Talent patch Oct 15: what changes for your talents

With the October 15 beta build, Blizzard reworked several talent trees. We compared the new client build with the old one: 4 talents are new, 4 were removed and 27 changed. Priest, Elemental Shaman, Mage and Warlock are hit hardest.

✨ Priest

• Shadow: Shadow Affinity and Improved Fade are gone. New is Dark Inspiration: Mind Blast and fully channeled Mind Flay raise your group's Spirit by up to 15% for 10 seconds
• Improved Mind Flay now makes each tick deal 10/20% more damage than the one before, instead of extra range and a slow
• Vampiric Embrace is down to a 30-second cooldown
• Discipline: Mental Strength moves to row 2 and gives up to 10% Intellect; Improved Power Word: Shield moves to row 3

⚡ Shaman (Elemental)

• The tree is reordered: Earthbound is the 16-point talent (Earthbind Totem roots enemies for 5 seconds), Lava Burst the 21-point talent
• Elemental Mastery returns as the 31-point talent: for 15 seconds, faster Lightning Bolt and Lava Burst casts and no cooldown on Chain Lightning
• Call of Thunder was removed

🔥 Mage

• New at 16 points in the Arcane tree: Arcane Wrath. The game data doesn't tell us for sure whether it can already be picked in the beta
• Fire: Fire Power is down to 3 ranks and scales with your Fire effects on the target, Critical Mass has 5 ranks, and Combustion now requires Critical Mass 5/5
• Missile Barrage moves to the first row, Winter's Chill was redesigned

💀 Warlock

• Affliction: Malediction is gone, replaced by Grim Reach (+20% range for Affliction spells)
• Shadow Mastery is twice as strong (up to 10%)

Smaller changes hit Paladin (Champion of the Light now 10/20/30% of Intellect), Hunter, Rogue and Warrior. For the Druid, only names and translations changed.

⚠️ What this means for you: Talent setups from before October 15 may no longer be valid. Our talent calculator and every build on Eternadex are up to date. Old share links still work; removed points simply drop out. All other changes in the patch are in our patch notes.