For you monk

AE DPS and Paladin Changes, Blue Posts, Death Knight Poll

Today appears to be a big day for news, so we may be updating this as the day progresses with more news.
Update: Paid Character Transfers to New Realms

Quote from: Bornakk (Source)

We are reducing the time restriction on Paid Character Transfers (PCTs) to newly opened realms. As of today, players will be able to transfer characters to a new realm after the realm has been live for 90 days. This limit does not apply to PCTs to realms that are opened specifically as transfer destinations (from high-population realms, for example). With the recent changes to leveling and the addition of features such as the Recruit-A-Friend program, this will make it easier for players to try out a new realm or explore Azeroth with their family and friends. For more information on Paid Character Transfers, check out the FAQ.

FAQ: http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=20558

Upcoming AE DPS Changes

Quote from: Ghostcrawler (Source)

There is definitely a lot of AE (area effect damage) going on in World of Warcraft dungeon runs at the moment. We’re not too worried about it for now – on the contrary it’s nice to see so many people doing the level-up dungeons on the way to level 80. If we find that AE tank + AE damage strategy (with no sheeping, sapping or other crowd control) is the only way people are running heroics and raids, then we’ll probably make some changes, but for now we’re content to just see what happens.

Having said all that, we feel like a few groups are being left out of the AE fun, which makes them of less utility in the 5-player dungeons. We aren’t able to provide a lot of details yet, but here are some upcoming changes we’re making.

Shaman – we are removing the threat component from Fire Nova Totem and Magma Totem and increasing the damage from Magma Totem. This should provide the Elemental shamans in particular with some formidable AE.

Rogue – we are removing the cooldown from Fan of Knives and adjusting the damage calculation slightly to make daggers more useful for this ability.

Druid – we are adding Swipe (Cat) as a baseline ability.

As is the case with most multi-target abilities, these three should be something you want to use when faced with groups, but never against single targets. Fan of Knives and Swipe, for example, don’t grant combo points so they should never be a core part of the rotation against single targets (like most bosses).

These changes will be available in the next minor content update, so keep an eye out for the next PTR push.

Consolidated list of upcoming Paladin changes

Quote from: Ghostcrawler (Source)

We have already announced or suggested all of these changes would be forthcoming in the next minor content patch. I thought I would list them all in one place for ease of use.

Divine Shield: Penalty changed so that all damage done is reduced by 50% instead of a attack speed penalty.

1) Divine Protection no longer causes an attack penalty. Divine Shield's penalty was changed to 50% less damage done by the paladin.

2) Sacred Duty: This Protection talent no longer affects the attack penalty of Divine Shield and Divine Protection, but grants additional bonus Stamina.

3) Avenging Wrath, Divine Shield, Divine Protection, and Hand of Protection have a shared, 30-second cooldown. The Forbearance effect is no longer triggered by Avenging Wrath.

4) Judgement of Wisdom now returns a percentage of base mana instead of a percentage of max mana.

5) All mana drain effects now return a percentage of max enemy mana (making mana drains less punishing to paladins and other characters without large mana pools.)

6) Judgements of the Pure: This Holy talent now increases the damage done by Seals and Judgements.

7) All paladins receive a single-target taunt (name TBD) as a base ability.

Example of change (Source)

Since this seems confusing:

Before:

Drain Mana on a mage with 15,000 mana drains 2500 mana (16% of their mana)
Drain Mana on a paladin with 5000 mana drains 2500 mana (50% of their mana)

After:

Drain Mana on a mage with 15,000 mana drains 3000 mana (20% of their mana)
Drain Mana on a paladin with 5000 mana drains 1000 mana (20% of their mana)

Those are not real numbers -- just indicating the concept of what the change will do.

Blue Posts

Feel free to share your thoughts on the Grizzly Hills post in particular.

Why does Grizzly Hills suck so much? (Source)

I personally enjoyed Grizzly Hills. While it may have been a bit more frustrating if I didn't have my flying mount, I enjoyed the stories and atmosphere.

Loot Distribution (Source)

We view loot distribution at least in part as a social issue. You are always going to run into situations where someone wants to roll against you on an item that is of questionable value to them.

As far as two classes legitimately needing the same item, we view that as a good thing. It's a better place to be than when items always drop that nobody can use.
Druid

Savage Roar to persist through shapeshifting (Source)

Q u o t e:
- Are there plans to make Savage Roar persist through shapeshifting, but only affect cat form? This is mainly a PvP issue, but certainly has application in PvE as well, should we need to off tank for 3-5 seconds, battle res, off heal, feral charge, bash, etc. Though I'd mainly like to see this for PvP, since it'd be too risky to use SR if shapeshifting kills it, and it's a huge part of what makes feral druid DPS scale correctly. Ghostcrawler hinted that it'd be reasonable to give it the "dash treatment"... any more thoughts on this line?

Yes, we are making this change.

New Feral Mana talent (Source)

It will probably be something like Primal Tenacity reducing the cost of Bear Form, Cat Form, and Dire Bear Form by 17/33/50% in addition to its current effects.
Shaman

Possible Future AoE Spell (Source)

We might still do an AE spell for Elemental as well, but that is further down the road. Let me be clear that shamans are intended to be a totem-using class. I would not expect a lot of changes that let you opt out of using totems. Instead we want to make them fun, easy and worth the effort. We did consider the problem of having to run up to AE, but this is what several specs do already -- mages to use Arcane Explosion for example. We talked to a lot of Elemental shamans who thought it wouldn't be a problem. Also remember than when a mage channels Blizzard, that is all she is doing. Totems do damage in addition to your spells.

Our goal is not to make every spec in the game awesome at AE damage. Our goal is to give you a button you can push to contribute in some way. We think Elemental shamans need to fill this role more than the rogues or Feral druids however, since they tend to compete for slots more against warlocks and mages, who have excellent AE. Our goal is for Elemental to be there as well. This may not get them there 100%, but it's a good improvement over nearly 0% which is where they stand today.

As far as whether you can AE too much, as I said, that is something we're keeping an eye on. Even Naxx is considered an entry-level raid and not the kind of place that requires Sunwell (or even Black Temple) -level coordination. For now it's nice to see so many players with the option to run 5-player instances and entry level raids. I would not expect the strategy in Ulduar and Icecrown to be "I'll Swipe while you guys Blizzard. Volley and Hurricane down all the trash."
Rogue

Current DPS (Source)

Rogue dps seems to be high in heroics and raids. We are not seeing the case where rogues get skipped over for these runs.

I can understand rogues feeling left out when so many groups are AE'ing their way through the lower level 5-player instances at the moment. We don't expect that strategy to continue to Naxx however.