The big news since late last night is of the “leak” of the list of potential class changes. Sorry for the late update, some people were celebrating and cashing in — red pockets, yo. Keep in mind that the list is not officially tied to Blizzard in any way and should be taken with a grain of salt. Here is the standard blue disclaimer:

“What we’ve posted on the forums is the extent of the notes we’ve made public at this point in time. The complete official notes have not been posted yet. Please take anything posted outside the forums or website with a grain of salt.” -Nethaera

What’s most interesting about this list is that most the class changes seem to be PvP adjustments. Is Blizzard making good on promises of a batch of class balancing or is this too good to be true?

Here is the list (sources from here and here):

Druid
- Cyclone range reduced to 20 yards, down from 30.
- Lifebloom healing coefficient reduced by $
- Natural Perfection now reduces damage by 2/3/4% down from 1/3/5%
- Tree of Life: You may now cast any Restoration spell in this form.
- Improved Tranquility: Now also reduces the mana cost of Tranquility by 10/20%.
- Moonkin Form no longer gains 150% attack power or mana returned from melee hits, but now refunds 2% of your total mana every time you critically hit with a spell.
- Force of Nature: Treants now have a 15% chance to proc Entangling Roots on the target.
- Nurturing Instinct: Increases your healing spells by up to 50/100% of your Agility, and increases healing done to you by 25/50% of your Attack Power.

Hunter
- Improved Mend Pet now has a 50/100% chance to remove one Curse, Disease, Magic or Poison effect, up from 15/30%.

Mage
- Blink mana cost reduced roughly 40%
- Improved Blink now increases the distance you Blink by 15/30%, and you have a 15/30% chance to reduce the cast time of your next Fireball, Frostbolt, or Arcane Blast spell by 50% after you Blink. (Might just do one of these effects…)
- Prismatic Cloak now reduces damage taken by 3/6%, up from 2/4%
- Mana Cost of Slow reduced roughly 40%
- Arcane Fortitude now increases your armor by an amount equal to 100% of your Intellect, up from 50%.
- Mana Shield now scales with spell damage. (Max rank with full S3/best gear will absorb around 1Kish, added damage absorb doesn’t cost/consume mana to the shield, it will always cost what the tooltip says)
- Improved Fire Ward is now Molten Shield
- New Talent: Molten Shield – Reduces all damage taken by 2/4% while using Molten Armor, and causes your Fire Ward to have a 25/50% chance to reflect Fire spells while active.
- Frost Warding: Chance to reflect Frost spells while Frost ward is active by 25/50%, up from 10/20%.
- Icy Veins no longer increases the chance your chilling effects Freeze the target, but now reduces pushback by 100% for 20 sec.
- Icy Veins spell haste bonus no longer stacks with Bloodlust.
- Ice Flows now gives you a 15/30% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting any Frost spell.

Priest
- Mana Burn effect reduced roughly 50%.
- Mana Burn cast time reduced by 1 second.
- Improved Mana Burn: Now increases the amount of mana burned from your Mana Burn spell by 10/20%.
- Focused Will now reduces damage by 2/3/4% down from 1/3/5%
- Lightwell: Charges increased to 15, up from 5.

Paladin
- Turn Undead no longer fears the target, and now incapacitates it.
- Turn Undead now works on demons. (Prob will be renamed to a diff spell)
- Turn Undead is now subject to diminishing returns.
- Turn Undead now lasts 10 sec. in PvP.

Rogue
- Envenom no longer consumes the Poison applications.

Shaman
- Lightning Bolt: Spell coefficient reduced by $
- Lightning Overload can no longer proc on instant cast spells. (aka NS+CL won’t proc it)
- Lightning Overload can no longer critically hit.
- Tremor Totem and Poison Cleansing Totem now pulse every 3 seconds, down from 5.
- Earth Shield mana cost reduced by 50%
- Earth Shield now has 6 charges, down from 10.
- Healing Grace: Now also reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by 10/20/30%

Warlock
- Life Tap: Spell coefficient reduced by $
- Life Tap now consumes toughly 10% more health when used.
- Demonic Knowledge now increases your spell damage by an amount equal to 4/7/10% down from 5/10/15%
- Improved Shadowbolt: Now only works for the Warlock.
- Improved Shadowbolt: Now increases Shadow damage by 3/6/9/12/15%, down from 4/8/10/14/20%
- Incinerate spell coefficient increased by $

Warrior
- Endless Rage now properly generates 25% more rage from damage dealt (previously only 12% cause of a bug)
- Improved Hamstring: Now has a 10 second cooldown.

Items
- Mystical Skyfire Diamond now reduces the next spell cast by 20%, down from 50%. (It also might just be changed to straight stats, still in debate. Don’t be surprised if this metagem just gets added stats with the current effect in the initial 2.4 notes, it’s still being worked on.)
-Shaman Gladiator 4-set bonus now reduces pushback by 30%, down from 70%.

Tags: PvP · News

12 Responses to “Potential Upcoming Class Changes?”

1. Deadx Says:
   February 7th, 2008 at 9:38 am

   Woot Dpriest nerf just as I’m about to hit 70 = (

2. Anesthetic Says:
   February 7th, 2008 at 10:06 am

   I am an optimist and refuse to believe that there will be no buffs at all to Spriest

   Also this does not mention the fact that fear ward is now a non-holy spell.

   — I call fake

3. sempai Says:
   February 7th, 2008 at 10:41 am

   Since when has the paladin spell turn undead work in pvp, oh yeah never. mana burn cast 1 second slower, so talented it takes 0.5s to cast, what the f. gg trying to dodge a 0.5s cast time.

   these notes better be fake

4. Deadx Says:
   February 7th, 2008 at 10:44 am

   @ Anesthetic, SP get to use Fear Ward in Sform
   @ Sempai, you got the mana burn wrong. Talented It still a 2sec cast, since its 50% reduction on the amount burned 2/2 Imp Mana Burn will make it a 30% Reduction.

5. Ziss Says:
   February 7th, 2008 at 10:46 am

   Improved Mana Burn: Now increases the amount of mana burned from your Mana Burn spell by 10/20%. (still a nerf of 30%) - Instead of casting time reduction.

   Pretty sure they’re trying to make turn undead a fear on the Lock pets.

6. akron330 Says:
   February 7th, 2008 at 10:50 am

   fake, look at the warlock one the misspelled

   - Life Tap now consumes toughly 10% more health when used.

   also with the imp shadowbolt, that will change a whole raid set up. and i doubt blizz would do with the end on BC on the rise with lich king coming

7. sargsui Says:
   February 7th, 2008 at 1:58 pm

   “and i doubt blizz would do with the end on BC on the rise with lich king coming”

   er.. actually that’s exactly when they would do it

8. rs Says:
   February 7th, 2008 at 2:26 pm

   Its fake.

9. Jord Says:
   February 8th, 2008 at 1:27 pm

   With improved life-tap, each time a warlock taps, he loses (roughly) 10% of his health (at 14k hp)…so reducing the effectiveness of tap, and making it consume 10% more hp would essentially make a warlock kill himself pretty quickly, as they are not mana efficient (think of spamming DoT’s on targets to have them CLoS, dispel, etc)

   Secondly, making priest’s mana-burn a shorter cast would make it virtually impossible to LoS, regardless if they reduce the effectiveness or not.

   Synopsis: fake

10. Winter Says:
    February 8th, 2008 at 3:37 pm

    Could be real

11. Pozzament Says:
    February 8th, 2008 at 4:05 pm

    Anybody else up for some therapeutic crying?

12. steveo Says:
    March 9th, 2008 at 12:19 pm

    “Secondly, making priest’s mana-burn a shorter cast would make it virtually impossible to LoS, regardless if they reduce the effectiveness or not”

    Incorrect.

    They are making the cast time shorter on mana burn and weakening the effect by 50%. Now, all priests will have a 2sec mana burn, and the talent imp. mana burn does not reduce casting time any more(IE there will be no 0.5-1.0 cast time mana burn). Instead, it improves the amount of mana drained. This is a 20% nerf for disc priests and a mixed buff/nerf for holy or shadow priests.

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