Shaking My World: DK and Paladin changes in the Latest Alpha Notes

We're still a long way from Warlords, and the Alpha has not officially switched over to a Beta yet, so take all these things with a grain of salt. If you're reading this at some later date, you should know that this article covers patch notes for April 23rd, 2014, and things may have changed.

The new patch notes have a lot of information, but the two biggest bombshells seem aimed at my two favorite classes. That may seem like a negative way of putting it, but these changes, while weird, actually show some promise. Also, there is other information for the other classes, but I'm going to focus on these two. If you'd like to read the new notes, click here.

First, some info for all tanks:

Just to reassure everyone, with Vengeance getting turned into the purely-defensive Resolve, tank damage is going to be tuned up across the board, with our abilities getting more powerful. Also, given that the "DPS" stats are going to provide defensive bonuses, they also wanted to make sure stats that were previously defensive-only, namely Mastery and Bonus Armor, would aid in tank damage as well. Thus, all Masteries will boost attack power by a percentage, and all tanks will get Bladed Armor, a passive that grants attack power equal to your Bonus Armor (and only Bonus Armor, because otherwise that would screw Brewmasters and give Guardians way more AP.)

EDIT: Oh, and here's another actually fairly major thing: All healers are getting Active Regeneration abilities. Spells like Innervate, Crackling Jade Lightning, and Divine Plea are getting redesigned to allow healers to always have the option to regen mana in combat, at the cost of being able to heal with the time/resources used by said spell. Resto Shamans are getting Telluric Currents baseline, and Priests can use Penance or Chakra: Chastise, depending on spec of course.

Now, DKs:

First off, Blood Boil is gone, and Pestilence will deal damage equivalent to Blood Boil (which is actually closer to how it was in Wrath. I remember that I would often skip Blood Boil because Pestilence would do nearly as much damage and also guarantee that diseases were refreshing.) My one hope is that Pestilence will get the satisfying "bwoump" sound that BB makes.

Now, for a sad thing: Blood Parasite is going away. I always liked those guys, even though they were totally passive and super-gross. But DKs ought to be gross (especially Blood... well and Unholy. Really everyone but Frost.) Rune of the Nerubian Carapace is also gone, to which I say good riddance. This rune was added I believe during Cataclysm to support dual-wield tanking, despite the fact that they've never wanted to support dual-wield tanking. Serves no purpose, so onto the chopping-block it goes.

Now for the weird thing: Rune Strike is going away. Instead, Blood DKs will be using Death Coil. The cost of Death Coil is being lowered (making Unholy's lowered cost baseline.) While it's a little sad to see Rune Strike go, the changes to expertise and enemy avoidance make it a little less exciting. And I'm glad that Blood gets to keep Death Coil, as the previous version of the notes had them losing it in favor of RS, which took away one of their ranged options (still kind of wish Frost could keep it, but they do have Howling Blast.)

With Blood Boil and Pestilence getting merged, Roiling Blood no longer serves a purpose, so instead the talent has been replaced with Plaguebringer. This will cause Death Coil and Frost Strike to apply both diseases. Will this finally unseat Plague Leech? I would think that having your diseases effectively automatic might actually at least balance with the extra runes granted by Plague Leech. Unholy Blight still might (might) be better for AoE (though if you ask me, in light of this and the Pestilence/Blood Boil change, it probably needs a buff.)

And with Plaguebringer serving a similar purpose in a more powerful way, Glyph of Outbreak is getting cut. Frankly, Outbreak itself almost looks obsolete, except that I have to remember that some people might not take Plaguebringer (I probably will if it comes through unchanged.)

Going the way I suggested, the Rune Regeneration talent tier now comes at level 60, which should make leveling a DK (if you don't use your boost on it) much more fun, though if you ask me, this should be the first tier, but fine, I'll take this.

Oh, and Desecrated Ground got buffed, but I don't PvP, so I don't really know if it's that significant.

And on to Paladins:

Seals are going to become relevant to Tankadins again! Right now, the healing received from Seal of Insight makes it the default "correct" choice for tanking. However, Seal of Insight's heal-on-melee-hit will be taken out of the seal (so that Holy just uses it for the boosted healing) and instead Protection Paladins will get a passive called Inner Light, which provides the heal-on-melee-hit.

But that's not all!

Prot and Ret will now be managing their seals a bit more, because Crusader Stirke and Hammer of the Righteous will now share a button. Much as Corruption turns into Doom when you go from caster form to demon form as a Demonology Warlock, Crusader Strike will be its usual single target attack when you have Seal of Truth active, but when you switch to Seal of Righteousness, it will transform into Hammer of the Righteous.

While I think this is a fun idea, the net effect of these two changes for Protection oddly increases button bloat. Right now, as Prot, I'm always in Seal of Insight. So I have two key binds - CS and HotR. Now, however, I'm going to need three, as will no longer be able to just passively leave my Seal as it is. So I'll need a key bind for CS, SoT, and SoR. Granted, with all the other abilities getting pruned I'll probably have room, but it is kind of funny that in seeking to reduce buttons, they're actually going to make me hit more. (Though I imagine that outside of boss fights I'll probably be sticking to SoR pretty much all the time, at least as Prot.)

EDIT: Well, apparently I'm not the only one to notice this issue, so this change is getting reverted. While I know Seals are one of the iconic Paladin things, I think it mostly works out to be similar to Shaman weapon imbues - something that you just put up there and forget about. Seals and Judgment, and their interaction, used to be the central component to Paladin combat, but we've come a long way since then, with Holy Power really taking its place. So yeah, this is probably for the best.

And all the rest:

There are plenty of changes to other classes. Monks are getting some iteration, including a weird quasi-nerf to Windwalkers that might actually wind up being a buff.

I can't wait to get my hand on a build (I'm signed up for the Beta, but who isn't?) But for now I'm reading these notes with great excitement. It really looks like the housecleaning that Blizzard started with the Mist talent revamp is proceeding in earnest with Warlords.