When we look back at patch 3.1 in the future, we’ll probably say that’s one of the biggest patches in WoW history if not the biggest. By that I mean not only will it feature Ulduar and dual specs but it’s probably the patch with the biggest revamp to all the classes that’s not a pre-expansion patch or an expansion itself. We’re not just looking at tweaks here and there since we see some major changes just like the removal of consumable ammunition for ranged weapons and the changes to soul shard management system to name a few.

The latest patch build not only has a bunch of changes (both buffs and nerfs) to existing abilities but it also has a few new abilities/talents as well, further increasing the count of new stuff in this patch. This is mainly a result of the drastic changes that is happening many talent trees, with certain talents reducing in ranks and even moving up and down and even going poof or baseline. Below are the new skills/talents that came with the latest patch build.

Priests

Body and Soul (Holy tree talent) - When you cast Power Word: Shield, you increase the target’s movement speed by 30/60% for 4 sec, and you have a 50% chance when you cast Abolish Disease on yourself to also cleanse 1 poison effect in addition to diseases.

This talent isn’t really great but I guess it’s one of those talents where it’s nice to know you have it if you want to use it. The movement speed bonus for shielded targets could be useful in certain occasions like when you need to move fast past the annoying mobs between Heigan the Unclean and Loatheb in Naxx. The dispel bonus isn’t really a big deal since it only worked on yourself. It also doesn’t help that it’s a bit deep down the holy tree.

Paladin

Divine Sacrifice (Protection tree) - 30% of all damage taken by party or raid members within 30 yards is redirected to the Paladin (up to a maximum of 150% of the Paladin’s health). Instant, 2 min cooldown

I never got why Divine Guardian did what it did since the only way I could think it was useful is if you’re an off tank or a holy or ret pally. I mean who bubbles while tanking? Guess that’s why it was changed to enhance this new talent.Tthis makes sense since you don’t need to bubble and you can help your raid in some AoE encounters by taking a bit more of a beating to ease the load on others. You’re already taking a beating anyway so there might be times when taking a bit more to help out can be useful.

Warrior

Shattering Throw (baseline skill) - Throws your weapon at the enemy causing [ 50% of AP + 12 ] damage (based on attack power), reducing the armor on the target by 20% for 10 sec, and removing any invulnerabilities. 25 Rage, 30 yd range, 1.5 sec cast, 5 min cooldown

Does Iceblock and pally bubble annoy you in PvP? Well once every 5 minutes, this is every warriors answer to both those abilities. If I’m not mistaken, the priest mass dispel ability was the only one that could take those out but now warriors can too. I guess the armor reduction of this ability could also help in both PvE and PvP but the real gem of this new skill is the invulnerability removal.

We just talked about part 1 of the class changes coming in patch 3.1 and then suddenly part two is here! This time around, druids, warriors and warlocks are getting their changes announced.

WARLOCK

# Improved Shadow Bolt – this talent now provides a 5% spell critical strike buff (similar to Improved Scorch).
# Improved Soul Leech – this talent now provides Replenishment (similar to shadow priests)
# Drain Soul now has a chance to produce Soul Shards even if the target doesn’t die.
# Siphon Life no longer as an active ability but the talent grants the old Siphon Life effect to Corruption.
# Curse of Recklessness and Curse of Weakness have been combined into one spell
# Consume Shadows – this Voidwalker ability is no longer channeled but has a cooldown.
# Several other warlock talents have had their ranks reduced, their effects changed or removed. This list includes but is not limited to Demonic Empathy, Shadow Embrace, Eradication, Suppression, and Pandemic.
# Additional new talents have been added.

DRUID

# Savage Defense – this is a new passive ability. When a druid in Dire Bear form deals a melee critical strike, the druid gains a damage shield equal to 25% of their attack power. The next hit completely removes the shield regardless of how much damage was done.
# Survival of the Fittest has had its bonus armor reduced to compensate for the above increase in damage mitigation.
# Faerie Fire (and similar debuffs) now reduces armor by 5%. See Sunder Armor in the warrior update below for additional details.
# Thorns and Nature’s Grasp can be cast in Tree of Life form.
# Survival Instincts now works in Moonkin form.
# Replenish – to avoid confusion, this talent has been renamed “Revitalize.” It now also works with Wild Growth.
# We are also looking at increasing the sustained (not burst) damage of feral druids in cat form.

WARRIOR

# Changing stances now has a much reduced cost: you lose a maximum of 20 rage (10 with Tactical Mastery). For example, if you have 100 rage and change stances, you will have 80 rage remaining. If you have 10 rage and change stances, all of your rage is lost. In addition, we may change the penalties associated with some stances.
# You now gain rage when damage done to you is absorbed, such as through a Power Word: Shield.
# Blood Frenzy now causes 2/4% physical damage done.
# Sunder Armor (and similar debuffs) now reduces armor by 4% per application, and is now a single rank. Creature armor has been globally reduced so that debuffed targets should take about the same damage from physical attacks that they did before this change. The net effect should be that this debuff is slightly less mandatory in PvE and is not disproportionately more powerful against cloth targets in PvP.
# We are also adding increased damage to Arms, possibly through Overpower or Slam.
# We are also looking at granting rage when the warrior blocks, dodges or parries. source

Just like the changes for priests, rogues and shamans in the part one changes, it seems like the changes listed here are pretty much all buffs. There’s a lot of interesting changes announced that will make the three classes here very happy. The change to Improved shadowbolt for locks has been a long time coming and it’s actually really good now. Drain life having a chance to grant a shard even if the mob didn’t die is quite an interesting change. I’m wondering how making destruction warlocks a replenishment spec just like survival hunters, shadow priests ad ret pallies will change things. I’m thinking that shadow priests don’t have much of a niche going now that the other shadow damage class can be a mana battery.

Feral druids are looking stronger with the new savage defense passive ability for bears and the note that sustained kitty dps will be increased. For warriors, the most interesting change is that stance dancing is going to be easier to do now that you’ll only lose a maximum of 20 rage (untalented) doing it. This will benefit warriors of all specs as they will be able tank and dps better with more rage at their disposal. Another cool change is the one about absorbed damage giving the warrior rage, making things like power word shield a more viable option when healing warriors. Strangely enough, there’s no mention about this same mechanic for bear druids.

Now that part two is out so soon after part 1 came out, I think we can expect to see the final part out in a few hours or at least soon enough. I’m crossing my fingers that the last installment will see a lot of interesting changes as well.

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!

Things change in the Public Test Realm a lot. Aside from seeing new stuff coming out for the Sunwell patch, we’ve also seen a lot of changes to current things like class abilities, PvE encounters, Karazhan attunement and others. This latest wave of changes for patch 2.4 in the PTR is proof that things can very well change and that nothing is official until the patch goes live.

While the patch hasn’t gone live yet, the latest additions to the PTR patch notes shows that changes that Blizzard announced before have been rolled back. I’m talking about the infamous warlock life tap nerf and the shaman flametongue weapon mortal strike effect. Yes, they are both gone! So while warlocks can cheer, shaman get the short end of the stick once again.

I was really hoping that the life tap nerf would not go live because while it may address the issue of seemingly infinite mana in arenas, it breaks class design and itemization in the process. Even if I play a warlock as one of my alts, I’m all for taking a few nerfs if the need is there. But please don’t break one of the class’ core mechanic. After all, there’s a difference between a class getting nerfed and getting broken. Personally I would rather have drain life take a hit than the life tap nerf any day so it’s a great thing it’s not happening.

The flametongue MS effect for shamans surprised me when it first came out because it’s not exactly the kind of buff I was expecting for the class. Several days later, the buff has sat well with me since it’s a bonus for enhancement shamans for PvP. Now that the buff to flametongue weapon has been removed, the patch notes have again taken me by surprise since I really thought it was here to stay.

The patch notes also include an interesting change which basically makes all cleave like effects (cleave, swipe, avenger’s shield, felguard cleave) ignore crowd controlled mobs nearby. This is a great change because the classes involved will not need to worry about breaking CC anymore while using these abilities.

Click here to see the complete PTR notes update in World of raids.

Deathwish is currently a fury talent that when activated, increases the warrior’s physical damage by 10% and immunity to fear effects while also increasing all damage taken by 5% lasting 20 seconds. As of 2.3, Deathwish will be switching places with Sweeping Strikes, which in an arms talent that makes your next 5 melee swings strike an extra nearby opponent. Here’s the explanation by Bornakk, the Blizzard Poster.

Some warriors felt forced to pickup certain talents and this left them with few options. This change could allow people in these situations to have some extra options while the weapon expertise and threat reduction improvements to the deep end of the fury tree allow for more consistent sustained damage.

Here’s where I admit that I don’t know much about warriors. It’s the only class to date I haven’t gotten to at least level 10 and that’s because I never had any intention to play a warrior. But I do know that the fury tree is all about increasing the warrior’s damage at the cost of some survivability. It’s consistent with the way a warrior in berserk stance takes more damage to deal more damage. A fury warrior is a berserker!

Now the very name of the talent Deathwish screams of the fury tree. One goes on a murderous rampage like he has a deathwish. The ability effect screams of the fury tree. That’s why hearing the news that Deathwish is moving out of the fury tree just doesn’t sit well with me but that’s just from someone outside looking in since I don’t have a clue about warriors.