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Future Class Reviews
With the expansion hitting soon, it seems that the window for class reviews has come to a close. However, if you frequent the class forums on the official site, you will see several threads in each forum with people begging for another look. According to a blue response in this thread, Blizzard will continue looking at each class, and apply minor tweaks, rather than a massive overhaul. This is not entirely new information, but it is welcome news to those of us hoping for a little more attention for their class. Are any classes in need of a major fix? If not, what kind of tweaks are needed? Playing a Warlock, I have been pretty unhappy with my Doomguard. It seems more like a parlor trick than an actual useful pet. Sadly, the Infernal is not much better. I certainly hope these pets get a nudge into the realm of usefulness. I'm sure other classes have similar cases, for example I rarely ever see a priest with a lightwell. What else needs fixing?
Patch 1.12: Rogue Review Revisited
CM Drysc has updated us with additional news of the rogue review - including some substantial changes. The talent calculator has been updated to reflect these new changes, and presents rogues with some interesting new opportunities in the subtlety tree. The changes are as follows: Murder has been changed to increase damage caused against Humanoid, Giant, Beast, and Dragonkin by 1%/2%. Remorseless Attacks has been reduced to 2 ranks, with the new effectiveness being 20% and 40%. Endurance has been changed to reduce the cooldown of your Sprint and Evasion abilities by 45 sec/1.5 min. It no longer increases the duration of Evasion. Weapon Expertise will now increases your skill with Fist, Dagger, and Sword weapons. It will no longer affect Maces. Mace Specialization will now also add 1-5 weapon skill with Maces, in addition to the stun effect the talent already provides. Adrenaline Rush now has a reduced cooldown of 5 min. Elusiveness has been reduced to a 2 point talent and now reduces the cooldown of Vanish and Blind by 45 sec/1.5 min. It no longer reduces the cooldown for Evasion. Opportunity is being moved to a tier 1 talent, swapping places with Camouflage. Ghostly Strike has been reverted back to the previous 125% weapon damage, but retains its new Energy cost of 40. Setup will now also provide combo points if you fully resist an attackers spell. Improved Rupture, Improved Cheap Shot, and Improved Garrote have been removed. New talent 'Serrated Blades' is a tier 4 talent in the Subtlety tree, causes your attacks to ignore X of your targets Armor, and increases the damage dealt by your Rupture ability. The amount of Armor reduced increases with your level. At level 60, the ranks will reduce target Armor by 100/200/300 respectively. New talent 'Dirty Deeds' replaces the Improved Cheap Shot talent, reducing the Energy cost of both the Cheap Shot and Garrote abilities by 10/20. Garrote, Eviscerate, and Rupture now all scale with Attack Power. (For the druids in the audience, Drysc has confirmed that the druid's cat form abilities ferocious bite and rip will also scale in this way come patch day.)
Breakfast Topic: Class Reviews?
We've recently seen the completion of the mage and shaman reviews, leaving every class reviewed besides the rogue. But have they all been for better or worse? Do you look forward to class reviews or do you cringe at the thought? Are official reviews a new beginning for a class, or the end of them?
Warcraft Designers on Class Reviews
There's an interview with Lead Game Designer Tom Chilton up on the official site on the topic of class reviews. It gives us a bit of insight into how the developers approach the process as well as providing a bit of insight into what to expect for mages in patch 1.11. Chilton hints at some of the must have talents in the arcane tree (possibly Evocation and Improved Arcane Explosion) being made available to all mages, as well as reducing the mage's downtime and improving the viability of frost/fire combination builds.
