PTR 3.3.3

This is the changes we’ve received so far – I will try to keep it updated, but keep checking the PTR notes.

You should keep in mind, that these changes both can be unreliable and temporary, and they can’t all of them be found in the official PTR notes:

Druids

• Nature’s Grasp: Now has 3 charges, up from 1.
• Talents
  • Balance (delightful analyse of the balance changes here)
    • Starfall: The damage done by this spell has been significantly increased.
    • Typhoon: Mana cost reduced to 25%, down from 32%.
  • Feral Combat
    • Mangle: The debuff from this talent now lasts 60 seconds, up from 12 seconds.
  • Items:
    • Glyph of Mangle: This glyph now provides 10% increased damage done by Mangle instead of increasing the duration of the debuff.
    • Chamber of Aspects 25 Melee Trinket : When you deal damage you have a chance to gain 1304 attack power for 15 sec
    • Chamber of Aspects 25 Heroic Melee Trinket: When you deal damage you have a chance to gain 1472 attack power for 15 sec.
    • Glyph of Focus: Now increases the damage done by Starfall by 10%, down from 20%.
    • Coliseum 25 Normal/Heroic Healer Trinkets – Now affects all spells instead of just helpful spells.

Cataclysm – New spell?

Cataclysm is coming. Blizzard has targeted Cataclysm to get released somewhere in 2010, we can probably expect Cataclysm to be launched in november.

Thence, I’ve decided to come with my suggestion of a new spell.
While I wrote this post, I wondered what we, cats, are missing. As my DPS has increased, my TPS has gone mad. I’m currently crying for Salvation on every single encounter (thx Ompi, Besu and Aletheya you’re all kind <3). So I thought, what would be better for a cat, than a brilliant threat reduction spell?

This is where all the other classes will start whining about us already having the ability Cower:

Cower
20 Energy	5 yd range
Instant	10 sec cooldown
Requires Cat Form
Cower, causing no damage but lowering your threat a large amount, making the enemy less likely to attack you.

The only ‘tiny’ problem with this spell, is that the amount of threat it reduces, is of the size of a few melee hits. Therefore Cower is simply a waste of  20 energy, that could have been rescued by running away from the boss for a few seconds or using Rebirth on a corpse, or an Innervate on a dehydrated healer/caster, unless if you get aggro and will have to shape into Bear Form to survive.  Therefore we can Cower out of the picture.

That is why I suggest they remove Cower and grant us a brand new spell:

Play Dead!
30 Energy	0 range (self)
Instant	6 min cooldown
Requires Cat Form
Playing dead, reducing your threat on all targets to 0% and making you invisible for 10 sec. After the effect has been cancelled you will regain 10% threat every 2 sec for 10 sec. During the regain of threat, you will deal 10% less damage to other players.

NB: You will be able to use Prowl under the effect. You will be able to cancel the effect.

This spell, would be powerful for both PvE as PvP. And I think the regained threat in tics every 2 seconds, similar to the Death Knight’s Chain Ice, creates an innovative and interesting new feature, which can create many new exciting scenarios, again both in PvE and PvP. I think the 10% less damage to other players, makes the spell balanced in PvP, because giving us a Vanish ability would become to overpower.