New Features

New Character Models

Character models for races from the original game Dwarf, Gnome, Human, Night Elf, Orc, Tauren, Troll, Undead, and Draenei have been overhauled with an increase to fidelity and texture resolution; while retaining the core look and feel of the originals.

Character animations have been updated to have more personality and now support expressive facial expressions. Emotes are now more emotive!

Some of the new and improved character models can be viewed on our website.

World Event: Iron Horde Incursion

The Dark Portal in the Blasted Lands has turned blood red. Hundreds of strange-looking orcs are violently pouring into Azeroth, killing everything that stands in their path. Nethergarde and Okril’lon have already fallen, and while the Horde and the Alliance moved as quickly as they could to get reinforcements to their people, they are too late. The Iron Horde invasion has begun.

Adventurers looking to dislodge the Iron Horde’s attempts to establish a foothold on Azeroth should visit the Blasted Lands.

A specially revamped five-player version of Upper Blackrock Spire is available to level-90 characters for a limited time, and sets the stage for the coming counterstrike against the Iron Horde.

Revamped Group Finder/Premade Groups

Group Finder received an upgrade and expanded to facilitate players trying to create groups for both PvE and PvP content. Browsing or creating a Premade Group can be done via Group Finder (Bound to the I key by default) or the Player vs. Player pane (Bound to the H key by default.)

For an in-depth explanation of Premade Groups, check out Premade Groups: Looking for Adventure.

Quest Log

The quest log has been integrated into the world map to make it easier to know where to go and what to do.

Quest items no longer take up space in the inventory and are accessed through the Quest Tracker.

Quest tracker now orders quests based on proximity to the character by default.

Inventory Improvements

Items in the inventory now have a colored border around them to indicate their quality from Poor (grey) to Legendary (orange).

Tradeskill materials now stack up to 200 (up from 20).

Toy Box

Fun items accumulated through the course of travels now have a new home in the Toy Box. Eligible items can be learned by right- clicking on the item in the inventory. Once learned, the item is available account-wide and accessible to all characters on the account.

Want to complete the collection? Like the Mount and Pet Journal, items that haven’t been unlocked yet will show information on how the item can be obtained.

Toys awarded from quests will be automatically added to the Toy Box.

Bag Sorting and Cleanup

Bags can now be assigned to a specific item type (Equipment, Consumables, and Trade Goods). The bag will display a mini-icon showing what type of item it's assigned to.

Added a "Clean up Bags" button to automatically sort items in the character’s inventory, moving all empty slots to one area, and automatically sorting items to the correct bag. There’s also the option to ignore a bag from cleanup.

Reagent Bank

A Reagent Bank tab has been added to the Bank providing storage for raw materials.

Characters can now craft using the materials stored in both their Reagent Bank and Bank from anywhere.

Characters can visit the bank to unlock the new Reagent Bank tab providing additional storage space for profession materials.

New Void Storage Tab

Characters can now purchase an additional tab for Void Storage. That’s an extra 98 spaces!

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Character and Class Changes

Introduction to Character and Class Changes

Welcome to a look at character and class changes. We're trying a new patch note format, which we hope will help better convey the reasoning for many of the changes being made and what they mean for you, while providing more background into issues we're trying to solve.



Please be aware that the patch notes are preliminary and not final . Details may change before retail release.



Looking for a TL;DR summary of the character and class changes? Here you go!

Character stats have been squished into smaller numbers that are easier to understand. It's important to understand that this is not a nerf as enemies' stats have been squished as well.

Balanced functionality of Agility, Strength and Intellect.

New secondary stats: Bonus Armor, Multistrike, and Versatility.

Hit and Expertise have been removed; they're no longer needed in order to reliably land attacks!

The pacing of healing has been adjusted to allow for more tactical decision-making regarding efficiency and throughput, on both single-target and multi-target heals. Passive and auto-targeted healing have been reduced in effectiveness in order to emphasize the actions and choices of healers.

Racial traits have been rebalanced so that all races have similar combat performance.

All classes have had several abilities pruned, with a focus on redundant and less-used abilities to cut down on button and keybind bloat.

Amount of crowd-control in the game (primarily PvP) has been drastically reduced. Many crowd-control abilities have been removed, and many diminishing returns categories have been merged together.

Several common buffs and debuffs have been merged, or removed, where they were redundant.

All characters now learn some important Major Glyphs automatically as they level up.

Toned down the amount of instant healing in the game by giving cast times to several instant cast heals.

For Tanks, Vengeance has been redesigned and renamed Resolve. Resolve does not increase outgoing damage, but does now increases tank self-healing and absorption based on damage taken.

Facing requirements (character positioning) on some prominent abilities have been loosened or removed.

Reduced Mana cost of Resurrection spells to make it a little easier to recover from a wipe.

Professions no longer have combat benefit perks tied to them.

A multitude of class-specific changes, things like improved distinction between different Talent specializations, and new Masteries. Please consult class-specific sections below for more information.

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Stat Squish

Character progression is one of the defining characteristics of a role-playing game. Naturally, that means that we're continuously adding more power to the game for players to acquire. After 4 expansions and over 9 years of this growth, we've gotten to a point where the numbers involved are no longer easy to grasp. And worse, much of the granularity that's available is tied up in tiers of older content from Molten Core to Dragon Soul, none of which are really relevant anymore. It's no longer necessary for Borean Tundra quest gear to be nearly twice as powerful as Netherstorm quest gear, even though the two zones are only a couple of levels apart.

In order to bring things down to an understandable level, we've reduced the scale of stats throughout the game, back to as if they continued scaling linearly through questing content from levels 1 to 90. This applies to creatures, spells, abilities, consumables, gear, other items... everything. Your stats and damage have been reduced by a huge amount, but so have creatures' health. For example, your Fireball that previously hit a creature for 450,000 out of its 3,000,000 health (15% of its health), may now hit that same creature for 30,000 out of its 200,000 health (still 15% of its health). In effect, you will still be just as powerful, but the numbers that appear will be more easily parsed.

It's important to understand that this isn't a nerf, and we have special handling in place to preserve players’ existing ability to solo old content. Players will deal bonus damage against lower-level creatures from past expansions, and will take reduced damage from them.We've also removed all base damage on player spells and abilities, and adjusted Attack Power or Spell Power scaling as needed, so that all specializations will scale at the same rate.

The amount of stats on items has been reduced to be much lower than before.

Creature stats have been reduced to compensate.

We've also streamlined the multitude of various types of Haste % and Critical Strike % bonuses.

Spell Haste %, Melee Haste %, and Ranged Haste % have been merged into a universal Haste %.

Spell Crit %, Melee Crit %, and Ranged Crit % have been merged into a universal Crit %.

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Primary Character Stats and Attack Power

The "primary" stats, Agility, Strength, and Intellect, are foundations of a character’s power. But they have not been created equally, making it difficult to properly balance them against secondary stats. The leading reason for this is that Agility and Intellect also provide Critical Strike chance, in addition to Attack Power or Spell Power, whereas Strength does not. In order to achieve better balance, we've removed the Critical Strike chance increase from Agility and Intellect. Still, it felt like Agility-based characters should critically strike more often, so we've raised those classes’ baseline Critical Strike chance to compensate.

Agility no longer provides an increased chance to critically strike with melee and ranged attacks or abilities.

Intellect no longer provides an increased chance to critically strike with spells.

The base chance to critically strike is now 5% for all classes. There are no longer different chances to critically strike with melee, ranged, and spells.

There is a new passive, named Critical Strikes, which increases chance to critically strike by 10%. It is learned by all Rogues, all Hunters, Feral and Guardian Druids, Brewmaster and Windwalker Monks, and Enhancement Shaman.





"The "primary" stats, Agility, Strength, and Intellect, are foundations of a character’s power. But they have not been created equally, making it difficult to properly balance them against secondary stats."

We've consolidated the way that Attack Power and Spell Power function and scale, to make those values clearer and correct some scaling issues regarding caster weapons relative to physical weapons.

Each point of Agility or Strength now grants 1 Attack Power (down from 2). All other sources of Attack Power now grant half as much as before.

Weapon Damage values on all weapons have been reduced by 50%.

Attack Power now increases Weapon Damage at a rate of 1 DPS per 3.5 Attack Power (up from 1 DPS per 14 Attack Power).

Attack Power, Spell Power, or Weapon Damage now affect the entire healing or damage throughput of player spells.



Active mitigation has worked very well as a tanking model. So, moving forward we want to keep the amount of Dodge and Parry on tanks on the low side. This helps prevent encounters from causing very spiky damage on tanks, which generally isn't much fun. Dodge and Parry gains from Strength and Agility are being reduced to help accomplish this. Additionally, items in Warlords of Draenor will not have Dodge or Parry on them as a stat. Some Dodge and Parry can still be gained through class-specific effects.

The amount of Dodge gained per point of Agility has been reduced by 25%.

The amount of Parry gained per point of Strength has been reduced by 25%.

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Itemization Changes

We’re making a number of changes to itemization based on a single philosophy: We want to increase the chance that any given item drop is useful to someone in your group. To support this philosophy we’re making a few changes to stats. Most items found in Draenor will work for all specializations within a given class, so that you never have to grumble when you see, for example, Intellect plate drop in a group that lacks a Holy Paladin.



We’re also reducing the number of role-specific stats: Hit and Expertise are gone, as are Dodge and Parry as stats on items, replaced with a single tank stat of Bonus Armor. Armor and Spirit will be specific to tanks and healers respectively, but all other secondary stats will have universal appeal.



Because of the magnitude of this change, we’re retroactively applying this philosophy to items in Mists of Pandaria. After the pre-expansion patch you may find that some of your items contribute different stats, but they should still be good for your class.



New Secondary Stats Added

Bonus Armor: Increases Armor and Attack Power for tanking specializations.

Increases Armor and Attack Power for tanking specializations. Multistrike: Grants a chance for spells and abilities to fire up to 2 additional times, at 30% effectiveness (both damage and healing).

Grants a chance for spells and abilities to fire up to 2 additional times, at 30% effectiveness (both damage and healing). Versatility: Increases damage, healing, and absorption done. Reduces damage taken.

Mists of Pandaria and Future Items

Dodge and Parry have been replaced with Bonus Armor. If an item had both Dodge and Parry on it, it has been replaced with an additional useful secondary stat.

Head, Chest, Hand, Wrist, Waist, Leg, Feet, Weapon, Shield, and Off-hand items that had tanking stats (Dodge, Parry) or healer stats (Spirit) have been replaced with a different universally useful secondary stat.

Warlords of Draenor and Future Items

Plate Armor pieces will always have Strength and Intellect on it.

Mail and Leather Armor pieces will always have Agility and Intellect on it.

In an effort to reduce the physical mitigation of some classes, we've modified the amount of Armor provided by some armor types.

Plate, Mail, and Shields now have less Armor relative to Cloth and Leather armor.

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Hit and Expertise Removal

Hit and Expertise were not fun stats. They acted to remove a penalty, instead of making you stronger. Most players treated Hit/Expertise caps as mandatory (rightfully so), with failure to reach those caps as a trap of sorts. After adjusting, gemming, and reforging gear to meet that cap, players could then go after the actual damage-increasing stats. We decided to remove Hit and Expertise, and make it so you don't need them. We still want melee specializations to attack creatures from behind when possible, so attacks from the front will have a 3% chance to be parried that cannot be eliminated for non-tanking specializations.

General Hit and Expertise has been removed as a secondary stat. Hit and Expertise bonuses on all items and item enhancements (gems, enchants, etc.) have been converted into Critical Strike, Haste, or Mastery. All characters now have a 100% chance to hit, 0% chance to be dodged, 3% chance to be parried, and 0% chance for glancing blows, when fighting creatures up to 3 levels higher (bosses included). Tanking specializations receive an additional 3% reduction in chance to be parried. Tank attacks now have a 0% chance to be parried vs. creatures up to 3 levels higher. Creatures that are 4 or more levels higher than the character still has a chance to avoid attacks in various ways, to discourage fighting enemies that are much stronger. Dual Wielding still imposes a 19% chance to miss, to balance it with two-handed weapon use.



Death Knight Veteran of the Third War now also reduces the chance for attacks to be parried by 3%.

Druid Balance of Power has been removed. A new level-100 talent with the same name has been added. Nature’s Focus no longer increases the chance to hit with Moonfire and Wrath. Thick Hide now also reduces the chance for attacks to be parried by 3%.

Monk Stance of the Wise Serpent no longer increases Hit or Expertise. Stance of the Sturdy Ox now also reduces the chance for attacks to be parried by 3%.

Priest Divine Fury has been removed. Spiritual Precision has been removed.

Paladin Holy Insight no longer increases the chance to hit with spells. Sanctuary now also reduces the chance for attacks to be parried by 3%.

Shaman Elemental Precision has been removed. Spiritual Insight no longer increases the chance to hit with Lightning Bolt, Lava Burst, Hex, or Flame Shock.

Warrior Unwavering Sentinel now also reduces the chance for attacks to be parried by 3%.



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Secondary Stat Attunements

A new concept that we’re introducing is each specialization having an attunement to a particular secondary stat. These take the form of a passive ability that grants a 5% increase to the amount of a specific secondary stat gained. This provides a good starting point for where to focus your secondary stats. Usually, it will be your highest throughput stat (not counting Spirit for Healers, and Bonus Armor for Tanks, which is an optimal secondary stat in most cases). There are exceptions, and raw throughput may not even be the biggest concern in some situations. Treat this as a guideline, not a rule, about which secondary stat to favor.

All specializations now receive a 5% bonus to specific secondary stat bonuses received from all sources. This bonus is granted through new passive abilities or additional effects added to existing passive abilities.

Death Knight Blood: Multistrike Frost: Haste Unholy: Multistrike

Druid Balance: Mastery Feral: Critical Strike Guardian: Mastery Restoration: Haste

Hunter Beast Mastery: Mastery Marksmanship: Critical Strike Survival: Multistrike

Mage Arcane: Mastery Fire: Critical Strike Frost: Multistrike

Monk Brewmaster: Critical Strike Mistweaver: Multistrike Windwalker: Multistrike

Paladin Holy: Critical Strike Protection: Haste Retribution: Mastery

Priest Discipline: Critical Strike Holy: Multistrike Shadow: Haste

Rogue Assassination: Mastery Combat: Haste Subtlety: Multistrike

Shaman Elemental: Multistrike Enhancement: Haste Restoration: Mastery

Warlock Affliction: Haste Demonology: Mastery Destruction: Critical Strike

Warrior Arms: Mastery Fury: Critical Strike Protection: Mastery



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Player Health and Resilience

We’re planning several interconnected changes designed to provide better-tuned gameplay for healers and improve the healing dynamic in PvP.



The high amount of base Resilience and Battle Fatigue in Mists of Pandaria caused characters to feel much weaker in PvP than they did in PvE. To address this disparity, we’re approaching Warlords of Draenor with the goal of shrinking that gap as much as possible. To reduce dependence on Resilience, we needed to increase player survivability against other players, and we chose to do this by essentially doubling (post-squish) player health.





On its own, that increase in health would make players more survivable in the world at large, so we’re also increasing creature damage and the effectiveness of healing spells to balance things out. The net result of these changes is that individual attacks will knock a smaller chunk off of a player’s health pool in PvP, but your survivability in PvE remains unaffected.



Doubling player health gave us room to reduce Resilience and Battle Fatigue, but our goal was to be able to remove them entirely. In order to achieve that, we’re also reducing PvP spike damage across the board by lowering Critical Damage and Critical Heals against players in PvP to 150% of their normal effect (down from 200%). The changes have allowed us to reduce base Resilience to 0%, and Battle Fatigue to 20%.

Changes to PvP

Base Resilience has been reduced to 0%.

Battle Fatigue has been reduced to 20% (down from 60%).

Critical Damage and Critical Heals in PvP combat now deal 150% of the normal spell/ability effects (down from 200%).

Changes to Health Pools

Amount of health gained per Stamina point has been doubled. The curve on this calculation has been smoothed out as well, so exact amount varies slightly by level.

Maximum mana has been doubled at all levels to keep pace with expected increases to maximum health from new Stamina values.

All consumables now restore twice as much health and mana.

All creatures had their melee damage doubled. Most creature spells and abilities have had their damage doubled as well.

All player-cast healing and absorption effects have been increased by approximately 50% in effectiveness. If they heal or absorb a percentage of maximum health, they are instead reduced by 25%. All other noted changes are in terms relative to that. For example, if another noted change is that "Mega Heal now heals for 40% more," that means that Mega Heal now heals for a total of 210% of what it used to, which is relatively 40% higher compared to other heals.



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Retuning Healing Spells

One of our goals for healing is to tone down the raw throughput of healers relative to the size of player health pools. Currently, as healers and their allies acquire better and better gear, the percentage of a player’s health that any given heal restores increases significantly. As a result, healers are able to refill health bars so fast that we have to make damage more and more “bursty” in order to challenge them. Ideally, we want players to spend some time below full health without having healers feel like their groupmates are in danger of dying at any moment. We also think that healer gameplay would be more varied, interesting, and skillful if your allies spent more time between 0% and 100%, rather than just getting damaged quickly to low health, forcing the healer to then scramble to get them back to 100% as quickly as possible.

To that end, we’re buffing heals less than we’re increasing player health. Heals will be deliberately less potent compared to health pools than before the item squish. Additionally, as gear improves, the scaling rates of health and healing will now be very similar, so the relative power of any given healing spell shouldn’t climb so much over the course of this expansion. For those concerned about what this means for raiding, don’t worry—we’re taking all of these changes into account when designing Raid content for Warlords of Draenor.



It’s also important to note that spells that heal based on a percentage of maximum health are being effectively buffed by the massive increase to player health pools, so we’re lowering those percentages to offset the effect. That may make them appear to have been nerfed—however, the net result is that those percentage-based heals stay about the same as before relative to other heals.



All of these changes apply to damage-absorption shields as well. Additionally, we're toning down the power of damage absorption in general. When they get too strong, absorption effects are often used in place of direct healing, instead of as a way to supplement it. We will, of course, take these changes into account when tuning specializations that rely heavily on absorbs, such as Discipline Priests.

"We want healers to care about who they're targeting and which heals they're using..."

We also took a look at healing spells that were passive or auto-targeted (so-called "smart" heals). We want healers to care about who they're targeting and which heals they're using, so that their decisions matter more. To that end, we're reducing the healing of many passive and auto- targeted heals, and making smart heals a little less smart. Smart heals will now randomly pick any injured target within range instead of always picking the most injured target. Priority will still be given to players over pets, of course.



Another of our goals for healing in this expansion is to strike a better balance between single-target and multi-target healing spells. We've taken a close look at the mana efficiency of our multi-target heals, and in many cases, we're reducing their efficiency, usually by reducing the amount they heal. Sometimes, but more rarely, raising their mana cost was a better decision. We want players to use multi-target heals, but they should only be better than their single-target equivalents when they heal more than two players without any overhealing. This way, players will face a meaningful choice between whether to use a single-target heal or a multi-target heal based on the situation.



Finally, we're removing the low-throughput, low-mana-cost heals like Nourish, Holy Light, Heal, and Healing Wave, because we think that while they do add complexity, they don’t truly add depth to healing gameplay. (We’re also renaming some spells to re-use those names. For example, Greater Healing Wave is being redubbed Healing Wave.) However, we still want healers to think about their mana when deciding which heal to cast, and so the mana costs and throughputs of many spells are being altered to give players a choice between spells with lower throughput and lower cost versus spells with higher throughput and higher costs. Here are some examples from each healer class.

Druid Higher Efficiency: Healing Touch, Rejuvenation, Efflorescence

Healing Touch, Rejuvenation, Efflorescence Druid Higher Throughput: Regrowth, Wild Growth

Monk Higher Efficiency: Soothing Mist, Renewing Mist

Soothing Mist, Renewing Mist Monk Higher Throughput: Surging Mist, Spinning Crane Kick

Paladin Higher Efficiency : Holy Light, Holy Shock, Word of Glory, Light of Dawn

: Holy Light, Holy Shock, Word of Glory, Light of Dawn Paladin Higher Throughput: Flash of Light, Holy Radiance

Priest Higher Efficiency: Greater Heal, Circle of Healing, Prayer of Mending, Holy Nova (new Discipline-only version), Penance

Greater Heal, Circle of Healing, Prayer of Mending, Holy Nova (new Discipline-only version), Penance Priest Higher Throughput: Flash Heal, Prayer of Healing

Shaman Higher Efficiency: Healing Wave, Riptide, Healing Rain

Healing Wave, Riptide, Healing Rain Shaman Higher Throughput: Healing Surge, Chain Heal



All of this discussion of efficiency may cause most healers to start worrying about mana regeneration and their mana pool. To allay those concerns, we’ve increased base mana regeneration a great deal at early gear levels, while having it scale up less at later gear levels. This will make all of these changes play well even in early content such as Heroic Dungeons and the first tier of Raid content, and also play well in the final Raid tier without mana and efficiency becoming irrelevant due to extremely high regeneration values.

"...we’ve increased base mana regeneration a great deal at early gear levels, while having it scale up less at later gear levels."



That’s a lot of big changes for healers: reduced throughput, a more deliberate pace, less powerful “smart” heals, weaker absorbs, fewer spells, and a new focus on efficiency decisions. We’re confident that we can apply lessons learned from previous expansions to make this the best healer experience yet: more dynamic, less punishing, and frankly a lot more fun.

General Changes to Healing

Smart heals will now randomly pick any injured target within range, instead of always picking the most injured target. Priority will still be given to players over pets.

Long-cast-time single-target heals, such as Greater Heal and Healing Touch, now cost roughly half as much as fast-cast-time single- target heals, such as Flash of Light or Healing Surge, and heal for roughly the same amount.

Every class has multiple area healing spells available, some low throughput and efficient, others high throughput and inefficient.

Area healing spells are tuned to be less efficient than single-target healing spells when they heal 2 or fewer targets, and more efficient when they heal 3 or more targets.

Spells with cooldowns or limitations may have higher efficiency than the no-cooldown equivalents.

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Racial Traits

We want races to have fun and interesting perks, but if those traits are too powerful, players may feel compelled to play a specific race even if it doesn't suit their aesthetic preference. For example, Trolls' Berserking ability was extremely powerful, and their Beast Slaying passive was often irrelevant, but occasionally tremendously powerful compared to other racial passives. On the other end of the spectrum, many races had few or no performance affecting perks. We also needed to replace or update a number of racials that previously granted Hit or Expertise, since those stats have been removed.

We decided to bring down the couple high outliers, then establish a fair baseline and bring everyone else up to that. We achieved that by improving old passives, replacing obsolete ones, and occasionally adding new ones where needed. Our goal with these changes is to reach parity amongst races.

Blood Elf Arcane Acuity is a new racial passive ability that increases Critical Strike chance by 1%. Arcane Torrent now restores 20 Runic Power for Death Knights (up from 15 Runic Power), 1 Holy Power for Paladins, or 3% of mana for Mages, Priests, and Warlocks (up from 2% of Mana). Other parts of the ability remain unchanged.

Draenei Gift of the Naaru now heals for the same amount over 5 seconds (down from 15 seconds). Heroic Presence has been redesigned. It no longer increases Hit by 1%, and instead increases Strength, Agility, and Intellect, scaling with character level.

Dwarf Crack Shot has been removed (was 1% Expertise with ranged weapons). Mace Specialization (was 1% Expertise with maces) has been replaced with Might of the Mountain. Might of the Mountain is a new racial passive ability that increases Critical Strike bonus damage and healing dealt by 2%. Stoneform now also removes magic and curse effects in addition to poison, disease, bleed effects, and reduces physical damage taken by 10% for 8 seconds (down from all damage taken). It remains unusable while the Dwarf is under the effects of crowd control.

Gnome Expansive Mind now increases maximum mana, energy, rage, and Runic Power by 5% instead of only increasing maximum mana. Escape Artist’s cooldown has been reduced to 1 minute (down from 1.5 minutes). Nimble Fingers is a new racial passive ability that increases Haste by 1%. Shortblade Specialization (was 1% Expertise with one-handed swords and daggers) has been replaced with Nimble Fingers.

Goblin Time is Money now grants a 1% increase to Haste (up from only attack speed and spell haste).

Human Mace Specialization has been removed (was 1% Expertise with maces). Sword Specialization has been removed (was 1% Expertise with swords). The Human Spirit has been redesigned. It now increases Versatility, scaling with character level.

Night Elf Quickness now also increases movement speed by 2% in addition to increasing Dodge chance by 2%. Touch of Elune is a new passive ability which increases Haste by 1% at night, and Critical Strike chance by 1% during the day.

Orc Axe Specialization has been removed (was 1% Expertise with axes). Command now increases pet damage by 1% (down from 2%). Hardiness now reduces the duration of Stun effects by 10% (down from 15%).

Tauren Brawn is a new racial passive ability that increases Critical Strike bonus damage and healing done by 2%. Endurance now increases Stamina by an amount scaling with character level, instead of increasing Base Health by 5%.

Troll Berserking now increases Haste by 15% (down from 20%). Beast Slaying now increases XP earned from killing Beasts by 20%, instead of increasing damage dealt versus Beasts by 5%. Dead Eye has been removed (was 1% Expertise with ranged weapons).

Undead Will of the Forsaken’s cooldown has been increased to 3 minutes (up from 2 minutes). Undead can now breathe underwater indefinitely.



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Ability Pruning and Consolidation

Over the years, we've added significantly more new spells and abilities to the game than we've removed. This has led to the complexity of the game increasing steadily over time, to the point we're at now, where players feel like they need dozens of keybinds. There are many niche abilities which could theoretically be useful in some rare case, but usually are not. There are many abilities that we'd be better off not having. We decided that we needed to make a strong push for paring down the number of abilities each class/spec has. That means making some abilities restricted to certain specs that really need them instead of being class-wide, and outright removing some other abilities. It also includes removing some Spellbook clutter, such as passives that could be merged with others, or with base abilities.

However, this doesn't mean that we want to reduce the depth of gameplay, or "dumb it down.” We still want there to be interesting decisions during combat, and for skill to matter. But, that doesn't require complexity; we can remove some needless complexity and still retain the depth and skill variance.One type of ability that we focused on is temporary power buffs ("cooldowns"). Removing those also helps achieve one of our other goals, which is to reduce the amount of cooldown stacking in the game. In cases where a class/spec had multiple cooldowns that typically ended up getting used together, often in a single macro, we merged them, or removed some of them.What abilities and spells got cut is a very,question to answer. Every ability is vital to someone, so we don't take this process lightly. We hope that even if we cut your favorite ability, you can see it in the context of our larger goals. It's important to remember that the point of these changes is to increase players' ability to understand the game, not to reduce depth of gameplay. We attempt to prune abilities with the intent to reduce the amount of keybind/macro bloat and merging abilities that served a similar purpose but are otherwise redundant together.

Additional Changes Revised the levels at which class abilities are learned to provide a smoother leveling experience.



Please see the Classes Section for changes specific to each class.

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Crowd Control and Diminishing Returns

Another big takeaway from Mists of Pandaria is that there was simply too much crowd control (CC) in the game. To solve that, we knew that we needed an across-the-board disarmament. Here's a summary of the player-cast CC changes:

Removed Silence effects from all Interrupts. Silences still exist, but are never attached to an Interrupt.

Removed all Disarms.

Reduced the number of Diminishing Returns (DR) categories. All Roots now share the same DR category. Exception: Roots on 'Charge' types of abilities have no DR category, but have a very short duration instead. All Stuns now share the same DR category. All Incapacitate ("Mesmerize") effects now share the same DR category, and have been merged with the Horror DR category. A list of which Diminishing Returns category each crowd-control ability belongs to can be found in the forum thread titled: Diminishing Returns in Warlords of Draenor.

Removed the ability to make crowd-control spells with cast-times into instant-cast with a cooldown.

Removed many crowd-control spells entirely, and increased the cooldowns and restrictions on others. Pet-cast CC is more limited and often removed. Cyclone can now be dispelled by Immunity effects and Mass Dispel. PvP trinkets now grant immunity to reapplication of an effect from the same spell cast when they break abilities with persistent effects like Solar Beam. Long fears are now shorter in PvP, to account for the target also needing to run back afterward.



Additionally, we've significantly reduced the number of throughput-increasing cooldowns and procs, in order to further reduce burst damage. Please keep in mind when reading the specifics of the patch notes that some classes may have lost abilities, or had the power of select abilities reduced. These changes were made in the context of the above goals. Other classes have a reduced crowd-control ability overall. We believe that this entire package of changes will make PvP a more enjoyable experience for everyone.

Death Knight Rune of Swordbreaking has been removed. Rune of Swordshattering has been removed.

Druid Bear Hug has been removed. Cyclone now shares Diminishing Returns with Fears, and can be canceled by immunity effects (i.e. Divine Shield, Ice Block, etc.), and can be dispelled by Mass Dispel. Disorienting Roar has been renamed to Incapacitating Roar, incapacitates enemies instead of disorienting them, and its effect now shares Diminishing Returns with other Mesmerize effects. Hibernate has been removed. Maim is now available only to Feral Druids. Nature’s Grasp has been removed. Nature’s Swiftness can no longer turn Cyclone into an instant-cast spell. Solar Beam no longer Silences a target again more than once per cast. Additionally, the Silence effect from this spell now shares Diminishing Returns with other Silences. Typhoon now has a range of 15 yards (down from 30 yards).

Hunter Hunter pets no longer have crowd-control abilities. Basilisk: Petrifying Gaze; Bat: Sonic Blast; Bird of Prey: Snatch; Crab: Pin; Crane: Lullaby; Crocolisk: Ankle Crack; Dog: Lock Jaw; Gorilla: Pummel; Monkey: Bad Manner; Moth: Serenity Dust; Nether Ray: Nether Shock; Porcupine: Paralyzing Quill; Rhino: Horn Toss; Scorpid: Clench; Shale Spider: Web Wrap; Silithid: Venom Web Spray; Spider: Web; and Wasp: Sting have been removed as pet abilities. Concussive Barrage has been removed. Entrapment’s Root effect now shares Diminishing Returns with all other Root effects. Scare Beast has been removed. Scatter Shot has been removed. Silencing Shot has been removed. Traps and trap launchers no longer have an arming time and can instantly trigger. Traps can no longer be disarmed. Widow Venom has been removed. Wyvern Sting now has a 1.5 second cast time.

Mage Cone of Cold’s cooldown has been increased to 12 seconds (up from 10 seconds). Deep Freeze is now available only to Frost Mages. Deep Freeze can now be broken by damage (same amount as Frost Nova). Dragon’s Breath now replaces Cone of Cold for Fire Mages and the disoriented effect now shares Diminishing Returns with all other Mesmerize effects. Frost Nova’s cooldown has been increased to 30 seconds (up from 25 seconds). Ice Ward’s Frozen effect now shares Diminishing Returns with all other Root effects. Improved Counterspell has been removed. Presence of Mind can no longer turn Polymorph into an instant-cast spell.

Monk Adaptation has been removed. Fists of Fury no longer stuns a target more than once per cast, but now deals 100% increased damage, and always deal full damage to the primary target with additional targets still being affected by the damage split. Grapple Weapon has been removed. Ring of Peace no longer Silences or Disarms enemies. It now incapacitates targets in the area for 3 seconds, or until the target takes damage. The ability now shares Diminishing Returns with all other Mesmerize effects. Spear Hand Strike no longer Silences the target if they’re facing the Monk. Glyph of Breath of Fire’s Disoriented effect now shares Diminishing Returns with all other Mesmerize effects.

Paladin Evil is a Point of View has been removed and replaced with Blinding Light. Repentance's cast time has been increased to 1.7 seconds. Turn Evil's cast time has been increased to 1.7 seconds and now has a 6-second duration in PvP (down from 8 seconds).

Priest Dominate Mind now shares Diminishing Returns with all other Mesmerize effects. Holy Word: Chastise now shares Diminishing Returns with all other Mesmerize effects. Psyfiend has been removed. Psychic Horror now shares Diminishing Returns with all other Mesmerize effects. Psychic Scream is now a level-15 talent, replacing Psyfiend, and has a 45-second cooldown (up from 30 seconds). Rapture no longer has any effect beyond removing the cooldown of Power Word: Shield. Silence is now available to Discipline and Shadow Priests. Void Tendrils’ Root effect now has a chance to break if the target takes sufficient damage.

Rogue Dismantle has been removed. Deadly Throw now requires 5 Combo Points in order to interrupt spell casting (up from 3 Combo Points). Paralytic Poison has been removed and replaced by Internal Bleeding. Internal Bleeding causes successful Kidney Shots to also apply a periodic Bleed effect for 12 seconds, with damage increasing per combo point used.

Shaman Bind Elemental has been removed. Earthgrab Totem now shares Diminishing Returns with all other root effects. Frostbrand Weapon has been removed. Hex’s cast time has been increased to 1.7 seconds. Ancestral Swiftness can no longer turn Hex into an instant-cast spell. Maelstrom Weapon can no longer reduce the cast time of Hex. Tremor Totem is no longer usable while under the effects of Fear, Charm, or Sleep, but its duration has been increased to 10 seconds (up from 6 seconds). Bug Fix: Glyph of Shamanistic Rage should no longer cause Shamanistic Rage to incorrectly dispel Unstable Affliction or Vampiric Touch that has been modified by the PvP 4-piece set bonus.



Warlock Blood Horror’s cooldown has been increased to 60 seconds (up from 30 seconds) and now shares Diminishing Returns with all other Mesmerize effects. Curse of Exhaustion has been removed. Demonic Breath has been removed. Howl of Terror is now a Level-30 talent, replacing Demonic Breath. Felhunter: Spell Lock now only interrupts spell casting and no longer Silences the enemy. Mortal Coil now shares Diminishing Returns with all other Mesmerize effects. Observer: Optic Blast now only deals damage and interrupts spell casting. The ability no longer Silences the enemy. Sear Magic’s cooldown has been increased to 30 seconds (up from 20 seconds). Succubus: Seduction and Shivarra: Mesmerize now have a 30-second cooldown. Terrorguard no longer casts Terrifying Roar when it dies. Unbound Will’s cooldown has been increased to 2 minutes (up from 1 minute). Voidwalker: Disarm has been removed. Voidlord: Disarm has been removed.

Warrior Charge now Roots the target (instead of stunning). The Root effect does not share a Diminishing Return with other Roots. Disarm has been removed. Intimidating Shout now has a 6-second duration in PvP (down from 8 seconds). Safeguard no longer removes movement-impairing effects. Warbringer now causes Charge to stun the target for 1.5 seconds instead of rooting it.



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Movement Speed

Moving quickly has always been a powerful bonus in World of Warcraft; however, the logic of how various movement speed bonuses stack (or don't) has generally been inconsistent and poorly explained. Under the old set-up, each movement speed bonus would become more powerful when combined with another, so we would limit what can stack with what, and prevent certain abilities from being used when another one is already in effect. We decided to change the movement speed system to make it more transparent, with rules about stacking that are easier to understand, and with fewer restrictions.



Previously, multiple movement speed modifiers on you were multiplicative, meaning that if you had two different +25% movement speed bonuses, they resulted in a total movement speed of 56% (1.25*1.25 = 1.56).



Movement speed bonuses have been changed to be additive. The previous example with two different +25% movement speed bonuses would result in a total movement speed of +50%. The logic governing which bonuses stack with others has been simplified as well.

"Movement speed bonuses have been changed to be additive."

Movement speed buffs that are self-only or is a passive effect are considered non-exclusive, and will now all stack together additively.

Movement speed buffs that are temporary or could be applied to other players are considered exclusive, their effects do not stack, and only the highest bonus gets applied (in addition to non-exclusive movement speed buffs).



Additionally, restrictions that prevented a player with a temporary speed bonus from receiving or activating a second temporary speed bonus have been removed. Both bonuses will now apply to the character, but only the one with the highest magnitude will have any effect.



Examples of self-only passive bonuses: Cat Form, Movement Speed enchants, Quickness racial for Night Elves, Unholy Presence

These will all stack additively with each other.

Examples of shared or temporary bonuses: Angelic Feather, Sprint, Stampeding Roar

All of these effects can now be applied simultaneously, but only the strongest one will have an effect.

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Buffs and Debuffs

All specializations provide some common buffs and debuffs. These are important to the game because they encourage cooperation, make you stronger when you work together with others, and promote Raid composition diversity. However, we saw room to revise these buffs and debuffs. In addition to the above changes, we revised which buffs and debuffs are provided by Hunter pets. Please see the Hunter Pet Abilities section for a full list of changes.



Two new stats have been added that benefitted all players. Also added were three new debuffs (Weakened Armor, Physical Vulnerability, and Magic Vulnerability) that each benefitted only half of the group. While that could be interesting, the two physical debuffs were redundant, and felt that the two new stats would be better suited as raid buffs. So, we made that replacement.

Weakened Armor, Physical Vulnerability, and Magic Vulnerability Death Knight (Frost): Brittle Bones has been removed. Death Knight (Unholy): Ebon Plaguebringer no longer causes Physical Vulnerability. Druid: Faerie Fire no longer applies Weakened Armor. Paladin (Retribution): Judgments of the Bold no longer causes Physical Vulnerability. Rogue: Expose Armor no longer applies Weakened Armor. Rogue: Master Poisoner has been removed. Warlock: Curse of the Elements has been removed. Warrior: Sunder Armor no longer applies Weakened Armor. Warrior (Arms, Fury): Colossus Smash no longer causes Physical Vulnerability. Warrior (Protection): Devastate no longer applies Weakened Armor.

Versatility Death Knight (Frost, Unholy): Unholy Aura now also provides 3% Versatility. Druid: Mark of the Wild now also provides 3% Versatility. Paladin (Retribution): Sanctity Aura is a new passive ability for Retribution Paladins which grants 3% Versatility to the Paladin and all allies within 100 yards. Warrior (Arms, Fury): Inspiring Presence is a new passive ability for Arms and Fury Warriors which grants 3% Versatility to the Warrior and all allies within 100 yards.

Multistrike Monk (Windwalker): Windflurry is a new passive ability for Windwalker Monks which grants 5% Multistrike to the Monk and all allies within 100 yards. Priest (Shadow): Mind Quickening now also grants 5% Multistrike. Rogue: Swiftblade’s Cunning now also grants 5% Multistrike. Warlock: Dark Intent now grants 5% Multistrike instead of 10% Stamina. Blood Pact is a new passive ability for Warlocks which grants 10% Stamina to the Warlock and all allies within 100 yards.





Weakened Blows was a debuff that mattered almost exclusively to tanks, and that every tank automatically applied. We removed the debuff and reduced creature damage to compensate.

Weakened Blows The following abilities no longer apply the Weakened Blows effect. Death Knight (Blood): Scarlet Fever Druid: Thrash Monk: Keg Smash Paladin: Crusader Strike; Hammer of the Righteous Shaman: Earth Shock Warrior: Thunder Clap





The Cast Speed Slow was a debuff type that mattered almost exclusively to PvP, and made combat much less fun for casters in addition to encouraging the use of instant-cast spells. We decided that it was best to remove casting speed debuffs.

Cast Speed Slows The following abilities no longer slow the target’s casting speed by 50%. Death Knight: Necrotic Strike Mage (Arcane): Slow Additionally, Slow can now affect more than one target at a time. The following abilities have been removed. Rogue: Mind-numbing Poison Warlock: Curse of Enfeeblement





As part of a push to combine the different types of Haste in the game as much as possible, we merged Spell Haste and Attack Speed into just Haste, which benefits everyone.

Spell Haste and Attack Speed The following abilities now provide a 5% increase to melee, ranged, and spell Haste to all Party and Raid members (previously they only increased spell Haste). Priest (Shadow): Mind Quickening Shaman (Elemental): Elemental Oath The following abilities now provide a 5% increase to melee, ranged, and spell Haste to all Party and Raid members (instead of a 10% increase to only melee and ranged attack speed). Death Knight (Frost, Unholy): Unholy Aura Shaman (Enhancement): Unleashed Rage Rogue: Swiftblade’s Cunning



Some classes received new abilities to provide some of harder-to-find buffs/debuffs, increasing their utility to the Party or Raid.

Other Legacy of the White Tiger is now also learned by Brewmaster Monks, granting a 5% increase to Critical Strike chance for all Party and Raid members. Moonkin Form now grants increased Mastery instead of 5% to Spell Haste. Power of the Grave is a new passive ability learned by Blood Death Knights. Power of the Grave grants a bonus to Mastery for all allies within 100 yards.



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Raid Utility Balance

Various classes bring various abilities that provide utility to parties and raids. We talked about one type of utility in the Buffs and Debuffs section, above. However, there are other types of raid utility, and it’s been in need of more attention. In general, raid utility, especially raid-wide defensive cooldowns, had grown too strong. So many classes and specializations had defensive cooldowns that we had to make raid damage extremely high, as raids would be stacking or chaining together multiple cooldowns. We'd like to return to a system where it's the healers who heal through the scary moments, not the damage dealers, for example.



To do so, we’ve established a new baseline level of raid utility that a specialization should bring, and brought everyone to that new standard by reducing the effects of some abilities, or removing some abilities altogether.

Death Knight Anti-Magic Zone now reduces magic damage taken by 20% (down from 40%).

Druid Tranquility is now only available to Restoration Druids.

Hunter Aspect of the Fox is a new ability for all Hunters. Aspect of the Fox: Party and raid members within 40 yards take on the aspects of a fox, allowing them to move while casting all spells for 6 seconds. Only one Aspect can be active at a time. 3 minute cooldown.

Mage Amplify Magic is a new spell available to Mages. Amplify Magic amplifies the effects of helpful magic, increasing all healing received by 10% for all party and raid members within 100 yards, and lasts 6 seconds with a 2-minute cooldown.

Monk Avert Harm has been removed. Stance of the Fierce Tiger’s movement speed increase now affects the Monk and all allies within 10 yards.



"...we’ve established a new baseline level of raid utility...by reducing the effects of some abilities, or removing some abilities altogether."

Paladin Devotion Aura is now only available to Holy Paladins.

Priest Hymn of Hope has been removed.

Rogue Smoke Bomb now reduces damage taken by 10% (down from 20%).

Shaman Ancestral Guidance now causes 20% of damage or healing to be copied as healing to nearby injured allies (down from 40% of damage or 60% of healing). Healing Tide Totem is now available only to Restoration Shaman. Stormlash Totem has been removed.

Warlock Each player can use a Demonic Gateway only once every 90 seconds. Healthstones now share a cooldown with Health Potions, separate from other potions.

Warrior Rallying Cry now increases health by 15% (down from 20%), and is no longer available to Protection Warriors. Skull Banner has been removed.



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Instant Cast Heals

Over time, healers have gained a bigger and bigger arsenal of heals that they can cast while on the move, which removes the inherent cost that movement is intended to have for them, while also limiting players’ ability to counter healing in PvP. This left Silences and crowd control (which we’re trying to curb) as the only ways to actually limit an enemy player's healing output. We're still preserving the option to instantly heal, but are reducing the number of instant-cast healing abilities overall. Raid and dungeon encounter damage during high-movement phases will be adjusted accordingly.

Druid Wild Growth (Restoration) now has a 1.5-second cast time (up from instant cast).

Monk Uplift (Mistweaver) now has a 1.5-second cast time (up from instant cast).

Paladin Eternal Flame now has a 1.5-second cast time (up from instant cast) for Holy Paladins. Guarded by the Light (Protection) now also makes Word of Glory and Eternal Flame instant cast. Light of Dawn now has a 1.5-second cast time (up from instant cast). Sword of Light (Retribution) now also makes Word of Glory and Eternal Flame instant cast. Word of Glory now has a 1.5-second cast time (up from instant cast).

Priest Cascade now has a 1.5-second cast time (up from instant cast) for Discipline and Holy. Halo now has a 1.5-second cast time (up from instant cast) for Discipline and Holy. Prayer of Mending now has a 1.5-second cast time (up from instant cast).



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Periodic Effects

There are many effects in the game which deal periodic damage over time (DoT) or healing over time (HoT). Historically, these have typically done something called “snapshotting”; they were based on your stats at the time that they were cast, and that was used for calculating their effect for their full lifetime. In Mists, if a warlock casts Corruption on an enemy while Heroism is active, that DoT will continue to tick rapidly based on the temporary haste effect, even after Heroism fades. This has led to some gameplay that has both good and bad sides.

"The vast majority of periodic effects in the game that snapshotted no longer do so. The only exceptions are ones that do damage based on a percentage of a previous ability's damage..."

Snapshotting encourages refreshing those periodic effects when your stats are high, such as when a temporary buff procs. On the upside, there's a high amount of skill involved in maximizing that. On the downside, it's not intuitive, and the skill ceiling is so high that few can reach it without the use of specialized add-ons. To make matters worse, the benefits of maximizing periodic snapshotting is so high that it creates a balance problem. Players maximizing periodic snapshotting (primarily through the use of add-ons) do drastically more damage than intended. If we balance around taking full advantage of snapshotting, then the players who aren’t doing so would fall unacceptably far behind in damage output.Ultimately, we've decided that snapshotting isn't a productive mechanic for the game. The vast majority of periodic effects in the game that snapshotted no longer do so. The only exceptions are ones that do damage based on a percentage of a previous ability's damage (such as the Ignite from a Fire Mage's Fireball, or the periodic damage on a Windwalker Monk's Blackout Kick), as they inherently act as a delayed damage multiplier to those abilities. Temporary effects which buff the damage or healing of other spells specifically will continue to do so for their lifetime; for example, Unleash Flame (which increases the damage of the shaman's next fire spell by 40%), when used on a Flame Shock, will continue to increase the damage of the periodic effect for its entire lifetime, despite being consumed when the Flame Shock is cast.We still of course want skills and their use to embody interesting choices, and intelligent and skillful use of abilities.

Periodic damage and healing effects now dynamically recalculate their damage, healing, Critical chance, multipliers, and period on every tick.

Skilled players will still be able to take advantage of temporary power buffs like trinket procs, and you'll still want to cast your hardest hitting spells within those proc durations. The benefits just won't extend outside the trinket procs’ duration. As such, this high-skill gameplay is there, it's just rewarded more consistently. For example, a Priest’s trinket procs and an already active Shadow Word: Pain will begin dealing more damage the instant the proc effect occurs, but will return to normal when the proc duration ends. Skilled players will be able to play within these proc durations to maximize effect, but it won’t be as detrimental to output to anyone who isn’t actively and skillfully using them to their full extent.

"In other words, there are no more Haste breakpoints; Haste now smoothly and accurately affects periodic effects for the entire duration."

We also made another change to periodic effects. Haste has long affected the tick rate of periodic effects, and their duration has been rounded to whole numbers of ticks, in order to mostly preserve the original duration of the spell. This lead to Haste breakpoints where having specific amounts of Haste would cause certain periodic effects to gain an extra tick. Part of gearing your character involved trying to reach those Haste breakpoints, but not go over by too much. This was a fairly tedious number to manage, which was again mostly handled by add-ons and guides. With some new tech we’re now able to calculate the effect of Haste on tick time dynamically. Any fraction of a full period left at the end of an effect will do a tick of damage or healing in proportion to the remaining time. In other words, there are no more Haste breakpoints; Haste now smoothly and accurately affects periodic effects for the entire duration.This also opened up the opportunity to revise how we handle refreshing periodic effects. For the vast majority of spells and abilities, we had a standard rule that any refresh would add the new cast's duration after the next tick of the existing effect. In simpler terms, you can refresh anywhere between the last and second-to-last tick of a DoT or HoT with no loss. Warlocks had a special passive that changed this logic to allow refreshing with no loss anywhere in the last 50% of a DoT. We liked the flexibility that this provided; though felt it was a bit too powerful. No longer tied to whole tick times, we chose to extend the mechanic that Warlocks had to all classes, but reduce it to 30%. Everyone can now refresh their periodic effects anywhere in the last 30% of the duration for full benefit, and no lost tick time.

Recasting periodic damage over time and healing over time effects that are already on the target now extends those effects to up to 130% of the normal duration of the effect.

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Tank Vengeance, Resolve, and PvP

The changes to tanking made in Mists of Pandaria turned out quite well, overall. But there were a few rough parts that we're going to smooth over. The biggest one is the offensive capabilities of Vengeance. We like that tanks can provide meaningful DPS to their group, however, it swung wildly based on the fight, even surpassing the dedicated damage dealers occasionally. To solve this, we're going to remove the offensive value of Vengeance, but preserve the defensive value, by making it increase the effect of your active mitigation buttons, instead of Attack Power.

General Vengeance has been removed and replaced with a new passive ability, Resolve. Resolve: Increases self-healing and absorption based on damage taken (before avoidance and mitigation) in the last 10 seconds. Without Resolve, Tanks now deal significantly less self-healing and absorption. Resolve has been made much stronger to counteract this, and it increases the amount of self-healing and absorption as appropriate for the fight.



Then, to keep tank DPS meaningful, we'll be raising their damage, since it would be meager with no Vengeance Attack Power (Vengeance accounted for 70-90% of a tank's damage on high-tank-damage fights in Mists). To do that, we're increasing the damage of several prominent tank abilities. For plate-wearing Tank specializations, Riposte has been redesigned to convert Critical Strike into Parry, a defensive stat. That also helps keep secondary stats balanced in offensive value for them.

General All tanking stances and similar effects now increases threat generated by 900% (up from 600%). Riposte is a passive ability for Blood Death Knights, Protection Paladins, and Protection warriors. Riposte now gives the character Parry equal to their Critical Strike bonus from gear.

Death Knight Mastery: Blood Shield now also passively increases Attack Power by 8% (percentage increased by Mastery), in addition to its current effects.

Druid Mastery: Primal Tenacity now also passively increases Attack Power by 8% (percentage increased by Mastery), in addition to its current effects.

Monk Mastery: Elusive Brawler now also passively increases Attack Power by 8% (percentage increased by Mastery), in addition to its current effects. Brewmasters no longer deal 15% less damage.

Paladin Mastery: Divine Bulwark now also passively increases Attack Power by 8% (percentage increased by Mastery), in addition to its current effects.

Warrior Mastery: Critical Block now also passively increases Attack Power by 8% (percentage increased by Mastery), in addition to its current effects.





Tanks in PvP

Finally, we have the topic of tanks in PvP. Apart from a few niche cases like flag carrying; tanks have been intentionally non-viable in serious PvP for several expansions now. The reason for this was simple: fighting against tanks was very frustrating, not fun. They were near- invincible, had numerous CC abilities (primary stuns), but did little enough damage to not be able to kill you (in most cases, anyway). By excluding them from PvP, we preserved the enjoyment of the rest of the playerbase. However, that has the obvious downside that people who prefer to play tanks are excluded from doing so in PvP.



We decided that we could do better, and satisfy everyone involved. Our other changes to tanks in Warlords of Draenor got us most of the way there. Tanks’ damage will already be tuned to be somewhat weaker than damage dealers, but not trivial. We’ve already removed the additional CC that they had during the CC Disarmament and Ability Pruning. All that remains that makes them frustrating to fight against is their invincibility. So, we’re causing tanks to take increased damage in PvP, so that the net result is that they both deal and take somewhat less damage than damage dealers.

Tanks now take 25% additional damage while engaged in PvP combat.

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Quality of Life Improvements

Facing Requirements

Strict facing requirements can be frustrating to deal with, especially in hectic Raid combat or PvP environments. In order to ease this frustration, we decided to remove or significantly loosen the facing requirements of all attacks that required the player to be behind their target.

Druid: Ravage no longer requires the Druid to be behind the target.

Druid: Shred no longer requires the Druid to be behind the target.

Rogue: Ambush no longer requires the Rogue to be behind the target.

Rogue (Subtlety): Backstab can now be used on either side of the target, in addition to behind the target.

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Tooltip Clarity

Being able to quickly understand what an ability does by glancing at the tooltip is of paramount importance to learn how to play with a given class or specialization. We’ve taken an extensive look at the tooltips for all class abilities, and revised them to be as clear and concise as possible.



In some rare cases, we’ve removed mention of niche information that we don’t think is needed. If that's the case, please note that a change to the ability's tooltip does not mean that functionality has changed. If the change in question is not mentioned in the Patch Notes, there has been no change to the ability.

Tooltips for nearly all class abilities have been revised for increased clarity.

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Another area of gameplay that we polished is how characters are able to sustain their own health, primarily when frequently killing enemies, such as in solo questing.

Death Knight Dark Succor is no longer a Major Glyph and is now a passive ability learned by all Death Knights at level 60.

Druid Healing Touch now heals for 50% more when self-cast for Balance Druids. Predatory Swiftness now also increases the healing done by Healing Touch by 50%.

Hunter Kill Shot now heals the Hunter for 15% of maximum health if it kills the target. Survivalist is a new passive ability learned by Survival Hunters at level 10. Survivalist increases the Hunter's chance to Multistrike by 10%. Additionally, the Hunter gains 15% health over 10 seconds after killing a target.

Mage Conjured Refreshments now restores 100% health and Mana over 20 seconds, regardless of level.

Monk Afterlife now always summons a Healing Sphere when an enemy is killed. Glyph of Afterlife has been removed and its effects are now baseline for Afterlife.

Paladin Supplication now also increases Flash of Light’s healing by 50%.

Priest Devouring Plague now heals for 2% of maximum health per tick (up from 1%).

Rogue Recuperate now heals for 5% of maximum health per tick (up from 3%).

Shaman Maelstrom Weapon now also increases the direct healing of affected spells by 20% per application. Glyph of Healing Storm has been removed and its effects are now baseline for Maelstrom Weapon. Healing Surge now heals for 100% more when cast on self for Elemental Shaman.

Warlock Drain Life now heals for 1.5% of maximum health per tick (up from 1.0%). Harvest Life now increases the healing from Drain Life to 3% of maximum health per tick (up from 2.5%).



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Reforging

The original intent behind Reforging was to offer a way for players to customize their gear, but in practice it offered little in the way of true choice. Players attempting to optimize every piece of gear were well advised to look up how they were supposed to reforge an item in an online guide or tool that had already determined the optimal choice. It added yet another step to the list of things that must be done to a new item before it was ready to be equipped, reducing the joy of getting an upgrade into a chore.



If an upgrade drops, we want you to be able to equip it with a minimum of fuss. It is for those reasons that we’re removing Reforging from the game.

The Reforging system and associated NPCs have been removed from the game.

All existing items that were reforged have been returned to their original un-reforged state.

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Combat Resurrections

Combat resurrections are an extremely powerful tool that players have while in combat. Naturally, we apply some limitations. In Mists of Pandaria, that limit was 1 resurrection during a given raid boss encounter for 10-player modes and 3 for 25-player modes. With Flexible difficulty introduced in Patch 5.4, we erred on the forgiving side, and gave Flexible Raids 3 resurrections regardless of raid size.



In Warlords of Draenor, the Flex tech has expanded to more difficulty levels, and we needed a new system to handle combat resurrections more fairly. We knew that continuing with a constant 3 would encourage using the smallest possible raid sizes, while scaling with hard breakpoints would discourage specific group sizes just under those points. Additionally, the limit is not shown anywhere in-game, so it can be easy to lose track of how many resurrections the raid has available (or even know that the limit exists).



So we’ve built a new system to be more transparent, and improve usability.

During a boss encounter, all combat resurrection spells now share a single raid-wide pool of charges that’s visible on the action bar button.

Upon engaging a boss, all combat resurrection spells will have their cooldowns reset and begin with 1 charge. Charges will accumulate at a rate of 1 per (90/RaidSize) minutes. Example 1: A 10-player raid will accumulate 1 charge every 9 minutes (90/10 = 9). Example 2: A 20-player raid will accumulate 1 charge every 4.5 minutes (90/20 = 4.5).

A charge will only be deducted when a combat resurrection is successful (when the target accepts the resurrection).

Raid frames now show a debuff indicating that a dead player has a pending combat resurrection available.

Outside of raid boss encounters, combat resurrection spells retain their normal cooldown behavior.

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Glyphs

We made several improvements to the Glyph system. While leveling, characters unlock Glyph slots at several specific levels. However, in order to get glyphs, characters need to visit an Auction House (and potentially pay way more gold than an average character of that level has yet), or know a Scribe from which to request them. To solve this, we've made characters learn some Glyphs automatically as they level. Additionally, we now have the ability to make some glyphs exclusive with each other, or require specific specializations.

Many glyphs have been removed, and many new glyphs have been added.

Exclusive categories have been added for some glyphs. Other glyphs from the same category cannot be applied at the same time.

Some glyphs are now exclusive to a specialization.

All classes now learn some of their Major Glyphs as they level. Recipes for these Glyphs have been removed. At level 25, the following Glyphs are automatically learned by characters of the appropriate class: Entangling Roots, Fae Silence, Ferocious Bite, Maul, Omens, Cat Form, Liberation, Pathfinding, Frost Nova, Blink, Fortuitous Spheres, Rapid Rolling, Victory Roll, Harsh Words, Flash of Light, Alabaster Shield, Dazing Shield, Avenging Wrath, Templar's Verdict, Levitate, Holy Fire, Fade, Deadly Momentum, Stealth, Flame Shock, Thunder, Frost Shock, Healing Wave, Spiritwalker's Grace, Siphon Life, Drain Life, Demon Training, Ember Tap, Long Charge, Victory Rush, Bloodthirst, Gag Order At level 50, the following Glyphs are automatically learned by characters of the appropriate class: Rebirth, Rejuvenation, Savagery, Mending, Chimera Shot, Black Ice, Polymorph, Spinning Crane Kick, Denounce, Divine Storm, Word of Glory, Reflective Shield, Smite, Mind Blast, Recuperate, Totemic Recall, Fear, Executor At level 60, the following Glyphs are automatically learned by characters of the appropriate class: Shifting Presences, Unholy Command, Death Grip At level 75, the following Glyphs are automatically learned by characters of the appropriate class: Death and Decay, Dash, Faerie Fire, Healing Touch, Master Shapeshifter, Misdirection, Slow, Frostfire Bolt, Water Elemental, Breath of Fire, Mana Tea, Fists of Fury, Light of Dawn, Final Wrath, Double Jeopardy, Penance, Renew, Dispersion, Ambush, Cheap Shot, Lightning Shield, Eternal Earth, Healthstone, Bull Rush, Enraged Speed, Shield Wall



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Professions

Some of our goals with Professions in Warlords of Draenor are to make them more of a personal choice, and less of a mandatory “min/max” selection. To that end, we're removing the direct combat benefits of Professions. Additionally, we've made it easier to level Mining and Herbalism. Healing Potions have gone mostly unused lately, compared to combat stat potions. We chose to solve that problem, along with a problem with Warlock utility, by having Healing Potions and Healthstones share cooldowns.

Herbalists can now harvest herbs throughout the game world without hard skill requirements. The yield an Herbalist will be able to harvest from each node is now determined by skill level.

Miners can now harvest mineral nodes in outdoor areas of the game world without hard skill requirements. The yield a Miner will be able to harvest from each node is now determined by skill level.

Healing Potions no longer share a cooldown with other potions, but instead share a 60-second cooldown with Healthstones. The cooldown will not reset until the player leaves combat.

Movement Speed enchants now increase Movement Speed by 10% (up from 8%).

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Class Changes

Death Knight

A number of changes were made for Death Knights. Several cooldowns were made spec-specific. Frost and Unholy's rotations remain unchanged for the most part. Blood received revisions to their Active Mitigation design to bring them up to par with changes to other Tanking specializations. Runic Power generation of Anti-Magic Shell was standardized, to make it more understandable and balanced.



Ability Pruning

See the Ability Pruning section above for a discussion of why we’re pruning class abilities. For Death Knights, this focused on removing abilities that were redundant, cooldown reduction, or abilities that were not used often.

Blood Parasites has been removed.

Blood Strike has been removed.

Dark Command is now only available to Blood Death Knights.

Dual Wield is now only available to Frost Death Knights.

Frost Strike replaces Death Coil for Frost Death Knights.

Obliterate replaces Blood Strike for Frost Death Knights.

Necrotic Strike has been removed.

Raise Dead is now only available to Unholy Death Knights.

Rune of Cinderglacier has been removed.

Rune of the Nerubian Carapace has been removed.

Unholy Frenzy has been removed.



Ability Consolidation and Refinement

The biggest change here is the merger of Blood Boil into Pestilence. This change effectively turned Roiling Blood into a passive ability; which we replaced with a new talent, Plaguebearer. For Blood specialization, we removed Rune Strike and are adjusting the cost of Death Coil so that it can be used in Rune Strike’s place.



Another change was to polish up the effect of diseases on the damage of other abilities. Diseases now do enough damage on their own to warrant using them. Having diseases act as multipliers on the damage of other abilities became extraneous and cluttered up the tooltips of those abilities. Those multipliers have been removed, and consolidated their benefits into the corresponding base spell. These changes also results in a slight reduction to ramp-up time.

Horn of Winter no longer generates Runic Power, has no cooldown, and lasts 1 hour.

Blood Boil has been removed and its effects have been merged into Pestilence. Pestilence now deals damage to all enemies within 10 yards, and spreads any diseases on targets hit to the other targets hit.

Army of the Dead now deals 75% less damage.

Master of Ghouls has been removed and its effects have been merged into the baseline Raise Dead ability for Unholy Death Knights.

Threat of Thassarian has been removed and its effects have been merged into Might of the Frozen Wastes.

Rune Strike has been removed. Blood Death Knights should now use Death Coil in its place.

Dancing Rune Weapon now lasts 8 seconds (down from 12 seconds).

Death Coil now costs 30 Runic Power (down from 40 Runic Power), and has a 40 yard range for both hostiles and allies. Sudden Doom no longer reduces the cost of Death Coil.

Icebound Fortitude now lasts 8 seconds (down from 12 seconds).

Roiling Blood has been removed and replaced with Plaguebearer, a new Level-56 talent for Death Knights. Plaguebearer causes Death Coil and Frost Strike to extend the duration of Frost Fever and Blood Plague, or add a stack of Necrotic Plague.

Pestilence now deals 50% more damage, but no longer deals additional damage for diseases being present on the target.

Pillar of Frost now increases Strength by 15% (down from 20%).

Obliterate now deals 25% more damage on both main and off-hand weapons, but no longer deals additional damage for each disease present on the target.

Rune of the Fallen Crusader now increases Strength by 20% (up from 15%).

Scourge Strike no longer deals additional damage for each disease present on the target. The ability now deals 100% Physical weapon damage, and 50% Shadow weapon damage. These two effects can independently critically hit.

Vampiric Blood now increases the amount of healing received by 15% (down from 25%). Glyph of Vampiric Blood now increases the amount of healing received by an additional 10% (down from 15%).





Frost Changes

In Mists of Pandaria, Frost Death Knights suffered from rotations that were designed to allow flexibility in ability usage, so that you could pool some resources in order to make decisions about which ones you spent and in which order. Dual Wield vs Two-Handed had different rotational priorities, with different strengths and weaknesses. However, tuning ended up such that you reached a point where you just had to spend all of your resources as fast as possible to avoid wasting any, and all of that depth went out the window. For Warlords, we’ve adjusted the tuning of several abilities and passives, to ensure that that doesn’t happen again, and the rotational decisions and skill are maintained.



The goal is that Two-Handed Frost Death Knights favor their physical damage, slicing through their enemies with heavy Obliterates, whereas Dual- Wielders favor blasting their foes with frost damage, but both overlap considerably to maintain a cohesive specialization.

Frost Strike’s damage has been increased by 100%, but its Runic Power cost has been increased by 5 (up to 25 Runic Power in Frost Presence, and 40 Runic Power in other Presences).

Icy Talons now increases attack speed by 20% (down from 45%), and haste by 5% (up from 0%).

Might of the Frozen Wastes now increases the damage of Obliterate by 50% (up from 40%) and melee damage by 35% (up from 30%) while wielding a two-handed weapon, and increases the damage of Frost Strike by 50% (up from 35%) while dual-wielding.

Razorice now deals 4% additional weapon damage (up from 2%), and increases Frost damage by 2% per stack (down from 3%).

Obliterate's damage has been increased by 30%.



Unholy Changes

In order to better balance the scaling rates and value of secondary stats for Unholy Death Knights, we reduced the power of their passive Unholy Might ability, and added a new passive ability to make Multistrike more effective.

Necrosis is a new passive ability for Unholy Death Knights. Necrosis causes Multistrikes from Festering Strike, Pestilence, Plague Strike, Scourge Strike, and Soul Reaper to also deal a burst of Shadow damage. The amount of burst damage is based on Attack Power, not the damage from the triggering Multistrike.

Unholy Might now increases Strength by 10% (down from 35%).



Blood Changes

Active Mitigation was a very successful design that was inspired by Death Knights' tanking style. However, it went beyond that, and Death Knights themselves were somewhat left behind in that regard. We made several changes to bring up the interactivity of Blood combat. This includes making Death Strike cause healing based on attack power, but be affected by the new Resolve passive (see Tank Vengeance and Resolve above), which gives it the traditional increase from recent damage. Plus, Rune Tap is being significantly improved, to become a strong Active Mitigation button.



Additionally, we removed Dodge and Parry from gear, and expect Blood Death Knights to value Haste and Crit as important secondary stats. In order to achieve that, we made Riposte give defensive value to Critical Strikes, and Scent of Blood give defensive value to Multistrike. To solve GCD- capping issues and increase the value of Haste, we also removed the passive rune regeneration increase from Improved Blood Presence. Finally, we tweaked the targeting AI of Dancing Rune Weapon, and fixed it up to properly copy most Talents that you know.

Blood Rites now also causes auto attack Multistrikes to generate 15 Runic Power. The Death Strike damage increase it provided has been moved to Veteran of the Third War.

Blood Presence now increases Stamina by 20% (down from 25%), and armor by 30% (down from 55%).

Bone Shield charges can now be consumed at a rate of once per second (up from once every 2 seconds).

Crimson Scourge now increases the damage of Pestilence by 50% (up from 10%) and now also increases the damage of diseases by 30%.

Dancing Rune Weapon’s summoned Rune Weapon now remains fixated on the Death Knight’s target at the time of summoning, and copies the effects of Talents that are tied to the Death Knight, such as Blood Boil, Frost Fever, or Asphyxiate. Should the original target be dead or otherwise unavailable, the Rune Weapon will switch to assist with the Death Knight’s current target.

Death Strike now causes healing that scales in effectiveness with attack power, instead of based on damage taken in the last 5 seconds. This healing is affected by Resolve.

Heart Strike has been removed. Blood Death Knights should use Pestilence in its place.

Improved Blood Presence now increases all damage dealt by 15%, instead of increasing rune regeneration rate.

Rune Tap has been redesigned. It now reduces all damage taken by 40% for 3 seconds. It also now has 2 charges, with a 40-second recharge time. Will of the Necropolis has been redesigned. It now automatically triggers an immediate, free Rune Tap when you take damage that reduces you below 30% health. This effect cannot occur more often than once every 30 seconds. Glyph of Rune Tap has been redesigned. It now reduces Rune Tap’s recharge time by 10 seconds, but reduces the damage reduction it provides by 20%.

Scarlet Fever has been removed. Its effects have been merged into Scent of Blood. Scent of Blood has been changed. It now causes Pestilence to refresh diseases, and increase the healing of your next Death Strike by 20%, stacking up to 5 times.

Veteran of the Third War now increases Multistrike chance, and haste by 10% (instead of 9% to Stamina), reduces the chance for attacks to be parried by 3%, increases the damage of Death Strike by 100%, and grants 1 Runic Power per second while in combat.



Death Pact

Since the Ghoul pet is now Unholy only, that presents a problem for Death Pact. We revised Death Pact to not require an undead minion, but work a little differently. We left it at 50% heal, which is effectively a 33% buff to it from before (see Retuning Healing Spells and Player Health and Resilience above), and added a healing absorption shield for 50% of the amount healed instead. It should now be a more effective heal for staying alive immediately, but with the downside of needing to heal through the healing absorption shield before being healed any further.

Death Pact no longer requires an undead minion, and instead places a healing absorption shield on the Death Knight for 50% of the amount healed.



Miscellaneous

There were also a few other miscellaneous changes. The Runic Power generation of Anti-Magic Shell was standardized, to make it more understandable and balanced. Level-60 and Level-75 talent rows have swapped places, so the important rune regeneration talents could be acquired earlier. Conversion was changed to cost different amounts by specialization, instead of reducing Runic Power generation differently by specialization. This way, Runic Power beyond what you spend on Conversion is not penalized.

Anti-Magic Shell now restores 2 Runic Power per 1% of max health absorbed.

Desecrated Ground now also makes the Death Knight immune to Roots and Snares.

Conversion no longer has an initial tick, and now costs 30 Runic Power/second for Blood, 10 Runic Power/second for Frost, and 20 Runic Power/second for Unholy.

Level-60 and Level-75 talent rows have swapped places.

Level-60 rune regeneration talents can now be triggered by all Runic Power spenders Blood Tap now generates one charge for every 15 Runic Power spent. Runic Empowerment now has a 1.5% chance to trigger per Runic Power spent. Runic Corruption now has a 1.5% chance to trigger per Runic Power spent.



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Druid

Ability Pruning

See the Ability Pruning section above for discussion of why we’re pruning class abilities. For Druids, we focused thinning out the niche and abilities that were not used often. We made sure to retain abilities for Druids to function in off-spec roles, since that flexibility is a defining characteristic of the class.

Barkskin is now available to Balance, Guardian, and Restoration Druids.

Enrage has been removed.

Faerie Fire is now available only to Feral and Guardian Druids.

Innervate has been removed.

Lacerate is now available only to Guardian Druids.

Leader of the Pack no longer restores Mana and is only available to Feral Druids. Mana regeneration has been increased by 100% for Feral and Guardian Druids.

Mangle (Cat Form) has been removed.

Maul is now available only to Guardian Druids.

Might of Ursoc has been removed.

Nature’s Swiftness is now available only to Restoration Druids.

Nourish has been removed.

Owlkin Frenzy has been removed.

Rip is now available only to Feral Druids.

Survival Instincts is now available only to Feral and Guardian Druids.

Swipe is now requires the Druid to be in Cat Form and is available only to Feral Druids.

Symbiosis has been removed.

Thrash is now available to all Druid specializations (was Feral and Guardian only).



Ability Consolidation and Refinement

For consolidation of abilities, we merged several passive abilities. One notable change is the merging of the Ravage into Shred, and Pounce into Rake; saving a couple keybinds that were only used in conjunction with Prowl.

Cat Form now increases movement speed by 30% (up from 25%).

Infected Wounds has been removed and its effects have been incorporated into Mangle and Shred for Feral and Guardian Druids.

Lifebloom can no longer stack, and its healing has been increased to compensate.

Omen of Clarity (Feral) now affects all Druid spells and abilities.

Rake now also stuns the target for 4 seconds if used while stealthed, and is only available to Feral Druids. Pounce has been removed and its effects have been incorporated into Rake.

Regrowth now has a duration of 12 seconds (up from 6 seconds), but no longer refreshes its duration on targets at or below 50% health.

Revive’s mana cost has been reduced by 87%.

Rip now has a duration of 24 seconds (up from 16 seconds), but its duration is no longer extended by Shred.

Shred no longer requires the Druid to be behind the target (See also: Facing Requirements.) and is now available to all specializations. Shred now deals 35% more damage in addition to having double the normal chance to critically strike while stealthed. Ravage has been removed and its effects have been incorporated into Shred.

Skull Bash no longer increases the mana cost of the victim’s spells.

Starfall no longer cancels when mounting. However, it can no longer hit stealthed or invisible targets.

Survival Instincts no longer requires or forces the Druid into Cat or Bear Form, and now lasts 6 seconds (down from 12 seconds) with a 2-minute cooldown (down from 3 minutes), and can have up to 2 charges (up from 1 charge).

Thick Hide has been removed and its effects have been incorporated into Bear Form. Bear Form now increases armor by 180% for all Druid specializations (down from 330% for Guardian Druids, but up from 120% for non-Guardian Druids), no longer increases Haste and Critical Strike from items by 50%, but instead causes Haste to reduce the global cooldown, increases Stamina by 20% (down from 40%), and reduces magic damage taken by 10% (down from 25%). For Guardian Druids, Bear Form now also reduces magical damage taken by 25%, reduces chance to be critically hit by 6%, and reduces chance for attacks to be parried by 3%.

Tiger’s Fury now lasts 8 seconds (up from 6 seconds) and is usable during Berserk.

Track Humanoids has been removed and its effects have been incorporated into Cat Form.

Travel Form now automatically transitions between Aquatic, Land, and Flight forms depending on the Druid’s location. Glyph of the Stag now teaches the Druid a separate shapeshift ability, Stag Form. Stag Form allows the Druid to act as a mount for party members and will not switch between different Travel Forms.

Wild Mushrooms no longer become invisible.



Guardian Changes

Guardian Druids had increased Armor as their Mastery for a while now. However, one of the new secondary stats available to all tanks is Bonus Armor. We didn't feel that the difference of being additive vs. being a multiplier was significant enough to warrant keeping their Mastery around. Additionally, active mitigation hasn't played out as well for Guardians as it has for some other tanks.



We decided to redesign the Mastery for Guardian Druids to something that compliments the Avoidance-heavy nature of Savage Defense, and also to improve the usability of Tooth and Claw for more consistent damage reduction. Note that Primal Tenacity's calculation uses the damage before any other absorbs you have, and before Tooth and Claw's effects, so that it isn’t negatively affected by any of the changes.



The maximum number of charges that can be accumulated for Savage Defense has been reduced to make its uptime more consistent between short and long periods of tanking. Rage for Guardian Druids has been problematic throughout Mists of Pandaria. Most of their rage generation was extremely passive, and most of their button presses either didn't affect their survivability, or only trivially did so. We made changes to Haste and Critical Strike, to try to solve these rage generation problems, and improve their rotation. We also added Ursa Major, in order to give a defensive value to the new Multistrike stat.

Guardian Druids' Mastery (Nature’s Guardian) has been replaced with a new Mastery: Primal Tenacity. Mastery: Primal Tenacity causes the Druid to gain a Physical absorb shield equal to 12% of the attack’s damage when they are hit by a Physical attack. Attacks which this effect fully or partially absorbs cannot trigger Primal Tenacity.

Ursa Major is a new passive ability for Guardian Druids. Ursa Major causes Multistrikes from auto attacks, Lacerate periodic damage, and Mangle to grant the Druid the Ursa Major effect. Ursa Major increases maximum health by 2% for 25 seconds. When the effect is refreshed, the remaining portion is added to the new effect.

Auto-attacks now generate 5 Rage (down from 10.9 Rage).

Bear Form no longer increases Haste and Critical Strike from items by 50%, but instead causes Haste to reduce the global cooldown.

Faerie Fire no longer has a chance to reset Mangle's cooldown.

Maul now costs 20 Rage (down from 30 Rage).

Mangle now generates 10 Rage (down from 15 Rage).

Lacerate now generates 2 Rage, has no cooldown (down from a 3-second cooldown), and the periodic bleed effect triggers every 1 second (down from 3 seconds).

Primal Fury now generates 5 Rage (down from 15 Rage) from non-periodic critical strikes (up from only Auto Attacks and Mangle).

Savage Defense can now accumulate 2 charges (down from 3 charges), and regenerates a charge every 12 seconds (up from 9 seconds).

Soul of the Forest (Guardian) now increases Mangle’s Rage generation by 5 (down from 10).

Thrash now generates 1 Rage every time it deals direct or periodic damage, has no cooldown (down from a 6-second cooldown), but no longer has a chance to reset Mangle's cooldown.

Tooth and Claw can now accumulate 2 charges, its effects stack on the target, and are affected by Resolve.



Feral Changes

Feral Druids received one major change, and few tweaks beyond what's been mentioned above in Ability Pruning and Facing Requirements. Combo Points are now stored "on the player", meaning that when you switch targets, any accumulated Combo Points remain with you. Primal Fury was changed to let it affect area attacks as well. Critical strike chance of Ferocious Bite was changed in order to increase the value of Critical Strike. Glyph of Savage Roar was reworked to better achieve its intended effect.

Combo Points for Feral Druids are now shared across all targets, and are no longer lost when switching targets.

Ferocious Bite now has double the normal chance to critically strike against bleeding targets (instead of having an additional 25% chance to critically strike).

Primal Fury now also grants a combo point for area attacks that critically strike the Druid's primary target.

Glyph of Savagery has been renamed Glyph of Savage Roar, and now grants a free 5 Combo Point Savage Roar when leaving Prowl, instead of allowing Savage Roar to be used with 0 Combo Points.



Balance Rebalanced

One of our guiding principles with game design is that things should be "easy to learn, hard to master"."

We have some extensive changes for Balance Druids. One of our guiding principles with game design is that things should be "easy to learn, hard to master". We're not particularly happy with the Moonkin rotation because it was actually hard to learn, and easy to master (especially with regards to periodic damage effects no longer snapshotting). Energy and Eclipse mechanics were not intuitive for many newer players. Once you became accustomed to the rotation, there wasn’t much additional depth to mastering it; maintain two DoTs, hit these other two buttons whenever they light up, and spam one of two buttons in between. In order to try to make it easier to learn, but also add some gameplay depth and challenge we're making a significant revision to the rotation. The list of changes is quite dense, so here’s a summary of the changes.



Summary of changes to Balance:

Balance Energy is a bar that automatically cycles back and forth between Lunar and Solar sides, like night and day. The closer to one end that the bar is, the more damage that side's spells do.

Balance Druids now have four rotational spells. Starfire: Lunar direct damage spell Cast when the Lunar side is stronger Wrath: Solar direct damage spell Cast when the Solar side is stronger Moonfire: Lunar periodic damage spell. While closer to Solar, this button is replaced with Sunfire, a Solar periodic damage spell. Maintain both effects where possible Starsurge: Direct damage spell that benefits from whichever side is stronger. Has up to 3 charges, and buffs the damage of the next few Wraths or Starfires. Cast when able to follow up with a few strong Wraths or Starfires.





That's the basics of the new Moonkin rotation. There’s room for improvement beyond that, learning to optimally maintain both periodic damage effects while maximizing their damage, timing Starsurges to optimize the benefit of its buff, make use of Starfall and Hurricane for area damage, and taking advantage of the strengths of each side (such as Moonfire and Sunfire having significant differences now). Here are the full details of the changes.

Details of changes to Balance:

Balance Energy system has been redesigned. Balance Energy is a bar that cycles back and forth between Lunar and Solar sides, like night and day, with a 40 second cycle time (from Lunar to Solar and back to Lunar). Balance Energy is no longer generated through spells, talents, or other effects anymore.

Eclipse has been redesigned. Eclipse inspires the Druid with the power of the moon and the sun, causing the damage of Lunar and Solar spells to be increased by up to 30% based on how close Balance Energy levels are to the appropriate side. Example: With 0 Balance Energy, the damage bonus is evenly split between Lunar and Solar, and the Druid receives a 15% increase to damage for both spell types. With 80 Solar Energy, the Druid receives a 27% damage increase to Solar spells and a 3% damage increase to Lunar spells. Mastery: Total Eclipse now increases the maximum damage bonus of Eclipse by 12% (increasing with Mastery). The damage of damage-over-time effects changes dynamically as Eclipse changes.

Astral Communion now increases the rate that Balance Energy cycles by 300% while channeled.

Astral Storm has been removed.

Celestial Alignment has been redesigned. Celestial Alignment causes the Druid to enter Celestial Alignment, a state where Balance Energy cycle is paused, all damage done is increased by 20%, and all Lunar and Solar spells benefit from the maximum Eclipse bonus. While in Celestial Alignment, Moonfire and Sunfire will also apply the other spell’s periodic damage effect. Lasts 15 seconds with a 3 minute cooldown.

Hurricane now has a range of 35 yards (up from 30 yards), but is only available to Balance and Restoration Druids.

Incarnation: Chosen of Elune now increases spell damage by 15% while active (was a 25% increase to Arcane and Nature damage, but only while Eclipse is active).

Lunar Shower has been redesigned and renamed into Astral Showers. Astral Showers calls upon greater Lunar and Solar energy to permanently empower the Druid's Moonfire and Sunfire spells. Moonfire's periodic damage effect duration is increased by 100%. Sunfire's periodic damage effect is now applied to all enemies within 5 yards of the target.

Moonfire now has a base duration of 20 seconds (up from 14 seconds), but is no longer extended by Starfire and Starsurge critical strikes. Upon reaching 100 Lunar Energy, the next Moonfire deals 100% additional initial damage.

Shooting Stars now adds 1 full charge of Starsurge and Starfall when it triggers, and now has a 5% chance to trigger when the most recent Moonfire or Sunfire deals periodic damage. This chance is doubled on critical strikes.

Soul of the Forest (Balance) has been redesigned. Soul of the Forest (Balance) now increases the damage bonus from Lunar and Solar Empowerment by an additional 15%.

Starfall now shares charges with Starsurge, and has no cooldown of its own. It also now hits all nearby enemies (up from 2 nearby enemies).

Starfire now has a 3 second cast time (up from 2.7 seconds).

Starsurge now has 3 charges and a 30 second recharge time (instead of a 15 second cooldown). Starsurge now also grants Lunar or Solar Empowerment. Lunar Empowerment causes the next 2 casts of Starfire to deal 30% more damage. Solar Empowerment causes the next 3 casts of Wrath to deal 30% more damage.

Sunfire is no longer its own spell and replaces Moonfire on the action bar whenever Balance Energy is on the Solar side. Sunfire now has a base duration of 24 seconds (up from 14 seconds), but is no longer extended by Wrath and Starsurge critical strikes. Enemies may still suffer from both Moonfire and Sunfire’s periodic damage components simultaneously. Upon reaching 100 Solar Energy, the next Sunfire deals 100% additional initial damage.

Wild Mushroom (Balance) now begins snaring enemies immediately when summoned, lasts 20 seconds, and can no longer be detonated to deal damage. Wild Mushroom: Detonate has been removed.





Tranquility Simplification

Tranquility has an amazingly strong effect (pour a ton of healing into the whole Raid/Party), but had excessive complexity for a relatively simple task (5 different targets per tick, a short HoT, stacking, varied strength by raid size). So, we simplified it significantly. It still will be used just as it always has been.

Tranquility now heals every Party and Raid member within range every 2 seconds for 8 seconds. It no longer places a periodic effect on each target. The total amount of healing it generates in Raids should be approximately the same as before this change.



Restoration Changes

Restoration Druids got a few changes as well. In Patch 5.4, a glyph was introduced where you could choose to attach your Efflorescence to Wild Mushroom, instead of to Swiftmend. That was a rousing success and the glyph was taken by nearly all Restoration Druids. It felt like a much better situation to us so we decided to remove the glyph, and bake that gameplay in permanently. Genesis and Wild Mushroom: Bloom fill a similar need for burst healing, so Wild Mushroom: Bloom has been removed; leaving Wild Mushroom to focus on the Efflorescence effect.



Secondly, while we are fine with the playstyle where a Restoration Druid blankets their Raid in Rejuvenations, the Swift Rejuvenation passive made that too strong, and limited their scaling with Haste. We removed that passive to encour