3.1 Upcoming class changes, Part 3 Mage/Pally/Hunter/DK

We are planning a lot of exciting content for patch 3.1.0, and we are doing a three-part preview series on upcoming class changes. This is the third in the series: Mages, Paladins, Hunters, and Death Knights. Please keep in mind, that this list is not at all comprehensive, and subject to change.

Mage (Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)

* Improved Water Elemental – this talent has been removed and replaced with a new talent that grants Replenishment (similar to Shadow priests).
* We are also working on a way to give frost mages Ice Lance “Shatter combos” in PvE.
* We are also working on more survivability for Fire spec in PvP.
* We are also working on making Spirit a more useful and interesting stat for all mages.


Paladin (Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)

* Blessing of Kings – this spell is now a base ability trainable by all paladins.
* Exorcism – this spell now causes damage to all types of enemy targets. However, it always critical strikes undead or demon targets. This change should make sure paladin damage doesn’t drop when going from Naxxramas to later tiers of content.
* Shield of the Templar now causes your Avenger’s Shield and Shield of the Righteousness to silence targets for 3 sec. The old damage bonus of this talent has been folded into Holy Shield, Avenger’s Shield, and Shield of the Righteousness.
* Ardent Defender, Improved Hammer of Justice, One-Handed Weapon Specialization and more have had their ranks reduced.
* Guarded by the Light – no longer reduces the mana cost of shield spells, but now has a 50/100% chance to refresh Divine Plea duration.
* Judgements of the Just – now also reduces the cooldown of Hammer of Justice by 10/20 seconds and increases the duration of the Seal of Justice stun effect by 0.5/1 second.


Hunter (Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)

* Consumable ammunition has been removed from the game. Arrows and bullets no longer stack, but are not consumed. Ranged attack speed bonus gained from quivers and ammo bags will be preserved in a different capacity.
* A new tier of hunter pet talents have been added. In particular, this allows Beastmaster hunters to improve their damage per second (DPS) with their 51 point talent.
* Hunting Party – this talent has been reduced to 3 ranks and also grants a passive bonus to the hunter.
* Piercing Shots – this talent has been changed. Your Aimed, Steady and Chimera Shots cause the target to bleed for 10/20/30% of damage dealt for 8 sec.
* Sniper Training – this talent has been changed. After standing still for 6 sec, you gain a 2/4/6% damage bonus to Steady, Aimed and Explosive Shot.
* We are also looking to add additional trap functionality to Survival.


Death Knight (Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)

* Gargoyle and Unholy Blight have swapped talent positions. Gargoyle’s damage has increased and runic power cost per time has decreased.
* Pestilence – this spell no longer causes damage but just spreads diseases. Blood Boil is intended to be the general area attack, and has been changed to be castable on targets with no diseases on them, but does extra damage if diseases are present.
* Unbreakable Armor now absorbs a flat amount of damage that increases as your armor increases. It no longer boosts armor.
* The Frost tree has been shuffled. Among other things, PvP talents such as Endless Winter are closer to the top of the tree where Blood and Unholy death knights can access them.
* Sudden Doom – this talent now procs a Death Coil rather than requiring an additional button click. It works similarly to shamans’ Lightning Overload.
* Magic Suppression and Blood of the North have been reduced to 3 ranks for the same benefit.
* Blood Gorged now grants armor penetration instead of expertise.

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/14910003268-upcoming-class-change-highlights-part-3.html

Holy crap. These look like good buffs across the board. (Not sure about DKs, but I bet there is a surge of peeps leveling those Mage alts that have been sitting idle since WoTLK came out). Paladin changes look Suh-WEEET as well. And getting rid of hunter ammo...YAY!

In comparison, the Shaman changes were mere adjustments to the way they should have been in the first place. /sob

Man, you guys are watching the forums like a HAWK!

Unbreakable Armor now absorbs a flat amount of damage that increases as your armor increases. It no longer boosts armor.

WTF, they giving DKs shield block?

huh? what do they mean by no more consumable ammunition? no more ammo used? dang.. want.. to.. play.. WoW...

WOOT! Loving the new pally changes!

Goodbye to, "Sorry, which pally has full kings?"

fail fail fail !!

pallies dont need more sexy abilities !!

we already are sexy !!

we need pretty stuffs !!

flowers popping from consecration !!

hello kitty images when spamming that sexy heals !!

wings duration for 1hr with a 1hr cd !!

wth blizz !!

err.... pallies need batman suits?

Aye! Pallies need batman suits & catwomen outfits!

DK's changes are more reshuffles and fine tweaking rather than any concrete changes.

In short, they make it less attractive to go unholy and make it more attractive to put more points into Blood and Frost. Also, tweaking stuff to make it (IMO) as originally designed.

> Sudden doom saves a blood DK a button click which is a good thing.
> Unholy Blight should now be a cookie cutter talent point by most DKs (esp tanks), since its one of the better AOE spell that requires no pre-requisite. Its a natural switch between Garg and UB imo.
> Blood of the North shift is more to make it in line with Reaping(unholy) and Death Rune Mastery (Blood), to 100% generate a death rune by a special ability.
> Pestilience and Blood Boil should be like that imo. A nerf regardless.
> The shift of Magic Suppression should make it more attractive to spec this in more DK Tanks. Previously, it was way too expensive. Forseebly, a DK tank's talents will be spread across all 3 trees quite evenly.

In conclusion, just by these stated statements alone, IMO, they are all tweaks with a small 10-20% nerf in Unholy AOE spells, but potentially might offset with Gargoyle back to pre 3.08.

In my opinion, I dont really like the no ammo change. Pet food/loyalty and ammo are couple of the defining things that distinguish a hunter from other classes.

It is arguably cheaper to run now (ammo and food is expensive), I understand, but it sorta offsets the repair costs that hunters don't normally have a lot, due to FD. Food loyalty changes already quite boring, now they even made ammo redundant.

Hunter and warlock have not much diff to an extent. And just makes hunter levelling a lot easier than before, and just what we need > more hunter farmers... kekeke.

I think Blizz's new strat may be trivialising the classes too much. If they can take out ammo as a resource, then its forseeable that in future, Shards are not needed by warlocks as well.

wow... mountainable pets... wow... i might roll a hunter if tat happened..

if we're all getting our dreams then i'd like nef as my sexy pet

ps: ur sig is such a rip off

pss: cute avatar iva

Ivaldis wrote:

No more ammo?! Thats one of my wishes granted... Now for mountable pets! /Daydream

Kinky! I bet locks wish that of their Succubus.

Naushan is my mountable pet

Valdr wrote:

Naushan is my mountable pet

I hear he's good in the kitchen

No waaaai.

I'm going to WTFchainlightning all of you!

elemmyre wanna be my pet amirite

Naushan wrote:

Ivaldis wrote:

No more ammo?! Thats one of my wishes granted... Now for mountable pets! /Daydream

Kinky! I bet locks wish that of their Succubus.

Like this???

Precisely that. I'm gonna reroll lock if Mountable pets are added.

Luvme wrote:

Naushan wrote:

Ivaldis wrote:

No more ammo?! Thats one of my wishes granted... Now for mountable pets! /Daydream

Kinky! I bet locks wish that of their Succubus.

Like this???

Will mount this anyday

argh if this really happens im soo rerolling a lock

Wah, epic mount!

imzra wrote:

if we're all getting our dreams then i'd like nef as my sexy pet

ps: ur sig is such a rip off

pss: cute avatar iva

haha.. if its nice its nice... *steal* XD

Mayonnaise wrote:

Will mount this anyday

hell yes.. though her eyes look a bit.. druggy...