Celestalon and Holinka on Warlords of Draenor changes
Yes, after the big Dev Watercooler, people of course had a flurry of questions, and our friendly Blizzard devs Brian Holinka and Chadd "Celestalon" Nervig hit Twitter in a big way to answer people's questions. And man, did they - many, many questions were answered. Here, we have compiled as many as we can.
Racial abilities
Weapon Specialization racials (like the ones dwarves, humans and orcs had) are gone, due to hit/expertise also having been removed.
Humans will gain a redesigned The Human Spirit, which will add to two secondary stats of your choice. Every Man For Himself may or may not be changed, based on itemization changes.
Orcs were redesigned - Blood Fury was left intact, but Hardiness is now a 10% reduction, down from 15%. Command racial is unchanged.
Gnome's Expansive Mind racial, for instance, is now good for all resources, not just mana. Escape Artist drops to a 1 minute CD, and Shortblade Specialization is gone, replaced with Nimble Fingers, a new haste racial.
Undead are seeing minor changes - Will of the Forsaken up to a 3 minute CD, Touch of the Grave seeing scaling tweaks only.
Dwarves gain Might of the Mountain, a 2% crit damage/healing racial, and Stoneform now removes curses and magic effects, but still does not break CC and can't be used while CC'd.
For Goblins, little change - Time is Money is now actual haste.
Draenei Heroic Presence will now add to a primary stat of your choice. Gift of the Naaru now heals over five seconds.
Night elves see a bonus to Quickness that adds a 2% passive buff to movement speed and a completely new racial, Touch of Elune, which adds 1% haste at night and 1% crit during the day. Shadowmeld is unchanged.
The Tauren racial Endurance becomes +X Stamina, while a new racial named Brawn increases their critical damage/healing.
Blood Elves gain the new Arcane Acuity racial (passive 1% crit) and Arcane Torrent now affects all resources, not just mana/rage.
Abilities/Spells/Itemization
Tricks of the Trade no longer increases damage. It's imagined that it will be used to help pick up adds. It's now free to use.
Mage's water elementals will retain their Freeze ability, but a new glyph will teach another ability that shares a cooldown with it.
Rogues will see their various cooldowns go spec specific, with Killing Spree and Adrenaline Rush for Combat, Vendetta for Assassination and Shadow Dance for Subtlety. Shadow Blades is gone.
Only Heroism/Bloodlust/Time Warp/Ancient Hysteria remain as raid DPS cooldowns. Abilities like Stormlash Totem and Skull Banner are gone.
Raid-wide defensive CD's like Devotion Aura and Demoralizing Banner are staying, in concept, although specific ones may or may not.
Shattering Throw will be a glyph that teaches you the ability, not one that changes Heroic Throw.
My heart will be broken forever if Glyph of Bear Trap doesn't make it live, even though I'm pretty sure Celestalon was kidding there.
The SoO trinkets have convinced Blizzard to not implement Amplify and Cleave at this time.
The current thinking is to have five stats - Crit, Mastery, Haste, Readiness and Multistrike.
CC/Interrupts/PvP changes
Disarms gone - set bonuses will be redesigned, weapon chains obsolete
They're concerned about root breaks and haven't gotten where they want to be with them yet
While silences are mostly decoupled from them, interrupts themselves will remain, as the gameplay of them is seen as more interesting
Charge will be a root, not a stun. Warbringer will be a short stun off of DR. It will be a 1.5 second stun.
Enslave Demon/Undead were mentioned as CC spells that are less of a concern in terms of removing CC.
Silencing Shot will go, but Counter Shot will get to stay.
All interrupts with a silencing effect now will lose it in Warlords, and Holinka provides examples. Pure Silences like Silence and Strangulate will remain.
The feeling is that there's too much CC, and CC breakers won't be targeted as aggressively.
Crits do 25% less damage to players.
Okay, that's a wrap. For more coverage, please check our post on the Dev Watercooler.
