Updated Preliminary changes for 3.1

[jere]

We are planning a lot of exciting content for patch 3.1.0, and we are doing a three-part preview series on upcoming class changes. This is the third in the series: Mages, Paladins, Hunters, and Death Knights. Please keep in mind, that this list is not at all comprehensive, and subject to change.

MAGE

# Improved Water Elemental – this talent has been removed and replaced with a new talent that grants Replenishment (similar to Shadow priests).
# We are also working on a way to give frost mages Ice Lance “Shatter combos” in PvE.
# We are also working on more survivability for Fire spec in PvP.
# We are also working on making Spirit a more useful and interesting stat for all mages.

PALADIN

# Blessing of Kings – this spell is now a base ability trainable by all paladins.
# Exorcism – this spell now causes damage to all types of enemy targets. However, it always critical strikes undead or demon targets. This change should make sure paladin damage doesn’t drop when going from Naxxramas to later tiers of content.
# Shield of the Templar now causes your Avenger’s Shield and Shield of the Righteousness to silence targets for 3 sec. The old damage bonus of this talent has been folded into Holy Shield, Avenger’s Shield, and Shield of the Righteousness.
# Ardent Defender, Improved Hammer of Justice, One-Handed Weapon Specialization and more have had their ranks reduced.
# Guarded by the Light – no longer reduces the mana cost of shield spells, but now has a 50/100% chance to refresh Divine Plea duration.
# Judgements of the Just – now also reduces the cooldown of Hammer of Justice by 10/20 seconds and increases the duration of the Seal of Justice stun effect by 0.5/1 second.

HUNTER

# Consumable ammunition has been removed from the game. Arrows and bullets no longer stack, but are not consumed. Ranged attack speed bonus gained from quivers and ammo bags will be preserved in a different capacity.
# A new tier of hunter pet talents have been added. In particular, this allows Beastmaster hunters to improve their damage per second (DPS) with their 51 point talent.
# Hunting Party – this talent has been reduced to 3 ranks and also grants a passive bonus to the hunter.
# Piercing Shots – this talent has been changed. Your Aimed, Steady and Chimera Shots cause the target to bleed for 10/20/30% of damage dealt for 8 sec.
# Sniper Training – this talent has been changed. After standing still for 6 sec, you gain a 2/4/6% damage bonus to Steady, Aimed and Explosive Shot.
# We are also looking to add additional trap functionality to Survival.

DEATH KNIGHT

# Gargoyle and Unholy Blight have swapped talent positions. Gargoyle’s damage has increased and runic power cost per time has decreased.
# Pestilence – this spell no longer causes damage but just spreads diseases. Blood Boil is intended to be the general area attack, and has been changed to be castable on targets with no diseases on them, but does extra damage if diseases are present.
# Unbreakable Armor now absorbs a flat amount of damage that increases as your armor increases. It no longer boosts armor.
# The Frost tree has been shuffled. Among other things, PvP talents such as Endless Winter are closer to the top of the tree where Blood and Unholy death knights can access them.
# Sudden Doom – this talent now procs a Death Coil rather than requiring an additional button click. It works similarly to shamans’ Lightning Overload.
# Magic Suppression and Blood of the North have been reduced to 3 ranks for the same benefit.
# Blood Gorged now grants armor penetration instead of expertise.

MMO-Champion BlueTracker - Upcoming Class Change Highlights (Part 3)

[Satrina]

Improved Water Elemental – this talent has been removed because people were still trying to get frost mages into raids

They will never understand that you could make frost mages replenish 2% mana per frostbolt, and people still wouldn't take them to raids since they are so far behind frostfire and arcane. But no, frost should lag in DPS since it has better survivability. That 3000 point ice barrier is sure gonna slow down the 20k clothie hit from a trash mob, AMIRITE? (yeah, yeah PvP. PvP can get stuffed.)

The other complaint is that frost is boring to play, and I suppose I can see that. After tanking with a warrior, though, pressing two buttons to melt faces is pretty darn appealing to me as a break!

[Telvannis]

PALADIN

# Blessing of Kings – this spell is now a base ability trainable by all paladins.
# Exorcism – this spell now causes damage to all types of enemy targets. However, it always critical strikes undead or demon targets. This change should make sure paladin damage doesn’t drop when going from Naxxramas to later tiers of content.
# Shield of the Templar now causes your Avenger’s Shield and Shield of the Righteousness to silence targets for 3 sec. The old damage bonus of this talent has been folded into Holy Shield, Avenger’s Shield, and Shield of the Righteousness.
# Ardent Defender, Improved Hammer of Justice, One-Handed Weapon Specialization and more have had their ranks reduced.
# Guarded by the Light – no longer reduces the mana cost of shield spells, but now has a 50/100% chance to refresh Divine Plea duration.
# Judgements of the Just – now also reduces the cooldown of Hammer of Justice by 10/20 seconds and increases the duration of the Seal of Justice stun effect by 0.5/1 second.



HELL YES.

[Alent]

I have concerns about a primary threat pump being a silence.

Will it continue to interrupt once diminishing returns hits the "immune" point?

[Maat]

mobs have silence DR?

The Seal of Justice thing is pretty goofy... 95% of the time I totally don't even remember it exists

[Alent]

mobs have silence DR?

Some of us are crazy enough to go into the arena as prot.

[Maat]

Well then! I imagine no, since it is a silence and not a real interrupt like HoJ :P

crazy crazy peoplez

[Rennadrel]

Damn, why am I not using SoJ in PvP? I completely forgot it existed. Now I am gonna roll even more faces with that adjustment. About time they switched Blessing of Kings back to the way it was, what were they smoking when they decided to make it a talent?

[minrog]

Why do they keep giving raid utility to Frost Mages lol. We're going to put replenishment in the Frost tree so that no mage will ever have the opportunity to use it. Fortunately Ret Paladins and Survival hunters exist so no Mage is forced to be a replenishment bitch.

[Niian]

Jizzed in my pants.

Seriously Guarded by the Light – no longer reduces the mana cost of shield spells, but now has a 50/100% chance to refresh Divine Plea duration.
Constant Divine Plea, which if it restores 25% of base mana over 15 seconds thats around ~93 MP5... constantly. Rediculously awesome!

[Maat]

It also gives them a basis to nerf Spiritual Attunement and Sanctuary. I'm not certain how excited I am about that.

[Niian]

Why would that warrant a nerf of sanc?

[Taelas]

Damn, why am I not using SoJ in PvP? I completely forgot it existed. Now I am gonna roll even more faces with that adjustment. About time they switched Blessing of Kings back to the way it was, what were they smoking when they decided to make it a talent?

...

Blessing of Kings has been a talent since beta. It was NEVER a base spell.

[nips]

# Unbreakable Armor now absorbs a flat amount of damage that increases as your armor increases. It no longer boosts armor.

Well thats nice since i am already past armor cap when using it.

Tbh i was expecting a change to DK's insane amout of avoidance since we are going into content with harder hitting bosses. Druids "block" will ofc help them be less mana consuming, but having 20%+ more avoidance then all other tanks just seems superior to block

[jere]

I have concerns about a primary threat pump being a silence.

Will it continue to interrupt once diminishing returns hits the "immune" point?

Interrupts are different than silences and I believe on different DR. For example, the 2nd/3rd boss in Arcatraz is immune to silence, but not to interrupts. That led to some confused mages who had spec'd improved counterspell. They thought she was immune to their interrupt when she was only immune to the silence portion and the interrupt worked. Same for shade of Aran.