn to kill one at a time while soloing. Instances and raids are full of fragile crowd control, and the chief use of a fury warrior is to burn down the boss at the end of a fight. Sweeping Strikes is of no help there, and Deathwish was. This is a major nerf to PvE fury and a further buff to PvP arms.
What's even odder is that it makes the off-spec tanking buff from Tactical Mastery irrelevant. I suspect that when this goes live, dual wielding warriors are likely all going to change en masse to a 31/30/0 Mortal Strike/Flurry build that lacks Precision and Improved Berserker Stance. We're also getting the devalued Weapon Mastery instead of Improved Intercept. The thing is, a 31/30/0 build is so tight (and the results will be so cookie cutter) that there aren't going to be three points available to put into that Prot power that is getting buffed without taking away from needed abilities elsewhere. So that, too, is unavailable to Fury warriors.
The assumption seems to be that warriors are either MS clones in PvP or tanks. Fury warriors are definitely getting dumped on, and for no real reason. All we bring to PvE now is DPS, which lags behind rogues, and some offtanking ability, which has also been put beyond our reach. If you are dual wield fury, you solo from here on out.
Sky_Paladin Oct 12th 2007 2:31AM
@5:
I am not a Ret Paladin. I am a Protection paladin. My primary means to generate threat is when an enemy strikes me in melee and I block. I would not care about striking the enemy in melee at all, except through Seal of the Crusader/Vengeance additional threat build. Protection Paladins skipped Weapon Expertise prior to this patch for this reason. It is an advantage to a retribution Paladin. That is why I suggested it should be moved to the retribution tree.
Of course I want extra stamina, but where am I taking talent points away from to use here? If you look at this example talent build for a tank, you will see what I am talking about:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?0000000000000000000005025133500001525215510500500000000000000000
With the new, essential talents picked out there are only ten points left. This tree is already heavy with talents. It would be better if more of them were folded in to each other to increase the variety of viable tanking options.
@6:
As a tank, it's my job to hold aggro. The enemy is therefore facing me. My chance to be behind them is therefore nil. If I was a retribution DPS paladin, then your argument would make sense - I would indeed want to be behind the target. But since I am Protection, I don't understand how weapon expertise is supposed to be an advantage.
babamucha Oct 12th 2007 4:16AM
yeah nerf the pally, coz they think they can replace warrior and priest class
Dierle Oct 12th 2007 5:12AM
I dunno, if I were a warrior, I think I'd be quite quite happy about these changes, especially given the changes to how disarm works and the addition of the adamantite weapon chain.
finally there is a weapon add on that is specifically geared towards a warrior's tanking, increasing his mitigation, which is very helpful in PVP as well, especially against the classes that can disarm. weapons can be switched while in combat, so all the change does is encourage the arms warrior to carry two weapons, one with an adamantite chain to stick on when another warrior or a rogue is closing on him (if he gets the chance), and one with the usual mongoose or savagery for the other 7 classes who can't disarm him. so they're not really gonna miss weapon mastery. intercept on the other hand is a PVP staple, as is deathwish, and this allows arms warriors to grab them without missing out on endless rage. this serves to further establish the arms tree as the warrior's PVP tree.
the changes to fury are also buffs, improving whirlwind to work better with dual wielding and giving them a buffed version of sweeping strikes (at least buffed from a fury perspective since a fury warrior will swing very very fast and can easily get off 10 strikes in 10 seconds with proper gear) both give fury warriors some much needed multi-target DPS, something PVP players rarely need due to the tendency towards focus fire, but PVE players frequently do, further solidifying fury as the warrior's PVE DPS tree.