https://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

Read up everyone. Know what changes for your class/spec, know how the changes affect how you'll need to play. They are massive, MASSIVE changes and in order to keep rolling BT we need to keep up with it this week.

Big notice: Tanks have baked in threat, more so than before. The reduced threat (salv/tranq air totem) are removed in their current forms. Salv comes back as imo a piece of shit, while tranq air is gone completely.
Totems are 30 yards and affect the raid.
Pally auras also affect the entire raid (within range).
Pally blessings have been changed, read up.
Heroisms will be raid effect and no longer chainable.
Potions will have an extra CD in order to prevent "chugging" every CD. 1 potion per combat.
No more asking for salv, the only targets that should ever get it are the ones extremely high on threat with no way of dropping it (warriors, druids, shamans, spriests). 2 min CD on the new "Hand of salv" and only decreases threat by a total of 2% per second for 10seconds.
Remember to use your talent points... too many times have i seen "oh shit, i forgot to spec" while in a raid.
When the inscriptions become fully available, know what works well for how you play your class and get the ones that work.

These are just a few of the "larger" ones that i saw affecting a raid. There are TONS more class specific changes that everyone needs to know about before we raid. Read/learn now, we raid and destroy what we can in BT tuesday.

As I expected, the PTR is down. Be ready!! I've been following my talents and glyphs pretty closely. Now I hope I can use my Grid.. if not Healbot is a good alternative till they get Grid working, I used it on the PTR.

Useful wiki post - http://www.wowwiki.com/WotLK_AddOn_status

Thank god ChuckNorrisFacts is working with WotLK.

With boss HP's reduced by 30% it should be a walk in the park.

It is official.... patch day all!

-Fune.

Um.... no.

No more BoSalv, broken classes due to changed/incomplete specs, the inability to chain pot, changes to threat, etc, etc... no. If anything, it's gonna be harder.

sixx

The changes to salv and such were so that (imo) instances could be run without need of pallies. All the threat talents got baked into the abilities, defensive stance = 145% threat natural, which is more than what it was + defiance before. The abilities/skills tanks use are also higher up on threat along with the now outright ability for tanks to do more dps. As for the mana potion thing, they're adding in more natural regen abilities for people, and if mana tide totem hits the raid (like it should), thats 24% of mana over 6 seconds with... our 2-3 resto shammies in the raid? Along with a mob with 30% less health essentially dying faster if we dont die first.

Str has a massive impact on block value now, and they're adding more of it to gear. Which will also increase AP and in the long run DPS will jump. I've seen charts where prot warriors are doing 2k dps tanking a boss... not to mention their built in threat. They might've nerfed it a little bit but at the same time, they're gonna leave 95% of it alone in order for tanks to completely out-threat people.

Though i do agree on the specs, without full talents the specs are gonna be harshly broken. I know mine already and its... more than a little dissapointing. I lost 5% hit in talents... which isnt massive but might be enough to make a difference, i've been over hit cap for a while. However, i know i gain 200 spell power compared to before the patch based on totem of wrath/flametongue changes, raid should gain roughly 140 spellpower. With all the totems/pally auras being raid wide, it'll make up a small bit of difference.

Personally... im gonna say that the first... 5ish trash pulls are gonna beat the hell out of us, and we'll figure it out and get it rolling.

I thought they were just changing it from mp5 to mp1.

Besides... not being able to chain mana pots severely gimps my dps. And no salv means a lot of standing around doing nothing... my only aggo dump has a 5 min CD.

sixx

Your mana regens instantly yes, it isnt a lump sum at 5 seconds its constant. And im gonna bet money that you wont out-threat a tank in a boss fight... period. and hey, if you are standing around doing nothing, you regen more mana from not casting and getting the 5 second rule going.

Never met a tank I can't pull from if I'm not careful. Ever notice who's first to die after the tank? Usually DD, Yark and myself.

sixx

Thats great, you're also talking before the changes. The amount of threat that tanks were generating was so huge, they actually nerfed threat output by tanks. You could've added 2-3 of the top DPS and still not passed the tanks. I wouldnt be surprised to see atleast one of our tanks out tps'ing 2 people combined.

Read about other classes, trust me, you'll be surprised what tanks are getting for threat talents. They've baked in plenty of threat into the tanks. Honestly, i'd like to see you prove me wrong.

Hey, anything that'll help me die less is a good thing! I hope it works. Still concerned about broken classes though.

As for spec, I'm sticking with 0/21/40. I see no reason to change it just yet (for raiding anyway... demo looks cool for levelling). It's not quite the same as before... but it's close.

sixx

I'm really hoping the things go as planned... cause if most patches and the BC pre-patch are any precursor... we're boned on raiding for about a week due to instance crap/broken... well... everything.

In regards to tank threat, I'm not entirely sure where I'll fall TPS wise in comparison to Warriors and Druids.

Without Shield of the Righteous (trainable at lvl 75), I'm missing a huge chunk of threat in my rotation, which everything else was balanced around. Seal threat was intentionally lowered because of the high output of that skill.

Other than that though, everything else has pretty much been a flat out buff, and with AP scaling, I'll be able to reap the benefits of the many raid buffs surrounding that (Strength of Earth, Battleshout/Blessing of Might, Trueshot Aura, Blessing of Kings, etc).

I doubt that. With all 3 tanking classes being able to output decent AoE threat, if anything, trash pulls should be easier.

Dunno about that.

With Vigilance, Hand of Salvation, Tricks of the Trade, shorter Misdirection cooldown, and better scaling tank threat, it should be a lot more difficult to pull.

Honestly, I think the only people that are going to have a hard time with the transition, are healers.

Like you ever need heals, honestly!

-Fune.

trees will now be able to move with no penalty, throw that healing touch in tree form! and remove a curse in the same time. You just gotta be patient Lear. Patience is all I ask. The heal is coming (of course I wont spec for it, so it will take the REAL long time).
AMG im so excited!!!