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We're making changes to which classes and specs are able to dispel magic, diseases, curses, and poison, largely for PvP purposes.

We're doing our Cataclysm preview on the death knight changes later this week, but we knew one change risked overshadowing all the others, so we figured we'd go ahead and drop the proverbial Blood bomb today.

In Cataclysm, death knights will have a dedicated tanking tree, much like the other three tank classes. That tree will be Blood.

We'll go into more detail in the upcoming preview, but we wanted to take the opportunity to explain the reasoning for such a big change.

Why the about face? We actually thought the "tri tank" experiment worked out okay. We suspected there would always be a "best" tanking tree, because that's the way these things shake out, but we hoped it would be close enough that many players could tank with their favorite tree. When we tried out this design for Wrath of the Lich King, we were using it as a test case to see if we wanted to do similar things with the warrior and paladin talent trees.

A lot has happened since that time. We introduced the dual-spec feature, allowing players to have a tanking spec and dps spec that they could switch between. We introduced Dungeon Finder, which makes it easier to find players who want to tank, and even let players level up using a dedicated tank spec. In Cataclysm, we are introducing the concept of passive talent tree bonuses and we think that feature is a lot stronger when the talent tree has a particular focus (such as damage, tanking or healing). For example, it's safer to give more passive damage to a tanking tree than we can a dps tree. Above all, we were just spending a lot of effort trying to balance three trees (though it was really six trees, since each tree was trying to do two things).

It started to feel unfair to the other tank classes that we had to spend so much effort tweaking three types of DK tanks, and it even started to feel unfair to the DK that we couldn't focus their tanking experience. One bit of feedback that really struck home was the DK players who said, essentially, "I look at the Protection tree and I'm jealous of all of the cool tools they have to help their tanking. As a DK, I have to pick and choose tanking talents from within a sea of dps talents." Rather than have a strong focus, the trees felt a little watered down because they were trying to do so much. With Frost as a dual-wield, spell and runic power focused tree, Unholy as a disease and minion focused tree, and Blood as a self-healing, defensive cooldown, tanking tree, we think the focus of each tree is a lot clearer and cooler.

In Cataclysm, Blood will be the death knight version of a Protection tree. It will have passive talent tree bonuses that reflect tanking. It will have tools, such as a Demo Shout equivalent, necessary for tanking. Several of the more fun tanking talents from Frost and Unholy will be moved into Blood. We will be able to revise (or even remove) clunky mechanics like Rune Strike and focus on letting DKs generate threat with their normal Blood tanking rotation.

This is major change, and we understand it will be met with some disappointment from players who really liked the flexibility, those who appreciated the unorthodox talent tree design, or those few of you who really liked Blood dps. Nevertheless, we are convinced that this is the right change for the game.

More exciting death knight news coming up soon in the preview.

If the shards simple appear between combats then Warlock regen techniques are going to be hilarious.  I hope they're accounting for it.

It will also make never-ending streams of adds very frustrating.

Glyph of Death and Decay 2.0?  :ye_gods:

The shards aren't carried in your bag anymore.  There are three that are tracked under your health bar like DK runes.

Yes.  That's not what I'm really talking about though.  If just breaking combat and entering again refills your shard count, Warlocks will do whatever they can to refresh them.  "Pardon me guys while I run half-way out of the instance!  Don't die."  Or get caught in situations where they need to, but keep getting aggro, so they cannot refresh them.

Conceptually it's an interesting idea, however "a combat" can last anywhere from one hit to twenty minutes.  It's a terrible metric for determining resource management, especially if it's going to be their special mechanic.

Looks decent.  I especially like the chance to give the shaman some viable melee early on.   Damn it all, all this Cataclysm talk is going to make me resub to WoW, I know it.

Still scares the hell out of me. So now we have a retro SS? I mean, I seem to recall when I was leveling up my draenei shaman that killing stuff--even without SS--wasn't exactly difficult. This is par with giving us new SS icons and calling it an improvement.

I dunno. Expansions should be something new and exciting to look forward to. As a shaman, all I feel is fear and loathing. At least DKs are taking one in the shorts. Oh, and still no answer on dealing with rogues and their never-to-be-sufficiently-damned poisons that I'll no longer be able to dispell. I have heard there are changes to the stun mechanics, so hopefully some relief will be found there. Maybe.

Still scares the hell out of me. So now we have a retro SS? I mean, I seem to recall when I was leveling up my draenei shaman that killing stuff--even without SS--wasn't exactly difficult. This is par with giving us new SS icons and calling it an improvement.

I dunno. Expansions should be something new and exciting to look forward to. As a shaman, all I feel is fear and loathing. At least DKs are taking one in the shorts. Oh, and still no answer on dealing with rogues and their never-to-be-sufficiently-damned poisons that I'll no longer be able to dispell. I have heard there are changes to the stun mechanics, so hopefully some relief will be found there. Maybe.

Haste will no longer act to reduce the DoT's duration, but rather to add additional ticks. When reapplying a DoT, you can no longer "clip" the final tick. Instead, this will just add duration to the spell, similar to how Everlasting Affliction currently works.

Man, I hate this. I'm guessing it's across the board. Bye, bye newfound awesomeness :( And not being able to clip dots takes away a considerable ammount of what's fun about playing a dot class.  :heartbreak:

They better deliver on the utility side of that new nuke for shadowpriests! If it's x cast time, does y dmg I'll be very disappointed :(

Man, I hate this. I'm guessing it's across the board. Bye, bye newfound awesomeness :( And not being able to clip dots takes away a considerable ammount of what's fun about playing a dot class.  :heartbreak:

They better deliver on the utility side of that new nuke for shadowpriests! If it's x cast time, does y dmg I'll be very disappointed :(

Priests get life grip? Srsly?! :why_so_serious:

It's SO not going to make it past beta. Even if they tack restrictions onto it (group/raid only, have to opt-in to be a possible life grip target) it is going to be ridiculous...

edit: although... Recall Friend in COH isn't so bad

Leap of Faith (level 85): Pull a party or raid member to your location. Leap of Faith (or "Life Grip") is intended to give priests a tool to help rescue fellow players who have pulled aggro, are being focused on in PvP, or just can't seem to get out of the fire in time. Instant. 30-yard range. 45-second cooldown.

That isn't really true anymore, they changed the regen rates under level 15. You pretty much can't OOM in the first 10 levels at all.

If the shards simple appear between combats then Warlock regen techniques are going to be hilarious.  I hope they're accounting for it.

It will also make never-ending streams of adds very frustrating.

I think the PvP uses are pretty obvious.

In PvE I can see it useful in the same way that Intervene is (or Nitro Boots).  Also, like Intervene with Warbringer, it should let you get people out of inopportune CCs (like getting feared into fire).  More advanced uses would be letting one of your awesome-o melee DPS stay in for a few extra seconds and then snatching them out of an AOE.  It's not revolutionary, but I think I will find a use for it every few boss fights.

If anything, I'm glad it's not a long-cooldown panic button like Divine Hymn/Hymn of Hope and more a situationally awesome spell like Mass Dispel.

Posted WHERE ?

I'm clearly missing something.

We've seen some confusion about Mind Spike. The intention is that you can’t always get your full DoTs up on a target in time before it’s dead. Shadow priests sometimes aren’t sure what to do on, for example, a fight where a boss suddenly spawns an add that you’re supposed to quickly burn down and then go back to the main boss. Mind Spike is what you do to that add. As a rule of thumb, if it’s going to die in under 15 seconds, then go with Mind Spike. Otherwise get your DoTs up and go into your longer rotation.

The movement speed from Inner Will stacks with the boot speed bonus. It won’t stack with some movement buffs like say Body and Soul.

We know a lot of people are looking for answers about Lightwell. We're reviewing the talent and spell functionality, but do not have any details to share as of yet regarding its future.

Prot Warriors don't seem to be getting as much only because the Prot Warrior tree is already the prototype for the new style of Cata talent tree.




Life Grip will be fine for PvE, they'll make it group/raid only and the novelty of screwing with your raidmates will wear off in a week or two.



PvP is where it will live or die.

The reasoning behind removing divine spirit is pretty wonky. As a raid-wide buff it's already useless to 3/4 or more of most raids. The argument that it makes it too hard to balance mana regen between solo, group and raid play is retarded, since I don't see how 80 spirit makes or breaks anything. I don't see any changes to Fel Intel either so...

Just some more of GC's half-baked logic I guess.

The reasoning behind removing divine spirit is pretty wonky. As a raid-wide buff it's already useless to 3/4 or more of most raids. The argument that it makes it too hard to balance mana regen between solo, group and raid play is retarded, since I don't see how 80 spirit makes or breaks anything. I don't see any changes to Fel Intel either so...

Just some more of GC's half-baked logic I guess.

I think you're crossing up your 'how spirit works now' with 'how spirit will work in the expansion'. It seems likely to me that replenishment and blessing of wisdom will also get nerfed/changed so mana regen is more of a constant based on your gear level.

I guess I'll wait and see if they axe BoW too. The issue I take is the notion that they can't balance around the presence or absence of a buff. They manage to do it fine at the moment, with the exception of Heroism there's really no must-have buff. I'm just astonished that they think a single buff will make a night-and-day difference.

Beyond replenishment as Fordel mentions, sunder armor comes to mind (another one they're nerfing for the same reason.)

Speaking as a priest....gripping someone to their death will NEVER get old.

Shaman changes seem intensive. I sort of dig the whole primal strike thing, though I'm a little confused why they're getting another good raid heal. Was Chain Heal starting to show weaknesses in the high end, or is it being heavily altered to be situational? I mean, I guess they can go the priest route and have tons of AE heals lying around in a back pocket, it'll make them more fun to heal with.

Outbreak will be convenient but with that one minute cooldown I don't know if it'll really accomplish what their hoping it'll accomplish.  Same with the change to runes.  Maybe it's my spec or my playstyle, but I'm rarely having to rely just on autoattacking while waiting for runes to refresh so at best the change to runes won't really make any difference.  At worst it'll do the opposite of what they hope.  We'll have to see when playtesting starts.

I don't have problems either.  For the brief moment my runes are on cooldown I'm casting Death Coil.  I never feel like I'm wasting my resources. 

If I am trying to front load threat, which I sometimes do believe it or not, I drop D&D and howling blast, but then I cannot plague strike until a rune comes back, which drives me goddamn crazy.

The real question is: will Smoke Bomb work to stop that Priest in your group from Life Gripping you?  :why_so_serious:

The biggest thing of all, though:

WHIRLWIND NO LONGER HAS A TARGET CAP. Capped at 50% damage, sure, but STILL FUCKING WORTH IT.

They might rename the presences, my biggest gripe is addressed. 

I realized why I hated it.. I'm that fucking OCD.

EDIT: Vengeance sounds like a good idea, but the Charge meets TC is kinda weird. How many more Charge abilities do we need?

Not to mention, that it is also going to be a "safety blanket for dumbasses" that i guarantee will cause everyone too stupid to move out of fire to immediately attempt to shift blame to the priest for not Lifegripping their dumabsses to safety.

Life Grip is going to cause SOOO many bitch posts when it goes live.   I can completely see priests Life Gripping Mele Dps off a target just for shits and giggles.  Not to mention, that it is also going to be a "safety blanket for dumbasses" that i guarantee will cause everyone too stupid to move out of fire to immediately attempt to shift blame to the priest for not Lifegripping their dumabsses to safety.

Sup dawg.  We put a Charge in your Charge so you can pull while you pull.   :awesome_for_real:

EDIT: Vengeance sounds like a good idea, but the Charge meets TC is kinda weird. How many more Charge abilities do we need?

I always thought Mana for hunters was ultra retarded anyway.  Glad it's changing.

Hunters get stealth  :oh_i_see:

This is a really bad nerf IMO. I really can't think of that many situation requiring you to mass AOE stuff to make up for the loss of damage. And the AOE damage cap of 10 targets still applies, I'd assume?

If they do this, WW is pretty much pushed off the rotation for fury. You're just going to spam BT/Slam and Execute II (formerly known as Heroic Strike)

My first reaction to this was "Dem Hibbies are back."  :uhrr:

Damn.. I might have to start playing my hunter again.  I like the changes they're doing here a lot more.   I think you'll find that Mana to Focus (with SS/ CS giving you increased focus generation) will probably give you more resources over time to work with than mana does.  That equates to better DPS. I'm sure someone at EJ is/ has crunched the numbers and will post a treatise on it shortly.

If I have to keep some Focus in reserve "just in case", then I might as well have a shorter Focus bar. I've never raided as a rogue, so I don't know if this is an issue they face right now or not. I do know that rogues have ways to regain focus, uh, energy, aside from just waiting.

I like the explaination of the DK rune changes.  It was apparent at the beginning it would slow-down DK's ability to pump out damage and slow down the hits they could ot.

So.. yet again.. druid buffs.

Fuck me I should just level one and get it over with. They're already at the top in DPS and tanking with minimal gear changes, now healing gets to use offensive abilities without losing healing prowess?  Fuck me.   

now healing gets to use offensive abilities without losing healing prowess?  Fuck me.

Additionally, we would like to update the Tree of Life model so that it feels more exciting when you do decide to go into that form. Our feeling is that druids rarely actually get to show off their armor, so it would be nice to have at least one spec that looked like a night elf or tauren (and soon troll or worgen) for most of the time.

This is what I was trying to get at but doing a piss poor job of getting across.  I get that the Devs view an unused rune as potential damage that's 'wasted'.  What I'm not getting across I guess is I like always having a button to push every GCD.  I like the option of having a choice between which button to push depending on circumstance (procs are a good example, but not the only one).  By constraining runes in such a way that they aren't 'wasted' it could mean more standing around autoattacking, which I hate.  Feral Druids have that problem of having to stand around autoattacking while energy builds up.  It's the reason I've been playing my DK so much more than my Druid.  My worry is DKs are pushed to feeling more like a Rogue or Feral Druid when the reason I play one is because it currently doesn't feel like a Rogue or Feral Druid.  I have a Feral Druid and a Rogue already for when I want to play that way.

The Burnout talent will allow mages to cast spells using health when they run out of mana.

In other news, mages get bloodlust.

Time Warp (level 83): Grants a passive Haste effect much like Bloodlust or Heroism to party or raid members. It also temporarily increases the mage's own movement speed. Time Warp will be exclusive with Bloodlust and Heroism, meaning you can’t benefit from both if you’ve got the Exhaustion debuff, though the movement-speed increase will still work even when under the effects of Exhaustion.

 :oh_i_see:

Arc mages, resto shams, and resto druids got the shaft on masteries.

This is what I was trying to explain in IRC yesterday.  Even though I had Sjofn's rune-starvation problems when I tried Frost, in Blood it seems I have the same feeling as you.  I'm almost always able to hit the button when I want and I like having a bit in reserve to do so.

Arc mages, resto shams, and resto druids got the shaft on masteries.

That depends largely on where the "base level damage" for an arcane mage falls in their "percentage of total mana".  If arc mages are balanced around the assumption that they will always be sitting at 50% mana, and being higher then that is a damage increase, it will probably be a buff (assuming new mana management tools make it easier for them to stay at 75%+ mana).  If they are balanced around the idea that they will always be sitting at 90% mana, then they are getting the shaft.  Only time will tell.

I actually quite like the Resto Shaman mastery. Its more interesting than either the Disc or Holy masteries for priest.

The druid one is the worst, though. If someone is near death a HoT is not the solution.

Not in today's environment, but it will be good in Cataclysm's.

Doesn't matter. Every other mastery rewards you for pressing the buttons you would be pressing anyway. Arc is the only dps that gets actively punished for pressing too many buttons. Kind of blows their whole "dps shouldn't have to manage mana" thing out of the water.

That's a big assumption. They have said that mana at low levels won't be a problem which translates into gibberish when you're trying to connect that to high level fights.  I'm hesistant to guess so blatantly as you but I'm going to imagine out of combat mana regen is getting a big buff while in combat is going to play a lot tighter.

The intent behind Mana Adapt (Arcane mastery) is that Arcane currently has a pretty fun mana management game going, at least at relatively high level. We thought it would be fun to extend that concept even further to where Arcane mages that use the mechanics to keep their mana high would do higher dps. I find many of the predictions that Arcane is doomed in PvE based on the very limited information you have at the moment to be quite premature.

Now, having said all that, we suspect you will AE less often in Cataclysm. You'll CC more and you'll burn targets down one at a time more often. But that just means all classes will do less damge with AEs.

I don't know... I like having it on 10m cooldown, but having 3 druids in a 10 man raid and people doing stupid shit to get themselves killed sure makes me wish there was a way to punish them harder for it.  Not sure a 30 minute cooldown is the way to accomplish that though.

Hidden in the answer to a question about Fan of Knives:


So less AoE, more CC and more single target burning down.

Hidden in the answer to a question about Fan of Knives:


So less AoE, more CC and more single target burning down.

Lantyssa, the problem was actually the opposite effect. "Fuck, we used Brez on that attempt. Everyone fuck off for 25m until it's back up."

Either way the result hurts enjoyment of the game.  It's not like using it kills a kitten, so I'm not sure what experience it's supposed to improve.

"LF MAGE TO RUN HEROIC, PST"

Because that was so much fun in BC, watching a number of classes sit on the sidelines because they had no reliable CC.

Everyone will still prefer Mage cc for the same reason they did in BC.  Instantly Recastable, totally predictable and always available.

About time mages became useful for something again.  I swear I am one of 2 mages in my entire guild and I rarely ever see them anywhere on the raiding scene or PVP scene.

Everyone will still prefer Mage cc for the same reason they did in BC.  Instantly Recastable, totally predictable and always available.

About time mages became useful for something again.  I swear I am one of 2 mages in my entire guild and I rarely ever see them anywhere on the raiding scene or PVP scene.

Mages are possibly the most highly desired DPS class in raids due to high threat control, manageable mana, and ridiculous ability to burn shit down during Heroism/Bloodlust.

Until you need to sheep some undead at least.  :why_so_serious:

There's no spot in ICC where you should be using shackle undead, like ever. Don't let anyone tell you different :)

Everyone will still prefer Mage cc for the same reason they did in BC.  Instantly Recastable, totally predictable and always available.

Focus down lich, aoe the rest. That's how we do it, never had a problem. And our tanks like to do some crazy pulls out of boredom :)

Shaman can Hex now.  So... two classes maybe?

Man, I'm glad.  I remember first running Magisters Terrace.  It took time.  You had to mark, plan, CC, and execute.  Or they monkeystomped you.  Good times.

These days I mark my target, grab the rest and taunt as needed.

Bullshit.  People go where the purples are, the new icc 5mans are proof that people will do harder dungeons if the reward is in place.

People avoided the bulk of the BC heroics because the drops, reputation rewards, and badges were all rubbish for the effort involved.  Instead, they just farmed Karazahn every week until they had no need for T6-level gear.

Now, no one does Naxxramas except for the Raid Weekly and they just run Random Heroics instead.

People avoided the bulk of the BC heroics because the drops, reputation rewards, and badges were all rubbish for the effort involved.  Instead, they just farmed Karazahn every week until they had no need for T6-level gear.

Now, no one does Naxxramas except for the Raid Weekly and they just run Random Heroics instead.

It looks like they want to try to make even five man groups have a complete suite of abilities and buffs that they can count on and balance around.  I just hope to hell that means the heroics are heroic ala BC and not the snooze-fest they have been in LK.  I wanna see people sapping, fear chaining, frost nova-ing, mind controlling, trapping, entangling, and all that other stuff that's been dead with this expanion being required.  With the level cap only going up by five I see no reason to spend time balancing any new dungeons for sub-85 activity.

While we're reminiscing about BC heroics, I have to add an obligatory fuck-you to all boglord type mobs that 1-shot undergeared tanks like nothing (steamvault, double giant pull in underbog) and the first boss of heroic crypts which was a middle finger to healers with no instacast heals.

If the rewards were worth it, people wouldn't have minded the difficulty.

If Blizzard goes back to the awesome of BC heroics, I won't bother.  

Can't pay attention when you never see the inside of the place.

Hell, I never saw MT until I was 80. You couldn't buy a group with Thai gold back in TBC as enhance. More to the point, I don't trust Blizzard enough not to fuck up shaman--enhance in particular--again to the point no one will have you in groups. We're already there--again--in heroic raid raid content. The CC travesty in TBC was simply another illustration of this.

So, no, I don't have fluffy warm memories of MT runs or the epic level of CC skill displayed by mages or whothehellever in TBC heroics, since I saw a grand total of two in two years.

Having said that, Retribution does pretty well in Battlegrounds, and Battlegrounds will be a much bigger focus in Cataclysm since they can provide the best PvP rewards.

I saw a lot of Magister's, but hated healing it because, you know, holy paladin.  KT in particular was awesome, I generally could not keep the entire group alive.

Probably the strangest part about Kael in MrT, is past a certain point, my Balance Druid could solo it.

I look at the paladin changes and think "so they're giving paladins a gimmicky group heal, nerfing Bacon, and deciding what paladins really needed was a BIGGER single target heal"

Also, lawl at the rotation commentary hidden in there. Yeah, you pretty much just press whatever button is lit up once your rotation is going.

Eh, the only group heal that isn't gimmicky is Prayer of Healing. It's at least vaguely interesting.

Prayer, Circle of Healing, Divine Hymn (unless a cooldown is gimmicky)

Really, the only thinks I consider to be gimmicky AE heals are things like healing stream (nice in some situations, but not a full heal), that silly splash healing from Paladins, and Holy Nova.

You know, things Not Actually Used To Heal Raids Normally, because their requirements for use are more complicated than "point heal, click"

I mean honestly, what's so wrong with giving Holy Paladins a deep ranged AE smartheal.

EDIT: Even better, I'll let them die and if they give me lip for it, even though they died because they're too stupid to avoid the GIANT ORBZ OF DOOM, I'll TELL them I let them die because they're morons.

I had a H-FoS the other day where some hunter stood in the purple circle on the Devourer and dropped dead after about 10 seconds.  When he complained, the healer (I think it was a shaman) just said, "I can't heal stupidity."    :heart:

Well, Paladins are now off the short list of classes that didn't have some form of pet.

When he complained, the healer (I think it was a shaman) just said, "I can't heal stupidity."

Yah, I did that once or twice.  When I could actually get a heroic group as a boomkin.  I lot of priests I knew ended up doing this as well.

I've been soloing Kael on my DK for the mount.  So just a bunch of blood elf disguises. /sadf.

And I'm not entirely sure how you're using "niches" but I am talking about wanting Prot paladins to use slightly different rotations against single targets than against groups. The addition of Crusader Strike (and maybe Holy Shock?) alone start to provide that.

Neither will hit hard enough.  One scales off of spell power, one scales off of weapon damage.

The current baseline abilities scale off of AP and Spellpower.  Holy Shock is currently SP only.

If Crusader Strike remains weapon damage it will be a balancing nightmare if they simply toss some "CS does x% more" talents into the tree, because the range of speeds for 1h weapons is commonly from 1.6 to 2.6.  Tanks with tank weapons will be gimp, while tanks with rogue weapons will be ridiculous.  This is why I like the Bloodthirst / Hammer of the Righteous approaches to calculating damage.

Of course, all of this is theoretical, but I would expect them to announce any massive changes to calculating instant attacks with the stat overhaul stuff.

Didn't they normalize all the weapon speeds on special attack calculations like an expansion ago?

Vashj'ir is a level 78-82 zone in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm where players will be called to explore the depths of the Great Sea

Wheee... underwater zone.  Ugh, how I hate the underwater "experience"... still scarred from TOA.

The word at Blizzcon was that it won't be TOA-style, as you'll be able to 'walk' on the bottom and swimming movement will be more akin to how flight is done in the game (including mounts, which I think will be provided.)

Still not cool. No Z axis fights. NONE! Why would I want that in raiding? It never works out well when positioning is already a giant problem with 75% of the playerbase.

You know they'll try to pull that Malygos bullshit again. Designers never mentally let go how much the players really really really hated that shit even though Blizzard thought it was fantastic design.

Again, they seemed to me to be taking particular pains to indicate that things were not going to be bad in that way.

It won't be Malygos.. it'll be Kedge Keep!   :why_so_serious:

Didn't they normalize all the weapon speeds on special attack calculations like an expansion ago?

Any movement, especially in combat, that requires looking up is going to suck.  The whole game is designed around looking down at your character from an over-the-shoulder view.  That, imo, is what took Malygos and Occulus from "oh look, another shitty vehicle fight" to "fuck no, I am never going back to that place again ever."

[...]

BTW, if you're going to do water, I want boats. I want more boat to boat combat. I want personal pvp boats with pirate hats and parrots.

You shut your whore mouth.

I have seen the future.. and it's bleak.

Fuck, you can already aggro shit through the walls/ floors/ ceiling if you 'oopsie' an AOE.. I fully expect the same in an 'underwater' zone.

WITHOUT doing a "cold weather flying"-type cock block.

There are a lot of concerns here (some colored in past experiences elsewhere) that are coloring a few perceptions of what we intend to do with the underwater experience.

Underwater travel and combat mechanics” do NOT mean any of the following:

• Running out of breath and drowning.
• Moving very slowly.
• Getting disoriented in a 3D space.
• Having a naga hit you with a Frostbolt and having no idea where it is.

You will not be entering this area unprepared nor do we intend to make the experience tedious, confusing, disorienting, or frustrating. We want to give you a true under sea adventure. You may end up dying though due to playing tourist in the beautiful new environs though, but don't blame us for that!

Posted today.

I think vehicles suffered from over implementation. They went a little crazy at first having everything be a vehicle but I actually thought flame leviathan was a fun fight.  In small doses and without a Z axis vehicles are just dandy.

Oh for the love of GOD, fucking hated the cold weather flying crap.  HATE!

Q: Do you intend to have all 280% flying mounts scale to 310% when a 310% mount is earned, or will only purchased mounts do so?
A: Our current plan, is that in Cataclysm, you can learn a new rank of flying that lets all flying mounts move at 310% (even current 280% mounts). That will probably be as fast as mounts will ever get. We don’t like it that when you get a 310% mount that you stop using your old ones.

Q: If 310% speed is becoming trainable, does that mean we'll be able to fly in Azeroth from the get-go?
A: We have considered the concept of “Old Weather Flying.” Just kidding. More than likely, you’ll just be able to fly from the beginning.

Unfortunately due to the really hot ground, you will need warm weather walking, and there will be a lot of AA turrets deployed in zones lower than 85.

Honestly? I don't mind the idea of AA turrets at all, especially if they make avoiding them somehow strategic.