Thanks, Ollie. But in all seriousness, the nerfs were predicted to be "not-so-big-of-a-deal", however they certainly were anything short of a big deal. A million bears simply reared their ugly heads back in anguish when they realized just how dire Blizzard's oncoming threats were. For those of you who have been living under a rock for all of 2.3, let's review the highlights.

4-Piece Set Bonus (15% movement speed outdoors in Bear/Travel/Cat form) - This set bonus was removed in place of something along the lines of a reduced casting time to one of their direct heal spells. Important? Immensely. An 18,000 armor bear used to be able to outrun you in arena, unless of course you had Fleet Footed, you'd still only be running about the same speed as a druid in any feral form whatsoever. Logically, this also destroyed how fast they moved in travel form, effectively making them 21% less of a headache to catch and blow up. Mutilate rogues may not notice as much as they still have a good lead in speed, but Shadowstep rogues will be laughing all the way to the bank with this nerf. What do I think? This nerf will greatly reduce the effectiveness of comps like Warlock/Druid and Warrior/Druid. While it is a significantly power-reducing nerf, it only levels the playing field for non-druid healers in all brackets of arena in terms of survivability. Druids are still the kings of kiting, but are really hurt bad by this nerf.

Cyclone range reduced to 20 yards (26 yards talented) - No more jumping out briefly from behind a pillar on the other side of the arena to cyclone something! From several games against and with druids, I've definitely noticed the fact that now a druid really has to get up in your face to get a cyclone off successfully. It is much easier to outrange a cyclone before it goes off, or to drop a fear on a druid in cyclone range (in the case of a priest or warlock), get a mana burn off, or otherwise simply intercept. The cyclone nerf is rather devastating in conjunction with a druid's ability to kite as easily also removed, since range is their best friend, and avoiding situations where they would get caught relies on the old range. 10 yards is very significant, indeed.

Drinking effects have diminished effects for the first few moments of trying to drink - Not a direct druid nerf but it definitely impacted them as would a mack truck running head-on into a golf cart. With the ease of staying caught up to druids this patch, getting those ninja ticks of a drink off won't be quite as easy since now you have to wait a good number of seconds before you start getting minimal benefits of a drink. This means catching a druid 3-5 seconds into a drink will basically nullify them gaining anything out of it.

Enough about druids altogether though. Here are some of my predictions for the 2.4 Arena scene. Any team based around druids may experience a bit of difficulty or less success with their furry healers of choice. Less reliable CC and less survivability overall means you might want to consider opening your doors to other healer options. The Eurocomp (aka 5432) loses Cyclone as a reliable targetted CC from druids in particular, and may not be quite as overpowering towards the comp it directly counters (2345/6). Mana Burn 5v5 comps may not suffer quite as much as the Euro relies mostly on it's CC power. By taking Cyclone's range out it loses that same drive but by no means will relatively skilled druids find it too taxing, assuming they aren't focus fired now. While Euro may feel the pain, Mana Burn teams, which rely on outlasting momentous burst and slowly whittling away another team's mana may make a comeback as a popular composition...maybe. While the nerf to drinking accentuates the control of mana with this comp, mana draining effects were slightly nerfed, meaning it could go either way. Resilience now affecting mana drains puts a bit of a damper on teams that rely on mana burning to win. In this case, we can only wait and see.

In 2v2, Druid/Warrior is suffering a major blow as a result of this patch. Killing a warrior's partner is now a sensible option, and pressuring a druid's healing power is not as daunting a task as it once was. Mix that with easier to dodge CC and the effectiveness of the colossus that is currently dominating most 2v2 brackets may crumble a bit. I say crumble, but all this really does is even the playing field for other 2v2 comps. Priest/Rogue in particular will become a top dog again for sure, since they have reigned in the past, and only with the emergence of teams such as Druid/Hunter and Druid/Warrior did they recently fall to a lower step on the podium. There's no telling if this nerf directly damages Druid/Hunter's unparalleled control over a single target during extended fights, but we may not experience the same 30+ min battles that this comp is known for. Mage/Rogue gets a subtle little buff, only really helping Mages out in extended battles. With cheaper spellsteal and blink mana costs we should be seeing Mages running out of mana in mere seconds a thing of the past.

Paladins may make a re-surfacing as viable healers in 2v2 and 3v3 though the buff they received isn't incredible, it is definitely a step in the right direction. For those of you who don't know, Paladins received a significant buff to Holy Shock, an instant heal/damage spell that is on a 15 second cooldown. This likens their clutch healing ability to that of Swiftmend, only 3 seconds slower but delivering the same potential burst heal that may help Paladins in the long run. While the plate heal-pistons were always some of the best stationary and mana-efficient healers, they have suffered the most criticism because of their ease in being CC'ed long term. The Holy Shock buff may make them slightly more viable now, but don't go throwing away your priest (or druid) for a paladin just yet, rogues!

3v3 Double Melee teams may take a small hit as far as using Shadowstep rogues goes. The fix to Cheat Death is noticeable as many players are blowing right through the 90% damage reduction and getting kills off on the formerly 99% mitigated damage buff used to ensure the survival of. With this, potentially you may start seeing Shadowstep rogues spend those 3 talent points into something else, like Master of Subtlety or Enveloping Shadows, though many will still swear by Cheat Death if nothing more than a single GCD save. I personally would experiment with and without it and see what I think is more valuable. So don't put all your eggs in one basket, as the saying goes. The talent is now working as intended. Ret Paladin/Warrior may use Shamans a lot more often now, instead of Druid healers for the insane damage output Windfury grants them. Druids no longer being the survivable titans they were, of course. Which brings me onto Shamans.

Shamans, the class most people like to focus fire in many cases (3v3, 5v5 mostly) may be on their way to being a lot more viable as healer choices (or maybe even melee choices) in your composition. While elemental shamans got a major shaft, bringing 2345/6 teams down to a level playing field with other compositions, resto shamans are now starting to pick up the new Enhancement talents that grant reduced snare time and instant ghost wolf. From the perspective of a warrior the new Toughness talent makes it incredibly hard to keep a shaman locked in place very long before having to refresh hamstring (or piercing howl). Quite literally, every other GCD I found myself having to hamstring, or risk being kited by a shaman, who also upon getting out of my hamstring is able to instantly ghost wolf for slightly increased speed. This gives them an overall edge in escaping warriors, and makes it even more annoying to stick crippling on them, between cleansing totems and their own spammable de-poison. Expect to see shamans playing a bit more competitively at higher ratings, with a new bag of tricks at their disposal.

Mutilate Rogues did receive a nice buff this patch, but by no means will this fix the spec overall. I myself have been playing around extensively with the bonus 15% crit from Puncturing Wounds and found the buff to be well received. As I said, this definitely isn't fixing the underlying problem of Mutilate specs in general, that is lack of mobility, but it definitely accents our ability to burst, which is what the spec is designed to do. Now with more reliable crits, you can definitely expect your combo point efficiency to skyrocket as this fun, but mostly "underdog" spec. Just because of the change in general, and the bandwagony state of the rogue community, expect to see a lot of fledgling mutilate rogues, or old supporters giving it another chance. Of course give it a month or so before most of them respec back to Shadowstep.

Most of the highlights of the patch really lie on the drastic blow received by druids, as far as arena goes. Quite a few say Blizzard overdid it, some say it has been long overdue. The only question arising now is that Rogues are once again on the list for future nerfs, as they have quickly become significantly more popular as far as arena representation goes. As it stands, at high ranking competitive arena levels Rogues have overtaken Warriors, and the spotlight has kind of shifted off of them as of late. No longer do you really see Warriors being criticized as the most overpowered class. Rogues shot up a good 2%, bumping Warriors to 3rd as the most represented class at high level arena. Druids still dominate the #1 spot, of course, but I'm predicting this will fall to more mediocre levels now that the whole hype has calmed down. As a direct result, and the fact that Rogues are still very powerful, we may even see Rogues reach the top of the pedestal this patch.

Finally, while season 4 hasn't even been remotely announced as coming soon, competition at all levels of every bracket is somewhat intensifying, as potential season gladiators are pushing to get their teams set high in the battlegroup early. Expect a bit of a tide of difficult opponents in the low 2000's until most of the teams reach their goals. Team selling will most likely continue till late into the season, or until the 2 week warning for end-of-season rewards. If you already are part of a high rated team that is set for Gladiator, now might be a good time to sit on and it and wait, as many higher active teams will be playing often to top themselves off a bit, or to pad. Especially former druid-based teams may or may not stop queuing as a result of the nerfs.

One final note on useful PVE additions to your PVP arsenal, healers! Heroic Magister's Terrace (the new 5-man dungeon located on Sunwell Isle) provides a very nifty healing trinket that may be worth your time. This drops off the 3rd boss in MrT (an Arena style 5v5 encounter) and from quite a few games with both of my healer partners, we've found this trinket to be extremely useful in many situations. A few notes about the Vial: It is off the GCD completely, like any trinkets. It also is stackable to full potential during the preparation period of an arena match. It is on a 2 minute cooldown, and the heal effect can crit, however it is affected by mortal strike and other healing debuffs. From what I understand the user's +healing has no amplification effect on releasing the trinket. The holy power stacks are not dispellable. You may see this a lot in 2v2 and maybe 3v3 brackets as another "oh shit" button used by many healers. So make arrangements to farm this handy trinket in your spare time!

This is all very silly of course, seeing as Blizzard distinctly said that season 4 was still a long ways off. I'd give it about 2-3 more months to let the new PVE content stagnate a bit before they release it to the Welfare Epic community, as to keep the content from getting too old, too fast. Just call it a hunch. Season 3 is still somewhat fresh to many people.

This has been your Roguespot Arena Forecast for 2.4, good luck and have fun! And remember, don't take your warlocks to 3v3 anymore! ;P