Return of the Legion?

EDIT: Bam. Confirmed Eye of the Legion and Demon Hunter's Aspect are TCG items. Thank you WoW Insider.

Yesterday, MMO-Champion put up information they datamined from the upcoming patch (4.3.2), and some of the items they found really caught my eye.

The Feldrake, a flying mount (recolored black drake):

The Eye of the Legion, a companion pet (eye of Kil'rogg):

And the Demon Hunter's Aspect, which makes you look like a demon hunter for 5 minutes.

These three things are what I would expect to see in the best WoW expansion of all time The Burning Crusade. The Feldrake has the symbol of the Legion floating over its head and on its saddle, The Eye of the Legion is pretty self explanatory, and the Demon Hunter's Aspect screams Illidan. With Mists of Pandaria being the next expansion, supposedly focusing more on Horde vs. Alliance than any other expansion of WoW, what the hell are Burning Legion related things doing popping up in the files for the next patch?

Thone of Kil'jaden

Of course, when I saw these three things, I nearly had a heart attack. Burning Legion? Upcoming patch? Could this mean more Draenei lore? Seeing the Feldrake, I already started to come up with theories as to how it was possible. It's a black dragon skin, maybe it is one of the black dragons from Deathwing's clutch sent to Draenor? The Legion was pushed back, but not defeated in the Burning Crusade. After all, everyone knows Kil'Jaeden really slipped on a banana peel and fell back into the Sunwell. Sargeras is still floating around somewhere. Is the surfacing of this mount and the other two items along with it a sign of the Burning legion regrouping for another assault on Azeroth? WILL THERE BE DRAENEI LORE?!

Honestly? I don't think so. The mount, the pet and the use-effect seem like trading card game items, though usually the TCG themes follow what is going on in World of Warcraft. (Scourgwar for Wrath of the Lich King, Worldbreaker for Cataclysm, etc.) Perhaps the Legion will make a brief visit to introduce Mists of Pandaria, not unlike the scourge invasion and elemental events before the release of the previous expansions. If so, is that Blizzard's way of trying to tell us, "Hey, the Legion is still out there guys. Don't forget that while you're busy tickling pandas."? Perhaps. It may be part of the next Kil'jaeden or Halion raid that got released after the supposed 'end' of the expansion. (Though Halion was used as a pre-cursor to Cataclysm, followed by the elemental invasion.)

I'm excited to see where the Feldrake, Eye of the Legion and Demon Hunter's Aspect fit into the game currently. Hopefully it won't be stupid, but I'm prepared for a letdown. Blizzard did make a blue post about lore on the forums, and we'll see where it takes us.

5.0 Unofficial Patch Notes - Warrior Edition, Part Two

Continued from 5.0 Unofficial Patch Notes - Warrior Edition, Part One. You can view the updated MoP Talent Calculator here.

As expected, the Mists of Pandaria talent calculator has updated, this time with some big changed for warriors. Otori listed many of the changes over on EJ, and I'll list them below.

• Deadly Calm now has 1 min CD.
• New talent Bloodbath
• New talent Storm Bolt
• Gag Order changed to work with Storm Bolt
• Enraged Regen changed to heal for 15% health and another 15% over 10 sec.

• Enraged mechanic change to be triggered by special abilities critical strikes and critical blocks.
• Removed Overpower CD.
• Added 1.5 CDs to every stance.
• Changed Berserker stance. Increases damage by 20% whenever an attack hits 4+ targets.
• Battle Shout increases attack power by 20% (akin to current attack power buffs like Blessing of Might, Trueshot Aura, etc).
• Rallying Cry back in.
• New skill: War Banner
• Shield Wall and Spell Reflection require shields again.
• Fury got CS back.
• Protection got Vengeance (though with the old incarnation)
• Shield Block cost reduced to 60 rage. Blocks next attack and increases block chance by 25% for 6 sec.
• Last Stand rage cost removed, 3 min CD added.
• Devastate armor reduction effect corrected.
• Sword and Board effect increases rage generation from Shield Slam by 5 (old incarnation increased by 10%).
• New ability: Shield Barrier. 60 rage, decreases magical damage taken by 25% for 6 sec.

Check out the rest after the jump.

5.0 Unofficial Patch Notes - Warrior Edition, Part One

Because we all like different parts and I feel like eating turkey at some point today. Happy Thanksgiving to you Americans.

I could talk about the 4.3 patch notes but I'm not going to just yet because let's face it - The major overhaul to the game that will revolve around an April Fool's joke Mists of Pandaria is way more interesting at the moment. Maybe that's just me. I don't know if I'll be playing seriously in the next expansion as I'm not doing that much in this expansion, but I'll go ahead and talk like I am anyway.

After the jump, I'll get my hooves dirty.

Cataclysm Class Preview: Warrior

Our favorite class was just posted over on the Blizzard Cataclysm forums not too long ago. I'll post the preview and the Q&A, then /discuss. Quote Bornakk:

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will bring with it several changes to class talents and abilities. Here you will get a glimpse into some of the changes we have in store for the warrior. The information you're about to read is not complete, and is only meant to act as a preview for some of the exciting new things to come.

New Warrior Abilities

Inner Rage (Level 81): Whenever the character reaches a full 100 Rage, he or she will gain a buff that causes attacks to consume 50% more Rage and do 15% more damage for a short amount of time. This is a passive ability so it won't need to be activated by the player. The goal for this ability is to provide a benefit for hitting max Rage instead of it feeling like a penalty. However, we also don't want warriors to feel like they're supposed to pool Rage and do nothing until they hit 100, so we'll be closely monitoring how this plays out during the beta testing, and making adjustments as needed.


Gushing Wound (Level 83): This ability will apply a bleed effect to the target. If the target moves, the bleed gains an extra stack and refreshes its duration, up to a maximum of three stacks. The ability is currently planned to have no cooldown, cost 10 Rage, and have a 9-second duration. Gushing Wound is designed to be weaker than Rend with one stack, but better with three stacks, which will be reached when fighting a moving target.


Heroic Leap (Level 85): This ability makes the character leap at their target and apply the Thunder Clap ability to all enemies in the area when they land. Heroic Leap will be usable in Battle Stance and shares a cooldown with Charge, but the Juggernaut and Warbringer talents will allow Heroic Leap to be used in any stance and possibly while in combat. The cooldown for this ability might be longer than the Charge ability, but it will also apply a stun effect so you can make sure the target will still be there when you land.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

In addition to learning new abilities, you'll see changes to other abilities and mechanics with which you're already familiar. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we intend for each spec.

• Heroic Strike will no longer be an "on next swing" attack, as we are removing this mechanic in Cataclysm. To keep the niche of Heroic Strike as a Rage dump, it will become an instant attack, but will cost between 10 and 30 Rage. This ability will not be usable until you have 10 Rage, but if you have more than 10, it will consume up to 30, adding additional damage for each point of Rage consumed above the base 10. Other abilities, such as Cleave, Execute, and Maul (for druids) will work similarly. The goal is to provide players with an option where if you can't afford the Rage, you don't push the button, but if you have excess Rage, you can push it a lot.
• Battle Shout, Commanding Shout, and possibly Demoralizing Shout will work more like the death knight's Horn of Winter ability. Specifically, these shouts will cost no resources, generate rage in addition to their current effects, and be on a short cooldown.
• Whirlwind will hit an unlimited number of targets, but only for 50% of weapon damage. The intent is for this ability to be used in multi-target scenarios and not on single targets.
• Overall, heals cast by players in Cataclysm will be a lower number relative to players' health than the current game. So to make the Mortal Strike debuff less mandatory but still useful in PvP, Mortal Strike will reduce healing by only 20%. All equivalent debuffs, including the Shadow priest and Frost mage debuffs, will be for 20% less healing. At the moment we aren't considering giving this debuff to anyone else, though we will certainly consider PvP utility for historically under-represented specs that use other mechanics.
• Sunder Armor will be reduced to three stacks instead of five, and still provide only a 4% reduction in armor per stack. We want to make this debuff easier to apply and less of a damage swing when it falls off.

New Talents and Talent Changes

• The Furious Sundering talent in the Fury tree will make the Sunder Armor ability cause 25/50% weapon damage and reduce the threat generated by 50/100%.
• The Mace and Poleaxe Specialization talents in the Arms tree will be removed. These provided just passive stats, which are not the kinds of talents we want to design in the future. We will keep the Sword Specialization talent, but it will be changed to a talent that applies to all types of weapons.
• As a Fury talent, Booming Voice will increase the Rage generated by shouts.
• While we like how Titan's Grip plays, we recognize some warriors liked the Fury tree because of the really fast swings that dual-wielding one-handed weapons could provide. Therefore, we're planning to try out a talent called Single-Minded Fury that is parallel to Titan's Grip and will provide a large boost to the damage of a pair of one-handed weapons.
• Several talents that reduce the Rage cost of abilities will be changed to focus on increased damage for those abilities instead.
• The new Arms talent called Disarming Nature will make successful disarms cause the target to cower in fear for 5/10 seconds.
• Another new Arms talent called Blitz will make the Charge ability hit for extra damage. The amount will possibly vary depending on the distance travelled.
• Improved Pummel, a Fury talent, will cause a successful interrupt to generate 10/20 Rage.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Arms

• Melee Damage
• Armor Penetration
• Bonus Swing

Bonus Swing: This is similar to the Sword Specialization talent that is currently in the game, but Bonus Swing will work on all attacks and with all weapons. You have a chance to proc a free, instant weapon swing that hits for 50% damage.

Fury

• Melee Damage
• Melee Haste
• Enrage Intensity

Enrage Intensity: Every benefit of being enraged is increased. This includes doing more damage/healing/ etc. from abilities like Bloodrage, Death Wish, Enrage, Berserker Rage, and Enraged Regeneration.

Protection

• Damage Reduction
• Vengeance
• Critical Block Chance

Critical Block Chance: As we mentioned in the stat changes preview, block rating is changing to a chance to block 30% of a melee swing's damage. Protection warriors have a chance that the block will be a critical block and block for 60% of a melee swing's damage instead. There will likely be talents available to push the amount blocked even higher.

Vengeance: This is a mechanic to ensure that tank damage (and therefore threat) doesn't fall behind as damage-dealing classes improve their gear during the course of the expansion. All tanking specs will have Vengeance as their second talent tree passive bonus. Whenever a tank gets hit, Vengeance will give them a stacking attack power buff equal to 5% of the damage done, up to a maximum of 10% of the character's un-buffed health. For boss encounters, we expect that tanks will always have the attack power bonus equal to 10% of their health. The 5% and 10% bonuses assume 51 talent points have been put into the Protection tree. These values will be smaller at lower levels. Remember, you only get this bonus if you have spent the most talent points in the Protection tree, so you won't see Arms or Fury warriors running around with it. Vengeance will let us continue to make tank gear more or less the way we do today – there will be some damage-dealing stats, but mostly survival-oriented stats. Druids typically have more damage-dealing stats even on their tanking gear, so their Vengeance benefit may be smaller, but overall the goal is for all four tanks do about the same damage when tanking.

We hope you enjoyed this preview, and we're looking forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on Cataclysm continues.