Death Knight
But we loved Corpse Explosion!
Yes. You do. So do we. Unfortunately, requiring a corpse felt like too steep a requirement for a competitive talent. We would like to still add Corpse Explosion in some form as a glyph. In the meantime, hey presto! - Unholy Blight is back.

Druid

• The Druid will select a raid or party member and cast Symbiosis on them.
  
• The target cannot be another Druid.
  
• The target gains a buff that tells them what spell they have temporarily learned, and that spell temporarily appears in their spellbook, and they can drag it to an action bar.
  
• The Druid’s Symbiosis button will become the ability they gained from the target class.
  
• The Symbiosis link is cancelled if: the Druid clicks off the Symbiosis buff, or the Druid or the target changes continents or enters or exits an instance, or the Druid or the target changes talent specializations.
  
• Symbiosis fails to cast if Symbiosis is already active on that target.
  
• Symbiosis cannot be cast in combat.
  
• For the non-Druid target, the icon will revert to a placeholder (uncastable) Symbiosis icon when Symbiosis ends, but will become the Symbiosis-granted ability again the next time Symbiosis is cast on that target.
  
• The ability gained from Symbiosis is always something chosen to match the Druid’s specialization and the target’s combat role.
  
• The target always gets the same spell unless they change combat roles. A Druid of a given specialization always gets the same spell from each different class. If there is a change of specs, there is a change of spell.

Here are some examples of spells gained through Symbiosis. The spells shared focus on utility, cooldowns, and survival. (Adding Fireball to a Moonkin’s rotation sounds cool on paper, but wouldn’t actually be fun in the long run.)

Balance: Chains of Ice, Mirror Image, Mass Dispel
Feral: Feign Death (Play Dead!), Frost Nova, Soul Swap
Guardian: Ice Trap, Fear Ward, Consecration
Restoration: Ice Block, Hand of Sacrifice, Leap of Faith
Hunter: Dash
Warlock: Rejuvenation
Holy Paladin: Rebirth
Arms/Fury Warrior: Enrage
Enhancement/Elemental Shaman: Solar Beam

Mage
Fear not! Mages will still have all their Teleports and Portals. At this point, we decided to hide them from the talent calculator to reduce clutter.

What is "base mana regeneration"? How does mana regen work for casters (or mages)?
Healers get a significant amount of mana regeneration from Spirit, even during combat. Additionally, all mana users have a small amount of mana regeneration -- currently about 1% of maximum mana per second. With Invocation, that 1%/sec is removed. Things like Innervate will still allow you to regenerate mana, but you won’t passively regenerate any with Invocation.

What is the range for Alter time concerning the "moves too far away" part?
100 yards. It’s mostly just to indicate that it won’t reverse taking a portal to Dalaran or something.

Is AM a proc?
Yes, Arcane Missiles is still activated via a proc from your other direct damage spells.

Does Arcane Bomb have a target limit?
Currently, no. We’re hoping it won’t be needed.

Invisibility and Greater Invisibility say that you’re “untargettable”. Does that mean that we’re not actually invisible anymore?
No, you still turn invisible, just it has been. It still breaks on damage. You still are completely cleared of threat when you turn invisible (either after 3sec for Invisibility, or instantly for Greater Invisibility).

For Rune of Power, if the mage has two already out will we be able to cast another one or do we have to wait till the first one is gone?
Casting a third will replace the first. This is similar to how Wild Mushrooms works for druids right now. By the way, two Runes of Power will not stack.

Paladin
There are some incorrect mana costs displayed in the talent calculator for some Protection and Retribution Paladins spells right now. For example, Consecration actually costs 7% of base mana, not 22%. *At the moment; subject to change.

They currently are designed such that they are mana positive while doing their damage and going through their tanking rotations, and stay near full mana the whole time. Mana should not be a consideration to their rotation, rather, it will act as a limit on how much off-healing and other utility spells they can cast.

Priest
The intent of Spirit Shell is to provide a frequent-use absorb that recreates some of the gameplay where Disc priests put absorbs on lots of their teammates. This was a style many Disc priests told us they enjoyed, but was difficult to balance with Power Word: Shield (since PW:S is instant).

At this point, think of Spirit Shell as Heal and Power Word: Shield as Flash Heal.

Evangelism is a spec spell for both Holy and Disc (at least for the moment – things could still change). The talent calculator appears to be incorrect on this. Shadow has Dark Evangelism.

Rogue
The new Shiv will apply concentrated effects of the active utility poison. Those effects are not included in the poison tooltips currently available on the calculator, but here are the current versions:

• Crippling Poison reduces the target’s speed by 70% for 12 seconds.
  
• Mind-Numbing Poison increases the casting time of an enemy's next spellcast within 8 seconds by 100%.
  
• Wound Poison reduces the target’s healing received by 50% for 6 seconds.
  
• Leeching Poison instantly restores 5% of the Rogue’s health.
  
• Paralytic Poison roots the target in place for 4 seconds.

Shiv can still proc poison normally when it's triggered.

Also, for those who were curious, it's looking like it will be about a 3 second cast time to swap poisons in combat. So, you won't be flip flopping between poisons on a whim, but if it's really clutch to swap to a different poison, then it's not totally out of the question.

So does this mean that Poisons will still be on the Spell Crit table? In other words, Agility will still not affect their chance to crit?
No. Poisons crit chance will be based on your melee crit chance.

Yeah they should take the stun off of the actual poison and swap it with this effect as the stun is really random.
Well, yes. The random part is kind of important though.

An additional controllable stun that's on a different DR would be excessive. On the other hand, if it's on the same DR as CS and KS then that's... not good. By putting the root on Shiv and leaving the stun on the poison stacking we avoid that entirely, and rogues get a sweet stun that's on the random proc DR instead.

Despite the title of the thread (which I will callously change), we're interested in player feedback on the shiv change as a whole, though. So what do you think?

Will the thrown weapon talents have a chance to apply one or both active poisons?
We're not sure about this yet. It's more likely that we'll apply damage poisons than the non-lethal ones, especially in the case of Shuriken, because a fairly spammable ranged snare is probably too good.

Sorry, guys. You can still use Shuriken + Deadly Throw though!

If I have Deadly Brew, will Shiv amplify that Crippling Poison effect in addition to my active poisons?
No. Deadly Brew isn't the same as having Crippling actually active.

For clarification, how exactly do active poisons work? One lethal, one utility, both with potential to proc from both weapons?
One Lethal, one Non-Lethal, and both poisons are effectively on both weapons. Whenever you land either a mainhand or off-hand strike, you have a chance to apply both your Lethal and Non-Lethal poison.

How does poison proccing work now, and what does that mean for weapon speed.
Poison procs are largely unchanged, except, y’know, for all poisons being percentage-based in the future. We’re looking to get rid of the "fast 1.4 speed dagger" thing. The plan is for offhand daggers to just be daggers and interchangeable with main hand daggers. So we're anticipating Assassination and Subtlety rogues will use 1.8/1.8 daggers for the most part, while Combat will use a 2.6 main hand and a 1.8 offhand dagger. I know some of you noticed a Main Gauche change, and the intention isn’t a nerf. If it needs adjustment, it’s important to remember that numbers are still in flux.

On a separate note, while we don’t have an elegant system in place for it, we do know that a lot of Combat rogues want to at least have the appearance of dual wielding swords/axes/maces. There are a lot of hurdles, but maybe we’ll find a good way to deliver on that. No promises though! So, again, don’t get your hopes up too high.

So, how about an offensive dispel using the shiv system (perhaps as an alternative to Mind Numbing)?
It's something we might consider, but if too many people have access to an effect like that, then magic buffs are increasingly devalued, and that causes all kinds of problems. For example, something like Hand of Protection is cool, but significantly less meaningful if too many classes out there can remove it with a button press. So, we'll think about it, but don't get your hopes up.

Is Mind Numbing nerfed, now that it won’t affect all casts for the duration?
That's a bit of a misunderstanding. Base Mind-Numbing is unchanged and works as it does now. The new Shiv effect stacks on top of the base Mind-Numbing, and is more than triply effective on the single next spellcast.

Any chance of a sweet UI element warning the rogue that he’s approaching 5 stacks of paralytic poison, or letting him know that it went off?
Making it easier to track buffs and debuffs in the UI, including using the Spell Alert system, is something we're always looking at.

Y U NERF CRIPPLING?
Sadly, because it was too good -- which is pretty much the same reason anything ever gets nerfed. Basically, we're looking to chill out some of the passive, automatically-applied snares on some classes get because there's no real gameplay to them beyond just I touch you and you're snared.

Crippling is an important tool though, and we didn't want to take it away entirely. By lowering the base snare and allowing Shiv to still apply the -70% form, snaring opponents or kiting other melee classes that also have snares becomes something you'll need to think about and manage.

Is Crippling going to last 12 seconds in PVP now, instead of 8 seconds?
Nay. PvP durations are capped at 8 (and nothing should break that rule), but PvP durations aren’t shown in the tooltips.

Under the proposed system, it looks like it won’t be possible to take both Paralytic and Leeching Poison. Will we have to have to choose between Paralytic and Crippling?
You can take both Paralytic and Leeching, but you'll be able to actively make use of one at a time. That said, switching poisons isn't necessarily impossible in the heat of combat -- the cast time on swapping will be fairly short.

That said, we're taking a look at the decision involved in the current placement of the different Poison-related talents, and that's something we may reevaluate. Still early days yet – and that applies to everything in this list.

But Daxx! RAWR RAIDING! What's this PvP nonsense?
We'd like Shiv to be useful when raiding too, and increasing the availability of such effects makes it easier to design encounters that permit them to shine. It bears mentioning that, even now, the various Shiv effects could be useful in existing raid encounters. There’s no reason to expect that they couldn't be useful in Mists raid design too.

Also, there's more to PvE than raiding. Just because a talent isn't useful when you're fighting Ultraxion doesn't mean it isn't useful in PvE at large. There's still leveling (remember, tier 1 talents should ideally be relevant and useful to a level 15 player!), outdoor dailies, the upcoming challenge modes, and more to consider.

Sooooo… Does this mean that rogue damage might go up if we lose some control/mobility/survivability?
We want rogue PvE damage to remain top-tier. But yes, if rogues end up with less control or mobility or survivability, and they have to choose among those areas, then that allows us to safely improve their damage potential in PvP while keeping the class balanced overall.

Any chance you guys will consider making Wound a lethal poison?
There's a chance, we'll have a look.

Warlock
Wild Imps has not been cut. The code for it simply wasn't ready in time for this talent calculator update. Here, I'll show it to you!

http://twitter.com/K...8498690/photo/1

More warlock stuff for you:

• Ember Tap will be received at a later level and will cost Embers.
  
• Conflagrate has a 2.0 spell power coefficient (still working on this; subject to change).
  
• Malady is a level 3 spell that is replaced by Immolate (Destruction) or Corruption (Demonology/Affliction).
  
• Dark Soul is a replacement for Demon Soul based on spec. We’re experimenting with the exact mechanics.

Here is what Dark Soul looks like today:

Affliction: http://twitter.com/K...2546944/photo/1
Demonology: http://twitter.com/K...8666498/photo/1
Destruction: http://twitter.com/K...3378433/photo/1

Warrior
Traditionally AE threat is hardest to maintain for warriors, how will this carry forward in MOP?
Thunder Clap is free for Protection warriors, and it applies a dot. Shield Slam and auto attack to generate rage for Shield Block.

Most other offensive attacks are free (for Protection), except for Heroic Strike and Cleave, which are intended to be used only in times of excess rage (which should be less common than today, but still occur with reasonable frequency).

Improving tanking rotations is always challenging. If tanks have too many abilities to manage, then they are overwhelmed in fights that require a lot of boss positioning or add management. If tanks have too few abilities or a very simplified resource, then they get bored on single-target boss fights with limited movement.

Part of our design intent is to have tank resources tie into survivability instead of threat, since we (and tanks) place more emphasis on the former.

Dear fansites,

The Diablo III beta is progressing fantastically, and we're well-aware of the huge player demand to access the beta. With this in mind, we're pleased to tell you we'll be supplying you with an allocation of beta access slots very soon, which you can distribute to your readers through contests, giveaways and sweepstakes. Please feel free to share this exciting news with your communities.

You'll begin to see US fansites offering beta access to their readers over the next few days. We'll be contacting you next week with further details.

Thanks again for your continued support

Best regards,
The Community Team

We’ve just updated our Mists of Pandaria Talent Calculator to reflect many of the most recent changes and renovations currently being made to the next expansion of World of Warcraft.

We’d like to discuss these and other changes to talents and specializations in this thread. Here are a couple of thoughts to start with:

• For shaman and hunters, we still have a ways to go with the revamp of talents, and this latest calculator doesn’t have some of the changes that we’re currently working on.
  
• If you don’t see a favorite spell in the talent list, there is a good chance it is something you get automatically for choosing a particular spec. For example, all Fury warriors learn Raging Blow without having to choose it as a talent. All Discipline priests know Divine Aegis. Chances were almost certain that you were going to choose those anyway so we just gave them to you.
  
• If you don’t see a favorite spell or mechanic as a class ability, spec ability or talent, then there is a good chance it is becoming a glyph. Examples include Atonement (priest), Gag Order (Warrior), Rude Interruption (Warrior), and the Acts of Sacrifice Cleanse component (Paladin).

General
Question: Why did attacks using % weapon damage drop so much?
Answer: We are in the process of recalculating the way damage is dealt. Individual weapon damage is going up by the same proportion in order to keep DPS at level 85 about the same. This should ensure that, at lower levels, these abilities aren’t overpowered.

Question: Why doesn’t every spec get a passive ability at level 10?
Answer: Some specs no longer need them. For example, Fire mages don’t get bonus damage with Fire spells – they just have mostly Fire spells to cast. Some hybrids still need passives to differentiate their DPS, healing, and tanking trees. Furthermore, we can always add more if the need arises.

Paladin
Question: Is this invisible haste buff still present for Protection Paladins going forward to 5.0, as the new talent tree update currently shows both CS and HoTR having 4.5 sec CDs and thus, actually in game they have a 3.0 sec cooldown -- or do they actually have a 4.5 sec cooldown? And if they have a 4.5 sec CD now, are they still linked or are they now unlinked?
Answer: Crusader Strike and Hammer of the Righteous still share a cooldown, with a base of 4.5 seconds for both specs. Sanctity of Battle can lower this cooldown for Retribution.

Priest
Question:Why didn’t the priest tree change?
Answer:We are still in development. It is a challenge, when giving players a sneak peak at work in progress, to decide when to release what we have versus waiting to accumulate even more changes.
Question:Do Discipline priests have Prayer of Healing or not?
Answer:Our current design direction is this: Holy does AE healing with Prayer of Healing, and Discipline heals with (a much more powerful than today) Holy Nova. Divine Aegis would work with Holy Nova under this model. However, please see the question above. The priest tree is still in heavy development.

Warlock
Warlock clarifications:

• Archimonde’s Vengeance has a 1 minute cooldown.
  
• Grimoire of Sacrifice grants a 30% boost for 15 sec, which drops to 15% for the remaining duration.
  
• Blood Fear replaces Fear.
  
• Soul Link replaces Health Funnel.
  
• Harvest Life does not hit polymorphed targets.
  
• Demon Soul is not listed at this time, but this is just an error in the calculator.

Warrior
We are iterating a lot on tank rotations right now. We want rage (and all tank resources) to be something players actually use for mitigation, because we think that will be more fun than having a resource that gets ignored. Under this model, Protection warriors can’t have many DPS abilities that cost rage, because rage will be too valuable for Shield Block and Shield Barrier on fights where survival is a challenge. An ability with no resource cost needs some kind of cooldown or it will just be macro’ed and / or spammed, which isn’t a lot of fun.

Prot warriors have a lot of abilities to manage: Shield Slam, Revenge, Devastate, Thunder Clap, Shield Block and so on, as well as several emergency buttons to handle situations such as streaming adds. We’re okay with melee specs having an occasional free GCD, as long as it doesn’t happen with frustrating regularity.

Death Knight

• The death knight abilities Death Siphon, Soul Reaper, and Necrotic Strike cost 1 Death Rune. They are not free.
  
• The calculator is not currently displaying that cost type (properly).

We’re pleased to announce a partnership with USAopoly to release fresh takes on two classic board games. Monopoly®: World of Warcraft® and RISK®: StarCraft® combine tried-and-true foundations with new designs and gameplay elements inspired by our popular gaming universes. Those who dare to engage will discover a new chance to claim supremacy, both over their friends and over the battle-torn lands of Azeroth and the Koprulu Sector.

These games will formally debut at the 109th annual Toy Fair this Sunday, February 12 in New York City.

We’re holding a poll on Facebook right now where you can vote on which player pieces will make it into the final Monopoly: World of Warcraft board game! Ten options, including Murky, Chen’s Keg, Mechagnome, and a Spellbook are present, and the six most popular pieces will be represented in the game when it launches this May.

Battle.net Balance is now live! As we announced previously, Battle.net Balance is a new feature that gives players an alternate way to purchase Blizzard digital products and services directly through their Battle.net accounts. Players are now able add to their Battle.net Balance using a variety of payment methods, and then use that balance toward Blizzard Entertainment products and services such as World of Warcraft game time; paid services, such as realm transfers and character name changes; digital versions of select Blizzard games, including Diablo II and StarCraft II; and in-game pets and mounts. In the near future, players will be also able to use Battle.net Balance for the digital World of Warcraft Battle Chest and WoW digital upgrades. In addition, with the upcoming launch of Diablo III, players will have the option to use Battle.net Balance to buy and sell items in the game’s currency-based auction house.

For more information, check out the Battle.net Balance FAQ, or head to the Battle.net Balance page in Account Management to manage your balance.

In February 2005, World of Warcraft arrived here in Europe. It’s been seven years and Azeroth is still buzzing with excitement! Players have been through incredible trials in dungeons, raids and battlegrounds.

And now, in honor of World of Warcraft’s Seventh Anniversary in Europe, we’re offering the biggest discount ever on the entire WoW game range! From now until February 19, all boxed games and digital upgrades are available at half price, as well as two in-game collectibles. Don’t miss your chance to join in Azeroth’s anniversary celebrations by snagging Wrath of the Lich King for just €10/£7.50 and Cataclysm for only €15/£12.50.

The doors to Ahn’Qiraj have been opened. Onyxia has manipulated mortals and dragons alike. Sargeras has attempted to unleash the Legion upon Azeroth and beyond. The Lich King has vowed to destroy life itself. Armies of elementals have left their realms to conquer our world. The Cataclysm is now upon us and the battle between the Horde and the Alliance is becoming ever fiercer. For seven years, countless horrors have sought to destroy Azeroth and its heroes. But never before have they been confronted by an offer such as this!

Never played World of Warcraft? There has never been a better time to join and become the latest hero in a world filled with orcs, gnomes, dragons, magic, and murlocs! Already a fan? Here’s your chance to upgrade your account or invite friends to take part in the most epic adventure of all time. Visit the Blizzard Store to take advantage of this amazing special offer. You can also benefit from these discounted rates on digital games via your Battle.net account!

In addition, we’re offering two in-game collectibles at half price. Want to travel Azeroth in style? The Celestial Steed will bring you wherever you want to go, for half the cost! Always dreamed of a terrifyingly cute undead companion? Get a Lil’ K.T. pet for a lil’ price!

So come and join the in-game celebrations today — we’ve already put the cherry on the cake!
Happy Seventh Anniversary!

General

• Mass Dispel should once again dispel up to 10 friendly or enemy targets.
  
• Resilience should now properly reduce the damage over time effects for targets affected by Mind Control.

Dungeons and Raids
Dragon Soul

• Lord Afrasastrasz no longer offers the option to disable the Power of the Aspects buff in Raid Finder mode.
  
• The Spine of Deathwing
  
  • Corrupted Bloods should no longer maintain threat after reconstituting themselves from residue.

Darkmoon Faire

• Soothsayer's Runes and A Treatise on Strategy should now drop from all appropriate Heroic and raid bosses.
  
• Murozond's Temporal Cache now has a chance to contain Monstrous Egg and A Treatise on Strategy.

Quests and Creatures

• Players who inadvertently disconnect during Tailgunner! should now find themselves able to complete the quest.
  
• Baby Crocolisks have been given tiny teething rings, and Tiny Teeth! should no longer transfer to other players.
  
• Players should no longer encounter any invisible Young Crocolisks during the quest The Pit of Scales.

Items

• Cunning of the Cruel will now trigger its Shadowbolt Volley approximately three times as often, but will deal approximately one third as much damage. This results in the tooltip for the item being incorrect, but should moderate its burst damage in PvP.

The bug where paladin Seals could sometimes cause excessive damage has been fixed. This bug came as a result of a hotfix we put in to fix an issue where some attacks, such as Scatter Shot, were still causing Vengeance in PvP situations. While these things may seem totally unrelated, it has to do with our proc system, which is an extremely complicated mechanic under the hood. We reverted that hotfix, meaning you may sometimes see Vengeance in PvP. But we don’t think that will present a major balance concern at this time.

To be clear, we have no current plans to take action against players who experienced this bug last night unless we come across any extreme cases. The error was ours and we haven’t seen any evidence -- so far -- of players excessively exploiting the bug. We reserve the right to take action if we do find evidence of players crossing the line to repeatedly exploit this bug for major in-game advantages.

Since the announcement of World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria at BlizzCon 2011, we’ve been hard at work on all of the new game features, environments, dungeons, and other content that awaits adventurers. Today, we’re inviting members of the press worldwide to get an updated sneak peek and some hands-on time with the latest version of World of Warcraft’s fourth expansion at an event taking place March 13 - 15.

If you want to know more about what lies hidden within the mists of Pandaria, wait for the season’s end….

The pandaren mount is still being finalized, so what you’ve heard (or seen) are just rumors at this point. Obviously we want the mount to be something awesome, which will take some time to perfect. In addition to the pandaren mount, expect to see a ton of new mounts in Mists of Pandaria. In fact, if any of the new creatures being added in the next expansion look up to the task, I’m sure the developers are looking for ways to throw a saddle on them so they can adventure through Azeroth with our heroes. Though I’m sure some are more comical looking than others. Anyway, once the information is ready, we’ll get it out to all of you. Trust!

It's great to see some positive discussion and speculation about where this game is headed.

We're definitely very focused on opening the doors a little wider to new ideas to really grasp onto what will make this game as fun as possible. It's 7 years old after all. We're not going to reinvent the wheel in Mists of Pandaria, but we want to introduce new types of compelling content with meaningful reward structures so your progression paths don't feel quite as redundant.

You'll get a captivating story, breathtaking new lands to explore, a wide array of new and awesome good/bad guys (from what I've seen, REALLY awesome), a slew of new dungeons and raids, a new playable race, a new class, many outstanding systems improvements, etc.

We hope these features are more or less to be expected with virtually every expansion. But this time we're also pouring our heart and soul into some really fun new features that'll allow you to progress in slightly less conventional ways.

I get so excited every time I meet with Greg Street, Cory Stockton, Dave Kosak, and Tom Chilton to discuss everything they're working on each week. It's even got me logging into some of the characters I haven't played in a while more often lately, just because I want to be fully prepared to diversify my gameplay and explore different avenues of content on different characters.

I think it's really going to be about playing the game the way you want to play it, without feeling entirely like you're missing out on valuable rewards.