In the official World of Warcraft forums, there is a lot of buzz going around in regards to a potential “nerf” or tweaking of the classes post the last expansion. Many of the tweaks will come to the newest class in WoW, the Death Knight, which many people have been arguing is over powered. Some are arguing that the Death Knight and the Hunter classes are the ones being most affected by this potential “nerfing”, although this is right now in the rumor stage as there is no real date set for this patch. There are also rumors brewing of a Public Test Realm to try these new tweaks out.

Read about them and let us know what you think.

I think it is almost ridiculous to be talking about tweaks to the character classes so soon after the release of the expansion and, further more, affecting my main Hunter character as well means that both of my main characters will potentially get “nerfed” very soon. Great!

This quote is from the official forum:

We have talked about making some of these changes and wanted to provide more details. You should be able to try these out yourselves on the PTR before they go live.

Our reason for most of these changes should be obvious, but some common themes are:
Making tanking still rely on cooldowns, but rely on them a little less.
Make Blood a more attractive spec, and particularly for tanking.
Chill out some of the defensive capabilities all DKs have in PvP.
Avoid having to use Death and Decay as an out-of-combat runic power generator.

General
All multi-rune abilities generate 15 runic power.
New runeforge rune — Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle (two-handed only) now grants 25 Defense and 2% Stamina.
Many death knight glyphs have been changed. In many cases the negative consequences were removed.
New death knight sigils are now available, primarily from vendors, including a tanking-oriented sigil.

Blood
Rune Strike — damage decreased from 200% to 150% but threat increased to 150% from 100%.
The healing of Blood Aura, Blood Presence and Death Pact has been doubled.
Heart Strike – we overhauled this ability. It no longer has a haste debuff but will now be able to strike two targets like a cleave. It still hits for more than Blood Strike, but you can still use Blood Strike if e.g. you don’t want to break CC.
Bloody Strikes – the bonus damage from Pestilence has been moved here to help Blood AE slightly.
Vampiric Blood — in addition to its current effects, also adds 20% health temporarily.
Will of the Necropolis — now reduces the damage of any attack that takes the DK below 35% health by 5 /10/15% instead of boosting armor when wounded,
Dancing Rune Weapon – cost reduced from 60 to 40 runic power.

Frost
Icebound Fortitude – now reduces damage by 20% instead of 50%. The amount of damage reduced increases with bonus Defense (to about 35% for 540 Defense, but it can go higher). The stun immunity is intended to be its primary role in PvP.
Frost Presence — bonus armor increased from 60 to 80% and magic damage reduction increased from 5 to 15%. We wanted to reduce the effectiveness of cooldowns but bring up base mitigation to reduce damage spikiness.
Horn of Winter — now has no cost and grants 10 runic power in addition to its stat buff, but has a 30 sec cooldown.
Hungering Cold – cost reduced from 60 to 40 runic power.

Unholy
Anti-Magic Shell — cooldown lowered to 45 sec from 60 sec.
Bone Shield — mitigation reduced from 40% to 20%.
Corpse Explosion — damage increased substantially, added 5 sec cooldown, and changed cost to 40 runic power.
Night of the Dead — now grants 40/70% passive area spell avoidance to your pet in addition to its current effects.
Outbreak – this talent no longer receive bonus damage from Pestilence. The bonus from Plague Strike and Blood Boil has been increased slightly.
Pestilence — no longer has a 10 sec cooldown.
Raise Dead — now split into two spells: Raise Dead now raises a ghoul or pet ghoul (if talented). Raise Ally now raises a fallen party member (at no reagent cost).
Shadow of Death — duration reduced from 45 seconds to 25 seconds.
Unholy Blight – cost reduced from 60 to 40 runic power.

Frost spec pvp will be the caster killer with all of its resistance + 15% reduced damage.

There is also a potential Hunter Nerf:

# Steady Shot – now only gains 10% of attack power as damage (down from 20%).
# Volley – reduced the damage by about 30% for all ranks.
# Readiness - no longer affects the cooldown of Bestial Wrath.
# Deterrence – has been completely overhauled. It now allows you to deflect 100% of incoming melee or spell damage for 5 seconds, but prevents you from attacking while active. You still must be facing the attacker to deflect the damage (this is a limitation we are trying and might end up removing). 60 sec cooldown.
# Kill Shot – cooldown reduced to 15 sec (from 35 sec).
# Kindred Spirits – now only grants 3/6/9/12/15% pet damage.
# Serpent’s Swiftness – now only grants 2/4/6/8/10% bonus attack speed to pet.
# All hunter pet abilities with a cooldown longer than 30 sec have been moved off the global cooldown.
# Growl - threat generation increased by 20% (same for Voidwalker Torment).
# Call of the Wild – now benefits only the hunter and his or her pet.
# Rake and Scorpid Poison – slightly nerfed to bring them into line with other pet abilities.
# Spirit Strike – reduced the period on the dot so it will work better with Longevity.
# Improved Tracking – now benefits damage to all included creature types as long as you are tracking one of them. You don’t have to swap around what you are tracking as much.
# Aspect of the Wild – now raid-wide.

[Via WoW Forums]