WotLK Beta/PTR Maintenance, Class changes, Glyphs

Update: Additional class changes added.

WotLK Beta/PTR maintenance - New Build

A new build is being deployed on WotLK Beta and Public Test realms. Stay tuned for all the new changes !

Quote from: Gradina (Source)

We will be taking down the Beta realms at 5:00PM Pacific time today October 7th 2008 to update to the latest build. We expect this process to take from five to seven hours.
Thank you for your patience!

Quote from: Ghostcrawler (Source)

• Righteous Defense -- cooldown lowered to 8 sec. It had been 10 sec recently and is 15 sec on live.
• Infusion of Light -- now affects Flash of Light or Holy Light. Flash of Light is reduced to 0 cast time with 2 ranks, meaning that if you're running around and get a Holy Shock crit, you can also Flash without stopping.
• Judgements of the Pure -- haste benefit now up to 15% with 5 ranks (was 10%).
• Enlightened Judgements -- range benefit is now 30 yards with 2 ranks (was 20). This means you can judge or heal from the same range without having to run around so much.

Bacon of Light -- no change here, but I can never miss an opportunity to call it Bacon.

Quote from: Ghostcrawler (Source)

One of things about glyphs is they are a trade skill. That means we plan on adding more and more over time. We also have no problem having more than one glyph per skill. The catch is you can only have a few on you at one time.

We probably won't add too many more glyphs before ship, but if you have feedback on existing ones, now is a good time.

Upcoming Class Changes

Druid
Eclipse Change
Update on Eclipse. Here is how we changed the talent.
It now has a longer cooldown (40 sec) and a shorter duration (10 sec) but the effects on Wrath and Starfire are doubled. It is overall a buff to the damage to justify the proc-watching aspect. We also hope the longer cooldown and shorter duration will mean it takes less of your bandwidth to do so. (src)

Mage
Living Bomb
Living Bomb is on our list of spell damage to look at. We may decide it's ultimately okay, but it is on the list. (src)

Priest
Devouring Plague Change
We increased the damage coefficient of Devouring Plague to be similar to other damage over time spells. We also lowered the base damage on ranks 7, 8, and 9 to partially compensate for better scaling.
Overall this will unquestionably be a buff to the spell's damage, but I wanted to state this clearly lest you just see the base damage in a future build and think we nerfed it. (src)

Rogue
Shadow Dance
We are going to make a change to Shadow Dance to keep the basic functionality but make the UI ramifications easier. Ideally we'll just let you use the stealth bar. This is a slightly complicated change so it might take some time.
In the short term, we are going to make another change. Shadow Dance will no longer increase the cooldown on abilities that can be used only while stealthed. If you have the energy to Ambush three times in a row, go for it.

The short-term change meant you'll see it sooner. It's still intended to be a permanent change.
A new, special Shadow Dance bar would be ideal. If we can't do that, just letting you use your normal stealth bar wouldn't be so bad. Most of the rogue UI's I've seen don't have too many abilities on it (maybe 7-8 max at the extreme end? Your mileage may vary). (src)

Shaman
Lava Burst change
Update on Lava Burst - We ended up buffing the damage by about 10%. You should now have a lot motivation to use it and Flame Shock once you hit level 75. Lightning Bolt isn't going anywhere so you still have your old standby, particularly for 3.0.2 and until you gain a few levels. (src)

Warlock
Update on Shadowflame and Haunt
Shadowflame -- We ultimately decided to keep the cone and the dot component, but just the damage. We compared Shadowflame's damage to Cone of Cold, but the latter benefits from a pretty sweet talent and is arguably a little weak-feeling without the talent. Shadowflame has no equivalent talent, so we buffed its damage by about 75%.

Haunt -- In order to give you a wider window in which to renew the spell, we lowered the cooldown to 8 sec. Refreshing Haunt will also trigger the heal from the existing Haunt, so clipping your previous one won't be as big a problem. (src)

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