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So today we continue our look at 3.0.8 for World of Warcraft, looking at class changes. Updated Test Realm patch notes for 3.0.8 can be found here.

Death Knights

• All multi-rune abilities generate 15 runic power.
• Anti-Magic Shell: The cooldown has been lowered to 45 sec from 60 sec.
• Blood Aura now grants 2/4% instead of 1/2% healing.
• Blood Presence now grants 2/4% instead of 1/2% healing.
• Bloody Strikes will receive extra bonus damage from Pestilence.
• Bone Shield: The mitigation has been reduced from 40% to 20%.
• Corpse Explosion: Damage increased substantially, added 5 sec. cooldown, and changed cost to 40 runic power.
• Dark Command: Range increased to 30 yards.
• Death Knights have access to unique death-knight only facial textures and skin tones. These can be selected at the character creation screen.
• Death Pact now grants 40% instead of 20% healing.
• Frost Presence: The bonus armor has been increased from 60 to 80% and magic damage reduction increased from 5 to 15%.
• Heart Strike no longer has a haste debuff but will now be able to strike two targets.
• Horn of Winter now has no cost and grants 10 runic power in addition to its stat buff, but has a 30 sec cooldown.
• Icebound Fortitude now reduces damage by 20% instead of 50%. The amount of damage reduced increases with bonus Defense (to about 35% for 540 Defense, but can go higher).
• Night of the Dead now grants 40/70% passive area spell avoidance to your pet in addition to its current effects.
• Outbreak will no longer receive bonus damage from pestilence. The bonus from Plague Strike and Blood Boil has been increased slightly.
• Pestilence no longer has a 10 seconds cooldown.
• Raise Dead has now been split into two spells:
  • Raise Dead now raises a ghoul or pet ghoul (if talented). Requires corpse dust if no humanoid corpse is nearby.
  • Raise Ally now raises a fallen party member as a ghoul and has no reagent. Available at level 72. This should now last for 4 minutes.
• Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle (two-handed only) now grants 25 Defense and 2% Stamina.
• Rune Strike: Damage decreased from 200% to 150% but threat increased to 150% from 100%.
• Shadow of Death: The duration has been changed from 45 seconds to 25 seconds.
• Unholy Blight had had its cost reduced from 60 to 40 runic power.
• Wandering Plague will now properly reset after being cast.
• Vampiric Blood: In addition to its current effects, also adds 20% health temporarily.
• Will of the Necropolis will now reduce the damage of any attack that takes the DK below 35% health by 5 /10/15% instead of boosting armor when wounded.

Major changes to death knights this patch. One of the aims has been to make Blood spec viable for tanking (it’s been a very bottom third among the three specs for that objective.) Of particular note are the changes to Heart Strike, Frost Presence, Vampiric Blood, and Pestilence. Although I haven’t intended to make her a tank, looks like this will make my blood DK reasonably viable for tanking if called upon.

Druids

• Feral Attack Power: All weapons now have the potential to grant feral attack power based on their dps (as compared to the best superior-quality weapons available at level 60). Players will see their existing feral weapons grant roughly the same attack power as they did before (+/- 2 or so), but many new weapons will be options for the feral druid. Some feral weapons have had strength converted to attack power to be more appealing to other classes able to equip them. All druids will see the amount of feral attack power granted by an item in the item tooltip, if it grants any, but other players will not see that information.
• Remove Curse and Abolish Poison can now be used in Moonkin form.
• Genesis: Now works with Tranquility and Hurricane.
• Growl: Range increased to 30 yards.
• King of the Jungle - The Bear effect is now physical, and thus cannot be dispelled.
• Nature’s Grace - Now also effects Revive.
• Primal Tenacity: Now reduces the cost of Bear Form, Cat Form, and Dire Bear Form by 17/33/50% in addition to its previous effects.
• Protector of the Pack: No longer changes value based on party size.
• Savage Roar: The buff now persists outside of Cat Form but only provides its benefits while in Cat Form.
• Starfall will now be cancelled by any shapeshifting.
• Survival of the Fittest: This talent now grants 22/44/66% bonus armor in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form in addition to all of its previous effects.
• Swipe: Swipe (Cat) has now been added at level 71, dealing 260% weapon damage, costs 50 energy with no cooldown. All talents affecting the Bear Form version affect the Cat Form one as well.
• Wild Growth now has a 6 second cooldown.

Some hopeful looking changes here. Cat AoE DPS? Legasp. Also, I see that they’re bringing back bear armor increases, and increasing the range on our taunt. Whew.

Hunters

• All Hunter pet abilities with a cooldown of 30 seconds or more are no longer on the global cooldown.
• Aspect of the Wild - This aspect is now raid-wide.
• Call of the Wild: The benefit from this pet talent now applies to only the Hunter and their own pet.
• Deterrence: Design changed to grant 100% parry and 100% chance to “deflect” spells coming from the front, but prevents the Hunter from attacking. Lasts 5 sec. 60 sec. cooldown.
• Improved Tracking(Survival): This talent has been slightly re-designed. Now reads: While tracking Beasts, Demons, Dragonkin, Elementals, Giants, Humanoids and Undead, all ranged damage done to those types is increased by 1/2/3/4/5%.
• Kill Shot – Cooldown reduced to 15 seconds, down from 35 sec.
• Kindred Spirits: This talent now grants only 3/6/9/12/15% pet damage.
• The coefficient of Rake (Cat) and Scorpid Venom (Scorpid) has been lowered.
• Readiness: No longer resets the cooldown on Bestial Wrath.
• Steady Shot: Now gains 10% of attack power as damage instead of 20%.
• Serpent’s Swiftness: This talent now grants only 2/4/6/8/10% bonus attack speed to pet. The hunter attack speed bonus is unchanged.
• Unleashed Fury: This talent now grants only 3/6/9/12/15% pet damage.
• Viper Sting: Now drains a percentage of maximum mana.
• Volley: The damage has been reduced on all ranks by approximately 30% (including attack power scaling).

Mhm, lots of nerfs: Steady Shot, Volley, Unleashed Fury, Serpent’s Swiftness, Kindred Spirits . . . what data was showing hunters were OP? Also, the Deterrence change is incredibly strange and seems far out of place for a hunter.

Mages

• Arcane Blast: This ability has been significantly changed. Arcane Blast now increases the damage of the next Arcane spell by 15%. However, using Arcane Blast itself does not consume the charge itself. Each time you cast Arcane Blast, the damage of Arcane spells is increased by 15% and the mana cost of Arcane Blast is increased by 200%. This effect stacks up to 3 times and lasts 10 seconds or until any Arcane damage spell except Arcane Blast is cast.
• Arcane Flows: Now also reduces the cooldown of Evocation by 1m/2m.
• Elemental Precision: Renamed to Precision and now works on all spells.
• Evocation: Cooldown reduced to 4 min.
• Improved Blizzard: The snaring effect has been reduced to 20/40/50%.
• Slow Fall is now castable on others.
• Torment the Weak: Now works with Arcane Blast and does bonus damage against targets afflicted with any type of slow (such as the combat slow from Thunder Clap).

More buffs to Arcane mages? Sweet! (Yes, that’s one in my repetoire.) It’s too bad they still haven’t returned frost to its glory in WotLK Beta, though. I think this change to Arcane Blast is probably the best they have made yet.

Paladins

• Avenging Wrath: Divine Shield, Divine Protection, and Hand of Protection, and Avenging Wrath cannot be used within 30 seconds of each other anymore. Forbearance removed from Avenging Wrath.
• Divine Protection: The penalty has been removed.
• Divine Shield: The penalty has been changed so that all damage done is reduced by 50% in place of an attack speed penalty.
• Hand of Reckoning(NEW): Available on trainers at level 16. It’s a 30 yard range taunt that causes Holy damage.
• Judgements of the Pure: This Holy talent now increases the damage done by Seals and Judgements.
• Judgement of Wisdom: Now returns a percentage of base mana instead of a percentage of max mana.
• Sacred Duty: Interaction with Divine Shield and Divine Protection removed, but stamina bonus increased.

As I don’t play a paladin currently, I can’t say much on this, except for another hurray for ranged taunts.

Priests

• Abolish Disease and Cure Disease can now be cast while in Shadowform.
• Holy: Circle of Healing now has a 6 second cooldown.
• Levitate is now castable on others.
• Mana Burn: Now burns a percentage of maximum mana.
• Shadow
  • Shadowform: You can now shift into Shadowform while mounted or sitting.
  • Vampiric Embrace- Mana cost of this spell has been removed.

Minor, nice changes for the priest. Otherwise, life as normal.

Rogues

• Fan of Knives: The cooldown has been removed. In addition, now deals 150% of weapon damage when used while daggers are equipped.
• Feint: Rank 8 now reduces the damage taken from area of effect attacks by 50% for 6 seconds in addition to its existing effects.

Eh. Fair. Sorry, forumites, but rogues still aren’t getting the nerf bat like you think they need.

Shaman

• Fire Nova Totem: Now no longer generates threat.
• Healing Way: Now only one application is required to reach full benefit. No longer stacks.
• Improved Water Shield: Lesser Healing Wave now has a reduced chance to trigger this talent.
• Magma Totem: The damage and scaling has been increased and no longer generates threat.
• Mental Quickness: Reduced the mana cost of instant cast Shaman spells by 2/4/6% and increases spell power by an amount equal to 23/46/70% of your agility.
• Searing Totem (Rank 4) now does the proper damage for its rank.
• Tremor Totem’s duration has been increased from 2 minutes to 5 minutes.
• Elemental
  • Elemental Shields: This talent has been removed. It has now been merged with Elemental Warding.
  • Elemental Warding: Now reduces all damage taken by 2/4/6%. Changed from only reducing Nature, Fire and Frost by 4/7/10%.
  • New Talent: Shamanism-Your Lightning Bolt spell gains an additional 2/4/6/8/10% and your Lava Burst gains an additional 4/8/12/16/20% of your bonus damage effects.
  • Storm, Earth and Fire: This talent has been moved up in the tree, and its talent points have been reduced to 3 down from 5. Wind Shock is also included in the range increase (with Earth Shock). The damage bonus to Flame Shock has been increased, up from 10/20/30/40/50 to 20/40/60.
  • Unrelenting Storm: point cost reduced to 3, down from 5. Now does 4/8/12%

Oh my god fire totems no longer generate threat on drop. It only took Blizzard two expansions to change that. I wonder why they still can’t change the threat on Frost Shock? Also, there’s still some confusing discussion about Mental Quickness, which indicates it will still be based off AP.

Warlocks

• Drain Mana: Now drains a percentage of maximum mana.
• Emberstorm: Now works with Conflagrate.
• Ritual of Summoning: Will now create a summoning portal object which can be re-used for multiple summons for 5 minutes.

Simple. Nice.

Warriors

• Bloodthirst: Charges have been decreased to 3, but the effect has been raised to 1% per charge.
• Fury: Bloodsurge: Now has a chance to trigger from any hit with Heroic Strike, Bloodthirst, or Whirlwind.
• Fury:Titan’s Grip: The hit chance penalty has been removed.
• Taunt: Range increased to 30 yards.

And warriors get some loving again, particularly with Titan’s Grip. Maybe this time, they’ve made up their mind on TG. Maybe not .  . .

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