Yeah, they’re up, though technically they were mined out of the beta client already.

If you play World of Warcraft, you already saw that announcement. If you don’t play, you probably don’t give a damn. The only audience for this post is people like me who aren’t playing right now, but are probably going to get back into it for the expansion.

So, if you’ve got a level 70 character out there gathering dust, what can you expect if you reactivate your subscription?

Well, warlocks get some unadulterated awesome, as usual. Demonology specs get the ability to transform into a demon for 45 seconds and wreck things, while the other two trees get less flashy but still respectable attacks.

Rogues get some terrifying stuff, especially subtley rogues, who will get the ability to instantly vanish and go in and out of stealth every three seconds. That seems kind of tame, until you remember the sheer amount of moves out of steath they’ll be able to pull off in that time. Why choose between kidney shot, garrote and ambush when you can do all three?

Druid trees get all a boost to their respective roles. Balance gets an improved area-of-effect spell called Starfall, presumably to fill the gap left by the fairly weaksauce hurricane spell. Restoration gets an AoE heal over time, probably to plug the same hole that tranquility leaves. Feral druids get a versatile ability that’s sort of a combination of the warriors’ last stand, amped-up damage potential and best of all, the PVP trinkets that clear effects that make you lose control of your character. If you thought druids were horrifying in battlegrounds before, wait until you see this in action.

Protection paladins get a sort of melee avenger’s shield that they can use in combat, not that they weren’t already gods at holding aggro on multiple targets. Holy paladins get a huge boost, what with the extra range on judgments and the AoE heal spell. They were great single target healers before, but now they’ll be able to lay judgments on an enemy from a safe range and heal the whole group during fights that require it. I’m not that excited about the retribution talents, but I’m told that retpallys get a better deal in the expansion overall.

Some other highlights: Fury warriors get to dual-wield two-handed weapons. Restoration shamans get a strange ability that divides damage among party members, presumably to keep the tank from getting outright crushed. Holy priests get a get-out-of-death-free ability for the tank. Hunters can get the ability to tame “exotic” pets, whatever those turn out to be. Mages get stuff that practitioners of magery will probably like, but since I haven’t played one since beta, I can’t really say.

The Death Knight talents are up too, but since the class isn’t playable yet, it’s hard to say just how all of these work. It’s interesting, though, that there doesn’t seem to be any tree that screams “this is what you take if you want to tank” or “…if you want to do damage” like other hybrid classes.

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