Posted by Spooner | 7 Comments

WoW Cataclysm: Class Discussions Panel

Class discussion was pretty much just the buzz word for “everything else” truth be told. It was awesome as all hell to see up close. My camcorder died on me halfway through but imagine if the forums were held in a big grand hall. Ghostcrawler would say something, the crowd would start going fucking bat shit crazy; screaming or cheering or booing.

They only actually covered TWO classes and decided to skip the rest so more Q&A could be opened. Good idea personally, but it didn’t really win over the crowd. Also the smartassery of publicly shitting all over Retribution Paladins has really made me question the unbiased nature of the developers.

Archaeology
Archaeology is the new secondary profession that will be joining the ranks of cooking, fishing, and first aid in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Archaeology allows the player to unlock new abilities and rewards by discovering ancient treasures throughout the world. Each archaeologist uses the profession to uncover clues hidden in the world around them, such as troll relics or map fragments, and decipher their meaning, enabling the clever archaeologist to manipulate pieces of the past, learning the location of a treasure cache or valuable artifact. Such artifacts are highly sought after by the Archaeology Society, and they pay in gold and items for their return. Those who have mastered archaeology can find Titan artifacts, earning special currency used to unlock character paths and allowing the player to further customize their character.

Reforging

• Reforging is another way to customize your gear.
• It will be relatively cheap, you will need a Blacksmith / Leatherworker / Tailor / Jewelcrafter / Engineer to do it. Each profession get to reforge a type of items.
• It lets you reduce one stat for another. Some restrictions will apply, you can’t put the extra stat on something that is already on the item.

Professions

• Multi-gains will be added, while you level up your trade skills, rare items will give you more points as you skill up. (Rare items will give you 5 points for example, while green bracers will only give one)
• Gathering should be a little more fun.
• Engineering is a very fun tradeskill, but it’s either amazing or it sucks and everybody drops it. More convenient items like Jeeves or Wormhole Generator will be added to the profession in the future to get back to the roots of Engineering.
• Fishing will also have some big changes, no details yet but it’s going to be more fun.

Itemization
In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, there are plans to streamline the statistics found on items. We want to remove all unnecessary stats, make all existing stats understandable, and make all “core” stats more appealing. Here are some examples of such plans.

• MP5: This will be removed from items and replaced with Spirit. All healers will be given a meditation-like ability.
• Spell Power: Spell Power is being removed from items as well. Don’t panic, we’ll be improving Intellect so that it provides mana and Spell Power.
• Attack Power: We’re removing Attack Power from items as well. Instead, we’re allowing Agility to provide the necessary Attack Power for leather and mail wearers. Strength will provide the appropriate amount of Attack Power for plate wearers. This means leather and mail items will no longer be desirable for plate wearers.
• Defense: The Defense statistic is also being removed from items so that players no longer have to worry about juggling around “the cap.” Tanks will receive the necessary anti-crit from talents, like Survival of the Fittest.
• Armor Penetration: This ability is too confusing and “mathy.” It is being replaced with Mastery, a stat that makes you better at what you do. More on that later!
• Haste: Will also increase the rate at which you gain energy, runes, and focus. Retribution paladins and Enhancement shaman will have a talent that allows them to take advantage of this benefit.
• Block: Block Value is being removed. Blocking will now always mitigate a percentage of damage.
• Stamina: Players will notice more Stamina on gear as Defense, Spell Power, Attack Power and Armor Penetration are removed.

Legendary Item

• Shadowmourne – You won’t get Frostmourne in Icecrown but Death Knights and Hunters will get a Legendary Axe named Shadowmourne.

Goblins

• Rocket Jump – Activate your rocket belt to jump up to 20 yards, every 2 min
• Rocket Barrage – Fire your belt rockets at an enemy within 30 yards, every 2 min. (Shared cooldown with Rocket Jump)
• Time is money – Cash in on a 1% increase to attack and casting speed.
• Best Deals Anywhere – Best possible gold discount, regardless of reputation.
• Pack Hobgoblin – Calls in your personal servent, allowing you bank access every 30 min.
• Better Living Through Chemistry – Alchemy skill +15, Your potions give more health / mana
• Goblins can be all classes except Paladin or Druids

Worgens

• Darkflight – Activate your true form, increasing movement speed by 70% for 6 sec, every 3 min.
• Viciousness – Increase damage by 1%.
• Abberation – Reduced duration on Curses and Diseases used against you by 15%.
• Flayer – Skinning skill +15, you skin creature fast, and you don’t even need a knife.
• Worgens can be all classes except Paladins or Shamans

Worgen Form

• The Worgen Form is cosmetic only
• out of combat you can pick between Human or Worgen.
• In combat you will be a worgen.

Hunter

Hunters got some pretty sweepingly amazing changes across the board. I think overall DPS might be toned down a little bit if not just changed to a more burst feeling since shots can cost a third to over half of your total Focus each. Now regen is pretty spectacular but I still feel that the class is going to feel a lot like a ranged Rogue and won’t be able to unload all at once like they can now with a mana bar.

• Hunter’s mana is GONE!!!
• Hunters now use focus, no longer care about intellect or mana regen.
• Focus regenerates contunously, Steady shot improves the rate of getting focus bag.
• Rogue energy comes back at a 10 / sec rate, Hunter focus comes back at 6/sec (12/sec with steady shot)
• A shot costs 30 to 60 focus.
• Hunters will have fewer cooldowns on abilities
• Ammos will become an item, not a consumable.
• Hunter’s new ammos might drop from bosses or bought with emblems, nothing is decided for the moment.

Warlock

This here is some wild shit let me tell you. The UI changed completely, the amount of RAGE coming from the audience was insanely funny. Warlocks will now pretty much feel EXACTLY like mages except that they have 3 soul shards constantly regenerating like a Death Knight’s runes. When you activate a shard and cast whatever spell, it will augment that spell. Pretty hot shit for the warlock, but longer instant fears, massive healing from death coil, PoM+Pyro soulfire, 100% guaranteed crits for the next 3 casts? Yeah dude I’m calling bullshit.

• Soul Shards are no longer in your bags. The goal is to make them fun, not a hassle.
• Soul Shards will be integrated to the user interface. (Just like Death Knight runes)
• You get three shards per fight, they will regen very quickly out of combat.
• It will be possible to get more for long fights or mistakes through Drain Soul.
• Soul Burn (New Spell) : Cost 1 Shard, 30 sec cooldown, off the GCD. Empowers your next spell, many (not all spells) behave differently when empowered.
• Empowered Searing Pain : Next 3 Searing Pains crit
• Empowered Summon Demon : Instant Cast
• Empowered Soulfire : Instant Cast
• Empowered Fear : Instant Cast
• Empowered Death Coil : Longer Horror, more healing received.
• They are only used in combat, summons or demons won’t use your shards.

More…

• Casters will finally get a Legendary item in one of the first raids of the expansion.
• Cataclysm will change the ways abilities are learned. Abilities ranks are gone and ability will just scale progressively with levels instead.
• Most of the Talent Trees will be changed dramatically, a lot of the passive bonuses will be removed and talent trees should be more fun. (No more “Hurray! Level up! I just got 1% more hit!)
• There is no plan to allow players to train more than 2 profession.
• There is no plan to allow more than 2 specs with the dual-spec system.
• Bags might get slightly bigger with Cataclysm.
• You will never be able to cleanse the Corrupted Ashbringer.
• Developers want shaman to be good AE healers and might buff Chain Heal even more.
• Multi-passenger flying mounts could be added in the future. They might also allow crafters to craft 310% flying mounts if they already completed an achievement rewarding one.
• Every healer class can now dispell magic, the niches will other debuffs.
• Engineers might be able to craft bows in the future.
• If you already own a 310% mount, you might be able to boost the speed of all your 280% mount to 310% just to let you use the one that you prefer.

Now some of the Q&A stuff.

Priest

• Shadow Priests will most likely get a nuke without cooldown in Cataclysm.

Shaman

• Shamans (Elemental) looks like “turrets” in PvP for the moment, the idea is to make totems funnier in the future (“put a totem down and something cool happens”) but not a lot of details for the moment.

Warrior

• Warriors won’t be as affected as other classes by the itemization changes, the goal is to make other classes gears look a lot like what warriors have.

Read More

Posted by Spooner | 10 Comments

Patch 3.2 PTR build 10072 Changes and Additions

Ok I’m going to consolidate this post to make it easier for you guys to follow. Also it saves me time to spend finishing the polish on my 3rd Starcraft2 Beta post. Guh this is making my eyes hurt, I’ve been writing this bloody post for over 2 damn hours because I can’t seem to really really care enough. Mayhaps after this I won’t post any more 3.2 information until like, the day just before it goes live so we’re not arguing over things that go through changes like so much damp toiletpaper. So here’s what we have lined up:

• A few T9 set bonuses have been changed.
• Profession changes got some more tweaks.
• Class spells and talents have received a few changes.

T9 Changes: I’m liking the tanking set changes, they all seem to be really solid for helping out threat which is hard to scale compared to DPS.

• Death Knight T9 Tank 2P Bonus – Decreases the cooldown on your Dark Command ability by 2 sec and increases the damage done by your Blood Strike and Heart Strike abilities by 5%.
• Druid T9 Feral 2P Bonus – Decreases the cooldown on your Growl ability by 2 sec, increases the periodic damage done by your Lacerate ability by 5%, and increases the duration of your Rake ability by 3 sec.
• Druid T9 Balance 4P Bonus (Starfire) – Increases the damage done by your Starfire and Wrath spells by 4%.
• Paladin T9 Tank 2P Bonus – Decreases the cooldown on your Hand of Reckoning ability by 2 sec and increases the damage done by your Hammer of the Righteous ability by 5%.
• Warrior T9 Tank 2P Bonus (Taunt) – Decreases the cooldown on your Taunt ability by 2 sec and increases the damage done by your Devastate ability by 5%.

Profession Changes: They pretty much made most of the crafted epics more expensive in materials, oh and engineering is more badass.

Alchemy

• Transmute: Eye of Zul now requires Forest Emerald x 3 instead of Eternal Life x 3.
• Potion of Petrification no longer requires Mountain Silversage or Black Lotus.

Blacksmithing

• Breastplate of the White Knight now requires Titansteel Bar x 12 instead of 10 and now also requires Eternal Life x 8.
• Sunforged Bracers now requires Eternal Life x 12. (Up from 4)
• Sunforged Breastplate now requires Eternal Life x 20. (Up from 12)
• Titanium Spikeguards now requires Vengeance Bindings instead of Corroded Saronite Woundbringer x 2.

Engineering

• Unlearn Gnomish Engineering – Unlearns Gnomish Engineering, allowing you to choose another engineering specialization.
• Unlearn Goblin Engineering – Unlearns Goblin Engineering, allowing you to choose another engineering specialization.
• Jeeves now requires Field Repair Bot 74A x 2, Field Repair Bot 110G x 10 (Up from 4), Scrapbot Construction Kit x 20 (Up from 10), Titansteel Bar x 8, King’s Amber x 2, Handful of Cobalt Bolts x 30.
• Nitro Boosts now increases your critical strike rating by 24. (Old – Critical strike and hit rating by 12)
• Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket now targets enemies at long range. Cooldown reduced from 1 min to 45 sec.
• Reticulated Armor Webbing can now be used on all types of armor. (Old – Only plate)
• Frag Belt now lets you throw a Cobalt Frag Bomb every 6 minutes. (Down from 10 minutes)
• Cobalt Frag Bomb now creates Cobalt Frag Bomb x 3. (Up from 1)
• Mind Amplification Dish – Dismantle and reassembles a helm with a mind amplification dish, increasing Stamina by 45 and allowing you to attempt to engage in mental battle with your enemies and, hopefully, control them. Can be used every 10 min. Changes the appearance of your helm and binds it to you. Only grand master engineers can activate the mind amplification dish.

Jewelcrafting

• Nightmare Tear has been added to the game. (prismatic all socket +10 to all stats gem, like the current Siren’s Tear)

Leatherworking

• Black Chitin Bracers now requires Nerubian Chitin x 40, Abyss Crystal x 4, Arctic Fur x 6, Crusader Orb x 4.
• Bracers of Swift Death now requires Heavy Borean Leather x 20, Eternal Shadow x 12, Arctic Fur x 6, Crusader Orb x 4
• Crusader’s Dragonscale Bracers now requires Icy Dragonscale x 40, Eternal Water x 8, Arctic Fur x 6, Crusader Orb x 4.
• Crusader’s Dragonscale Breastplate now requires Icy Dragonscale x 40, Eternal Water x 8, Eternal Life x 8, Arctic Fur x 8, Crusader Orb x 8.
• Ensorcelled Nerubian Breastplate now requires Nerubian Chitin x 40, Eternal Air x 8, Greater Cosmic Essence x 8, Arctic Fur x 8, Crusader Orb x 8
• Knightbane Carapace now requires Heavy Borean Leather x 24, Eternal Shadow x 20, Arctic Fur x8,  Crusader Orb x 8
• Lunar Eclipse Chestguard now requires Heavy Borean Leather x 24, Eternal Life x 20, Arctic Fur x 8, Crusader Orb x 8
• Moonshadow Armguards now requires Heavy Borean Leather x 20, Eternal Life x 12, Arctic Fur x 6, Crusader Orb x 4

Tailoring

• Bejeweled Wizard’s Bracers now requires Spellweave x 8, Eye of Zul, Cardinal Ruby, Majestic Zircon, Crusader Orb x 4.
• Merlin’s Robe now requires Ebonweave x 8, Spellweave x 8, Dream Shard x 8, Crusader Orb x 8
• Royal Moonshroud Bracers now requires Moonshroud x 12, Crusader Orb x 4
• Royal Moonshroud Robe now requires Moonshroud x 20, King’s Amber x 2, Crusader Orb x 8

FINALLY here are the class changes weeeeee: DK, nothing to see here. Druid, also nothing special. Hunter, pets won’t have expertise anymore throguh talents which sucks kinda, but their damage is being ramped up. Mage, Frost is no longer the retarded cousin of DPS and has more fficiency in mana and they also got mortal strike. Paladin, tanking with ardent defender is going to be VERY RNG but still worth picking up. Priest, shadow priests got mortal strike too and vamp. touch looks like unstable affliction.  Warlock, nothing special. Warrior, execute won’t dump all your rage anymore and you won’t see 21k shield slams in PvP anymore but threat should be nicer.

Death Knight

• Rune of Spellbreaking is no longer cumulative with additional Silence duration reduction.

Blood

• Scent of Blood now causes your next 1/2/3 melee hits to generate 10 runic power. (Up from 5)
• Blood Plague now deals [ 6.325% of AP + 1.15 ] Shadow damage. (Up from [ 5.5% of AP ] shadow damage)

Frost

• Frost Fever now deals [ 6.325% of AP + 1.15 ] Frost damage. (Up from [ 5.5% of AP ] frost damage)

Glyphs

• Glyph of Corpse Explosion – Increases the radius of effect on Corpse Explosion by 5 yards.

Druid
Feral

• Savage Roar is now only usable in Cat Form.
• Enrage now generates 20 rage instantly and generates an additional 10 rage over 10 sec.
• King of the Jungle has an additional effect -  In addition, the mana cost of Bear Form, Cat Form, and Dire Bear Form is reduced by 20/40/60%.
• Primal Tenacity no longer reduces the mana cost of Bear Form, Cat Form, and Dire Bear Form.

Glyphs

• Glyph of Innervate – Innervate now grants the caster 45% of his or her base mana pool over 10 sec in addition to the normal effects of Innervate.

Hunter
Beast Mastery

• Animal Handler now increases your pet’s attack power by 5/10% instead of increasing its expertise by 5/10.

Survival

• Deterrence now deflect all spells. (Old – Only spells cast by targets in front of you)

Pets

• Rake (Cat) now deals 47 to 67 bleed damage and an additional 19 to 25 damage every 3 seconds at max rank. (Up from 19 to 25 additional damage over 9 sec)
• Roar of Sacrifice cooldown has been reduced from 2 min to 1 min.
• Wild Hunt now increases the contribution your pet gets from your Stamina by 20% and attack power by 15%. (Up from 10%)

Glyphs

• Glyph of Arcane Shot – Restores mana equal to 20% of your Arcane Shot’s mana cost.
• Glyph of Freezing Trap – When your Freezing Trap breaks, the victim’s movement speed is reduced by 30% for 4 sec.

Mage
Fire

• Living Bomb can now be used on multiple targets at the same time.

Frost

• Ice Barrier mana cost has been reduced from 25% of base mana to 21% of base mana.
• Cone of Cold mana cost has been reduced from 29% of base mana to 25% of base mana.
• Frost Ward mana cost has been reduced from 16% of base mana to 14% of base mana.
• Frostbolt mana cost has been reduced from 13% of base mana to 11% of base mana.
• Ice Armor mana cost has been reduced from 28% of base mana to 24% of base mana.
• Ice Lance mana cost has been reduced from 7% of base mana to 6% of base mana.
• Frost Nova mana cost has been reduced from 8% of base mana to 7% of base mana.
• Empowered Frostbolt now reduces the cast time of your Frostbolt by 0.1/0.2sec instead of increasing its critical strike chance by 2/4%.
• Permafrost now also reduces the target’s healing received by 7/13/20%.

Paladin
Protection

• Ardent Defender now heal you up by 30% of your maximum health and the amount healed is based on defense.

PvP Items

• Hateful Gladiator’s Libram of Justice now Increases spell power of Flash of Light by 293. (Up from 236)
• Deadly Gladiator’s Libram of Justice now Increases spell power of Flash of Light by 331. (Up from 267)
• Furious Gladiator’s Libram of Justice now Increases spell power of Flash of Light by 375. (Up from 320)
• Relentless Gladiator’s Libram of Justice now Increases spell power of Flash of Light by 436. (Up from 404)

Glyphs

• Glyph of Righteous Defense – Increases the chance for your Righteous Defense and Hand of Reckoning abilities to work successfully by 8% on each target.
• Glyph of Seal of Command – You gain 8% of your base mana each time you use a Judgement with Seal of Command active.

Priest
Shadow

• Vampiric Touch had its damage on dispell doubled. (From 680 to 1360 at Max Rank)
• Devouring Plague can now affect only one target at a time.
• Dispersion now has a 2 min cooldown. (Down from 3 min)
• Improved Mind Blast has an additional effect – while in Shadowform your Mind Blast also has a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to reduce all healing done to the target by 20% for 10 sec.

Warlock
Glyphs

• Glyph of Health Funnel – Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while channeling your Health Funnel spell by 100%.

Warrior
Fury

• Execute now works up to a maximum cost of 30 rage.
• Berserker Rage now removes and grants immunity to Fear, Sap, and Incapacitate effects and generating extra rage for when taking damage for 10 seconds.

Protection

• Shield Block now also increases the threat generated by Shield Slam by 100%. Does not increase Shield Slam damage.
• Bloodrage now generates 20 rage. (Up from 10)

Arms

• Sudden Death no longer only uses up to 30 total rage. (See the change to Execute)

K, I’m done.

Read More

Posted by Spooner | 0 Comments

Ongoing Class Q&A Sessions going straight to the devs…

Right now Blizzard is conducting a major Q&A session for all classes not because they’re going to be redesigning us again but to simply answer concerns and possibly discover new information or issues that affect the gameplay. A lot of players are taking this request for feedback as a sign that in Patch 3.2 blizzard is going to revamp entire talent trees and redo class abilities and mechanics. There’s been more than enough of that already going on in Wrath of the Lich King, any more and we might as well just get a new expansion pack. As well there is confusion and frustration because the CMs don’t exactly “belong” to certain classes and the presumption is leaving some players feeling alienated and unrepresented or misrepresented by a CM that has never played the class.

Yes I think there is some confusion here. Nobody from any Community team is assigned to just one particular class. We monitor the forums of all classes, and collect feedback from all classes too.

In the case of our current Class Q&A series, we are collecting questions from all classes across every WoW region in the world, and sending them through to our developers to be answered. We’re not making major edits to the questions, so they are being sent pretty much as they are (as long as they are actual questions and not veiled suggestions! So don’t worry, we don’t necessarily need to be an expert in your class to collect your questions.

Read More