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Posts with tag fel-armor

Warlock changes in Beta build 8926


The nerf bat swung low and hard. Did it hit Warlocks? Well... yes and no. This is the stage in Beta where things are tuned downwards -- notoriously labeled the nerf patch -- and Warlocks are big, fat nerf targets. On the other hand, some spells got buffs and others were reworked. This is just Beta, so don't panic. Classes are buffed and nerfed throughout the testing process until everything is finely tuned.

Without further ado: they nerfed Death's Embrace to grant 9% crit to all Shadow Spells when an opponent is at 20% or below health, down from 15% crit. Eradication can no longer be a permanent buff now as it now notes that, "This effect cannot occur more often than once every 30 sec". On the other hand, Death's Embrace and Eradication got cool new icons. Dark Pact, which I raved about when I talked about the Felhunter, has been nerfed back to its current form of granting 100% of the mana drained from pet (down from 200% in previous builds).

Curse of Exhaustion was nerfed to a 30% movement speed reduction, down from 50%. It's now back to the live realm's value but without the benefit of Amplify Curse, which was reworked in Beta. Fel Armor's mana regeneration was removed and replaced with a health regeneration rate of 2% per 5 seconds. I'm not too sure how to feel about that, but since Warlocks treat health as mana, anyway, it's not such a substantial nerf but merely a mechanical change. More nerfs and a few pleasant surprises after the jump.

Continue reading Warlock changes in Beta build 8926

Warlock glyphs in Beta build 8905

I'm having a lot of fun with the new Inscription profession. Not necessarily as an Inscriber, but as the recipient of these cool new customization features. As Daniel noted the last time, the Warlock glyphs look pretty sweet, and more glyphs for Warlocks appeared recently in the Wrath Beta. And just like the last time, a few of them really do look pretty spiffy, like this one for example...

Glyph of Drain Soul
Your Drain Soul ability occasionally creates an additional soul shard.
We might as well call this the Soul Shard specialization glyph -- an extra shard for Drain Soul? Yes please! Even if you pack your bag full with 28 Soul Shards before heading into an instance or raid, Warlocks still find themselves in situations where they run out of it, specially for those who have Shadowburn thrown in. Timing Drain Soul just right so it doesn't gimp your DPS is a pain in itself, so an extra shard for the effort is pure win. Besides, procs like these are like an Azerothian mini-lottery. This is also perfect for those lazy Warlocks -- and there are a ton of those -- who only bring a handful of shards to an instance.

Continue reading Warlock glyphs in Beta build 8905

Yes, Virginia, there will be premade characters, and other PTR Tidbits

In case you were wondering, there will be premade characters for the 2.4.3 PTR before all is said and done, according to Hortus. There's no word for sure on why they're needed, what gear they'll have, or when they'll come along, but they'll be here. You'll need an account that had Burning Crusade activated before these PTRs went live, and when the time comes, you'll be able to sandbox it up with a fresh new premade while you help test the patch.

This phase, says Hortus, is also not intended for testing Season 4 gear, since it was already tested on a previous PTR. Besides, with 4 days left until Season 4 goes live, the 2.4.3 patch won't be on live servers until Season 4 is well underway. That said, it looks like most (but not all) of the Season 4 gear is still on the PTR right now, so if you want to go check it out, you can fly up to Area 52 on the PTR and check out Big Zokk Torquewrench's wares. Of course, you can also expect us to give you all the Season 4 news you need in the next few days here at WoW Insider as well, including gear guides.

Also, Mages and Warlocks are reporting that their self-buff armor spells are now no longer dispellable on the PTR servers. That's a nice chunk of mana you won't have to waste recasting after a stray Purge in PvP. We'll be watching the PTRs for more undocumented changes, oddities, and happenings, so be sure to keep it here for the rest of the testing cycle for all the news and analysis you'll need when the patch goes live.

Hybrid Theory: Death Knight distress


Hybrid Theory returns after a month long hiatus. We could tell you a long and boring story about how Alex's computer suffered a horrible death during his relocation from Wisconsin to Michigan, but we won't. Just picture the battle scene from Braveheart, except replace the English with a PC. It was basically the same thing.

Last week, we were graced with a boatload of Wrath news. With the Wrath news came Death Knight news. With the Death Knight news came laments of, "my class is dead, noo!" from the WoW community. Yes, it is probably quite intimidating to add another class to the tanking niche for the tank classes, especially considering we've seen the incredible Death Knight abilities and not those of anybody else, but I think all of our classes will be quite safe come Wrath.

There are a few things that should be taken into consideration before we run in circles screaming of the apocalypse and mourn our forgotten not-Death-Knight-tanks. Head on past the jump to find out just what the heck I mean!

Continue reading Hybrid Theory: Death Knight distress


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