MMO Champion tells of a patch 3.09 that could be coming out this week. Since I haven’t tried checking the PTR or even if it’s up at all and the PTR forum is currently out for me, I can’t really check if this is really true. There isn’t even a patch 3.09 PTR notes so that makes the situation a bit worse. In any case, there’s something out there and it’s going to change a few things, even glyphs. Some of the change entries I’ve seen before as legit changes for the future so that might lend some credence to this. As always, you can find the latest PTR notes here so you can check it out if it eventually shows up.

Druid

* Ferocious Bite: This ability now only uses up to 30 energy in addition to its base cost.

Hunter

* Kindred Spirits (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet damage at max rank.
* Serpent’s Swiftness (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet attack speed at max rank.

Pets

* Lava Breath now reduces the target’s casting speed by 25%, down from 50%.
* Poison Spit now reduces the target’s casting speed by 25%, down from 50%.
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Yesterday, I wrote about the announcement for class changes that are coming for patch 3.1. Ghostcrawler mentioned that they were working on a few things and that they would announce said changes soon. Now when Blizzard uses the word “soon” it actually usually takes a while so I’m very surprised that some of the changes are announced already. this must be the fastest “soon” ever.

According to CM Eyonix, they’ll be announcing the class changes in a three part series. This first one happens to be for priests, rogues and shamans. The changes are listed below and are subject to change as per Eyonix’s note.

PRIEST

# Divine Spirit – this spell is now a core ability available to all priests.
# Discipline has access to a new talent, Power Word: Barrier. (Think of it as Power Word: Shield for your whole group).
# Several area of effect (AOE) heal spells have been improved: Prayer of Healing can be cast on any groups in your raid party. Holy Nova’s mana cost has been reduced. Circle of Healing now heals for more.
# Shadow priest PvP survivability has been improved: Shadow Form now reduces magic as well as physical damage. Dispersion now removes snares.
# Penance – this spell can now be targeted on the priest.
# Serendipity – this talent now reduces the cast time of Greater Heal and Prayer of Healing when Binding Heal or Flash Heal are cast.
# We are also working to give Holy additional PvP utility.

ROGUE

# Hunger for Blood – instead of a self-buff, this ability can only be used when there is a bleed effect on the target. However, it has no stacks and grants a 15% damage bonus.
# Adrenaline Rush – the cooldown on this ability has been lowered.
# Lightning Reflexes – reduced to 3 ranks. In addition to 2/4/6% dodge, this talent now also grants 4/7/10% passive melee haste.
# Killing Spree – while this ability is active, the rogue does 20% additional damage.
# Savage Combat – now causes 2/4% physical damage done.
# Mace Specialization – this talent now grants haste in addition to armor penetration.

SHAMAN

# Chain Lightning – now jumps to 4 targets but does less damage. We wanted to make the distinction between Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning more clear.
# Storm, Earth and Fire – this talent now increases all damage done by Flame Shock, not just periodic damage.
# Spirit Weapons – now reduces all threat, not just melee threat.
# Unleashed Rage – reduced to 2 ranks, now also increases your critical strike chance with melee attacks by 1/2%.
# Totem streamlining: The Mana Spring and Healing Stream Totems have been combined. The Disease Cleansing and Poison Cleansing Totems have been combined.
# We are also working on giving Enhancement and Elemental more PvP utility.

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Originally, I thought that most of the changes will be for PvP but after seeing the changes so far, it seems like there are a lot of cool changes that aren’t just for PvP. The discipline priest talent power word: barrier looks like a very fun spell to use and the buffing of some of their AoE heals will definitely benefit raiders. There are also some changes that could be taken the wrong way by some players like the change to chain lightning for shamans and the change to hunger for blood for rogues but I think they’re seen as buffs by most people. After seeing nature of the changes in this first edition of announcements, I feel quite optimistic for the classes that I play whose changes will still be announced.

I’m not really familiar with the exact classes that sit at the top of the DPS meters right now but I guess that really varies from case to case and who you run with. I know Death Knights are up there and i guess Ret Pallies, Warlocks, and Mages are also frequent chart toppers. But it seems like certain specs of certain classes aren’t doing so well in their dps output and Blizzard has taken notice. Blizzard is currently monitoring how the classes are doing so that they can potentially make some changes to help boost the output of those they feel need to be buffed.

Patch 3.08 saw some changes to the Elemental Shaman tree that gave them a pretty big dps boost. Ghostcrawler already mentioned in the official forums that they’re going to take a look at Combat Rogues, Kitty Feral Druids and Beast Mastery Hunters as the specs that they feel might need a boost. I think the buffing of Elemental Shammies shows that Blizzard does listen to feedback and adjust accordingly if they feel that’s what’s needed. It might take some time but they get it done.

A few hours ago, I made a comment in guild chat about how sad it is that I got a froststeel lockbox but there aren’t any rogues in the guild who could open it. I belong to a medium sized casual raiding guild and we don’t have a single level 80 rogue. In fact it seems like we don’t have anyone anymore who’s main character is a rogue. Before WoTLK came out, my guild had pretty much only one rogue main but now even he rerolled as a death knight. I never thought I’d see the day I’d actually say this since back in vanilla WoW, it was pretty much unheard of. LFM Rogues!

I’m not really familiar with the state of the rogue class as a whole right now so I’m not exactly sure what’s causing this sudden lack of rogues. One obvious culprit is of course the advent of Death Knights and their reoutation as great melee damage dealers and prowess in PvP - two things that would definitely attract those rogues out there. Whatever the cause, the fact of the matter is that rogues are still needed to open those bloody lockboxes! This is why I think that when you see a rogue opening lockboxes nowadays, I honestly think they greatly deserve a tip now more than ever. If you can’t find a rogue to open those lockboxes, another way I learned (talking to my guild mates) is to ask a blacksmith to open it for you using a Titanium Skeleton Key.

Update: WoTLK Hunter and Paladin talents are out as well! Click here

Our friendly neighborhood WoW database Wowhead has been providing players with pretty much everything a player needs from quest information, loot information, maps, addon update info and even talent tree calculators and their very own forum. The latest Wowhead has for us are the talent calculators for each class (except hunters and paladins for now) from the Wrath of the Lich King Alpha.

Word about such talents especially the Death Knight ones have been circulating for some time now and finally we can see what Blizzard has in mind for the classes for the expansion. But since this came from the WoTLK alpha, I’m not so sure Blizzard wants this information out at this point. Anyway, while the information is still around this is your chance to see the cool talents! Click the link below to check them out.

My quick comments on seeing the new talents:

The new warlock talents seem to make an already overpowered (at least this is how the general public sees them) class even more so. If there’s something I can say about the final talents of eack tree, they look like they really deserve to be such and probably will be the subject of nerf threads in the future.

The new mage talents look kinda strange to me especially the last talent in the fire tree. it makes me wonder exactly how I might make great use of it in a raid other than in AoE encounters. The last talent in the frost tree looks like it’s not worthy of being such. At least at first glance, it’s not very impressive.

The new druid talents made me want to level my druid faster. All trees seem to have gotten some really cool talents but most especially Restoration. I just might be tempted to play a Tree druid along with my holy pally when the expansion comes out. *Still drooling at the druid talents*

The shaman, warrior and rogue talents also look great but I don’t really have much to say, since they really didn’t make me go “zomg!” or “eww”. The warrior protection talent Sword and Board made me laugh though.

Of course the Death Knight talents look so interesting not only because they are for a new class but also because they really do seem to make the DK a potentially fun class to play.

Those are all the comments I have for you!

The World Wide Invitation has just ended recently, giving us players more information to digest about the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Most interesting to me are the class changes the developers have planned for all of us. I’m going to comment on some that I feel like eye popping or even just cool below. You can see all the changes that were released at World Of Raids.

Death Knight

Well it’s not a change since these guys will be new. But anyway, as stated before all races can be DK’s. No matter what talent tree they specialize in, the DK will still be able to fulfill both tanking and dps roles. I guess that’s why they changed the descriptions of the trees on the DK page a while back.

Druid

It seems that some of the things that Druids have been asking for will be given to them in the next expansion. Entangling Roots will finally be usable indoors and you can use potions, items and on hit effects while in forms. Combine these with the still mysterious dire cat form and it seems like druids will feel the love in the next expansion. Now if only they can get a real rez spell then druids will have a lot to rejoice about.

Hunter

The pet skill point system will be replaced with a pet talents system. There will be one tree each for dps, tanking and utility. Wow, this means hunters can respec their pets! lol

This seems like a simpler way to deal with pet training, giving a more unified system for all hunters to use no matter what pet they are using.

Mage

Mages will have a new spell called frostfire bolt, which will be weaker than frostbolt or fireball but will end up stonger if the Mage puts talents into both frost and fire. This spell suggests that an elemental build (both fire and frost) will be a strong option as an accepted talent build once again.

Paladin

Paladins will receive a spell called Hand of Purity, which is supposed to be a new reactive healing spell. A new heal? Woohoo!

Priest

The most interesting priest change is the Guardian Spirit talent that basically dies in the place of its target This should be useful as a sort of mini wipe prevention tool. Let’s say put it on the tank to give him a life line in case he takes enough damage to kill him.

Shaman

Shaman totems will affect the whole raid instead of just his party. This means that there will be more totem goodness if there are more than one in the raid. Also flametongue weapon will increase spell damage and rockbiter weapon will be replaced by eartliving weapon which increases healing done.

Rogue

Sap will finally work on more than just humanoids. Based on the “everything that has a brain” statement, I guess that means beasts and maybe undead?

Warlock

Warlocks will have a talent that transforms him into an IIlidan like demon form. I’m guessing it’s the destruction tree since one of the abilities is an AoE shadowbolt.

Warrior

Warriors will have a talent called titan grip, allowing warriors to dual wield 2 handed weapons just like the barbarian of Diablo 2. ZOMG!

While are many people with level 70’s out there especially since the TBC expansion has been out for more than a year already, I’m sure there are lots of people who don’t or at least just did and don’t exactly know what to do. I was sitting around in Shattrath City earlier when someone asked the exact thing in trade chat, hinting that there might be a lot of people out there like this guy who don’t know what to do when you first hit 70. So what exactly do you do? After allocating your last remaining talent point an buying your level 70 skills, these are things you may want to do when you hit 70.

1. If you’ve got the gold to spend, it would be really helpful to buy your flying mount right away. This could help in your mining and herbalism while also giving you access to places like Skettis, Ogri’la, Elemental Plateau and the Tempest Keep dungeons.

2. If you don’t have the gold to spend or just want more of it, then it’s really helpful to do the Shattered Sun Offensive daily quests. Ogri’la and Skettis requires you to have a flying mount to reach while the SSO dailies don’t except for the quest Intercepting the Mana Cells, which you do in Blade’s Edge Mountains.

3. Group quests in Netherstorm and Shadowmoon Valley normally have great quest rewards that could add to your starting gear as a fresh 70.

4. If you’re a clothie class and a tailor, investing time to farm the mats to make your Spellfire/Frozen Shadoweave/Primal Mooncloth sets.

5. As you’re looking to gear up, PvP epics are generally a nice way to go to get yourself ready for higher content. BG and Arena gear are great at plugging those holes until you get a good PvE equivalent from Karazhan or Heroics.

6. I’m assuming that as you’ve leveled up to 70, you must have achieved honored rep with at least some of these factions: Thrallmar/Honored Hold, Cenarion Expedition, Keepers of Time, Sha’tar, and Lower City. These factions have a decent starter pvp set which could also be great for PvE.

Druid

Feral Dragonhide Battlegear

Resto Kodohide Battlegear

Balance Wyrmhide Battlegear

Hunter Stalker’s Chain Battlegear

Mage Evoker’s Silk Battlegear

Paladin

Holy Crusader’s Ornamented Battlegear

Ret/Shockadin Crusader’s Scaled Battlegear

Priest

Shadow Satin Battlegear

Holy Mooncloth Battlegear

Rogue Opportunist’s Battlegear

Shaman

Enhancement Seer’s Linked Battlegear

Restoration Seer’s Ringmail Battlegear

Elemental Seer’s Mail Battlegear

Warlock Dreadweave Battlegear

Warrior Savage Plate Battlegear

7. Of course you still have to do dungeons so that you can get nice blues to get you ready for Karazhan and heroics. Don’t forget that while it’s no longer required that every member of a Karazhan raid have the master’s key, it’s still nice to do the quests to get it. The quest chain brings you to some dungeons to get some gear and also the quest rewards afor the chain are pretty good too.

8. Rejoice and be glad that you have a level 70! To all of you guys who just got to 70, congratulations and have fun!

As a mage, I always have to remember to stock up on arcane powders for y arcane brilliance spell and runes of teleportation and portals to teleport myself and other people to the different major cities. I always remember to check if my stock of these things are fine. But I always dread the day I forget to do it. But even if I forget, the consequences aren’t that bad since they aren’t crucial to anything I do in combat. Snlper from Ysondre server wrote a complain about the blind and vanish abilities of rogues still needing reagents:

Really, why? Isn’t it enough we have to buy poisons, vials, food, and repairs among other things? Blind and Vanish needing a reagent to use is like Hunters needing to buy “Chemically Charged Shells” to use Flare.

I’ll let the vanish reagent slide, those are pretty cheap, but the problem here is Blinding Powder. There is none for sale from vendors, Fadeleaf is overpriced in AH and not every Rogue is a herbalist and lastly, pickpocketing is inconvenient; it’s like a warlock farming shards to use their abilities except we can’t pickpocket players.

Either remove Blinding Powder reagent cost from Blind and the game, or have vendors sell Blinding Powder for the same price as Flash Powder.

The Blizzard poster Drysc replied,

Your comments hold merit, and have been noted.

I never really played a rogue seriously so I never really realized that blinding powder needed fadeleaf until I started picking them with my herbalist mage. It’s unfair that blind requires a reagent that needs the help of herbalists to use. It does make sense that rogues need the powder as a reagent or else they won’t have anything to throw at the enemy to blind them. But it’s unfair that rogues need to use fadeleaf to use the ability. Allowing the poison vendors or the reagent vendors in the cities to carry blinding powder at a cheap price is what’s fair.

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