WotLK Beta

Is open, or rather closed. It's closed beta, but the NDA has been lifted. So you'll be seeing plenty of beta info pouring in trough the regular channels. This doesn't mean that deathknight.info will stop posting content, on the contrary. Deathknight galore The Beta patch notes have been released and posted in several locations. There's a new logon screen graphic. And even the starting cinematic Deathknights will be using a "relic" in their ranged slot. And they'll have a "death gate" spell which (much like druids) ports them back to their main trainer location. Ebon Hold in this case. Deathknights also get a rune system. No, not the three types of runes you were probably thinking of. A craftable rune which will act as a temporary enchant much like rogue poisons. Patch notes So, about those Patch notes. I'll list some of the interesting highlights.

Hit Rating, Critical Strike Rating, and Haste Rating now modify both melee attacks and spells. Meaning blizzard is indeed further modifying gear to be combined.

Dalaran is a floating city.

+healing and +spell damage are being merged into "spell power". It is unsure whether +frost, +shadow etc are also being affected.

5 Dungeons and their level ranges are open for beta testers : Howling Fjord: Utgarde Keep (70-72), Borean Tundra: The Nexus (70-72), Dragonblight: Azjol-Nerub (72-74), Grizzly Hills: Drak’Tharon Keep (74-76), Storm Peaks: The Halls of Stone (77-79)

Auras and party buffs have been changed to affect the "entire raid" instead of only a single group. This includes battle shout, paladin auras, shaman totems, priest circle of healing and more. Nothing too interesting for Mages in the patch notes other than reduced mana for several spells. So, I'll list the info about the main three classes I've been writing about so far. Rogue

Blade Twisting (Combat) now cause all damaging melee attacks to have a 10% chance to daze for 4/8 seconds.

Deadened Nerves (Assassination) now reduces all damage taken by 1/2/3/4/5%.

Fleet Footed (Assassination) now reduces duration of movement impairing effects by 25/50% rather than increasing resist chance.

Gouge is now only 1 rank and causes damage based on attack power.

Kick is now only 1 rank and no longer causes damage.

Nerves of Steel (Combat) now reduces the duration of all Stun and Fear effects by 15/30%.

Pick Lock and Disarm Trap no longer require Thieve’s Tools.

Premeditation (Subtlety) duration increased to 20 seconds.

Riposte (Combat) now slows the target’s melee attacks by 20% instead of disarming them.

Setup (Subtlety) chance to gain a combo point increased to 33/66/100%.

Vanish no longer requires the reagent Flash Powder. Saves some inventory space at least.

Vile Poisons (Assassination) reduced to 3 ranks, now increases damage of poisons and Eviscerate by 7/14/20% and increases dispel resistance by 10/20/30%. Druid

Improved Faerie Fire (Feral): Now also works with spell hit, in addition to ranged and melee hit.

Entangling Roots: Can now be used indoors. Faerie Fire (Feral): Now an 11-point talent, down from being a 21-point talent.

Feral Charge (Feral): is now a 21-point talent, up from being a 11-point talent.

Feral Charge (Feral): Can now be used in Cat form.

Improved Mark of the Wild (Restoration): Now a 2-point talent, down from a 5-point talent. This should encourage more druids to take it.

Soothe Animal can now be used on Dragonkin as well as Beasts. Soothe Animal is now instant cast much like rogue's blind. Hunters A major overhaul has been done on pets, each pet type now gets a unique ability and instead of pet training points pets now have a talent tree of their very own. All pet families now have one unique ability. New abilities have been added for families such as bears and sporebats.

Avoidance, Dash / Dive and Cobra Reflexes are now pet talents instead of pet skills.

Bite now has no cooldown, does the same damage and costs the same Focus as Claw, so works as a Focus dump.

Every hunter pet can learn Growl, Cower and either Bite or Claw (never both). Since bite now has no cooldown, it'll remain to be seen what is the best combination now. Most likely none so you can teach your pet more different skills.

Hunter pets can now learn talents in one of three trees depending on family. Pets gain talent points starting at level 20 and earn an extra talent point every 4 levels.

If a hunter tames a pet that is more than five levels beneath than the hunter’s level, then the pet jumps to five levels beneath than the hunter’s level. AWESOME!

Improved Feign Death (Survival): Now also reduces damage taken during Feign Death by 15/30%.

Loyalty, Training Points and the hunter Beast Training button no longer exist. Hunter pets can now learn all skills at their level. They will get new ranks automatically as they gain levels.

Deterrence (Survival) - Cooldown reduced to 3 minutes, and now also increases your chance to resist spells by 60%. Now has a new spell effect. Much like the rogue's Cloak of Shadows, just different.

Aspects now no longer cost mana. This means you can switch to cobra aspect as soon as you run out of mana now.

Monster Slaying (Survival) and Humanoid Slaying (Survival) has been combined into “Improved Tracking”.

New Talent - Improved Tracking (Survival) - Increases all damage done to targets that are being tracked 1/2/3/4/5%.

Steady Shot now uses ammo. In result, its bonus damage has been slightly reduced. Players can notice a damage increase based upon what ammo they use. User Interface

Macros and key bindings are now saved server-side so there is no longer a need to reconfigure them when logging in using another computer.

Shift-clicking to loot mail: You can now hold Shift and click on mail in your inbox to automatically loot any items and gold without opening the mail. Relevant links

WotLK Info -- Part 1 - World of Raids

WotLK Achievement system - WoR

WotLK Loot and more - MMOC