Last updated April 12, 12:00 PM PST.

General

• Conquest Points are now purchasable from the Valor Quartermasters at 250 Conquest Points per 250 Valor Points.
• Honor Points are now purchasable from the Justice Trade Goods vendors at 250 Honor Points per 375 Justice Points.
• Justice Points are now purchasable from the Honor Trade Goods vendors at 250 Justice Points per 375 Honor Points.
• Resilience scaling has been modified for linear returns, as opposed to increasing returns. Under the new formula, going from 30 resilience to 40 resilience gives players the same increase to survivability as going from 0 to 10. Resilience now scales in the same way armor and magic resistances do. A player with 32.5% damage reduction from resilience in 4.0.6 should see their damage reduction unchanged in 4.1. Those with less than 32.5% will gain slightly. Those with more will lose some damage reduction, increasingly so as their resilience climbs.
• A dead player can now be resurrected by targeting them using the Party or Raid Frame even if they have released. No more hunting for corpses.

Thoughts

I’m pretty disappointed with the resilience change, it probably means that PvE gear is going to make a big comeback to arena which will be really frustrating for the pure PvP based players.

Classes General

All non-damaging interrupts off the global cooldown will now always hit the target. This includes Pummel, Kick, Mind Freeze, Rebuke, Skull Bash, Counterspell, Wind Shear, Solar Beam, Silencing Shot, and related player pet abilities.

Several persistent ground effects now display different visuals for hostile and friendly players. The following spells have the same visual effects for friendly players, but new alternate visuals for hostile players: Ring of Frost, Consecration, Desecration, Wild Mushroom, Flare, Ice Trap, Power Word: Barrier, Smoke Bomb, and Hand of Gul’dan. As a general rule, the alternate effects have a red tint or hue indicating they are created by an enemy player.

Thoughts

I really like the interrupt change, anything that lessens the chance of RNG I’m all for. Additionally, the ground effects alteration was totally needed. No more “that’s mine, that’s his” and so on.

Death Knights

• Talent Specializations
  • Blood
    • Blood Shield now only works while in Blood Presence.
    • Death Strike self-healing no longer generates threat.
  • Frost
    • Blood of the North (passive) now permanently converts both Blood Runes into Death Runes. There is no longer any proc interaction with Blood Strike required to activate Death Runes.
    • Frost Strike now deals 130% of weapon damage, up from 110%.
    • Howling Blast damage has been increased by 20%. To compensate, the area-of-effect splash now does 50% of the single-target damage, down from 60%. The net result of this change leaves the area-of-effect damage roughly the same as 4.0.6 numbers. In addition, Howling Blast now has a facing requirement.

Thoughts:

This will probably raise the popularity of Frost Death-knights in arena, which will probably open up more viable comps for the class which I’m all for. Death-Knights are in a really weird position regarding arena at the moment, I think a lot of their mechanics still need to be tweaked in order for them to be a serious class in arena – vs some combinations they’re just ridiculously overpowered and in other cases they’re absolutely useless and very vulnerable to being trained.

Druids

• Lifebloom’s bloom effect has been reduced by 20%.
• Savage Defense has been redesigned slightly. Instead of a single charge absorption, it now places an absorption effect on the druid absorbing up to 35% of the druid’s attack power (modified by mastery, if applicable) in damage and lasting 10 seconds. There are no longer any charges on the effect.
• Stampeding Roar’s duration has been increased to 8 seconds, up from 6. The movement speed effect has been increased to 60%, up from 40%.
• Swipe (Bear) cooldown has been reduced to 3 seconds, down from 6, and is now on trainable at level 18 (training cost has been reduced). In addition, the bonus threat from this ability has been removed and replaced with increased damage done.
• Thrash bonus threat has been removed and replaced with increased damage done.
• Druids now innately have 100% pushback protection from damage while channeling Tranquility.
• Talent Specializations
  • Balance
    • Starsurge damage has been reduced by 20%.
    • Solar Beam is now more responsive when enemies move into or out of it.
  • Feral
    • Feral Swiftness now also causes Dash and Stampeding Roar to have a 50/100% chance to instantly remove all movement impairing effects from the affected targets when used.
  • Restoration
    • Gift of Nature (passive) also reduces Tranquility’s cooldown by 2.5/5 minutes.
    • Efflorescence has been redesigned. It creates a healing zone at the feet of a Swiftmend target, but this healing zone now restores health equal to 4/8/12% of the amount healed by Swiftmend to the three most injured targets within 8 yards, every 1 second for 7 seconds. This periodic effect now also benefits from spell haste, but the individual ticks cannot be critical effects. In addition, Living Seed is no longer a prerequisite talent for Efflorescence.
    • Malfurion’s Gift now reduces the cooldown of Tranquility by 2.5/5 minutes.
    • Nature’s Swiftness now also increases the healing done by the affected nature spell by 50%.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Rake is now Glyph of Pounce, which increases the range of Pounce by 3 yards.
• Druid Bug Fixes
  • The troll druid models for Flight Form and Swift Flight Form has slimmed down to be more in scale with other druid flight forms.

Thoughts:

The idea of stampeding roar is great and it’s nice that they’re buffing it – however I’d have liked to of seen a small range buff so it could be used defensively for the feral’s teammates, giving it more consistently for defensive situations.

The lifebloom nerf was absolutely needed considering they’re buffing nature’s swiftness so hard, either way I disagree with heavy instant-cast burst healing and think that Blizzard is going back on their words way too often regarding the new Cataclysm mechanics (regarding burst healing, spam dispelling, minimal trash buffs etc).

As for the Solar-beam fix, this was long overdue – It’s simply retarded how long the delay is when moving in and out of the zone.

Hunters

• Deterrence no longer requires a melee weapon to be equipped.
• Explosive Trap now has a new spell effect.
• Master’s Call now has a new spell effect.
• Multi-Shot damage has been increased by 250%.

Thoughts:

Nothing major here, more “fixes” than anything in the hunter patch notes so far. However not being able to disarm hunters to prevent deterrence is going to be a huge blow to rogue teams especially.

Mages

• Arcane Blast cast time has been reduced to 2.0 seconds, down from 2.35 seconds. In addition, the stacking effect of Arcane Blast now increases the damage done by Arcane Explosion, and Arcane Explosion does not consume that effect.
• Arcane Explosion damage has been increased by 30%.
• Arcane Missiles damage has been increased by 13%.
• Blizzard damage has been increased by 70%.
• Frost Armor has been reworked:
  • It now reduces physical damage taken by 15%, instead of providing 20% additional armor.
  • The Chilled proc from Frost Armor can no longer proc Fingers of Frost.
  • The attack speed slow from the Chilled proc is now 20%, down from 25%, but it also affects ranged attack speed.
  • Frost Armor also no longer increases Frost resistance.
• Frostbolt damage has been increased by 10%.

• Talent Specializations
  • Arcane
    • Arcane Barrage damage has been increased by 13%.
    • Improved Arcane Explosion now also reduces the mana cost of Arcane Explosion by 25/50%.
  • Fire
    • Combustion no longer has a global cooldown.
    • Ignite is no longer triggered from periodic critical effects.
  • Frost
    • Fingers of Frost bonus damage applied to Ice Lance has been increased to 25%, up from 15%.
    • Ice Barrier base damage value has been increased by approximately 120%. In addition, the benefit from spell power has been increased by approximately 8%.
    • The root effect from Shattered Barrier now shares diminishing returns with the root from Improved Cone of Cold.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Frost Armor (new glyph): Frost Armor also causes the mage to regenerate 2% of maximum mana every 5 seconds.

Thoughts:

The damage buff is insanely good, however it may be a little too good – we’ll have to see. The majority of people are really surprised by a mage damage buff, but realistically their passive damage is a little too low at the moment (it’s really RNG reliant a lot of the time when mages burst).

I’m really pleased they’re adding the frost armor changes, finally you’ll be able to switch armor without going oom in two minutes being trained to oblivion and forced to go mage armor.

The ice barrier change was 100% needed, training mages is simply too good of an option at the moment. Overall I think the mage changes are a very big step in the right direction in terms of balance.

The shattered barrier + cone of cold DR nerf is acceptable, I think this may have a pretty big impact on the frost specs though. I don’t think shattered barrier would be worth speccing into post-patch.

Paladins

• Righteous Fury now persists through death.
• Word of Glory now has a 20-second cooldown.
• Talent Specializations
  • Holy
    • Aura Mastery: This ability no longer increases the benefit granted by Crusader Aura.
    • Illuminated Healing shield duration is now 15 seconds, up from 8 seconds. In addition, Illuminated Healing has been increased to provide 1.5% effect per mastery, up from 1.25%.
    • Walk in the Light (passive) removes the cooldown of Word of Glory.
  • Protection
    • Divine Guardian cooldown is now 3 minutes, up from 2.
    • Grand Crusader will now generate a charge of Holy Power if the Avenger Shield it procs is used within 6 seconds.
    • Sacred Duty can now be activated by Avenger’s Shield in addition to Judgements. The effect now lasts 10 seconds, down from 15.
  • Retribution
    • Divine Storm now generates 1 point of Holy Power if it hits (i.e. successfully lands on) 4 or more targets.
    • Sacred Shield’s internal cooldown has been increased to 60 seconds, up from 30.
    • Selfless Healer: The damage bonus from this talent now has a 30 sec duration instead of 10 sec

Thoughts:

The illuminated healing shield change is okay, but it will still be absorbing melee hits from say a caster. I’m really disappointed to see such a lack of Holy Paladin buffs, they’re in an awful state of arena right now and it’s surprising Blizzard hasn’t noticed this (since they’re usually fairly quick to fix broken healers – since they’re such a crucial part of arena) but there you go.

Priests

• Divine Aegis duration has been increased to 15 seconds, up from 12.
• Dispel Magic can only be used on the casting priest as a baseline effect.
• Priests now innately have 100% pushback protection from damage while channeling Divine Hymn and Hymn of Hope.
• Holy Fire damage has been increased to be approximately 30% higher than Smite.
• Inner Will and Inner Fire now last until canceled.
• Mind Sear damage has been doubled.
• Power Word: Shield duration has been reduced to 15 seconds, down from 30.
• Talent Specializations
  • Discipline
    • Absolution (new passive) enables priests to use Dispel Magic on up to 2 harmful effects on friendly targets.
    • Atonement now works with Holy Fire in addition to Smite.
    • The direct damage portion of Holy Fire can now trigger Evangelism.
    • Power Word: Barrier’s cooldown has been increased to 3 minutes, up from 2, and its effect has been reduced to 25%, down from 30%.
    • It is now possible to remove Weakened Soul effects that were a result of another priest’s Power Word: Shield through Strength of Soul.
  • Holy
    • Absolution (new passive) enables priests to use Dispel Magic on up to 2 harmful effects on friendly targets.
    • Chakra now lasts until canceled, up from 1 minute.
    • Holy Word: Sanctuary healing done has been increased by 35%. In addition, it has a new spell effect.
    • Surge of Light can now also trigger from Binding Heal.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Divine Accuracy now also affects Holy Fire in addition to Smite

Thoughts:

The Dispel Magic change is probably the one catching everyones attention. It’s needed for general arena balance for sure, however I’d really like to see them crack down harder on “trash buffs” and really increase the mana cost on dispels for everyone like they said they would originally. Blizzard has done a half-hearted job on all the promises they made way back in beta. As for shadows losing teammate dispels altogether, this was more of a fix than a change, it’s as if they forgot about shadow-priests when they were removing dispels from retri paladins.

The Holy Fire damage increase is okay, I’m unsure if it’s worth speccing the points into holy to decrease the casting time of this spell or not yet. We’ll have to wait and see, right now I’m pretty content with spamming a shadow spell for damage – however it isn’t the huge priest damage we were seeing in WotLK which made Priest so fun.

I’m all for the Holy buffs, I’d like to see how that plays out and maybe start dual speccing holy for arena gain, we’ll see. I really dislike the PW: S nerf – I feel like it’s 100% a PvE nerf with no consideration to arena at all, it could really mess up your rapture charges and harm your mana a lot in arena.

Rogues

• Recuperate base effect now heals 3% per tick, up from 2%.
• Stealth base cooldown has been reduced to 4 seconds, down from 10, and the movement penalty from being in Stealth has been removed.
• Tricks of the Trade now has a 100-yard range, up from 20.
• Talent Specializations
  • Combat
    • Improved Recuperate now adds 0.5%/1% to the health restoration effect of Recuperate, down from 1%/2%.
  • Subtlety
    • Cheat Death now reduces damage taken by 80% while in effect, down from 90%. Its internal cooldown has been raised to 90 seconds, up from 60.
    • Nightstalker now reduces the cooldown of Stealth by 2/4 seconds, and instead of negating the movement penalty from Stealth, it adds a 5/10% movement speed bonus (stacking with other effects) while Stealthed.

Thoughts:

The stealth buffs are pretty interesting, it’s going to be great to see how skilled rogues play this out. The cheat death nerf is definitely needed, very happy with this change.

Shamans

• • Fire Nova has been redesigned and decoupled from shaman Fire totems. Instead, it now pulses the Fire Nova effect from each target that is afflicted by the shaman’s own Flame Shock debuff. It now damages all enemies except the target hit by Flame Shock. The ability’s cooldown has been reduced to 4 seconds, down from 10.
  • Grounding Totem cooldown has been increased to 25 seconds, up from 15.
  • Magma Totem now lasts for 60 seconds, up from 21.
  • Stoneclaw Totem’s area-of-effect threat pulse no longer affects critters.
  • Talent Specializations
    • Elemental Combat
      • Earthquake is no longer a channeled spell. It now has a 2-second cast time, lasts for 10 seconds, and has a 10-second cooldown. Its damage has been reduced by 40% from its channeled version.
    • Enhancement
      • Improved Fire Nova has been redesigned and replaced by a talent called Seasoned Winds. When an enemy spell cast is successfully prevented with Wind Shear, the shaman gains magical resistance (in an amount equal to what a protection totem/aura would grant, stacking with such buffs) to the spell school(s) of the interrupted spell (except for Holy spells), lasting 10 seconds.
    • Restoration
      • Cleansing Waters now has a 6-second internal cooldown.
      • Deep Healing now benefits all heals, not just direct heals.
      • Earth Shield healing done by Restoration shaman has been reduced by 20%.
      • Nature’s Blessing has been improved to 6/12/18% bonus direct healing on Earth Shielded targets, up from 5/10/15%.
      • Spirit Link Totem (new talent) reduces damage taken by all party and raid members within 10 yards by 10%. This lasts 6 seconds, and every second it is active the health of all affected players is redistributed among them, such that each player ends up with the same percentage of their maximum health. This counts as an Air totem and has a 3-minute cooldown.

Thoughts:

FINALLY a good cleansing waters nerfed, this is the most retarded spell in the game right now. Shamans just literally doing absolutely nothing – jumping around instant-healing is really depressing to watch; it eliminated the skill from the class and has been a nightmare in arena. So much instant-casting has to go.

The grounding totem nerf is also very needed too, it’s just way too good piled on top of all the other tools available to shamans and the earth shield nerf is amazing, honestly shamans needed to get hit big on the strengths that make them the best healer atm and these are the necessary actions to take.

However, the spirit link totem sounds absolutely retarded and I have no idea what could prompt them into introducing such a spell to the game and I really hope this isn’t as bad as it sounds.

Warlocks

• Dark Intent: The friendly target of this ability now receives 1% (stacking 3 times to 3%) periodic spell damage and healing bonus instead of 3% (stacking 3 times to 9%). The casting Warlock still receives 3% (stacking 3 times to 9%).
• Rain of Fire damage has been increased by 25%.
• Seed of Corruption damage has been increased by 20%.
• Talent Specializations
  • Affliction
    • Haunt damage has been increased by 30%.
    • Shadow Mastery (passive) has been increased to 30%, up from 25%.
    • Unstable Affliction damage done when it is dispelled has been doubled, but this damage can no longer be critical.
  • Demonology
    • Mana Feed now restores more mana (four times as much) when the warlock is using a Felguard or Felhunter.
• Pets
  • Doomguard’s damage has been increased by 50%. The Doomguard is intended to be the best guardian for single-target damage, and the Infernal the best when there are multiple targets.
  • Lash of Pain (Succubus) damage now scales with level, reducing the damage done at lower levels such that it will deal 50% damage at level 20, and 100% damage at level 80 and above.
  • Shadow Bite (Felhunter) damage and effect has doubled.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Soul Swap now increases the cooldown of Soul Swap by 15 seconds, up from 10 seconds.

Thoughts:

Great Warlock changes, haunt definitely needed boosting up-to its WotLK level. Hopefully everyone will stop SPAM dispelling UA now without a care in the world as well, generally happy with these changes including the dark intent and glyph of soul swap nerfs. I’m glad Blizzard didn’t over-do these buffs, as warlocks clearly needed some damage enhancements – I think they got it spot on with this one.

Warriors

• Charge and Intercept no longer have diminishing returns on their stun effects.
• Colossus Smash now ignores 50% of a hostile player’s armor (PvP), but continues to ignore 100% of a non-player character’s armor (PvE).
• Heroic Throw is now available from trainers at level 20.
• Heroic Leap is no longer on the global cooldown, similar to other warrior movement abilities.
• Inner Rage is now available at level 56.
• Intercept now has a 1.5-second stun, down from 3 seconds.
• Pummel is now usable in all stances.
• Rallying Cry (new ability) is available from trainers at level 83. It temporarily grants the warrior and all party or raid members within 30 yards 20% of maximum health for 10 seconds. After the effect expires, the health is lost. It has no cost, no stance requirements, and is not on the global cooldown. It has a 3-minute cooldown, but also shares a cooldown with Last Stand.
• Shield Bash has been removed from the game.
• Spell Reflection cooldown has been increased to 25 seconds, up from 10.
• Whirlwind now has its cooldown reduced by 6 seconds when it deals damage to 4 or more targets. The Whirlwind effect caused by Bladestorm remains unchanged.
• Talent Specializations
  • Arms
    • Improved Hamstring now reduces the global cooldown on Hamstring by 0.5/1 seconds in addition to its current effects.
    • Juggernaut no longer adds 2 seconds to the Charge stun, but instead lowers the cooldown of Charge by 2 seconds (to 13 seconds total without the glyph).
    • Lambs to the Slaughter now causes Mortal Strike to refresh Rend in addition to its current effects.
    • Strikes of Opportunity value per point of mastery has been increased by 10%.
  • Fury
    • Precision (passive) now increase auto-attack damage by 40%, in addition to the 3% hit it offers currently.
    • Unshackled Fury now only grants 2 base points of mastery, down from 8.
  • Protection
    • Shield Mastery no longer affects the cooldown of Spell Reflection, however, it now allows Shield Block to proc a second aura that reduces magic damage by 7/14/20% for 6 seconds.
    • Gag Order now applies to Pummel and Heroic Throw, giving these abilities a 100% chance to silence the target for 3 seconds. In addition, Gag Order lowers the cooldown of Heroic Throw by 30 seconds.
• Glyphs
  • Glyph of Spell Reflection reduces the cooldown of Spell Reflection by 5 seconds, up from 1 second.

Thoughts:

Okay, well it’s no secret that Warrriors are currently the strong damage dealers in the game at the moment. These changes are relatively acceptable, warriors are still going to be very strong after the patch and I don’t feel as if they’ve nerfed them enough. I find the spell reflect nerf a bit over the top (despite being very happy with it from a Mages PoV).

Overall I feel as if they’re dumbing down the class even further instead of nerfing them in the correct areas, I also think we’re going to see a few funky fury comps with the charge/intercept changes (regarding them not sharing stun DR).

PVP

• The rate at which Honor Points are earned has been doubled.
• Arenas
  • Arena matchmaking can now extend beyond a team’s Battlegroup.
  • Ring of Valor
    • The Ring of Valor has returned! It should now be playable again in the Arena map rotation.
    • New starting areas have been added for Ring of Valor. Players will no longer enter the Arena on the elevator. It’s been removed. Instead players will start in a room at opposite ends of the Arena.
• Battlegrounds
  • Battleground raid leaders can now move players from other realms among raid subgroups.
  • The Focused Assault and Brutal Assault buffs have changed.
    • After 3 minutes of both teams having the flag, both flag carriers will get Focused Assault, which increases damage taken by 10%.
    • Every minute afterward, an additional stack will be applied to increase damage taken by an additional 10%.
    • After 7 minutes, Brutal Assault will be applied in place of Focused Assault. In additional to the damage debuff, this debuff also caps the player’s movement speed at 100%. The damage taken debuff works the same and will add 10% to the debuff up to a maximum of 100% damage taken.
  • Arathi Basin
    • Arathi Basin is now available as a 10v10-player rated Battleground.
    • Flags should now cap in 7 seconds, down from 8.
  • The Battle for Gilneas
    • Flags should now cap in 7 seconds, down from 8.
    • Graveyard Changes
      • Players who die at a control point that they own will now be teleported to the next closest graveyard, instead of the one at which they died.
      • If a player’s team owns the Mine and Waterworks, and dies at Waterworks, they will be teleported to the Mine.
      • If an Alliance player’s team only owns Lighthouse, and dies at Lighthouse, they will respawn at their base.
      • If a Horde player’s team owns Waterworks and Mine, and dies at Lighthouse, they will respawn at Waterworks.
  • Twin Peaks
    • Graveyard Changes
      • Players will now only spawn at their base graveyard when they die in the enemy base.
      • Defending players will respawn at the middle graveyard.
      • Midfield players will respawn at the middle graveyard.
      • Attacking players will respawn at their base graveyard.

Thoughts:

I really like the region-wide battlegroup change, it’s going to be so awesome having good arena queues again and meeting more than one comp a night. Can’t wait for this, I also really like the battleground changes. It seems like these two changes alone are going to increase the fun factor in PvP single handedly, it’s no secret that BGs like Battle for Gilneas make rated battlegrounds unplayable at the moment due to how retarded the mechanics are. I’m really surprised that Blizzard has been able to identify the exact issues with battlegrounds at this time and are fixing it close to flawlessly.

What I really truly do not understand however, is the return of Ring of Valor. They’ve known since the very start of it’s release that the vast majority of players dislike this arena – yet they persist to disable it and restore it (rinse and repeat) – over and over, why can’t they just delete it and admit they made a huge mistake? Oh well, will be interesting to see the changes I guess. It’s just sad how this arena can really ruin your session due to the map itself really messing you up. I feel as though the poorly designed maps are one of the biggest contributing factors to the poor arena balance that has plagued WoW since TBC.