Warlords of Draenor : Alpha Patch Notes < onlyinclude > Introduction . World of Warcraft : Warlords of Draenor™ Patch 6 . 0 . 1 Alpha . Welcome to an early look at patch notes for the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion : Warlords of Draenor . The new expansion introduces a wealth of new content and changes . There ' s also a new patch note format , which we hope will help better convey the reasoning for many of the changes being made and what they mean for you , while providing more background into issues we ' re trying to solve . Please be aware that the Alpha patch notes are preliminary and not final . Details may change before retail release and new information will be added for additional features as development continues on the Warlords of Draenor expansion . " Note : Not all the content listed may be available for immediate testing or may only be available during a limited testing window during the Alpha . " For more information about Alpha testing and how you can opt in for a chance to participate in the Warlords of Draenor beta test later down the line , check out Warlords of Draenor™ Alpha Testing Begins ( US , EU ) . Changes since last update to the Alpha patch notes are denoted in red . Looking for a TL ; DR summary of all of the changes ? Here you go ! New Content . Level - 100 Talents and Draenor Perks . A new row of talents has been added for level 100 . For testing purposes , these are currently accessible at level 90 . Draenor Perks is a new feature that adds rewards for leveling . Over levels 91 to 99 , you will earn these 9 new Draenor Perk in a random order . Each class and specialization has a different set of 9 Draenor Perks . You can preview the new talents on the talent calculator at the fansites here . ( Please note that the links below will take you to an external website . ) Garrisons . The Iron Horde army is massive and reinforcements from Azeroth are few . In order to stand a chance , you will need to build an army of your own . Game System Changes . Stat Squish . Character progression is one of the defining characteristics of a role - playing game . Naturally , that means that we ' re continuously adding more power to the game for players to acquire . After 4 expansions and over 9 years of this growth , we ' ve gotten to a point where the numbers involved are no longer easy to grasp . And worse , much of the granularity that ' s available is tied up in tiers of older content from Molten Core to Dragon Soul , none of which are really relevant anymore . It ' s no longer necessary for Borean Tundra quest gear to be nearly twice as powerful as Netherstorm quest gear , even though the two zones are only a couple of levels apart . In order to bring things down to an understandable level , we ' ve reduced the scale of stats throughout the game , back to as if they continued scaling linearly through questing content from levels 1 to 90 . This applies to creatures , spells , abilities , consumables , gear , other items . . . everything . Your stats and damage have been reduced by a huge amount , but so have creatures ' health . For example , your Fireball that previously hit a creature for 450 , 000 out of its 3 , 000 , 000 health ( 15 % of its health ) , may now hit that same creature for 30 , 000 out of its 200 , 000 health ( still 15 % of its health ) . In effect , you will still be just as powerful , but the numbers that appear will be more easily parsed . It ' s important to understand that this isn ' t a nerf , and we have special handling in place to preserve players ’ existing ability to solo old content . Players will deal bonus damage against lower - level creatures from past expansions , and will take reduced damage from them . We ' ve also removed all base damage on player spells and abilities , and adjusted Attack Power or Spell Power scaling as needed , so that all specializations will scale at the same rate . We ' ve also streamlined the multitude of various types of Haste % and Crit % bonuses . Primary Character Stats and Attack Power " ( Updated ) " . The " primary " stats , Agility , Strength , and Intellect , are foundations of a character ’ s power . But they have not been created equally , making it difficult to properly balance them against secondary stats . The leading reason for this is that Agility and Intellect also provide Critical chance , in addition to Attack Power or Spell Power , whereas Strength does not . In order to achieve better balance , we ' ve removed the Critical chance increase from Agility and Intellect . Still , it felt like Agility - based characters should critically strike more often , so we ' ve raised those classes ’ baseline Critical Strike chance to compensate . We ' ve consolidated the way that Attack Power and Spell Power function and scale , to make those values clearer and correct some scaling issues regarding caster weapons relative to physical weapons . Active mitigation has worked very well as a tanking model . So , moving forward we want to keep the amount of Dodge and Parry on tanks on the low side . This helps prevent encounters from causing very spiky damage on tanks , which generally isn ' t much fun . Dodge and Parry gains from Strength and Agility are being reduced to help accomplish this . Additionally , items in Warlords of Draenor will not have Dodge or Parry on them as a stat . Some Dodge and Parry can still be gained through class - specific effects . Itemization Changes " ( Updated ) " . We ’ re making a number of changes to itemization based on a single philosophy : We want to increase the chance that any given item drop is useful to someone in your group . To support this philosophy we ’ re making a few changes to stats . Most items found in Draenor will work for all specializations within a given class , so that you never have to grumble when you see , for example , Intellect plate drop in a group that lacks a Holy Paladin . We ’ re also reducing the number of role - specific stats : Hit and Expertise are gone , as are Dodge and Parry as stats on items , replaced with a single tank stat of Bonus Armor . Armor and Spirit will be specific to tanks and healers respectively , but all other secondary stats will have universal appeal . Because of the magnitude of this change , we ’ re retroactively applying this philosophy to items in Mists of Pandaria . After the pre - expansion patch you may find that some of your items contribute different stats , but they should still be good for your class . Hit and Expertise Removal . Hit and Expertise were not fun stats . They acted to remove a penalty , instead of making you stronger . Most players treated Hit / Expertise caps as mandatory ( rightfully so ) , with failure to reach those caps as a trap of sorts . After adjusting , gemming , and reforging gear to meet that cap , players could then go after the actual damage - increasing stats . We decided to remove Hit and Expertise , and make it so you don ' t need them . We still want melee specializations to attack creatures from behind when possible , so attacks from the front will have a 3 % chance to be parried that cannot be eliminated for non - tanking specializations . Player Health and Resilience . We ’ re planning several interconnected changes designed to provide better - tuned gameplay for healers and improve the healing dynamic in PvP . The high amount of base Resilience and Battle Fatigue in Mists of Pandaria caused characters to feel much weaker in PvP than they did in PvE . To address this disparity , we ’ re approaching Warlords of Draenor with the goal of shrinking that gap as much as possible . To reduce dependence on Resilience , we needed to increase player survivability against other players , and we chose to do this by essentially doubling ( post - squish ) player health . On its own , that increase in health would make players more survivable in the world at large , so we ’ re also increasing creature damage and the effectiveness of healing spells to balance things out . The net result of these changes is that individual attacks will knock a smaller chunk off of a player ’ s health pool in PvP , but your survivability in PvE remains unaffected . Doubling player health gave us room to reduce Resilience and Battle Fatigue , but our goal was to be able to remove them entirely . In order to achieve that , we ’ re also reducing PvP spike damage across the board by lowering Critical Damage and Critical Heals against players in PvP to 150 % of their normal effect ( down from 200 % ) . Our hope is that these changes allow us to reduce Base Resilience and Battle Fatigue to 0 % . It ’ s possible that we ’ ll still find a need for some minor amount of Base Resilience and / or Battle Fatigue , and we ’ ll be testing these changes extensively and adjusting as needed . Retuning Healing Spells . One of our goals for healing is to tone down the raw throughput of healers relative to the size of player health pools . Currently , as healers and their allies acquire better and better gear , the percentage of a player ’ s health that any given heal restores increases significantly . As a result , healers are able to refill health bars so fast that we have to make damage more and more “ bursty ” in order to challenge them . Ideally , we want players to spend some time below full health without having healers feel like their groupmates are in danger of dying at any moment . We also think that healer gameplay would be more varied , interesting , and skillful if your allies spent more time between 0 % and 100 % , rather than just getting damaged quickly to low health , forcing the healer to then scramble to get them back to 100 % as quickly as possible . To that end , we ’ re buffing heals less than we ’ re increasing player health . Heals will be deliberately less potent compared to health pools than before the item squish . Additionally , as gear improves , the scaling rates of health and healing will now be very similar , so the relative power of any given healing spell shouldn ’ t climb so much over the course of this expansion . For those concerned about what this means for raiding , don ’ t worry — we ’ re taking all of these changes into account when designing Raid content for Warlords of Draenor . It ’ s also important to note that spells that heal based on a percentage of maximum health are being effectively buffed by the massive increase to player health pools , so we ’ re lowering those percentages to offset the effect . That may make them appear to have been nerfed — however , the net result is that those percentage - based heals stay about the same as before relative to other heals . All of these changes apply to damage - absorption shields as well . Additionally , we ' re toning down the power of damage absorption in general . When they get too strong , absorption effects are often used in place of direct healing , instead of as a way to supplement it . We will , of course , take these changes into account when tuning specializations that rely heavily on absorbs , such as Discipline Priests . We also took a look at healing spells that were passive or auto - targeted ( so - called " smart " heals ) . We want healers to care about who they ' re targeting and which heals they ' re using , so that their decisions matter more . To that end , we ' re reducing the healing of many passive and auto - targeted heals , and making smart heals a little less smart . Smart heals will now randomly pick any injured target within range instead of always picking the most injured target . Priority will still be given to players over pets , of course . Another of our goals for healing in this expansion is to strike a better balance between single - target and multi - target healing spells . We ' ve taken a close look at the mana efficiency of our multi - target heals , and in many cases , we ' re reducing their efficiency , usually by reducing the amount they heal . Sometimes , but more rarely , raising their mana cost was a better decision . We want players to use multi - target heals , but they should only be better than their single - target equivalents when they heal more than two players without any overhealing . This way , players will face a meaningful choice between whether to use a single - target heal or a multi - target heal based on the situation . Finally , we ' re removing the low - throughput , low - mana - cost heals like Nourish , Holy Light , Heal , and Healing Wave , because we think that while they do add complexity , they don ’ t truly add depth to healing gameplay . ( We ’ re also renaming some spells to re - use those names . For example , Greater Healing Wave is being redubbed Healing Wave . ) However , we still want healers to think about their mana when deciding which heal to cast , and so the mana costs and throughputs of many spells are being altered to give players a choice between spells with lower throughput and lower cost versus spells with higher throughput and higher costs . Here are some examples from each healer class . All of this discussion of efficiency may cause most healers to start worrying about mana regeneration and their mana pool . To allay those concerns , we ’ ve increased base mana regeneration a great deal at early gear levels , while having it scale up less at later gear levels . This will make all of these changes play well even in early content such as Heroic Dungeons and the first tier of Raid content , and also play well in the final Raid tier without mana and efficiency becoming irrelevant due to extremely high regeneration values . That ’ s a lot of big changes for healers : reduced throughput , a more deliberate pace , less powerful “ smart ” heals , weaker absorbs , fewer spells , and a new focus on efficiency decisions . We ’ re confident that we can apply lessons learned from previous expansions to make this the best healer experience yet : more dynamic , less punishing , and frankly a lot more fun . General Changes : Active Mana Regeneration . Another part of the changes to healing is providing a way for them to better manage their mana . There are ways to spend more mana for more healing but we ’ re also adding methods for healers to trade extra time , healing , or more mana to use later in a fight when they really need it . Racial Traits . We want races to have fun and interesting perks , but if those traits are too powerful , players may feel compelled to play a specific race even if it doesn ' t suit their aesthetic preference . For example , Trolls ' Berserking ability was extremely powerful , and their Beast Slaying passive was often irrelevant , but occasionally tremendously powerful compared to other racial passives . On the other end of the spectrum , many races had few or no performance affecting perks . We also needed to replace or update a number of racials that previously granted Hit or Expertise , since those stats have been removed . We decided to bring down the couple high outliers , then establish a fair baseline and bring everyone else up to that . We achieved that by improving old passives , replacing obsolete ones , and occasionally adding new ones where needed . Our goal with these changes is to reach parity amongst races . Ability Pruning " ( Updated ) " . Over the years , we ' ve added significantly more new spells and abilities to the game than we ' ve removed . This has led to the complexity of the game increasing steadily over time , to the point we ' re at now , where players feel like they need dozens of keybinds . There are many niche abilities which could theoretically be useful in some rare case , but usually are not . There are many abilities that we ' d be better off not having . We decided that we needed to make a strong push for paring down the number of abilities each class / spec has . That means making some abilities restricted to certain specs that really need them instead of being class - wide , and outright removing some other abilities . It also includes removing some Spellbook clutter , such as passives that could be merged with others , or with base abilities . However , this doesn ' t mean that we want to reduce the depth of gameplay , or " dumb it down . ” We still want there to be interesting decisions during combat , and for skill to matter . But , that doesn ' t require complexity ; we can remove some needless complexity and still retain the depth and skill variance . One type of ability that we focused on is temporary power buffs ( " cooldowns " ) . Removing those also helps achieve one of our other goals , which is to reduce the amount of cooldown stacking in the game . In cases where a class / spec had multiple cooldowns that typically ended up getting used together , often in a single macro , we merged them , or removed some of them . What abilities and spells got cut is a very , very difficult question to answer . Every ability is vital to someone , so we don ' t take this process lightly . We hope that even if we cut your favorite ability , you can see it in the context of our larger goals . It ' s important to remember that the point of these changes is to increase players ' ability to understand the game , not to reduce depth of gameplay . Devotion Aura is no longer available to Protection Paladins . ( This line has been moved to the Stackable Raid Utility section . ) Crowd Control and Diminishing Returns " ( Updated ) " . Another big takeaway from Mists of Pandaria is that there was simply too much crowd control ( CC ) in the game . To solve that , we knew that we needed an across - the - board disarmament . Here ' s a summary of the player - cast CC changes : Additionally , we ' ve significantly reduced the number of throughput - increasing cooldowns and procs , in order to further reduce burst damage . Please keep in mind when reading the specifics of the patch notes that some classes may have lost abilities , or had the power of select abilities reduced . These changes were made in the context of the above goals . Other classes have a reduced crowd - control ability overall . We believe that this entire package of changes will make PvP a more enjoyable experience for everyone . Movement Speed . Moving quickly has always been a powerful bonus in World of Warcraft ; however , the logic of how various movement speed bonuses stack ( or don ' t ) has generally been inconsistent and poorly explained . Under the old set - up , each movement speed bonus would become more powerful when combined with another , so we would limit what can stack with what , and prevent certain abilities from being used when another one is already in effect . We decided to change the movement speed system to make it more transparent , with rules about stacking that are easier to understand , and with fewer restrictions . Previously , multiple movement speed modifiers on you were multiplicative , meaning that if you had two different + 25 % movement speed bonuses , they resulted in a total movement speed of 56 % ( 1 . 25 * 1 . 25 = 1 . 56 ) . Movement speed bonuses have been changed to be additive . The previous example with two different + 25 % movement speed bonuses would result in a total movement speed of + 50 % . The logic governing which bonuses stack with others has been simplified as well . Additionally , restrictions that prevented a player with a temporary speed bonus from receiving or activating a second temporary speed bonus have been removed . Both bonuses will now apply to the character , but only the one with the highest magnitude will have any effect . Examples of self - only passive bonuses : Cat Form , Movement Speed enchants , Quickness racial for Night Elves , Unholy Presence Examples of shared or temporary bonuses : Angelic Feather , Sprint , Stampeding Roar Buffs and Debuffs " ( Updated ) " . All specializations provide some common buffs and debuffs . These are important to the game because they encourage cooperation , make you stronger when you work together with others , and promote Raid composition diversity . However , we saw room to revise these buffs and debuffs . We also spread around some of the harder - to - find Raid buffs / debuffs , especially for specializations that brought relatively few . Weakened Armor and Physical Vulnerability were effectively redundant , both filling the role of increasing Physical damage taken by the target . So , we removed Weakened Armor and widened the availability of Physical Vulnerability and increased its effectiveness slightly . Weakened Blows was a debuff that mattered almost exclusively to tanks , and that every tank automatically applied . We removed the debuff and reduced creature damage to compensate . The Cast Speed Slow was a debuff type that mattered almost exclusively to PvP , and made combat much less fun for casters in addition to encouraging the use of instant - cast spells . We decided that it was best to remove casting speed debuffs . As part of a push to combine the different types of Haste in the game as much as possible , we merged Spell Haste and Attack Speed into just Haste , which benefits everyone . Raid Utility Balance " ( Updated ) " . Various classes bring various abilities that provide utility to parties and raids . We talked about one type of utility in the Buffs and Debuffs section , above . However , there are other types of raid utility , and it ’ s been in need of more attention . In general , raid utility , especially raid - wide defensive cooldowns , had grown too strong . So many classes and specializations had defensive cooldowns that we had to make raid damage extremely high , as raids would be stacking or chaining together multiple cooldowns . We ' d like to return to a system where it ' s the healers who heal through the scary moments , not the damage dealers , for example . To do so , we ’ ve established a new baseline level of raid utility that a specialization should bring , and brought everyone to that new standard by reducing the effects of some abilities , or removing some abilities altogether . Instant Cast Heals . Over time , healers have gained a bigger and bigger arsenal of heals that they can cast while on the move , which removes the inherent cost that movement is intended to have for them , while also limiting players ’ ability to counter healing in PvP . This left Silences and crowd control ( which we ’ re trying to curb — see " Pruning the Garden of War " ) as the only ways to actually limit an enemy player ' s healing output . We ' re still preserving the option to instantly heal , but are reducing the number of instant - cast healing abilities overall . Raid and dungeon encounter damage during high - movement phases will be adjusted accordingly . Here are some examples : Periodic Effects . There are many effects in the game which deal periodic damage over time ( DoT ) or healing over time ( HoT ) . Historically , these have typically done something called “ snapshotting ” ; they were based on your stats at the time that they were cast , and that was used for calculating their effect for their full lifetime . In Mists , if a warlock casts Corruption on an enemy while Heroism is active , that DoT will continue to tick rapidly based on the temporary haste effect , even after Heroism fades . This has led to some gameplay that has both good and bad sides . Snapshotting encourages refreshing those periodic effects when your stats are high , such as when a temporary buff procs . On the upside , there ' s a high amount of skill involved in maximizing that . On the downside , it ' s not intuitive , and the skill ceiling is so high that few can reach it without the use of specialized add - ons . To make matters worse , the benefits of maximizing periodic snapshotting is so high that it creates a balance problem . Players maximizing periodic snapshotting ( primarily through the use of add - ons ) do drastically more damage than intended . If we balance around taking full advantage of snapshotting , then the players who aren ’ t doing so would fall unacceptably far behind in damage output . Ultimately , we ' ve decided that snapshotting isn ' t a productive mechanic for the game . The vast majority of periodic effects in the game that snapshotted no longer do so . The only exceptions are ones that do damage based on a percentage of a previous ability ' s damage ( such as the Ignite from a Fire Mage ' s Fireball , or the periodic damage on a Windwalker Monk ' s Blackout Kick ) , as they inherently act as a delayed damage multiplier to those abilities . Temporary effects which buff the damage or healing of other spells specifically will continue to do so for their lifetime ; for example , Unleash Flame ( which increases the damage of the shaman ' s next fire spell by 40 % ) , when used on a Flame Shock , will continue to increase the damage of the periodic effect for its entire lifetime , despite being consumed when the Flame Shock is cast . We still of course want skills and their use to embody interesting choices , and intelligent and skillful use of abilities . Skilled players will still be able to take advantage of temporary power buffs like trinket procs , and you ' ll still want to cast your hardest hitting spells within those proc durations . The benefits just won ' t extend outside the trinket procs ’ duration . As such , this high - skill gameplay is there , it ' s just rewarded more consistently . For example , a Priest ’ s trinket procs and an already active Shadow Word : Pain will begin dealing more damage the instant the proc effect occurs , but will return to normal when the proc duration ends . Skilled players will be able to play within these proc durations to maximize effect , but it won ’ t be as detrimental to output to anyone who isn ’ t actively and skillfully using them to their full extent . We also made another change to periodic effects . Haste has long affected the tick rate of periodic effects , and their duration has been rounded to whole numbers of ticks , in order to mostly preserve the original duration of the spell . This lead to Haste breakpoints where having specific amounts of Haste would cause certain periodic effects to gain an extra tick . Part of gearing your character involved trying to reach those Haste breakpoints , but not go over by too much . This was a fairly tedious number to manage , which was again mostly handled by add - ons and guides . With some new tech we ’ re now able to calculate the effect of Haste on tick time dynamically . Any fraction of a full period left at the end of an effect will do a tick of damage or healing in proportion to the remaining time . In other words , there are no more Haste breakpoints ; Haste now smoothly and accurately affects periodic effects for the entire duration . This also opened up the opportunity to revise how we handle refreshing periodic effects . For the vast majority of spells and abilities , we had a standard rule that any refresh would add the new cast ' s duration after the next tick of the existing effect . In simpler terms , you can refresh anywhere between the last and second - to - last tick of a DoT or HoT with no loss . Warlocks had a special passive that changed this logic to allow refreshing with no loss anywhere in the last 50 % of a DoT . We liked the flexibility that this provided ; though felt it was a bit too powerful . No longer tied to whole tick times , we chose to extend the mechanic that Warlocks had to all classes , but reduce it to 30 % . Everyone can now refresh their periodic effects anywhere in the last 30 % of the duration for full benefit , and no lost tick time . Tank Vengeance and Resolve " ( Updated ) " . The changes to tanking made in Mists of Pandaria turned out quite well , overall . But there were a few rough parts that we ' re going to smooth over . The biggest one is the offensive capabilities of Vengeance . We like that tanks can provide meaningful DPS to their group , however , it swung wildly based on the fight , even surpassing the dedicated damage dealers occasionally . To solve this , we ' re going to remove the offensive value of Vengeance , but preserve the defensive value , by making it increase the effect of your active mitigation buttons , instead of Attack Power . Then , to keep tank DPS meaningful , we ' ll be raising their damage , since it would be meager with no Vengeance Attack Power ( Vengeance accounted for 70 - 90 % of a tank ' s damage on high - tank - damage fights in Mists ) . To do that , we ' re increasing the damage of several prominent tank abilities , as well as having tanks also gain increased Attack Power from Mastery and Bonus Armor , in addition to the stat ’ s existing benefits . For plate - wearing Tank specializations , Riposte has been redesigned to convert Critical Strike into Parry , a defensive stat . That also helps keep secondary stats balanced in offensive value for them . Quality of Life Improvements . Facing Requirements . Strict facing requirements can be frustrating to deal with , especially in hectic Raid combat or PvP environments . In order to ease this frustration , we decided to remove or significantly loosen the facing requirements of all attacks that required the player to be behind their target . Reforging . The original intent behind Reforging was to offer a way for players to customize their gear , but in practice it offered little in the way of true choice . Players attempting to optimize every piece of gear were well advised to look up how they were supposed to reforge an item in an online guide or tool that had already determined the optimal choice . It added yet another step to the list of things that must be done to a new item before it was ready to be equipped , reducing the joy of getting an upgrade into a chore . If an upgrade drops , we want you to be able to equip it with a minimum of fuss . It is for those reasons that we ’ re removing Reforging from the game . Combat Resurrections . Combat resurrections are an extremely powerful tool that players have while in combat . Naturally , we apply some limitations . In Mists of Pandaria , that limit was 1 resurrection during a given raid boss encounter for 10 - player modes and 3 for 25 - player modes . With Flexible difficulty introduced in Patch 5 . 4 , we erred on the forgiving side , and gave Flexible Raids 3 resurrections regardless of raid size . In Warlords of Draenor , the Flex tech has expanded to more difficulty levels , and we needed a new system to handle combat resurrections more fairly . We knew that continuing with a constant 3 would encourage using the smallest possible raid sizes , while scaling with hard breakpoints would discourage specific group sizes just under those points . Additionally , the limit is not shown anywhere in - game , so it can be easy to lose track of how many resurrections the raid has available ( or even know that the limit exists ) . So we ’ ve built a new system to be more transparent , and improve usability . Resurrection Mana Costs . We reduced the mana cost of all resurrection spells to 4 % of base mana , so that mana isn ' t an inhibitor on the Raid or Party ' s ability to recover from a wipe . Cast time already functions as the primary cost of these spells . Note that Priests ' Resurrection spell was already at 4 % of base mana , so it remains unchanged . Glyphs . We made several improvements to the Glyph system . While leveling , characters unlock Glyph slots at several specific levels . However , in order to get glyphs , characters need to visit an Auction House ( and potentially pay way more gold than an average character of that level has yet ) , or know a Scribe from which to request them . To solve this , we ' ve made characters learn some Glyphs automatically as they level . Additionally , we now have the ability to make some glyphs exclusive with each other , or require specific specializations . Professions . Some of our goals with Professions in Warlords of Draenor are to make them more of a personal choice , and less of a mandatory “ min / max ” selection . To that end , we ' re removing the direct combat benefits of Professions . Additionally , we ' ve made it easier to level Mining and Herbalism . Healing Potions have gone mostly unused lately , compared to combat stat potions . We chose to solve that problem , along with a problem with Warlock utility , by having Healing Potions and Healthstones share cooldowns . Class Changes . Death Knight " ( Section Updated ) " . A few things have happened for Death Knights . As described above in Ability Pruning , several cooldowns were made spec - specific . Rotations remain unchanged for the most part . One thing we did polish up is the effect of Diseases on the damage of other abilities . Diseases now do enough damage on their own to warrant using them , so having them act as multipliers on the damage of other abilities was extraneous , and just cluttered up the tooltips of those abilities . We removed those multipliers , and just baked in their benefit to the corresponding base spell . This slightly reduces ramp - up time . We made several changes to compensate for abilities that have been removed by Ability Pruning . Blood Boil got removed and its effects were merged into Pestilence . This change in effect turned Roiling Blood into a passive ability ; which we replaced with a new talent , Plaguebearer . For Blood specialization we removed Rune Strike and are adjusting the cost of Death Coil so it can be used in Rune Strike ’ s place . In order to better balance the scaling rates and value of secondary stats for Unholy Death Knights , we reduced the power of their passive Unholy Might ability . Active Mitigation was a very successful design that was inspired by Death Knights ' tanking style . However , it went beyond that , and Death Knights themselves were somewhat left behind in that regard . We made several changes to bring up the interactivity of Blood combat . This includes making Death Strike cause healing based on attack power , but be affected by the new Resolve passive ( see Tank Vengeance and Resolve , above ) , which gives it the traditional increase from recent damage . Plus , Rune Tap is being significantly improved , to become a strong Active Mitigation button . To tie those together , Blood ' s Mastery is being changed to affect both the size of the Blood Shield absorb , and the new Rune Shield absorb . Additionally , we removed Dodge and Parry from gear , and expect Blood Death Knights to value Haste and Crit as important secondary stats . In order to achieve that , we made Riposte give defensive value to Critical Strikes , and Scent of Blood give defensive value to Multistrike . To solve GCD - capping issues and increase the value of Haste , we also removed the passive rune regeneration increase from Improved Blood Presence . Finally , we tweaked the targeting AI of Dancing Rune Weapon , and fixed it up to properly copy most Talents that you know . Since the Ghoul pet is now Unholy only , that presents a problem for Death Pact . We revised Death Pact to not require an undead minion , but work a little differently . We left it at 50 % heal , which is effectively a 33 % buff to it from before ( see Healing and Player Health above ) , and added a heal absorb for half the amount healed , instead . It should now be a relatively more effective heal for staying alive immediately , but with the downside of needing to heal through the heal absorb before you can be healed any further . There were also a few other miscellaneous changes . The Runic Power generation of Anti - Magic Shell was standardized , to make it more understandable and balanced . Level - 60 and Level - 75 talent rows have swapped places , so the important rune regeneration talents could be acquired earlier . Druid " ( Updated ) " . Druids have seen a few significant changes . The loss of Symbiosis ( see Ability Pruning above ) will primarily impact druids ’ survival , as many of the abilities received through Symbiosis were defensive cooldowns . To compensate for that change , we buffed Survival Instincts significantly and the ability is now available for all specializations . Guardian Druids received a number of changes . They ' ve had increased Armor as their Mastery for a while now . However , one of the new secondary stats available to all tanks is Bonus Armor . We didn ' t feel that the difference of being additive vs . being a multiplier was significant enough to warrant keeping their Mastery around . Additionally , active mitigation hasn ' t played out as well for Guardians as it has for some other tanks . We decided to redesign the Mastery for Guardian Druids to something that compliments the Avoidance - heavy nature of Savage Defense , and also to improve the usability of Tooth and Claw for more consistent damage reduction . Note that Primal Tenacity ' s calculation uses the damage before any other absorbs you have , and before Tooth and Claw ' s effects , so that it isn ’ t negatively affected by any of those . Note that Primal Tenacity ' s calculation uses the damage before any other absorbs you have , and before Tooth and Claw ' s effects , so that it isn ’ t negatively affected by any of the changes . The maximum number of charges that can be accumulated for Savage Defense has been reduced to make its uptime more consistent between short and long periods of tanking . Rage for Guardian Druids has been problematic throughout Mists of Pandaria . Most of their rage generation was extremely passive , and most of their button presses either didn ' t affect their survivability , or only trivially did so . We made changes to Haste and Crit , to try to solve these rage generation problems , and improve their rotation . We also added Ursa Major , in order to give a defensive value to the new Multistrike stat . Tooth and Claw can now accumulate 2 charges , its effects stack on the target , and are affected by Resolve . Feral Druids received one major change , and few tweaks beyond what ' s been mentioned above in Ability Pruning and Facing Requirements . Combo Points are now stored " on the player " , meaning that when you switch targets , any accumulated Combo Points remain with you . Pounce was buffed significantly , in order to bring it up to par with Ravage . Primal Fury was changed to let it affect area attacks as well . Glyph of Savagery was reworked to better achieve its intended effect . We have some extensive changes for Balance Druids . One of our guiding principles with game design is that things should be " easy to learn , hard to master " . We ' re not particularly happy with the Moonkin rotation because it was actually hard to learn , and easy to master ( especially with regards to periodic damage effects no longer snapshotting ) . Energy and Eclipse mechanics were not intuitive for many newer players . Once you became accustomed to the rotation , there wasn ’ t much additional depth to mastering it ; maintain two DoTs , hit these other two buttons whenever they light up , and spam one of two buttons in between . In order to try to make it easier to learn , but also add some gameplay depth and challenge we ' re making a significant revision to the rotation . The list of changes is quite dense , so here ’ s a summary of the changes . Summary of changes to Balance : Tranquility has an amazingly strong effect ( pour a ton of healing into the whole Raid / Party ) , but had excessive complexity for a relatively simple task ( 5 different targets per tick , a short HoT , stacking , varied strength by raid size ) . So , we simplified it significantly . It still will be used just as it always has been . Restoration Druids got a few changes as well . In Patch 5 . 4 , a Glyph was introduced where you could choose to attach your Efflorescence to Wild Mushroom , instead of to Swiftmend . That was a rousing success , taken by nearly all Restoration Druids , and felt like a much better situation to us , so we decided to remove the glyph choice , and bake it in permanently . Secondly , while we are fine with the playstyle where a Restoration Druid blankets their Raid in Rejuvenations , the Swift Rejuvenation passive made that too strong , and also limited their scaling with Haste . We removed that passive , to encourage using other spells more , but still allow Rejuvenation blanketing as a playstyle choice . Omen of Clarity got changed to not trigger more often with Tree of Life ; it was too strong in our new healing model . Soul of the Forest was also redesigned for Restoration and Genesis to fit better with the new design for periodic effects . The level 90 - Talent row for Druids was designed to encourage hybrid gameplay . We decided that , while you shouldn ' t have to give up a significant amount of your primary role throughput in order to gain the off - role benefit , you also don ' t need to gain an actual benefit to your primary role throughput benefit either . We ' ve reduced the power of their primary role benefit , making them roughly neutral in their effect on your primary role . Note that the increase to off - role healing from Nature ' s Vigil is not actually a buff ( see Healing and Player Health above ) . And the Druid changes are capped off by merging Glyph of Stampede ' s effects into Glyph of Stampeding Roar . Hunter " ( Updated ) " . Hunters have lacked a strong distinction between the different specializations . What we mean by that is that the Hunter specializations all had rotations that felt similar , with Marksmanship and Survival having the most blurred identities ( Beast Mastery felt well rooted in the pet ) . Hunters were also some of the most afflicted by button bloat . To address these problems , we opted to make changes to each specialization ' s rotation , primarily through removing abilities , and making some of them unique to each spec . This means things like Aimed Shot being the primary Focus dump for Marksmanship , instead of Arcane Shot or Serpent Sting being available only to Survival . Hunters also had a large number of cooldown abilities , which we ' ve also cut down ( some of which we moved to the talent tree , competing with other active buttons ) . For a full list of what was removed , please see Ability Pruning and PvP - Crowd Control and Diminishing Returns . One of the most difficult abilities to decide to cut was Aspect of the Hawk . It began to feel fairly meaningless , since it was used virtually all of the time in combat , so might as well have just been passive . We decided to cut Aspect of the Hawk , and bake in its benefit to the other abilities . The remaining aspect abilities are all utility only , and are being moved off the stance bar and made toggles . Overall , Hunters should see a drastic reduction in the number of active buttons , and have a clearer distinction between the different specializations . With some of these changes , you may find yourself favoring a different specialization . Keep in mind that Draenor Perks , earned from levels 91 to 99 , will serve to further distinguish the different specializations . Each Hunter specialization received a revision to the burst - damage - cooldowns they have access to . All specializations now have one burst - damage - cooldown available baseline , and can add to that through talent choices . Beast Mastery Hunters retain Bestial Wrath . Rapid Fire is a good fit for Marksmanship , and we improved it . For Survival , we wanted to both increase the prominence of their traps , and give them a new damage cooldown . So , a new trap called Bear Trap has been created to fit that role . Note that Bear Trap ' s base cooldown can be reduced by other passive abilities and perks , such that it has roughly a 2 minute - cooldown afterwards . We did a comprehensive pass on Hunter pet abilities . As mentioned above in Crowd Control and Diminishing Returns , all full crowd - control abilities have been removed from Hunter pets and replaced those with new abilities , including spreading some that were previously restricted to exotic pets . Additionally , Hunters can now tame beasts from new pet families . There were also a few other changes , primarily for quality of life and rotational consistency . Mage " ( Updated ) " . The Mage class has good specialization distinction when it comes to their single - target rotations , but utility and area - of - effect spells were heavily shared between specializations . Commonly , these spells were redundant as well . We made many of their spells specialization - specific ( as described in Ability Pruning above ) . And probably most significant , we made changes to several existing Talents . Presence of Mind was extremely strong for instant CC , which we wanted to curtail . Rather than completely remove Presence of Mind or make it not affect CC abilities , we made it a base Arcane spell , where we don ' t expect that it will be a problem , since Arcane has less CC than the other Mage specs already . In its place , we ' ve added a new talent , Evanesce . Going along with our goals to reduce cooldown stacking across all of the classes , we decided to remove Alter Time ' s DPS contribution . Alter Time has a number of clever movement and utility uses , but in practice it was mostly being used for additional uptime of offensive cooldowns . Mages also had many redundant forms of survival utility , so we moved a utility - only version of Alter Time into the Talent tree , replacing Temporal Shield . A few of the abilities reset by Cold Snap were made spec - specific , or could be overridden with Talents , so we expanded what it can affect to compensate . The Mage Bomb level - 75 Talent row , the Bomb row , was also problematic . We chose to add the Bombs to all Mages ' rotations in order to spice them up a bit , to provide rotational variety . That succeeded , and we ' re overall happy with how they interact with your rotation in a single - target situation , but they also came with the prospect of multi - dotting ( applying your damage - over - time spell to many enemies , individually ) , which we don ' t feel is an appropriate fit for Mages . Additionally , in order to make all 3 Bombs useful to all specializations , we had to lose some of their spec - specific perks . And , even more importantly , many Mages did not like DoT gameplay at all . In order to solve all of these problems , we decided to merge the 3 current Bomb Talents into one that changes based on spec . That allows us to reintroduce spec - specific perks to each Bomb , and makes room for some non - DoT alternatives . One of the most problematic Talent rows in the game has been the Mage level - 90 row . The primary theme of the row was mana , which only Arcane Mages actually cared about . Bonus damage was added in , making it functional for all Mages , but muddled in its goals . Additionally , some of them just weren ' t fun to play with . We ' ve revised the row to be purely about damage , and made them have less maintenance cost . Arcane Mages will have enough mana regeneration without these Talents to perform well . Frost Mages enjoyed newfound PvE viability in Mists of Pandaria , and we intend to continue that into the future . However , we do want to clean up some rough spots , especially around their valuing of secondary stats , and the amount of instant - cast spells in their rotation . The Frost Armor and Shatter changes increase the amount of Haste / Critical chance that they can acquire on gear before they start hitting soft caps . The Shatter change also lowers the value of Critical Strike for a bit . The changes to the level - 75 Talent row meant that having a Bomb spell is no longer guaranteed , so we changed the way that Brain Freeze is triggered . We also changed Brain Freeze ' s effect , in order to give Frost mages another cast - time spell in their rotation . Rotation for Fire Mage is looking solid with the new Draenor Perks . However , their cooldown strength could use a buff . In order to make room for more Haste effects to apply to Arcane Blast , we raised its cast time and damage slightly . We also made Arcane Charges last longer , to aid in questing and encounters . Monk " ( Updated ) " . The brand - new class for Mists of Pandaria , Monks , turned out to be a ton of fun . Brewmasters stayed fairly solid all expansion long . Windwalkers needed a few tweaks here and there , especially to their Mastery , and still have a few shortcomings that we hope to improve , but overall worked quite well . Mistweavers had a bit of a rollercoaster ride , veering between weak and strong over the course of the expansion . Most of our changes to Monks will focus on Mistweavers , to try to get them just right . About midway through the expansion , it became clear that mana was not valuable for Mistweavers . We tried some adjustments to solve that , but it proved too large of a change to make at the time . We chose to just live with that problem for the time being , and tune them around not really caring much about Spirit or mana ( once they reached epic gear ) . Now that we have the time to tweak things , and for Mistweavers to acquire new gear , we ' re going to make changes to get them in the right spot . Initially , we experimented with giving Mistwavers a 1 - second GCD akin to that of the Rogue to give them a faster combat feel . However , it ' s proven difficult to balance . Haste is attractive to healers because it lowers not just cast time but GCD as well . Therefore , Monks valued Haste much less than other healers . We explored a few options , but ultimately landed on changing the core GCD for Mistweavers from 1 second to the standard 1 . 5 seconds , which you will be able to reduce with Haste . This will feel jarring at first , but we ' re confident that it ' s for the best , long - term . Another issue with Mistweavers is that of Eminence , which has never really played out how we had hoped . The intent with Eminence was to create an alternate play style to fulfill the fantasy of healing through dealing damage , since we knew a lot of players had that fantasy , and a new class was the perfect opportunity to satisfy that . Having two play styles in one spec ( Eminence , and traditional Mistweaving , healing primarily through casting heals ) proved challenging to balance , because we don ' t want players to take the best parts of both and stack them into an unintended superior spec . The most notorious of these cases was " Jab - Jab - Uplift " . In order to solve this problem , we ' re giving Mistweavers two stances . Stance of the Wise Serpent will continue to be the stance from which to do traditional Mistweaving . The new Stance of the Spirited Crane will be the stance to use for Eminence . You can swap stances at will , with only the cost of a GCD and any current Chi that you ' ve accrued . The intention is that Crane Stance allows Mistweavers to trade healing for damage ; it should fall somewhere in the middle between being a full healer , and being a full damage dealer . We also improved all Monk Healing Spheres . You ' ll no longer waste them when running over multiple at once when you only need a little healing . And we significantly improved the effect when Mistweavers ' Healing Spheres expire . We also made Afterlife Healing Spheres consistent with the rest of the class . There were several changes that affected multiple Monk specializations . We ’ d like to see Monks using Transcendence more often , so its usability has been improved ( some baseline , and some in a Draenor Perk ) . For Touch of Death , we like that it ’ s a unique execute being usable only once , but found it impractical to use on bosses and have improved its usability . For Tiger Strikes , we buffed it to grant Multistrike ability which it was similar to already , and extended it to work with all Monk specializations . To better balance the damage of Brewmaster versus Windwalker where both share many of the same abilities , we removed the damage increase provided by Tiger Stance , and increased the damage of melee abilities to compensate . We ’ re making a few changes that mostly affects Windwalkers , but has a minor impact on Mistweavers and Brewmasters as well . For energy - based gameplay to function well , the primary limitation on ability usage should be energy , not time . As such , we ' re making the following changes to address GCD - capping problems . First , we ’ re reducing the effects and mana increase of Ascension , because it became more powerful when combined with several of our other changes to healers . We believe that Ascension will remain as a competitive talent for Brewmasters . Second , energy cost of Jab has been increased for Windwalkers . And Third , we reduced the chance for Combo Breaker to trigger . Individually , these may sound like significant nerfs but Windwalker damage has been adjusted to compensate for these changes . The goal is not to reduce DPS while addressing the issue with GCD - capping . A couple of additional changes for Windwalkers . Storm , Earth , and Fire , got buffed to make it smoother to use . We also buffed Fists of Fury because we felt that the ability wasn ’ t giving a strong enough damage boost given its restrictions and impact on the Monk ' s rotation . For Brewmasters , Gift of the Ox has been modified to allow it to scale defensively with the new Multistrike stat . The Black Ox Statue has been modified to aid Monks in establishing aggro on new enemies instead of shielding allies . We also removed the Misfire effect , as it did not live up to its original idea , and was unnecessary . Paladin " ( Updated ) " . For Paladins , we have a few tweaks in store . We made several changes for Holy , to go along with other larger system changes to compensate for the removal of Guardian of Ancient Kings from Holy , and merged its benefits into Divine Favor . In order to follow through on our change to merge all types of Haste % , we removed the Spell Haste % from Seal of Insight to a Holy - only passive , so that it didn ' t also increase Protection ' s baseline Haste by 10 % . Our changes to healer mana and mobility also indirectly increased the value of Selfless Healer by a large amount , so we brought it back down to be even in power with the other talents on its row . We also raised the range of Denounce to be consistent with other spells . For Protection , we tweaked Eternal Flame in order to reduce its massive self - healing amount , and provide better balance between talents on that row . We also added a new passive , Shining Protector , in order to give defensive value to the new Multistrike stat . We made a few additional changes to Paladins . We revised the functionality of Hammer of the Righteous a bit , such that its performance is about the same , but its tooltip is much clearer . We also made Stay of Execution much more attractive to use as an emergency button . One big change for Retribution that isn ' t mentioned here is the removal of Inquisition ( see Ability Pruning ) , which will have a notable effect on their rotation . We wanted to improve Seal gameplay for Protection and Retribution , so have made a few changes in that regard . Protection had three Seals , but only used Insight due to its defensive value . We ’ ve moved that defensive value into a passive for Protection Paladins , and expect them to primarily use a mixture of Seal of Truth and Seal of Righteousness now . To provide better gameplay between Seal of Truth and Seal of Righteousness , and effectively remove a button , we made Seal of Righteousness transform Crusader Strike into Hammer of the Righteous . Priest " ( Updated ) " . We ' ve made a few significant changes to Priests as well , focused mostly on reining in Discipline absorbs , improving quality of life for both healing Priest specializations , and solving single - target damage issues for Shadow . Atonement was the original damage - to - healing conversion ability , but grew out of control during Mists of Pandaria . We decided to reduce its effectiveness , to bring it more in line with our goal of it being an option to trade significant healing for significant damage ( ending up somewhere between a full healer and a full damage dealer ) . Another place where Discipline ' s absorbs were too strong was in their interaction with the level - 90 Talents , especially in large Raids . Near the end of Mists of Pandaria , we uncapped the AoE healing of that Talent row ; that has proven to be a mistake in Discipline ' s case , not because it caused the level - 90 Talents themselves to heal for too much , but rather because the gigantic overhealing that that produced translated into gigantic Divine Aegis absorbs . To get back to a balanced place , we ' ve reapplied the AoE caps to the level - 90 Talents , making them consistent with all other AoE heals . For Holy Priests , our biggest concern is with the Chakras . We think that Chakras are the defining abilities of Holy Priests , but that they haven ' t lived up to their potential . We decided to move more of their effectiveness from their raw throughput buff ( which felt like a penalty for being in the wrong chakra , rather than a bonus for being in the right Chakra ) into their bonus effects , and the Holy Word spells that they grant . Please note that all Priest healing spells have been retuned to account for the loss of throughput increases from Chakras . We also returned Renew to a normal 1 . 5 - second global cooldown ( GCD ) , so that Renew blanketing is still possible , but less ideal without Haste . Finally , the ability for Power Word : Shield to critically strike or Multistrike is now baseline for all Priest specializations instead of just Disciplins so that it continues to be a viable choice for Holy at higher gear levels . Shadow Priests had one large problem toward the end of Mists of Pandaria : single - target damage . Their AoE and multi - DoT damage was some of the best around , so they still ended up competitive on most fights . But , in any fight that was mostly single - target , they felt lacking . Additionally , one of the new stats we ' re adding in Warlords of Draenor , Multistrike , is almost exactly what their current Mastery , Shadowy Recall , does for DoTs . So , we took these two problems and came up with a change that we think will solve both of them . The result is a new Mastery , which primarily increases single - target damage . Shadow Priests who want to focus on single - target damage can aim for Mastery in their gearing ; or , when multi - dotting is more valuable , prefer other secondary stats over Mastery . Several talents got split into different versions by specialization . We revised the effectiveness of some of these talents to better balance talent choices on their rows . There are a few other miscellaneous changes . One is a quality - of - life change for healing Priests . The other is a fix for a problem with Void Tendrils , where it lasts its full duration against creatures that had no way to attack it ( such as in certain Raid encounters ) . Note that the health reduction is to keep it where it was in health , compared to player health doubling . The third is an efficient AoE healing spell for Discipline Priests . And finally , we swapped the Level - 15 and Level - 60 talent rows so players are presented with core Priest themed abilities earlier in the leveling process . Rogue " ( Updated ) " . There are a number of Rogue changes listed under Ability Pruning , but there are a few additional changes to note . The biggest of which is a fundamental change to how Combo Points work . They ' re now shared across all enemies ; you can swap targets and you won ; t lose your Combo Points . First , in our efforts to reduce cooldown stacking across the game , we chose to remove the damage increase from Tricks of the Trade . And second , we decided to loosen the weapon requirements on Assassination . It ' s important to note that we still intend for daggers to be the optimal choice for Assassination Rogues , but this change will help Rogues who want to try out Assassination but don ' t have two daggers . Bandit ' s Guile is an interesting mechanic that is important to Combat gameplay , but wasn ' t working out quite as well as we think that it could . In particular , there ' s basically no way to adjust when you ' re going to be in Deep Insight , other than stopping your rotation ( and thus wasting energy , combo points , temporary effects , cooldown time , etc . ) . So , we ' re making an adjustment to Revealing Strike and Bandit ' s Guile . The intention here is that you can use Revealing Strike in place of Sinister Strike when you want to delay Deep Insight ( such as to line it up with a specific upcoming fight mechanic ) , and have little lost damage besides the overall Deep Insight uptime . We don ' t expect this nuanced rotation adjustment to be used by all Combat Rogues , but having a little more control over the pace of your rotation will be useful to some . Worth noting here is the removal of Ambidexterity . This was done to reduce the amount of damage coming from auto attacks for Combat Rogues . We ’ ve increased the damage of their active abilities to compensate and make them more rewarding . Among some other changes to improve Rogue AoE damage , we made a couple of baseline changes , and added a few Draenor Perks that impacts their AoE . Honor Among Thieves is an extremely powerful ability , but has the downside that it adds significant disparity between character power while soloing and while in a group . We made this change to bring up the soloing Subtlety Rogue , without having a significant impact on their performance while in a group . To better balance the scaling rates and value of secondary stats for Subtlety , we reduced the power of their Sinister Calling passive ability . A couple of Rogue abilities do periodic damage , but don ' t have an intended alternative if that periodic is already on the target . We made these abilities roll remaining damage from their previous effect into the new effect , so that it ' s still ideal to use them again in these cases . Subterfuge has proved too powerful , and frustrating to play against in PvP , so we decided to reduce its defensive capabilities , while preserving its offensive power . We changed the Subterfuge period to allow the use of stealth abilities without actually stealthing you , similar to Shadow Dance . Shaman " ( Updated ) " . Shaman has received a variety of changes , most of which are specialization - specific . For Elemental and Enhancement , we had a few problems to solve . Enhancement suffers from having their damage split among so many damage sources that none of it feels impressive . We changed the damage of several abilities to try to reorganize their damage into fewer , more impactful abilities , while keeping the net total the same . For a long time Elemental Shaman were one of the specs most impacted by movement , at a time where other casters were increasingly able to cast while moving . For Warlords of Draenor , we ' re pulling back on the ability for many casters to deal damage while moving , and that includes Elemental . They will still have some ability to deal damage while moving , through Shocks , Unleash Weapon , and instant Lava Bursts . For Chain Lightning , we wanted to reduce the impact of Haste soft capping , and so changed Shamanism to increase damage instead of reduce cast time . Additionally , we simplified Wind Shear by removing its impact on threat , which no longer matters . Restoration Shaman had the most passive and smart healing of any healer , and so received some reductions in that area , along with buffs elsewhere to keep them competitive . One particular change is to Mana Tide Totem , which we made less effective for other players , but still just as effective for the Shaman . We like that Shaman could help other healers out on mana , but it was just too strong , significantly impacting how those other healers gear themselves . We also made a couple quality of life improvements to Shaman Shield spells . Warlock " ( Updated ) " . Warlocks received a number of cut abilities ( see Ability Pruning above ) , but remain relatively unchanged . They saw the most change of any class in Mists of Pandaria , and so were in need of less revision this time around . We felt that Warlocks brought too much unique Raid utility , so decided to tone down Healthstones and Demonic Gateway . We moved Healing Potions and Healthstones into a cooldown of their own , and made them usable once per combat . For Affliction , we ' re happy with their rotation . But , Drain Soul was causing them to be too strong in situations where they had a steady supply of small creatures to kill . We reduced the effectiveness of its on - kill effect in order to solve this . Kil ' jaeden ' s Cunning was a problematic talent . We ' ve reduced the ability for ranged damage dealers to deal damage while moving in Warlords . Kil ' jaeden ' s Cunning became much stronger relative to other casters . We redesigned how the ability works to be more powerful in bursts instead of always affecting only some spells . Finally , there are a couple of miscellaneous changes . For Drain Life , we reduced the base healing somewhat , but massively increased the effectiveness of the Glyph which increases its healing , so as to help open up more potential Drain Life use in ideal situations . And lastly , we simplified Shadowburn a bit . Warrior " ( Updated ) " . We wanted to fix a few problems with Warriors . Prominently , we still weren ' t happy with Arms ' rotation ( and neither were many players ) , so we ' ve made some more changes . The goal is to remove needless complexity while simultaneously adding more depth . As mentioned in the above section on Ability Pruning above ) , Overpower and Heroic Strike have been removed for Arms Warriors . In their place , Slam now costs less Rage , and Execute has been revised to provide more dynamic gameplay throughout the whole fight while still retaining its identity of a low - health finisher . In addition , we weren ’ t satisfied with the Mastery for Arms . The intended flavor for Arms is about hitting with few , big , and heavy weapon strikes . Strikes of Opportunity actually went opposite of that , adding frequent little hits . We ’ ve replaced Strikes of Opportunity with a new Mastery which accentuates their intended design . As with other classes , we wanted to reduce cooldown stacking . Cutting Skull Banner did a ton to help that across the whole game . But for Warriors specifically , we needed to make further changes , including merging some of the personal benefit of Skull Banner back into Recklessness . Also , to make up for Throw being removed , we modified Heroic Throw to be more frequently usable . Haste has long been a problematic stat for Warriors , usually being of little value . As part of our commitment to ensuring all secondary stats are valuable ( except Bonus Armor for non - tanks and Spirit for non - healers , of course ) , we ' re making a significant change to Warriors , to ensure that Haste has strong , competitive value . We ' re giving all Warriors a new passive , which lets haste affect their global cooldown , and the cooldowns of their very - short - cooldown rotational abilities . Protection Warriors have received a few notable changes . First , we removed Dodge and Parry from gear , and expect Protection Warriors to value Haste and Crit as important secondary stats . In order to achieve that , we made Riposte give defensive value to Crits . The aforementioned Headlong Rush also helps for valuing Haste . A few Warrior Talents also were in need of revision . First , Second Wind was problematic ; it was sometimes too weak , and sometimes too strong . We chose to change it from a passive health regeneration effect to the new Leech effect , so that low - health Warriors have to maintain combat in order to benefit , instead of kiting , hiding , or otherwise playing defensively . For the level - 60 and level - 90 Talent rows , certain combinations were proving problematic . We decided that Stormbolt would better compete with Shockwave and Dragon Roar , and that Bladestorm would better compete with Avatar and Bloodbath , so swapped Stormbolt and Bladestorm ' s positions . Fury Warriors a few additional changes . We made a revision to the critical strike chance of Bloodthirst to make them less crit - dependant . A new glyph has been added which gives Fury Warriors a choice for a notably different playstyle . Auto attack damage had become too high , so we also moved some damage from that into Execute ( which has been changed to deal damage based on Weapon Damage , instead of just Attack Power ) . Plus , we ' ve updated some to spell alerts to improve usability . With the introduction of one of the level - 100 Warrior Talents , which deals Fire damage , we also expanded Enrage to affect all damage , not just Physical damage . We ' re also making a change to the design of Deep Wounds , to try to limit is effectiveness in PvP , without hurting its effectiveness in PvE . < / onlyinclude >