With all the rush to find out more info about the KOTOR announcement I missed that the World of Warcraft: WotLK closed beta has begun - bringing the game out of the Alpha stage and one big step closer to release. I have entered to participate in the Beta but haven’t got that email yet, so we’ll be crossing our fingers over here that it comes. But for now we can at least peruse the patch notes for changes.
Some of the changes I’ve noticed already are going to be effecting how we play our twinks, some in a big way some just minor bonuses or nerfs. Most look like bonuses so far. I’ll break them down on my twinks to what I like that I’m seeing so this may not effect everyone. First my 49 feral druid twink (he’s my favorite):
First thing I noticed is a big bonus to druid’s rooting abilities. Entangling roots can now be used indoors - previously only an outdoor spell. Nature’s grasp, which every good druid twink should have in their talents is also now useable indoors. You should activate this spell before every fight! I can’t stress that enough, it has a chance on you getting hit to procc entangling roots on your attacker buying you precious time to get out of whatever form you are in and put on a heal or two before going back into your form to continue the fight. This has won me more fights than I can count!
Feral charge can not be used in cat form - previously only available in bear form. This is a minor bonus to me - it just really saves mana from changing forms. I’ve got my talents setup to give me instant rage or energy when switching into bear or cat forms respectively, so if a target is getting away and I’m in cat form - I’ll morph to bear form and instantly have my feral charge available to catch and stun the whelp. Having it available in cat form is going to be nice in saving time and mana but not a huge bonus like the entangling roots.
Soothe animal is a spell few druid twinks probably use but is useful in several cases - and now it’s instant cast. You should definitely have this on your spellbar! Have a hunter harassing you? Soothe his pet and switch to bear form to feral charge him to close in the distance and beat the ever loving crap out of him. His pet will be off somewhere in nappy land. Also a great tool against other druids - this will put them to sleep if they are in animal form. But now that’s it is instant cast it’s going to hurt us when fighting other druids too. This is going to be one you’ll want to get off quickly if you need to heal. Previously when seeing someone start casting this spell, since I had the spellwatch plugin, I would just morph out of my animal form at the last second and the spell had no effect - I waited to let them waste their time so I would get an extra hit or two in before I went to normal form.
They are moving faerie fire in feral form down to an 11 point talent and feral charge up to a 21 point talent, basically they are trading places which really has no effect on me since I went full on points in both anyway. Faerie fire is handy enough when fighting an armored opponent but it’s really handy to tag rogues with it to keep them from stealthing. Having it in animal form is a God send. There are other changes to druids to be sure but that about sums up the changes effecting me. And let’s face it, that’s what is really important here. Heh.
For the warrior twinks, it looks like they’ve modified hamstring to no longer deal damage, which is no big deal because you only used it to slow the target anyway. There is now only one level of hamstring, which may reduce the rage required to use it? No word on that yet. Iron will is going from a 5 point talent down to a 3 point talent which is good for me. I’ve only invested 2 points in that particular talent and got a 6% increase in chance to resist stun and charm effects. After the patch those same two points will give me a 20% chance. That’s a nice bonus.
Overpower has been nerfed significantly. It’s now down to only one rank and no longer does any of your bonus damage - weapon damage only. That was a talent I used fairly often, especially against dodging rogues and will continue to use but that hurts. That looks about it for the warriors too.
You can read all the patch notes for your particular class and professions here:
http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/07/17/wotlk-beta-patch-notes-and-other-news/
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