Changes to game mechanics in WoW : WOTLK

Beta testing on Blizzard’s World of Warcraft - Wrath of the Lich King is up and running for some time and the game mechanics are about to change.If this changes are better or worse remains to be seen but if they go live, I think they won’t be game breaking. That’s why they call it a “beta”.

The first major change involves casters. The bonus to healing, damage, or a school-specific bonus damage (fire damage for example),will disappear, instead players will have only one stat to worry about: spellpower,which it will boost the amount of healing and damage so it is only one stat to cover both. This will help classes such as healers  by receiving a major increase to damage spells and also offensive hybrid casters will be able to heal far more efficient than before:

“Healing characters will see their bonus healing numbers on the character sheet decrease, however, all healing spells have been modified to receive more benefit from spellpower than they received from bonus healing, with a net effect of no change to the amount healed by their spells … The amount healed will remain roughly the same. For classes which do not heal, they should see no change in the character sheet other than new tooltip wording (WOTLK patch notes).

Regarding melee classes but also casters there is another major change: Hit, Crit and Haste have merged and they will benefit at the same time. This change is ground braking for hybrids capable of both melee and spell attacks such as paladins and shaman.

Threat- always a major issue in the PVE aspect of the game, was also looked at: tanking classes in the expansion will obtain threat multipliers boosted: for example a warrior in defensive stance now generates more threat, by 45% rather than the current 30%. Threat reduction talents for all DPS classes are not forgotten and easier to access.

Raid environment is changing. Some healing spells will affect raid members nearby regardless of grouping and many of the new abilities such as  Judgement of the Wise or Circle of Healing talent, will affect all raid members too. Need more mana or health and you rely on heavy potions? You better think twice and start some potion management because you can drink only one potion per encounter or attempt. You will get a debuff called Potion Sickness (”Unable to consume potions until you rest out of combat for a short duration”)  and until you leave combat, the debuff won’t go away and you cannot have another potion.

Overall I’m very happy with all of these changes and it looks like Blizzard finnaly pushes the game to a different level but we’ll just have to wait a few more months to see how exactly it will affect its players - imho, of course.

    Sphere It