What's That Build!? - It's Build 18179 - WoW: WoD Alpha Changes - Mana Changes Galore

We got a new build this week in the Alpha client and there was a ton of new changes. The biggest news were the mana changes for all of the healing classe.

Healing Class Changes

Restoration Druid

You may remember, in the first datamined information from the WoD Alpha there was a buff to pretty much every healing spell in the game that reduced it's base mana costs by about 2% on each spell. I thought that was kind of low for how much they said they wanted to change healing and it seems I was write. There was another string of buffs to healing spells that reduced mana costs again for pretty much all classes. Big spells for classes like Rejuvenation and Healing touch got big buffs while others got smaller buffs again. Below is the full list for Druids.

• Healing Touch cost reduced by 7% base mana.
• Rejuvenation cost reduced by 6.5% base mana.
• Cenarion Ward cost reduced by 5.7% base mana.
• Lifebloom cost reduced by 2% base mana.
• Regrowth cost reduced by 15% base mana.
• Swiftmend cost reduced by 5% base mana.
• Tranquility cost reduced by 2% base mana.
• Wild Growth cost reduced by 1.5% base mana.
• Wild Mushroom cost reduced by 3% base mana.
• Wild Muchroom: Bloom cost reduced by 4% base mana.

Glyph of Travel was changed. Before, it would give you increased 60% mount speed but you couldn't cast it in combat. Although there weren't a lot of instances that were outside that you could even use Travel Form during a raid encounter, there were enough that this glyph would never be used by raiders outside of dailies or questing. However, it's been changed so that if you cast Travel Form while in combat you don't get the glyph affect. So this minor glyph is definitely getting much more appealing.

Holy Paladin

• Flash of Light cost reduced by 15% base mana.
• Word of Glory got a buff, increasing its healing to 104% of spellpower, up from 73%. This change also applied for Eternal Flame.
• Execution Sentence, Holy Prism and Light's Hammer have all gotten nerfed by quite a bit (50-75%) in terms of healing output.
• Divine Plea now regains 7% maximum mana, a 2.5% increase.'
• Holy Light (the original Divine Light) cost reduced by 7% base mana.
• Holy Radiance cost reduced by 5% base mana.
• Holy Shock cost reduced by 5.5% base mana.

Holy and Disc Priests

• Flash Heal cost reduced by 2.8% base mana.
• Heal cost reduced by 1.5% base mana.
• Power Word: Shield cost reduced by 2% base mana.
• Prayer of Mending cost reduced by 0.4% base mana.
• Saving Grace (Level 100 Talent Choice) cost reduced by 5.5% base mana.
• Prayer of Healing cost reduced by 0.5% base mana.
• Binding Heal cost reduced by 1.1% base mana.

      Discipline

• Holy Nova cost reduced by 0.1% base mana.
• Penance now regains mana if used to damage enemies and it no longer procs Atonement. Each tick replenishes 1.1% mana, down from 1.5%.

      Holy

• Chakra: Sanctuary has changed so that each heal casts now reduced the Circle of Healing spell by 0.5 seconds instead of a passive 2 seconds off of Circle of Healing.
• Chakra: Serenity now causes single target heals to refresh renew on that target.
• Circle of Healing cost reduced by 0.3% base mana.
• Divine Hymn cost reduced 0.6% base mana.
• Lightwell cost reduced 0.5% base mana.
• Renew cost reduced 1% base mana.

Restoration Shaman

• Chain Heal cost reduced by 2% base mana.
• Healing Rain cost reduced by 27% base mana.
• Healing Stream Totem cost reduced by 1% base mana.
• Healing Surge cost reduced by 14% base mana.
• Unleash Elements cost reduced by 5% base mana.
• Earth Shield cost reduced by 8.5% base mana.
• Healing Tide Totem cost reduced by 0.5% base mana.
• Healing Wave cost reduced by 7% base mana.
• Resurgence now gives back 812 mana after casting critical spells up from 347 mana.
• Riptide cost reduced by 5.5% base mana.
• Tidal Waves now increase the critical strike chance of Healing Surge by 70%.
• Shamans also received the same Travel Form glyph for Ghost Wolf form along with the new change.

Mistweaver Monks

• Expel Harm cost reduced by 2.2% base mana.
• Spinning Crane Kick cost reduced by 0.7% base mana.
• Surging Mist got a nerf about about 130% of spell power.
• Enveloping Mist got a buff of about 220% of Spell power.
• Life Cacoon cost reduced by 1.6% base mana.
• Renewing Mist cost reduced by 0.7% base mana.
• Revival cost increased by 0.7% of base mana.
• Soothing Mist got a buff of about 300% (double it's current healing) of spell power.

What's That Build!? - It's Build 18155! - First Datamined Look at Warlords of Draenor

The Warlords of Draenor Alpha has officially begun and lots of stuff is being data mined from the very first build of Warlords of Draenor. We already went over the Patch Notes for 6.0 so we will be ignoring the Patch Notes and making some inferences based on items that have been datamined.

Professions

Alchemy

We saw all of the new herbs listed. We have Frostweed, Fireweed, Gorgrond Flytrap, Starflower, Nagrand Arrowbloom and Talador Orchid. There was also an Uncommon level plant called Chameleon Lotus which can look like the other plants when in the wild. There was also something called Essence of the Shapers which can be made from 5 of any plant (similar to Milling) and creates one of 7 Essence which derive from that type of plant.

We also have a new item called the Alchemist Cauldron. Alchemist Cauldrons are made from 10 Essences, which from from 50 Herbs and 10 Blackrock Ore. These Cauldrons will hold Metamorphic Crystals and Alchemical Catalysts which are used to make potions and Flasks. The tooltip implies that there is a chance for it to backfire and produce nothing.

The Alchemist Trinket is ilvl 620 while the crafted blues are around 637. Alchemist Trinkets are generally Normal Dungeon ilvl so we can guess that Heroic Dungeon loot will probably be around 637.

We have our potions in the game as well. Nothing really groundbreaking here except this time around Potions are made from fish or meat instead of from herbs. Herbs will still be required to make potions since you need an Alchemical Catalyst which comes from the Cauldrons.

Flasks have changed quite a bit for this expansion. There are two of each flask type, one normal and one Greater. The normal flasks are a component to the Greater Draenor Flasks. It should be noted as well that Flasks only give Secondary Stats now and not Primary Flasks. Druids will be going for either Spirit or Mastery Flasks more than likely. Each flask takes 5 of an herb, an Alchemical Catalyst and a Metamorphic Crystal which come from the Alchemist Cauldrons. Greater Flasks are made from the lesser flask, an Alchemical Catalyst, a Metamorphic Crystal and an Embodiment of X (which is named after whatever Secondary Stat you're trying to make). No one seems to know yet what exactly the Embodiment are or how you get them.

Archaeology

We're getting three new archaeology types this time around. Ogre, Shadowmoon Clan and Warsong Clan were named in Relics. We don't have any new items coming out of Archaeology just yet and we may not get any at all if they choose to go down the same route that they did in MoP.

Blacksmithing

We got a long list of items that came with Blacksmithing. There seems to be three sets of armor one Rare (blue) quality which ilvl 637 and two Epic (Purple) quality items which are ilvl 650 and 672. There only seems to be a few of each individual item with a lot of duplicates. We can assume from this that when these items are crafted that they will have a random secondary stat.

Cooking

Cooking seems to be going back to it's roots and thank God for that! A lot of us would agree that the raid food in MoP got a little bit too crazy with what it was asking for. So far, each piece of food seems to be giving 28 of a Primary Stat of 125 of a Secondary Stat. Most of the single food only takes one of a piece of meat or fish with no extras needed. There's two types of feasts; one of Blood which gives you Primary Stat or of Water which gives you a secondary stat. There's no mention of what it takes to make them yet though. Most of the tooltips seem to be broken however because most of the food is for Agility only at this point. I'm hoping that the Intellect food will be a fish because I would much rather fish than farm mobs for food!

Enchanting

There are three ingredients for Enchanting currently. Draenic Dust, Blackfire Essence and Rune Shards; the epic shards are not in the game yet. Currently there are Enchants in the game for Necks, Rings, Cloaks and Weapons with two different qualities. There are Breath of X which are Common quality enchants and Gift of X which are Rare quality Enchants. All of the Weapon Enchants do the same thing and cannot be added to weapons over ilvl 600 (which is lower than the max level blues) so we can assume their either broken or we haven't seen all of the enchants yet. There are definitely tons more enchants per slot with about 12-15 enchants per slot with only 4 slots able to be enchanted as of right now.

Looking at two of the Enchants side by side, Enchant Ring - Breath of Spirit gives 75 Spirit while Enchant Ring - Gift of Spirit gives 100 Spirit. Both seem to cost 20 Draenic Dust which seems a bit odd not only with the amount but the fact that they both cost the same amount. Either the Gift of Spirit Enchant is more difficult to come by in terms of the recipe or the tool tips just aren't finalized yet.

Fishing

Fishing is getting some new mechanics in terms of bait. You can use bate that is useful per zone in order to get the fish you're looking for. This might imply that there won't be any pools and you will use the bait to increase your chance to get fish while fishing in the open water. Not sure on that yet because you wouldn't really need the bait if you're fishing in a pool.

There seems to be several different types of the same fish. The regular fish are named such while there are "Enormous" sizes of the fish that can be caught with more skill in fishing while "Small" versions of the fish will be caught with less skill in fishing. The meat that comes from fish is also listed in the Fishing section so maybe now Fishing will include the gutting/preparing of fish and catching Enormous fish will give you more meat for your potions or food. Unsure of this however, but it could be pretty cool!

Leatherworking

Leatherworking and Herbalism will be playing nice this expansion. We have Native Beast Hide which is the Leather of the expansion but we also have Stitched Starglazed Leather and Starglazed Leather which is Leather treated with Starflower (an herb) to create items.

Mining

We have True Iron Ore and Blackrock Ore this time around. True Iron Ore is common ore while Blackrock Ore is uncommon quality.

Battle Pets

Carpnado is a new ability that hurls a tornado of fish at the enemy. This is an obvious reference the terrible direct to DvD movie Sharknado which I am ashamed to admit that I saw.

Some new pets include Lil Leftovers (I really wanna see a screenshot of that!), Tiny Iron Star, Carrotus Maximus (probably a Vermin), Weebomination (possibly a tiny Abomination like Patchwerk or Stitches), Mechanical Toucan (a bird which doesn't look mechanical at all), Mechanical Tallstrider and Echo of Murmur.

Factions

We have 7 new Factions listed but it wasn't specifically stated if these factions have reputation tied to them. We have Frostfire Ogres, Red Phantoms, Shadowmoon Orcs, The Pale, Adherents of Arakk, Arakkoa Outcasts, Palemoon Orcs, Shadow Council and Draenei, Draenor.

Healing Class Changes

Restoration Druids

All druids are getting Survival Instincts which reduces damage taken by 70% for 12 seconds. We are getting this very heavy cooldown to make up for all of the cooldowns we're losing from Symbiosis which are getting removed.

Mistweaver Monk

Focus and Harmony - Haste Effects lower the GCD of your spells and abilities.
Detonate Chi - Instantly detonate all of your Healing Spheres, causing each of them to heal a nearby ally within 12 yards for 50% of the affect. Some people might remember back at Blizzcon when the Mistweaver talents were originally announced that this was one of them. However, they've changed the talents significantly since then and Detonate Chi is becoming a stagnant ability.

Special Mention - Mages

Mages are getting Amplify Magic which increases all healing received by 20% for 6 seconds on a 2 minute cooldown.