WoW 1.8 Patch Notes -- Merry Xmas (Pt 1)

[Jabber]

1.8 Patch Notes

World of Warcraft Client Patch 1.8.0 (2005-??-??)

Disturbance at the Great Trees

Something is amiss in the Emerald Dream. Immense dragons with the shimmering emerald scales of the Green Dragonflight have been sighted guarding the portals at the Great Trees... but these once-noble creatures crawl with a new, strange menace, not the peace for which Ysera is known. Bring many allies should you dare to confront them; their powers are formidable and they will not hesitate to crush any who draw near.

The Stirring of the Silithid

The arid sands of Silithus are shifting. Something is awakening beyond the wall to the south... Aid the Druids of the Cenarion Circle as they delve into the mysteries of the desert. Seek answers behind the Twilight Hammer's presence. Discover more about the alien creatures known as the Silithid as you explore their hives. Many new endeavors await the high-level adventurer!

Hallow's End


When the decorations of Hallow's End light up Azeroth's cities, you know there's mischief afoot! Seek special vendors in Orgrimmar or Ironforge and get your hands on treats! Aid a sick orphan in a little trick-or-treating! Deathcaller Yanka, attending the Forsaken's Wickerman Festival, and Sergeant Hartman of Southshore are seeking your aid in keeping the enemy out of their holiday affairs -- are you up to the challenge?

General



Instant Attacks

The mechanics of most instant melee attacks have been modified to improve item balance. Previously, instant melee attacks did damage based on the damage range of the weapon, plus a bonus for the player's attack power. This bonus was then multiplied by the speed of the weapon. As a result, slow weapons did more damage than was intended, and fast weapons were considered inferior by most players. We have changed the way the attack power bonus is calculated for instant attacks. This change does NOT affect attack power calculations for normal melee attacks. Instead of multiplying by the speed of the weapon, the attack power bonus is now multiplied by a fixed number pulled from the following table:



Two-handed weapons: 3.3

Daggers: 1.7

All other one-handed weapons: 2.4

As a direct result of this, many weapons have shifted position in their relative power. In particular, many Epic (purple) quality items are now more powerful than slower Superior (blue) weapons.

This change was not made to reduce the power of instant attacks, but to correct the relative imbalance of weapon itemization. At a given level requirement, epic quality weapons should always be more powerful than superior quality weapons.

Please also note that all normal weapon swings will be completely unaffected by this change. The following abilities are affected by the design change: Sinister Strike, Ambush, Backstab, Whirlwind, Mortal Strike, and Overpower.



The cost per point of durability to repair plate, chain, and leather items has been reduced to be equal to the cost of repairing cloth items of the same quality.

You can now repurchase up to 12 items that you have sold to a vendor. There is now a buyback tab on all merchants that you can select to repurchase the last 12 items you sold since you last logged in. When your character leaves the game, this list of items will be cleared, so if you have accidentally sold something, don’t wait to buy it back. Buy it back immediately.

Perception (Human Racial) is now usable while stealthed.

There is now a spell effect when you increase your reputation to a new level.

The loading screen upon login now displays gameplay tips.

Channeled spells that are cancelled by movement can no longer be cast while moving.

Fixed bug where the debuff Tetanus was reducing stamina by one more than it should.

Pets no longer break off attacks when their target is affected by Warlock Fear.

The "Knockout" mechanic has been renamed "Disorient" and all tooltips that referenced this mechanic should be updated.

PvP



Honor System

The percentage of players that may reach ranks 6 through 14 has been increased.

Lower-level players should advance in the Honor System more quickly than they had previously (although this change does not affect the highest ranks they can achieve).

Battlegrounds

Each Battleground has an individual turn-in quest associated with its related victory/loss condition. Upon completion of a Battleground, the winning side will be awarded three Marks of Honor while the losing side will be awarded one Mark of Honor. Three Marks of Honor may be turned in to the associated questgiver for Honor Points and faction increase. Should players complete this turn-in quest, they will find that the bonus Honor Points for completion are twice that of normal turn-in conditions (individual).

Players of levels 10 - 19 will now be able to participate in the battle for Warsong Gulch.

Alterac Valley has received an overhaul:

In order to keep teams in Alterac Valley more numerically balanced, players will now enter Alterac Valley on a one-for-one basis (i.e. if there are 30 players in the battleground for each side with 10 players in the Alliance queue and 2 players in the Horde queue, only two players from each team will be added, bringing the total to 32 per side).

The minimum number of players required to start a battle in Alterac Valley has been lowered to 20 (the maximum is still 40).

Points for completing the map and winning have been slightly decreased.

Graveyards and graveyard capture points are now at different locations. This was done to correct the negative behavior and tactics associated with graveyard captures and the subsequent player swarming factor. Graveyards should be much more meaningful now to both defense and offense.

Several terrain changes were made to fix some geometry exploits as well as to adjust for the new graveyard mechanic.

Iceblood Graveyard has been fortified.

The Frostwolf Relief Hut now has appropriate guards.

A great avalanche has closed off both the eastern and western segments of Alterac Valley. This has displaced the Syndicate, the Woodpaw Gnolls, and many of the Winterax Trolls.

Due to the avalanche, Korrak the Bloodrager and a small band of surviving Trolls have made the Snowfall Graveyard their new home. Players will find that Snowfall is now under Korrak's control and they must defeat Korrak and his Troll guards if they wish to take Snowfall.

The quests Korrak the Bloodrager (Alliance), Korrak the Everliving (Alliance), The Legend of Korrak (Horde), and The Return of Korrak (Horde) have been removed from the game. The rewards for the initial quest involving Korrak have been moved and can be acquired by completing the quest associated with winning a match in Alterac Valley. We realize that some players may have had the Korrak quest and never completed it. These players may have already completed the quest for killing the General and thus might not be able to benefit from the rewards from the previous quest line. We have opted to add an extra quest step at the end of the General kill quests to reward players that fall under such conditions.

A new item has been added as one of the reward choices for the quests Hero of the Stormpike and Hero of the Frostwolf.

NPC difficulty has been scaled down. All NPCs have had their power reduced by 15-30%.

There is now a portcullis at the end of each of the entrance tunnels inside Alterac Valley. They will rise two minutes into the battle.

The PvP Tier2 Alliance and Horde Cloth armor sets have new updated textures.

[Jabber]

Druids



Due to significant talent changes, talent points for Druids have been refunded and can be respent. Training costs for all talent spell/ability replacements have been significantly reduced.

Hurricane - No longer a talent. Now available to all Druids at level 40. Damage and Mana cost increased on all ranks. Spell is now cast on a targeted area up to 30 yards away and affected by Nature’s Reach. Multiple Druids casting Hurricane will no longer stack the slowdown effect. Radius of effect decreased slightly.

Remove Curse - Updated tooltip to reflect that it's usable on friendly targets only.

Shapeshifting - Fixed a bug where the Chilled effect caused by Ice Armor/Frost Armor was not removed properly when shapeshifting.

Swipe - Self cooldown removed.

Tranquility - Cooldown reduced to 5 minutes. Mana cost reduced by 25%.

Cat Form - The attack power bonus from the base cat form will now calculate correctly on zoning or logging in.

Hunters



Counterattack - Now properly sets its cooldown.

Throw - Use of this ability will no longer cause a global cooldown with all other abilities.

Auto-shot is now cancelled when you die.

Added Lightning Breath pet ability for Wind Serpents. This ability instantly hits a single target for Nature damage at medium range.

Mages



Arcane Missiles - Should now properly report the correct "out of range" indicator on the action bar.

Paladins



Judgement of Light and Judgement of Wisdom will now benefit players that are immune to Holy effects (e.g. Divine Shield).

Priests



Psychic Scream - Updated tooltip to reflect that damage caused to the feared target may break the effect. Included radius in tooltip.

Devouring Plague (Undead) - Will now properly consume the Inner Focus effect when cast.

Shadowguard (Troll) - Tooltip updated to reflect actual functionality.

Elune's Grace (Night Elf) - New icon.

Rogues



Vanish - Fixed a bug where the Chilled effect caused by Ice Armor/Frost Armor was not removed properly when vanishing.

Parry - Minimum level to train this ability has been lowered to 12.

Blade Flurry - This ability will now trigger correctly off of special attacks such as Sinister Strike and Kick.

Shoot Bow/Crossbow/Gun - Fixed a bug where these abilities could be used faster than intended.

Throw - Use of this ability will now only cause a cooldown with Shoot abilities.

Ambush - Now uses normalized attack power.

Backstab - Now uses normalized attack power.

Riposte - Now properly sets its cooldown.

Sinister Strike - Now uses normalized attack power.

Shaman



Lightning Shield - Tooltip updated to reflect actual functionality.

Ghost Wolf - Will now correctly have its cast time reduced by Nature's Swiftness.

Warlocks



Death Coil - Cooldown reduced, mana cost increased, and now causes a short Fear effect that is not diminished.

Corruption - Duration reduced and damage per tick increased. Total damage over duration approximately identical.

Curse of Agony - Duration reduced to 24 seconds and damage per tick increased. Total damage over duration approximately identical.

Conflagrate - Conflagrate will now correctly remove Immolate rank 4 from its victim when cast.

Bane - Now reduces casting time of the Soul Fire and Hellfire spells in addition to Immolate and Shadow Bolt.

Intensity - Now reduces chance to be interrupted during cast time of Rain of Fire, Hellfire and Soul Fire spells.

Pyroclasm - Now gives a chance to stun when Rain of Fire, Hellfire, and Soul Fire spells damage the target.

Soul Link - Percentage of damage split with pet has been reduced.

Ruin - Critical damage bonus reduced.

Summon Felhunter - Has a new, unique sound effect.

Improved Drain Mana - Damage caused by this talent will now cause 150% damage instead of 200% damage, which is now consistent with other damage spells.

Lesser Invisibility (Succubus) - Tooltip updated to reflect actual functionality.

Fixed a bug that would cause the Master Demonologist buff to be removed if the pet was banished.

Warriors



Concussion Blow - Will now initiate combat when used.

Shoot Bow/Crossbow/Gun - Fixed a bug where these abilities could be used faster than intended.

Throw - Use of this ability will now only cause a cooldown with Shoot abilities.

Mortal Strike - Now uses normalized attack power.

Overpower - Now uses normalized attack power.

Whirlwind - Now uses normalized attack power.

Warriors can immediately charge after using trinkets to remove immobilizing effects.

Camera angles when using Charge should be improved.

Items



Items which provide +hit chance will now be allowed to counteract the increased miss chance penalty of dual-wielding.

The 5-piece set bonus for the Warrior's Wrath set now works with Whirlwind and Retaliation.

The 5-piece set bonus for the Druid's Stormrage set now properly displays the reduction in casting time.

The Cenarion Druid set bonus that improves Thorns damage now properly works when Thorns is cast on other players.

Anathema, Benediction, Thunderstrike, and Shadowstrike will now remember the enchantments and durability data they possessed when they transform.

The ability to transform Rhok'delar and Lok'delar has been removed, but you can talk to Vartrus the Ancient to receive the item you currently don't possess.

The Drape of Benediction had the statistics and effects of a Superior quality item, but was an Epic item. The item has been improved to have the proper Epic stats.

The effect of the Admiral's Hat has been changed. You can now click the Admiral's Hat to provide yourself with an aura that gives you and your nearby party members a stamina increase. Taking the hat off will remove the effect. The Headmaster's Charge item has also been changed in a similar manner.

Shard of the Flame and Shard of the Scale are now unique.

Rod of Resurgence now heals more health over time.

The Puncture Armor ability found on the Rivenspike, Bashguuder, Digmaster 5000, and Vibroblade will no longer stack with Faerie Fire.

Chromatic Gauntlets no longer has a listed Holy Resistance bonus, since there is no actual Holy Resistance.

Ring of Binding and Blade of Eternal Darkness now have appropriate minimum levels.

Demonic Rune has been changed to a Good (green) item so it will display the bind on pickup dialogue when looted.

Invulnerability will no longer protect you from a Demonic Rune.

Deviate Fish changed to appear in the Trade Goods section of the Auction House.

Jadefire Pants texture fixed.

The icon for Flash Powder has been changed.

Shredder Operating Manual pages will no longer drop for the Alliance.

Gurubashi Helm now properly hides long hair.

The Sheen of Zanza has a tooltip typo fixed.

[Jabber]

Professions



There is now Silithid armor that can be made by leatherworkers. The recipes require Cenarion Circle faction to learn.

Additional Tailoring and Blacksmithing recipes can be found in encoded messages found on the members of the Twilight's Hammer in Silithus.

Two additional pieces of Dragonscale Leatherworking were added to the Dragonscale Leatherworking Trainer.

A Dragonscale Recipe has been added that requires killing the great Green Dragons.

The Blue, Green, and Black Dragonscale Leatherworking Armor pieces are now parts of sets and have set bonuses so they should be significantly more desirable.

Green Dragonscale Armor has slightly reduced spirit and now has a stamina component.

Ironfeather Armor set bonus has been improved.

Leatherworking item Murloc Scale Belt improved.

Leatherworking pattern for Black Whelp Tunic added to vendor in Redridge Mountains.

All Wild Leather patterns for Leatherworking are now bind on acquire.

All Wild Leather patterns for Leatherworking no longer have cash value with vendors.

Enchanter-made wands are now Good (green) quality and have had their damage increased.

The minimum level for the Artisan First Aid, Artisan Fishing, and Artisan Cooking quest lines has been lowered to 35.

Water Breathing potions will no longer be overwritten by Shaman and Warlock Water Breathing spells if the potion has a longer duration.

The Pet Healing effect of the Robe of the Void has been improved.

Expert Alchemy requires 125 skill now instead of 100 skill.

Free Action Potion text changed to clearly indicate that the potion is not retroactive. No actual change was made other than the text.

Gnomish Mind Control Cap - Is now subject to diminishing returns in the Charm category.

Blindweed has been increased in size, making it easier to see.

Quests



Added level 50 class quests for the Warrior, Shaman, Paladin, and Warlock. Trainers in the major cities will let you know where to start your quest.

A few new quests have been added in Tanaris. Head over to Steamwheedle Port to see if you can help out.

The Rin'ji's Secret quest line now has an ending and reward. If you previously finished the Rin'ji's Secret quest out of The Hinterlands, speak with Oran Snakewrithe in the Magic Quarter of the Undercity and select the Oran's Gratitude quest.

The following repeatable quests have had their levels increased to 55: Morrowgrain to Darnassus, Morrowgrain to Feathermoon Stronghold, and Morrowgrain to Thunder Bluff. The net result of this change is that level 56+ characters will notice an increased amount of reputation when turning in Morrowgrain.

The Thistlewood Axe will no longer be an available option as a quest reward for the Webwood Venom quest.

The level 30 Mage class quest rewards are now Superior (blue) quality.

Raids and Dungeons



Azuregos is now properly resistant to Frost damage.

If you are in front of Chromaggus and can hit him with spells, his breath attack will hit you.

Razorgore now has the ability to summon players to him if he cannot reach them for a time.

Fixed a bug that was causing Broodlord Lashlayer to do less damage than intended with his Mortal Strike.

Fixed a bug that would cause the debuff "Burning Adrenaline" to be able to be removed if enough other debuffs were applied to the target.

Fixed erratic taunt behavior for Ebonroc, Firemaw, and Flamegot in Blackwing Lair.

You now receive Core Leather when you skin Magmadar.

Fixed a bug that would cause High Priestess Jeklik to not be able to summon Frenzied Bloodseeker Bats.

Fixed a bug that would allow Hakkar's Corrupted Blood ability to target pets.

User Interface



To speed up game loading and reduce memory usage, several portions of the UI have been converted to add-ons. These are completely transparent to the player, but custom add-ons may need to be updated.

You can now search for random suffixes such as "of the Monkey" in the Auction House.

Items that are in your action bar and are equipped will now display a green border around them so it's easy to tell which of your action bar items are equipped and therefore usable.

The Reputation tab will now display on mouseover exactly how many reputation points you need to attain the next reputation level with that faction.

When you gain reputation, the combat log message will now display the numeric value of how much reputation you gained as well as the previous relative message.

There is now an option in the interface window to put a translucent pane behind the portraits and health/mana of other party members for easier visibility.

When you place an auction up on the Auction House, the auctions tab now displays your minimum bid and buyout price even if there are no bids on the item.

Players should no longer miss loot rolling messages when they're outside of the immediate area.

World Environment



The flight paths in Silithus have been moved from Valor's Rest to the new Cenarion Hold. Characters that previously discovered the Valor's Rest flight path will be treated as having discovered the Cenarion Hold flight path.

A neutral graveyard has been added to Silithus at Cenarion Hold. With the addition of this graveyard, characters dying in Silithus will be sent to whichever graveyard they are closer to when they die: Valor's Rest or Cenarion Hold.

Killing Twilight’s Hammer and Silithid enemies in Silithus now awards reputation increases with the Cenarion Circle. You may increase your faction to the middle of Friendly with non-elite mobs and to the middle of Honored with elites.

Flamekin Imps (Ragers, Spitters and Sprites) in the Burning Steppes now drop Elemental Fire.

A new weapon merchant who can also repair durability damage on items has moved in to Talonbranch Glade in Felwood.

The Silithus area map has been modified and its scale has changed.

Modifications were made to several areas of Azeroth so that the undiscovered areas of the map are revealed easier.

The Woodpaw Hills sub-area of Feralas now properly grants discovery experience when you enter it for the first time.

Brackenwall Village now has an arrow on the minimap that points to it when you get within range.

Sayge’s buffs at the Darkmoon Faire are now exclusive to one another.

Due to popular demand the general goods vendor in Undercity now sells Morning Glory Dew.

All graveyards that needed adjustment were changed so that a character's spirit comes into the world facing toward the Spirit Healer.

Bug Fixes



You no longer become stuck and unable to loot if you try to open clams and chests while you are a ghost.

Fixed bug where players would get stuck in the falling animation if they cast an instant-cast spell while jumping.

[Jabber]

Character limitations made it into 3 posts :(

[Jabber]

Rogues == Instant attack changes
Warlocks == Ruin Changes

and Im still looking for more ( I just happen to care more about those)

[Chofunga]

Warriors can immediately charge after using trinkets to remove immobilizing effects.


This will be extraordinarily bad for the survivability of Mages and Druids in PVP... perhaps hunters as well.

I'm going to have to return to the PVP grind and exploit this until it's nerfed.

[Jabber]

Yeah, but your damage got nerfed the same as Rogues -- to a point. The most of a rogues damage comes from instant attacks... Im not so sure about warriors though.

[Kul]

"The cost per point of durability to repair plate, chain, and leather items has been reduced to be equal to the cost of repairing cloth items of the same quality. "


600 gold later.

[Potpie]

Yay! Dragonscale Leatherworking Love!

[Sol]

I'm bummed they are increasing the gap between blue equipped players in PVP and the Epic equipped players in PVP.

the nerf universally benefits casters though, and i do feel the love for my caster buddies.

[Jabber]

Fixed a bug that would cause High Priestess Jeklik to not be able to summon Frenzied Bloodseeker Bats.



Sucks to be Us!!

[Jabber]

I'm bummed they are increasing the gap between blue equipped players in PVP and the Epic equipped players in PVP.

the nerf universally benefits casters though, and i do feel the love for my caster buddies.

COMEON PEOPLE... VOTE! We need to start MC runs again :)

[Chofunga]

Yeah, but your damage got nerfed the same as Rogues -- to a point. The most of a rogues damage comes from instant attacks... Im not so sure about warriors though.

I personally think this damage nerf is majorly overrated. Warriors use 3 instant attacks most of the time that will be affected - MS, Overpower, and Whirlwind. Execute won't be affected since it's a base scale and doesn't take weapon speed or attack power into account. Thanks to the nerf, my attack power will be multiplied by a fixed value of 3.3 instead of the 3.5 speed of my spear on instant hits. It's not going to be that big a deal overall. The people hit hardest will be Reaper warriors and Barman rogues... I doubt the rest of us will notice too much.

[Jabber]

Okay.. so Warriors are not hit too bad..

I know I might be respeccing @ 1.8 though... It will depend on how much they nerf ruin...

(Currently a Shadow Mastery 5/5 - Ruin Build)

[Myrcaus]

Warlocks got a Ruin nerf and a Soul Link nerf. I'm not SL anymore, but that bites pretty hard.

The other changes look mostly nice, but reducing CoA to 24 seconds (from 30) is presription-only meh.

[Cynic]

All aboard the train to re-specville! I was withholding judgement on this till the facts were in..well, they're in.

I'm also SM/RUIN build. We got hit hard Jabbs, 100% ruin bonus down to 60%. Only a 20% total bonus loss (or 10% depending on your POV) but for pvp that kills.

Also, our Death Coil "buff" is really bothering me. yeah it's got fear now, and a 2 min cooldown, but they almost doubled the cost. ~750 mana. Using 15% of my mana for an Oh S... spell is rediculous.

In demonology, damage sharing with pet went down to 30% for soul link, down from 50%.

In summation, if you want to play pvp, full destruction with a few points in improved Corruption looks like the way to go from what I'm seeing thus far. the increased Dot damage (and it did actually go up, not just dps) might offset some of the evil that was inflicted upon us.

PvE build looks like full affliction with nightfall/bane(raid dmg) or some demonology for survivability(non raid pve). Hopefully with the increased debuff limit and shorter times for DoT's we can offset our losses there. I'm against much destruction for pve since the only things getting buffed were the fire spells which either do 2x aggro or no damage to all the fire resisting raid mobs.

Basically they targetted the SM/Ruin build and made us pick a side, so we either suck pvp or pve but not both.

[Warcaster]

Mages got....a tool tip indicator change to a spell. Wow.

Hopefully they are saving the big changes for 1.9 or 1.10 when we get our lubbin'

[wump]

"The loading screen upon login now displays gameplay tips"

FINALLY!!!

[Kul]

Each Battleground has an individual turn-in quest associated with its related victory/loss condition. Upon completion of a Battleground, the winning side will be awarded three Marks of Honor while the losing side will be awarded one Mark of Honor. Three Marks of Honor may be turned in to the associated questgiver for Honor Points and faction increase. Should players complete this turn-in quest, they will find that the bonus Honor Points for completion are twice that of normal turn-in conditions (individual).


Everyone should start saving their marks from AB and WSG to turn these puppies all at once come patch day for instant rep win.


Edit:
Fixed quote tags

[Jabber]

Everyone should start saving their marks from AB and WSG to turn these puppies all at once come patch day for instant rep win.


Edit:
Fixed quote tags
I totally Agree.. Ill be hanging on to mine from now until patch day :)

[Sol]

Any ideas why they are changing this game mechanic?

[Cynic]

Because they figure if all players earn 10 to the 12th power of honor points each week, despite the fact that the actuall relative standings won't change, it'll mask any problems with the actual mechanics of gaining/losing honor standing and rank by making individual players feel better about how they're doing.


Wow! I got a bazillion honor points, I should be getting my epic pvp gear any time now.

Seriously, I'd guess the logical argument would be to keep people who suck or get on sucky teams from boycotting certain battlefields by placating them with some reward for time spent. But really all this does is make it harder to gain rank by skewing the distribution around the average scores by bringing the bottom closer to the top. Probably they're hoping to offset this with the increase in the ranking percentages in the top half.

....sigh, this is getting too much like work. we really need to get our butts back into futile raiding to take the mind off the math a bit.

[Cynic]

Oh, locks might be interested in the three dev posts in this thread from test about how the warlocks were so overpowering our sustained damage had to be nerfed before we destroyed the balance of the universe...or something to that effect.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread-search.aspx?ForumName=wow-realm-test&Author=Kalgan&Cluster=Wow

[Sol]

....sigh, this is getting too much like work. we really need to get our butts back into futile raiding to take the mind off the math a bit.

I concur, lets start raiding MC again so we can earn our purples and dominate the alliance!

On that front, make sure you are grouping with requiem (new HAWC applicants) and funnel any feedback you have through your GM's.

[Jabber]

Oh, locks might be interested in the three dev posts in this thread from test about how the warlocks were so overpowering our sustained damage had to be nerfed before we destroyed the balance of the universe...or something to that effect.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread-search.aspx?ForumName=wow-realm-test&Author=Kalgan&Cluster=Wow


/cry.... anyone wanna help me level up my priest ? j/k Time to get on the testserver to find what is going to work for me :(

P.S. Lets get some MC done b4 us "ubah" damage dealing locks get the nerf bat :)

[GaboonVyper]

Oh, locks might be interested in the three dev posts in this thread from test about how the warlocks were so overpowering our sustained damage had to be nerfed before we destroyed the balance of the universe...or something to that effect.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread-search.aspx?ForumName=wow-realm-test&Author=Kalgan&Cluster=Wow

From the first post:
" It is also by intent that the ruin change affects that particular strategy far more than it does the non-raiding warlock that does not over-optimize their shadowbolt damage."

Over-optimize......OVER-OPTIMIZE!!! How does a class over-optimize its talents...a rogue should play nice with others by not honing stealth traits and gear...a shaman should be respectful and not find "flurry excessive" weaponry? Hello?

Gab

[Queprur]

2. Reduce a warlock's Shadowbolt spam DPS potential. Currently, a shadowbolt optimized warlock can get drastically higher raid damage than any other class in the game by combining Curse of Shadow, Demonic Sacrifice, Ruin, Improved Shadowbolt, Bane, and lots of +shadow damage and spell crit gear (which can be further exaggerated with Shadow Weaving from a shadow priest or multiple warlocks affecting the target with Improved Shadowbolt). We intend for warlocks to deal very high amounts of damage in a raid, but not drastically more so than other classes.

Ok, then I guess it is pointless to search out and gather the equipment that makes me a more powerful character... This makes me sad.

[Duerdon]

Druids

Hurricane - No longer a talent. Now available to all Druids at level 40. Damage and Mana cost increased on all ranks. Spell is now cast on a targeted area up to 30 yards away and affected by Nature’s Reach. Multiple Druids casting Hurricane will no longer stack the slowdown effect. Radius of effect decreased slightly.

Tranquility - Cooldown reduced to 5 minutes. Mana cost reduced by 25%.

YAY!!!

[Thwak]

"Invulnerability will no longer protect you from a Demonic Rune. "

HAHAHAH SUCK IT PALLIES!!1

[Thwak]

I personally think this damage nerf is majorly overrated. Warriors use 3 instant attacks most of the time that will be affected - MS, Overpower, and Whirlwind. Execute won't be affected since it's a base scale and doesn't take weapon speed or attack power into account. Thanks to the nerf, my attack power will be multiplied by a fixed value of 3.3 instead of the 3.5 speed of my spear on instant hits. It's not going to be that big a deal overall. The people hit hardest will be Reaper warriors and Barman rogues... I doubt the rest of us will notice too much.


I posted a fairly detailed explanation of this using a Kroll versus a 1.7 or so sword. The Kroll doesn't lose much however the fast weapon gains something like 27% damage on instants. Overall it isn't too bad. Charge->Heroic Strike will still hit for max since HS isn't instant... though it kinda is since your cooldown will be over when you first strike with it... just like Raptor Strike for Hunters. Overall probably not too bad and as I mentioned in my long winded writeup - definately an itemization change moreso than anything else.

[Gorrack]

ss still hurts from the Normalized Atk power nerf.... lost appx 200-300 Dmg on backstabs, and about 300-500 Dmg on ambush... Barman just became total Crap.

I picked up a distracting dagger last night, dual weilded that with bonescraper, and i almost think that the 2 fast low dmg daggers are a better combo than the barman and bonescraper, until i can get my hands on a dagger that has dmg >100.

[Sol]

hi shankr!

check out this dagger:

http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=13984

no 100+ top end on it, but the dps is pretty high.

I'm planning on getting this quest line wrapped up in the next week or so, i think I'll take the 2H sword though.

[Despoiler]

The forums and thott point to this dagger as the Braman successor.

http://www.thottbot.com/?i=52114

Sounds like a real pain to farm for though. Might make a good combo with the Darrowspike.

[Gorrack]

Romulus and I went and did the silithus quests last night, and actually spawned a Crimson templar (Shank, Grunge, Rynd, and a hunter) Grunge (rom) and I barely survived it, rynd and the hunter went down pretty fast. kinda a pain in the ass to farm these is right, however, if you want to complete the abyssal quests, you will have to kill some templars, but, i really dont see it as a viable dagger to try and farm, would be eaiser to just try to farm a Felstriker, or do the quest for the darrowspike.