• Druid: Shred no longer requires the Druid to be behind the target.
• Rogue: Ambush no longer requires the Rogue to be behind the target.
• Rogue (Subtlety): Backstab can now be used on either side of the target, in addition to behind the target.

Resurrection Mana Costs
We reduced the mana cost of all resurrection spells to 4% of base mana, so that mana isn't an inhibitor on the Raid or Party's ability to recover from a wipe. Cast time already functions as the primary cost of these spells. Note that Priests' Resurrection spell was already at 4% of base mana, so it remains unchanged.

• Druid: Revive, Monk: Resuscitate, Paladin: Redemption, and Shaman: Ancestral Spirit now cost 4% of base mana (down from between 10% and 50%).

Automatically Learned Glyphs
While leveling, characters unlock Glyph slots at several specific levels. However, in order to get glyphs, characters need to visit an Auction House (and potentially pay way more gold than an average character of that level has yet), or know a Scribe from which to request them. To solve this, we've made characters learn some Glyphs automatically as they level.

• All classes now learn some of their Major Glyphs as they level. Recipes for these Glyphs have been removed.
  • At level 25, the following Glyphs are automatically learned by characters of the appropriate class:
    • Entangling Roots, Fae Silence, Ferocious Bite, Maul, Omens, Cat Form, Liberation, Pathfinding, Frost Nova, Blink, Fortuitous Spheres, Rapid Rolling, Afterlife, Harsh Words, Flash of Light, Alabaster Shield, Dazing Shield, Avenging Wrath, Templar's Verdict, Levitate, Holy Fire, Fade, Deadly Momentum, Stealth, Flame Shock, Thunder, Healing Storm, Healing Wave, Spiritwalker's Grace, Siphon Life, Drain Life, Demon Training, Ember Tap, Long Charge, Victory Rush, Bloodthirst, Gag Order
  • At level 50, the following Glyphs are automatically learned by characters of the appropriate class:
    • Might of Ursoc, Nature's Grasp, Rebirth, Rejuvenation, Savagery, Mending, Chimera Shot, Black Ice, Polymorph, Spinning Crane Kick, Denounce, Divine Storm, Word of Glory, Reflective Shield, Smite, Mind Blast, Recuperate, Totemic Recall, Fear, Executor
  • At level 60, the following Glyphs are automatically learned by characters of the appropriate class:
    • Dark Succor, Unholy Command, Death Grip
  • At level 75, the following Glyphs are automatically learned by characters of the appropriate class:
    • Death and Decay, Dash, Faerie Fire, Healing Touch, Master Shapeshifter, Misdirection, Slow, Frostfire Bolt, Water Elemental, Breath of Fire, Mana Tea, Fists of Fury, Light of Dawn, Final Wrath, Double Jeopardy, Penance, Renew, Dispersion, Ambush, Cheap Shot, Lightning Shield, Eternal Earth, Healthstone, Bull Rush, Enraged Speed, Shield Wall

Professions
Some of our goals with Professions in Warlords of Draenor are to make them more of a personal choice, and less of a mandatory “min/max” selection. To that end, we're removing the direct combat benefits of Professions. Additionally, we've made it easier to level Mining and Herbalism. Healing Potions have gone mostly unused lately, compared to combat stat potions. We chose to solve that problem, along with a problem with Warlock utility, by having Healing Potions and Healthstones share cooldowns.

• Herbalists can now harvest herbs throughout the game world without hard skill requirements. The yield an Herbalist will be able to harvest from each node is now determined by skill level.
• Miners can now harvest mineral nodes in outdoor areas of the game world without hard skill requirements. The yield a Miner will be able to harvest from each node is now determined by skill level.
• Healing Potions no longer share a cooldown with other potions, but instead share a 60-second cooldown with Healthstones. The cooldown will not reset until the player leaves combat.

Class Changes

 Death Knight
A few things have happened for Death Knights. As described above in Ability Pruning, several cooldowns were made spec-specific. Rotations remain unchanged for the most part. One thing we did polish up is the effect of Diseases on the damage of other abilities. Diseases now do enough damage on their own to warrant using them, so having them act as multipliers on the damage of other abilities was extraneous, and just cluttered up the tooltips of those abilities. We removed those multipliers, and just baked in their benefit to the corresponding base spell. This slightly reduces ramp-up time.

• Blood Boil damage has been increased by 50%, but no longer deals additional damage to targets affected by Blood Plague or Frost Fever.
• Heart Strike damage has been increased by 30%, but no longer deals additional damage for each disease present on the target.
• Obliterate now deals 25% more damage on both main- and off-hand weapons, but no longer deals additional damage for each disease present on the target.
• Scourge Strike no longer deals additional damage for each disease present on the target. The ability now deals 50% of the Physical damage dealt as additional Shadow damage; this effect can critically hit and no longer ignores modifiers.

In order to better balance the scaling rates and value of secondary stats for Unholy Death Knights, we reduced the power of their passive Unholy Might ability.

• Unholy Might (Unholy) bonus changed from +35% to +10%.

Active Mitigation was a very successful design that was inspired by Death Knights' tanking style. However, it went beyond that, and Death Knights themselves were somewhat left behind in that regard. We made several changes to bring up the interactivity of Blood combat. This includes making Death Strike cause healing based on attack power, but be affected by the new Resolve passive (see Tank Vengeance and Resolve, above), which gives it the traditional increase from recent damage. Plus, Rune Tap is being significantly improved, to become a strong Active Mitigation button. To tie those together, Blood's Mastery is being changed to affect both the size of the Blood Shield absorb, and the new Rune Shield absorb. Additionally, we removed Dodge and Parry from gear, and expect Blood Death Knights to value Haste and Crit as important secondary stats. In order to achieve that, we made Riposte give defensive value to auto attack and Rune Strike crits. Finally, we tweaked the targeting AI of Dancing Rune Weapon, and fixed it up to use most Talents that you know.

• Heart Strike now only cleaves 1 additional target (down from 2).
• Death Strike now causes healing that scales in effectiveness with attack power, instead of based on damage taken in the last 5 sec. This healing is affected by Resolve.
• Blood Rites now causes Death Strike to also cause an absorb for 50% of the amount healed.
• Rune Tap now grants an absorption shield that scales in effectiveness with Attack Power, instead of a heal based on a % of maximum health. It also now has 2 charges, with a 30-second recharge time.
  • Will of the Necropolis now grants an immediate charge, and makes your next Rune Tap free. However, its damage reduction buff now only lasts 4 sec (down from 8sec).
• Mastery: Bloody Shields now increases the effectiveness of Blood Shield and Rune Shield by 16% (percentage increased by mastery), instead of adding the Blood Shield effect.
• Riposte has been redesigned.
  • Riposte: After getting a Critical Strike with an Auto Attack or Rune Strike, you gain +100% Parry chance until you Parry an attack. This can stack up to 2 times.
• Dancing Rune Weapon's summoned Rune Weapon now remains fixated on the Death Knight's target at the time of summoning, and copies the effects of Talents that are tied to the Death Knight, such as Blood Boil, Frost Fever, or Asphyxiate. Should the original target be dead or otherwise unavailable, the Rune Weapon will switch to assist with the Death Knight's current target.

Since the Ghoul pet is now Unholy only, that presents a problem for Death Pact. We revised Death Pact to not require an undead minion, but work a little differently. We left it at 50% heal, which is effectively a 33% buff to it from before (see Healing and Player Health above), and added a heal absorb for half the amount healed, instead. It should now be a relatively more effective heal for staying alive immediately, but with the downside of needing to heal through the heal absorb before you can be healed any further.

• Death Pact no longer requires an undead minion, and instead places a heal absorb on you for 50% of the amount healed.

There were also a few other miscellaneous changes. The Runic Power generation of Anti-Magic Shell was standardized, to make it more understandable, and balanced.

• Anti-Magic Shell now restores 2 Runic Power per 1% of max health absorbed.

 Druid 
Druids have seen a few significant changes. The loss of Symbiosis (see Ability Pruning above) will primarily impact druids' survival, as many of the abilities received through Symbiosis were defensive cooldowns. To compensate for that change, we buffed Survival Instincts significantly and the ability is now available for all specializations.

• Survival Instincts is now available to all Druid specializations. Survival Instincts now reduces damage taken by 70% (up from 50%) with a 2-minute cooldown (down from 3), and for Feral and Guardian specializations can have up to 2 charges (up from 1).

Guardian Druids have had increased Armor as their Mastery for a while now. However, one of the new secondary stats available to all tanks is Bonus Armor. We didn't feel that the difference of being additive vs. being a multiplier was significant enough to warrant keeping their Mastery around. Additionally, active mitigation hasn't played out as well for Guardians as it has for some other tanks. We decided to redesign the Mastery for Guardian Druids to something that compliments the Avoidance-heavy nature of Savage Defense, and also to improve the usability of Tooth and Claw for more consistent damage reduction. Note that Primal Tenacity's calculation uses the damage before any other absorbs you have, and before Tooth and Claw's effects, so that it isn't negatively affected by any of those. We also slightly reduced the power of Primal Fury, in order to better balance secondary stats for Guardians.

• Guardian Druids' Mastery (Nature's Guardian) has been replaced with a new Mastery: Primal Tenacity.
  • Mastery: Primal Tenacity causes the Druid to gain a Physical absorb shield equal to 16% of the attack's damage when they are hit by a Physical attack. Attacks which this effect fully or partially absorbs cannot trigger Primal Tenacity.

Rage for Guardian Druids has been problematic throughout Mists of Pandaria. Most of their rage generation was extremely passive, and most of their button presses either didn't affect their survivability, or only trivially did so. We made changes to Haste and Crit, to try to solve these rage generation problems, and improve their rotation. Most

• Auto-attacks now generate 5 Rage (down from 10.9 Rage).
• Lacerate now generates 10 Rage, has no cooldown (down from a 3-second cooldown), but no longer has a chance to reset Mangle's cooldown.
• Thrash now generates 2 Rage every time it deals direct or periodic damage, has no cooldown (down from a 6-second cooldown), but no longer has a chance to reset Mangle's cooldown.
• Faerie Fire no longer has a chance to reset Mangle's cooldown.
• Primal Fury now generates 5 Rage (down from 15 Rage) when you dodge or non-periodically critically strike (up from only Auto Attacks and Mangle).
• Mangle now generates 30 Rage, and its cooldown is reduced by Haste.
• Bear Form no longer increases Haste and Crit from items by 50%, but instead causes Haste to reduce the global cooldown.

Feral Druids received a few tweaks beyond what's been mentioned above in Ability Pruning and Facing Requirements. Pounce was buffed significantly, in order to bring it up to par with Ravage. Primal Fury was changed to let it affect area attacks as well. Glyph of Savagery was reworked to better achieve its intended effect.

• Pounce's damage has been increased by 100%.
• Primal Fury now also grants a combo point for area attacks that critically strike the Druid's primary target.
• Glyph of Savagery now grants a free 5 combo point Savage Roar when leaving Prowl, instead of allowing Savage Roar to be used with 0 combo points.

Tranquility has an amazingly strong effect (pour a ton of healing into the whole Raid/Party), but had excessive complexity for a relatively simple task (5 different targets per tick, a short HoT, stacking, varied strength by raid size). So, we simplified it significantly. It still will be used just as it always has been.

• Tranquility now heals every Party and Raid member within range every 2 seconds for 8 seconds. It no longer places a periodic effect on each target. The total amount of healing it generates in Raids should be approximately the same as before this change.

Restoration Druids got a few changes as well. In Patch 5.4, a Glyph was introduced where you could choose to attach your Efflorescence to Wild Mushroom, instead of to Swiftmend. That was a rousing success, taken by nearly all Restoration Druids, and felt like a much better situation to us, so we decided to remove the glyph choice, and bake it in permanently. Secondly, while we are fine with the playstyle where a Restoration Druid blankets their Raid in Rejuvenations, the Swift Rejuvenation passive made that too strong, and also limited their scaling with Haste. We removed that passive, to encourage using other spells more, but still allow Rejuvenation blanketing as a playstyle choice.

• Swift Rejuvenation has been removed.
• Swiftmend no longer causes Efflorescence. Instead, Wild Mushroom (Restoration) now causes Efflorescence to appear at the mushroom's location.

The level 90-Talent row for Druids was designed to encourage hybrid gameplay. We decided that, while you shouldn't have to give up a significant amount of your primary role throughput in order to gain the off-role benefit, you also don't need to gain an actual benefit to your primary role throughput benefit either. We've reduced the power of their primary role benefit, making them roughly neutral in their effect on your primary role. Note that the increase to off-role healing from Nature's Vigil is not actually a buff (see Healing and Player Health above).

• Heart of the Wild no longer provides an increase to Hit chance or Expertise while active, and no longer increases Stamina, Agility, and Intellect.
• Dream of Cenarius
  • Balance: Casting Healing Touch no longer increases the damage bonus of the Druid's next Eclipse. Eclipse now causes the Druid's next Healing Touch to become instant cast and reset the cooldown on Starsurge.
  • Feral: Casting Healing Touch no longer increases the damage of the Druid's next 2 melee abilities, or increases the healing of Rejuvenation.
  • Guardian: No longer increases the critical strike chance of Mangle.
• Nature's Vigil, while active, increases single-target damage and healing caused by healing spells by 16% (down from 25%), and all single-target damage spells also heal a nearby friendly target for 35% of the damage done (up from 25%).

 Hunter
Hunters have lacked a strong distinction between the different specializations. What we mean by that is that the Hunter specializations all had rotations that felt similar, with  Marksmanship and Survival having the most blurred identities (Beast Mastery felt well rooted in the pet). Hunters were also some of the most afflicted by button bloat. To address these problems, we opted to make changes to each specialization's rotation, primarily through removing abilities, and making some of them unique to each spec. This means things like Aimed Shot being the primary Focus dump for Marksmanship, instead of Arcane Shot or Serpent Sting being available only to Survival. Hunters also had a large number of cooldown abilities, which we've also cut down (some of which we moved to the talent tree, competing with other active buttons). For a full list of what was removed, please see Ability Pruning and PvP - Crowd Control and Diminishing Returns.

One of the most difficult abilities to decide to cut was Aspect of the Hawk. It began to feel fairly meaningless, since it was used virtually all of the time in combat, so might as well have just been passive. We decided to cut Aspect of the Hawk, and bake in its benefit to the other abilities. The remaining aspect abilities are all utility only, and are being moved off the stance bar and made toggles.

Overall, Hunters should see a drastic reduction in the number of active buttons, and have a clearer distinction between the different specializations. With some of these changes, you may find yourself favoring a different specialization. Keep in mind that Draenor Perks, earned from levels 91 to 99, will serve to further distinguish the different specializations. 

• Aspect of the Pack no longer appears on the stance bar and is now on the global cooldown.
• Aspect of the Cheetah no longer appears on the stance bar and is now on the global cooldown.
• Glyph of Aspect of the Beast: The ability taught by this Glyph no longer appears on the stance bar and is now on the global cooldown.
• Glyph of Aspect of the Cheetah: No longer triggers any cooldown on Aspects.

There were also a few other changes, primarily for quality of life and rotational consistency.

• Aimed Shot now deals 20% more damage and no longer interrupts Auto Attacks.
• Dismiss Pet now ignores line of sight.
• Hunter Pets now have a 1 second global cooldown.
• Black Arrow's periodic effect now has a chance each time it deals damage to cause the next 2 Explosive Shots to cost no Focus and not trigger a cooldown. This effect is guaranteed to activate at least once.
• Explosive Trap now places a periodic-damage effect on each target within the radius of the explosion, rather than a persistent effect on the ground.

 Mage
The Mage class has good specialization distinction when it comes to their single-target rotations, but utility and area-of-effect spells were heavily shared between specializations. Commonly, these spells were redundant as well. We made many of their spells specialization-specific (as described in Ability Pruning above). And probably most significant, we made changes to several existing Talents.

Presence of Mind was extremely strong for instant CC, which we wanted to curtail. Rather than completely remove Presence of Mind or make it not affect CC abilities, we made it a base Arcane spell, where we don't expect that it will be a problem, since Arcane has less CC than the other Mage specs already. In its place, we've added a new talent, Evanesce.

• Presence of Mind is no longer a Talent, and is instead learned by Arcane Mages.
• Evanesce is a new Talent available at level 15.
  • Evanesce: Fade into the nether, avoiding all attacks against you for 3 seconds. This spell may be cast while a cast-time spell is in progress and is not on the global cooldown. Replaces Ice Block. 45-second cooldown.

Going along with our goals to reduce cooldown stacking across all of the classes, we decided to remove Alter Time's DPS contribution. Alter Time has a number of clever movement and utility uses, but in practice it was mostly being used for additional uptime of offensive cooldowns. Mages also had many redundant forms of survival utility, so we moved a utility-only version of Alter Time into the Talent tree, replacing Temporal Shield.

• Temporal Shield has been removed.
• Alter Time is now a level-30 Talent, replacing Temporal Shield.
  • Alter Time now lasts for 15 seconds (up from 6 seconds), has a 90 second cooldown (down from 3 minutes), and no longer affects the casting Mage's mana, buffs, or debuffs.

A few of the abilities reset by Cold Snap were made spec-specific, or could be overridden with Talents, so we expanded what it can affect to compensate.

• Cold Snap now also resets the cooldown of Presence of Mind, Dragon's Breath, and Evanesce.

The Mage Bomb level-75 Talent row, the Bomb row, was also problematic. We chose to add the Bombs to all Mages' rotations in order to spice them up a bit, to provide rotational variety. That succeeded, and we're overall happy with how they interact with your rotation in a single-target situation, but they also came with the prospect of multi-dotting (applying your damage-over-time spell to many enemies, individually), which we don't feel is an appropriate fit for Mages. Additionally, in order to make all 3 Bombs useful to all specializations, we had to lose some of their spec-specific perks. And, even more importantly, many Mages did not like DoT gameplay at all.

In order to solve all of these problems, we decided to merge the 3 current Bomb Talents into one that changes based on spec. That allows us to reintroduce spec-specific perks to each Bomb, and makes room for some non-DoT alternatives.

• Nether Tempest, Living Bomb, and Frost Bomb are now available to their corresponding specialization only, and share the left Talent slot.
  • Nether Tempest can now only be on 1 target at a time (down from unlimited), but its secondary damage now hits all targets in range (up from only 1), and deals 100% of the primary damage (up from 50%).
  • Living Bomb can once again be applied to multiple targets, can be spread by Inferno Blast, and has a normal 1.5 second cooldown. More of its damage has been moved into its explosion.
  • Frost Bomb has been redesigned. It now lasts 12 seconds, has no cooldown, and explodes every time the target is critically hit by the Mage's Ice Lance. The damage per explosion has been reduced by 75% to compensate.
• Unstable Magic is a new Talent available at level 75, in the middle Talent slot.
  • Unstable Magic: Arcane Blast, Fireball, and Frostbolt have a 25% chance to explode on impact, dealing an additional 50% damage to the target, and all other enemies within 8 yards.
• The right level-75 Talent slot is now filled by a new Talent that varies by specialization.
  • Supernova: Cause a pulse of Arcane energy around the target enemy or ally, dealing Arcane damage to all enemies within 8 yards, and knocking them up. If the primary target is an enemy, they take 100% increased damage. Replaces Frost Nova. 25-second cooldown. Instant cast.
  • Blast Wave: Cause an explosion of fiery force around the target enemy or ally, dealing Fire damage to all enemies within 8 yards, and dazing them, reducing their movement speed by 70% for 4 seconds. If the primary target is an enemy, they take 100% increased damage. Replaces Frost Nova. 25-second cooldown. Instant cast.
  • Ice Nova: Cause a whirl of icy wind around the target enemy or ally, dealing Frost damage to all enemies within 8 yards, and freezing them for 4 sec. If the primary target is an enemy, they take 100% increased damage. Replaces Frost Nova. 20-second cooldown. Instant cast.

One of the most problematic Talent rows in the game has been the Mage level-90 row. The primary theme of the row was mana, which only Arcane Mages actually cared about. Bonus damage was added in, making it functional for all Mages, but muddled in its goals. Additionally, some of them just weren't fun to play with. We've revised the row to be purely about damage, and made them have less maintenance cost. Arcane Mages will have enough mana regeneration without these Talents to perform well.

• Invocation has been removed.
• Mirror Image is now a level-90 Talent, replacing Invocation.
  • Mirror Images now inherit 50% of the Mage's Spell Power (up from 5%).
• Rune of Power no longer replaces Evocation, no longer increases mana regeneration, and now lasts 3 minutes (up from 1 minute).
• Incanter's Ward has been removed.
• Incanter's Flow is a new level-90 Talent, replacing Incanter's Ward.
  • Incanter's Flow: Magical energy flows through you, increasing all spell damage done by 5% per stack. While in combat, the magical energy builds up to 5 stacks over 5 seconds and then diminishes down to 1 stack over 5 seconds. This cycle repeats every 10 seconds.

Frost Mages enjoyed newfound PvE viability in Mists of Pandaria, and we intend to continue that into the future. However, we do want to clean up some rough spots, especially around their valuing of secondary stats, and the amount of instant-cast spells in their rotation. The Frost Armor and Shatter changes increase the amount of Haste/Critical chance that they can acquire on gear before they start hitting soft caps. The Shatter change also lowers the value of Critical Strike for a bit. The changes to the level-75 Talent row meant that having a Bomb spell is no longer guaranteed, so we changed the way that Brain Freeze is triggered. We also changed Brain Freeze's effect, in order to give Frost mages another cast-time spell in their rotation.

• Frost Armor now grants 15% chance to Multistrike instead of 7% Haste.
• Glyph of Icy Veins now causes Icy Veins to provide 75% chance to Multistrike, instead of 20% Haste.
• Shatter now multiplies Critical Strike chance by 1.5 (down from 2).
• The Brain Freeze effect no longer makes Frostfire Bolt instant, but it can now stack to 2. It also no longer triggers from the Bomb Talents, and instead has a 10% chance to trigger from Frostbolt casts. Each Multistrike of Frostbolt increases that cast's chance by an additional 45%. (Total of 100% on double-Multistrikes).

In order to make room for more Haste effects to apply to Arcane Blast, we raised its cast time and damage slightly. We also made Arcane Charges last longer, to aid in questing and encounters.

• Arcane Blast's cast time has been increased to 2.25 seconds (up from 2 seconds), and its damage has been increased by 12.5% to compensate.
• Arcane Charges now last 15 seconds (up from 10 seconds).

 Monk
The brand-new class for Mists of Pandaria, Monks, turned out to be a ton of fun. Brewmasters stayed fairly solid all expansion long. Windwalkers needed a few tweaks here and there, especially to their Mastery, and still have a few shortcomings that we hope to improve, but overall worked quite well. Mistweavers had a bit of a rollercoaster ride, veering between weak and strong over the course of the expansion. Most of our changes to Monks will focus on Mistweavers, to try to get them just right.

About midway through the expansion, it became clear that mana was not valuable for Mistweavers. We tried some adjustments to solve that, but it proved too large of a change to make at the time. We chose to just live with that problem for the time being, and tune them around not really caring much about Spirit or mana (once they reached epic gear).

Now that we have the time to tweak things, and for Mistweavers to acquire new gear, we're going to make changes to get them in the right spot. Initially, we experimented with giving Mistwavers a 1-second GCD akin to that of the Rogue to give them a faster combat feel. However, it's proven difficult to balance. Haste is attractive to healers because it lowers not just cast time but GCD as well. Therefore, Monks valued Haste much less than other healers. We explored a few options, but ultimately landed on changing the core GCD for Mistweavers from 1 second to the standard 1.5 seconds, which you will be able to reduce with Haste. This will feel jarring at first, but we're confident that it's for the best, long-term.

• All abilities available to Mistweavers now have a 1.5 second global cooldown (up from 1 second).
• Stance of the Sturdy Ox and Stance of the Fierce Tiger now reduce the global cooldown of the Monk's abilities by 0.5 seconds.
  • Stance of the Wise Serpent no longer increases Haste from items by 50%.
• Focus and Harmony is a new passive ability for Mistweaver Monks.
  • Focus and Harmony: Haste effects lower the global cooldown of your spells and abilities.
• Crackling Jade Lightning no longer generates Chi for Mistweaver Monks.
• Soothing Mist no longer generates Chi for Mistweaver Monks.
• Thunder Focus Tea now causes the next Renewing Mist to jump up to 4 times (used to cause the next Uplift to refresh the duration of Renewing Mists on all targets).
• Healing Spheres now heal an ally within 12yd (up from 6yd) for 100% (up from 50%) of their normal healing, when they expire.
• Detonate Chi is a new spell available to Mistweavers:
  • Detonate Chi: Instantly detonate all of your Healing Spheres, causing each of them to heal a nearby ally within 12 yards of the sphere. 15 sec cooldown.

Another issue with Mistweavers is that of Eminence, which has never really played out how we had hoped. The intent with Eminence was to create an alternate play style to fulfill the fantasy of healing through dealing damage, since we knew a lot of players had that fantasy, and a new class was the perfect opportunity to satisfy that.

Having two play styles in one spec (Eminence, and traditional Mistweaving, healing primarily through casting heals) proved challenging to balance, because we don't want players to take the best parts of both and stack them into an unintended superior spec. The most notorious of these cases was "Jab-Jab-Uplift". In order to solve this problem, we're giving Mistweavers two stances. Stance of the Wise Serpent will continue to be the stance from which to do traditional Mistweaving. The new Stance of the Spirited Crane will be the stance to use for Eminence. You can swap stances at will, with only the cost of a GCD and any current Chi that you've accrued. The intention is that Crane Stance allows Mistweavers to trade healing for damage; it should fall somewhere in the middle between being a full healer, and being a full damage dealer. 

• Stance of the Spirited Crane is a new ability for Mistweaver Monks, which replaces Stance of the Fierce Tiger.
  • The Spell-Power-to-Attack-Power conversion effect has been moved from Stance of the Wise Serpent to Stance of the Spirited Crane.
  • The Eminence effect has been moved from Stance of the Wise Serpent to Stance of the Spirited Crane.
• Teachings of the Monastery now makes Spinning Crane Kick heal friends instead of damaging enemies, while in Stance of the Wise Crane (previously, it would heal allies in addition to damaging enemies).
• Mastery: Gift of the Serpent's Healing Spheres now scale with Spell Power instead of Attack Power.
• Serpent's Zeal has been removed. Eminence now always includes Auto Attacks.
• Muscle Memory and Vital Mists have been merged. Muscle Memory now requires Stance of the Spirited Crane, and passively increases the damage of Crackling Jade Lightning by 100%, causes Tiger Palm to trigger the Vital Mists effect, and causes Blackout Kick to hit 4 additional nearby targets for 50% damage.
• The following abilities now require Stance of the Wise Serpent for Mistweavers:
  • Enveloping Mist, Renewing Mist, Soothing Mist, Uplift
• The following abilities now require Stance of the Spirited Crane for Mistweavers:
  • Blackout Kick, Jab, Tiger Palm

We also improved all Monk Healing Spheres. You'll no longer waste them when running over multiple at once when you only need a little healing. And we significantly improved the effect when Mistweavers' Healing Spheres expire. We also made Afterlife Healing Spheres consistent with the rest of the class.

• When a player runs through multiple Healing Spheres at once, only as many as needed to heal the player to full health will be consumed (instead of all of them if the player is injured at all).
• Healing Spheres from Gift of the Serpent now heal an injured ally within 12 yards (up from 6 yards) for 100% (up from 50%) of their normal effect, when they expire.
• Afterlife's Healing Sphere now heals for the same amount as other Healing Spheres (instead of healing for 15% of maximum health).

We also did some polishing on Brewmasters and Windwalkers. We made Storm, Earth, and Fire, Transcendence, and Touch of Death easier to use.

• Transcendence: Transfer no longer has an energy or mana cost.
• Storm, Earth, and Fire no longer has an energy cost, and is off the GCD.
• Touch of Death is now usable on targets that have 10% or less health remaining, or have less current health than your maximum health. The rules against players remain unchanged.
• Fists of Fury now always deal full damage to your primary target; additional targets are still affected by the damage split.
• Glyph of Leer of the Ox now also causes Black Ox Statue to passively pulse a minor amount of threat to all enemies within 30 yards.

 Paladin 
For Paladins, we have a few tweaks in store. To compensate for the removal of Guardian of Ancient Kings from Holy, we merged its benefit into Divine Favor. We also raised the range of Denounce to be consistent with other spells. And for Hammer of the Righteous, we revised its functionality a bit, such that its performance is about the same, but its tooltip is much clearer.

• Divine Favor now also increases all of the Paladin's healing by 100% for its duration.
• Denounce's range has increased to 40 yards (up from 30 yards).
• Hammer of the Righteous now deals 50% Physical weapon damage (up from 15%) to the primary target, but the primary target is no longer hit with the Holy damage.
• Seals no longer cost any mana.
• Stay of Execution (the Holy version of Execution Sentence) now deals its healing in a large burst at first, and then decreasing over time (reversed from before).
• Eternal Flame now deals 100% of the direct healing of Word of Glory (up from 70%), but only 50% as much periodic healing as before. Additionally, Bastion of Glory no longer affects the periodic healing.

 Priest 
We've made a few significant changes to Priests as well, focused mostly on reining in Discipline absorbs, improving quality of life for both healing Priest specializations, and solving single-target damage issues for Shadow.

Atonement was the original damage-to-healing conversion ability, but grew out of control during Mists of Pandaria. We decided to reduce its effectiveness, to bring it more in line with our goal of it being an option to trade significant healing for significant damage (ending up somewhere between a full healer and a full damage dealer). Another place where Discipline's absorbs were too strong was in their interaction with the level-90 Talents, especially in large Raids. Near the end of Mists of Pandaria, we uncapped the AoE healing of that Talent row; that has proven to be a mistake in Discipline's case, not because it caused the level-90 Talents themselves to heal for too much, but rather because the gigantic overhealing that that produced translated into gigantic Divine Aegis absorbs. To get back to a balanced place, we've reapplied the AoE caps to the level-90 Talents, making them consistent with all other AoE heals.

• Atonement now heals for 25% less than before.
• Halo and Divine Star now follow standard AoE capping rules.

For Holy Priests, our biggest concern is with the Chakras. We think that Chakras are the defining abilities of Holy Priests, but that they haven't lived up to their potential. We decided to move more of their effectiveness from their raw throughput buff (which felt like a penalty for being in the wrong chakra, rather than a bonus for being in the right Chakra) into the Holy Word spells that they grant. We also returned Renew to a normal 1.5-second global cooldown (GCD), so that Renew blanketing is still possible, but less ideal without Haste.

• Chakra: Serenity now increases healing of single-target spells by 10% (down from 25%).
• Holy Word: Serenity now heals for 40% more than before.
• Chakra: Sanctuary now increases healing of area-of-effect spells by 10% (down from 25%).
• Holy Word: Sanctuary now heals for 60% more than before.
• Rapid Renewal no longer reduces the global cooldown of Renew.

Shadow Priests had one large problem toward the end of Mists of Pandaria: single-target damage. Their AoE and multi-DoT damage was some of the best around, so they still ended up competitive on most fights. But, in any fight that was mostly single-target, they felt lacking. Additionally, one of the new stats we're adding in Warlords of Draenor, Multistrike, is almost exactly what their current Mastery, Shadowy Recall, does for DoTs. So, we took these two problems and came up with a change that we think will solve both of them. The result is a new Mastery, which primarily increases single-target damage. Shadow Priests who want to focus on single-target damage can aim for Mastery in their gearing; or, when multi-dotting is more valuable, prefer other secondary stats over Mastery. 

• Shadow Priest's Mastery (Shadowy Recall) has been replaced with a new Mastery: Mental Anguish.
  • Mastery: Mental Anguish: Increases the damage of Mind Blast, Mind Spike, Mind Flay, and Mind Sear by 20%.

There are a few other miscellaneous changes. One is a quality-of-life change for healing Priests. The other is a fix for a problem with Void Tendrils, where it lasts its full duration against creatures that had no way to attack it (such as in certain Raid encounters). Note that the health reduction is to keep it where it was in health, compared to player health doubling. The third is an efficient AoE healing spell for Discipline Priests.

• Prayer of Mending from multiple Priests can now be on the same target, and can be on multiple targets from the same Priest.
• Void Tendrils now have 10% of the Priest's health (down from 20%), and damage dealt to the rooted target is now also dealt to the Void Tendril itself.
• Angelic Feathers, if cast on players, will always prefer the casting priest over others, then pick the player closest to the targeted location. If there are no players where it is targeted, it will still create a feather that can be picked up, as before. Additionally, when collecting multiple feathers, the duration will be extended, instead of replaced.
• Holy Nova is no longer available via a Major Glyph, and is instead a Discipline specialization spell.  Its mana cost has been lowered and its healing increased.  It is intended as the efficient area-of-effect (AoE) healing spell for Discipline Priests.
• Cascade, Divine Star, and Halo no longer heal allies but are instant cast for Shadow Priests, or damage enemies for Discipline or Holy Priests.

 Rogue
In our efforts to reduce cooldown stacking across the game, we chose to remove the damage increase from Tricks of the Trade. And second, we decided to loosen the weapon requirements on Assassination. It's important to note that we still intend for daggers to be the optimal choice for Assassination Rogues, but this change will help Rogues who want to try out Assassination but don't have two daggers.

• Tricks of the Trade now has no energy cost and no longer increases damage caused by the target by 15%.
• Assassin's Resolve no longer requires daggers to function.
• Dispatch can now be used with fist weapons or one-handed swords, dealing 331% weapon damage (instead of 480%) when used with those weapons instead of a dagger.
• Mutilate can now be used with fist weapons or one-handed swords, dealing 137% weapon damage (instead of 200%) when used with those weapons instead of a dagger.
• Sinister Strike now deals 188% weapon damage when used with a dagger (instead of 130%).

Bandit's Guile is an interesting mechanic that is important to Combat gameplay, but wasn't working out quite as well as we think that it could. In particular, there's basically no way to adjust when you're going to be in Deep Insight, other than stopping your rotation (and thus wasting energy, combo points, temporary effects, cooldown time, etc.). So, we're making an adjustment to Revealing Strike and Bandit's Guile. The intention here is that you can use Revealing Strike in place of Sinister Strike when you want to delay Deep Insight (such as to line it up with a specific upcoming fight mechanic), and have little lost damage besides the overall Deep Insight uptime. We don't expect this nuanced rotation adjustment to be used by all Combat Rogues, but having a little more control over the pace of your rotation will be useful to some.

• Revealing Strike now deals 20% more damage, but no longer advances Bandit's Guile.

Among some other changes to Rogue AoE damage, we wanted to make sure that Fan of Knives benefitted from Seal Fate.

• Seal Fate now also grants a combo point for area attacks that critically strike the Rogue's primary target.

Honor Among Thieves is an extremely powerful ability, but has the downside that it adds significant disparity between character power while soloing and while in a group. We made this change to bring up the soloing Subtlety Rogue, without having a significant impact on their performance while in a group.

• Honor Among Thieves can now also be triggered by critical hits from the Rogue's melee Auto Attacks.

A couple of Rogue abilities do periodic damage, but don't have an intended alternative if that periodic is already on the target. We made these abilities roll remaining damage from their previous effect into the new effect, so that it's still ideal to use them again in these cases.

• Crimson Tempest's periodic damage now has rolling periodic behavior, meaning that remaining damage from the previous application is added into the newly-applied periodic-damage effect.
• Hemorrhage's periodic damage now has rolling periodic behavior, meaning that remaining damage from the previous application is added into the newly-applied periodic-damage effect.

Subterfuge has proved too powerful, and frustrating to play against in PvP, so we decided to reduce its defensive capabilities, while preserving its offensive power. We changed the Subterfuge period to allow the use of stealth abilities without actually stealthing you, similar to Shadow Dance.

• Subterfuge now allows you to use abilities that require stealth for 3 sec after leaving Stealth, instead of actually staying stealthed for 3 sec.

 Shaman 
Shaman has received a variety of changes, most of which are specialization-specific.

For Elemental and Enhancement, we had a few problems to solve. Enhancement suffers from having their damage split among so many damage sources that none of it feels impressive. We changed the damage of several abilities to try to reorganize their damage into fewer, more impactful abilities, while keeping the net total the same. For a long time Elemental Shaman were one of the specs most impacted by movement, at a time where other casters were increasingly able to cast while moving.

For Warlords of Draenor, we're pulling back on the ability for many casters to deal damage while moving, and that includes Elemental. They will still have some ability to deal damage while moving, through Shocks, Unleash Weapon, and instant Lava Bursts. For Chain Lightning, we wanted to reduce the impact of Haste soft capping, and so changed Shamanism to increase damage instead of reduce cast time. Additionally, we simplified Wind Shear by removing its impact on threat, which no longer matters.

• Searing Totem: Searing Bolt damage increased by 65%.
• Earth Elemental deals 90% less Auto Attack damage.
• Primal Earth Elemental's Pulverize ability no longer deals damage.
• Unleash Flame no longer deals direct damage, but now increases the damage of the Shaman's next Fire spell by 40% (up from 30%).
• Unleash Frost no longer deals direct damage, but now always snares the target by 70% (rather than only when the target is already snared by a Frost spell).
• Unleash Wind no longer deals direct damage, but now increases attack speed by 60% (up from 50%).
• Lightning Bolt is no longer castable while moving by default. Effects like Spiritwalker's Grace can still make the spell castable while moving.
• Shamanism no longer reduces the cast time of Chain Lightning, but instead now increases the damage of Chain Lightning by 100% (up from 70%).
• Wind Shear no longer affects threat.
• Windfury Weapon no longer has a 3-second internal cooldown.

Restoration Shaman had the most passive and smart healing of any healer, and so received some reductions in that area, along with buffs elsewhere to keep them competitive. One particular change is to Mana Tide Totem, which we made less effective for other players, but still just as effective for the Shaman. We like that Shaman could help other healers out on mana, but it was just too strong, significantly impacting how those other healers gear themselves.

• Chain Heal now heals each chain target for 15% less than the previous target.
• Unleash Life no longer increases the healing from Healing Rain.
• Earthliving Weapon now increases healing done by 5% (instead of increasing healing Spell Power by a flat amount).
• Healing Stream Totem's mana cost has been reduced to 10% of base mana (down from 23.5%), and its healing has been reduced by 50%.
• Glyph of Totemic Recall now only increases the mana returned from recalling your totems by 25% (down from 75%).
• Mana Tide Totem now increases the Spirit of allies by 50% (down from 200% of the Shaman's Spirit). It remains unchanged (200%) for the Shaman activating the totem, and it still ignores temporary Spirit buffs.
• Conductivity is no longer triggered by damaging spells for Restoration Shaman, or by healing spells for non-Restoration Shaman.

 Warlock 
Warlocks received a number of cut abilities (see Ability Pruning above), but remain relatively unchanged. They saw the most change of any class in Mists of Pandaria, and so were in need of less revision this time around.

We did feel that Warlocks brought too much unique Raid utility, so decided to tone down Healthstones and Demonic Gateway. We moved Healing Potions and Healthstones into a cooldown of their own, and made them usable once per combat. For Drain Life, we reduced the base healing somewhat, but massively increased the effectiveness of the Glyph which increases its healing, so as to help open up more potential Drain Life use in ideal situations. And lastly, we simplified Shadowburn a bit.

• Healthstone's cooldown will now not reset until the player leaves combat. Healing from this ability can no longer be a Critical Effect.
• Demonic Gateways no longer have charges (up from being limited to 5 charges). Every Party or Raid member can use them once every 90 seconds (up from 45 seconds). The maximum distance apart they can be placed is now 40 yards (down from 70 yards).
• Drain Life now heals for 30% less than before.
• Glyph of Drain Life now increases the healing of Drain Life by 100% (up from 30%).
• Shadowburn no longer generates any mana.

 Warrior 
We wanted to fix a few problems with Warriors. First, we still weren't happy with Arms' rotation (and neither were many players), so we've made some more changes, primarily through cutting abilities (see Ability Pruning above).

As with other classes, we wanted to reduce cooldown stacking. Cutting Skull Banner did a ton to help that across the whole game. But for Warriors specifically, we needed to make further changes, including merging some of the personal benefit of Skull Banner back into Recklessness. Also, to make up for Throw being removed, we modified Heroic Throw to be more frequently usable.

• Recklessness now increases Critical Strike chance by 15% (down from 30%) and increases Critical Strike damage by 10% (up from 0%).
• Shattering Throw no longer reduces the armor of the target; it only does damage and breaks immunities.
• It also is no longer learned via any specialization, but instead through a new Major Glyph, Glyph of Shattering Throw.
• Heroic Throw now has a 6-second cooldown (down from 30 seconds), but now has a 15 yard minimum range.

Haste has long been a problematic stat for Warriors, usually being of little value. As part of our commitment to ensuring all secondary stats are valuable (except Bonus Armor for non-tanks and Spirit for non-healers, of course), we're making a significant change to Warriors, to ensure that Haste has strong, competitive value. We're giving all Warriors a new passive, which lets haste affect their global cooldown, and the cooldowns of their very-short-cooldown rotational abilities.

• Headlong Rush is a new passive ability for Warriors:
  • Headlong Rush: Haste reduces global cooldown and the cooldowns of Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst, Shield Slam, and Thunder Clap.

Protection Warriors have received a few notable changes. First, we removed Dodge and Parry from gear, and expect Protection Warriors to value Haste and Crit as important secondary stats. In order to achieve that, we made Riposte give defensive value to Crits. The aforementioned Headlong Rush also helps for valuing Haste.

• Riposte has been redesigned.
  • Riposte gives the Warrior +100% to Parry chance until they Parry an attack after getting a critical strike with an Auto Attack.

A few Warrior Talents also were in need of revision. First, Second Wind was problematic; it was sometimes too weak, and sometimes too strong. We chose to change it from a passive health regeneration effect to the new Leech effect, so that low-health Warriors have to maintain combat in order to benefit, instead of kiting, hiding, or otherwise playing defensively. For the level-60 and level-90 Talent rows, certain combinations were proving problematic. We decided that Stormbolt would better compete with Shockwave and Dragon Roar, and that Bladestorm would better compete with Avatar and Bloodbath, so swapped Stormbolt and Bladestorm's positions.

• Second Wind no longer directly heals the Warrior while active. Instead, Second Wind grants the Warrior 10% Leech while active, which causes the Warrior to heal for 10% of all damage and healing done by the Warrior while active.
• Bladestorm is now a level-90 Talent, swapping places with Stormbolt.
  • Bladestorm no longer allows use of Shouts while active. It does still allow the use of Taunt, Enraged Regeneration, Shield Wall, and Last Stand.
• Stormbolt is now a level-60 Talent, swapping places with Bladestorm.

Fury Warriors are receiving updates to spell alerts to improve usability.

• Bloodsurge's spell alert has moved to the top slot instead of the left/right slots.
• Raging Blow now has a spell alert on the left and right slots.

With the introduction of one of the level-100 Warrior Talents, which deals Fire damage, we also expanded Enrage to affect all damage, not just Physical damage.

• Enrage now increases all damage (up from only Physical damage).
• Mastery: Unshackled Fury (Fury) now increases all damage (up from only Physical damage).

We're also making a change to the design of Deep Wounds, to try to limit is effectiveness in PvP, without hurting its effectiveness in PvE. 

• Deep Wounds now lasts 15 seconds, or until the target is healed to full health.