Yet Another Warlock Nerf

Is it my imagination or is Blizzard just trying to come up with more reasons to grind honor?
This baby will cost us 40,000 honor points for a whooping amount of 25 resilience. Another must-have for serious PvPers, but again, that's going to be a boring grind again just like Battlemaster.
I'm guessing the trinket will be changed soon and require a personal rating of 2000.

> New Medallion

That's right, the old Life Tap is back. I'll sound like an ass now but I expected it, nobody can hate warlocks that much. LT will surely see some changes in the future, but nothing as drastic like now.
Hopefully the devs won't put this crap back.

> Life Tap Changes Reverted

It looks like those fake 2.4 patch notes weren't completely fake after all.
Here's the recent class changes from mmo-champion:

Druid

• Lifebloom healing coefficient has been reduced.
• Many shapeshift form tooltips have been updated to be consistent with each other.
• Nurturing Instinct increases your healing spells by up to 50/100% of your Agility, and increases healing done to you by 10/20% of your Attack Power while in Cat form.

Hunter

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

Mage

• Arcane Fortitude now increases your armor by an amount equal to 100% of your Intellect, up from 50%.
• Blink, Slow, and Spellsteal have all had their mana cost reduced.
• Icy Veins no longer stacks with Bloodlust/Heroism.
• Improved Fire Ward has become Molten Shields.
• New Talent: Molten Shields will cause your Fire Ward to have a 10/20% chance to reflect Fire spells while active. In addition, your Molten Armor has a 50/100% chance to affect ranged and spell attacks.

Paladin

• Resistance Auras: It is no longer possible for two Paladins in the same party to make it appear that players have two of the same resistance aura active.
• Righteous Defense: This spell will now always be castable on friendly npcs.
• Seal of Blood: This ability will no longer cause spell pushback for the Paladin with this seal active.
• Turn Undead(Rank 3):This spell has been reworked and has been renamed to “Turn Evil”. It will now work on Demons in addition to Undead. Turn Evil is subject to diminishing returns, and lasts 10 seconds in PvP.

Priest

• Chastise no longer disorients the target, but now is instant cast and roots the target for 2 seconds.
• Focused Will now reduces damage by 2/3/4%, down from 1/3/5%.
• Power Infusion: Infuses the target with power, increasing their spell haste by 20% for 15 seconds.

Rogue

• Improved Backstab is now called Puncturing Wounds.
• Puncturing Wounds increases your critical strike chance with Backstab by 10/20/30%, and the critical strike chance with your Mutilate ability by 5/10/15%.
• Improved Sprint: This ability will now always remove Entangling Roots.

Shaman

• Ghost Wolf: Cast time reduced to 2 seconds, down from 3.
• Nature’s Swiftness and Elemental Mastery now share a 10 second cooldown.
• Tremor Totem now pulses every 3 seconds, down from 4.

Warlock

• Blood Pact now has a tooltip.
• Demonic Sacrifice: Now works properly in sanctuary regions (such as Shattrath City and the Stair of Destiny).
• Nether Protection: The buff from this talent will no longer interrupt capturing PvP flags and bases.

It will be interesting to see how some of these changes will affect smaller arena brackets, especially 2v2. Paladins should finally be able to do something against warlocks, since their Holy Shock is buffed moderately, and Turn Evil working on pets should give them a chance to drink also.

I'm sure a lot of shaman will easily find 2 talent points to get improved Ghost Wolf in enhancement tree, which will then make it instant cast. Tremor Totem changes will mostly benefit versus warlocks, but we'll destroy them anyway.

Rogues are getting buffed again (what a surprise!), Improved Backstab talent will improve Mutilate damage, in addition to Backstab. I guess too many of them specced Shadowstep as Blizzard wanted.

As for priests, with Power Infusion's spell haste they will spam Mana Burns like mad; I would lie if I said I like it.

Feral druids are getting a nice buff, but it won't help them one bit. There's still not much utility they can bring as restoration druids, especially in 2v2. Restoration set's 4-piece bonus will be changed to a bonus to Regrowth. I was just getting used to the run speed increase, but the nerf is necesarry so I can live with it. I'm not too happy about Lifebloom nerf either; yes, druids are strong healers in 2v2, but I'm afraid this will have huge impact in PvE where I don't feel as strong as some other classes.

There's no word about warlock's pets not scaling, so the change is either delayed or indeed a bug.

Here's something non-class related.
A few new neck pieces dropped from Twin Eredar on PTR, which have resilience. Sin'Dorei Pendant of Conquest, Salvation and Triumph.
If you missed my rant about such items check it out here, but I'll say it again, get PvP items away from PvE!

> New class changes in 2.4

It seems warlock and hunter pets are currently not scaling with their master's stats anymore. The only stats which they get are spell damage, intellect and armor, but no stamina or attack power.
What this means, other than being the biggest warlock nerf ever, is that your Felhunter will have about 3000 health, which will make it completely useless in PvP.

There's a few threads about it already (here, here, here and here) so it seems it's not an isolated issue.
Someone did the math in one of those threads, and here's what Felguards look like now:

Example: Felguard
Pre and Post current 2.4 fix.

Pre:
6200ish hp base
1247 attack power base.

Post:
3600 hp base.
343 attack power (no modification from gear)

There's dozens of threads on official forums for a few months now about hunter and warlock pets, all asking for buffs and more scaling, especially getting a part of master's resilience. Our pets are too squishy each passing day, while other classes get more and more damage. It seems Blizzard is doing exactly the opposite.

This issue is not yet confirmed by blues, so it's unknown if this is a bug or an intended change, but I certainly hope it's a bug. This change alone is enough to bring SL/SL and Demonology warlocks to extinction.

It doesn't look like patch 2.4 will change much about class (im)balance, but there are some interesting changes so far. Looks like we'll be doing the same thing again: farm reputation, Badges of Justice, and honor.
Here's what awaits those of us on the frontlines.

New PvP cloaks, this time with spell haste:


Battlemaster's Alacrity is a new BM trinket, again with spell haste:



This head enchant might be useful for those with poor PvP gear and lack of stamina and resilience:


New battleground repeatable quest (you can complete this as many times you want per day, but you'll get the gold only once):




And here's some new welfare gear for you scrubs:

Druid
Dragonhide Battlegear
- 2 pieces: +35 Resilience Rating.
- 4 pieces: Increases your movement speed by 15% while in Bear, Cat, or Travel Form. Only active outdoors.

Kodohide Battlegear
- 2 pieces: +35 Resilience Rating.
- 4 pieces: Increases your movement speed by 15% while in Bear, Cat, or Travel Form. Only active outdoors.

Wyrmhide Battlegear
- 2 pieces: +35 Resilience Rating.
- 4 pieces: Increases your movement speed by 15% while in Bear, Cat, or Travel Form. Only active outdoors.

Hunter
Stalker’s Chain Battlegear
- 2 pieces: +35 Resilience Rating.
- 4 pieces: Reduces the cooldown of your Concussive Shot by 1 sec.

Mage
Evoker’s Silk Battlegear
- 2 pieces: +35 Resilience Rating.
- 4 pieces: Reduces the cooldown of your Blink spell by 2 sec.

Paladin
Crusader’s Ornamented Battledgear
- 2 pieces: +35 Resilience Rating.
- 4 pieces: Reduces the cooldown of your Hammer of Justice by 10 sec.

Crusader’s Scaled Battledgear
- 2 pieces: +35 Resilience Rating.
- 4 pieces: Reduces the cooldown of your Hammer of Justice by 10 sec.

Priest
Mooncloth Battlegear
- 2 pieces: +35 Resilience Rating.
- 4 pieces: Reduces the duration of the Weakened Soul effect caused by your Power Word: Shield by 2 sec.

Satin Battlegear
- 2 pieces: +35 Resilience Rating.
- 4 pieces: Reduces the duration of the Weakened Soul effect caused by your Power Word: Shield by 2 sec.

Rogue
Opportunist’s Battlegear
- 2 pieces: +35 Resilience Rating.
- 4 pieces: Reduces the cooldown of your Gouge ability by 1 sec.

Shaman
Seer’s Linked Battlegear
- 2 pieces: +35 Resilience Rating.
- 4 pieces: Reduces the cooldown of your Stormstrike ability by 1 sec.

Seer’s Mail Battlegear
- 2 pieces: +35 Resilience Rating.
- 4 pieces: Improves your chance to get a critical strike with all Shock spells by 2%.

Seer’s Ringmail Battlegear
- 2 pieces: +35 Resilience Rating.
- 4 pieces: Reduces the cooldown of your Nature’s Swiftness ability by 24 sec.

Warlock
Dreadweave Battlegear
- 2 pieces: +35 Resilience Rating.
- 4 pieces: Reduces the casting time of your Fear spell by 0.2 sec.

Warrior
Savage Plate Battlegear
- 2 pieces: +35 Resilience Rating.
- 4 pieces: Reduces the cooldown of your Intercept ability by 5 sec.

New enchant, Deathfrost. I'll leave the math to others but it looks interesting for PvP:

Credits to Mmo-champion and WoR.

> Patch 2.4 - PvP additions

It's probably fake, but still there are some stuff here that should (not) be changed in near future.
I won't list all of them, but only those I find particularly good or dumb.

• Silence and Interrupt effects are now subject to diminishing returns.

Won't happen.

The Backpack has been redesigned. It will now start as a 10 slot bag, but it will gain 2 slots every 10 levels. New characters will be given an additional 6 slot bag. Existing characters below level 30 may have items moved to their mailbox that no longer fit in their Backpack. Players affected by this should also find a 6 slot bag in their mailbox.

That would mean 22 slots on level 70. I had my own suggestions about bags but this doesn't sound bad either. Too bad it probably won't happen.

The human Diplomacy racial now also increases healing received by 3%.

Lol ye right...

Cyclone now has a 15 sec cooldown.

It needs a nerf, but a 15 second cooldown sounds a bit too harsh.

Frenzied Regeneration: The amount of health restored now scales slightly with bonus healing effects.

It's something I've wanted for quite some time now, but not like this. Sure it has its uses when you're being smashed in PvP as bear, but it should also be increased by your strenght or agility so it would be more useful for tanking as well. Trading 100 rage for 2500 health is a high cost.

Celestial Focus: This talent now also reduces the cooldown of Cyclone by 5/10/15 sec.

Didn't we just nerf it?

Shredding Attacks: This talent now also gives the critical strikes from your Claw, Shred, Mangle and Maul abilties a 50/100% of reducing the effectiveness of the next direct healing spell on your target by 20%.

I like it - feral druids might have a chance to kill a healer with this.

Ice Lance now has a 6 sec cooldown.

Ice lance spam ftw. As much as I'd like to see it nerfed, its not necesarry.

Holy Shock: The cooldown has been reduced to 12 sec, from 15 sec and the amount of damage and healing done has been slightly increased.

Just give paladins a HoT and be done with it. But this sounds good also.

Mana Burn now has a 6 sec cooldown.
The effects of your Mana Burn and Fade spells now scale slightly with Shadow spell damage.
Focused Power: This talent now also reduces the cooldown of Mana Burn by 0.5/1 sec.

If additional Shadow damage effects Mana Burn, a cooldown would be nice.

Rogues can now generate combo points on up to 3 targets at any one time.

Reminds me of hunter's deadzone removal, kinda. A limitation you had to live with. It might also have an impact on Shadowstep's usefulness.

Cloak of Shadows: The cooldown has been increased to 2 min, from 1 min.

Please do it, please please please... /beg

Your Sap and Distract abilities no longer require targets to be out of combat.
Sap now has a 15 sec cooldown.

Cheap Shot, Kidney Shot, mace stun, Gouge, Blind, AND Sap? Gtfo.

Preparation once again resets the cooldowns of all your Rogue abilities.
Premeditation and Preparation talents have swapped locations.

Fake. It never reseted the cooldowns of all rogue abilities. And if it did reset the cooldown on Adrenaline Rush, there's no point since you can't have both AR and Preparation with this change.

Ghost Wolf now frees the Shaman from movement impairing effects when cast, renders the Shaman immune to polymorph effects and can no longer be dispelled.

There's so many possibilities with this I won't even try to think about it.

Windfury Weapon now only grants 1 extra attack and the bonus attack power granted has been reduced by approximately 19%, but the chance to proc has been increased. Overall shamans should see more consistent dps.
Windfury Totem: The attack power bonus has been reduced by approximately 46%, but the chance to proc has been slightly increased. Overall the totem should see a slight decrease in effectiveness.

No need to nerf it in my opinion.

Pets will now receive a percentage of their master's resilience and an additional percentage of their master's stamina.

It shouldn't be a percentage of resilience, rather a full benefit. As for stamina, more health is also always welcome, and probably necesarry.


> 2.4 Patch notes

The latest 2.3.2 news surprised me today. I didn't expect a rogue nerf at least till 2.4, but AR/Prep was more ez-mode than SL/SL.

* Ambush: The damage multiplier on this ability has been increased from 250% to 275%.
* Hemorrhage: This ability now correctly does additional damage when its debuff has already been applied.
* Preparation now resets the cooldown of Shadowstep and no longer resets the cooldown of Adrenaline Rush.
* Shadowstep now adds a 3 second, 70% movement speed increase.
* Sinister Calling now also increases the percentage damage bonus of Hemorrhage and Backstab by 2/4/6/8/10%.

If you're a rogue, you can pretty much choose any spec atm and you'll be fine in PvP. That's hardly the case with other classes - some don't even have one decent talent tree.

Anyway, back to the point. I've read Ming's post today and it kinda makes me sick the more I look at it.

Also, a lot of people probably didn't notice this, as a hero of the rogue community, as soon as I saw the 110% hemo nerf, I posted two bug threads on PTR and bug forum

Self-proclaimed hero of the rogue community my ass... It's not the first time he said something like that either. Seriously, it was funny when Athene did it but in Ming's case it's just pathetic. But that's just me. I bet half of Ming's visitors would spec 0/0/61 if he said so.

Rogue needs damage more than anything else and even with AR/prep there are plenty of classes that can eat two AR's and still wreck us 1v1. Rogue's overall success (class as a whole, there will always be special players with special teammates like XOM) is still not top tier in anything other than 3v3.

*cough* roflcraptastic *cough*
Not even warriors can beat you, and they're your counter class (as much as I hate using this term).

We do have the best balanced talent trees with this change, unfortunately the best balanced class tends to be the weakest class as well.

Are you fuckin' kidding me? I thought you said rogues were finally the strongest class? No golden age?

Your Ambush is buffed (hello, anyone noticed?), Shadowstep's tooltip will soon cover half of your screen, and still rogues complain. Not to mention the class got quite a few buffs in 2.3.
To all those 'ima gonna reroll' rogue whiners out there - AR/Prep needed a nerf, face it. Rogues are fine, its a l2p issue.

Hate me, flame me, nerf me, unsubscribe me, /ignore me... I can't help it. I'm probably the only guy in the known universe who hates Ming, but I do. There, I said it.

> Ming sucks!

I finally had some time to check out the new patch myself, so here's some things I noticed.

New cooking daily quest ain't that bad - I can finally get some Golden Fish Sticks without actually having fishing. You wouldn't believe but I actually had a hard time finding Monstrous Kaliri; usually they are the ones trying to find me.


Still didn't get my Tattered Hexcloth Sack nor have I seen Zul'Aman, but I'm getting close.


It seems Primal Nether can no longer be looted unless you have a profession that can use it.


I played a bit with the guild bank, and claimed the first slot for myself. It's great not having to relog now to get bandages or potions.


Battleground preparation time is great. Also, there's always a kind mage now who casts Ritual of Refreshment before the battle begins, so I can easily stack food for the whole day.


I don't think this was in the patch notes either - trinkets now show cooldown in spell description. A+


The number of Marks of Honor we get in mailbox is now also displayed without opening the mail first. Small change but hey, I noticed!


Daily quests for heroic instances have nice money rewards, but I'd rather get a bonus Badge of Justice instead of Ethereum Prison Key, especially since Mechanar is nerfed. My days of farming consortium reputation are long gone. Actually the quest in this image is for non-heroic instance, that's why you dont' get Badge of Justice.
Be careful with the chests in Hellfire Ramparts and Mechanar - supposedly you have to loot them first or you won't get Badge of Justice. Or something like that. Don't worry, it will be fixed in 2.4.


I hate it. I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it .....


Unfortunately, we don't get 4000 honor points, but 419 ain't such a bad bonus either, plus a bit of cash. Too bad it took me 2 and a half hours to win Arathi Basin. I guess alliance started winning more since noob classes like hunters and rogues got buffed (yes, flame me), and oh boy they got plenty of those.

Hehe's some other posts from the blogosphere which weren't published in time for my yesterday's 2.3 impressions.

• Wowinsider reports about Chaotic Skyfire Diamond dropping only for jewelcrafters. I can semi-confirm that: I had a non-jc friend farm it for several hours without a drop, and it dropped for some other guy who was a jewelcrafter within minutes. Also check WI's Zul'Aman preview.

• Warlock Therapy needs some therapy. Seems two Azure Whelpings aren't enough so he had to farm more.

• Kat got fish tracking! My fishing is still stuck on 229 for months now, maybe it's time to level it up.

• For Amava Knows Aggro the patch went pretty smooth, and also likes the hunter deadzone removed, but also raises a good point: the deadzone was part of the challenge of being a hunter. I have to agree on that - whenever I fought a good hunter, it was nearly impossible to get in his deadzone.

• White Whisker has some tips for Zul'Aman Bear, Eagle and Lynx bosses.

• Someone is worried mostly about double-freezing. I'm not much of an expert when it comes to hunters, but I'd like to point out that you can't fear two targets at the same time, nor sap, nor polymorph them.

• Mystic Chicanery ... well, just read it!

• Kaestrel's Aerie has the same problems with Auctioneer as me.

• Is Kaliope ever doing anything but farming?

Now post a comment on this post or I swear my next 10 posts will be rants and whining about hunters!

> 2.3 second impressions

• World of Raids reports about undocumented changes. I especially like the one about T6 Resto Shaman gear not having token cost.
  

• You can read about 2.3 from a warrior's perspective on Warriorpwns and The Positive Warrior.
  

• Jagoex from Warlock Therapy got Azure Whelping. Grats!

• Karthis talks about addon issues and Karazhan.

• Frostbolt.com has some Zul'Aman screenshots. Among other things.
  

• Laser Chickens have a right to speak also!

• Here's some random thoughts about the patch from Liquid Silver.

> 2.3 impressions

There are some new categories added to the auction house interface, consumables and trade goods.

You will be able to search consumables for food & drink, flasks, potions, bandages, scrolls, elixirs, and other misc items like various drums made by leatherworkers.

For trade goods, the categories are elemental (essences, primals), cloth, leather, metal and stone (ore, bars and stones like Heavy Stone), enchanting reagents and rods, herbs, engineering reagents & devices, explosives, and meat.

It's an interesting and a welcome change, apart from all those nerfs&buffs we're hearing about all the time.

> 2.3 Auction House changes

Additional Aimed Shot changes

In patch 2.3, aimed shot will not only reduces healing done to the target by 50% for a ten seconds, but we're also reducing the shot time by 0.5 seconds.

I predicted changes to Aimed Shot in one of my previous posts - it's not yet instant but 0.5 sec cast time reduction is a good start. And it will most likely be further reduced, judging by what Eyonix said.

Hypothermia back to 30 seconds, Ice Block trainable

It's a deliberate change. We initially felt like it was too quick at 30s and decided to test it out at 45s, but after playing with it for a while we felt like it opened mages to focus fire a little too much so we decided to keep it at 30s. It's worth pointing out that making changes like this and later un-doing them is not at all uncommon, it's just most of you generally don't see that process in action since it often happens before the patch even gets to the PTR.

Since I'm here, I'll also make a small pre-emptive strike against the incoming "what about other mage concerns!" replies I'm about to get and say the following.

Two things we'll be making improvements to in the near future (although these aren't likely to make it in on time for 2.3) are having iceblock be trainable (to make sure all mages have it as a tool for pve encounters and to open up other trees as being more viable options for pvp), and to-be-finalized improvements to mana issues in longer fights.

All the mage whiners out there can finally stop now! But seriously, Ice Block is one of the most important abilities that makes a mage what it is in PvP, so I guess the fire talent tree will be a bit more popular now. I rather not speculate what talent will replace Ice Block, but it will probably be nuke-the-hell-out-of-this-warlock type spell.
Can I now get Soul Siphon or Soul Link trainable? Or at least instant Corruption - I have yet to see a warlock without spending 5 talent points there.

> PTR changes: mage & hunter

Mad Alchemist's Potion
It seems this new potion has a 95% chance to proc an additional elixir effect, and it's class dependant - meaning you will get buffs depending on your class, so casters should get Elixir of Draenic Wisdom or similar, and melee classes should get Elixir of Mastery or Major Agility. Good news. But I wonder how will it work with different specs or roles - what exactly will my feral druid get?


Druid

• Growl: The chance for this ability to land successfully on its target is now increased by hit rating.
• Challenging Roar: The chance for this ability to land successfully on its targets is now increased by hit rating.

I believe spell hit rating was previously increasing the chance for these spells not to be resisted so this is good news. Tanking druids still lack serious hit rating though.


Warlock

• Unstable Affliction: The silence from this ability is now subject to diminishing returns.

What can I say... nerf to dual lock teams.

Warrior

• Challenging Shout: The chance for this ability to land successfully on its targets is now increased by hit rating.
• Taunt: The chance for this ability to land successfully on its target is now increased by hit rating.

Same as for druids, a welcome and needed change. Intimidating Shout, Demoralizing Shout and Piercing Howl are not getting changed though.


Raids & Dungeons

• The Mechanar: The Cache of the Legion can now only be looted by players who are present during some portion of a successful attempt of the Gatewatcher Gyro-Kill and Gatewatcher Iron-Hand encounters. In addition, on Heroic difficulty Gatewatcher Gyro-Kill and Gatewatcher Iron-Hand no longer drop Badges of Justice. Instead, the Cache of the Legion contains a Badge of Justice for each player present.

My favorite Badge of Justice farming instance is getting nerfed :((

You can read the full patch notes on worldofraids.com.

Also, I'd like to point out that Ming, considered a very good rogue (and a very nice blogger) thinks Rogues are finally the strongest class in TBC.

I got no idea how I missed this, but Wowinsider is here to point it out. Druids will be able to shift forms without exposing themselves to vulnerable human form, which is in my opinion overpowered (I got a druid, remember). While the change looks very cool and somewhat logical, I believe it is hard enough for any class to catch a druid as it is.
Also from latest patch notes:

• PvP Trinkets: Insignia of the Alliance, Insignia of the Horde, Medallion of the Alliance, and Medallion of the Horde now clear the debuff from Judgement of Justice.

So long paladin, you shall not catch my druid anymore! Can this please be nerfed?

> New PTR build: Ain't getting better

Who do you think will be more overpowered in next patch, rogues or hunters?
Hunter's ranged attacks min range is now 1 yard . Mmo-champion calls it mega major über change. I'm completely and utterly dissapointed - Mortal Strike, Dispel Magic, and now reduced minimum range... Wait - it's not instant? Oh, no worries hunters, wait a day or two it will be.
I can't wait to see what BRK has so say about this!


Update:

It seems hunters won't be able to shoot from 1 yard afterall - supposedly it's a tooltip error.
But I can't help to wonder, why were hunters able to shoot from 1 yard on PTR? Imo, it's easier to say it's a bug then explain to the community why they did such drastic changes and then reverted it. Drain Life didn't get nerfed also - it's just a bugfix after 2.5 years.

Drysc:

There's a tooltip error, it should be "5-35 yards". We want melee and ranged to be kept separate, so that when in melee attack range you should not be able to use a ranged attack. There's some amount of 'give' there, especially in fast paced PvP which can produce some temporary gray area but that's fully known with this change.

Feeding the issue of the tooltip error is a bug currently where you can indeed range attack someone while being meleed, but that's in the process of being resolved as well.

---

Yes I know, I'm complaining a lot. I love my warlock and I'd hate to abandon it - every class got some love this patch, except locks and shaman. Oh wait, shaman got free spell damage from healing. I won't get the Merciless Gladiator mount, and it will be twice as hard in Season 3 with the newly nerfed lock.

But hey, seems my druid will have something to look forward to.

The Mad Alchemist's Potions "side effect" is actually a random buff from other elixirs. However it won't replace existing elixir buffs if you have one on.

It would be wrong to make an entirely new making gold post about this, because there ain't much to say.
When I first found out about Mad Alchemist's Potion, I thought the side effects would be negative, like on Fel Mana (hunter pot!) or Fel Rejuvenation Potion. It seems I was wrong. Although the buffs you get will be random, so it might not be exactly what you need at the moment, it's still a pretty solid chance to get a useful stat boost which does stack with other elixirs! Gosh I can't wait to try it.
There's not many potions you can make from Ragveil, so people usually don't even bother picking them up, but since this new pot is so cheap to make, expect Ragveil prices to increase. It won't make you a fortune, but you won't regret it either.

> Hunters, rejoice!

Mmo-champion brings us the news of the latest changes on public test realms. These are not as bad as last ones, but (surprise!) rogues got a huge buff again!

• Cheat Death (Subtlety) chance to trigger increased to 33/66/100% and now also causes the rogue to take 90% less damage for 3 seconds when the effect triggers. This effect cannot occur more than once per minute.
• Dirty Deeds now also increases damage against enemies below 35% health (previously, reduced energy cost of Cheap Shot and Garrote by 20 for 2 points).
  

Cheat Death requires 30 points in Subtlety tree (33 for 3/3 CD). Previously, it had a 10/20/30% chance to proc. Shadowstep got buffed, Dirty Deeds got buffed, Deadly Throw got buffed, Blind got buffed, Hemmorhage got buffed... Geez, why the hell didn't I roll a rogue?
The 90% less damage for 3 seconds part sounds like yet another warlock nerf, no? We wouldn't want a DoT (or anything for that matter) to finish up the precious rogue, would we.


But of course, this site is more about warlocks then rogues, I must not miss this huge buff we got again:

• Soul Siphon (Affliction): If a Warlock already has a particular spell cast on a target, reapplying before its duration ends will no longer grant an additional bonus.

Oh wait, it's not a buff... It's a nerf! You can call it a bugfix just like Drain Life/Siphon Life being affected by Mortal Strike and similar effects - but it's still a nerf.

But why, why buff rogues again? After reading some posts on World of Ming lately, I'm sure those guys would disagree with me, but come on. Blizz killed lock+healer combo; when top teams will consist of rogue+healer, I wonder if Rogues will get nerfed. This is what I want Rogue talent trees to look like!

There's more changes, mostly about professions and interface, you can read full notes at mmo-champion.

> 2.3 - More rogue buffs

Ysira from Kargath posted these new item screenshots on Test Realm forums. They can be obtained with Badge of Justice, currently a drop from heroic instances. In patch 2.3, badges will drop also from Karazhan bosses, as well as Zul'Aman, and you will even be able to get some from the new daily quests for instances.

Trinkets, neck, off hand and wand - screenshot
I especially like the wand - it will be much better then my Wand of the Netherwing. Spell damage+stamina gem , or just stamina will fit perfectly in the blue socket.

Cloth items & Back - screenshot
Excellent tanking cloak; other cloaks will probably be used widely for PvP, since they have resilience. Melee cloak has armor penetration on it - more rogue/warrior buffs, just what my warlocks needs.

Leather items - screenshot
All I can say is OMG - I know my druid will love some of this stuff!

Mail items - screenshot
Enhancement shamans will be particularly happy about these.

Plate items - screenshot
Cool, tankadins and retnubs finally get some nice items.

Librams, idols, totems - screenshot
Oh boy... 20 badges for this babies is nothing! Feral druids (like me :p) will be pleased - there's a new idol which has a proc on mangle to increase your agility by 65 for 10 second.

So this is it - I don't believe any class or spec left behind, there's a bit for everyone. I'm a bit tired of farming heroic instances for badges, but with the addition of daily quests it might be faster.

> 2.3 - Farming Badges of Justice, again

I've been browsing the forums a few days ago and noticed this topic, listing all the changes affecting Warlocks. I've checked old patch notes myself and ever found a few missing, so I decided to update this list.

Patch 1.1

• Howl of Terror: Increased the chance of breaking early.
• Fear: Increased the chance of breaking early.

Patch 1.02

• Warlocks can no longer kill players in duels. (not really a nerf, just a bugfix - but sounds funny)
  
• Fear: Players now have an increasing chance to break free of the effect, such that it is unlikely the effect will last more than 15 seconds.

Patch 1.03

• Fear - Mana cost changed to a percentage of base, which results in an increase in cost.

Patch 1.04

• Seduction (Succubus) - Is now considered a Fear effect for purposes of diminishing returns.

Patch 1.5.0

• War Stomp (Doomguard) - Now has a maximum of five targets.
• Warriors: Deathwish - Is now usable while under a Fear effect, and will also remove an existing Fear effect.

Patch 1.7.0

• Inferno - The stun effect can now be resisted.
• Druids: Druids should now be able to shapeshift back into caster form while Feared.

Patch 1.0.8

• Soul Link - Percentage of damage split with pet has been reduced (50% to 20%)
• Improved Drain Mana - Damage caused by this talent will now cause 150% damage instead of 200% damage, which is now consistent with other damage spells.
• Pets no longer break off attacks when their target is affected by Warlock Fear.

Patch 1.0.9

• Hellfire - Victims of Hellfire are now able to resist properly. Warlocks continue (as designed) to be unable to resist their own damage.
• Curse of Shadow and Curse of the Elements - These curses can no longer cause resistance to become negative.

Patch 1.10

• Death Coil - The horrify component no longer affects undead creatures (they've seen it all before.)

Patch 1.11

• Soul Link: If your pet is banished, Soul Link will stop functioning until Banish wears off. In addition, Soul Link's tooltip has been clarified to indicate it only works with your imp, voidwalker, succubus, or felhunter.
• Fear: The calculations to determine if Fear effects should break due to receiving damage have been changed. The old calculation used the base damage of the ability. The new calculation uses the final amount of damage dealt, after all modifiers. In addition, the chance for a damage over time spell to break Fear is now significantly lower. Note that Fear continues to be roughly three times as likely to break on player targets as on non-player targets.

Patch 1.12

• Howl of Terror: This spell now uses the same resistance checks as the Warlock spell Fear.

Patch 2.0.10

• Demonic Tactics now grants increased critical strike chance to you and your demon pet, instead of increased damage. (affliction nerf)

Patch 2.0.12

• Melee damage of "Felguard" has been reduced (about 40%)
• The bonus that the spells "Corruption" and "Curse of Agony" receive from bonus spell damage effects has been decreased by approximately 10%.
• Soul Fire: Bomus damage reduction from 171.4% -> 115%
• Soul Link: The damage mitigation component has been reduced. (30% -> 20% mitigation)
• Imp Firebolt bonus damage reduced by 50%
• The talent Improved Firebolt changed from 1 second max reduction to 0.5 sec.

Patch 2.1.0 22

• Chance to break crowd control from damage: The increased chance for a spell to break from taking a critical strike has been removed. Instead, all targets over level 60 have a slightly larger chance to break out of crowd-controlling effects when they take damage. (Affliction (and Demo) nerf) - In addition, fear and seduce both have "heartbeat" resists and can break at any time, whether damage has been applied or not.
• In PvP, all CC's have a maximum time of 12 seconds.

Patch 2.1.3

• Curse of the Elements and Curse of Shadow now have a duration of 2 minutes when used on PvP targets.
• Curse of Tongues now has a 12 second duration when used on PvP targets.
• Death Coil is now is now subject to diminishing returns in the Horror category. Currently, only Death Coil is in this category.
• Soulstones: Soulstones can no longer be used on targets not in your party or raid. In addition, the soulstone buff will now be removed if the target or caster leaves the party or raid.
• Spell Lock (Felhunter) duration reduced to 5 seconds (rank 1) and 6 seconds (rank 2), and cooldown reduced to 24 seconds.

Patch 2.2.0

• Banish, Seduction, Enslave Demon and Fear duration against PvP targets has been reduced to 10 seconds.
• Resilience Rating: The reduction to the percent chance to get a critical strike now also reduces the damage dealt by damage over time effects by the same percentage.

Upcoming changes:

Patch 2.3.0

• Mortal Strike and other healing reduction effects (like Wound Poison) will affect Drain Life (and probably Siphon Life).
• Fear Ward will now be available to all Priests at level 20.
• Hunters are getting a debuff similar to Mortal Strike

Other classes:
Rogue:

• poisons will last for one hour now, increased from 30 minutes.
• the speed at which Deadly Throw travels is being increased significantly, so it will reach the target much faster, and the snare duration is being increased by 1 second.
  
• Shadowstep can now be used at any time, not only while stealthed. In addition, after use of Shadowstep threat caused by the next Ambush, Garrote or Backstab will be reduced by 50%. The cooldown will however be increased to 40 seconds.
• Also on the Subtlety front is a change to Dirty Deeds so that it will also be increasing damage of special attacks by 10/20% against targets that are below 35% health.
• We're also taking a look at bumping up Hemorrhage a bit, but no details yet on what that may be.
• Fleet Footed will now be a 15% speed increase instead of 8%
• In 2.3 Blind will no longer require a reagent. It will also be changed to a physical attack, will share the same diminish category as Cyclone, and diminish in PvE as well as PvP. (basically, Blind can no longer be dispelled)

Hunter:

• Arcane Shot (ranks 6+) will dispel 1 magic effect in addition to the normal damage.

Warlock buffs in 2.3:

• There is a change for Ritual of Souls which will significantly reduce the time to cast and complete it.
• Banish may no longer be cast on targets tapped by other players
  
• That's it!
  

Now, I'm not saying other classes weren't nerfed over time - they were, some even more than warlocks. But don't you dare saying how locks never get nerfed! I'm pretty sure I even missed some nerfs while looking at the patch notes, for example Insignia of the Alliance/Horde was changed a few patches back, which gave warriors and rogues another way to remove fear effects, even Death Coil. There's also dozens of undocumented changes.

I admit it, Warlocks are very strong in PvP, even overpowered vs. some classes/setups. But Rogues and Warriors don't have much problems killing Warlocks now, so they are the last ones who need buffs. Every single class is getting buffs except Warlocks, and it's been going on for the last few patches.
Shadowpriest/Lock combo was too strong in 2v2 arenas, so they got nerfed by resilience in patch 2.2. Now, locks are considered generally overpowered, especially SL/SL specs (siphon life/soul link), but is that really the case? What option do I have when fighting melee classes other than DoT + Drain Life spam? Casting Shadow Bolt with 0% pushback resist? It literally takes ages, and in the end it will get Kicked or Pummeled.
You're saying Death Coil is imbalanced - what about Cloak of Shadows; you're complaining about paladin's bubble which can now even be dispelled.

Let's see, I play arenas with a Holy paladin, +1700 bonus healing. We enter the arena, and for the sake of argument, our opponents are Holy paladin and MS (of course) warrior. My usuall routine is Curse of Tongues on pala, and damaging DoTs on warrior. I need 6-7 seconds for that, maybe more. Casting Fear on pala, get Pummeled. Cast fear again, pala dispells with trinket. All my DoTs are getting cleansed in the process. Only damage I did was with Curse of Agony on warrior. Meanwhile, my teammate is struggling to heal me with Mortal Strike debuff on me, wasting precious mana while the opposing team's paladin can pretty much go AFK. What options do I have besides Drain Life on warrior or Drain Mana on paladin? Warrior just keeps smashing me with his sword without breaking a sweat, while me and my pala try to keep me alive, and while I try doing some damage.
It's even worse vs. rogues: cheap shot, kidney shot, gouge, blind... I can't even Drain Life properly while getting all the interrupts, my teammate can't heal while being CC'ed for half of the fight. Rogue has much more interrupts, while a paladin has one bubble and one Insignia. After I place some DoTs on the rogue, he simply uses Cloak of Shadows and removes them all. If he's close do dying, he can even Vanish and go bandage somewhere.

Let's snap back to dueling a rogue for a moment. You think Fear is annoying - how about rogue's stuns/CC? Duel starts, Cheap Shot, Backstab, Backstab, Kidney Shot... I use my Insignia, run away a bit, get Crippling Poison, try casting Fear - Kick, cast Fear again, he uses Insignia. If there's some distance between us and I start casting some spell, I won't do much against his Deadly Throw and PvP/Arena gloves equip bonus (spell interrupt and 3 sec silence) unless I fakecast - even if I do, my movement speed is still reduced and I won't get far. Oh wait I have Death Coil, lets cast it. Oh snap, he used CLoS. So much about my imba Coil. Since I used all my cooldowns so far, Drain Life is the only thing keeping me alive while he's feared and my DoTs tick. That is, if I'm not already dead. If I run out of mana and have to Life Tap, I'm almost doing him a favor. Don't forget, he still didn't use Blind or Gouge.
Fighting a warrior is easy - cast Siphon Life, Corruption, Curse of Agony, Immolate, and hope your Drain Life can keep you alive while DoT's do some damage. Don't bother using Fear, warriors are almost Fear immune with all the abilities available to them. Even if you do Fear, it won't last long. Coil is pretty much the only thing that can save you; unless it gets reflected - watch out!

There was once this arena match, where I died, along with shaman from the opposing team. My pala had about 3k mana, while the other team's mage was out. He kept polymorphing my teammate and ran away from him for 4 minutes, till his mana regenerated and his cooldowns were gone (evocation, water elemental). He even bandaged from 2k hp to full. Of course, the mage won. Balance?

I'm not angry because warlocks are getting nerfed (ok I am a bit but that is not the point) - I'm frustrated because I will be running away from every noob or halfskilled rogue or warrior I bump into in battlegrounds because soon I will have no chance of defeating them, even if they have worse items than me or no skill. I'm mad because I feel like I wasted all these months getting arena points and honor to buy some good items, and now when I have 11.7k hp and 360 resilience - decent PvP gear - I can finally beat the crap out of someone. Until 2.3 comes. You will see me picking up armor scraps in Alterac Valley, killing rams and do other PvE stuff, because I'll be too afraid to run into a warrior or a rogue (or even a hunter, if they get Mortal Strike).
Time to get honor on my druid I guess.

> Warlock Nerfs

I was thinking about making this blog for some time now, but I've been lazy lately and don't even know where to start.

I was reading WoW forums yesterday and saw all these changes coming in 2.3 patch, some good, but most bad - unless you play a rogue. Basically, I'm pissed. Rogues get buffs, warlocks get nerfs - nothing new, however it can't stop to amaze me how I hate these patches. One day you're a strong class, and then you get some incomprehensive nerf. Ok, you learn to live with it (or play with it) and move on. Until next patch, when something else is nerfed. Where does it end?

I want Wrath of The Lich King. Today! Burning Crusade ain't that bad, but its already boring. I've seen all the 5 mans a gazillion times already, did some PvP, arenas, saw Karazhan, farmed my epic flying mount, did pretty much all the quests. All that on two characters. I'd go level my shaman but to what end - by the time I finish leveling and get decent gear, they will probably be nerfed also.
I want another expansion so I can start over. Maybe even give up on PvP and start raiding. You know what to expect from PvE, you're the reason why you fail, or if you win. That used to be the case in PvP, but since classes are now being balanced for 2v2/3v3 arenas, it will get only worse.

There's one thing to remember about PvP: whenever you feel like you can finally beat someone, your class will be nerfed next patch. Don't bother posting on forums - all you'll get is l2p noob.

> So here I am...