Patch 3.1 Class Changes Announced
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iTZKooPA on Thursday, February 5, 2009 - 38 Comments Tags: Behind the Scenes, Patch, Ulduar, blizzard poster, blue, buffs, bugs, class changes, content patch, eyonix, ghostcrawler, hunger for blood, nerfs, old gods, patch v3.1, power word: barrier, priests, rogues, shamans, v3.1, yogg-saron
iTZKooPA on Thursday, February 5, 2009 - 38 Comments Tags: Behind the Scenes, Patch, Ulduar, blizzard poster, blue, buffs, bugs, class changes, content patch, eyonix, ghostcrawler, hunger for blood, nerfs, old gods, patch v3.1, power word: barrier, priests, rogues, shamans, v3.1, yogg-saron 
Everyone's favorite class designer hit the official forums during maintenance day to inform us that class changes for Patch 3.1 would be announced soon. For those who don't already know it, Patch v3.1 will be Wrath's first content patch, with the main feature being the addition of an all-new raid known as Ulduar. Popular speculation has Yogg-Saron - the second known "Old God" - or parts of him as the final boss. Piggy-backing on the big content patch are numerous other tweaks, such as the classes changes discussed below.Making good on Ghostcrawler's promise, Eyonix threw up Part 1 of the upcoming changes. However, only Rogues (yahoo), Priests and Shamans currently have a short-list of changes, every other class is "coming soon." I am no Shaman, nor am I an expert Priest, but it seems pretty obvious that both classes have been buffed overall in the listed changes. As for what my lovable little gnome thinks about his upcoming changes? Awesome.
PvP, that is the big change for Priests. The notes specifically state that Shadow PvPers will see increased survivability thanks to a buff to Shadow Form which reduces magic damage along with physical damage. Although no specific modifications were detailed, Eyonix notes that the developers are looking into making Holy have "additional PvP utility." All the Discipline Priests shouldn't feel left out though, they get an entirely new ability, Power Word: Barrier, which is essentially a PW:S for their group. Blizzard even through in some love for the whole class, adding Divine Spirit as a core ability.
Shamans of the Elemental and Enhancement varieties also scored some additional, although undefined, PvP utility. Following that, Dalaran's lag should be slightly lower come v3.1 thanks to the streamlining of Totems. Mana Spring / Healing Stream Totems and Disease Cleansing / Poison Cleansing Totems have been combined. They are now two totems rather than four separate lag-inducing pillars of doom. The nature-friendly class has received one modification that might be viewed as a nerf, Chain Lightning will jump to four targets, but do less damage. The less damage could mean for the fourth jump or that the overall DPS output by CL will be lowered
The number one change I was looking forward to for Rogues was how Blizzard planned to tackle the annoyance of keeping Hunger for Blood active. For the none rogues out there, the spell had to be spammed three times, wasting two extra global cooldowns and 60 energy, to max it out. Then it had to be refreshed every 30 seconds to keep it up. While refreshing didn't break stealth - you could refresh while creeping to the next mob - it was incredibly annoying to worry about an ability with such a short duration that was so desperately needed. The new HfB is a self-buff that can only be used when a bleed effect (anyone's bleed) is active. While the need for a bleed is indeed a nerf, the 6% damage increase - from 9% with three stacks to 15% with no need for stacking - should help soothe that irritated skin.
Like the other classes, rogues have also seen a selection of buffs beyond the HfB change. Added haste, lower cooldowns and additional damage to various talents and abilities should make every rogue happy. However, we do not know the exact amount these favorable changes will impact us, due to the numbers on a few of tweaks not being unveiled.
The rest of the classes will be revealed in the upcoming parts of Eyonix's post. Please hold off on the complaints until you see your own buffs. Remember, these notes are not comprehensive and therefore do not list all the changes. On the flip side, they can also be thrown out the window at a moment's notice.
All of the changes do seem to be buffs, so perhaps Blizzard is saving all the nerfs for one giant post to get all the QQ out at once...Sly devils.
In other news, numerous bugs have been found in WoW recently, but the developers are already hard at work on hotfixes.
Update: Eyonix has posted more class changes. Warriors, Warlocks and Druids should check out the post covering Part 2 of the changes.
Reader Comments (38)
WOOT FIRST
Interesting. But I'm more curious on the Warrior aspect of all these changes.
Ontop of that, UDUAR!!!!!
2nd
3rd
let me guass whear ulduar is gointo be hmmm thats a tuff one but my guass in that area that allready 2 dungeons whats it called oh ya uldaur
Ulduar is going to be in Storm Peaks, and there's no reason to spam "SECOND" or "THIRD".
I hope the hunter, and mage aren't changed to much
iTZKooPA i would love to see you be part of the gaming videos since you are my favorite poster on this site :-)
hey i have a question why did you choose the picture with the old man from "old school" who got a a heart attack from watching to women jumping oround
You know all that about the old man but not his name?
Divine Plea.:(
well uludar sounds interesting but i wana know what kind of changes i will see for my huntard
Death Knight changes please :)
idk if the change of HfB is good or bad it makes me wonder if i should just use the talent point somewhere else
just read the notes....it seems like blizzard keeps buffing the the combat rogues and has no real love for us mutilate rogues
Well from my holy priest POV being able to possibly play in PvP, AoE healing improvements are all good and having Divine Spirit without having to spec into Discipline I like.......
There is just one thing still missing.... where is the priest's poison dispell/cleanse? I mean seriously now , 2 talent trees dedicated towards healing but not a cure all cleanse or at the very least a poison cure, a lack of which is more which is more likely to wipe a party.
I like abolish disease, but I don't think I've ever used my aoe magic dispell as my single target dispell does the job just as well.
WTT AOE magic dispell for Poison cleanse pls Blizz.
how does the picture in any way relate to that post your talking about the talent cahnges for classes and a new raid and u have a picture of an old man wearing head gear
The picture is a metaphor for be ready when the new patch comes out or you will end up having a heart attack like the old man did after watching those hot chicks... LOL
IMO, my class has (and still does) always suffered from having a cluttered buffing system. The combining of Mana/Healing and Poison/Disease is a good start to remedying this issue.
be more specific churchill their are 2 types of changes nerf and buffs what do you want before the wotlk release blizz promised us a new pawning class and to me blizz did no deliver yea DKs are quickly catching up to the huntards and they ceep heading the way they are now they will have a "cool" little name like that to you can never have anough dps so far only seen improvements to tanking unholy got nerfed and blood was made more like a tank spec tankiing spec with vaperic blood and heart strike while all the other classes are sky rocketing
blood and unholy and dks DPS in general needs a serious buff to ake their rightful place at the top or atleast ceep up with all the changes shamans you know what they kneed stuns extand teh effect of chains of ice freeze the target for 5 seconds and than slowdown movement speed for 5 more saconds that be awsome that whould be good allround in pvp pve dungeons raids for these bastards that just cant stay still to even it out put a coolwown on it not to long though like 15 or 20 saconds the cooldown starts when you activate the ability
oops not should realy go over what i tye i was gointo say somthing about shamans and started typing it but than i figured let the shman worry about the buffs and nerfs guass i forgot to erase the word shamans shamans have anough i ment DKS need stuns
i am so bad at this
I have been waiting a LONG time for the healing/mana totems to be combined! The chain lightning isnt a big deal. awesome sauce of unleashed rage, taking up my 5 talent points... and PvP utility? i dont understand... maybe more natural resilience?
"four separate lag-inducing pillars of doom" i laughed alittle when he said that and i checked on wow head there seem to be a few new changes to warlocks which makes me a little happy even just to know that warlocks are getting a bit of a change is a welcome since the last patch seem like it did nothing except give us a fancy portal.
I HATE people who spam "First" "Second" "Third". Please, grow up. No one cares that you're "first".