It seems like every Wrath patch brings with it more items than the last by an order of magnitude. It was eight hundred of ‘em for 3.1, between the Argent Tournament and Ulduar, and now Ghostcrawler says that 1400 more PvE items will be packed in every box of Patch 3.3, including our big orange buddy up there.

Given the recent interview with Cory Stockton and our man GC, it seems like there’s a lot of attention going into itemization for all of the Icecrown gear, and thus it’s actually a little surprising that there’s so darn much of it. And there’s a ton of new kinds of procs, set bonuses, et cetera, building on the “Epic. Cool things. Proc’y stuff.” mentality that GC says Icecrown items are all based on.

Then again, with what’s going down with items in Cataclysm, fourteen hundred new items seem downright mundane in comparison. It must seem that way to Ghostcrawler, too, given that this whole comment off-handedly came out in a post where someone was loudly complaining about an itemization bug on a piece of Icecrown gear. That’s casual conversation for ol’ Greg. “Yeah, put the finishing touches on 1400 new items today. Figure later I’ll get the number of that waitress at Applebee’s. Tomorrow I personally reitemize all of the old-world quests for Cataclysm. I’ll get up around noon, probably leave work at 3:30 or so.”

So, wait a minute. If Strength on leather gear is going away in Cataclysm, how are feral druid tanks going to be itemized? Ghostcrawler’s got it handled.

We talked about druids in bear form also getting AP from strength. Strength won’t appear on leather and no piece should have Str and Agi together, so it’s not like they would really double dip. That lets us still have tanking necks, rings and cloaks with strength on them that are attractive to all 4 tanking classes.

Ghostcrawler, you machine, you. First you tell us that all of these stats are just plain goin’ away in Cataclysm, and now you give us specifics? Such an industrious crab. But how is this change going to be carried out? Turns out he’s got something to say about that, too.

No kidding! Looks like a lot of thought is going to have to go into re-itemizing the game. Hopefully the same amount of attention goes into our talents to go with this expansion; I can’t wait to see more “fun” talents like they’ve been promising, stat changes notwithstanding.

Before you go, though — a brief moment of silence for “of the Tiger.” You were there when we needed a suffix, any suffix, for our DPS alts. Godspeed, you green emperor.

We heard a little while back from Ghostcrawler that haste would soon affect Heal-over-Time (HoT) and Damage-over-Time (DoT) spells, and sure enough, soon after that, Shadow Priests — who use DoTs all the time — saw a nice buff. But of course this is the PTR, and everything is subject to change, and so last weekend, Blizzard removed Shadow Word: Pain from that equation — right now, it’s not affected by haste at all. GC says that sure enough, Blizzard thought shadow priest DPS was too high with all of their DoTs given a boost, so SW:P got the boot (for now — remember, this is all still on PTR).

Misery, my go-to shadow priest, has some good insight on the change, and says that sure, if shadow priest DPS was too high, it was too high. But it’s too bad that Shadow Word: Pain had to take the nerf, especially since you get it so early on in the class and it’s such an iconic spell for the spec. The reason these guys are so happy about the hasted DoTs is that DoTs as cast don’t really scale with your gear — they just sort of do their damage on their own. When haste got put into the equation, shadow priests became happy that they could go after more haste to increase the DoT part of the damage. They could tailor the spec and spells the way they wanted to use them.

If you checked the most recent Patch 3.3 PTR patch notes, a comparison of spells would show that Blizzard has reduced a lot of spells’ cooldowns by a notable amount. This makes a significant impact on the playing environment on numerous levels, as most of these spells on long cooldowns were long considered to be powerful abilities whose use were once thought situational.

These shorter cooldowns will see more abilities in play, figuring more into dungeons, questing, or world PvP. Most of these abilities still won’t see action in Arenas, where the allowable spells have been limited to abilities with cooldowns below ten minutes (down from fifteen). The change appears to be a direct result of many spell cooldowns being reduced.

This continues a trend in shortened cooldowns, reflecting what Ghostcrawler said in one thread about how Blizzard “in general (has) been moving away from long cooldowns, anyway.” Players saw this when the iconic long-cooldown ability Lay on Hands — an inevitable Patch 3.3 candidate for a nerf — became usable every 20 minutes from a formerly mind-numbing one hour. More abilities are now being adjusted to be usable more often and, when necessary, balanced accordingly. Check out the full list after the jump.

Death Knight

• Raise Ally now has a 10 min cooldown. (Down from 15 min)
• Army of the Dead now has a 10 min cooldown. (Down from 20 min)
• Night of the Dead now reduces the cooldown of Army of the Dead by 2/4 min. (Down from 5/10 min)

Druid

• Tranquility now has a 8 min cooldown. (Down from 10 min)

Paladin

• Divine Intervention now has a 10 min cooldown. (Down from 20 min)

Priest

• Divine Hymn cooldown has been lowered from 10 to 8 min.

Rogue

• Filthy Tricks now reduces the cooldown of Preparation by 1.5/3min. (Down from 2.5/5min)
• Preparation cooldown has been lowered from 10 to 8 min.

Shaman

• Fire Elemental Totem now has a 10 min cooldown. (Down from 20 min)
• Earth Elemental Totem now has a 10 min cooldown. (Down from 20 min)
  

Warlock

• Inferno now has a 10 min cooldown. (Down from 20 min)

Talents that reduce the cooldowns further have been adjusted accordingly, and most abilities that were usable under the old Arena restrictions have been nudged below the 10 minute limit. Ghostcrawler mentioned on one Warlock thread that the changes are “a pass at all of the long cooldowns still in the game.” Blizzard is actively weeding out long cooldowns.

The ramifications for such a move is pretty extensive, and it doesn’t begin or end with those abilities. Shorter instances, less trash, easier quests, better guides in-game — everything seems to be designed towards a faster, shorter, yet more rewarding playing experience. It’s an interesting concept moving forward, and this philosophy will certainly shape the game (as well as the upcoming Cataclysm) and the way we play it.