Mana Tap: This ability allows the Blood Elf to siphon mana (reportedly 50 points) from a spell-casting creature and turn it into a ball of energy.
Arcane Torrent: Release a blast of energy around the Blood Elf that silences creatures around him (reportedly for 8 seconds), and gives energy, mana or rage to his party members. Requires three energy balls.
As you can see, these are incredible racials. More info as we get it.
UPDATE 2:
Blizzard plans to add digital signature checking for mods, to prevent the use of mods like Decursive. Details are not known at this stage as to when this will be implemented but designer Rob Pardo said that 'they're close'.
UPDATE 3:
Here's some news about items and professions straight from Scott Mercer from Blizzard.
Firstly, there are no plans to implement scribing of scrolls as a profession. Blizzard believes it's too close to alchemy in function and one of the primary design goals is to make each profession as different as possible.
Next, news on patch 1.9. There are plans to improve fishing to make it function similar to mining and herbalism, in that schools of fish (ie. fishing nodes) will be placed around the world. So, you can see what your fishing will net you before you do it. Ship wrecks will also be included so players can fish for items.
Enchanters will be happy to hear about the inclusion of enchanting oils that can be sold on the auction house. These oils will grant temporary abilities on weapons and armour. These abilities will include +spell power, increased damage and the like.
High-end items will now disenchant into 'Nexus crystals' -- a powerful ingredient for epic enchantments. One such enchantment includes a +20 fire spell damage to gloves.
Beyond patch 1.9, Blizzard plans to add specialisations to tailoring and alchemy. These specialisations have yet to be set in stone.
As previously mentioned, the expansion will contain a new profession -- jewelry crafting. In addition to making necklaces, rings and crowns, players will be able to make special trinkets usable only by the jeweller, and mystic gems for use in socketable items.
Mercer also gave some insight into item budgets and point allocation. This is the system used by Blizzard that determines how many stats and powers an item will get. Although not all details were revealed, 14 points are equal to 1% crit and 12 points are equal to 1% dodge. If an item has one stat, then those stat points are of less value than the those on an item with multiple stats. For example, 12 stamina is equal to 8 stamina and 8 strength.
When asked about epic class items, Mercer admitted that the original implementation was 'a mistake' and that all classes will be receiving reworked epic items in the future. He also stated that Molten Core weapons would be getting reworked art.
UPDATE 4:
Just saw the developer panel on classes. Some (or maybe not) surprising revelations by WoW lead designer Tom Chilton:
* Paladins were designed to be the game's easiest class. This was done because the designers believed (correctly) that it would be a popular class (warrior and healer in one) and didn't want new gamers to be put off by a tricky class.
* Staying with Paladins, they will definitely be getting an upgrade in patch 1.9. Chilton has said that some blessing, seals and judgements will be combined so that they can be improved with less talent expenditure, and a group blessing spell that when cast on a character in a raid or group will cast that same blessing on all other characters of that class. There was also talk of extending the duration on all blessings to 10 minutes (or even 15).
* Ironically, one slide at the presentation said that druids are the only true hybrid class, going against common thought (rumour really).
* Rogues and warriors originally had no energy or rage bars. The rage bar was added by designers after observing fighting games (like Streetfighter) and adopting a modified 'Hyper' or 'Special' bar.
* As of the expansion, players will have new, 41-point talent trees in which to customise their characters.
