Death Knight - Upcoming Changes

Quote from: Ghostcrawler (Source)

Frost got some other buffs and Unholy got some other nerfs too. These might not all be in the build. I am also going off of memory here, so I may be mistaken.

Tundra Stalker buffs Obliterate and Howling Blast. Adds double expertise.
Acclimation buffs Rune Strike (in addition to its normal effects).
Crypt Fever down to 10/20/30%.
And the big one... when you miss, your runes activate in 1 sec instead of 2. This makes misses, dodges and parries a lot less painful.

We are also getting reports of Tundra Stalker not causing extra damage as it should. I can't verify that, but keep it in mind.

Mage - Mana Cost changes

Quote from: Ghostcrawler (Source)

We think mages are still having mana problems and don't want to reduce Evocation's cooldown anymore. Nor do we want to buff mage armor too much more or using e.g. molten armor seems pointless.

Instead, we reduced the mana cost on Fireball, Frostbolt, Frostfire Bolt, Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles, and Arcane Explosion.

Death Knight Creation F.A.Q

Quote from: Nethaera (Source)

Q. What races can be a death knight?
A. Every race has the availability of being a death knight.

Q. Who is eligible to create a death knight?
A. Players who have at least one level 55 character on a realm may create a death knight on that realm.

Q. What if I have a level 55 character on one realm but want to create a death knight on another realm to play with friends?
A. At the launch of Wrath of the Lich King, you will only be able to create a death knight on the same realm where you have an existing level 55 or higher character. In the future, we plan to allow the creation of a death knight on any realm (provided you have at least one level 55+ character).

Q. Can I create a death knight on one realm and transfer it to another realm?
A. Yes, you will be able to transfer a death knight, using either a free character move or a paid character transfer. Normal fees still apply.

Q. Can I create a death knight on one account and transfer it to a new account?
A. Death knights can be transferred with the same fees and restrictions as any other character.

Q. If I move a death knight to another realm now, can I get a refund later when the option to create a death knight anywhere is available?
A. We will not be giving refunds to players who have relocated a death knight to another realm prior to the open creation point for all realms.

Q. Can I create a death knight on the opposite faction?
A. You will be able to create a death knight on the opposite faction provided that it is on a PvE realm. The standard restrictions for character creation apply for PvP realms.

Q. Is there a limit on how many death knights I can create?
A. You will only be able to have one death knight per realm at any one time. Should you delete a death knight, you will still be able to create a new one.

Daily Blue

Upcoming Glyph pass
The glyphs weren't finalized until late, and we had already done a lot of testing and balancing then. They are also a little tricky to adjust because the intent is that they do change what you do slightly, instead of just buffing the buttons you'd already push.
But we plan on doing a pass on them soon. (src)

Sorting mounts under the mount tab
We'll try to get some improvements in over time. It's not our highest priority UI feature, however. (src)

Possible pet changes
I would like to try a pet model at some point where the pets were sturdy and easily healed, but contributed much less of the total dps (like 15-25% instead of 30-40%). (src)

About the Stratholme mount
Currently we plan to keep the Deathcharger's Reigns as a drop in Stratholme. (src)

Ghostcrawler on mana regeneration gear
We also want better gear to give you a larger mana pool, improve regeneration and otherwise make you feel more uber. Tha'ts why getting better gear is fun. At the same time, you're probably using that gear to go try harder and harder encounters, so you should never reach the "I ignore mana" plateau. (src)

Death Knight
Unholy tree to get "nerfed"
I can't imagine too many people think that DKs (Unholy I presume) and Ret Pallys are balanced. We won't leave things like that. (src)
The numbers aren't done. We changed an awful lot of combat mechanics and we're still adjusting things to get them right. Unholy death knights (I assume that's the spec you are talking about) have some nerfs coming (and I've already posted about them). (src)

Druid
Treant health
The Treant health appears to be too low. They aren't updating correctly from your Stamina or level or something. We'll get it fixed. (src)

Typhoon rank 5 will be back in the next patch
I'm not aware of any changes to Typhoon's damage. If you're just talking about Rank 5, we had to just temporarily yank it to make sure it was becoming untrained -- despite the last hotfix, druids were still ending up with it when we added the rank back in. We should be able to add it back next patch. (src)

Predatory Instincts
Predatory Instincts is a huge nerf. You just haven't seen it yet. It only works in cat form.

I hinted that this might happen before, but as it was, a druid was going to be the only tank people took for dragons like Malygos. That would have been particularly true for any encounter that was supposed to be a resist fight, because the druid could skip a lot of the resist gear. Your health pool should still make sure you handle those fights sufficiently.

Sorry. I know the nerfs aren't fun after having gotten a few buffs, but despite some early concerns, we ended up with bears far and away as the best tanks at handling damage. I'm sure you would want us to do the same thing if death knights were that far above the other tanks. (src)

Bear tanking abilities
With regard to abilities, we have been torn between giving bears (and cats) more unique abilities versus giving them tanking abilities that many players considered "core." We could have certainly come up with something more original than Last Stand for bears, but at the time, a lot of bears were comparing laundry lists of buttons and said bears wouln't be invited to raids because they didn't have an oh snap button like Last Stand. We put that functionality in Berserk, then later backed off of that so that we could make Berserk a more fun button to push as bear. (src)

Hunter
Hunters situation in Arenas
Arenas were not kind to hunters. We do get that. We talk about it all the time. Did we buff hunters too much now for Arenas? I have no doubt you'll disagree, but it is a concern. We need to actually see a lot more arenas (with fewer broken classes in them) to know how things stand. We are trying to make it better, but it's also possible to overdo it. Good for you I guess, but bad for everyone else. (src)

Paladin
Shield of the Templar changes
Shield of the Templar now also reduces all damage taken by 1/2/3%. (src)

Critical Block is being watched
Critical Block is something we're still keeping our eye on. I'm not going to promise a paladin version, but it's totally something we'll consider if paladin blocking starts to fall behind.

Whoever said it, yes it's absolutely going to be a challenge trying to get parity among 4 classes with totally different mechanics, and in some sense the warrior to paladin comparison is the easy one. :) But we don't like having only one MT class, and we don't like giving everyone very similar gear, talents and abilities to tank, and we don't like the situation where you need a different tank for every fight because they all excell at certain types of encounters and suck at others. So the option we're left with is to have 4 who are different but relatively equal. (src)

Retribution tree to be "nerfed"
I can't imagine too many people think that DKs (Unholy I presume) and Ret Pallys are balanced. We won't leave things like that. (src)

Shaman
Spirit Wolves to scale with AP in the next build
I said Strength at one point, but they never did scale off of Strength. In fact they never scaled off of anything. They were the same no matter what your level or gear. We fixed that though, and they should scale very well (using AP, not Str). Let us know if that isn't happening.
Then you're going to love them next build. (src)

Spirit Wolves
We might have to lower the healing per damage if the damage goes up a lot with the AP changes. In other words, you might not see a buff to healing and damage. (src)

Riptide
Riptide probably isn't going to be a crazy awesome raiding tool *unless* you're in a fight with a lot of movement, in which case it does its job very well. It is situational, but we actually made a lot of the new spells situational because almost every class already had bread and butter abilities well before LK.

Now, I think it does shine in 5-player dungeons, PvP or in 10-player raids, depending on how many hot-based healers you have. The initial heal could probably be a bit larger. That is something we may change after some more testing.

I know Resto hasn't gotten as much attention as other shaman specs in this forum, but honeslty we think it's because you work pretty well. Players have gotten made when I've said that before, but particularly in raids, everyone knows what they're going to get from a Resto (CH and Earth Shield) and I don't think that is going away. (src)

Warlock
Demonic Circle recast
If you cast a new one, it should just cast a new one. We'll look into it. (src)
Demonic Circle isn't intended to be a pew pew spell. Not every ability has to be. (src)

Eradication is being looked at
Thanks. We'll take a look at it. (src)

Shadowflame
Shadowflame is something we're looking at. (src)