Kalgan chimed in on a thread in which the original poster insisted that Warlocks, despite dodging the bullet on life tap, still have a nerf bat incoming somewhere. He rebuffed the poster with a nice little tidbit that may intrigue Warlocks. He also ensures us that, no, he does not hate certain classes.
He says that they'd like to give Warlocks some type of escape or defense mechanism so that they don't have to balance warlocks around the idea that they'd be "tanking" melee classes in PvP. By melee classes, I assume he means Warriors, who can shake off a Warlock's main defense, Fear, with very little trouble in multiple ways.
He even brings up a spell that Warlocks may be getting in the expansion.
Warlocks rejoice, Kalgan has just officially confirmed that previously mentioned removal of the Lifetap nerf was intentional. While they were originally concerned that Warlocks were still too overly represented in the arenas, he said, a recent downtrend in their numbers convinced them to withdraw the nerfs, at least until the numbers settle down again. He also shared a chart that revealed Blizzard's analysis of the number of a class in each arena type vs. their desired numbers for the 2200+ and 1850 score ranges. The numbers are shown as a percentage by class and team type. A Percentage of 100% means they're at Blizzard's expected representation level. Above that means they outpace it, below means they're below it.
While the PTRs are still down to apply the latest round of changes, World of Raids has already sniffed out a few changes and additions to the latest patch files.
Possibly the most interesting change is the fact that the Warlock Life Tap nerf seems to be currently completely reversed. The spell is restored to its 2.3 status, with the highest rank swapping 580 health for 580 mana at the base value.
In addition, the Mortal Strike debuff appears to have been removed from the description of the Flametongue weapon and totem for Shamans.
Priests will now also be able to dispel up to 10 friendly and 10 hostile targets using Mass Dispel.
Also added this patch were the musical files for the Sunwell, as well as a handful of new effects with names such as "Quest Complete," "Summon Festival Scorchling," and "Guzzle Beer," which look to most involve the seasonal content for the Midsummer Fire Festival.
Welcome to progressive patching, folks. This is an incredible turn of events for sure. Not only is one of the most controversial nerfs in WoW history completely reversed, but it seems that Shamans can't quite celebrate their re-ascension to PvP power just yet. These could be temporary, of course, and we'll see what happens when the dust settles. If Blizzard has simply decided to revert these changes in the short term, how will they tackle the underlying issues of Warlock mana usage and Shaman PvP viability? Will they put it off for another patch, or take a different angle as testing continues? We'll be eager to find out!
The PTRs just came back up about an hour ago from a new build being applied; some people were able to get on earlier, but any information they found is liable to be buggy. Here's what's been found since the realms came back online for real:
Shaman:
Flametongue weapon puts a 50% healing reduction on the target for 5 seconds, refreshing with every hit.
Toughness: each point in the talent now reduces the duration of movement-impairing effects by 10%, in addition to the previous effect of increasing armor. This means 50% reduced duration at 5/5.
Shamanistic Rage changed; now reduces all damage taken by 30% and gives a chance to regenerate mana equal to 30% [was 15%] of your AP. Lasts 15 s [was 30 s].
Global cooldown on dropping totems reduced from 1.5 s to 1 s.
[Warlock] Life Tap (rank 3) converts 20% of your maximum health to 20% of your maximum mana. Still terrible, and not very much of a change from the 15% it was at before.
With the PTRs up again, the biggest thing everyone was looking for was to see how Life Tap was adjusted. The reports are in, and it seems like not only was the change adjusted quite a bit, it's almost arguably a buff to the skill.
Tipster Fortine linked us this thread, where a handful of Warlocks are reporting a return of 15% of their max mana at a cost of 5% of their max health, without the Improved Life Tap skill. The question, of course, is whether this is intended or not, but with no blue confirmation, it is hard to say at the moment if this was someone misplacing a piece of code, or an actual intended change.
It's definitely an improvement from the last iteration of the skill. However, scaling concerns could come into play. 5% of max HP may make this a buff in PvP, with Warlocks able to give up less health per Life Tap. However, PvE Warlocks will still have to lifetap more often to get the same amount of mana as before, which will mean less DPS for them while they wait on global cooldowns, and more Stamina will still technically be liability for them, even if not as much as before. We'll see if it's tweaked further though, it seems likely that the 5% figure on the HP may be deemed a bit too low, and we doubt Blizzard meant to buff Life Tap in PvP while nerfing it in PvE.
The World of Warcraft community has pounded it into our heads that the recent Life Tap change was pretty lame. Luckily, Hortus has let us know that there will be additional changes coming to Lifetap, as Eliah told us a bit earlier.
I'm not here to hit you with the shovel of logic, detailing the Life Tap change yet again, so don't worry. My question is on the methods of giving feedback that the WoW community has displayed. Most specifically: Protests.
The Warlocks were a little more creative in their griefing than the Shaman have been. While it hasn't happened on all servers, many of them saw Warlocks summoning, enslaving, or kiting many powerful demons into the heart of Shattrath. Uvuros, Pit Lords, et cetera. Did this non-peaceful protest have anything to do with the devs' decision to make further adjustments to Life Tap? Personally, I somewhat doubt the protest was a direct contributor to that decision.
I don't think that a protest has ever directly changed something in WoW. I don't believe it strikes fear into the heart of Blizzard. However, it does bring the fact that there are issues into the spotlight. Is this the best way to do that? No, probably not. It does seem to get noticed, at the very least.
[EDIT: My apologies for any misunderstanding: I am aware that this protest was unofficial and not widely organized amongst the Warlock community, and I do not mean to trivialize the feedback the Warlock community has given on the topic. It is merely something that accompanied the Life Tap incident that I wished to supply thoughts on, and see the views of others.]
This just in: many players are unhappy with the Life Tap changes that have come on the PTR. But in all seriousness, Blizzard has evidently taken notice, and they promise that more changes are to come. Specifically, Hortus just posted the following in the test realm forums: "Some changes are going to be made to lifetap in an upcoming PTR build. Until that time I think we've got enough feedback." So now it's time to just sit tight and see what happens, I suppose. That doesn't mean we can't talk about it -- how would you deal with Life Tap to fill Blizz's goals of making it hurt more in PvP, while not totally breaking it for PvE?
Between Arenas, V'Ming spends his time as a lock laughing ominously in AV, tanking Olm with his own minions and pondering troll fashion from Zul'Aman. He's recently started to plumb the depths of SSC with his 0/21/40 build and bragging about 8k shadow bolts.
This has been a sad week for warlocks, ironic given that I was just celebrating the summoning changes two weeks ago. Life Tap - a class-defining spell for locks - has been overhauled on the PTR to return 15% mana for 15% health a few days ago. The Warlock community was incredulous at first - "No way, this will be rolled back like the drain mana change" - that quickly turned to dismay when Eyonix clarified how Improved Life Tap will work with respect to this change.
Life Tap is one of my favorite mechanics in the game. It's elegant, it's clever, and it's just plain fun; it's a big part of the reason a Warlock is my third-highest-level character (behind my two 70s). And it's really a defining part of the Warlock class, along with demons and soul shards. So when they nerfed it on the patch 2.4 PTR, I was mad, along with a lot of other people. I still am.
Anyway, two recent Eyonix posts have discussed the topic. First, he clarified that Improved Life Tap will work the same as in patch 2.3: you get more mana without losing more life. Zero talent points in ILT = 15% of your max mana for 15% of your max life, one point = 16.5% mana for 15% life, and two points = 18% for 15%.
We've mentioned it in passing, but it's considered by some to be a pretty massive change in the way Warlocks will be played in the future, and thus deserves a closer look. Life Tap will now take a certain percentage of your max hp (26% at the highest rank on the PTR currently), and give you a certain percentage of your max mana (26% at the highest rank on the PTR currently, as well). Before, it took a set amount of your max hp and gave all of it to you as mana.
But what exactly does that mean? How does it change Warlocks, and why do so many Warlocks hate it? Let's look at it closer after the break.
Kalgan chimed in on a thread in which the original poster insisted that Warlocks, despite dodging the bullet on life tap, still have a nerf bat incoming somewhere. He rebuffed the poster with a nice little tidbit that may intrigue Warlocks. He also ensures us that, no, he does not hate certain classes. 
Warlocks rejoice, 
The World of Warcraft community has pounded it into our heads that the recent Life Tap change was pretty lame. Luckily, Hortus has let us know that there will be additional changes coming to Lifetap, as 
Between Arenas, V'Ming spends his time as a lock laughing ominously in AV, tanking Olm with his own minions and pondering troll fashion from Zul'Aman. He's recently started to plumb the depths of SSC with his 0/21/40 build and bragging about 8k shadow bolts.
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