Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
The latest patch 5.3 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsPatch 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 3 of 4)
destinyshand May 26th 2011 10:49PM
@retpally, wrong, if you look at the glyph changes, it clearly states, "Glyph of Seal of Truth expertise bonus now also works when Seal of Righteousness is active." so no lost expertise
destinyshand May 26th 2011 10:50PM
sorry i meant hal
terph May 26th 2011 10:57PM
I...think it IS a buff!!
O.o
(starting to wiggle ever so slightly in joy) Does that mean...we can do good AOE damage again?
Redbeard May 27th 2011 12:12AM
Alleluia. And here I was starting to think that if I wanted to do any AoE damage, I'd have to shelve my Pally and pull out something else.
Diatenium May 26th 2011 9:36PM
At a glance, it also appears that the dungeon journal has recieved additional updates, complete loot tables, a filter system to look at only the gear your class can use, and so on.
All raid models are placeholders, however, except sulfuras. You can also see the "Shards" for the legendary staff's creation.
Maccabeus May 27th 2011 12:30AM
The shards are looking more like token upgrades than legendary items at this point. Blizzard didn't have Shadowmourne require heroic ICC, and Dragonwrath will not require heroic Firelands.
Glaras May 26th 2011 9:41PM
Wow, that uh... looks pretty severe on druids. I mean I understand that they're concerned about scaling, but isn't this going to really mess with druid tanking below level cap?
Eros May 26th 2011 10:00PM
It looks like there raising base damage the of ability to compensate for the scaling nerf for low lvl bears.
Koleckai May 27th 2011 1:35PM
Most Bears should actually do pretty much the same damage as they are now with current gear levels. However their damage will scale less as gear gets more powerful. Until Tier 11, it should pretty much even out since they increased the front-loaded damage modifiers and decreased the amount received from attack power. At higher gear levels they will scale slower though.
With full vengeance I have about 28,000 attack power and not even in top gear. Imagine a bear with 35,000-40,000 attack power. Or more. This is possible with current gear levels.
razion May 26th 2011 10:14PM
I'm so happy the Ring of Valor is coming back--it was a great place to do Arena. This definitely makes me a very happy PvPer. :D
Lemons May 26th 2011 10:21PM
At this point they should just combine Combat Readiness and Cloak of Shadows into "Cloak of Readiness" because sharing a cooldown is just an awful idea. We have to choose between preventing magical damage or physical damage, WTF? That's hardly fair when other classes have defensive cooldowns that protect them from both simultaneously.
Bullshit change is bullshit. This better be reverted before 4.2 goes live.
Trudno May 26th 2011 11:43PM
Well, you can glyph CoS and get the damage reduction back.
The thing I'm upset with is the bump from 90s to 2m on the CoS cooldown. Will Elusiveness be buffed to compensate or will it remain unchanged? If it's the later it's a pretty substantial nerf to pvp rogue survivability.
That said, the buffs to dps might offset the nerfs to survivability.
So maybe things will work out. One thing I do know: it's too early to start swearing and proclaim the world (of warcraft) is over.
Murdertime May 27th 2011 12:55AM
The Cloak of Shadows/Combat Readiness is a pretty horiffic PvP nerf that's kinda come out of the blue and one I think is going to result in combat readiness never being used again (And hey, it's kind of a secret buff to Frost Mages) and bringing back the issues Rogues suffered in WotLK
The damage buff might make up for it. Maybe.
Defoe May 27th 2011 3:49AM
there are plenty of other classes abilities that only affect one or the other.
If you are fighting an opponent that uses magic, use cloak, if physcial, CR.
Sure, its a nerf, and nerfs are never welcomed - but whats so hard about that decision?
nirvanachris May 26th 2011 11:39PM
100% increased mana cost to Spellsteal.
I do not mind this change...thank you Blizzard for hearing the heartfelt cries of every beautiful mage out there asking you to consider the CD change. This gives us the choice to continually cast it at a risk of losing excessive mana, but the OPPORTUNITY to cast is every second as god intended. I love you and your ability to negotiate changes.
razion May 27th 2011 12:08AM
I'm not seeing the patch note that says they changed their mind about the 6-second cooldown...?
FoxKelfonne May 27th 2011 12:21AM
The official patch notes have the 6 second cooldown crossed off.
Joshua May 27th 2011 2:15AM
HELL YEAH, sorry all you non-mages, but that CD was just stupid, we got a random buff, sure we got it, but it was random. back to going OOM stealing your useless buffs trying to get the important one.
squig_masta May 27th 2011 1:02AM
"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."
My jaw dropped when I read this. This will not only make it much easier to sustain aoe for ele shaman, but drastically buff the upward limits of Enhance shaman aoe. I approve.
Bapo May 27th 2011 1:48AM
No comments on Hydra's ACTUALLY being tameable yet : /