The latest patchnotes for the PTR can be found here-http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

Honor Overhaul

I don’t want to spend too long on this, because it’s simply re-iterating what most of you will already know, but with the addition of a single turn-in for marks of Honor for, currently, 185 Honor, it is no longer necessary to waste hours upon end farming all battlegrounds. This is, of course, because they are intending to remove Marks of Honor in the next patch, instead doubling the amount of honor gained per honorable kill.

Obviously, the single turn-in doesn’t grant anywhere near the amount of honor that the turn-in of all 6 different marks does: To compare, turning in all 6 separately grants 1110 honor as opposed to the 1489 from Concerted Efforts/For Great Honor. The advantage is obviously that you don’t have to do all 6 battlegrounds – myself, I would never go near SotA or IoC, as I find the vehicle system repugnant and irritating, particularly as a healer.

I’d also like to make something quite, quite clear: the honor returns from Wintergrasp and from battlegrounds are not being decreased – the rewards for the capture of objectives are based upon honorable kills; and with the doubling of honor from honorable kills, they’ve halved the number of kills that said objectives are worth.

Personally, I view this as a huge positive. I, as have many members of the community, have frequently complained about how repetitive and boring the battleground system is, and the need to repeat these repetitive battlegrounds repetitively (frustrating, isn’t it?) to maximize gear. Blizzard, while unable to dent this repetition too much, have at least provided an incentive to actually take part in battlegrounds, in the form of more honor from kills. At least I can get my grind done sooner.

Unholy firmly cemented at the top – What the DK changes mean to everyone else

Now, Death Knights out of all classes have whined the most about their current state. We’d all like to believe that it’s because the class is only played by twelve year old scrubs, who go crying to Mummy Blizzard upon losing an arena match. However, Blizzard are recognizing that the class is, at the moment, underperforming.

Now, the biggest change we can see is the change to Unholy Blight:
“Unholy Blight: In addition to its previous effects, this talent now also prevents diseases from being dispelled from victims afflicted by Unholy Blight.”
For the last two seasons, DKs have been searching for specs that aren’t reliant on diseases, as unholy is undoubtedly more reliant on debuffs that are removed without thought by a totem or buff than any other spec in the game. Specs such as disease-less blood, shadowfrost v2 and in S6, Frost were played because they could cope better without said diseases. What this change effectively means is that DKs can tunnel damage without worrying about doing more than simply pestilence-ing once every ~15 seconds. Now, a DK with all their diseases active is capable of pushing out excellent damage (or horrific, if you’re the one facing it), so without having to worry about being denied their diseases, this damage will be much harder to handle.

In my opinion, this buff could be too much. DKs have never before had undispellable diseases, and this makes switching so much easier for them, as they can reliably pestilence switch with full diseases up.

At the same time, they also changed Scourge Strike. I’m not going to dwell on this, because the damage with diseases is supposed to be just the same (and a good DK should really always have diseases active on his target), but it’s a small buff in that you can switch without diseases with a greater effect. It’s not anywhere near as important a change though.

Starfall – The Poor Man’s Bladestorm?

We next come to Druids. Now, Blizzard has attempted to buff Moonkin with their change to Nature’s Grasp – giving it three charges as opposed to one. However, this is a much greater buff to resto, and not bad for ferals either. That in itself is not a problem though, as Restoration at least is not overwhelmingly strong in my eyes.

The most important change from a PvP perspective is the buff to Balance (and the nerf to Glyph of Focus as a balancing attempt). Apparently it is now capable of putting out roughly 20-25k damage across its duration (and that’s on one target too). Now, it’s undeniably weaker than bladestorm (although having a larger radius), in that the damage is much harder to control and the spread damage is much weaker.

As I’ll come onto later, Bladestorm has become much easier to counter, but Starfall is still easier yet to counter. My personal opinion is that, although Starfall being buffed is good to an extent, it’s still almost completely useless in a 3v3 and 5v5 environment, because all one must do to counter it is throw a silence, fear, disorient, horror, stun or cyclone onto the “channeling” moonkin and the effect is nullified for the duration of that controlling effect. As such, I think it could actually be a counterproductive change – they’re missing the main weakness of Balance, which is its inability to compete with other casters in a standoff due to lack of a reliable interrupt, and its huge loss of pressure upon being tunneled.

The Return of Shadowstep

Cast your mind back to the rogue class of TBC. It was mobile, controlling and as a result relatively durable. Enter WotLK, and mutilate becoming mainstream, and the rogue class went from being the mobile, control-based melee it was to being a slow, lumbering, vulnerable juggernaut.

I spent some time back in Season 6 playing Subtlety, and the conclusion I reached was that Shadowdance wasn’t reliable enough when it came down to outbursting the enemy (although I remember with fondness dropping other rogues in two globals with double ambush, single handedly beating a double rogue team). As a spec, Subtlety has been the favorite of the rogue community because of its mobility and the durability that comes from having that mobility. The style is just that much more enjoyable to play.

Blizzard seems to have recognized this, throwing a huge number at buffs at the spec to hopefully increase its playability at the top level. They’ve buffed dagger-Hemo to be a viable form of damage, buffed Serrated Blades to help the spec deal with its lack of armor ignore (that Mutilate obviously gets from Poisons and Envenom), and made Ambush and Backstab cheaper, allowing the rogue to burst harder when in position to do so.

The playability of the spec is debated by much better rogues than I, but the community seems generally hopeful. The Waylay change is negligible – the talent is still utter garbage and completely unreliable, but the possibility of playing dagger-Hemo (thereby allowing backstab to be thrown in without changing weapon), along with the burst becoming much more controllable and indeed more often-occuring gives the spec a very real shot.

It has to be accepted now that the spec will NOT have the sustained pressure of Assassination. It’ll have a very different playstyle – a playstyle that I personally imagine working out better in RMP and RLS (and in caster/rogue/healer generally). It will also, in my eyes, be much more fun to play – no-one enjoys lacking mobility.

Disarming Bladestorm

The latest large change Blizzard has announced for 3.3.3 is the ability to disarm during bladestorm, effectively neutering the ability (the Warrior community as a whole having its testicles removed). The advantage is, of course, not solely to the classes that can disarm (for warriors can simply intervene or intercept away, rogues can feint and/or evasion, hunters can deterrence/disengage, shadowpriests can dispersion/die), but it makes the ability actually counterable.

While I do understand the fact that warriors are upset by this change, it has to be recognized that the ability was simply not enjoyable to play against before. There is nothing less “fun” than watching a Warrior gut a team-mate in a massive whirl of unstoppable death – literally being unable to do anything (as my partner has been known to complain in 2v2). Furthermore, I personally feel that the ability was simply too good.

My personal philosophy is that defensive CDs (generally speaking) should be more powerful than offensive ones. With the game still favoring shorter matches, changes like this can make them longer.

Imagine RMP vs TSG in LIVE gear, as opposed to tournament gear (where, as we’ve seen, the RMP guts the TSG). The Warrior and DK generally hop straight on the Priest, strang/MS/Bladestorm and the priest is in a great deal of trouble. However, this change allows the rogue, of course, to disarm the Warrior, stopping a stupid and skill-less strategy from working.

Ultimately, you now have to think before bladestorming. You generally try to get JoJ/HoJ on a Druid before bladestorming it, why not now try controlling the rogue before using bladestorm? Adapt, don’t complain. That’s what the game is about.

Isn't it about time they removed pathing CCs?

We've all been there. You've been trying to scatter-trap a paladin and he's been pathed out of your trap. You've tried to refear a mage and he's been feared out of LoS. Or from the other side, you've been trying to get to your partner to freedom him and he's just being pathed away from you, again and again and again.

To be quite honest, I personally think it's about time they removed pathing - or at least guaranteed you finish where you started - fear runs you in a circle, likewise with scatter, likewise with death coil. There is absolutely no need (other than flavour - which my suggestion solves) for this pathing, it's simply unnecessary RNG that removes a degree of skill from your play.

Thanks for reading, please drop me a comment.