World of Warcraft at Ten Ton Hammer

Zarhym (Link)

---

Update: 03.10.2010

Classes

• Hunters:
  • Heart of the Phoenix: Cooldown reduced to 8 minutes, down from 10 minutes.
    
• Warriors:
  • Bladestorm: Warriors can now be Disarmed while under the effects of this ability.
  • Thunderclap: This ability now counts as a ranged attack, granting it double damage on critical strikes instead of 150% and ranged miss chance, and still cannot be dodged or parried.

Items

Glyphs:

• Glyph of Focus: Now increases the damage done by Starfall by 10%, down from 20%.

Today Blizzard released a minor patch that's going to cause major drama. Let's get the incidentals out of the way first. The Heart of the Phoenix ability's cooldown was reduced from 10 minutes to 8, presumably so that it can now see use in arenas.

Glyph of focus change nerfed Balance Druids, but Starfall is already getting a massive buff in 3.3.3, so this change will be somewhat of a wash. The net damage increase to Starfall next patch is going to be a nice boost to Moonkin either way.

Thunderclap being put on the 'ranged attack table' essentially makes it (like hunter shots) unaffected by expertise, and immune to dodge and parry except under exceptional circumstances. This was a much needed change, as warriors lacked a viable area of affect threat generator and had been clamoring for this buff for some time. This buff will provide that.

Drum roll...

Who didn't see this one coming? Really? Bladestorm will now be susceptible to disarm effects during the actual effect itself. This is an incredibly huge nerf to an ability that is generally considered to be the most powerful PvP tool in the game. This will give disarm classes the ability to essentially 'cancel' Bladestorm. It is unknown whether this will cancel the effect entirely or if the warrior will continue spinning. Warriors have substantially less mitigation during their Bladestorm, so this will make them additionally vulnerable in its duration.

I cannot fully imagine the Arena balance repercussions of this change, but suffice to say they will be substantial. Double healer + Warrior teams are likely to become completely obsolete at the high end, and the effectiveness of the Warrior/Warlock/Druid team will also suffer tremendously.

This was a needed change, but we'll have to see what affect it has as PTR testing of 3.3.3 continues, and Blizzard makes their final balance changes before release.