Blizzard's last notes before launch: more class damage, tougher mobs, and a rebuilt Rogue

One day before the November 4 launch, Blizzard posted its last round of development notes. It covers about two and a half weeks of work since the October 15 beta update. It is long, so this article starts with the changes that affect every character and then goes class by class.

The big one: the power budget goes up

Blizzard says that keeping each class close to its Classic power budget meant every new talent had to be paid for by weakening something else, and some iconic abilities ended up feeling flat. So it raised damage for classes across the game and gave higher-level creatures more health to compensate.

It also set expectations for after launch:

• No big tuning changes before the raids open next month, except for bugs and serious outliers.
• A large tuning pass later, once enough players are past level 30 and playing a wide range of content.
• The stated goal is not numerical equality. Each class should feel valuable to its group, with its own strengths kept rather than smoothed away.

Our reading: the damage you see in the first week is what you will have for a while, so tier lists and builds made now should hold until December.

Changes every character will notice

Change	What it means
New spells are no longer added to your action bars automatically	Check the spellbook after every trainer visit.
Bags no longer equip themselves	A bag you loot goes into your inventory. Drag it into a bag slot yourself.
Training 1-60 costs about 206-207 gold for every class	Most abilities learned at the same level cost the same. Warlocks pay less, which offsets the cost of their pet Grimoires. Plan for it on our gold page.
Low-rank spells trigger talents normally again	The exception is Blizzard, which still has a lower chance to trigger Arcane Concentration, Frostbite and Fingers of Frost when you cast a rank learned more than 12 levels ago.
Race base stats fixed	Every race now has the right starting stats. A Tauren Warrior starts with +5 Strength over a Human, not +2.
Proc roots have diminishing returns	Frostbite, Entrapment, Improved Wing Clip, Counterattack and Improved Hamstring.
Quitter debuff 40 seconds	Down from 5 minutes.

Respawn rates were also tuned for the launch crowd. Starting zones respawn fastest, and the rate slows as zones get higher in level, where players spread out. Blizzard says this is temporary: the low-level zones go back to normal rates once the first rush has passed. Some competition for mobs is still intended.

Tanks: more threat now that Salvation is gone

Blessing of Salvation is gone, along with Mass Salvation and Revoke, and so is Blessing of Light. Without Salvation, DPS players can no longer have their threat lowered for them, so every tank form got a large threat increase:

• Bear and Dire Bear Form: threat bonus up from 50% to 115%.
• Warrior Defensive Stance: up from 30% to 80%. Defiance is now 7/13/20%.
• Paladin Righteous Fury: 33% more threat, plus 90% extra threat from Holy damage. It is now trained at level 10, the level other tanks get their stance.

With damage up across the board, losing Salvation matters most in the first few dungeons. Tanks should open with their strongest threat abilities and let the group start a moment later.

Rogue: the biggest rework

The Rogue changes are the largest in the notes:

• Shank (level 24): an off-hand strike for 50% weapon damage that costs 5 Energy and generates 15 Energy (25 at rank 2, level 44). It cannot miss and has a 10-second cooldown.
• Poised (passive, level 18): if you are out of combat at full Energy, your next Energy ability costs 10 less.
• Poisons: the Attack Power scaling of Deadly and Instant Poison is doubled.
• Assassination: Murder is gone. Lethality is now 2 points for 20% crit damage. Relentless Strikes is now a 5-point chance per Combo Point to restore 25 Energy. Seal Fate is 3 points. Venom now increases poison damage by 30% after a Shank. Blood Splatter makes Rupture and Garrote last longer. Mutilate moves up to row 7.
• Combat: Improved Eviscerate is renamed Coup de Grace, and Improved Sinister Strike is renamed Efficient Strikes. Composure strengthens Poised, and Flash of Steel gives Shank more Energy and a shorter cooldown. Dual Wield Specialization is 2 points for 50% off-hand damage.
• Subtlety: Quietus, Cutthroat, Thousand Cuts and Improved Distract are removed. The new talents are Boot Knife (Shank can add 2 Combo Points), Quick Getaway (an extra Sap target and a burst of speed after Sapping) and the 31-point Death Mark, a finisher that stores part of your damage and releases it after 6 seconds.

Shank turns the Rogue from a class that waits for Energy into one with a short active cooldown to manage. Expect a different opening and rotation from Classic.

Shaman: Lava Burst is out

• Lava Burst is removed. In its place, Call of Thunder gives Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning 5% more crit.
• Lightning Overload is now a 10/20/30% chance to cast a copy of the spell (was 3/7/10%). Elemental Mastery is renamed Lightning Mastery.
• Lightning Bolt hits harder at every rank, about 80% harder at max rank. Chain Lightning now has a 2.5-second cast and a much higher mana cost. Shocks are back to their Classic Era damage.
• Enhancement: Stormstrike now deals 150% weapon damage on a 6-second cooldown. Maelstrom Weapon triggers twice as often. Mental Dexterity converts up to 150% of Intellect into Attack Power, and Flurry goes to 30% attack speed.
• Restoration: Riptide is now a heal over time only, with no initial heal. It costs about 40% less mana and has a 12-second cooldown.
• Totemic Projection is now Totemic Call: it teleports your totems to you, on a 30-second cooldown.

Warrior

• Fury: Reckless Swings (row 4) costs 25% of base health and makes your next 4 melee hits generate 5 extra Rage each. Improved Whirlwind (row 6) shortens Whirlwind’s cooldown and adds 30% damage to the closest enemy. Bloodthirst now requires Death Wish, and Flurry is 3 points for 30% attack speed.
• Arms: Two-Handed Weapon Specialization is up to 6% damage. Bloodthrill is 2 points, and Improved Tactical Mastery is 3 points for 15 Rage kept when you change stance.
• Slam’s cooldown is down to 15 seconds.

Druid

• Feral: Shred now deals 200% weapon damage, Claw 140% and Ravage 435%. Rip, Rake, Ferocious Bite and Pounce are about 25% stronger. Lacerate is now a Feral talent on row 4. Berserk is gone, and Feral now has two 31-point talents: Primal Bite for Bears and Shifting Power for Cats. Predatory Discipline makes Ferocious Bite keep your excess Energy while still dealing the bonus damage.
• Poised also comes to Druids at level 32, and Ferocious Bite gets a new rank 1 at level 24.
• Restoration: Bloom replaces Gift of the Earthmother. Wild Growth has a 3-second base cast, and Naturalist now also shortens that cast. Swiftmend only consumes your own Rejuvenation or Regrowth.
• Starfire’s base damage is up about 40%, and Genesis is doubled to 10%.

Paladin

Every Paladin tree was reshuffled. Holy gets Oath of Light, which boosts your heals on one sworn ally, and Boundless Light, extra Holy Shock crit on everyone else. Protection gets Stoicism and Shieldsworn, which makes Holy Strike strike with your shield and lets you block spells. Holy Shield moves up to row 5. Retribution gets Unsealed Wrath as its 31-point talent: your attacks store copies of your active Seal, and switching Seals releases them. Two-Handed Weapon Specialization now also reduces threat.

Hunter, Mage, Priest, Warlock

• Hunter: Aimed Shot bonus damage is up about 110%, Arcane Shot about 30%, and Serpent Sting scaling is higher. All traps now share one 30-second cooldown. Aspect of the Hawk and Trueshot Aura give more Ranged Attack Power.
• Mage: Frost loses Piercing Ice, and Ice Barrier now adds 15% Frost damage for a minute, a reason to go deep into Frost for PvE. Frost Blast is removed. Elemental Precision is back to a 3-point Precision (6% hit), which also replaces Arcane Focus. Improved Fireball is renamed Accelerant. Critical Mass is back to 3 points, and Arcane Blast’s mana penalty is lower.
• Priest: Shadow Word: Death now deals 30% of your maximum health to you if it does not kill the target, but nothing if it misses. Binding Heal is replaced by Holy Binding: when you Flash Heal someone else, you are healed for half of it.
• Warlock: Pets get 2 Health per point of your Stamina, down from 7.5, a large cut to pet survival. Wrack’s damage at level 60 rises from 36 to 86 per second. Shadow and Flame now gives up to 20%. Drain Soul gives fewer Soul Shards when it damages without killing.

Races and gamepad

The notes repeat the final racial pass from October 26 for completeness: Command returns for Orcs, Dwarves get Artisan’s Precision, Tauren Plainsrunning goes to a 60% cap, and more. We covered it in Blizzard rolled back its own racial rework a week before launch, and every race is on our race pages.

Gamepad support is now complete: movement, combat, targeting (including your focus target and friendly corpses), bags, professions, flight paths and every core screen work on a controller.

What this means for our calculator

Our talent calculator reads the game client: the launch build 1.60.1.70755 plus the server hotfixes Blizzard sent to it on launch day. Every talent change in these notes is now in it. The Rogue, Shaman and Fury Warrior reworks were missing from every earlier client build and arrived only with those launch hotfixes, together with Orc Command and the rename of the Dwarf racial to Artisan’s Precision.

The Rogue, Shaman and Warrior guides are re-planned on the new trees, and our in-game addon carries the new talent orders. Training costs are on our gold page.