Taking a break from learning about Trees...
So, I was checking out the
test realm patch notes for 3.2.o and saw some interesting things. Aside from the biggie:
New druid art for cat and bear forms has been added. There are now five unique color schemes for each form and faction. Changing hair color (night elves) or skin tone (Tauren) via the barbershop will change the look of one's cat and bear forms.
[Here's hoping the faces are not as freakishly large as they appear in the image...]
There are other things...
Mana EnduranceMPS 5 is up 25%, but Replenishment effects are down 20%. First, that means most healers will probably have more mana recovery, which is good. Second, it seems to shift the burden of mana endurance more towards the individual and reduce reliance upon Replenishment. Also a good thing, as it supports
bring the player, not the class.Carrots for the Jaded! Present for Everyone!Hooray! The old Heroic raids will now drop Emblems of Conquest! Not only can I gear up my raiders faster with Emblem items, there is another motivation for veteran raiders to keep going back to Naxxramas, etc. to help rapidly gear up our new folks. Yay!
Mount ChangesEarlier, cheaper, and easier to summon mounts. I am firmly in favor of it. The game is in Northrend, the rest is for tourism. Empower people to join us in the current content more quickly, or see the old content more quickly. Walking sucks. Hooray for the mount changes!
Oh, and just to be clear, all 10 of my Horde characters have Epic Flying Mounts, so if anyone has ammunition to complain, it would be me. But I am not. Enjoy your mounts. I wish they had done it sooner, but better late than never.
That said, if Blizzard would refund me some gold, that would be awesome... ;)
Unholy Death Knights Get a Savage Roar...Mangle...Sort of ThingSo, Unholy DKs now have a new Talent, Desolation, that gives them an ability that creates a buff when they use Blood Strike that will increase their overall damage. Rogues have Slice and Dice and Poisons, Cats have Savage Roar and Mangle, and Warriors have Battle Shout. Now only Retadins and Enhancement Shamans need something annoying to constantly maintain to perform at their peak.
Druid StuffInnervate is half as effective and twice as frequent. Hmm, how long before it ends up being a Replenishment effect?
A lot of "base points" reduced? I have to admit, I had no bloody idea what that meant.
Feral Druids can finally get rid of their addon to track their mana! It will be built into the game.
HuntersPets get Hit-capped right along with their masters, which is appropriate and a long time coming. A huge change is in the form of traps - Fire, Frost, and Nature Traps do not share cooldowns anymore.
MagesInvisibility cannot be interrupted during the 3-second fade period. That's nice, but it does seem to take away an intentional game balance. Now it's essentially a Vanish with a 3-second warning.
PaladinsHave Retribution Paladins been nerfed so they can't alpha-strike anyone without an immunity ability? Maybe.
Exorcism is back to being usable on players but has a 1.5-second cast time. That could actually be interesting in that you might actually be able to lock a Retadin out of his Holy Spells if he tries to use it. No wait, Art of War can make Exorcism instant too. Still, that forces a "heal vs. DPS" decision akin to an Enhancement Shaman's choice when Maelstrom hits 5 stacks. You do still have the option of letting the Art of War buff linger so you can set up a large pulse, but you need a melee crit first to set that up. Seal of Command has also been smeared out, giving more damage per swing, but less on Judgement.
So, yeah, it looks like the gigantic alpha strike has been blunted a bit. Yay for my Arena team!
Crusader Strike does less damage (75%), but the CD is shorter (4 sec, down from 6). That means that in 12 seconds, you should be able to do 2.25 strikes where you used to do 2, but it does take the edge off the alpha strike and requires a little more management of CDs.
Nice boost for Tanks, +10% Stamina from Blessing of Sanctuary. That could also create an interesting option if you have multiple Paladins and a fight in which people need more health. It does not stack with Kings, but at least it makes Sanctuary a less a painful choice if a Protection Paladin is the only Paladin present.
Hand of Reckoning loses its damage when your target is not already targeting you. I guess Tanks were using it to generate Threat, when it was really intended to be an effective and reliable Taunt. This will probably only help raids, as spamming it would be a bad habit in many fights, where you can make the Boss Taunt-immune rapidly and get everyone killed if you need to trade Taunts with another Tank.
Judgement of Light is based on the beneficiary's maximum Health, which puts it more in line with a Improved Leader of the Pack type of effect.
Righteous Fury stays up until you die, cancel, or switch specs. Great news for when I Tank something with my Paladin, who lives in Retribution mode normally. "Man, what is up with my Threat? Oh, right, I should probably put up Righteous Fury."
OMG: Ardent Defender has been changed in good ways. It reduces the damage of an attack that takes you below 35%, which is likely to be an issue. It also has a Guardian Spirit-like mechanic built in!
If you take a killing blow, you instead get restored to 10%/20%/30% Health! Wow.
Flash of Light + Sacred Shield = HoT.
OMG: Beacon of Light now does the total heal, not just the effective heal (so overhealing counts) and
multiple Paladins can Beacon the same target! Wow. That could be a very interesting dynamic to work into healing assignments.
PriestsPrayer of Healing gets nerfed a bit by reduced benefits from Spell Power. Penance gets a nerf in the form of a longer CD. Inspiration gets a buff (it seems) by reducing all damage rather than just increasing armor.
RoguesRogues can now use Axes. Hmm, more weapon choices is nice. Not sure if this is an OMG! change.
Shaman - The Game ChangesA simply amazing change for Shamans - they can now queue up a quartet of Totems and drop them with a single CD. Great news for PvE Shamans and not too shabby for PvP either, although PvP Shamans are probably going to still maintain their ability to place (or more correctly, replace) single Totems well.
Chain Heal gets a lot better. It was already good. Now it jumps up to 10 yards and reduces by only 40% (down from 50%). Really good news for Shamans and raid leaders.
Improved Water Shield can proc of Chain Heal and no longer consumes orbs.
Cure Toxins combines Poison and Disease cleansing...more akin to their Paladin counterparts. Simplification is nice.
Ancestral Healing changes from armor boost to damage decrease, which sounds like a buff to me, but I have not run the numbers.
For my Arena comrade, Earth Shield only loses one charge when Dispelled and Mana Tide gets 10% of the Shaman's Health. Good stuff for Shamans in Arenas.
If you think that's nice:
Macros and scripts will no longer be able to target totems by name.
Shucks, I guess they will actually have to work on those Totems instead of blindly spamming a macro.
WarlocksThey may disagree with me, but the fact that you can refresh your Banish while Banish is still up is really really nice. Having to perfectly time the refresh was a PitA. A more frequent Soulshatter (CD down to 3 min from 5 min) is nice too, but it will still require some skill to use it well.
Lots of Nice Little Things- Character name auto-completion for the chat frame, pop-ups, and mail interface can be enabled through an interface option in the Development settings.
- Character names can now be colorized according to class in the chat frame through an interface option in the Development settings.
- Casting bars under a target's portrait will now indicate whether or not the cast can be interrupted.
- Item Comparisons: Holding the shift key while hovering over an item will now display the stat differences with the item currently equipped in the relevant slot.
- Quest creatures and objects will now show on the player's world map.
- The quest log is now double-paned for more easily viewing quest information.
- Vendor prices will now be listed on items whether or not players are at a vendor.[Now I can disable Auctioneer for everyone but the character that handles my AH stuff!]
- For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros forum.
An interesting patch indeed.
