Game Mechanics

Here you will find information on changes being made to core game mechanics in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.

Spell Pushback

As of Beta Build 8770, the way spell pushback works has been changed.

• When casting a spell:
  • The first and second hit will add .5 secs each to the cast time.
  • All hits after the second will have no effect.

• When channeling a spell:
  • The first and second hit reduces current duration by 25% of total duration each.
  • All hits after the second will have no effect.

Spell Mana Cost & Downranking

More examples: Lesser Healing Wave Lightning Bolt

The way mana costs are assigned to spells has been changes completely as of Beta Build 8788. These changes were made to streamline how mana costs change as characters level, as well as to prevent spell "downranking." The images at left show some examples of new mana costs for spells as of Build 8788. This is not a bug. The change was explained in a post by Zarhym on the official Beta Forums: "In the latest WotLK beta push, we made a large change to the mana cost of spells. All player spells now cost a percentage of base mana rather than a fixed cost. Base mana is a special value determined by the player’s level and class, regardless of any effects or items that increase intellect. It is the size of a player’s mana pool if the player has zero intellect. This change was made primarily to prevent downranking, as it's a technique that was never quite intended. Rather than continue to find ways to penalize players for casting low-rank spells, we decided to essentially make doing so obsolete. If rank 5 and rank 6 of a spell cost the same amount of mana, but rank 6 does more damage/healing, then there is no reason to consider casting rank 5. So, each spell line (eg. Frostbolt, Shadowbolt, Greater Heal, Rejuvenation, etc.) has a fixed percentage of base mana that it costs for most of its ranks. That means each time a player gains a level the cost will go up some. The percentages were picked to attempt to keep the costs relatively similar to what they are currently in World of Warcraft. For most spells, that percentage will drop some when the player receives their highest-rank spell in existing Burning Crusade content. This was done to better fit the existing cost curve, and to keep the mana cost for level 70 players as close as possible to existing costs. Level 70 characters will see most of their maximum rank spells change in cost slightly up or down, but not by significant amounts. We anticipate there being some balance concerns due to this change, and our development staff will be ready to implement new spells, abilities, or talents to resolve those issues as the testing process continues."

60-70 Leveling Curve

Beta testers have noticed that the amount of experience needed to acquire levels 61-70 has been lowered (on average about 30%). This change is intentional, though the amount of change in experience needed is still being tuned. This change will make it in to the 3.0.2 patch.

Mana/Energy Regen

In Live beta Build 8681, mana and energy values were changed to regen smoothly over time instead of in "jumps." Here is a video illustrating how mana/energy look now as they regen, thanks to MMO-Champion.

Underwater Breath Timer

A longer underwater breath timer was implemented in Beta Build 8714 as part of an experiment in lengthening the time players can stay underwater. This changes is due to the large number of underwater quests that can be done in WotLK. Here is an image illustarating the new timer length. All players will be able to remain underwater for 3 minutes (up from 1 minute currently), while Undead players will be able to remain underwater for 9 minutes (up from 3 minutes currently) due to their Underwater Breathing racial.

From Tigole's post on the official Beta Forums:

We are experimenting with increased breath duration underwater. Currently, in the beta, most players can stay under for three times as long. Forsaken can stay under 10 times as long as an old, normal character (used to be 4).

Crushing Blows

The suspected Crushing Blows removal has been elaborated on by Blizzard here.

"Crushing blows used to apply to mobs 3 levels above you, which included most bosses. The change was to make them apply to mobs 4 levels above you. If you are running an instance of the appropriate level, you will not be crushed.

Crushing blows originally served a dual-purpose: they discouraged you from attacking mobs much higher level than you, and they made bosses more challenging. Now they only fulfill the first role. We have plenty of other knobs to make bosses more challenging that feel less random."

The expansion will be introducing a sweeping change to how different buffs and debuffs stack with each other. Below is the full post by Zarhym on the Beta Forums, but the basic idea is: All buffs and debuffs have been placed in categories, and these categories no long stack with each other.

This is the full post (the most pertinent points have been bolded):

With the release of upcoming content patch players will see a change in the way we allow buffs and debuffs to stack exclusively in a raid. For the most part, what this change means is that many buffs and debuffs that were previously allowed to stack together no longer can, and that many buffs and debuffs that only a single talent specialization could bring can now be brought by multiple different specializations. The philosophy behind this change shows up in many of the changes we have made in Wrath of The Lich King, such as when we made almost all buffs raid-wide. We want players to be able to form raids and parties based on who they want to play with, rather than who has the correct talents and abilities to min-max their raid performance.

Raid composition will still matter to some extent, but without this change, it would have overwhelmed every other aspect of raid planning (as we added new capabilities to each of 30 different talent trees). You no longer need to rigidly control the melee/spellcaster balance of your raid, or make sure every group has all the critical buffing classes, etc. This change has many class balance implications.

IMPORTANT! Before we are done, we will thoroughly test the performance of every class. It should not be assumed that one class' current performance relative to others in beta is final. Some classes (and specializations) will need to be reduced in power and some increased. Many may feel the change has more impact on class X than class Y. We will address all of those concerns via our internal testing and community feedback.

There are thirty or so different categories into which buffs and debuffs fit. Here you will find a comprehensive list of the changes made broken down by category and which spells/talents are in that category.

• Armor Debuff (Major): Acid Spit (exotic Hunter pet), Expose Armor, Sunder Armor
• Armor Debuff (Minor): Faerie Fire, Sting (Hunter pet), Curse of Recklessness
• Physical Vulnerability Debuff: Blood Frenzy, (2nd Talent Spec TBA)
• Melee Haste Buff: Improved Icy Talons, Windfury Totem
• Melee Critical Strike Chance Buff: Leader of the Pack, Rampage
• Attack Power Buff (Flat Add): Battle Shout, Blessing of Might
• Attack Power Buff (Multiplier): Abomination's Might, Trueshot Aura, Unleashed Rage
• Ranged Attack Power Buff: Hunter's Mark (only Hunters benefit, so no need to exclude against other class abilities)
• Bleed Damage Increase Debuff: Mangle, Trauma
• Spell Haste Buff: Wrath of Air Totem
• Spell Critical Strike Chance Buff: Moonkin Aura, Elemental Oath
• Spell Critical Strike Chance Debuff: Improved Scorch, Winter's Chill
• Increased Spell Damage Taken Debuff: Ebon Plaguebringer, Earth and Moon, Curse of the Elements
• Increased Spell Power Buff: Focus Magic, Improved Divine Spirit, Flametongue Totem, Totem of Wrath, Demonic Pact
• Increased Spell Hit Chance Taken Debuff: Improved Faerie Fire, Misery
• Percentage Haste Increase (All Types): Improved Moonkin Aura, Swift Retribution
• Percentage Damage Increase: Ferocious Inspiration, Sanctified Retribution
• Critical Strike Chance Taken Debuff (All types): Heart of the Crusader, Totem of Wrath
• Melee Attack Speed Slow Debuff: Icy Touch, Infected Wounds, Judgements of the Just, Thunderclap
• Melee Hit Chance Reduction Debuff: Insect Swarm, Scorpid Sting
• Healing Debuff: Wound Poison, Aimed Shot, Mortal Strike, Furious Attacks
• Attack Power Debuff: Demoralizing Roar, Curse of Weakness, Demoralizing Shout
• Stat Multiplier Buff: Blessing of Kings
• Stat Add Buff: Mark of the Wild
• Agility and Strength Buff: Strength of Earth Totem, Horn of Winter
• Stamina Buff: Power Word: Fortitude
• Health Buff: Commanding Shout, Blood Pact
• Intellect Buff: Arcane Intellect, Fel Intelligence
• Spirit Buff: Divine Spirit, Fel Intelligence
• Damage Reduction Percentage Buff: Grace, Blessing of Sanctuary
• Percentage Increase Healing Received Buff: Tree of Life, Improved Devotion Aura
• Armor Increase Percentage Buff: Inspiration, Ancestral Healing
• Cast Speed Slow: Curse of Tongues, Slow, Mind-numbing Poison.
  
  

In each category, you can only benefit from the most powerful spell granting that effect. For example, Fel Intelligence grants spirit and intellect, both weaker than Arcane Intellect and Divine Spirit. If a player has Fel Intelligence and receives a stronger Arcane Intellect buff, he will gain the intellect value from Arcane Intellect and the spirit value from Fel Intelligence.

In most cases, fully-talented players will have exactly equal power on the strength of these buffs and debuffs. Fel Intelligence is an example of where one ability is weaker than others. The buffs in the "Increased Spell Power Buff" category are also not all the same potency, as they scale and grow in radically different ways. In virtually every other case, however, the buffs are equal. This means, for example, that fully-talented Battle Shout and Blessing of Might now grant the exact same amount of attack power.

In addition to this change, we also needed to address the "mana battery" roles in a raid. The mana regeneration effect they grant is no longer limited to their own party, and it no longer depends on the amount of damage they deal. Each time they trigger the mana regeneration effect, 10 people in their raid group will receive a buff which causes them to regenerate 0.5% of their maximum mana each second. This buff, Replenishment, will be given preferentially to raid members with the lowest mana, but will re-evaluate which raid members receive it each time it is fired. Replenishment is provided by Shadow Priests, Survival Hunters, and Retribution Paladins.

Finally, we have modified Heroism and Bloodlust to affect the entire raid. However, all affected raid members will be unable to cast or benefit from Bloodlust/Heroism for 5 minutes.

Below you will find a list of the changes to abilities which exhibit new behavior regardless of the exclusive categories. The changes usually mean the old behavior was removed and replaced by the new behavior. Numbers listed are for maximally-talented versions. Here is that list of changes:

• Improved Scorch: Increases spell critical strike chance against the target.
• Winter's Chill: Also increases spell critical strike chance against the target.
• Elemental Oath: Grants 5% spell crital strike to raid members.
• Improved Moonkin Aura: Grants 3% haste of all types.
• Earth and Moon: Increases spell damage taken from all schools by 13% on the target.
• Misery: Causes spells cast at the target to have +3% spell hit.
• Shadow Weaving: Buffs only self.
• Improved Shadow Bolt: Buffs only self.
• Expose Weakness: Buffs only self.
• Shadow Embrace: Buffs only self.
• Blood Pact: Grants health instead of Stamina.
• Fel Intelligence: Has replacement ranks that grant flat values of Intellect and Spirit.
• Frost Aura: Excludes properly against all other resistance buffs.
• Grace: Reduces damage taken by target by 3%.
• Rampage: Increases melee and ranged critical strike chance by 5% for the raid.
• Improved Faerie Fire: No longer benefits melee and ranged hit chance, only spell hit.
• Hunter's Mark: No longer increases attack power bonus from attacks against the target.
• Improved Hunter's Mark: No longer grants melee attack power.
• Sting (Hunter pet): Now acts as a minor armor debuff.
• Waylay: Attack speed reduction changed to 20%.
• Icy Touch: Only slows melee attack speed (not ranged or spell).
• Tree of Life: No longer grants healing based on spirit, grants 3% increased healing received to raid.
• Demonic Pact: Now buffs raid instead of debuffing monsters.
• Focus Magic: Now buffs raid instead of debuffing monsters.
• Totem of Wrath: Now grants a flat amount of spell damage, and all enemies in its radius have an increased chance of being struck by criticals.
• Heroism: Cannot be recast while caster has Exhausted debuff, and those with Exhausted debuff cannot be affected by it.
• Bloodlust: Cannot be recast while caster has Sated debuff, and those with Sated debuff cannot be affected by it.
• Vampiric Touch: Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on dealing damage.
• Hunting Party: Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on specified shots.
• Judgements of the Wise: Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on Judging.
  
  

(Source)

Thanks to Whitetooth and others on Elitist Jerks:

Here you will find several tables of combat ratings and stat calculations for stats at level 80.

These numbers are only accurate up to Beta Build 8714. Changes may be made at any time during the Beta.

Combat Ratings

This table shows the amount of a particular Rating a player would need on their gear to achieve a 1% change in the respective stat at level 80.

"Critical Strike" in this chart refers to the combined Critical Strike Rating introduced in this expansion, which effects both Spell and Physical Crit at the same time. For stats values effecting Spell and Physical Crit separately, see below.

Critical Strike Rating from Stats

Note: In the expansion, Critical Strike Rating on gear will effect both physical and spell crit. However, individual stats still effect each type of crit separately.

Crit per Agility

This table shows the amount of (Physical) Critical Strike Rating provided per point of agility for each Class.

This tables shows the amount of agility required to gain +1% (Physical) Critial Strike for each Class.

Spell Crit per Intellect

This table shows the amount of (Spell) Critical Strike Rating provided per point of intellect (column 2) and the amount of intellect required to gain +1% (Spell) Critical Strike. This value is the same for all Classes over level 70.

Hit Rating

The current model for Hit/Miss remains true in the Beta. A player has a 4/5/6/17% chance to miss against targets 0/1/2/3 levels above the player's current level, which can then be mitigated by acquiring that % of hit through gear.

The 1% unmitigatable miss chance, however, seems to be removed. If a player acquires enough Hit Rating to reduce their chance to miss but 17% at level 80, they will never miss.

Mana Regen Formula

This formula determines the base mana regen of mana-using classes:

Mana Regen (SPI, INT, LEVEL) = (0.001+SPI*BASE_REGEN[LEVEL]*(INT^0.5))*5

The Base Regen values to work with this formula for levels 70+ are as follows:

(Source)