We didn’t know much about the different disciplines, their roles, their specifics and such; but that’s all changed now as a lot of info was released in the latest big update to the official sites. Here are all the disciplines we know of in detail:

Gladiator

Role: Tank. Defender of the weak and defeater of the strong. He is the party’s greatest defense. For all-around players.

Abilities:

• Roaring Sword – Waving the tip of your blade to get the enemy’s attention.
• Cover – Protect the party members behind you by taking damage instead of them.
• Rampart – Using your sword to increase your defense (raises physical and magical defenses).
• Precision – Lowers evasion and increases accuracy.
• Aegis Boon – When guarding with your shield, any damage taken heals your HP instead.

Weapon Skills:

• Phalanx – Anger the enemy by attacking after guarding with a shield.
• Red Lotus – A swinging fire elemental attack on the enemy.
• Shield Bash – Hit the enemy with a shield and prevent them from casting a spell.
• Spinning Stroke – Attack the enemy.  Damage increases if the enemy is not attacking you.
• Circle Slash – AoE weapon skill.

Developers: This is a class that can really excel at defense.  They can equip a wide range of defensive equipment and even large shields!  They will be called upon to protect party members by drawing the enemy attack towards themselves. As a class that excels with a shield, the Gladiator is like a “defender” job that is good at absorbing damage. Gladitor is offense and defense rolled into one — a class that is good at taking hits and dishing out the damage.  Because of its versatility, I see it becoming a popular class. One can choose between making slicing attacks or piercing attacks or guarding and that lets them employ some strategy towards giving their strikes the maximum effect. You could say this is a class with an abundance of fighting styles.

Spooner: Its obvious this is the main-tank player in the game. It’s really incredible to see that they have the ability to convert blocked damage into health which lends a lot to the ability to solo. The class revolves almost entirely around having a good sword and a strong shield and with some shields having more offensive characteristics I can see this being a really fun class to play.

Lancer

Role: A physical fighter who attacks from a distance, the lancer must have the power to make decisions based on the situation. The party’s last line of defense. For the tactical player.

Abilities:

• Inspire – Use your TP to place a debuff on the target. Party members receive TP for attacking the target.
• Ferocity – You lose HP but your next attack will give greater damage.
• Fighting Spirit – You lose HP but you gain TP.
• Collusion – Attack the enemy from behind another party member while the enemy is focused on that party member.
• Life Surge – Decrease enemy evasion while sucking away their HP.

Weapon Skills:

• Overrun – If you attack while the enemy isn’t aware of you, you can land a series of high speed successive attacks and increase your TP.
• Feint – If you use right after an enemy has evaded your attack, your next attack will surely hit and deal piercing damage.
• Leg Sweeper – AoE attack where you target the legs of your enemies and prevent them from moving.  Cannot be used on aerial targets.
• Moonrise – Increase attack power, deal slashing damage, and suppress the target’s ability to gain TP.
• Skewer – Attack all enemies between you and your target.  Movement for land-based enemies will become slower.

Developers: This class uses the long range of their polearms to attack from a relatively safe distance.  They also have a number of special attacks that can confuse an enemy or bind them. Since they are back farther than other front line party members, they have a wider view of what’s going on around them.  If the back line is in a jam, they are probably the class that is best able to quickly get over to help them. Lancers are really affected by the distance between them and their target.  They will have to make adjustments to where they stand and constantly think about the location of their target, their party members, and themselves.  This class requires somebody who moves tactically. This person has to think about many things, not just about what they know about the enemy.

Spooner: This is about as close to a Dragoon as we’re going to get for FFXIV. The DRG was my class in FFXI and I have a certain affinity/obsession with the class and the entire dynamic of wielding a massive lance in full armor leaping about like a maniac ripping shit apart. With essentially and AOE root/snare, great debuffs and group buffs, and a lot of tactical positioning; it’s not very novice friendly and I can get behind that. This is going to be your aggro manager and the guy that beefs up the TP meter for the group.

Pugilist

Role: The front-line brawler. The pugilist needs to think on his feet to control his stances. He’s the party’s jump-into-the-fray role. Made for people who don’t sweat the small stuff.

Abilities:

• Mocking Provoke – Gain the attention of the enemy by whistling at them.
• Blind Side – Increase attack power by half of your Dexterity when you attack from behind the enemy.
• Chakra – Use TP to regain HP.
• Steal – Steal things from the enemy. Chance of success increased with Stealth.
• Featherfoot – Increase evasion by a large amount for one shot.

Weapon Skills:

• Jarring Strike – Attack a target’s joints stunning them and dealing blunt damage. Increases threat and can only be executed after a successful evade.
• Victimize – Deal slashing damage to the target and increasing your critical hit rate for every enfeebling effect on the target.
• Haymaker – Deal massive blunt damage to a target after evading an attack.
• Shoulder Tackle – Charge at an enemy and deal heavy blunt damage.
• Seismic Shock – An earth elemental based damage to all enemies between you and the target. Ignores flying enemies.

Developers: They have a very short attack range and their defense isn’t very high.  However, they are tricky fighters who can tease the enemy with their wide range of abilities.  They also can change between different stances which means they can change their fighting style in accordance to the enemy or party makeup. Stance will make a huge difference.  Players will have to think on their feet, taking the flow of the battle into account when choosing whether to go offensive or defensive. If you continue to use the same stance, the number of things you can do while in that stance will increase.  While you can change your stance at any time, changing the stance means you go back to a previous level of ability.  Your split time decisions on whether it is best to make adjustments or stick with the same stance to get the extra benefits could decide whether you are the victor or the vanquished.

Spooner: This is the spiritual successor to the Monk from FFXI as well as including some abilities of the Thief class. I’m personally pretty happy that the THF is being removed and consolidated. I don’t like when the archetypal RPG classes continually get pasted over and over. Mixing and matching some abilities and making a familiar yet somewhat new class is fun. The Pugilist is a brawler, straight up DPS with some aggro managing moves to help keep targets at the front and away from the casters.

Marauder

Role: A powerful, overpowering, macho attacker. The trump card in battle. Made for those who want the most glorious parts of the battle.

Abilities:

• Blood Bath – The damage you deal the enemy turns into HP for you.
• Murderous Intent – Throw yourself into your attacks increasing critical hit rate but lowering TP generation.
• Defender – Use your Axe to increase your physical defense and generate threat in exchange for weaker attacks.
• Disorient – Throw dirt, dust, or sand at an enemy’s eyes to lower their evasion. Can stack 3 times.
• Enduring March – Can move,  albeit slowly, even when hit with roots and snares.

Weapon Skills:

• Skull Sunder -Strike a single enemy hard in the head with slashing damage that leaves a damage over time effect. In Steadfast stance will instead deal a cone AOE attack.
• Trunksplitter – Very affective attack against Seedkin (plant-type) enemies.
• Brandish – AoE melee attack.
• Iron Tempest – Swing your axe wildly dealing AoE wind elemental damage.

Developers: This class can do a lot of damage with their axe, enough to change the outcome of a battle with one swing.  However, depending on the number of enemies and how they are scattered about, they might not be able to gather all of their strength and have trouble during battle. They have more attack power than other classes but their accuracy is a bit lower. In order to use some of the Marauder’s special abilities, you’ll have to be standing still.  So it takes foresight to play this class effectively.

Spooner: For WoW players this is like an Arms Warrior or a Death Knight. If you played FFXI it’s like an evolution of the Dark Knight. The DRK was a big deal with 2H weapon damage and skill, that seems to be the case with this class. The cool thing about the Marauder is that they seem to really be selling it as the unstoppable juggernaut in battle. The lone mountain of pain you don’t want to be near. If a lot of abilities require him to be standing still to build up power to swing the massive axe then you’re likely going to see melee enemies giving him a wide berth. The ability to drain HP through dealing damage is nice as well since that’s going to facilitate solo play in a very big way. Other than the Lancer this is the class I will most likely be playing.

Archer

Role: The sniper who watches the battle from afar and waits for his chance to strike. The party’s shortstop. For people who love being alone.

Abilities:

• Replenish – Consume MP to refill your ammo.
• Chameleon – Blend in with your surroundings consuming TP to lower threat.
• Quickstride – Increase movement speed for a short period of time.
• Retrieval – Gather up arrows in exchange for some HP.
• Hawkeye – Increase the accuracy of your next attack.

Weapon Skills:

• Shadowbind – Fetter the enemy snaring them in place.
• Wide Volley – Increase attack power and deal projectile damage to a wide arc of enemies.
• Quick Knock – Use multiple arrows in rapid succession to attack enemies in a fan like AoE attack.
• Scourging Strike – Increase attack power, deal projectile damage, and debilitate the target by purging one enchantment buff.
• Shrieker – Deal massive damage to the target with a screaming arrow that also causes the target to flee.

Developers: More than anything, their role is to attack enemies from a distance.  After that, it all depends on the technical abilities of the archer.  If they attract too much attention from the enemy, they could get in trouble as they don’t have a high defense.  So you have to think about where you are going to stand and the best way to attack the enemy without capturing their interest.  This class has to look at the big picture. Archers also have a lot of abilities they can use to put some distance between them and their enemies.  I hope people use those in their battle strategies. The type of arrow you pick is also important.  There are arrows for doing direct damage but you can also use arrows to affect the status of your enemy and thereby help out your party members.

Spooner: This is a ranger cut and dry. No pets to worry about or any of that silliness, just a straight up ranged damage dealer with tools to keep the target in the sweet spot and with plenty of tools to keep threat down and ammo counts high, this class is looking like a powerhouse of DPS. A major cool factor for me are the different types of ammo the archer can switch between. So ammo isn’t just a boring dependency for the class, it’s an actual tactical tool.

Recently there’s been a massive explosion of content on the game on the official NA and JP websites. I’ve partnered up with Samodean from Massive Nerd as well as Joe and Roger from the FTL podcast and we’re putting together a special show next week all about this unique contender in the MMO ring. Consider this post the culmination of a lot of research trying to make sure all the facts are collected in one single spot.

FFXIV is the spiritual successor to FFXI and is the second Final Fantasy game to have the online multiplayer experience as it’s main feature. The look of the game is very much like FFXI with very nice graphical upgrades and some clever renaming of the primary races you can play as. I’ll be making references and trying to bridge the gap for the uninitiated throughout this post but please if you do find the game interesting, check out our podcast specifically on Monday March 22nd (2010) for a little more depth.

Not much has been revealed about the day to day normal gameplay but at least we’ve shed some light on how combat will work conceptually as well as a lot of different class specifics. Then there’s this particular screenshot that single-handedly got me excited for the game again.

It reminds me of the original UI from FFXI but it’s been vastly improved. On the bottom left you can see the latency display showing data sent and received. Just above that is the chat window where you have a normal chat log and then tabbed combat log which is pretty standard. Something completely brand new is the usage of the action bar at the bottom center of the screen giving you all your spells and attacks with a short bar underneath most likely to display cooldowns. The TP meter is just under that which works like a rage bar that fills during combat and such and is used for many different things including massive attacks.

Just to the right of the action bar are some icons for the character screen, social tab and inventory space. The bottom right has your typical HP/MP (mana) as both a bar and number value. Upper right of the screen is the mini-map showing what are most likely red dots for hostile mobs or NPCs and green/blue for friendly players/NPCs. In the middle of the screen just off-set to the right is the target health bar and a casting bar. One can assume that the party and raid interface when in a group will be in the upper left side of the screen opposite the mini-map showing party member health/mana and special effects. I don’t see a buff bar but once again, there’s plenty of room still for one to exist under the TP bar or above the player health bar.

Combat in FFXIV

This diagram shows the range of each class and their "sweet spot"

A quick key for the above image. Pugilist (melee monk type DPS) in green is immediate range. Gladiator (sword and shield tank type) is in blue at reasonably close range. Marauder (berserker type 2H weapon DPS) at extended melee range. Lancer (spear using tactical DPS) in yellow at max range for a melee fighter. Conjurer (all around master of spells in DPS and healing) in the teal at mid-range. Thaumaturge (AOE magic DPS and debuffer) in purple at mid-range. Archer (ranged tactical DPS) at extreme max range in orange.

One of the fundamental problems with FFXI was that you were forced to group after about an hour or two playing the game. I don’t mean forced like you need to raid in WoW or forced like you need to be in a party for some things in Aion. No. You could not play the game at all unless you were in a full group. You could not fight anything worth fighting and if you fought that same type of mob repeatedly then it would give you less EXP per kill over time. You could not play the game unless you were in a group. I cannot emphasize this enough. As well you could never fight more than one mob at a time. You were forced to pick a little spot somewhere in the zone with your party and that was your spot, you fucking lived there. One guy was sent out to pull a mob and hopefully he didn’t fuck it up and get two or die on the run back to camp. Then the tank would taunt the mob and you started to kill it. This is being changed for FFXIV.

Players can fight in parties or go solo in FFXIV, but the monsters can be in parties as well.  There will be battles where it is “party vs. party.”  Battles won’t be fought by pulling enemies back to a set camp, but rather we are envisioning players moving about as they fight.

The ability to solo is awesome, it’s a big part of what has made WoW so successful. But the concept of “parties” of mobs roaming a zone is very interesting. The big emphasis is on position and actually fighting the enemy as you would in say real combat. You move the group from enemy spawn to enemy spawn fighting along as you move, MP does not regenerate between battles however (Aetheryte and other player abilities/resources will replenish it for you) so managing your resources over the course of a long battle with many mob encounters is pretty much the way it will pan out.

In FFXIV, one’s position, as well as the position and orientation of the enemy, has a large effect on battles.  Following that line of reasoning, there will be appropriate distances for classes that maximize their effectiveness.

We plan to have enemy classes follow these rules as well, and also include some techniques they can use in conjunction with each other.  The idea is a battle where you are constantly moving, trying to attain the best position.  So when it’s party vs. party, this can get really exciting.  It’s not about sitting in one spot and striking away at an enemy; the player needs to consider the enemy’s position and act accordingly.

Close combat classes need to be more aware of their orientation, while ranged classes must pay particular attention to distance. When fighting close combat, your orientation will have different effects.  I wouldn’t say fighting close up is any easier than fighting at a distance.Also, there is the important factor of “area of effect.”  This mostly comes into play with magic, but there are many techniques utilized by classes outside the Disciples of Magic that have areas of effect.

We want you to think of the area in which you do battle as really your party’s space — a place where you work together.  To that end, attacks with an area of effect will be even more important this time around.

There are several aspects to areas of effect, such as spreading benefits across party members, or blasting through a bunch of enemies from within.  We hope that this, combined with distance and orientation, will make for fun, tactical battles that players will enjoy.

Essentially, there is very little to no “auto-attack” in the game. There will more than likely be auto-attack but the player will always have buttons to press that provide an immediate reaction and effect on the situation. NPCs will be governed by the same rules as a player party. That sounds damn exciting to me since I particularly like squad vs squad gameplay. one big group of players fighting one big group of enemies is very close to a war-like combat system where position and orientation play a big role just like in real combat simulations.

Adding to the tactical feel of the game, elements are making an appearance as they did in FFXI. This was one of my major gripes with FFXI and I sincerely hope they don’t take it to that level of complication with this new offering, but what has been revealed does sound pretty interesting.

In the world of FFXIV, there are 6 elements: Fire, Ice, Wind, Earth, Thunder and Water.  They will all have their characteristics  as well, such as Water being strong against Fire, but weak against Thunder. Both players and enemies will be affected by their affinity with the elements.  Also, there exist forces aligned to these 6 elements called “Star Poles” and “Spirit Poles.”  They are like the magnetic poles of our Earth, attracting different energies.

Each player will have their own strengths and weaknesses regarding each element.  For example, one person could be particularly strong against Fire. This aspect of the player will improve along with other stats, like HP, as they grow.  Depending on how you raise your character, you could be a specialist against a certain type of element. If you are strong against Water, an enemy’s water-based attacks won’t hurt you so much.

Two Conjuerers also could specialize in separate elements.  One could excel at Ice magic and the other at Fire, thus serving two separate roles.

One could even decide to improve all elemental resistances equally, which would make them somewhat effective against all elements at the expense of specializing in none.

So basically you could make a guild of nothing but fire attuned players that are all but invincible against fire enemies and players. So you’ll have this layer of customization to your character for added individuality. You can have race, class, gender, profession, elemental affinity, fighting style, and guild as different variables in what makes your character different from another. This of course doesn’t include things like gear or enchantments and such which i hope they’re taking from WoW and implementing into this game. Not having anything bind on pickup really made the economy completely inaccessible. The whole crafting synthesis system was pretty fucking broken too, but more on that another day.

I’ll be going into the different classes and what developers have said about each as well as specific updates for each in my next post coming soon.

Spooncraft has been around for over two years now and I have you all to thank. Without you readers leaving me spam and signing my email up for Viagra and MILF porn mailing lists, I wouldn’t be here today bringing you this all-star Grade A content. I have my friend Pedro to thank for helping with hosting and administrative issues as well as fronting the cash without a second thought when things got dicey. I have my wife to thank for tolerating my ignorance because I can barely fucking understand basic HTML let alone get a WordPress blog to work right.

I want to always keep Spooncraft fresh and relevant, to keep it funny, honest, and to always shoot you the straight story without pandering to anybody while remaining respectful to the game developers that work so hard to give birth to the world we enjoy so much. The site’s layout is cleaner now. The fat has been cut away. I’ll still be posting news and the likes and J.A. will still be doing what he does; you’re going to like what you see in the coming months and hopefully years.

With that said please I implore you, leave some feedback in the comments. Do you like the new look? Do you think it can be improved? Are there any features you want added in or any specific content you want me to work on? Do you want more videos, do you want more cross work with other blogs and sites? This is for you guys as much as it is for my own fun. So let me know what you want from this humble offering and I’ll do my best to not laugh as I wipe my ass with your request.

Just kidding, leave a comment you bastards.

We’re going to be visiting Earth sometime in the future in ME2, we’re going to bust out a James Bond type mission, get a new squad member, Here’s the full story via Kotaku:

In San Francisco, where thousands of game creators are swarming the 2010 Game Developers’ Conference, BioWare’s Casey Hudson was showing his Mass Effect 2’s first paid expansion, Kasumi’s Stolen Memory. It features a new potential ally, the 12th for the sequel, the elite thief Kasumi.

This DLC is Mass Effect’s ode to James Bond. It is an undercover slip into a formal-attire-required party at the estate of the shady Donovan Hock, mixed with a bit of schmoozing, a safe that needs cracking and then gunfire. There is a vault in this 90-minute level. It contains statues of familiar characters and two of the most popular statues from Earth: Michelangelo’s David and the Statue of Liberty.

That’s a tease, Hudson told Kotaku, of what has happened to Earth in the Mass Effect fiction, though we’re not going there in this DLC. “At some point we will go to the Earth,” he said. When? He’s not saying.

The Kasumi DLC offers this one Bond-style mission and a number of frills. Players will wind up with a new weapon (submachine gun), a new power (the ability to throw flashbang grenades), one Achievement and a new unlocked area of the player’s spaceship. Kasumi will hang out in that new area of the ship and will also be able to stick with you through the game. Her special ability, a Shade Strike that sends her, cloaked in invisibility, on a dash toward the enemy to perform a powerful attack, could prove handy. She will interact with the other Mass Effect 2 characters, according to Hudson.

Hudson described Kasumi’s Stolen Memory as the first of a series of paid downloadable content offerings for Mass Effect 2. While this new one doesn’t tweak the game’s engine he said that it is already enabling BioWare’s developers to try new art tricks and styles. He said that other DLC Mass Effect 2 projects are underway. They may very in length of quest and type of content, but they’re coming.

Kasumi’s Stolen Memory will be out next month for Xbox 360 and PC. No price announced. Players will be able to access it once they have played enough of Mass Effect 2 to attain their own in-game space-ship and/or after the end of the game’s main quest.

I’ve never been much of an MMO player truth be told until FFXI and then WoW, so I find it somewhat interesting that I’ve not only met my wife through an MMO, found a job through an MMO, and have made lifelong friends I work with pseudo-professionally through an MMO. So here’s the scoop:

• Aion (with the induction of Patch 1.9 and 2.0)
• Warhammer 40k MMO
• WoW: Cataclysm
• Star Wars: The Old Republic

Four completely different developer studios and companies with 4 very different games across the board. Bioware is about as strong as humanly possible in gaming especially with Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age doing so well it’s downright titillating; now they’re going to push out a Star Wars MMO next year and the universe itself is big enough to at least get a few million subscribers without a doubt. I wonder though just how successful the game will be at being fun since it follows the Bioware standard of feeling more like a choose-your-own-adventure game but now with a bunch of different people involved.

Blizzard is an old hand at the MMO game by now with a game franchise that pretty much changed the entire genre and revolutionized the gaming industry. All other MMOs regardless of setting are and will always be compared to WoW. Period. Cataclysm makes my mouth water; a revamping of the old world, countless other changes to the game systems and tons more content for us to sink into. At the same time however, we can all safely say that WoW has lost some steam over the years and even if it feels great to play – we’re all starting to play other games and have different needs. That’s the thing about WoW. It makes you not want to play anything else unless you take a few days off.

Warhammer 40k as an MMO is downright made of pure win. THQ is running the show with that and the franchise alone is reason enough to know it’s going to look gorgeous, it’s going to be gritty and mature, it’s going to have some tongue in cheek comedy but mostly it’s going to be bloody and cool as shit. The Warhammer name though carries a really bad taste among many MMO gamers with the utter ass that was Age of Reckoning especially with such terrible support and other glaring issues. As well, I don’t know if I’m down to trade up a colorful living breathing universe for the dirt and blood and washed out ugly that are the Warhammer worlds.

Finally we have Aion. My opinion on the game hasn’t changed, neither has my opinion of NC soft. The promise and ultimate disappointment of the game really hit hard for me. I was so beyond enraptured by the game only to have it completely let me down in every single facet that even thinking about reinstalling makes me feel sick. They’re promising changes based entirely on player feedback; I respect that a lot and am pretty much amazed. There were some purely idiotic mechanics in the game that made no sense and had no place in a Western market and until they’re all pretty much gone, I’m not falling into it again.

A part of me wants to accept the olive branch and say “ok, you’ve gone 75% I’ll match the missing 25″. But even after thinking about it for a moment it feels like I’m settling. The game was 90% behind anything else out there when I played. The servers were horrible, the mechanics were ridiculous, the economy was completely broken, and it lacked the basic fundamentals of any game let alone an MMO (swimming, dynamic combat, healing, any PvE at all, and so forth). I feel that they need to really truly come out and say “we did a really piss poor job before guys, we’re sorry. Here is how we are fixing everything and giving you the game we promised, the game you want to play.”

There is a 4th Patch out now too but all it does is fix some things for the Korean version.

Balance Changes

• TERRAN
  • Engineering Bay
    • Infantry Armor: The time required for each upgrade has been reduced by 30 seconds, decreasing each upgrade time from 190/220/250 seconds to 160/190/220 seconds.
    • Infantry Weapons: The time required for each upgrade has been reduced by 30 seconds, decreasing each upgrade time from 190/220/250 seconds to 160/190/220 seconds.
  • Armory
    • Vehicle Plating: The time required for each upgrade has been reduced by 30 seconds, decreasing each upgrade time from 190/220/250 seconds to 160/190/220 seconds.
    • Vehicle Weapons: The time required for each upgrade has been reduced by 30 seconds, decreasing each upgrade time from 190/220/250 seconds to 160/190/220 seconds.
    • Ship Plating: The time required for each upgrade has been reduced by 30 seconds, decreasing each upgrade time from 190/220/250 seconds to 160/190/220 seconds.
    • Ship Weapons: The time required for each upgrade has been reduced by 30 seconds, decreasing each upgrade time from 190/220/250 seconds to 160/190/220 seconds.
• PROTOSS
  • Zealot
    • The maximum shield capacity of this unit has been decreased from 60 to 50.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where the Infestor’s Neural Parasite ability could cause Reapers to lose the ability to move.
• Fixed an issue that could use an incorrect HDR format on some ATI cards.
• Fixed a crash that could happen on some ATI cards.

I was talking to Roger this morning and thinking aloud that an incredible ending to portal 2 would be you opening a portal that cuts you through time itself to the “future” where you come face to face with Gordon Freeman and Alex as they enter the Aperture Science vessel referenced in Half Life 2: Episode 2. Then it cuts to black, you hear G-man say something witty and terrible, and then all of us players simultaneously cut ourselves.

In other words, if I didn’t have Elitist Jerks or some other arbitrary gear score bullshit say what I was doing was uniform, I wouldn’t get into pugs or raids. In Cataclysm, they’re going to simplify the stats to a degree allowing gear upgrades to be more fun and less “oh shit I need more hit but not crit I’m capped for that already but I need more armor-pen so I should pass on this awesome new drop that looks cool and seems fun with the chance on hit…” and so forth.

Here’s the announcement…

As many of you know from panels at last year’s BlizzCon and posts here on the forums since then, Cataclysm will bring about major changes to familiar character stats such as Intellect, Armor Penetration, Defense, and others, ultimately designed to make the effects of stats more easily understandable and make gear choices more interesting. As these changes will have a significant impact on how stats work and relate to one another, today we wanted to offer you a closer look at exactly what’s in store and explain some of the rationale before Cataclysm arrives.

The most obvious question these changes raise is “Why are stats being changed, and why now?” As the game has matured, we’ve run into increasingly complex issues with the current stat system. Many stats are inherently confusing, and the way they interrelate can feel convoluted. Attack Power, for example, currently translates to damage, but so does Armor Penetration. Defense provides five different statistical benefits of varying utility. Mana regeneration involves understanding multiple stats and rules and often ends up being irrelevant anyway. In addition, the difference between a “good stat” for a class and a “bad stat” can be extreme. Some casters want Haste but not Crit; hunters want Armor Penetration but not Haste. There are other overarching issues, as well, such as Intellect not being very exciting for casters despite it being a core stat — and these are just a few examples.

Our ultimate goal is make gear a more interesting (and less confusing) choice by making each stat valuable to more players. While the reasoning behind some of the following changes may be clear, we understand that you may have questions about some of the less obvious alterations, and we’ll do our best to answer any questions you may have here on the forums.

What You’ll See on Gear

Stamina - Because of the way we will be assigning Strength, Agility, and Intellect, non-plate wearers will end up with more Stamina than before. Health pools will be much closer between plate-wearers and other classes.

Spirit - Come Cataclysm, this stat should only be found on healing gear. Non-healing casters will have other systems in place to regenerate mana, and we are designing special solutions for Elemental shaman and Balance druids who often share gear with healers (more on this below). Raid buffs that currently boost Spirit (such as Blessing of Kings) will only boost the primary stats of Stamina, Strength, Agility, and Intellect. We are also likely changing the five-second rule and other quirks of the current regen system.

Intellect - Intellect will now grant Spell Power (more on this below). Intellect will also provide less mana than it currently does.

Haste - Haste will become more attractive for melee classes by allowing them to recover resources such as energy and runes more quickly. Our intention is for Haste to let you “do stuff” more often.

Block Rating - Block is being redesigned to scale better. Blocked attacks will simply hit for 30% less damage. Block rating will improve your chance to block, though overall block chances will be lower than they are today.

Parry - Parry no longer provides 100% avoidance and no longer speeds up attacks. Instead, when you parry an attack, it and the next attack will each hit for 50% damage (assuming they hit at all). In other words, Dodge is a chance to avoid 100% of the damage from one attack, Parry is a chance to avoid 50% of the damage from two attacks, and Block is a chance to avoid 30% of the damage from one attack.

Mastery - This is a new stat that will allow players to become better at whatever makes their chosen talent tree cool or unique. It’s directly tied to talents, so what you gain from improving this stat is entirely dependent upon your class and the talent specialization you choose. We’ll talk more about specific Mastery benefits in the future.

Armor - The way Armor mitigates damage is not changing, but the Armor stat has been rebalanced to mirror changes to the armor curve in Cataclysm. As a result, bonus Armor will go down slightly overall. We are also changing the mitigation difference among armor types so that plate doesn’t offer so much more protection than mail, leather, and cloth.

Resilience - This will only affect damage done by players and critical damage done by players. It will not impact crit chance, mana drains, or other such effects.

Strength, Agility, Hit Rating, Expertise, and Critical Strike Rating - These will all still appear on gear as well. Aside from situations mentioned elsewhere in this list, in general these will function similarly to how they do now, though the details — such as how much Hit Rating you might need to effectively combat high-level creatures (more on this below) — are likely to change.

Being Removed from Items

Attack Power - This stat will no longer be present on most items as a flat value, though it will still show up on some process. Strength and Agility, which will be present on items, will grant the appropriate amount of Attack Power (generally 2 Attack Power per point of Strength or Agility) depending upon which stat a particular class favors. Agility may provide less Crit than it currently does.

Spell Power - Spell Power is another stat that you’ll no longer see present on most items. Instead, as mentioned above, Intellect will grant Spell Power. One exception is that caster weapons will still have Spell Power. This allows us to make weapons proportionately more powerful for casters in the same way they are for melee classes.

Armor Penetration - This stat will no longer be present on items. Armor Penetration will still exist in talents and abilities.

Shield Block Value - This stat will no longer be present on items, since the amount blocked is always proportional to the amount of damage done. Talents and other effects might still modify the damage-reduction percentage from 30%, however.

Going Away Completely

MP5 - This stat will be removed from the game completely. Holy paladins and Restoration shaman will be redesigned to benefit from Spirit.

Defense - Defense is being removed from the game entirely. Tanking classes should expect to become uncrittable versus creatures just by shifting into Defensive Stance, Frost Presence, Bear Form, or by using Righteous Fury.

Spell Ranks - Spell ranks will cease to exist. All spells will have one rank and will scale appropriately with level. The levels at which you can learn certain spells are being changed in order to fill in some of the gaps, and we will be introducing some new spells to learn along the way as well.

Weapon Skill - This stat will be removed from the game completely. Classes will start with all the weapon skills they need to know and will not need to improve them.

What Else You Should Know

Combat ratings - All ratings will be much harder to “cap out” at maximum gear levels. Ratings will be steeper in Cataclysm, and creatures in later tiers of content will be harder to hit or crit, similar to how level-83 mobs are harder to hit or crit than level-80 mobs.

Reforging - While these changes will go a long way to making a wider variety of stats more attractive, we understand that sometimes you simply don’t want more Hit Rating on your gear or you’d rather have more Haste than more Crit. In Cataclysm, we are going to give players a way to replace stats on gear as part of the existing profession system. As a general rule of thumb, you’ll be able to convert one stat to 50% of another stat. While some conversions (like converting Stamina to Strength) won’t be permitted, the goal is to let you customize your gear more.

Gems - We are changing the gem colors of a few stats as a result of these adjustments. For example, Hit is likely to be blue instead of yellow. We’ll have more details on this in the future.

Changes to Existing Gear

As with previous expansions, we plan to roll out these changes and modify all existing gear shortly before Cataclysm launches, though it’s still too early to say exactly when. For the most part, the gear you have will still be good for you, though there will be exceptions, such as warriors using leather and mail armor.

If you are a tank (druids excepted), expect to see:

• No more Defense on gear. Existing Defense becomes Dodge, Parry, or Block Rating.
• No more Block Value on gear. Existing Block Value becomes Block Rating.
• You’ll have as much Stamina as you’re used to, though you may notice your tanking plate has a bit less Stamina than a comparable piece of DPS plate, since we tend to take the gem budget out of your most attractive stat.
• Bonus Armor on gear will go down slightly.

If you are a melee DPS class, druid tank, or hunter, expect to see:

• A lot more Stamina. Bear-form Stamina scaling will be lowered as a result.
• Strength if you wear plate. Agility if you wear mail or leather.
• Existing Attack Power becomes Agility and Stamina.Armor Penetration becomes Haste or Crit.
• No Intellect on melee gear. Hunters won’t need Intellect since they will no longer use mana. Shaman and Retribution paladins will get mana and spell damage in other ways.

If you are a DPS caster, expect to see:

• A lot more Stamina.
• All of your Spell Power converted to Intellect and Stamina.
• No Spirit. You won’t miss Spirit, though, because you won’t need it for DPS or mana regen.

If you are a healer, expect to see:

• A lot more Stamina.
• All of your Spell Power converted to Intellect and Stamina.
• Spirit instead of MP5. You’ll probably be happy with Spirit, though, because mana regen is going to matter more than it does currently. Healing paladins and shaman will benefit more from Spirit than they do currently.

If you are a Balance druid or Elemental shaman:

• You will still share gear with Restoration druids and shaman.
• Your gear will have Spirit on it. It won’t have Hit on it.
• You will have a talent that converts Spirit to Hit. We will adjust talents accordingly so that you want about as much Spirit as, say, a warlock wants Hit.
• Hit on rings and other such gear will still benefit you.
• Raid buffs will no longer boost Spirit, so you shouldn’t find yourself unexpectedly over the Hit cap because of buffs.

Many lower-level items with nonsensical combinations of stats, such as Agility and Spirit, will be changed. We’re also updating quest rewards, trade skills, and loot drops to support better itemization for class builds that weren’t widely available or used prior to The Burning Crusade (such as Balance druids).

We’re aware this is a lot of information to take in, but this is still only a piece of the larger picture, and many of these changes rely on integration with other systems we haven’t yet discussed in detail. In the weeks and months ahead, we’ll continue to tell you more about these changes, along with all of the new and exciting features we have planned for Cataclysm.

UPDATE: Changed the video to another upload. If Blizzard pulls this down again there’s not much else I can do.

The following is a list of all the titles and feature you know 100% will be coming up in 2010 and of that you’ve got my word:

Starcraft 2 – Yes friend the Beta test is imminent and I’m hoping that beta key I submitted damn near 6 months ago is going to rock me in. According to the magic 8-ball it seems that you’re going to get a lot of footage from the Beta event as I record tons of HD gameplay video.

Bioshock 2 – When this Feb. release hits my desktop you’ll see a lot of story spoilers as well as competitive multiplayer videos. Not to mention I’ll be gone for a few days as I bleed my eyes out soaking up every pixel of this soon to be masterpiece.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm – The prospect of playing as a Worgen got me back into the vortex of WoW. I’m actually rally enjoying myself right now as compared to ever before and I have to attest half of that to playing a new class I’ve never touched before (Rogue) and the other half to playing more casually (which means I’m not raiding yet nor plan to for a while) and I’m back on the Alliance with my original crew of cohorts.

APB – If and when this is released expect me to touch some on the game and more than likely buy it and report regular news and other updates. If it turns out to be another Aion flop then it’ll drop off my radar but somehow I doubt that anything can live down to those standards.

The Daily Fap – This feature isn’t going away at all and if anything it’s frequency will be ramped up to a more weekly offering.

Diablo 3 – As always any news and content I can score will be posted here but keep in mind the game is most likely not going to even hit a Beta test until 2011, but we’ll see. I’m still holding a candle for this as my ultimate sequel next to Starcraft.

Blizzcon 2010 – As always if they have one and regardless of where they have one

That about does it for 100% guaranteed games I’ll be playing and features you’ll see. I’m on the fence about Star Wars: The Old Republic simply because the choose your own adventure style of gaming that Bioware loves isn’t something I jive with typically. I personally much prefer to be along for the ride and have it be an amazing and incredible one instead of being forced to pick and choose the little nuances in the story, I think that’s a job for the writer not the player. Unless of course you’re playing Little Big Planet.

So leave a comment or two or ten and list the things you want to see in 2010. What are you most excited about for this coming year and the turn of the decade? The new Metroid game? The new Castlevania title? Dante’s Inferno? Startrek Online? New tech? There’s a ton of new and exciting things coming in the next 12 months, what can’t you wait to experience?