The 23rd was supposed to be a huge day for World of Warcraft as Deathwing
shattered the world of Azeroth in a Cataclysmic event. We
were all prepared for that, or at least as prepared as we could
be. What many of us were not prepared for was another change
to many character classes so soon after they were changed in recent
patches. For many this is a huge change and could be viewed
as a knee jerk reaction and is potentially shattering many classes
viability just before Cataclysm's release.

While some of these changes seem drastic it may be too early to tell
how much they actually affect the game. However, by some of
the numbers seen in the patch notes they seem out of line from what
players have seen in the game since the new talents were put into
place. Sure some tuning needed to happen as some classes were
just too good, but even for those, this seems huge.

I'm not going to look at every class, since I do not play
every one and do not fully understand how much of an overall impact
some of the changes made will have on all of them. For the
classes that I do know well enough, and have significant changes that
were made to them, let's start with some of the smaller
changes and work up to the bigger ones.

Death Knights

The big change for Death Knights here is that your healing ability has been nerfed big
time. Death Pact now heals 25% of your total health, down from 40%.
Death Strike drops to healing 25% of the damage taken in the last 5
seconds with a 7% of health minimum which is down from the old 30%/10%
numbers. Rune Tap is down to 10%, and the glyph for it only
adds 5% instead of 10% now. On top of all that Icebound
Fortitude is down to a 20% damage reduction from a 30% reduction
previously.

I did say we were starting with the little changes right? Yeah, even
though those changes amount to a pretty big drop in healing ability,
they are small potatoes compared to some other classes. After
all most of those changes are there to balance PvP abilities so that
Death Knights can actually be taken down in PvP. In PvE
situations you rarely take enough damage that the reduced healing will
effect you drastically, and if you do, either a) you're not playing right
or b) your healer is asleep.

Paladins

Paladins get several changes and almost none come as a huge nerf,
instead some are actually buffs. For example Exorcism damage
has gone up by 50%, Retribution Paladin's Crusade can now
increase the paladin's next Holy Light by up to 300%, Protection
Paladins gain more block percentage and block more damage, and Holy
Paladin's Illuminated Healing absorbs more incoming damage.
There are even more changes, but this shows the general effect is positive.

Don't get me wrong, there are some downsides, such as Seal of
Truth causing less damage, several procs occurring less often, and some
damage reductions. Again though, nothing is that big of a
nerf.

In addition, Divine Storm no longer uses Holy Power and shares a
cooldown with Crusader Strike meaning that Retribution Paladins can do
more constant AoE type damage, instead of having to wait for Holy Power
to stack up.

Druids

The biggest change for Druids and probably the biggest panic for many players
is going to be the Bear form nerf. Bears now only gain 10%
health instead of 20% health. This is a huge change as health
is critical to a tank. However, remember that in Cataclysm
gear is going to have a lot more stamina for all classes and types of
characters. So even though you could be sharing
leather gear meant for a rogue in some slots, it will still have the
same stamina as full out plate tank gear. This means that
Druids should be on par for health to other tanks, even without a
stamina boost. That is not to say that this change
isn't drastic though, it will hurt our poor pooh bear tanks
feelings that they no longer have way more health than any other tank.

In addition druids see a number of other changes such as Leader of the
Pack healing for less, Rejuvenation costing 30% more, Thorn damage
lowered significantly, along with several other changes. The
only Druid spec that saw almost no changes was a Balance druid, but
they have been pretty solid since the new talents were released.

Warlocks

This is the first of the big two for nerfs in this patch, and it was a
big nerf across the board for Warlocks. Almost every single
ability saw a 12% reduction in damage caused!
That's right, 12% almost across the board.

The abilities that were hit with the big huge nerf bat are as follows:
Bane of Agony, Bane of Doom, Corruption, Death Coil, Drain Soul,
Immolate, Incinerate, Rain of Fire, Searing Pain, Seed of Corruption,
Shadowbolt, Soul Fire, Hand of Gul’dan, Chaos Bolt,
Conflagrate, and Shadowburn. If that seems like a long list,
that's because it is!

Not playing a high level Warlock, I can't comment on how much
that impacts their viability in the game in definitive terms.
However, it did not seem like our Warlocks were running away in the
damage department in raids since the change, so it will definitely
lower them down the lists. How much, I'm not
sure. If it works out to be a 10 – 12% total DPS
decrease it could be too much.

For some further insights into why Warlocks in particular were hit with
such a drastic DPS decrease, be sure to read Cyrak's
excellent analysis of PvP in Patch 4.0.3a. It seems pretty clear that
these changes are intended to balance the class in PvP, but
it's never a good design decision to nerf PvE viability to
make it work.

Warriors

Warriors are the other class that at first look are the most affected
by this new patch. Many of their abilities are seeing big
nerfs in the area of a 17% to 25% decrease. For example the
following all now cause roughly 17% less damage: Cleave, Execute,
Heroic Strike, Rend, Victory Rush, and Blood Thirst. Many
others saw drops in power as well such as Overpower (now 125% weapon
damage instead of 150%), Mortal Strike (150% instead of 185%), Strikes
of Opportunity (now 100% instead of 115%), and Raging Blow (now 110%
down from 150%).

Many other abilities see additional nerfs to damage output with almost
no increases anywhere. All of a Warrior's self
healing abilities have also been lowered.

Again, while Warriors have been doing some respectable damage lately, I
haven't seen them being way out of line. Certainly
nothing to justify a 17% to 25% beatdown from Blizzard.

[Editor's note: Having played a warrior since launch, a
massive nerf to the class comes as little surprise. Blizzard keeps
claiming that there's a huge lack of tanks in the game, but
maybe if they didn't perpetually kick warrior's in
the virtual nether regions that would have never been an issue in the
first place. This patch is giving me violent flashbacks to the final
patch before TBC, and it isn't pretty.]

Overall

Many of these changes seem overly drastic given how little time players
have had with the abilities since they were implemented on the live servers.
While I may have missed something jumping between beta and live servers
since they were implemented, I haven't seen anything that
shows they are hugely out of line in either. The only thing
that I can think of is that some classes became too good at max level
with raid gear and needed to be brought back to a more even playing
field with other classes.

If this was the case though, and I'm only guessing here,
wouldn't changing the max level co-efficient be an easier
across the board change, instead of potentially hurting so many players
leveling experience right when Cataclysm is set to launch?
After all, since the patch notes got posted up yesterday I have already
heard from many Warriors and Warlocks that they are now going to be
leveling different characters instead, simply because they feel they
will no longer be viable. I have heard the same from a Death
Knight friend that lives to PvP, although since I can never kill him he
won't get much sympathy from me on these changes.

While I, and others, may be reacting poorly to these changes, it is
hard not to when you see such drastic number changes. All I
can say is hopefully it all works out, and for that, only time will
tell.