beta cataclysm classes preview

8/8/2019 Beta Cataclysm Classes Preview

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CATACLYSM

CLASSESPREVIEW

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm betawill bring with it several changes toclass talents and abilities. Here youwill get a glimpse into some of the

changes we have in store for ALLCLASSES. The information youreabout to read is not complete, and isonly meant to act as a preview forsome of the exciting new things tocome.


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Cataclysm Class Preview: Rogue

New Rogue Abilities

Redirect (available at level 81): Rogues will be getting a new ability to help them deal

with changing targets. Redirect will transfer any active combo points to the rogues

current target, helping to ensure combo points arent wasted when swapping targets or

when targets die. In addition, self-buff abilities like Slice and Dice will no longer

require a target, so rogues can spend extra combo points on those types of abilities

(more on this below). Redirect will have a 1-minute cooldown and no other costs.

Combat Readiness (level 83): Combat Readiness is a new ability that we intend rogues

to trigger defensively. While this ability is active, whenever the rogue is struck by a

melee or ranged attack, he or she will gain a stacking buff called Combat Insight that

results in a 10% reduction in damage taken. Combat Insight will stack up to 5 times and

the timer will be refreshed whenever a new stack is applied. Our goal is to make roguesbetter equipped to go toe-to-toe with other melee classes when Evasion or stuns are not

in play. This ability lasts 6 seconds and has a 2-minute cooldown.

Smoke Bomb (level 85): The rogue drops a Smoke Bomb, creating a cloud that

interferes with enemy targeting. Enemies who are outside the cloud will find themselves

unable to target units inside the cloud with single-target abilities. Enemies can move

inside the cloud to attack, or they can use area-of-effect (AoE) abilities at any time to

attack opponents in a cloud. In PvP, this will open up new dimensions of tactical

positional gameplay, as the ability offers a variety of offensive and defensive uses. In

PvE, Smoke Cloud can serve to shield your group from hostile ranged attacks, while

also drawing enemies closer without the need to rely on conventional line-of-sightobstructions. Smoke Cloud lasts 10 seconds and has a 3-minute cooldown.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

Were also planning to make changes to some of the other abilities and mechanics

youre already familiar with. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by

no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we want for

each spec.

In PvP, we want to reduce the rogues dependency on binary cooldowns andstun-locks, and give them more passive survivability in return. One majorchange is that well put Cheap Shot on the same diminishing return as other

stuns. The increase to Armor and Stamina on cloth, leather, and mail gear will

help with this goal as well.

In PvE, even accounting for active modifiers like Slice and Dice and Envenom,a very large portion of the rogues damage is attributable to passive sources of

damage. Yes, they are using abilities for the entire duration of a fight, but we

want to reduce the percentage ofrogue damage that comes from auto-attacks and

poisons. More of their damage will be coming from active abilities and special

attacks.

We would like to improve the rogue leveling experience. Positional attacks andDoT-ramping mechanics will be de-emphasized at low levels and then re-

introduced at higher levels for group gameplay. We are also providing rogues
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with a new low-level ability, Recuperate, to convert combo points into a small

heal-over-time (HoT).

To complement the change to combo points, non-damage abilities such asRecuperate and Slice and Dice will no longer have target requirements and can

be used with any of the rogues existing combo points, including combo points

remaining on recently killed targets. This will not affect damage abilities, whichwill still require combo points to be present on the specific target you want to

damage. To coincide with this, the UI will be updated so that rogues know how

many combo points they have active.

Ambush will now work with all weapons, but will have a reduced coefficientwhen not using a dagger. When opening from Stealth, all rogues will be able to

choose from burst damage, DoT abilities, or a stun.

As weve done recently with some of the Subtlety abilities, we want to makesure more rogue abilities arent overly penalized by weapon choice. With a few

exceptions (like Backstab), you should be able to use a dagger, axe, mace,

sword, or fist weapon without being penalized for most attacks.

Deadly Throw and Fan of Knives will now use the weapon in the ranged slot. Inaddition, we hope to allow rogues to apply poisons to their throwing weapons.

We are very happy with Tricks of the Trade as a general mechanic and as a wayto give rogues more group utility, but we dont want it to account for as much

threat transfer as it does now.

New Talents and Talent Changes

In Cataclysm, the overall feel of each of the rogues talent trees will change, as we

would like each tree to have a clearly defined niche and purpose. The talent details

below are meant to give you an idea of what were going for.

Assassination will be more about daggers, poisons, and burst damage. Combat will be all about swords, maces, fist weapons, axes, and being engaged

toe-to-toe with your enemies. A Combatrogue will be able to survive longer

without needing to rely on Stealth and evasion mechanics.

The Subtlety tree will primarily be based around utilizing Stealth, openers,finishers, and survivability. Itll be about daggers, too, but less so than

Assassination.

In general, Subtlety rogues needs to do more damage than they do today, and theother trees need to have more tools.

Weapon-specialization talents (for all classes, not just rogues) are going away.We do not want you to have to respec when you get a different weapon.

Interesting talents, such as Hack and Slash, will work with all weapons. Boring

talents, such as Mace Specialization and Close Quarters Combat, will be going

away.

The Assassination and Combat talent trees currently have a lot of passivebonuses. We plan to dial back the amount of Critical Strike Rating provided by

these trees so that rogues still want it on their gear.
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Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Assassination

Melee damage

Melee critical damage

Poison damage

Combat

Melee damage

Melee Haste

Harder-hitting combo-point generators

Subtlety

Melee damage

Armor Penetration

Harder-hitting finishers

The initial tier ofrogue Mastery bonuses will be very similar between the trees.

However, the deeper that a player goes into any tree, the more specialized and beneficial

the Masteries will be to the play style for that spec. Assassination will have better

poisons than the other two specs. Combat will have very steady and consistent overall

damage. Subtlety will have strong finishers.
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Cataclysm Class Preview: Shaman

New Shaman Spells

Primal Strike (available at level 3): Primal Strike is a new weapon-based attack that

every shaman will learn very early in the game. Our goal with this ability is to make

leveling as Enhancement rather than as Elemental more viable, since many key

Enhancement talents become available at fairly high levels.

Healing Wave (level 4): While the shaman already has an ability called Healing Wave,

were adding another spell to the classs direct-healing arsenal and giving it a familiar

name. The current Healing Wave will be renamed Greater Healing Wave, and the intent

is for the new Healing Wave to be the shamans go-to heal. Lesser Healing Wave and

Greater Healing Wave will be used on a more situational basis.

Unleash Weapon (level 81): Unleashes the power of your weapon enchants foradditional effects (see below). A dual-wielding Enhancement shaman will activate the

effects of both of their weapon enchants. Instant cast. 30-yard range. 15-second

cooldown. Undispellable.

Here are a few examples of effects were considering for this ability:

- Windfury Weapon Hurls a spectral version of your weapon at a target,

dealing 50% weapon damage and increasing the shamans Haste for the next

five swings.

- Flametongue Weapon Deals instant Fire damage and buffs the shamans nextFire attack by 20%.

- Earthliving Weapon Heals the target slightly and buffs the shamans next

healing spell by 20%.

Healing Rain (level 83): An area-effect heal-over-time (HoT) spell that calls down rain

in a selected area, healing all players within it. There is no limit to the number of

players who can potentially be affected; however, there are diminishing returns when

healing a large number of targets, much like the diminishing returns associated with

AoE damage spells. This should give Restoration shaman another healing tool that

improves their group-healing and heal-over-time capabilities. 2-second cast time. 30-

yard range. 10-second duration. 10-second cooldown.

Spiritwalkers Grace (level 85): When this self-targeted buff is active, your spells are

no longer interrupted by movement and possibly even by your own attacks. This will

give shaman of all three specs another way to heal or do damage when its necessary to

move in both PvE and PvP. Instant cast. 10-second duration. 2-minute cooldown.


In addition to adding new spells, were planning to make changes to some of the other

abilities and mechanics youre familiar with. This list and the summary of talent
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changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good

sense of what we intend for each spec.

Restoration shaman and other healing classes will need to pay attention to manamore than theyve had to during Wrath of the Lich King. Spirit will be the

Restoration shamans primary mana-regeneration stat. Were making changes to which classes and specs are able to dispel magic,

diseases, curses, and poison, largely for PvP purposes. Shaman will have

Cleanse Spirit as a baseline ability, but it will only remove curses. Restoration

shaman will have a talent that will improve Cleanse Spirit so that it also removes

magic. Shaman will no longer be able to remove poison.

Cleansing Totem will be removed from the game, as we want dispels to be adecision for players, not something done mindlessly. To that end, all dispels will

cost slightly more mana, and you will waste the spell if you cast it when there is

nothing to remove. (Currently, the dispel is only cast when there is something to

remove, which encourages spamming just in case.) We will balance PvE

dispelling with this new model in mind. Totem of Wrath now will replace Flametongue Totem for all shaman, and

dropping this totem will buff the groups spell power by 4%. Elemental shaman

will have a talent that lets all Fire totems provide +10% spell power, allowing

them to drop Searing, Magma, or Fire Elemental Totems without losing their

spell-damage buff. The 4% and 10% buffs will be exclusive with each other and

with the warlocks Demonic Pact, so you cant benefit from all of them at once.

Were also considering letting Elemental drop Searing Totem at range.

We want to free up Enhancement global cooldowns to make the spec moredynamic to play. Were considering, for example, increasing the cooldown of

Lava Lash so shaman have time to work other interesting abilities into their

rotation.


Elemental Reach will be simplified so shaman have a more consistent spellrange.

We plan to add Earthquake as a deep Elemental talent for targeted and persistentAoE.

Spirit Link will likely be worked back into deep Restoration in some form. Theidea is that you will be able to link targets together so they share damage. When

we had previously tried to implement Spirit Link, it was hard to balance and alittle confusing. However, we really liked the concept and so did players

so we are trying to bring it back.

Elemental will have a deep talent that allows Spirit (which will appear on thegear they share with Restoration shaman) to boost their Hit rating.

Ancestral Knowledge will boost mana pool size, not Intellect. Enhancing Totems will be replaced with Focused Strikes, which will improve

the damage of the new spell Primal Strike and Stormstrike.

With the Mastery system, were also considering removing a number of talentsthat grant passive bonuses, such as Mental Quickness, Improved Windfury

Totem, Mental Dexterity, Call of Thunder, Tidal Mastery, Purification, Natures

Blessing, and others, to allow players more freedom to choose more interestingtalents.
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Elemental

Spell damage

Spell Crit

Elemental Overload

Enhancement

Melee damage

Melee Haste

Nature Damage

Restoration

Healing

Meditation

Deep Healing

Elemental Overload: Your direct-damage spells have a chance to proc a less powerful

bonus version of the spell. This will work much like the current Lightning Overload

talent, but would also apply to Lava Burst.

Nature Damage: This will provide a passive bonus to the Nature damage dealt by the

Enhancement shaman.

Deep Healing: Your direct heals will do more healing when the targets health is lower.

This will scale to damage (e.g. someone at 29% health would receive more healing than

someone at 30%) rather than have arbitrary break points.
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Cataclysm Class Preview: Death Knight

New Death Knight Abilities

Outbreak (level 81): Outbreak infects the target with both Frost Fever and Blood

Plague at no rune cost. This ability allows death knights to apply diseases quickly when

they are switching targets or when their diseases have been dispelled.

Necrotic Strike (level 83): Necrotic Strike is a new attack that deals weapon damage

and applies a debuff that absorbs an amount of healing based on the damage done. For

context, imagine that the death knight can choose between doing 8,000 damage outright

with a certain ability, or dealing 6,000 damage and absorbing 4,000 points in incoming

heals with Necrotic Strike the burst is smaller, but a larger overall amount of healing

would be required to bring the target back to full health.

This ability is meant to bring back some of the old flavor from when death knightscould dispel heal-over-time (HoT) effects. It also gives the class a bit more PvP utility

without simply replicating a Mortal Strike-style effect.

Dark Simulacrum (level 85): The death knight strikes a target, applying a debuff that

allows the death knight to copy the opponents next spell cast and unleash it. Unlike

Spell Reflection, DarkSimulacrum does not cancel the incoming spell. In general, if

you cant reflect an ability, you wont be able to copy it either.

Rune System Changes

While were satisfied with the way the rune system works overall, were making a fewmajor changes to the mechanics that will ultimately help death knight players feel less

constrained. Heres the rationale behind the changes, followed by an explanation of how

the new system will work.

In the current rune system, any time a rune is sitting idle, death knights arelosing out on potential damage output. By comparison, rogues spend most of

their time at low energy levels, and if theyre unable to use their skills for a few

seconds, that energy builds up and can be spent later, minimizing the net loss

from the interruption.

A death knights runes, on the other hand, cannot be used until they are fullyactive. If a death knight ever goes more than a few seconds without spending anavailable rune, that resource is essentially wasted. Because the death knight is

pushing buttons constantly, it can be difficult to add new mechanics to the class

because the player doesnt have any free global cooldowns to use them. We

cant grant extra resources or reduced cost, because there is no time to spend

them. Missing an attack is devastating, and its impossible to save resources for

when theyre most useful.

Additionally, each individual death knight ability has a fairly low impact on itsown, making it feel like most of the death knights attacks are weak. The death

knights rotations are also more easily affected by latency or a players timing

being just a little off. At times, it feels like death knights arent able to take

advantage of their unique resource mechanic, which can diminish the fun.
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The new rune system will change how runes regenerate, from fillingsimultaneously to filling sequentially. For example, if you use two Blood runes,

then the first rune will fill up before the second one starts to fill up. Essentially,

you have three sets of runes filling every 10 seconds instead of six individual

runes filling every 10 seconds. (Haste will cause runes to fill faster.) Another

way to think of this is having three runes that go up to 200% each (allowingextra storage), rather than six runes that go up to 100% each.

As this is a major change to the death knights mechanics, it will of courserequire us to retune many of the classs current abilities. For example, each

ability needs to hit harder or otherwise be more meaningful since the death

knight is getting fewer resources per unit of time. Some abilities will need to

have their costs reduced as a result.

Talent Changes

Next well outline some of the death knight talent-tree changes were planning in

Cataclysm. This list is by no means comprehensive, but it should give you a sense ofhow were intending each death knight spec to perform.

One of the biggest changes were making is converting Blood into a dedicatedtanking tree. While we feel that having three tanking trees was successful

overall, its less necessary in a world with dual-specialization. In addition, the

current breakdown isnt as compatible with the Mastery-based passive talent-

tree bonuses we want to add (see below). Wed rather spend time tweaking and

balancing one good tanking tree rather than having a tank always wondering if

they picked the correct tree out of three possibilities.

Blood seemed like the best fit for tanking. Unholy has always had a strong nichewith diseases, magic, and command over pets. Frost now feels like a solid dual-

wield tree with Frost magic damage and decent crowd control. Bloods niche

was self-healing fitting for a tank as well as strong weapon swings, which

could easily be migrated to Frost and Unholy.

Our plan is to move the most interesting and fun tanking talents and abilities toBlood. For example, you will likely see Vampiric Blood and Will of the

Necropolis remain, while Bone Shield will move over from Unholy.


BloodDamage reduction

Vengeance

Healing Absorption

Frost

Melee damage

Melee Haste

Runic Power Generation
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10/29

Unholy

Melee damage

Melee and spell critical damage

Disease Damage

Healing Absorption: When you heal yourself, youll receive an additional effect thatabsorbs incoming damage.

Runic Power Generation: This will function as the name implies, and the new rune

system will make generating Runic Power more appealing.

Disease Damage: Unholy death knights will be able to get more out of their diseases,

which are integral to the trees play style.

Vengeance: This new mechanic is designed to ensure that tank damage output (and

therefore threat) doesnt fall behind as damage-dealing classes improve their gear

during the course of the expansion. All tanking specs will have Vengeance as theirsecond talent tree passive bonus. Whenever a tank gets hit, Vengeance will grant a

stacking Attack Power buff equal to 5% of the damage done, up to a maximum of 10%

of the characters unbuffed health. For boss encounters, we expect that tanks will

always have an Attack Power bonus equal to 10% of their health. The 5% and 10%

bonuses assume 51 talent points have been put into the Blood tree; these values will be

smaller at lower levels.

You only get the Vengeance bonus if you have spent the most talent points in the Blood

tree, so you wont see Frost or Unholy death knights running around with it. Vengeance

will let us continue to design tankgear more or less the way we do today; there will be

some damage-dealing stats, but mostly survival-oriented stats. Druids typically have

more damage-dealing stats even on their tanking gear, so their Vengeance benefit may

be smaller, but the goal is that all four tanks will do about the same damage when

tanking.
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11/29

Cataclysm Class Preview: Priest

New Priest Spells

Heal (available at level 16): While priests already have a spell called Heal, the existing

version becomes obsolete at higher levels, which is something we intend to change in

Cataclysm. Introduced at a low level, the new Heal spell will functionally work much

like a down-ranked Greater Heal did in the past, adding more granularity to your direct-

healing arsenal. If you need to heal someone a moderate amount and efficiency is an

issue (making Flash Heal the incorrect spell for the job), then Heal is what you want to

use. Heal is intended to be the priests go-to direct-healing spell unless they need

something bigger (Greater Heal) or faster (Flash Heal). We will be following a similar

philosophy with all the healing classes.

Mind Spike (level 81): Deals Shadowfrost damage and puts a debuff on the target that

improves subsequent Mind Spike damage. The intent of Mind Spike is to fill a nichemissing in Shadow DPS, though it may be occasionally useful for healers as well. Mind

Spike provides a quick nuke to use in situations where the priest doesnt have time to

set up the normal rotation, such as when adds are dying too fast or you have to swap

targets a lot. Spamming Mind Spike will do about as much damage as casting Mind

Flay on a target afflicted with Shadow Word: Pain. The idea behind the debuff is that

when you cast Mind Spike, we expect you to cast a lot of them; we dont intend you to

fit it into an already full Shadow rotation. It also provides Shadow with a spell to cast

when locked out of the Shadow school. (School lockouts will no longer affect both

schools for multi-school spells.) 1.5-second cast. 30-yard range. No cooldown.

Inner Will (level 83): Increases movement speed by 12% and reduces the mana cost ofinstant-cast spells by 10%. This buff will be exclusive with Inner Fire, meaning you

cant have both up at once. Inner Fire provides a spell power and Armor buff; Inner

Will should be useful on a more situational basis.

Leap of Faith (level 85): Pull a party or raid member to your location. Leap of Faith (or

Life Grip) is intended to give priests a tool to help rescue fellow players who have

pulled aggro, are being focused on in PvP, or just cant seem to get out of the fire in

time. Instant. 30-yard range. 45-second cooldown.


In addition to introducing new spells, were planning to make changes to some of the

other abilities and mechanics youre familiar with. This list and the summary of talent



All HoTs and DoTs will benefit from Haste and Crit innately. Hasted HoTs andDoTs will not have a shorter duration, just a shorter period in between ticks

(meaning they will gain extra ticks to fill in the duration as appropriate).

We want to bring back Shadow Word: Death as an execute something youdo when the target is at 25% health.

While we want to keep the priests role as a well-rounded healer, we also wantto make sure the class is a viable tank healer, which is something priests moved
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away from a little in Wrath of the Lich King. Greater Heal will probably be the

tank-healing spell of choice, though weve also discussed giving Discipline a

second shield so that they have a small shield to cast on lots of different targets,

and a big, more expensive shield to cast on a tank or anyone else taking a ton of

damage.

Divine Spirit and Prayer of Spirit will be removed from the game. As Spirit willbe the primary mana-regeneration stat, we dont want it to vary as much between

solo, small group, and raid play. Blessing of Kings and Mark of the Wild will

not boost Spirit either.

Mana will be a bigger consideration for all healers. We arent trying to makehealing more painful; were trying to make it more fun. When the cost of a spell

isnt an issue, then casting the right spell for the job is less of an issue because

you might as well just use your most powerful spell all of the time. We are,

however, getting rid of the five-second rule, because we dont want to encourage

standing around doing nothing. Were also going to cut back on the benefits of

buffs such as Replenishment so priests (and all healers) dont feel as penalized

when those buffs arent available.


We want to improve Disciplines single-target healing capacity. One key is tomake sure shielding isnt always a more attractive option than healing.

We want to improve Holy for PvP healing. One way to do this is to make surethat Heals throughput is similar between both specs.

We want to improve Shadow for short fights and reduce its susceptibility toschool lockouts.

Discipline will finally be getting Power Word: Barrier as a talented ability.Think of it like a group Power Word: Shield.

We want to make Holy a little bit more interesting to play. One new talent willpush the Holy priest into an improved healing state when he or she casts Prayer

of Healing, Heal, or Renew three times in a row. The empowered state varies

depending on the heals cast.

Since the Shadow tree has a lot of passive damage-boosting abilities something were trying to avoid in Cataclysm we will need to replace several

of the trees talents. One idea is to play off of the new Shadow Orbs mechanic

(see Mastery section below), possibly allowing you to consume an orb to

increase damage from Mind Blast or reduce Mind Spikes cast time.

Misery will no longer affect spell Hit chance. We want players to be able to gearthemselves around a Hit cap that isnt variable depending on group composition.


Discipline

Healing

Meditation

Absorption
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13/29

Holy

Healing

Meditation

Radiance

ShadowSpell damage

Spell Crit

Shadow Orbs

Absorption: Improves the strength of shields such as Power Word: Shield, Divine

Aegis, and Power Word: Barrier.

Radiance: Your direct heals add a small heal-over-time component to the target.

Shadow Orbs: Casting spells grants a chance for Shadow Orbs to be created that fly

around you and increase your shadow damage. This will help lower-level characters feelmore like Shadow priests before they obtain Shadowform.
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14/29

Cataclysm Class Preview: Mage

New Mage Spells

Flame Orb (available at level 81): Inspired by Prince Taldarams abilities in

Ahnkahet and Icecrown Citadel, this spell allows the mage to cast a flaming orb that

travels in front in a straight line, sending beams that cause fire damage to passing

targets. Once its cast, the mage is free to begin casting other spells as the Flame Orb

travels. While the spell will be useful to any spec, Fire mages will have talents that

improve it, possibly causing the Flame Orb to explode when it reaches its destination.

Time Warp (level 83): Grants a passive Haste effect much like Bloodlust or Heroism to

party or raid members. It also temporarily increases the mages own movement speed.

Time Warp will be exclusive with Bloodlust and Heroism, meaning you cant benefit

from both if youve got the Exhaustion debuff, though the movement-speed increase

will still work even when under the effects of Exhaustion.

Wall of Fog (level 85): Creates a line of frost in front of the mage, 30 yards from end to

end. Enemies who cross the line are snared and take damage. The mana cost will be

designed to make Wall of Fog efficient against groups, not individuals. This spell is

intended to give mages a way to help control the battlefield, whether the mage is

damaging incoming enemies (Blizzard can be channeled on top of Wall of Fog) or

protecting a flag in a Battleground. 10-second duration. 30-second cooldown.


In addition to introducing new spells, were planning to make changes to some of theother abilities and mechanics youre familiar with. This list and the summary of talent



Arcane Missiles is being redesigned to become a proc-based spell. Whenever themage does damage with any spell, there is a chance for Arcane Missiles to

become available, similar to how the warriors Overpower works. The damage

and mana cost of this spell will be reworked to make it very desirable to use

when available. This change should make gameplay more dynamic for the mage,

particularly at low levels.

We are planning to remove spells that dont have a clear purpose. AmplifyMagic, Dampen Magic, Fire Ward, and Frost Ward are being removed from the

game, and we may remove more.

The ability to conjure food and water will not become available until higherlevels (likely around level 40), as were making changes to ensure mages

generally wont run out ofmana at lower levels. Once mages learn how to

conjure food and water, the conjured item will restore both health and mana.

Scorch will provide a damage bonus to the mages fire spells. Our goal is forScorch to be part of the mages rotation and a useful damage-dealing ability,

even if someone else is supplying the group with the spell Critical Strike debuff.

Scorch will provide the mage with more specific benefits, which can also be

improved through talents.
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15/29


Arcane Focus will now return mana for each spell that fails to hit your target,including Arcane Missiles that fail to launch. We want Arcane mages to have

several talents that play off of how much mana the character has and give the

player enough tools to manage mana. The talent Playing with Fire will reduce the cooldown of Blast Wave when hit

by a melee attack, instead of its current effect.

Pyromaniac will grant Haste when three or more targets are getting damaged bythe effects of your damage-over-time (DoT) fire spells.

The Burnout talent will allow mages to cast spells using health when they runout ofmana.


Arcane

Spell damageSpell Haste

Mana Adept

Fire

Spell damage

Spell Crit

Ignite

Frost

Spell damage

Spell Crit damage

Deathfrost

Mana Adept: Arcane will deal damage based how much mana the mage has. For

example, Arcane mages will do much more damage at 100% mana than at 50% mana. If

they begin to get low on mana, they will likely want to use an ability or mechanic to

bring their mana up to increase their damage.

Ignite: All direct-damage fire spells will add a damage-over-time (DoT) component

when cast. The flavor will be similar to how Fireball works; however, the DoT

component will be much stronger.

Deathfrost: Casting Frostbolt places a buff on the mage that increases the damage for

all frost, fire, and arcane spells. The only damage spell that wont be affected by this

buff is Frostbolt.

We hope you enjoyed this preview, and were looking forward to hearing your initial

thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this

information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on

Cataclysm continues.
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16/29

Cataclysm Class Preview: Druid

New Druid Abilities

Thrash (Level 81): Thrash deals damage and causes all targets within 10 yards to bleed

every 2 seconds for 6 seconds. The intent here is to give bears another button to hit

while tanking. Talents will affect the bleed, such as causing Swipe to deal more damage

to bleeding targets. 5-second cooldown. 25 Rage.

Stampeding Roar (Level 83): The druid roars, increasing the movement of all allies

within 10 yards by 40% for 8 seconds. Stampeding Roar can be used in cat or bear

form, but bears might have a talent to drop the cooldown. The goal of this ability is to

give both bears and cats a little more situational group utility. 3-minute cooldown. No

cost.

Wild Mushroom (Level 85): Grows a magical mushroom at the target location. After 4seconds the mushroom becomes invisible. Enemies who cross the mushroom detonate

it, causing it to deal area-of-effect damage, though its damage component will remain

very effective against single targets. The druid can also choose to detonate the

mushroom ahead of time. This is primarily a tool for the Balance druid, and there will

be talents that play off of it. No cooldown. 40-yard range. Instant cast.


In addition to the new abilities listed above, we intend to make changes to some of the

other abilities and mechanics with which youre already familiar. This list and the

summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they shouldgive you a good sense of our goals for each spec.

All heal-over-time spells (HoTs) will benefit from crit and haste innately inCataclysm. Hasted HoTs do not reduce their duration, but instead add additional

HoT ticks. Haste will also benefit Energy generation while in cat form.

Unlike the other healers, Restoration druids will not be receiving any new spells.They have plenty to work with already, and our challenge instead is to make

sure all of them have a well-defined niche. A druid should be able to tank-heal

with stacks of Lifebloom, spot-heal a group with Nourish and Regrowth, and top

off lightly wounded targets with Rejuvenation.

We want to add tools to cat form and depth to bear form. If a Feral cat is goingto fill a very similar niche to that of a rogue, warrior or Enhancement shaman, it

needs a few more tools primarily a reliable interrupt. Bears need to be

pushing a few more buttons just so the contrast between tanking and damage-

dealing is not so steep.

Barkskin will be innately undispellable. We will be buffing the damage of Mangle (cat) significantly so that when cat

druids cannot Shred, they are not at such a damage-dealing loss.

Druids will lose Abolish Poison with the dispel mechanics change, butRestoration druids will gain Dispel Magic (on friendly targets) as a talent. All

druids can still remove poisons with Cure Poison and remove curses with

Remove Curse.
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Tree of Life is changing from a passive talent to a cooldown-based talent,similar to Metamorphosis. Mechanically, it feels unfair for a druid to have to

give up so much offense and utility in order to be just as good at healing as the

other classes who are not asked to make that trade. We are exploring the exactbenefit the druid gets from Tree of Life. It could strictly be better healing, or it

could be that each heal behaves slightly different. You also will not be able to be

banished in Tree of Life form (this will probably be true of Metamorphosis as

well). Additionally, we would like to update the Tree of Life model so that it

feels more exciting when you do decide to go into that form. Our feeling is that

druids rarely actually get to show off their armor, so it would be nice to have at

least one spec that looked like a night elf or tauren (and soon troll or worgen) for

most of the time.

We want to make the Feral cat damage rotation slightly more forgiving. We donot want to remove what druids like about their gameplay, but we do want to

make it less punishing to miss, say, a Savage Roar or Rake. The changes herewill be on par with increasing the duration of Mangle like we did for patch 3.3.3.

Balance druids will have a new talent ability called Natures Torrent, whichstrikes for either Nature or Arcane damage depending on which will do the most

damage (or possibly both), and moves the Eclipse meter more (details below).

The improved version of Natures Torrent also reduces the targets movement

speed. 10-second cooldown.

Restoration druids will have a new talent called Efflorescence, which causes abed of healing flora to sprout beneath targets that are critically healed by

Regrowth.

We plan on giving Feral cats and bears a Kick/Pummel equivalent aninterrupt that is off the global cooldown and does no damage. We feel like they

need this utility to be able to fill the melee role in a dungeon or raid group, and

to give them more PvP utility.

We want to make sure Feral and Balance druids feel like good options for anArena team. They need the tools to where you might consider a Feral druid over

an Arms warrior, or a Balance druid over a mage or warlock. Remember that the

PvP landscape will probably look pretty different for Cataclysm with a focus on

rated, competitive Battlegrounds.


Balance

Spell Damage

Spell Haste

Eclipse

Feral (Cat)

Melee Damage

Melee Critical Damage

Bleed Damage

Feral (Bear)Damage Reduction
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18/29

Vengeance

Savage Defense

Restoration

Healing

MeditationHoT Scale Healing

Eclipse: We are moving Eclipse from a talent into a core mechanic of the class and

making it less random. Balance druids will have a new UI element that shows a sun and

a moon. Whenever they cast an Arcane spell, it will move the UI closer to the sun, and

buff their Nature damage. Whenever they cast a Nature spell, it will move the UI closer

to the moon, and buff their Arcane damage. The gameplay intention is to alternate

Arcane and Nature spells (largely Starfire and Wrath) to maintain the balance.

Bleed Damage and Savage Defense: Feral druids will receive two sets of passive

bonuses depending on whether the druid is in cat or bear form. Bleed Damage will beimproved for cats. Savage Defense is the current bear mechanic for converting crits into

damage absorption and will be improved for bears.

HoT Scale Healing: HoTs will do increased healing on more wounded targets. The

mechanic is similar to that of the Restoration shaman, but with HoTs instead of direct

heals. In Cataclysm, we anticipate druids using a greater variety of their spells so there

is a distinction between healing and HoT healing.

Vengeance: This is a mechanic to ensure that tankdamage (and therefore threat)

doesnt fall behind as damage-dealing classes improve their gear during the course of

the expansion. All tanking specs will have Vengeance as their second talent tree passive

bonus. Whenever a tankgets hit, Vengeance will give them a stacking attack power buff

equal to 5% of the damage done, up to a maximum of 10% of the characters unbuffed

health. For boss encounters we expect that tanks will always have the attack power

bonus equal to 10% of their health. The 5% and 10% bonuses assume 51 talent points

have been put into the Feral tree and the druid is in bear form these values will be

smaller at lower levels. Remember, you only get this bonus if you have spent the most

talent points in the Feral tree and are in bear form, so you wont see Balance,

Restoration, or Feral druids in cat form running around with it. Vengeance will let us

continue to make tankgear more or less the way we do today there will be some

damage-dealing stats, but mostly survival-oriented stats. Druids typically have moredamage-dealing stats even on their tanking gear, so the Vengeance benefit may be

smaller, but overall the goal is that all four tanks do about the same damage when

tanking.
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Cataclysm Class Preview: Paladin

New Paladin Spells

Blinding Shield (level 81): Causes damage and blinds all nearby targets. This effect

might end up only damaging those facing the paladins shield, in a manner similar to

Eadric the Pures ability Radiance in Trial of the Champion. The Holy tree will have a

talent to increase the damage and critical strike chance, while the Protection tree will

have a talent to make this spell instant cast. 2-second base cast time. Requires a shield.

Healing Hands (level 83): Healing Hands is a new healing spell. The paladin radiates

heals from him or herself, almost like a Healing Stream Totem. It has a short range, but

a long enough duration that the paladin can cast other heals while Healing Hands

remains active. 15-second cooldown. 6-second duration.

Guardian ofAncient Kings (level 85): Summons a temporary guardian that looks likea winged creature of light armed with a sword. The visual is similar to that of the

Resurrection spell used by the paladin in Warcraft III. The guardian has a different

effect depending on the talent spec of the paladin. For Holy paladins, the guardian heals

the most wounded ally in the area. For Protection paladins, the guardian absorbs some

incoming damage. For Retribution paladins, it damages an enemy, similar to the death

knight Gargoyle or the Nibelung staff. 3-minute cooldown. 30-second duration (this

might vary depending on which guardian appears).

Next you will find a list of some of the paladin spell and ability changes, followed by

our intentions for improving each talent tree for the release of Cataclysm. There will be

further changes, but those revealed below should offer some insight into our goals.


Crusader Strike will be a core ability for all paladins, gained at level 1. We thinkthe paladin leveling experience is hurt by not having an instant attack.

Retribution will be getting a new talent in its place that either modifies Crusader

Strike or replaces it completely.

Cleanse is being rebalanced to work with the new dispel system. It will dispeldefensive magic (debuffs on friendly targets), diseases, and poisons.

Blessing of Might will provide the benefit of Wisdom as well. If you have twopaladins in your group, one will do Kings on everyone and the other will doMight on everyone. There should be much less need, and ideally no need, to

provide specific buffs to specific classes.

Holy Shock will be a core healing spell available to all paladins.New Talents and Talent Changes

We want to ease off the defensive capabilities ofRetribution and Holy paladinsslightly. We think the powerful paladin defenses have been one of the things

holding Retribution paladins back, especially in Arenas. One change were

considering is lowering Divine Shields duration by a couple of seconds. Having

said that, Retribution does pretty well in Battlegrounds, and Battlegrounds will

be a much bigger focus in Cataclysm since they can provide the best PvP

rewards. Furthermore, the healing environment of Cataclysm is going to be
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different such that a paladin may not be able to fully heal themselves during the

duration of Divine Shield to begin with, so this may not be a problem.

We feel Retribution paladins need one more mechanic which involves some riskof the player pushing the wrong button, making the rotation a bit less forgiving.

In addition, we want to add to this spec more PvP utility. Right now the

successes of the Retribution paladin in PvP seem to be reduced to either doingdecent burst damage, or just being good at staying alive.

We want to increase the duration of Sacred Shield to 30 minutes and keep thelimit to one target. The intention is that the paladin can use it on their main

healing target. That said, we would like to improve the Holy paladin toolbox and

niche so that they dont feel quite like the obvious choice for tank healing while

perceived as a weak group healer.

We want to add to the Holy tree a nice big heal to correspond with Greater Heal.Flash of Light remains a fast heal, but will be more expensive to justify the cast

speed. Holy Light will be the go-to heal that has average efficiency and

throughput. Beacon of Light needs to be changed so that its benefit is letting the

paladin heal two targets at once, not letting the paladin get two heals for themana cost of one. Its intended to save GCDs and targeting time, not mana.

Holy paladins will use spirit as their mana regeneration stat. Protection paladins need a different rotation between single-target and multi-

target tanking. Likewise, were looking to add the necessity to use an additional

cooldown in each rotation.

Holy Shield will no longer have charges. It will be designed to improve blockchance while active, and will continue to provide a small amount of damage and

threat.


Holy

Healing

Meditation

Critical Healing Effect

Protection

Damage Reduction

Vengeance

Block Amount

Retribution

Melee Damage

Melee Critical Damage

Holy Damage

Meditation: This is the spirit-to-mana conversion that the priest, druid, and shaman

healers also share.

Vengeance: This is the damage-received-to-attack-power conversion that all tanks

share.

Critical Healing Effect: When the paladin gets a crit on a heal, it will heal for more.
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Block Amount: We want to keep the kit of the paladin as a tank who blocks a lot. So

by contrast, the warrior tank will sometimes get critical blocks, but the paladin will

absorb more damage with normal blocks.

Holy Damage: Any attack that does Holy damage will have its damage increased.


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Cataclysm Class Preview: Hunter

New Hunter Abilities

Cobra Shot (level 81): A new shot that deals Nature damage instead of Physical

damage. This ability will share a cooldown with Steady Shot. This will give hunters an

alternative to Steady Shot on heavily-armored targets, and we will have talent incentives

in the Beast Mastery tree to make this a signature shot.

Trap Launcher (level 83): When used, the next trap can be shot to a location within 40

yards. This provides the current Freezing Arrow treatment to all traps and, as a result,

we will be removing the current ability Freezing Arrow. 1-minute cooldown. No global

cooldown.

Camouflage (level 85): The hunter enters an obscured state that prevents him or her

from taking ranged damage. The character would still be subject to melee or area-of-effect attacks, and dealing or taking damage will break the Camouflage effect. The

hunter can move and set traps when under Camouflage, and will receive a damage

bonus when attacking while under Camouflage (which will then break the effect).

Resource Mechanic Change

Here we come to the meat of the upcoming hunter changes.

Hunters will no longer use mana; instead the class will use Focus. Focusgenerates much like Energy, by building up. It will not be affected by Intellect at

all. Haste will improve its generation. Hunters will generate roughly 6 Focus persecond, slightly less than rogues Energy generation rate of around 10 Energy

per second. Below, we have listed some examples of how we intend Focus costs

to operate:

o Steady Shot/Cobra Shot: No cost. Generates 9 Focus per shot (or 12 persecond instead of 6).

o Arcane Shot/Chimera Shot /Explosive Shot: 45 Focus.o Aimed Shot/Multi-Shot: 60 Focus.o Concussive Shot/Tranquilizing Shot: 35 Focus.o Rapid Fire/Masters Call/Disengage: 30 Focus.


In addition to the resource change and new abilities listed above, we intend to make

adjustments to some of the other abilities and mechanics you already know well. This

list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but

they should give you a good sense of what were going for with each spec.

A major change coming for the hunter is the removal of ammunition. Guns,bows, and crossbows will now do damage without consuming ammunition at all.

There will be no more ammo slot on the hunters character display. Any

ammunition that a hunter has at the time of the change will become gray sellable

items. Existing quivers will be converted into large bags though each hunter
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can only have one and non-hunters will not benefit from this change and we

will not be making any additional quivers.

Pet management will also change. Hunters will now have two types of attainablepets: active pets and stored pets. Hunters will be able to have up to three active

pets (perhaps five for Beast Mastery specialized players) and will have the

ability to switch among these pets any time they are out of combat, withoutgoing to town. They will also be able to have a large number of pets in storage at

the stables. In order to swap a pet from active to passive, a hunter will still need

to visit their local Stable Master. However, this should afford ample storage for

the many Spirit Beasts wandering the lands of Azeroth.

Additionally, hunters will now start with a race-appropriate pet at level 1 andwill be able to tame a different pet at level 10. We are also changing many pet

family abilities to provide important buffs and debuffs. The intention is to allow

the hunter to be able to swap pets and fill a position if a certain role is missing

from the group. The goal is to have all pets provide a damage increase that is

very similar and no greater than any other pet. Some examples of the changes

we are making to the pet families are listed below:o Wind Serpents: Will provide a debuff that increases the amount of spell

damage taken by an enemy (similar to a weaker version of the warlock

ability Curse of Elements).

o Ravagers: Will provide a debuff that will increase an enemys Physicaldamage vulnerability (similar to a weaker version of the warrior ability

Blood Frenzy).

o Hyenas: Will provide bleed damage (similar to a weaker version of thedruid ability Mangle).

Stings and other periodic effects will now benefit from haste and critical strikeratings. Hasted damage-over-time abilities do not lose duration, but instead add

additional damage ticks.

Viper Sting will now restore 9 Focus every 3 seconds. We are reinforcing hunters as a ranged class. To this end, the class will now start

with ranged abilities at level 1, and we will be removing some melee abilities,

such as Mongoose Bite.


Beast Mastery hunters will have a new talent called Careful Aim, whichincreases the damage of the next Steady Shot or Cobra Shot, but also increases

the cast time of these abilities. The intention is to make the combination ofspellsinto a decent damage opener, especially in conjunction with the new ability

Camouflage.

Beast Mastery hunters will also have talents that make Cobra Shot superior toSteady Shot, such as Longevity reducing the cast time of Cobra Shot to 1.5

seconds.

Rapid Recuperation will cause Rapid Fire to give 20/40/60 Focus immediatelyand will cause Rapid Killing to generate 3 Focus per second.

Efficiency will reduce the Focus cost of Chimera Shot, Aimed Shot, and ArcaneShot.

Thrill of the Hunt grants Focus when you land a critical strike. Hunter vs. Wild increases the hunters Focus generation when his or her pet issnared, stunned, or rooted.
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Beast Mastery

Ranged Damage

Haste

Pet Damage

Marksmanship

Ranged Damage

Armor Penetration

Double Shot

Survival

Ranged Damage

Ranged Critical Damage

Elemental Damage

Pet Damage: Many of the passive benefits to pet damage will no longer be available in

the Beast Mastery talent tree. However, these will be provided through the new Mastery

mechanic.

Double Shot: The hunter will have a chance to launch a free attack off of the global

cooldown for 50% damage.

Elemental Damage: Hunter abilities such as traps, Black Arrow, and Explosive Shot

will do elemental damage of the following types: Improves the Arcane, Fire, Frost,

Nature or Shadow damage of abilities like traps, Black Arrow and Explosive Shot.
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Cataclysm Class Preview: Warlock

New Warlock Spells

Fel Flame (level 81): Quick-hitting spell dealing Shadowfire damage. This is similar to

the mage ability Frostfire Bolt, in that the lower of the two resistances (in this case

shadow and fire) on your target will be used for calculating its damage. Additionally,

Fel Flame refreshes the duration of Immolate and Unstable Affliction. Our goal for Fel

Flame is to provide a spell thats good for mobility and for use by Destruction and

Demonology specs. Also, did we mention it uses green fire? Yep. Instant cast.

Dark Intent (level 83): Increases the targets chance for a critical effect with periodic

damage or healing spells by 3%. When the target lands a crit, you get a buff to your

damage for 10 seconds. This effect stacks up to three times.

Demon Soul (level 85): Fuses the warlocks soul with his or her demon. This provideswarlocks with a self-burst cooldown to use. The specific effects granted by Demon Soul

depend on the demon chosen. Demon Soul lasts for a certain number of charges or until

it expires (around 20 seconds), depending on the demon used. 2-minute cooldown.

Soul Shard Overhaul

This major change regarding Soul Shards was previously announced at BlizzCon 2009.

Soul Shards will no longer be inventory items, but instead a new UI resource mechanic.

Warlocks will have 3 Soul Shards that can be used during a fight and will not be able to

gain additional shards during combat. Soul Shards will not be required outside of

combat. Soul Burn will consume a Soul Shard resource, thereby allowing you to use thesecondary effects of some spells. Soul Burn has no mana or health costs and is off the

global cooldown. Planned secondary effects are outlined here.

Summon Demon + Soul Burn = summon the demon instantly. Drain Life + Soul Burn = Reduces cast speed by 60%. Demonic Circle + Soul Burn = Increases movement speed by 50% for 8 seconds

after teleporting.

Unstable Affliction + Soul Burn = Instantly deals damage equal to 30% of itseffect.

Soul Fire + Soul Burn = Instant cast. Healthstone + Soul Burn = Increases total health by 20% for 8 seconds. Searing Pain + Soul Burn = Increases the crit chance of Searing Pain by 100%,

and subsequent Searing Pain spells by 50% for 6 seconds.

Next you will find a list of some of the warlock spell and talent changes for the release

of Cataclysm. There will be further changes, but those revealed below should offer

some insight into our goals.


All warlock damage-over-time (DoT) spells will benefit from crit and hasteinnately. Haste will no longer act to reduce the DoTs duration, but rather to add

additional ticks. When reapplying a DoT, you can no longer clip the final tick.
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Instead, this will just add duration to the spell, similar to how Everlasting

Affliction currently works.

Curse of Agony and Curse of Doom will be converted into Bane of Agony andBane of Doom. Bane spells are considered magic instead of curses. This means

you will be able to cast one Bane (e.g. Bane of Agony) and one Curse (e.g.

Curse of Elements) on a single target. Hellfire will no longer deal damage to the warlock. Imps will lose Fire Shield, but will gain a new ability, Burning Ember, which is

a stacking DoT.

The succubus melee range will be increased. The succubus will no longer haveSoothing Kiss, but will instead have Whiplash, which knocks back all enemies

within 8 yards.

Voidwalker Torment will do increased damage and generate a lot of area-of-effect (AoE) threat. Suffering will become a single-target taunt.


Pandemic will now cause Drain Soul to refresh Unstable Affliction and Bane ofAgony on targets below 25% health.

The ability Fel Domination will be removed (because Soul Burn accomplishesthe same effect).

Demonology will gain a new direct-damage spell, Demon Bolt. Demon Bolt willadd a debuff that improves the damage done by the demon to the target.

We plan to add a new talent, Impending Doom, which will give certain spells achance to reduce the cooldown on Metamorphosis and Curse of Doom.

Metamorphosis will no longer be subject to demonic crowd control.Furthermore, abilities available only while under the effects of Metamorphosis

will be altered to put more emphasis on the warlocks own spells.

Shadowburn will now do additional damage to targets below 25% health.Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Affliction

Spell Damage

Spell Crit

Shadow DoTs

DemonologySpell Damage

Spell Haste

Demon Damage

Destruction

Spell Damage

Spell Critical Damage

Fire Direct Damage

Shadow DoTs: The damage caused by Shadow damage-over-time spells is increased.

Demon Damage: The damage caused by pets and Metamorphosis is increased.
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Cataclysm Class Preview: Warrior

New Warrior Abilities

Inner Rage (Level 81): Whenever the character reaches a full 100 Rage, he or she will

gain a buffthat causes attacks to consume 50% more Rage and do 15% more damage

for a short amount of time. This is a passive ability so it wont need to be activated by

the player. The goal for this ability is to provide a benefit for hitting max Rage instead

of it feeling like a penalty. However, we also dont want warriors to feel like theyre

supposed to pool Rage and do nothing until they hit 100, so well be closely monitoring

how this plays out during the beta testing, and making adjustments as needed.

Gushing Wound (Level 83): This ability will apply a bleed effect to the target. If the

target moves, the bleed gains an extra stack and refreshes its duration, up to a maximum

of three stacks. The ability is currently planned to have no cooldown, cost 10 Rage, and

have a 9-second duration. Gushing Wound is designed to be weaker than Rend with onestack, but better with three stacks, which will be reached when fighting a moving target.

Heroic Leap (Level 85): This ability makes the character leap at their target and apply

the Thunder Clap ability to all enemies in the area when they land. Heroic Leap will be

usable in Battle Stance and shares a cooldown with Charge, but the Juggernaut and

Warbringertalents will allow Heroic Leap to be used in any stance and possibly while

in combat. The cooldown for this ability might be longer than the Charge ability, but it

will also apply a stun effect so you can make sure the target will still be there when you

land.


In addition to learning new abilities, youll see changes to other abilities and mechanics

with which youre already familiar. This list and the summary of talent changes below it

are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we

intend for each spec.

Heroic Strike will no longer be an on next swing attack, as we are removingthis mechanic in Cataclysm. To keep the niche of Heroic Strike as a Rage dump,

it will become an instant attack, but will cost between 10 and 30 Rage. This

ability will not be usable until you have 10 Rage, but if you have more than 10,

it will consume up to 30, adding additional damage for each point ofRageconsumed above the base 10. Other abilities, such as Cleave, Execute, and Maul

(for druids) will work similarly. The goal is to provide players with an option

where if you cant afford the Rage, you dont push the button, but if you have

excess Rage, you can push it a lot.

Battle Shout, Commanding Shout, and possibly Demoralizing Shout will workmore like the death knights Horn of Winter ability. Specifically, these shouts

will cost no resources, generate rage in addition to their current effects, and be

on a short cooldown.

Whirlwind will hit an unlimited number of targets, but only for 50% of weapondamage. The intent is for this ability to be used in multi-target scenarios and not

on single targets.
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Overall, heals cast by players in Cataclysm will be a lower number relative toplayers health than the current game. So to make the Mortal Strike debuff less

mandatory but still useful in PvP, Mortal Strike will reduce healing by only

20%. All equivalent debuffs, including the Shadow priest and Frost mage

debuffs,

beta cataclysm classes preview

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