by Magistrate - 10 years ago     show comments

The latest Warlords of Draenor beta notes were released today, including multiple class updates as well as some other small changes for game systems. You can read the full list of beta notes on the official blog.

Reading Notes

• Note updates and additions are denoted in bolded text
• Removed sections are denoted with strike-through text.
• Only updates since the last note list have been included for ease of reading. See the official blog post for more.
• Some larger sections, sentences, and subtitles have been retained for context reading.
• Click to navigate via the Changes Index

Changes Index

• Game System Changes
  • Crowd Control and Diminishing Returns
  • Raid Utility Balance
• Classes
  • Death Knight
  • Druid
  • Mage
  • Paladin
  • Warlock
  • Warrior

Game System Changes

Crowd Control and Diminishing Returns

Another big takeaway from Mists of Pandaria is that there was simply too much crowd control (CC) in the game.  To solve that, we knew that we needed an across-the-board disarmament. Here’s a summary of the player-cast CC changes:

• Removed Silence effects from all Interrupts. Silences still exist, but are never attached to an Interrupt.
• Removed all Disarms.
• Reduced the number of Diminishing Returns (DR) categories.
  • All Roots now share the same DR category.
    • Exception: Roots on ‘Charge’ types of abilities have no DR category, but have a very short duration instead.
  • All Stuns now share the same DR category.
  • All Incapacitate (“Mesmerize”) effects now share the same DR category, and have been merged with the Horror DR category.
  • A list of which Diminishing Returns category each crowd-control ability belongs to can be found in the forum thread titled: Diminishing Returns in Warlords of Draenor.
• Removed the ability to make crowd-control spells with cast-times into instant-cast with a cooldown.
• Removed many crowd-control spells entirely, and increased the cooldowns and restrictions on others.
  • Pet-cast CC is more limited and often removed.
  • Cyclone can now be dispelled by Immunity effects and Mass Dispel.
  • PvP trinkets now grant immunity to reapplication of an effect from the same spell cast when they break abilities with persistent effects like Solar Beam.
  • Long fears are now shorter in PvP, to account for the target also needing to run back afterward.

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Raid Utility Balance

Various classes bring various abilities that provide utility to parties and raids. We talked about one type of utility in the Buffs and Debuffs section, above. However, there are other types of raid utility, and it’s been in need of more attention. In general, raid utility, especially raid-wide defensive cooldowns, had grown too strong. So many classes and specializations had defensive cooldowns that we had to make raid damage extremely high, as raids would be stacking or chaining together multiple cooldowns. We’d like to return to a system where it’s the healers who heal through the scary moments, not the damage dealers, for example.

To do so, we’ve established a new baseline level of raid utility that a specialization should bring, and brought everyone to that new standard by reducing the effects of some abilities, or removing some abilities altogether.

• Hunter
  • Aspect of the Fox is a new ability for all Hunters.
    • Aspect of the Fox: Party and raid members within 40 yards take on the aspects of a fox, allowing them to move while casting all spells for 6 seconds. Only one Aspect can be active at a time. 3 minute cooldown.
  • A minor Raid utility ability (to-be-determined) will be added for Hunters.

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Classes

Death Knight

Miscellaneous

There were also a few other miscellaneous changes. The Runic Power generation of Anti-Magic Shell was standardized, to make it more understandable and balanced. Level-60 and Level-75 talent rows have swapped places, so the important rune regeneration talents could be acquired earlier. Conversion was changed to cost different amounts by specialization, instead of reducing Runic Power generation differently by specialization. This way, Runic Power beyond what you spend on Conversion is not penalized.

• Anti-Magic Shell now restores 2 Runic Power per 1% of max health absorbed.
• Desecrated Ground now also makes the Death Knight immune to Roots and Snares.
• Conversion no longer has an initial tick, and now costs 15 Runic Power/second for Blood, 10 20 Runic Power/second for Frost, and 20 10 Runic Power/second for Unholy.
• Level-60 and Level-75 talent rows have swapped places.
• Level-60 rune regeneration talents can now be triggered by the following abilities at a rate proportional to their Runic Power costs: Breath of Sindragosa, Conversion, Dark Simulacrum, Mind Freeze (glyphed), Outbreak (glyphed), and Raise Ally (unglyphed).

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Druid

Ability Consolidation and Refinement

For consolidation of abilities, we merged several passive abilities. One notable change is the merging of the Ravage into Shred, and Pounce into Rake; saving a couple keybinds that were only used in conjunction with Prowl. The loss of Symbiosis primarily impacted Druid survivability, as many of the abilities received through Symbiosis were defensive cooldowns. To compensate for that, we improved Barkskin (for non-Feral Druids) and Survival Instincts (for Feral and Guardian Druids).

• Barkskin no longer provides pushback protection, but its cooldown has been reduced to 30 seconds.
• Infected Wounds has been removed and its effects have been incorporated into Mangle and Shred.
• Lifebloom can no longer stack, and its healing has been increased to compensate.
• Omen of Clarity (Feral) now affects all Druid spells and abilities.
• Rake now also stuns the target for 4 seconds if used while stealthed, and is only available to Feral Druids.
  • Pounce has been removed and its effects have been incorporated into Rake.
• Regrowth now has a duration of 12 seconds (up from 6 seconds), but no longer refreshes its duration on targets at or below 50% health.
• Revive’s mana cost has been reduced by 87%.
• Rip now has a duration of 24 seconds (up from 16 seconds), but its duration is no longer extended by Shred.
• Shred no longer requires the Druid to be behind the target (See also: Facing Requirements.) and is now available to all specializations. Shred now deals 35% more damage in addition to having double the normal chance to critically strike while stealthed. Additionally, Shred now naturally applies the Infected Wounds snare effect for Feral and Guardian Druids.
  • Ravage has been removed and its effects have been incorporated into Shred.
• Skull Bash no longer increases the mana cost of the victim’s spells.
• Survival Instincts no longer requires or forces the Druid into Cat or Bear Form, and now reduces damage taken by 70% (up from 50%) with a 2-minute cooldown (down from 3 minutes), and can have up to 2 charges (up from 1 charge).
• Thick Hide has been removed and its effects have been incorporated into Bear Form for Guardian Druids.
  • Bear Form now increases armor by 600% 330% for all Druid specializations, and no longer increases Haste and Critical Strike from items by 50%, but instead causes Haste to reduce the global cooldown
  • For Guardian Druids, Bear Form now also reduces magical damage taken by 25%, reduces physical damage taken by 12%, reduces chance to be critically hit by 6%, and reduces chance for attacks to be parried by 3%.
• Tiger’s Fury is now usable during Berserk.
• Track Humanoids has been removed and its effects have been incorporated into Cat Form.
• Travel Form now automatically transitions between Aquatic, Land, and Flight forms depending on the Druid’s location.
  • Glyph of the Stag now teaches the Druid a separate shapeshift ability, Stag Form. Stag Form allows the Druid to act as a mount for party members and will not switch between different Travel Forms.

Balance Rebalanced

We have some extensive changes for Balance Druids. One of our guiding principles with game design is that things should be “easy to learn, hard to master”. We’re not particularly happy with the Moonkin rotation because it was actually hard to learn, and easy to master (especially with regards to periodic damage effects no longer snapshotting). Energy and Eclipse mechanics were not intuitive for many newer players. Once you became accustomed to the rotation, there wasn’t much additional depth to mastering it; maintain two DoTs, hit these other two buttons whenever they light up, and spam one of two buttons in between. In order to try to make it easier to learn, but also add some gameplay depth and challenge we’re making a significant revision to the rotation. The list of changes is quite dense, so here’s a summary of the changes.
Summary of changes to Balance:

• Balance Energy is a bar that automatically cycles back and forth between Lunar and Solar sides, like night and day. The closer to one end that the bar is, the more damage that side’s spells do.
• Balance Druids now have four rotational spells.
  • Starfire: Lunar direct damage spell
    • Cast when the Lunar side is stronger
  • Wrath: Solar direct damage spell
    • Cast when the Solar side is stronger
  • Moonfire: Lunar periodic damage spell. While closer to Solar, this button is replaced with Sunfire, a Solar periodic damage spell.
    • Maintain both effects where possible
  • Starsurge: Direct damage spell that benefits from whichever side is stronger. Has up to 3 charges, and buffs the damage of the next few Wraths or Starfires.
    • Cast when able to follow up with a few strong Wraths or Starfires.

That’s the basics of the new Moonkin rotation. There’s room for improvement beyond that, learning to optimally maintain both periodic damage effects while maximizing their damage with the strongest Eclipse effect, timing Starsurges to optimize the benefit of its buff, make use of Starfall and Hurricane for area damage, and taking advantage of the strengths of each side (such as Moonfire and Sunfire having significant differences now). Here are the full details of the changes.

Details of changes to Balance:

• Balance Energy system has been redesigned. Balance Energy is a bar that cycles back and forth between Lunar and Solar sides, like night and day, with a 40 second cycle time (from Lunar to Solar and back to Lunar).
  • Balance Energy is no longer generated through spells, talents, or other effects anymore.
• Eclipse has been redesigned.
  • Eclipse inspires the Druid with the power of the moon and the sun, causing the damage of Lunar and Solar spells to be increased by up to 30% based on how close Balance Energy levels are to the appropriate side.
    • Example: With 0 Balance Energy, the damage bonus is evenly split between Lunar and Solar, and the Druid receives a 15% increase to damage for both spell types. With 80 Solar Energy, the Druid receives a 27% damage increase to Solar spells and a 3% damage increase to Lunar spells.
  • Mastery: Total Eclipse now increases the maximum damage bonus of Eclipse by 12% (increasing with Mastery).
  • The damage of damage-over-time effects changes dynamically as Eclipse changes.
• Astral Communion now increases the rate that Balance Energy cycles by 300% while channeled.
• Astral Storm has been removed.
• Celestial Alignment has been redesigned.
  • Celestial Alignment causes the Druid to enter Celestial Alignment, a state where Balance Energy cycle is paused, all damage done is increased by 20%, and all Lunar and Solar spells benefit from the maximum Eclipse bonus. While in Celestial Alignment, Moonfire and Sunfire will also apply the other spell’s periodic damage effect. Lasts 15 seconds with a 3 minute cooldown.
• Hurricane now has a range of 35 yards (up from 30 yards), but is only available to Balance and Restoration Druids.
• Incarnation: Chosen of Elune now increases spell damage by 15% while active (was a 25% increase to Arcane and Nature damage, but only while Eclipse is active).
• Lunar Shower has been redesigned and renamed into Astral Showers.
  • Astral Showers calls upon greater Lunar and Solar energy to permanently empower the Druid’s Moonfire and Sunfire spells.
    • Moonfire’s periodic damage effect duration is increased by 100%.
    • Sunfire’s periodic damage effect is now applied to all enemies within 5 yards of the target.
• Moonfire now has a base duration of 20 seconds (up from 14 seconds), but is no longer extended by Starfire and Starsurge critical strikes. Upon reaching 100 Lunar Energy, the next Moonfire deals 100% additional initial damage.
• Shooting Stars now adds 1 full charge of Starsurge and Starfall when it triggers, and now has a 5% chance to trigger when the most recent Moonfire or Sunfire deals periodic damage. This chance is doubled on critical strikes.
• Soul of the Forest (Balance) has been redesigned.
  • Soul of the Forest (Balance) now increases the damage bonus from Lunar and Solar Empowerment by an additional 15%.
• Starfall now shares charges with Starsurge, and has no cooldown of its own. It also now hits all nearby enemies (up from 2 nearby enemies).
• Starfire now has a 3 second cast time (up from 2.7 seconds).
• Starsurge now has 3 charges and a 30 second recharge time (instead of a 15 second cooldown). Starsurge now also grants Lunar or Solar Empowerment.
  • Lunar Empowerment causes the next 2 casts of Starfire to deal 30% more damage.
  • Solar Empowerment causes the next 3 casts of Wrath to deal 30% more damage.
• Sunfire is no longer its own spell and replaces Moonfire on the action bar whenever Balance Energy is on the Solar side. Sunfire now has a base duration of 24 20 seconds (up from 14 seconds), but is no longer extended by Wrath and Starsurge critical strikes. Enemies may still suffer from both Moonfire and Sunfire’s periodic damage components simultaneously. Upon reaching 100 Solar Energy, the next Sunfire deals 100% additional initial damage.
• Wild Mushroom (Balance) now begins snaring enemies immediately when summoned, lasts 20 seconds, and can no longer be detonated to deal damage.
  • Wild Mushroom: Detonate has been removed.

Restoration Changes

Restoration Druids got a few changes as well. In Patch 5.4, a glyph was introduced where you could choose to attach your Efflorescence to Wild Mushroom, instead of to Swiftmend. That was a rousing success and the glyph was taken by nearly all Restoration Druids. It felt like a much better situation to us so we decided to remove the glyph, and bake that gameplay in permanently. Genesis and Wild Mushroom: Bloom fill a similar need for burst healing, so Wild Mushroom: Bloom has been removed; leaving Wild Mushroom to focus on the Efflorescence effect.

Secondly, while we are fine with the playstyle where a Restoration Druid blankets their Raid in Rejuvenations, the Swift Rejuvenation passive made that too strong, and limited their scaling with Haste. We removed that passive to encourage using other spells more, but still allow Rejuvenation blanketing as a viable playstyle. Omen of Clarity got changed to not trigger more often with Tree of Life as it was too strong in our new healing model. Soul of the Forest was also redesigned to fit better with Restoration and Genesis based on the new design for periodic effects.

• Genesis has been redesigned.
  • Genesis now consumes all of the Druid’s Rejuvenation effects on party or raid members within 60 yards and applies the Genesis effect to them instead. Genesis heals the target for an amount equal to the remaining healing from the consumed Rejuvenation effects over 3 seconds.
• Omen of Clarity (Restoration) can now only be triggered by the most recently applied Lifebloom, and now causes the next Regrowth to be free.
• Soul of the Forest for Restoration Druids has been redesigned.
  • Soul of the Forest (Restoration) when casting Swiftmend, the Druid gains Soul of the Forest. Soul of the Forest reduces the cast time of the next Healing Touch by 50%, or increases the healing of the next Regrowth, Rejuvenation, or Wild Growth by 100%.
• Swift Rejuvenation has been removed.
• Wild Mushroom (Restoration) now has a 30-second cooldown, lasts for 30 seconds, provides periodic healing to nearby allies, and no longer collects Rejuvenation overhealing.
  • Wild Mushroom: Bloom has been removed.
  • Swiftmend no longer causes Efflorescence.

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Mage

Talent Revisions

A few of the abilities reset by Cold Snap were made spec-specific, or could be overridden with Talents, so we expanded what it can affect to compensate.

• Cold Snap now also resets the cooldown of Presence of Mind, Dragon’s Breath, and Evanesce.

Ice Ward was changed to make it more competitive with the rest of its talent row.

• Ice Ward now causes the next 3 attackers (up from 1) to trigger a Frost Nova.

One of the most problematic Talent rows in the game has been the Mage level-90 row. The primary theme of the row was mana, which only Arcane Mages actually cared about. Bonus damage was added in, making it functional for all Mages, but muddled in its goals. Additionally, some of them just weren’t fun to play with. We’ve revised the row to be purely about damage, and made them have less maintenance cost. Arcane Mages will have enough mana regeneration without these Talents to perform well.

• Incanter’s Ward has been removed and replaced by Incanter’s Flow a new level-90 Talent.
  • Incanter’s Flow: Magical energy flows through you, increasing all spell damage done by 5% per stack. While in combat, the magical energy builds up to 5 stacks over 5 seconds and then diminishes down to 1 stack over 5 seconds. This cycle repeats every 10 seconds.
• Invocation has been removed and replaced by Mirror Image.
• Mirror Image is now a level-90 Talent, replacing Invocation. Mirror Images now inherit 100% 50% of the Mage’s Spell Power (up from 5%), last 40 seconds (up from 30 seconds), and have a 2 minutes cooldown (down from 3 minutes).
  • Glyph of Mirror Image has been removed and its effects have been incorporated into Mirror Image.
• Rune of Power no longer replaces Evocation, no longer increases mana regeneration, and now lasts 3 minutes (up from 1 minute).

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Paladin

Ability Consolidation and Refinement

There were a few mergers of passive abilities, and some tweaks to a couple of abilities.

• Divine Light has been renamed Holy Light.
• Daybreak now heals all allies within 10 yards for 15% of Holy Shock’s healing (instead of 75%, split between each ally).
• Grand Crusader now triggers from any avoidance, not just dodge and parry.
• Judgment is now naturally free for Holy Paladins, and naturally generates 1 Holy Power for Retribution Paladins.
  • Judgments of the Bold has been removed.
• Redemption’s mana cost has been reduced by 95%.
• Selfless Healer no longer causes Bastion of Glory to apply to Flash of Light.
• The Art of War’s effects have been merged into baseline Exorcism.
• Tower of Radiance’s effects have been merged into baseline Beacon of Light.

Protection Changes

For Protection, we tweaked Eternal Flame in order to reduce its massive self-healing amount, and provide better balance between talents on that row. We also added a new passive, Shining Protector, in order to give defensive value to the new Multistrike stat. Holy Wrath’s damage and cooldown were also increased, and Sanctified Wrath changed to buff it further, in order to give Protection Paladins more burst threat and damage, while retaining its core damage-splitting identity.

• Bastion of Glory no longer affects the periodic healing of Eternal Flame. It still affects the direct healing portion of the ability.
• Shining Protector is a new passive ability for Protection Paladins.
  • Shining Protector: All heals you receive have a chance equal to your Multistrike chance to trigger Shining Protector, healing you for an additional 30% of the triggering heal.
• Holy Wrath’s damage has been increased by 100%, and its cooldown increased to 15 seconds (up from 9 seconds).
• Sanctified Wrath for Protection Paladins has been redesigned.
  • Sanctified Wrath (Protection) now increases the damage of Holy Wrath by 100% and causes it to generate 1 Holy Power.

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Warlock

Demonology Changes

We were unsatisfied with Grimoire of Sacrifice for Demonology. Fundamentally, it did not fit Demonology’s theme to sacrifice their pet, full time. We had toyed with ideas where it acted as a temporary cooldown for Demonology, but have decided to replace it with a new talent, which is more theme-appropriate, and fits well against the competition in that talent row.

• Grimoire of Sacrifice is no longer available to Demonology Warlocks and has a new talent, Grimoire of Synergy in its place.
  • Grimoire of Synergy: When the Warlock or their demon deals damage, there is a chance to trigger Demonic Synergy, granting the other one 15% increased damage for 15 seconds.

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Warrior

Ability Consolidation and Refinement

• Battle Shout now lasts 1 hour and no longer generates Rage.
• Blood and Thunder’s effects have been merged into baseline Deep Wounds for Protection Warriors.
• Commanding Shout now lasts 1 hour and no longer generates Rage.
• Single-Minded Fury’s effects have been merged into Crazed Berserker.
• Titan’s Grip’s effects have been merged into Crazed Berserker.
• Hamstring now costs 10 Rage and deals 20% weapon damage, in addition to the movement speed slow.
• Meat Cleaver’s effects have been merged into baseline Whirlwind for Fury Warriors.
• Sword and Board’s effects have been merged into baseline Devastate.
• Thunder Clap now costs 15 30 Rage, and also reduces the movement speed of nearby enemies by 50% for 6 sec.
• Ultimatum’s effects have been merged into baseline Shield Slam.

Fury Changes

Fury Warriors received a few additional changes. In particular, Heroic Strike has been removed for Fury Warriors, and modified Wild Strike to fill the role of quick excess Rage dump. We also made a revision to the Critical Strike chance of Bloodthirst to make them less crit-dependant. A new glyph has been added which gives Fury Warriors a choice for a notably different playstyle. Auto attack damage had become too high, so we also moved some damage from that into Execute (which has been changed to deal damage based on Weapon Damage, instead of just Attack Power). In order to make sure that you’re able to spend all of your resources within each Colossus Smash window, we added an extension to it onto Raging Blow. Plus, we’ve updated some to spell alerts to improve usability.

• Bloodsurge’s effects have been merged into baseline Bloodthirst and no longer reduce Wild Strike’s global cooldown. Its spell alert has moved to the top slot instead of the left and right slots.
• Bloodthirst now replaces Heroic Strike for Fury Warriors.
  • Wild Strike now has a 0.5 second baseline global cooldown.
• Bloodthirst now has 30% additional Critical Strike chance (instead of double the normal Critical Strike chance).
• Crazed Berserker no longer increases auto attack damage. Instead, it also causes Execute to hit with the off-hand weapon.
• Raging Blow now extends the duration of Colossus Smash by 2 seconds, and has a spell alert on the left and right slots.
• Glyph of Colossus Smash is a new glyph available to Fury Warriors. The glyph increases the duration of Colossus Smash’s effect to 20 seconds, but reduces its effectiveness.

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