Upcoming DK Death Knight Tanking Changes

Blue Post -

We have been doing some more tests on DK tanking, this time especially on raid bosses. We think the DK design has some limitations, which weren't showing up as much on tanking 5-player dungeons.

Specifically, as many people suspected, the death knight really suffers when attacks fail to land, especially opening attacks. Having a Plague Strike dodged or parried can throw off an entire rotation, eventually leading to bad Obliterates because both diseases weren't up at the same time. Missing attacks is a fact of life for all tanks since it's hard to stack +hit and +expertise along with mitigation stats. However, existing tank classes have mechanics to let them "burn off rage" (or mana) to make up for those bad strings. The DK plays more like a rogue who can't get enough combo points in play. This had a deadly effect on DK threat generation, which just didn't compete with that of other tanks.

We didn't want to just solve this with more free expertise because A) that has major PvP ramifications, and B) the death knights would start to hate expertise on their gear.

Instead we are making some fairly big changes:

Blade Barrier now procs when your Blood Runes are inactive. While the initial implementation of this ability was fun, as we added Death Rune mechanics it became harder to use, and the fast recharge on missed attacks made it even harder. Now it should be up almost all the time.
We also found a bug where a naked, untalented death knight only had 2.5% dodge instead of 5% like warriors and paladins. With these two avoidance changes, death knight survivability should be very close to the other tanks, recognizing that avoidance is more dangerous than mitigation for a tank. As an aside, death knights, warriors and paladins currently mitigate a similar amount of damage, and druids may very well be mitigating too much.
Frost Strike can no longer be blocked, dodged or parried. Frost death knights were losing too much potential damage and threat when Frost Strike failed to connect, putting Frost tanks in the awkward position of wanting to skip Frost Strike and just use Death Coil.

We changed Rune Strike completely. It is now mostly a tanking ability meant to dish out high damage (and therefore threat). Rune Strike can only be used after you dodge or parry an attack. It affects the next swing, so it doesn't compete with global cooldowns and can be spammed to some extent. It hits for 200% weapon damage (remember 100% of that is the white swing you lost) plus a percentage of AP. It cannot be dodged, blocked or parried, and costs 10 runic power (for now). Think Heroic Overrevenge.

I think we already announced these changes, but just to get them all in one place: Bladed Armor went back to attack power. It was changed only to match the warrior talent, which we changed back. Death and Decay got a decent threat boost to get it closer to the realm of Consecration and the new Thunder Clap.

WoTLK Priest Talent Changes

Divine Hymn (instant, 10m cooldown) - "You recite a holy hymn, granting your party protection from attackers. Any attacks done to you or your party will cause the attacker to be afflicted by sleep for 20 sec. Divine Hymn will last 10 sec."

Mind Sear (level 75, channeled, 545 mana) - "Causes an explosion of shadow magic around the enemy target, causing 481-519 Shadow damage every 1 sec for 5 sec to all targets within 10 yards."

Holy Fire now deals more of it's damage on the initial cast, but it's damage over time duration and damage have been reduced. It should still result in a net increase in damage dealt.

Persecution - "Gives your Holy damage spells a 4/7/10% chance to Incapacitate the target for 3 sec." (Discipline)

Rapture - "Causes your party members to gain mana equal to 0.5/1/1.5/2/2.5% of the healing done by your Greater Heal, Flash Heal and Penance spells." (Discipline) [spell applies dummy aura - serverside script] [Values might be inaccurate]

Aspiration - "Reduces the cooldown of your Inner Focus, Power Infusion and Pain Suppression spells by 10/20%." (Discipline)

Divine Aegis - "Critical heals create a protective shield on the target, absorbing 20/40/60% of the amount healed. Lasts 12 sec." (Discipline)

Grace - "Your Flash Heal, Greater Heal, and Penance spells bless the target with Grace, reducing damage done to the target by 1/2/3%, and increasing healing done to the target by 1/2/3%. This effect will stack up to 3 times." (Discipline)

Penance - Launches a volley of holy light at the target, causing 492 Holy damage to an enemy, or 575 healing to an ally every 1 sec for 3 seconds.

Power Infusion cooldown reduced to 2 minutes.

Mental Strength now increases your Intellect by 3/6/9/12/15% instead if it's old effect.

Pain Suppresion cooldown increased to 3 minutes.

Enlightenment now increases spell damage and healing by 1/2/3/4/5% in addition to it's old effects.

Holy -


Divine Providence - "Increases the amount healed by Circle of Healing, Binding Heal, Prayer of Healing and Prayer of Mending by 2/4/6/8/10%." (Holy)

Guardian Spirit (51pt holy, instant, 3m cooldown) - "Calls upon a guardian spirit to heal and watch over the friendly target. The spirit heals the target for 624 every 2 sec, and also prevents the target from dying by sacrificing itself. Lasts 10 sec." (Holy)

Serendipity - "If your Greater Heal or Flash Heal spells heal the target for less than 50% of its intended effect, you have a 33/66/100% chance to be refunded the mana cost of the spell. This effect has a 10 second cooldown." (Holy)

Test of Faith - "Increases healing by 5/10/15% and spell critical effect chance by 4/7/10% on friendly targets at or below 50% health." (Holy)

Improved Holy Concentration - "Increases the chance you'll enter Holy Concentration by $s2%, and also allows $s1% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting for 10 sec. after you gain Holy Concentration."

Lightwell cast time reduced to 0.5 seconds.

Lightwell cooldown reduced to 5 minutes.
The amount of charges on Lightwell has been increased to 10.

Inspiration can now proc from the Penance spell, in addition to all the old spells that could proc Inspiration.

Searing Light now also increases the damage of Holy Nova and Penance.

Circle of Healing now has a 8 second cooldown.

DISC -


Improved Shadowform - "Your Fade ability now has a 50/100% chance to remove all movement impairing effects when used while in Shadowform, and gives you a 25/50% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage when casting any Shadow spell while in Shadow form." (Shadow)

Psychic Horror - "Causes your Psychic Scream spell to have a chance to Fear the target in horror for 4 sec." (Shadow)

Dispersion (51pt shadow, 5m cooldown) - You disperse into pure shadow energy, reducing all damage taken by 90%. You are unable to attack or cast spells, but you regenerate 6% health and mana every 1 sec for 6 sec. (Shadow)

Growing Pains - "Converts 4/8/12/16/20% of your bonus healing into bonus spell damage. In addition, your Mind Flay has a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to refresh the duration of your

Shadow Word: Pain on the target." (Shadow)

Dark Spirit - "Increases your Shadow damage by up to 10/20/30% of your total Spirit." (Shadow)

Shadow Resilience now reduces physical damage taken instead of it's old effect.

Shadow Focus reduced to give 1% Shadow spell hit per point, but will now additionally reduce Shadow spell costs by 2% per point. Talent now has 3 points total to spend on it, down from 5.

Spirit Tap now gives a 33/66/100% chance to proc, total talent points that can be put into the talent reduced to 3.

Improved Spirit Tap added, this new talent gives your Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death spells a 50/100% chance to give 50% extra spirit and 25% mana regeneration while casting for 8 seconds.

Improved Shadow Word: Pain now increases the damage dealt by 5/10% instead of it's old effect.

Mind Flay's range has been increased to 30 yards.

Shadow Form now reduces threat generated by 30% in additional to it's old effects.

Focused Mind now also affects Mind Sear.

Shadow Power's extra crit chance reduced to 2/4/6/8/10%, but Shadow Power now increases the critical damage bonus of the affected spells by 10/20/30/40/50%.

Vampiric Touch now gives mana to your party members for 2% of your shadow damage dealt, down from 5%

New WoTLK Priest Talent Video

New COT: Stratholme WoTLK Dungeon Pictures

Here are some pictures from the upcoming Caverns of Time dungeon in WoTLK. Enjoy

More pictures listed at http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=794

New Upcoming Warrior Changes - Prot

Blue Post Inc -


NOTE: These changes were in the works before the recent round of dps discussions. I hope to have some Arms and Fury changes to report soon.

Armored to the Teeth -- Changed to AP, but amount reduced to 1 per 360 armor (to compensate for the loss of Blessings of Kings etc.). We implemented this talent for dps warriors and didn't want it to feel like the ultimate Shield Block Value talent. It's still good for Protection, just not as good. Death Knights will get the same treatment.

EDIT: I meant 2 AP : 360 per talent point. My point was that we understand 1 Str > 2 AP for warriors.

Thunder Clap -- Increase in threat generation. No target limit. Swipe gets the same treatment. With these changes, all 4 tank classes should be able to generate very respectable AE threat. Consecration is still a little higher in threat to account for Thunder Clap's debuff.

Revenge -- Added to Sword and Board as a chance to proc Shield Slam. Increased its damage significantly. We want Revenge to be the button you push first.

Shield Slam -- Increased its flat damage to compensate for the Devastate nerf a few weeks ago. The Revenge change will help dps too, though only when you're tanking. We didn't want to increase the scaling portion of Shield Slam for fear that warrior threat becomes too high at ultimate gear levels, but we might still change it if they fall behind. We're not saying (for now) that Prot must do dps with a shield instead of dual-wielding Devastates, but this should make it more viable.

We're doing some more mitigation and survivability tests now. Our suspicion is that warriors are fine in this department and paladins might fall behind in the area of Shield Block Value at very high gear levels. But we'll see.

Druid PVP Macros

Super Innervate

#showtooltip Innervate/cast [target=player] Innervate/stopcasting/use Bangle of Endless Blessings/equip

Totem Killer

#showtooltip Moonfire/target Poison Clean/target Mana Spring/target Tremor Totem/target Wrath of Air Totem/target Windfury Totem/target Mana Tide Totem/target Grounding Totem/cast Moonfire(Rank 1)

Innervate Self and Protect

#showtooltip/castsequence reset=30 [target=player] Innervate, Thorns(Rank 1), Mark of the Wild(Rank 1), Rejuvenation(Rank 1)

All Terrain Travel Forms

/stopmacro [stance:5, flyable]/stopmacro [stance:2, swimming]/stopmacro [stance:4, noflyable]/stopmacro [stance:4, combat]/cancelform/cast [flyable, nocombat, noswimming] Flight Form/cast [noswimming] Travel Form/cast [swimming] Aquatic Form

Cyclone Focus

#showtooltip Cyclone/cast [target=focus, modifier:shift] Cyclone; Cyclone

Druid Buffs

/castsequence reset=2/target [nomodifier] Mark of the Wild,Thorns /castsequence reset=2/target Mark of the Wild(Rank 1),Thorns(Rank 1)

General And Best WoW Macros

Max Camera Distance

/script SetCVar("cameraDistanceMax",30)

Self Bandage

/use [target=player] Heavy Netherweave Bandage

Inspect

/inspect target

Auto Mount

/use [flyable,nomounted] name of your flyer; [nomounted] name of your regular mount/dismount

Use all Healthstones

#showtooltip item:22105/use item:22105/use item:22104/use item:22103

Drink All Waters

/use Conjured Glacier Water/use Conjured Croissant/use Star's Tears

Fill Proximo Instantly

/tar a/tar b/tar c/tar d/tar e/tar f/tar g/tar h/tar i/tar j/tar k/tar l/tar m/tar n/tar o/tar p/tar q/tar r/tar s/tar t/tar u/tar v/tar w/tar x/tar y/tar z

Focus Your Mouseover

/focus [target=mouseover]

Drink/Shadowmeld

/use [btn:1] Conjured Manna Biscuit; Star's Tears/cast Shadowmeld

Honor Items and Honor Reset Update

So I already told you the honor was going to be reset with the upcoming release of WoTLK, but they just released the items that you can buy with your honor points.  

Heres a part from the blue post 

All of the gems that can be purchased with honor will have the Bind on Pickup and Unique-Equipped tags removed so multiples of them can be equipped and they can be traded (or auctioned). 

Make some gold !

King of Stormwind! New model!

The king of Stormwind is now on his throne and has a new model, which looks pretty rad if i might say so. Here are the pictures

WoTLK Talents Calculator

If you are like me you want to know what spec to be when WoTLK comes out. Here is a WoTLK Talent calculator provided by mmo-champion. It's very helpful to test your spec and get the perfect one down for the start of the new wow expansion.

LINK - http://talent.mmo-champion.com/

Have fun.

Oh yeah, also includes Death Knight Talent Calculator!

In WoTLK All Previous Honor Points Will Be Reset

Yep, you heard it, all honor points you have accumulated will be reset when WoTLK comes out. Although this isn't good, they have mention that they will have special items available through honor points very soon so they won't be a complete waste of honor. The point of the reset is so that no one in WoTLK will have an unfair advantage being able to buy all the level 80 honor gear right off the start.

I will keep this updated and post the special items for honor as soon as blizzard releases them. They should be released soon on the PTR. Stay Tuned.

Where to get WoTLK Collectors Edition

So the collectors edition is supposed to sell out, I know the past few days I've check there were a few place around who still had them in stock. If you don't know where to look check these websites.

www.gamestop.com

www.ebgames.com

www.frys.com

www.walmart.com

www.bestbuy.com

Thats all I personally know about. I know Frys had a lot of them and they arn't very popular so that might be your best bet, that is where I got mine from. Goodluck!

Oh yeah, there's always ebay!

New Wrath of the Lich King mounts!

There are quite a few new WoTLK mounts being announced, but here are some of my personal favorites. I can't wait to cruise on around on these.

WoTLK Leveling guide!

Looking for the best world of warcraft leveling guide? We'll I'm going to tell you about the best one I have come across. The name is Idemise.

I Demise's leveling guide is a easy and fast way to get to 70/80. They are constantly updating it with new data and the fastest paths, and will soon release the WoTLK version once it hits stores Novemeber 13th.

With their guide you get a 60 day return time, try it out, if you don't like it then refund it. You get a special addon that tells you exactly where to go step by step, no more need to minimize if you don't use dual monitors or play in windowed mode. They have the current fastest 1-70 time, well not now that RAF( Recruit a friend) is out, but that is cheating :).

I personally love this guide and can't tell you how much faster it helped me reach 70 on my 4th character and now I have 6 level 70s.

If you need the link its the top banner on the right side of this page. Check it out if you are looking for a solid wow leveling guide.


*** also the gold guide is very very good, need a epic flyer? Check out the Idemise Gold Guide.

WoTLK Teir 7 Armor Pictures

Here are the newly released armor pictures of teir 7. Don't mind the stats so much, this post is about the looks. Some peices are placeholders and are not final.

Best WoW Gold Guide

I have recently purchased an amazing gold making guide.   I usually don't fall for these type of ebook/make 823723 gold now scemes, but this one looked legit.  I researched it a bit and everyone who I talked to that had used it said they learned many many things they didn't know about making gold in WoW.  They update with new methods every patch, and will have the update for WoTLK.  I personally can't wait for the WoTLK tricks so I can be one of the richest players for sure when the expansion gets released.  Either way check it out, if it seems like it's not the real deal, then close it.  

I'm not saying to buy it, but if you were like me and got tired of farming 100 motes a day to get gold then this is for you.    This guide honestly tripled the amount of gold I was making by doing dailys and mote farming daily.

Click Here To Check It Out

Warhammer Online vs. World of warcraft

Okay, so latly it's kind of boring in this point of WoW.  You probably don't see the point of doing end game and raiding because your gear will be obsolete in the next few months with the expansion coming out so soon.  

   So I was reading up on WAR (WarHammer Online) and I'm going to give my opinion of it.

Okay, so at first I thought well maybe I could play this until WoTLK comes out.  I had heard it wasn't as leveling intensive, but then I found out it took about the same time as WoW, so I scratched that idea.  

   The main focus of WAR online seems to be PVP, as no one has really said much about the end game raiding.  The pvp aspect will probably capture a lot of peoples attention.  There are many different way to PVP in WAR.  Also when you join a battleground or whatever it is called in WAR,  it strengthens you up so you atleast won't get farmed as hard.  That's pretty cool in my opinion if I was pvp focused.

My final decision is to not get WAR because of a few reasons.

1.  There will be tons of bugs for the first few months because it is brand new, and the first few months is all I would play for. 

2.  No PVE endgame raiding.  I do like to pvp, but that's not my main focus, my main focus is getting some of the best gear, VIA raiding.  

3. I would deffinatly get WAR if the leveling wasn't so long, but I have already grinding multiple characters on WOW to 70, and my leveling days are done besides going to 80 in WoTLK.  

My final comment would be, check out the reviews and WAR forums and see if this is the kind of game you would enjoy, to me it seems to much like a guild wars witha lot  longer leveling.  

WOTLK Should be released soon

Wrath of the Lich King should be coming out soon. A blizzard developer said betweek October - December. My guess is november, but I'd say 99% sure it will come out before christmas unless they run into a big problem and in that case late january.

I have posted a poll on the right side of the site to make guess as to when it will come out, post your thoughts and we will see what the majority feel is the dominate month for release.