Patch 4.2 PTR notes updated for May 26
by Mathew McCurley 
May 26th 2011 at 7:30PM
- Rogues will be happy (sad) to know that Cloak is getting a bit of a cooldown nerf: Cloak of Shadows cooldown is now 2 minutes, up from 90 seconds. In addition, Cloak of Shadows is no longer on the global cooldown.
- Shadow priests will be getting into the new pet stance fun: Shadowfiend uses the new Assist pet stance functionality.
- Feral druid tanks are getting some significant damage scaling tweaks done to their output, as Blizzard thinks their abilities were scaling too fast with new tiers of gear.
Stats
- Death knights, paladins, and warriors no longer receive any bonus to their chance to dodge from Agility. Their base chance to dodge is now a fixed 5%.
- Death knights, paladins, and warriors now receive 27% of their Strength bonuses as parry rating, up from 25%. This conversion still only applies to Strength above and beyond their base Strength.
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Frost
- Hungering Cold now has a 1.5-second cast time.
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Glyphs
- 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.
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Talent Specializations
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Feral
- Bear damage abilities were scaling too fast with higher gear levels compared to other tanks, so the following balance changes have been made. All the numbers cited are for level 85 characters; numbers will be lower for lower-level characters.
- Faerie Fire (Feral) base damage has been raised to 2950, up from 679. Attack power scaling has been decreased to 10.8%, down from 15%.
- Maul base damage has been raised to 35, up from 8. Attack power scaling has been decreased to 19%, down from 26.4%.
- Pulverize weapon damage percent has been decreased to 60%, down from 80%. Damage per Lacerate application has been increased to 1623, up from 361.
- Mangle (Bear) weapon damage percent has been decreased to 190%, down from 260%. Bonus damage has been increased to 3306, down from 754.
- Swipe base damage has been increased to 929, up from 215. Attack power scaling has been decreased to 12.3%, down from 17.1%.
- Thrash initial base damage has been increased to 1464, up from 339. Initial damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 13.8%, down from 19.2%. Periodic base damage has been increased to 816, up from 189. Periodic damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 2.35%, down from 3.26%.
- Lacerate initial base damage has been increased to 3608, up from 2089. Initial damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 5.52%, down from 7.66%. Periodic base damage has been increased to 69, up from 16. Periodic damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 0.369%, down from 0.512%.
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Feral
- Natural Reaction damage reduction has been increased to 9/18%, up from 6/12%.
- Pyroblast cast when Hot Streak is not active was doing slightly less damage than the Hot Streak version. Its damage has been increased so that both versions of Pyroblast now do the same amount of damage.
- Spellsteal mana cost has been increased by 100%.
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Talent Specializations
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Fire
- When Impact spreads Living Bomb, it will only be spread to two additional targets. The net effect is that if the mage's most recent Living Bomb target is the same as their Impact target, that target will no longer lose the Living Bomb effect. If Living Bomb is active on multiple targets when the Impact effect is cast, Living Bomb will remain active on the most recent Living Bomb target, and will be added to two other nearby targets.
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Frost
- Deep Freeze and Ring of Frost will cause diminishing returns on each other, in addition to the spells they normally share diminishing returns with.
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Fire
- Seal of Righteousness now can be activated by any melee ability, not just single target melee abilities. This adds Hammer of the Righteous (the physical component) and Divine Storm to the list of abilities that can activate this seal. In addition, Seal of Righteousness procs can now be critical effects.
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Talent Specializations
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Holy
- Walk in the Light now improves Word of Glory healing by 30%, in addition to its current effects.
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Protection
- Guarded By The Light no longer interacts with Holy Shield in any way.
- Guardian of Ancient Kings uses the new Assist pet stance functionality.
- Holy Shield has been redesigned. This talent is now an activated ability off the global cooldown. It grants 20% increased block amount to a paladin's shield blocks for 10 seconds, with a 30-second cooldown.
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Retribution
- The Seals of Command talent now makes Seal of Righteousness hit an unlimited number of melee targets, instead of only 2 additional targets.
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Holy
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Glyphs
- Glyph of Seal of Truth expertise bonus now also works when Seal of Righteousness is active.
- Shadowfiend uses the new Assist pet stance functionality.
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Talent Specializations
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Shadow
- Sin and Punishment's Vampiric Touch backlash fear effect no longer has diminishing returns.
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Shadow
- 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.
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Talent Specializations
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Assassination
- Assassin's Resolve damage bonus has been increased to 20%, up from 15%.
- Vile Poisons now increases poison damage by 12/24/36%, up from 7/14/20%.
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Combat
- Savage Combat now increases attack power by 3/6%, up from 2/4%.
- Vitality now increases attack power by 30%, up from 25%.
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Subtlety
- 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.
- Sanguinary Vein damage to bleeding targets has been increased to 8/16%, from 5/10%.
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Assassination
- Fire Nova damage has been increased by 15%.
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Talent Specializations
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Elemental
- Call of Flame now also causes Fire Nova to add 3/6 seconds to the duration of Flame Shock auras on targets that Fire Nova damages.
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Elemental
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Set Bonuses
- The 2-piece Restoration druid tier 11 PvE set bonus has been redesigned to work with the new Restoration druid mastery. Druids with this bonus now receive the bonus to Spirit while the Harmony mastery bonus to periodic healing is active.
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Arenas
- The Ring of Valor has been added to the Arena rotation once again. Players no longer start the match on elevators at the center of the map. They now begin the match in starting rooms on opposite sides of the Arena.
The news is already rolling out for the upcoming WoW Patch 4.2! Preview the new Firelands raid, marvel at the new legendary staff, and get the inside scoop on new quest hubs -- plus new Tier 12 armor!Filed under: News items, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
NinjaClarinet May 26th 2011 7:52PM
"Holy Shield has been redesigned. This talent is now an activated ability off the global cooldown. It grants 20% increased block amount to a paladin's shield blocks for 10 seconds, with a 30-second cooldown." First it was an activated ability, then it was rolled into our rotation, and now it's activated again, but this time without 100% uptime? So basically a 10% block amount nerf, with an annoyingly timed cooldown that'll bring us back up to the levels we were. Yeah, making me squishier when I already have very little room for error will definitely make me more willing to endure the Dungeon Finder PUGs.
pancakes May 26th 2011 10:47PM
Serious question for healers. Do paladins take particularly less damage than other tanks of roughly equivalent gear levels? Blizzard seems intent on decreasing our survivability.
matthewggrammer May 26th 2011 11:47PM
Paladins and Warriors take less dmg than our counterparts, yes. Leader of the Pack and Death Strike make up for the difference.
Sometimes it's better to be a Paladin and block everything ... other times it's better to be a DK and get HP back via Death Strike. Depends on the day.
Drocket May 27th 2011 2:11AM
In addition to what matthewggrammer said, which is definitely true, the other factor is that the damage that paladin and warriors take is much more evenly spread, which makes it SO much easier to heal. Druids and DKs can often be pretty annoying to heal because their damage comes in bursts - they miss a few dodges/parries in a row and they're nearly dead, forcing you to cast big, mana-inefficient heals. With their shields, though, warriors and paladins take smoother damage, which makes them a lot easier to heal because you can keep HOTs or shields on them to take care of quite a bit of the work and are a lot more mana-efficient.
So I guess the real comparison would be whether paladin tanks are that much better than warriors that they need nerfed and warriors don't. That one I can't actually answer, since my guild doesn't really have any warrior tanks in it, aside from my own... Regarding the balance between paladins and DKs/druids, though, I'd say some nerfing is definitely fair.
Alexa May 27th 2011 8:34AM
I would say it really depends on the tank. Our raiding group has a feral druid and a warrior tank. If anything, I'd say the feral druid is slightly easier to heal, even though the warrior's gear is better.
That being said, I think "ease of healing" also depends on the fight and what type of damage is being dished out on the tanks. Making blanket statements like, "Warriors and paladins are easier to heal," isn't necessarily true, nor it is helping anyone.
TitoBurrito May 27th 2011 6:17PM
There is a big difference between DK's and Warriors and it is about 10-15K armor... if a Druid and a DK in similar gear get hit by a large physical attack and neither a blood shield or savage defense is up the Druid will take about 20% less damage.
TitoBurrito May 27th 2011 6:18PM
In my above post meant to say difference between Druids and DK's
RainbowmanOfDoom May 26th 2011 7:57PM
"Holy Shield has been redesigned. This talent is now an activated ability off the global cooldown. It grants 20% increased block amount to a paladin's shield blocks for 10 seconds, with a 30-second cooldown."
If I'm reading this correctly, they upped the blocked damage by 10%, but made it a cooldown... seems like this would be nice macro'd with Divine Protection.
NinjaClarinet May 26th 2011 8:13PM
Ah true, I missed the % increase, but double the effect for 1/3 the time is still a nerf, and I'm not sure any tank could be considered "OP" in the Cataclysm environment.
paulmewis May 26th 2011 8:34PM
Because that's what protadins need - another cooldown.
Hal May 26th 2011 10:17PM
This is such an obnoxious change. I'd love to know the rationale behind it. Another button to push for mitigation? And more frequently at that? Gee, I can't wait to tank Maloriak adds with that to look forward to.
I mean, not to be a wet blanket, but after all the fuss they made about the new Holy Power setup for Cata, it's about to become next to worthless for a good number of situations. If I'm tanking a boss, I'm rarely worried about threat, so Inquisition and Shield of the Righteous are just there to have something to do with the Holy Power. Word of Glory? Just sort of hanging around for that moment when the healer seems to be picking his nose.
I don't play other tanks, at least not since mid-Wrath. Are we really that OP compared to everyone else? Was this a necessary "bring 'em in line" adjustment or one of those "Why are they still fiddling with that?" sort of moments?
benbettis May 27th 2011 12:35PM
Please keep in mind that Blizzard recently stated that they would be trying out several new things for Prot paladins on the PTR.
Remember the Holy Shield change last week that got reverted almost immediately?
The sky isn't falling... yet. That'll happen once they tell us we won't be able to avoidance cap anymore >:D hahaha
Groth May 26th 2011 8:01PM
the change which i spotted with some suprise was that agility no longer contributes to dodge for any of the plate tank classes, though their parry is being increased to help off set this.
Makes me wonder what the future for tanking leg patches is- now half the stats on them are worthless except for druids.
V Magius May 26th 2011 10:43PM
We will need to see how the change affects gear and enchants, but it may be a good thing. Tightens gear choices a little bit. They can now limit rolls between strength and agility classes on necks, rings, weapons and so on.
I do believe in the Need before Greed system, and this is a step in a good direction. The classes were built around certain stats. They benefit best from primary stats and a little benefit fro secondary. By removing the stats, gear can go where it can be best utilized and our characters can be optimized.
The next step would probably be spirit on cloth gear. I'm leaning towards giving mages and warlocks a reason to use spirit. Otherwise, only priests get spirit cloth, and that seems a bit of a waste for only one class. I'd also like to see healer plate disappear too, but that won't happen until next expansion at best.
Crispn May 27th 2011 12:37PM
There is one healer/ healing hybrid for every tier of armor, not something the will change,
-Plate hpally
-Mail resto/ele shaman
-Leather resto/bal druid
-Cloth any Priest
While is is annoying that spirit plate can only be used by one spec all types of armor have only one class for spirit gear
Xaklo May 27th 2011 3:21PM
V Magius: "Otherwise, only priests get spirit cloth, and that seems a bit of a waste for only one class."
Except that ALL specs of priests use spirit so it's still not a waste.
Parknet May 26th 2011 8:06PM
It took me forever to become comfortable tanking heroics on my bear. At 9144 in game gs, I hold agro just fine just fine and get around 9k dps to help the group. So happy. Please don't make me hate tanking again.
Eregos ftw! May 26th 2011 8:28PM
You'll be fine. This is only a damage nerf to high vengeance situations, and a buff to low vengeance. You'll find it a LOT easier to get snap aggro.
Amaxe May 26th 2011 8:06PM
They seem determined to suck the fun out of the sustainability of a DK soloing. If I had a choice, I'd take 15% per hit over 20%+ on the next blow after killing someone.
Emophia May 26th 2011 8:17PM
It;s all frost's fault.
Dark Succor was fine on Unholy DKs in PVP but then they had to give frost 2 perma death runes meaning they could heal +50% of their health in 3 1 sec gcds in 3 seconds, spam frost strike and do it all over again..
Frost self healing was way over the top, but it was fine for unholy who atleast had to set up death runes with festering strike or blood strike.
If you;re gonna nerf it, nerf it for frost only, or make it so that frosts 2 death runes cannot be used for deathstrike.
If this change goes through unholy is going to be even worse than it already is and its going to become a worthless glyph that noone will ever use (lol 20% heal for 2 runes after a KB, my warrior gets 50% for free every kb and it's baseline.)