A preview of the new tooltips
Well, I was voraciously reading WoW Insider today and was disappointed to not find a post on the Druid changes yet. But some comments in the other classes’ posts lead me to check the WotLK Alpha Wiki again to look for anything new. As an aside, the NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) for the Alpha has been lifted (and it has been announced by our friendly candle Neth [a community manager on the official forums] that there exists no NDA for the Beta). Thus, all the previously contraband information is open to the public and able to be discussed. Plus, this sight has new information from the first few to be invited to the Beta (of which, I am not one. Yet. Yet…). So while the New Talents and Revised Abilities page didn’t seem updated, take a look at the talent calculator (which should also be in WoW Head, because they are using that service).
We get a look at the official and/or new icons for the talents and some important changes which were not announced in the Beta patch notes I reported on last night. First, the Moonkin Form change made it into the tooltip (it’s fixed! it’s fixed!). Then, we follow that polite little arrow to the right and read Improved Moonkin Form. It got a little bit of a nerf, but I think it’s very reasonable. The 20% spell haste buff still applies and lasts 8 seconds, but has a 30 second cooldown now. Very reasonable. Many classes would’ve had that buff almost non-stop otherwise, and this is very fair.
The other big change is that Starfall was nerfed considerably. The initial targeted damage remains the same, but the splash damage was reduced from I believe it was 170 to 20. Now, we don’t know it’s coefficient right now, but however you look at it, it’s a nerf. Mind you, it’s a very good skill still and this itself is probably justifiable because it is an instant cast set-and-forget spell which has a relatively short cooldown of 3 minutes.
The other tooltips remain the same. The icons actually look very cool. Some might not care too much, but I like me some sexy tooltips. And Nature’s Fury has been renamed Earth and Moon, with the same effect, which basically means a flat 6% increase to your damage after the first 3 spells, and like I mentioned earlier, the other members of your raid will like you very much. This is especially nice because even after the recent buff to Curse of Elements to include Curse of Shadows in its effect, Nature has been left out (as well as Holy) in the buffed damage. This will help though, as will the buffs to Shamans’ Stormstrike ability (which increases the charges and reduces the cooldown).
Unfortunately, the wording on Typhoon is still ambiguous, bordering on vague, in terms of what the hell the spell actually does! We should find out soon if it is targeted like Hurricane or radiates from the caster. For some reason I believe it will meander in a mid-sized area at random after being cast. This hearkens back to, I think, the original Warcraft, maybe WCII where I get this idea. But we’ll see.
Another change I just noticed is a nerf to the damage buff from Brambles. While it still increases Thorns’ and Roots’ damage by 75%, it only increases Treants’ damage by 15% at 3 points. Maybe they will get a buff to their coefficient. Yet again, we’ll see. [Update]: The tooltip changed more than I realized. The daze effect cited in Alpha remains, but has changed. At 3 points the Treants still have a 15% chance to daze the target for 3 seconds. A big buff comes from the removal of chance on Thorns but moving it to attacks done to you when Barkskin is active. This, I feel, is a buff. Sure, it can’t be cast on other players, and Barkskin can still be dispelled, but this is a great idea because Barkskin helps in survivability already and removes pushback. Now that I think about it, this might actually be a nerf. Oh well. It does tempt me to put points into it (at this rate all 71 points are going to be dumped into Balance!). I’ll keep an eye out for other stuff I didn’t keep an eye out for earlier.
This is an exciting time because of the lifting of the NDA and the Beta just rolling out. We’ll have to wait for a dedicated Moonkin to explore more changes in Northrend, and until then I’ll just refresh my email and WoW Insider endlessly looking for more.
Did I mention that Moonkin Form is fixed? FIXED!!!!
/wave
[Update]: As was drawn to my attention on the WotLK Alpha Wiki forums, Omen of Clarity now works with spells, and apparently has a 6% proc chance with a 10 second internal cooldown. When I get some more information regarding the proc on Moonkin Form’s mana regeneration, I’ll post a theorycrafting article looking into the regeneration possibilities.
The Talkback