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Title: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Morfiend on October 12, 2006, 09:44:45 AM So, the expansion went from alpha to beta today, and they have lifted the NDA. I have been in for about a month. I love it, there is some really great stuff. The Blood Elf and Dranie starting areas are very well done.
Feel free to ask questions here and ill try and answer them. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: bhodi on October 12, 2006, 10:36:35 AM how much do rogues suck? really?
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Morfiend on October 12, 2006, 10:45:17 AM Not as much as you would think.
I havent leveled that much, but at 60 with full bloodfang (hemo specced) I can solo level 63 mobs with no downtime. The cap was recently raised to 67, so we dont know about the level 70 PVP and such yet. Its defenetly not the doom and gloom everyone is predicting on the forums. Also, it remains to be seen how the new Resiliance stat hurts us. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Morat20 on October 12, 2006, 10:47:31 AM I've seen a screenshot or two that indicates a full BM-specced pet is insane. Huge bonus to armor, damage, and surviveability. Not sure if they'll scale to raids, but apparently it's totally viable again.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Morfiend on October 12, 2006, 10:52:34 AM Hunter talents where only just implemented, like a few days before the talents where released on the main page. Yes, hunters are NASTY again. Like I said in the other thread, I really think hunters are in line for a bunch of nerfs. They are just to badass. And yes, the new BM stuff rocks.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Jobu on October 12, 2006, 11:00:06 AM How are the new stats that replace crit percentages? Does it feel nerfed?
Are the new dungeons cool? I've heard second hand rumors (a friend's guildmate said on vent...) that the loot dropping higher up is pretty nice, in some cases equivalent to MC purples. Is that true? Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Merusk on October 12, 2006, 11:12:56 AM Got any links/ pics of the new items at the higher levels? How does it actually compare to the current T1/2/3 gear vs the rampant speculation we've been giving? Noticed any significant changes due to the Stamina budget cost decrease?
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: bhodi on October 12, 2006, 11:14:38 AM (http://www.ravenillusion.com/LeaveittoLammy/WoWSS/TSU.jpg)
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Morfiend on October 12, 2006, 11:14:47 AM The loot is insane. Level 61 quests give almost MC equilivant loot. I had to stop and consider upgrading some of my teir 2 set with quest loot.
I really didnt like the first zone, Hellfire Paninsula, it feels like the Barrens+Blastlands, and is HUGE. The other zones are just awesome though. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Morfiend on October 12, 2006, 11:17:15 AM Got any links/ pics of the new items at the higher levels? How does it actually compare to the current T1/2/3 gear vs the rampant speculation we've been giving? Noticed any significant changes due to the Stamina budget cost decrease? I dont have any pics of loot, but Ill try and take some after I get the new client installed. I figure most people will have replaced the majority of their raiding gear by 65/67, but I think you could last in teir 2/3 up to 70 or so. I figure most hardcore raiders will have replaced 70% of their gear by level 70, and the reszt very soon after. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Morat20 on October 12, 2006, 11:21:19 AM Hunter talents where only just implemented, like a few days before the talents where released on the main page. Yes, hunters are NASTY again. Like I said in the other thread, I really think hunters are in line for a bunch of nerfs. They are just to badass. And yes, the new BM stuff rocks. I've wondered how much of that is real and how much is ingrained response. I know with the BM spec, there's an ingrained feel that BM-spec is inferior. It's not an "end-game" or "Raiding spec" -- pulling BM up to bar with MM post-60 might feel overpowered, but isn't. (In fact, there was one retard on the FOH boards -- a hunter, no less -- screaming because MM and Survival weren't as "improved" as BM and EVERYONE specs MM or Survival, so it was wasted effort.)But then again, until I actually see a BM-spec versus a MM spec at 60+, it's really hard to tell. I think the crit resistance thing is going to be key to whether hunters are overpowered. We have a lot of crit boosts, and a lot of procs off of crits (our or our pets) and I can't tell how big a difference crit-resistance is going to make for that. I do think perma-frenzied .54 speed pets are going to rape casters in PvP unless there's some jewels to resist spell interruption. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: bhodi on October 12, 2006, 11:24:56 AM Druids got some SERIOUS loving, especially moonkin. The talent tree changes were everything they hoped for, and more. I hope rogues get the same...
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Driakos on October 12, 2006, 11:55:09 AM how much do rogues suck? really? I was depressed when I first got my rogue copied over to the Alpha server. The first thing I did was spec 41 in combat, and run out to Hellfire. The very first mob I fought, when I hit Gouge, dodged it. I hearthed back to Ironforge, and respecced to Mutilate. /bugged Surprise Attacks. They've fixed it since. Was just funny that the very first chance Surprise attacks had, it failed. People are SkyIsFalling the Rogue situation. I just wish the Combat and Sub 41's were more enticing. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Driakos on October 12, 2006, 12:02:40 PM How are the new stats that replace crit percentages? Does it feel nerfed? Are the new dungeons cool? I've heard second hand rumors (a friend's guildmate said on vent...) that the loot dropping higher up is pretty nice, in some cases equivalent to MC purples. Is that true? I've only run Hellfire Ramparts and The Slave Pens (Coilfang Reservoir). Hellfire Ramparts felt like doing a beefed up wing of Scarlet Monastery. It was short. Fight evil orcs up and down the walls. Then 3 bosses in quick succession. Nice loot. The Slave Pens had some interesting fights from the trash mobs. Different types of naga, throwing different spells. Some packs would have a Mind Controller. Some packs would Frost Nova, run and nuke from a distance. Some packs would Fear and DoT. Didn't see much loot in here. The world drop greens are insane at the moment. I've gotten a few level 60 two-hand axes (green) that are almost as good as The Unstoppable Force. 30 less high end damage, but same min damage, and better stats. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Driakos on October 12, 2006, 12:10:55 PM Hunter talents where only just implemented, like a few days before the talents where released on the main page. Yes, hunters are NASTY again. Like I said in the other thread, I really think hunters are in line for a bunch of nerfs. They are just to badass. And yes, the new BM stuff rocks. They are definitely seem like they need a nerf. The Beast Within is an IWin button. Combine that with the passive 20% pet/hunter attack speed talent, it's lights out in PVP. The regen on pets is out of control at the moment too. I was solo'ing Dire Maul (north) with Humar (60). As long as I keep one trapped, kill the ogre mage first, the regen is so fast, they can't kill the cat. They hotfixed the health/armor scaling soon after it was patched in. Higher level hunters were rolling around with pets with insane stats. I am going to be nerfed. Shaman were nerfed about 3 weeks ago. Dual Wield Rockbiter/Windfury was brutal. Now it's been toned down to Rockbiter just adding a random amount of damage per hit (plus threat). Rockbiter no longer adds attack power. Before, I could put rockbiter on both weapons, and even with my Int/Stam gear I had 2.2k attack power. Windfury procs two extra hits, but they are Yellow Damage/specials. They wont proc enchantments or weapon effects. Double Flametongue weapons seem best for sustained DPS now. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Morat20 on October 12, 2006, 12:33:01 PM They are definitely seem like they need a nerf. The Beast Within is an IWin button. Combine that with the passive 20% pet/hunter attack speed talent, it's lights out in PVP. The regen on pets is out of control at the moment too. I was solo'ing Dire Maul (north) with Humar (60). As long as I keep one trapped, kill the ogre mage first, the regen is so fast, they can't kill the cat. Only against a moron. Any ability is an IWIN against those. All you have to do is make him move. Get into his deadzone, get out of his range, whatever. Our DPS -- even with the TBW buff -- on the move is totally crappy. Deliberately so. The Serpent Speed talent is good -- I expect that one to get toned down a bit, actually -- but really a BM specced hunter is only going to be a problem for casters in PvP -- too much spell interrupts. Warlocks should still be able to load us with enough DoTs to make it mutual destruction, and warriors should still be able to close and just eat us alive (no more FD/trap, and trap is a 1.5 second interruptable cast). If you're BM specced to get TBW, you have no scattershot or improved wingclip. All you have is the pet's intimidate. And I don't care how buff me and my pet are with TBW, we still suck in melee and aren't plate-wearers. Pet health shouldn't regen in combat -- focus regen should be insane with the right stats (100% bonus for improved regen, and 50 focus for each crit with Go for the Throat). I'd prefer to see what a MM or Survival specced hunter can do first -- they have even nastier PvP tricks than a BM. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Morat20 on October 12, 2006, 12:38:25 PM I'd really also like to hear from other classes -- so far one of the Hunters in alpha has been pretty talky, but I haven't seen as much out of other classes. Everything looks overpowered for people used to level 60 -- from the descriptions I've heard, it seems like it's back to the pre-60 levels -- I used to offtank everything but bosses with my BM pet before level 60. (And even some bosses, depending). That we can do it again isn't surprising. I suspect the pet scaling is twitchy as hell.
If you're an seriously geared hunter, your pet is going to be seriously geared as well -- even if it's lower level than you. (Other than hitpoints). It ought to make leveling up a lower level pet easier, though. When your pet was tanking DM North, what level were you? What's your gear like? I do agree -- Hunters are going to get some nerfs. (They already have, actually -- some of the recent changes toned down some of it). I don't think TBW is going to be changed, I suspect Serpent's Speed will have only minimal changes, and I suspect pet scaling will remain roughly as it is. I think the new status quo about pets is that Hunter level is just as important as pet level in terms of their abilities. I certainly hope a few other classes get some more buffs. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Chenghiz on October 12, 2006, 12:43:47 PM Is it confirmed that traps have a cast time?
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Morat20 on October 12, 2006, 12:47:27 PM Is it confirmed that traps have a cast time? I think so. 1.5 seconds was what I heard. I look forward to the mass chaos of Viper traps (although that'll just make poison-cleansing totems that much more useful). Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Driakos on October 12, 2006, 12:52:47 PM Only against a moron. Any ability is an IWIN against those. All you have to do is make him move. Get into his deadzone, get out of his range, whatever. Our DPS -- even with the TBW buff -- on the move is totally crappy. Deliberately so. Wing Clip, and moving works great. They can't slow you down with anything. The Serpent Speed talent is good -- I expect that one to get toned down a bit, actually -- but really a BM specced hunter is only going to be a problem for casters in PvP -- too much spell interrupts. Warlocks should still be able to load us with enough DoTs to make it mutual destruction, and warriors should still be able to close and just eat us alive (no more FD/trap, and trap is a 1.5 second interruptable cast). If you're BM specced to get TBW, you have no scattershot or improved wingclip. All you have is the pet's intimidate. And I don't care how buff me and my pet are with TBW, we still suck in melee and aren't plate-wearers. Intimidate works well enough. Freezing trap, frost trap, explosion trap don't have cast times (at least a week ago). I haven't tried other traps, nor leveled high enough to get some of the new ones. You can use them in combat. Pet health shouldn't regen in combat -- focus regen should be insane with the right stats (100% bonus for improved regen, and 50 focus for each crit with Go for the Throat). My pet is pretty indestructable at the moment to a single melee target (often more). The regen definitely needs to be fixed. I haven't played in a week on BC, might be reduced already. I /dueled a Shaman, told the cat to attack, and had the Shaman try to kill it. He couldn't. Shaman was 61, Pet was 60. Pet would get down to around a quarter life sometimes, if he got enough crits at once (or fire nova went off simultaneously with windfury). Pet would just regen a huge chunk of life. I'd prefer to see what a MM or Survival specced hunter can do first -- they have even nastier PvP tricks than a BM. Yes, there's all kinds of fun stuff in the other trees as well. The Beast Within is still stupid good at the moment. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Morat20 on October 12, 2006, 01:04:26 PM Wing Clip, and moving works great. They can't slow you down with anything. Wing clip is one of the weakest snares in the game. I don't think you can spec 41 in BM and still get improved wing clip -- and if you can, you give up a lot of DPS and useful stuff to do it. I might be all big and red, but once you make me move even an inch I'm stuck on arcane shot. I can't be rooted or snared for 18seconds, but you can jam up my dead zone and force me to keep moving -- I'm not going to Arcane Shot someone to death, even with a pet. Admittedly, your best bet is to simply run out of range while I blow my 18 seconds of awesome trying to keep up. Then again, my pets have dash for exactly that. I suspect the PvP tactics against BM specced hunters will consist of keeping the hunter polymorphed or feared while you nuke the pet. (Can't TBW while feared, I'm sure). Quote Intimidate works well enough. Freezing trap, frost trap, explosion trap don't have cast times (at least a week ago). I haven't tried other traps, nor leveled high enough to get some of the new ones. Cooldown on intimidate is too long, and traps should have cast times. If they don't, then that's probably going to change. Quote My pet is pretty indestructable at the moment to a single melee target (often more). The regen definitely needs to be fixed. I haven't played in a week on BC, might be reduced already. I /dueled a Shaman, told the cat to attack, and had the Shaman try to kill it. He couldn't. Shaman was 61, Pet was 60. Pet would get down to around a quarter life sometimes, if he got enough crits at once (or fire nova went off simultaneously with windfury). Pet would just regen a huge chunk of life. What level are you? Still, that does seem broken -- perhaps the pet health regen isn't working right in combat. Health regen in combat is called "heal pet". Quote Yes, there's all kinds of fun stuff in the other trees as well. The Beast Within is still stupid good at the moment. I think that's just because TBW is pretty obvious. Some of the other nasty tricks are either more complicated ("This plus this and that") or situational, or depend on stuff that's not known. (Like how good the Warlock's new pets are, or the Ice Mage's pet, etc). If the 'lock pets are as good as mine, I'm still dead versus a 'lock. If the Mage's pet is decent, he can probably tie up my pet and actually do better against me than a fire spec -- especially as I won't have Hawk's Eye anymore.I think that the biggest change here is that pet's look to be moving from "tiny and ignorable DoT" to "serious issue". Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Xanthippe on October 12, 2006, 01:31:35 PM Nice to hear hunters get a boost. Hope the incoming nerfage isn't overkill.
As far as equipment scalability goes, currently warriors seem to benefit far, far more from being OP with great kit than hunters do. Does that hold in BC as well? Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Driakos on October 12, 2006, 01:59:07 PM Wing clip is one of the weakest snares in the game. I don't think you can spec 41 in BM and still get improved wing clip -- and if you can, you give up a lot of DPS and useful stuff to do it. I might be all big and red, but once you make me move even an inch I'm stuck on arcane shot. I can't be rooted or snared for 18seconds, but you can jam up my dead zone and force me to keep moving -- I'm not going to Arcane Shot someone to death, even with a pet. Admittedly, your best bet is to simply run out of range while I blow my 18 seconds of awesome trying to keep up. Then again, my pets have dash for exactly that. I suspect the PvP tactics against BM specced hunters will consist of keeping the hunter polymorphed or feared while you nuke the pet. (Can't TBW while feared, I'm sure). Arcane shot is a lot better. It's a lot more expensive, but it's better. It scales in damage based on your Ranged Attack Power now. Not really viable to kill somebody unless they let you kite them. What level are you? Still, that does seem broken -- perhaps the pet health regen isn't working right in combat. Health regen in combat is called "heal pet". It has to be broken. It is just too much at the moment. My hunter is only level 61, pet is still 60. I think that's just because TBW is pretty obvious. Some of the other nasty tricks are either more complicated ("This plus this and that") or situational, or depend on stuff that's not known. (Like how good the Warlock's new pets are, or the Ice Mage's pet, etc). If the 'lock pets are as good as mine, I'm still dead versus a 'lock. If the Mage's pet is decent, he can probably tie up my pet and actually do better against me than a fire spec -- especially as I won't have Hawk's Eye anymore. I think that the biggest change here is that pet's look to be moving from "tiny and ignorable DoT" to "serious issue". The Ice Elemental is a lot better than it was. You had to tell it to cast Frost Bolt each time. It had a reagent, and a summon time. Now it is instant cast, no reagent, but only lasts for 45s. It will auto attack with Frost Bolts though. The best part, is you can tell it where to Frost Nova, like with a Flamestrike cursor. So you have the elemental Frost Nova at range, and go go Ice Lance spam. Frost mages are going to be rough(er) in PVP. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Morat20 on October 12, 2006, 02:15:20 PM It has to be broken. It is just too much at the moment. My hunter is only level 61, pet is still 60. That health regen does sound broken. Did you have spirit bond in your spec? That's the only health regen pets should get in combat, and that's (maxed) 2% per 10 seconds. Fully buffed at 60, I've got maybe 5k health -- so we're talking 100 health every 10 seconds, or 10 health a tick. Shouldn't be enough to overcome a shaman.Has to be a bug. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Jobu on October 12, 2006, 04:07:41 PM Which crafting items should we start hoarding to gouge people powerlevelling jewelcrafting or any new factions?
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Rasix on October 12, 2006, 04:09:31 PM Anyone have experience with the new honor revamp. IE using honor to purchase gear rather than ranks determining what you can buy? I can't seem to find any info on it. Maybe it's not even BC item, but I thought it was.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Merusk on October 12, 2006, 04:12:15 PM Which crafting items should we start hoarding to gouge people powerlevelling jewelcrafting or any new factions? I know for certain, high level gems and raw ores. Last rumor was that Jewelcrafters would need 2 ore for each use of their gem-refining skill. 404 error Broken link, gives me a 404. :heartbreak: Thanks for trying though. Now that I'm home from work I can hunt around myself :-D Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Ironwood on October 13, 2006, 03:04:41 AM Hey, can you tell us about Priests in the expansion and how the whole decursing thing is working out ?
Dunno why, the question just jumped into my head this morning. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Xanthippe on October 13, 2006, 07:28:51 AM As a lazy hunter, I've yet to get my class epic bow/spear (despite having the thingie to do it). I went to Winterspring and got my ass kicked by the demon there 3x (solo). Either I'd outrun him and he'd run back or he'd get to close and demonize me. So I put it on the back burner for a while and then sorta forgot about it.
How good is that bow/spear going to be and for how long? I'm currently using a Striker's Mark and a AV spear, which, while not nearly as good, seem to be sufficient for my pvp/farming purposes. Should I even bother with the class epics? I guess the same question applies to my priest and Benediction. I've not done much of anything on her since hitting 60 other than tailoring, grinding a little rep, and doing a little pvp. She's a tailor first and a priest second. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Morat20 on October 13, 2006, 07:36:56 AM As a lazy hunter, I've yet to get my class epic bow/spear (despite having the thingie to do it). I went to Winterspring and got my ass kicked by the demon there 3x (solo). Either I'd outrun him and he'd run back or he'd get to close and demonize me. So I put it on the back burner for a while and then sorta forgot about it. I'm a bit curious too. I'm a dwarven hunter. I don't use freaking bows, dammit. I am proud that my Xbow and Bow skills are 1. I'm currently using Blastershot launcher, and I'm second in line for the leaf (we just downed Domo for the first time last week -- but frankly our strategy for that fight sucks balls, but since it finally succeeded the raid leader is going to keep using it until it becomes obvious). I'm torn on the leaf. I might take the polearm part, but the bow is iffy. I don't WANT to use a damn bow. How good is that bow/spear going to be and for how long? I'm currently using a Striker's Mark and a AV spear, which, while not nearly as good, seem to be sufficient for my pvp/farming purposes. Should I even bother with the class epics? I guess the same question applies to my priest and Benediction. I've not done much of anything on her since hitting 60 other than tailoring, grinding a little rep, and doing a little pvp. She's a tailor first and a priest second. I did see some screenies that indicate the bow is getting a boost for TBC, but that might just be the itemization changes for Hunters. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Phred on October 13, 2006, 08:41:15 AM Anyone have experience with the new honor revamp. IE using honor to purchase gear rather than ranks determining what you can buy? I can't seem to find any info on it. Maybe it's not even BC item, but I thought it was. Supposedly theres stuff on the vendors in the officer's lounge which everyone can get in now but I haven't checked it out yet. There's a ton of vendor reward stuff spread around I have seen. There's a vendor in the first hub city that has items you buy with tokens from hard mode dungeons, and honor hold, the first alliance city, has a faction vendor as well with some nice stuff. Also saw some stuff in the swamp zone (Z something, forget now) that you buy with tokens you get from doing the pvp quest. Every zone I've been in has some kind of pvp thing in it, like the towers in EPL. There's a million quests in hellfire, and the z swamp zone has a ton too. Doesn't look like I'll run out of quests while leveling. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Phred on October 13, 2006, 08:46:40 AM As a lazy hunter, I've yet to get my class epic bow/spear (despite having the thingie to do it). I went to Winterspring and got my ass kicked by the demon there 3x (solo). Either I'd outrun him and he'd run back or he'd get to close and demonize me. So I put it on the back burner for a while and then sorta forgot about it. I'm a bit curious too. I'm a dwarven hunter. I don't use freaking bows, dammit. I am proud that my Xbow and Bow skills are 1. I'm currently using Blastershot launcher, and I'm second in line for the leaf (we just downed Domo for the first time last week -- but frankly our strategy for that fight sucks balls, but since it finally succeeded the raid leader is going to keep using it until it becomes obvious). I'm torn on the leaf. I might take the polearm part, but the bow is iffy. I don't WANT to use a damn bow. How good is that bow/spear going to be and for how long? I'm currently using a Striker's Mark and a AV spear, which, while not nearly as good, seem to be sufficient for my pvp/farming purposes. Should I even bother with the class epics? I guess the same question applies to my priest and Benediction. I've not done much of anything on her since hitting 60 other than tailoring, grinding a little rep, and doing a little pvp. She's a tailor first and a priest second. I did see some screenies that indicate the bow is getting a boost for TBC, but that might just be the itemization changes for Hunters. I'm suspecting faster weapons will be as good if not better than slow ones now with all the changes they've made. As I don't have a working dps meter in beta it's impossible to say for sure but there's no more shot rotation and aimed shot is useless except as an opener. Basically you're relying on arcane shot, which doesn't seem to be effected by bow dmg at all, just atk power. Until I get steady shot at 68 it's really kind of boring after having been in the groove with a shot rotation for so long. I've banked my crossbow of smiting and dug out the qiraj musket I shelved because it used to suck. Now I get 1k crits off arcane shot it doesn't seem to suck anymore. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Merusk on October 13, 2006, 09:19:32 AM Arcane is 20% of your RAP, so yes it's unaffected by weapon speed & damage. Those stats will still affect Multishot and Aimedshot, but your bow DPS, Crit % and RAP look like your biggest concern now.
The curse gaming site has an item database at (I think) www.cursebeta.com You can mine it for info on the new bows/ guns/ etc. From the links there, it looked like the Epic bow (Upped to 54.4 DPS iirc) will last you until ~65 where it becomes comparable with blues. The X-bow of Smiting (55.6 DPS iirc) up to 67 or 68. I think most of the stuff seen has been quest and world drops, so no idea what the L70 stuff looks like, but they did have an x-bow for HWL/ GM .. I just didn't take a look because it was late when I found the thread linking me to Curse. The are 2 very large threads on the official hunter forums with all kinds of good info and links (which is where I found the curse beta site). It may be up to part 3 now, because it was P2 and 10 pages when I saw it at 10:30est last night. He discusses mainly Beast Mastery changes, but also gives some insight into the way the UI is changing for stat display and how crit/ hit rating and resiliance work. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Driakos on October 13, 2006, 10:41:03 AM I'm a bit curious too. I'm a dwarven hunter. I don't use freaking bows, dammit. I am proud that my Xbow and Bow skills are 1. I'm currently using Blastershot launcher, and I'm second in line for the leaf (we just downed Domo for the first time last week -- but frankly our strategy for that fight sucks balls, but since it finally succeeded the raid leader is going to keep using it until it becomes obvious). I'm torn on the leaf. I might take the polearm part, but the bow is iffy. I don't WANT to use a damn bow. I did see some screenies that indicate the bow is getting a boost for TBC, but that might just be the itemization changes for Hunters. There is a Hemit Nesingwary quest in Nagland that you can get at level 65. The gun (green) he rewards you with is crazy. 59DPS or something abouts. My guess is that the level 62-63 items are comparable/better than the hunter quest epic. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Phred on October 14, 2006, 06:23:04 AM I'm a bit curious too. I'm a dwarven hunter. I don't use freaking bows, dammit. I am proud that my Xbow and Bow skills are 1. I'm currently using Blastershot launcher, and I'm second in line for the leaf (we just downed Domo for the first time last week -- but frankly our strategy for that fight sucks balls, but since it finally succeeded the raid leader is going to keep using it until it becomes obvious). I'm torn on the leaf. I might take the polearm part, but the bow is iffy. I don't WANT to use a damn bow. I did see some screenies that indicate the bow is getting a boost for TBC, but that might just be the itemization changes for Hunters. There is a Hemit Nesingwary quest in Nagland that you can get at level 65. The gun (green) he rewards you with is crazy. 59DPS or something abouts. My guess is that the level 62-63 items are comparable/better than the hunter quest epic. If you can stomach xbows, which is what my dwarf hunter uses, because guns used to suck so bad, there's a quest reward xbow at L61 in hellfire. Not sure if you can get the quest earlier that's when I found the guys. It's 53 dps 2.9 speed so is pretty damn good, definately as good or better than rhok. At least an xbow looks vaguely like a gun. Plus I got to use the 18 slot quiver from the rhok quest with it which was a bonus. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Azazel on October 14, 2006, 08:08:39 AM Anyone have experience with the new honor revamp. IE using honor to purchase gear rather than ranks determining what you can buy? I can't seem to find any info on it. Maybe it's not even BC item, but I thought it was. Supposedly theres stuff on the vendors in the officer's lounge which everyone can get in now but I haven't checked it out yet. There's a ton of vendor reward stuff spread around I have seen. There's a vendor in the first hub city that has items you buy with tokens from hard mode dungeons, and honor hold, the first alliance city, has a faction vendor as well with some nice stuff. Is the existing stuff, like what's on the AV rep vendors still available? Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Phred on October 14, 2006, 09:22:48 AM Anyone have experience with the new honor revamp. IE using honor to purchase gear rather than ranks determining what you can buy? I can't seem to find any info on it. Maybe it's not even BC item, but I thought it was. Supposedly theres stuff on the vendors in the officer's lounge which everyone can get in now but I haven't checked it out yet. There's a ton of vendor reward stuff spread around I have seen. There's a vendor in the first hub city that has items you buy with tokens from hard mode dungeons, and honor hold, the first alliance city, has a faction vendor as well with some nice stuff. Is the existing stuff, like what's on the AV rep vendors still available? Havent looked sorry. Been too busy playing in Outlands. I'll check tomorrow if I remember. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Oban on October 15, 2006, 04:44:46 AM Odd question time. I know the Alliance faction I need to grind up for a flying mount is the Hinterland Dwarf (wildhammer?), but what faction offers the flying mounts for the Horde?
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Phred on October 15, 2006, 07:25:52 AM Odd question time. I know the Alliance faction I need to grind up for a flying mount is the Hinterland Dwarf (wildhammer?), but what faction offers the flying mounts for the Horde? Mounts are L70, currently beta is capped at 67. So I don't think anyone really knows atm. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Driakos on October 16, 2006, 08:20:11 AM Odd question time. I know the Alliance faction I need to grind up for a flying mount is the Hinterland Dwarf (wildhammer?), but what faction offers the flying mounts for the Horde? I'm just guessing, but if Alliance is Wildhammer, then Horde is probably Revantusk. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Xanthippe on October 16, 2006, 10:18:36 AM How do horde grind up Revantusk? Currently, I mean. (I haven't played horde side since a little past launch, so didn't even know that village was there until runnign across it recently).
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Modern Angel on October 16, 2006, 10:37:51 AM How do horde grind up Revantusk? Currently, I mean. (I haven't played horde side since a little past launch, so didn't even know that village was there until runnign across it recently). They have an absolute metric ass ton of quests there. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: MrHat on October 16, 2006, 01:26:07 PM Question that's been bothering me:
Can you access the 41-point talents at L51? Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Chenghiz on October 16, 2006, 01:33:51 PM Question that's been bothering me: Can you access the 41-point talents at L51? Yes. Has anyone confirmed that you have to grind faction for flying mounts. I get5 the feeling that's another pulled-from-ass 'fact'. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Morfiend on October 16, 2006, 01:39:45 PM Question that's been bothering me: Can you access the 41-point talents at L51? Yes. Has anyone confirmed that you have to grind faction for flying mounts. I get5 the feeling that's another pulled-from-ass 'fact'. I have heard nothing official about it, so until I do, Im going to file that under "Rumor". Also, I know they are planning on wiping rested exp for 60s, but I read in a IGN preview that there would be no more rested at all. Is this true or did some one misunderstand the "We are wiping rested exp for 60s" and think they ment totally gone. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Driakos on October 16, 2006, 02:32:47 PM Question that's been bothering me: Can you access the 41-point talents at L51? Yes. Has anyone confirmed that you have to grind faction for flying mounts. I get5 the feeling that's another pulled-from-ass 'fact'. I have heard nothing official about it, so until I do, Im going to file that under "Rumor". Also, I know they are planning on wiping rested exp for 60s, but I read in a IGN preview that there would be no more rested at all. Is this true or did some one misunderstand the "We are wiping rested exp for 60s" and think they ment totally gone. They are wiping rested for 60's. Rested itself is not gone. You'll just have to build up a new pool after launch. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Modern Angel on October 16, 2006, 03:18:06 PM It's wiped right now if you log on and check.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: caladein on October 16, 2006, 03:52:19 PM It's wiped right now if you log on and check. Aye, it was in either in the 1.12 or 1.12.1 patch that 60s no longer gain Rest XP (and all you had is now gone). Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Morat20 on October 16, 2006, 04:19:58 PM It's wiped right now if you log on and check. Aye, it was in either in the 1.12 or 1.12.1 patch that 60s no longer gain Rest XP (and all you had is now gone). Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Simond on October 16, 2006, 04:28:05 PM More changes: (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=34925108&sid=1)
Quote Warrior Spells * (NEW) Stance Mastery - “You retain up to 10 of your rage points when you change stances.” Arms * Blood Frenzy - Moved up a tier one column to the left of Mortal Strike. Now 2 ranks for 2/4%. * (NEW) Improved Mortal Strike - "Reduces the cooldown of your Mortal Strike ability by 0.2/0.4/0.6/0.8/1 sec and increases the damage it causes by 1/2/3/4/5%." * Second Wind - Reduced to 2 ranks, now "Whenever you are struck by a Stun or Immobilize effect you will generate 10/20 rage and 5/10% of your total health over 10 sec." * Endless Rage - Now a passive effect. "You generate 15% more rage from damage dealt and taken." Fury * Rampage - Rank 1 (30 AP), Rank 2 (40 AP), Rank 3 (50 AP). * Improved Berserker Stance - Now 5 ranks for 2/4/6/8/10% bonus. * Improved Pummel - Removed. * Improved Whirlwind - Now "Reduces the cooldown of your Whirlwind ability by 1/2 sec." Protection * Improved Bloodrage - Moved up one tier and generates 3/6 rage. * Improved Shield Block - Reduced to 1 rank, duration bonus increased from .5 sec to 1 sec. * Tactical Mastery - Reduced to 3 ranks. Now "You retain up to an additional 5/10/15 of your rage points when you change stances." Also see the new trainer bought spell “Stance Mastery” which gives you 10 rage retention when switching stances. * Last Stand - Cooldown reduced to 8 minutes, from 10. Rogue Combat * Blade Twisting - Moved up two tiers to one column left of Weapon Expertise. Reduced to 2 ranks for 10/20% chance to proc the daze effect. * (NEW) Combat Potency - Where Blade Twisting was. 5 ranks that "Gives your successful off-hand melee attacks a 20% chance to generate 3/6/9/12/15 Energy." Druid Restoration * Tree of Life - Now slows by 20%, changed from 50%. Paladin Holy * Lasting Judgement - Replaced with "Sanctified Light", which "Increases the critical strike chance of your Holy Light spell by 2/4/6%." * Holy Shock - Cooldown reduced to 15 seconds. Retribution * Empowered Judgement - Renamed "Sanctified Judgement". Shaman Enhancement * Stormstrike - Cooldown reduced to 10 seconds. Mana cost reduced to 277 (at level 70). Mage Arcane * Empowered Arcane Missiles - Mana cost increase is now 2/4/6%, changed from 3/6/10%. * Prismatic Cloak - Moved up a tier to the left of Arcane Instability and reduced to 2 ranks for 2/4%. * (NEW) Spell Power - Where Prismatic Cloak was. "Increases critical strike damage bonus of all spells by 25/50%." * Slow - Changed to "Reduces target's movement speed by 50%, increases the time between ranged attacks by 50% and increases casting time by 50%. Lasts 15 sec. Slow can only affect one target at a time." Hunter Survival * Hawk Eye - Moved to first tier, where Deflection was. * Deflection - Moved to second tier, where Savage Strikes was. * Savage Strikes - Moved to first tier, to the right of where Hawk Eye was moved to. LFG system (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/townhall/lookingforgroup.html) (at long bloody last). Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: lamaros on October 16, 2006, 05:33:02 PM LFG system (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/townhall/lookingforgroup.html) (at long bloody last). Amen. I hope they fired the guy who came up with meeting stones too. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Calantus on October 16, 2006, 07:07:23 PM Better yet they changed meeting stones to be actually useful. You can now use them like a warlock summoning portal and summon in party members by clicking on them.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: lamaros on October 16, 2006, 11:01:07 PM Better yet they changed meeting stones to be actually useful. You can now use them like a warlock summoning portal and summon in party members by clicking on them. Very cool. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Ironwood on October 17, 2006, 01:26:11 AM Stance Mastery.
So much for the protests that Rage Management was an integral part of playing the warrior. :roll: Edit : Actually looking at the talent calculators for Silnakh and I'm confused. I can get a nice build with a 41 pointer in Defensive, but can someone tell me what the hell Anger Management actually does now ? It's not really clear. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Typhon on October 17, 2006, 04:56:02 AM My guess is that it has two effects, one on when you are in combat, one on when you are out of combat.
Out of combat: it generates 1 rage every 3 seconds (duh), which (here's the guess) is enough to conterract the normal "out of combat" rage decay by 1/X (another guess is 1/3). So, I'm guessing that 3 rage is decayed every three seconds when out of battle. So taking anger management causes your out of combat rage to decay at 2/3s the normal rate. In combat: When in combat (and you are not decaying) you are generating 1 rage every three seconds with no decay (because you are in combat). In a tight situation, you might hamstring something and run around and wait for a mortal strike to build up (or whatever big hit you can use) because you are generating 1 rage every three seconds. [edit: because I didn't proof read my incomprehensible babble] Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Ironwood on October 17, 2006, 05:05:23 AM I see. Kinda.
I really hope they word that tooltip well ! Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Kenrick on October 17, 2006, 05:19:34 AM LFG system (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/townhall/lookingforgroup.html) (at long bloody last). Amen. I hope they fired the guy who came up with meeting stones too. funny, my ignorant ass didn't even realize this was part of the expansion. I was just whining the other day about how shitty the lfg system is in this game. Great change. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Phred on October 17, 2006, 05:54:28 AM LFG system (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/townhall/lookingforgroup.html) (at long bloody last). Amen. I hope they fired the guy who came up with meeting stones too. From the looks of it, he wrote the lfg menu too. It defaults to autojoining you to a group. And makes groups for you. Badly. Fortunately you can turn off that feature. I am not really crazy about the looking for group menu but at least it's better than what we had. Oh wait, we had nothing. Oh well. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: jpark on October 17, 2006, 06:08:30 AM Priest changes?
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Ironwood on October 17, 2006, 06:18:50 AM Into Shiny New Cassock.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Numtini on October 17, 2006, 09:55:35 AM On the LFG tool, I know that FFXI had autogrouping as well, but I never used it. But it occurs to me, is this something the Asian market wants?
I've just never understood Blizzard's devotion to this autogroup concept. It's been completely rejected by the players. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Morat20 on October 17, 2006, 10:16:51 AM On the LFG tool, I know that FFXI had autogrouping as well, but I never used it. But it occurs to me, is this something the Asian market wants? Fuckit, they should just modify CoH's LFG system and be done with it. I've just never understood Blizzard's devotion to this autogroup concept. It's been completely rejected by the players. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Chenghiz on October 17, 2006, 12:22:28 PM Rage normally decays at a rate of 3 per 3 seconds, so Anger Management's functionality hasn't really changed at all from the old wording; it's just different.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: SurfD on October 17, 2006, 03:22:28 PM Regarding Flying mounts: Guildie of mine in beta says that for the "Stock, no special consideration, flying mount" you sholuld expect to have around 5k gold on hand (to cover mount cost + riding skill cost) and is vendor purchasable at level 68 (If i rememeber correctly).
While this does seem like alot, appearently gold is very easy to come by in Expantion (guildies in beta said they made 300-400g just leveling from 60-63), and this also does not take into account the possibility of cheaper mounts through PvP / Faction / Rare drops / Quests. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Simond on October 17, 2006, 03:32:03 PM More talent changes:
Quote Warlock Spells New screenshots for Ritual of Souls, Soulshatter, Incinerate Demonology Improved Firestone - Renamed "Master Conjuror". Now "Increases the bonus Fire damage from Firestones and the Firestone effect by 15/30% and increases the spell critical strike rating bonus of your Spellstone by 15/30%." Improved Spellstone - Removed, replaced with "Demonic Knowledge". (NEW) Demonic Knowledge - 3 ranks. "Increases your spell damage by an amount equal to 5/10/15% of the total of your active demon's Stamina plus Intellect." Demonic Resilience - Now "Reduces the chance you'll be critically hit by melee and spells by 1/2/3% and reduces all damage your summoned demon takes by 5/10/15%." Fel Intellect - Now "Increases the Intellect of your Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus, Felhunter and Felguard by 5/10/15% and increases your maximum mana by 1/2/3%." Fel Stamina - Now "Increases the Stamina of your Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus, Felhunter and Felguard by 5/10/15% and increases your maximum health by 1/2/3%." Demonic Sacrifice - Added effect for Felguard: "Felguard: Increases your Shadow damage by 10% and restores 2% of total mana every 4 sec." Master Demonologist - Added effect for Felguard: "Felguard - Increases all damage caused by 5% and all resistances by .1/.2/.3/.4/.5 per level." Rogue Spells Disembowel - Removed. (NEW) Envenom - Replaces Disembowel. Two ranks and is available at level 62. “Finishing move that consumes your Deadly Poison doses on the target and deals instant poison damage. One dose is consumed for each combo point.” Combat Vitality - Now "Increases your total Stamina by 2/4% and your total Agility by 1/2%." Surprise Attacks - Changed to 8% from 5%. Subtlety Cheat Death - Now 3 ranks for 10/20/30% chance. Sinister Calling - Now "Increases your total Agility by 3/6/9/12/15%." Cloak of Shadows - Now "Instantly removes all existing harmful spell effects and increases your chance to resist all spells by 90% for 5 sec." Warrior Arms Endless Rage - Description changed: "You generate 25% more rage from damage dealt." Blood Frenzy - Description changed: "Your Rend and Deep Wounds abilities also increase all melee damage caused to that target by 2/4%." Hunter Marksmanship Combat Experience - Now "Increases your total Agility by 1/2% and your total Intellect by 3/6%." Shaman Spells Corrected the level values for several spells and added Water Shield (Rank 2). New screenshots for Bloodlust, Heroism, Water Shield. Druid Talents Added additional information to Mangle. Priest Spells New screenshots for Mass Dispel. Check back soon for further updates. http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/townhall/talents-and-spells.html Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Merusk on October 17, 2006, 04:05:07 PM That's a damn fine change to Combat Exp. The Sta was just pushing it with the new item budgets, and the previous 4% agi was crazy. Upping my Int as a mana-hungry DPSer is a-ok with me, though.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: lamaros on October 17, 2006, 05:33:42 PM Demonology got a much useful boost. I can see myself trying it out for sure..
Can we say: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/bc-warlock/talents.html?0500200000000000000002050030133250103501351505000010000000000000 Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Velorath on October 17, 2006, 09:04:03 PM That's a damn fine change to Combat Exp. The Sta was just pushing it with the new item budgets, and the previous 4% agi was crazy. Upping my Int as a mana-hungry DPSer is a-ok with me, though. I also like the earlier change of moving Hawk Eye to the first tier. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Zetor on October 18, 2006, 01:26:05 AM Demonology got a much useful boost. I can see myself trying it out for sure.. I'm thinking more like http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/bc-warlock/talents.html?0500000000000000000002050030133250103531341505000010000000000000 -- this is strictly a lv70 PVPish build, I'm guessing everyone will use heavy affliction builds to level up to 70. (new Dark Pact is sexy)Can we say: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/bc-warlock/talents.html?0500200000000000000002050030133250103501351505000010000000000000 -- Z. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: lamaros on October 18, 2006, 01:59:23 AM I'll be using THIS:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/bc-warlock/talents.html?0502220510000000000002050030133250101531351000000000000000000000 To level to 70. Orc Warlock. I expect this will get nerfed though. It looks awfuly powerful. Also: Drain Life receives 71% of your +damage gear in the beta. Confirmed here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=35883634&pageNo=6 Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Merusk on October 18, 2006, 04:14:41 AM That's a damn fine change to Combat Exp. The Sta was just pushing it with the new item budgets, and the previous 4% agi was crazy. Upping my Int as a mana-hungry DPSer is a-ok with me, though. I also like the earlier change of moving Hawk Eye to the first tier. I keep flip-flopping on that one. Sure it seems like a useful talent, but only because it gets out out of some MC boss's AOEs. They learned their lesson there and increased the range in BWL and beyond past your max range. I expect with the smaller dungeons it'll also be harder to find max-range and use it effectively. In PvP, yeah it's great. Gives you more distance to plug things before they can close. Also, it's not like I wasn't going to be spending the required 5 points in Survival anyway to pick up the slaying talents. So I'd still be 9 points into Surv, regardless of where the talent was. It did quiet down the community, though. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Typhon on October 18, 2006, 04:26:58 AM Rage normally decays at a rate of 3 per 3 seconds, so Anger Management's functionality hasn't really changed at all from the old wording; it's just different. It's entirely possible that I didin't understand the old Anger Management, but my take was that it reduced the out of combat decay only. The new version still reduces the out of combat decay (by 1/3), but now has an effect when in combat - and that effect is to generate rage. I see this as an improvement and something to be aware of if you take this ability (i.e., hamstring something and kite it till your rage builds enough for a finisher). And something to be aware of if you are fighting a warrior (just because you are kiting him now and he has no rage, doesn't mean you can kite him forever). Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Ironwood on October 18, 2006, 04:32:55 AM I agree that it's not really clear yet.
Any warrior in the beta who can let us know ? Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Phred on October 18, 2006, 06:12:14 AM I didnt transfer my warrior over but the old anger management also generated rage while you were in combat. I remember doing zf when it had stuck in combat bugs and having a full rage bar to start fights. It was also posted on this board a long time ago by another warrior but at the time we thought it was a bug.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Ironwood on October 18, 2006, 06:36:21 AM That was a bug. They fixed it.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Velorath on October 18, 2006, 08:51:09 AM I also like the earlier change of moving Hawk Eye to the first tier. I keep flip-flopping on that one. Sure it seems like a useful talent, but only because it gets out out of some MC boss's AOEs. They learned their lesson there and increased the range in BWL and beyond past your max range. I expect with the smaller dungeons it'll also be harder to find max-range and use it effectively. In PvP, yeah it's great. Gives you more distance to plug things before they can close. I PVP'd a lot for a while so found it pretty useful. It was especially good when doing defence in AV where I could run out of Drek's room and snipe a healer before running back in. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Phred on October 18, 2006, 02:46:04 PM That was a bug. They fixed it. Um, what was a bug? Rage ticking up while in combat? Because it sure sounds like that's the way it works now. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Ironwood on October 18, 2006, 03:27:50 PM I know. But previously, a bug. All you had to do was target summat, hit the sword icon and your rage would start to build. Tanking became a lot easier. But it was a bug with Anger Management and they fixed it.
Seriously, you could do it a room away and you had 100 rage easy. I would be surprised if they changed it back. It was cheap as fuck. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Merusk on October 18, 2006, 03:46:49 PM I know. But previously, a bug. All you had to do was target summat, hit the sword icon and your rage would start to build. Tanking became a lot easier. But it was a bug with Anger Management and they fixed it. Seriously, you could do it a room away and you had 100 rage easy. I would be surprised if they changed it back. It was cheap as fuck. They may have reworked Bloodrage to not trigger "in combat" anymore. Yeah it was a bug before, but when combined with bloodrage, you'd always have tanks at full rage and able to hit a boss with everything from the start. Double cheese. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Ironwood on October 18, 2006, 04:01:50 PM Not being able to trigger Bloodrage in combat ? That'd be horrible. That's what it's for - when you can't charge.
:) Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Merusk on October 18, 2006, 04:32:08 PM Not being able to trigger Bloodrage in combat ? That'd be horrible. That's what it's for - when you can't charge. :) Not quite what I meant. Hitting bloodrage right now flags you as being in combat, even if you're not engaged with a mob. (Try and eat after popping it in a city) That's how you used to be able to fill your rage meter prior to actually hitting anything. Remove this flag from bloodrage, and you remove the "engage at full rage" cheese tactic. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: schild on October 18, 2006, 04:54:17 PM Just came by to say "lol@delay."
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Phred on October 18, 2006, 05:21:20 PM Just came by to say "lol@delay." It beats shipped a partially finished expansion and hoping you can patch in the finished content faster than the players reach it. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Morfiend on October 18, 2006, 05:32:23 PM Just came by to say "lol@delay." How can there be a delay if they havent announced the release date yet? Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Ironwood on October 19, 2006, 01:24:44 AM Not being able to trigger Bloodrage in combat ? That'd be horrible. That's what it's for - when you can't charge. :) Not quite what I meant. Hitting bloodrage right now flags you as being in combat, even if you're not engaged with a mob. (Try and eat after popping it in a city) That's how you used to be able to fill your rage meter prior to actually hitting anything. Remove this flag from bloodrage, and you remove the "engage at full rage" cheese tactic. I was being all kinds of slow yesterday. I get you now. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Dren on October 19, 2006, 05:13:38 AM Just came by to say "lol@delay." How can there be a delay if they havent announced the release date yet? I suppose I'm going to have to go hunt for this information since it wasn't provided. Yes, I never even heard a "real" date. What's this about delay? Who's saying it? What's the new prediction? (Note: Release Dates from Blizzard have no place in our reality.) Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Simond on October 19, 2006, 06:21:55 AM The only place I've seen anything about a delay is Tobold's blog, where he was just reporting on rumours from the WoW beta boards.
Bearing in mind Blizzard have already said that TBC will not be complete when it ships...well, that tends to imply that the expansion ships in late Nov/early Dec no matter what (because that's when Vivendi says it ships). My guesses as to the 'missing' instances: Black Temple, one of the CoT instances (the 'opening of the original Dark Portal' one) and maybe a couple more high-end/raid instances that nobody's even heard of yet. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Morfiend on October 19, 2006, 10:30:32 AM I havent seen any information any any of that stuff. first, there has been no release date set. I have seen no official word on a delay ether. Blizzard activly holds off on release dates just so they can push their stuff back, and not have thousands of people complainging. I have always said I thought the xpac would release in the second week of November. So far the beta has been very good, and the devs have been working VERY fast to patch and tweek stuff. Much faster than in the original beta. The level is capped at 67 right now, so they cant test any of the end game instances and stuff, and im not even sure which ones are implimented so far. The Blood Elves and Draenei areas are pretty much done and good to go. If we have a patch this comming week, and they let people go to 70, I still think we could be on schedule for a 2nd to 3rd week of November release. Thats all my own speculation though.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Chenghiz on October 19, 2006, 11:46:02 AM From what I read over on the EJ boards, the level 70 patch won't be for a few more weeks. However if BC has already gone gold, which has apparently been confirmed, they could easily keep testing and adjusting all the way up to release day.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: bhodi on October 19, 2006, 12:52:27 PM "gold" means nothing but a stable enough version to install with. It'll just update to the most recent when it first connects.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Modern Angel on October 19, 2006, 02:44:30 PM Sometime tomorrow or the next day I'll log on to Guild Wars. I just sort of do it and then immediately log back off once a week, crying about what might have been. That's not important. What IS important is that real soon I'm going to log on, download some shit in the background and have their next expansion just sitting there. All the CD is for is a little music, a cinematic, maybe some art... all that shit is already done. No doubt in my mind the CD are sitting in warehouses right now.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Chenghiz on October 19, 2006, 02:46:25 PM Yeah, that's the point. All the heavy assets are already set in stone and on CDs, so they have more time to work with balance and content before release.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Dren on October 20, 2006, 05:03:08 AM I know the reasons why they wouldn't do it, but it would be nice if they just let you buy the CD, install the new artwork, music, etc., but not activate it until the patch goes through. That way we wouldn't all be fighting over our shipments or shelf boxes on the release date.
Of course, that doesn't fix the issue of actually downloading the patch and installing it. Then fighting the log in servers while they are under the load of the current 6 million added to the ?? that return for the expansion. I predict at least a 1-2 week long maelstrom of discontent amongst the masses. Oh, the forums will be down that entire time. You heard it here first! Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Sogrinaugh on October 20, 2006, 06:56:25 AM Does any beta tester play a shaman or priest? Have spiritual healing/purification been fixed? Currently, these talents operate unlike all the other +% talents. For example, Firepower (mage), shadow mastery (warlock), concussion (shaman), Darkness (priest), all apply thier +10% bonus to damage after gear is taken into account, meaning these talents scale with gear. Currently, purification and spiritual healing are applied before gear-based bonuses, meaning the benefit they provide is static, and does not scale with gear. Even now, it has gotten to the point where close to 50-60% of the damage or healing your character does, comes from gear, and in the expansion we can expect this to become even worse. So these supposedly core resto/holy talents become near-worthless the more geared your character becomes.
Do any beta shaman players know if Improved Chain Heal bonus is applied before or after equipment? Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Zane0 on October 20, 2006, 07:33:30 AM Spiritual healing has been fixed, I hear.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: bhodi on October 20, 2006, 07:47:15 AM Yes, spiritual healing adds bonus after gear now. I can't say about the others.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Sogrinaugh on October 20, 2006, 11:18:26 AM Well if they fixed spiritual healing that bodes well for purification.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Morat20 on October 20, 2006, 11:44:14 AM I hear Hunter pets just got whacked with the nerfstick. I suspect they'll undo some of it, but with current scaling this actually makes the BM spec worse at 70 than at 60.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Chenghiz on October 20, 2006, 02:17:32 PM I just heard that they made the Outlands pets' stats continue the progression from Azeroth pets, rather than being much better than one would expect.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Morat20 on October 20, 2006, 05:06:22 PM I just heard that they made the Outlands pets' stats continue the progression from Azeroth pets, rather than being much better than one would expect. That's what I got too -- it amounted to an overall nerf of pets. The screaming from the Beastmaster Hunters (I admit to wanting to spec back to BM) is unwarrented. They can't balance pets when you have TBC pets that are horribly overpowered compared to non-TBC pets. I suspect pets will be readjusted over the next few rounds now that they have a static baseline.Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Xanthippe on October 21, 2006, 01:47:07 PM New question - mooncloth. Should I keep my stockpile (heh it's only like 10 pieces) or sell now?
Is there a new use for mooncloth or is there a mooncloth equivalent for 70? Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Zane0 on October 21, 2006, 01:50:48 PM I think you can "upgrade" mooncloth into primal mooncloth, or something. Don't quote me on this!
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Phred on October 21, 2006, 03:24:26 PM I think you can "upgrade" mooncloth into primal mooncloth, or something. Don't quote me on this! I don't know either but I do know one of the specializations is mooncloth of some sort. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Simond on October 21, 2006, 05:19:27 PM I have heard third-hand rumours (i.e. don't quote me) that primal mooncloth doesn't use 'normal' mooncloth in it's creation - it's supposed to be another 'Purify other_clothx2' recipe.
But take that with a large pinch of salt. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Calantus on October 21, 2006, 05:22:22 PM "Warning - while you were typing a new reply has been posted. You may wish to review your post." Meh, was gonna say the same thing as Simond (complete with disclaimer!).
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Merusk on October 21, 2006, 06:44:58 PM Any of our testers care to confirm or deny the rumor I recently heard that you'll be able to have 3 professions instead of 2?
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Modern Angel on October 21, 2006, 07:25:54 PM Not a tester but it's been asked all over the place. Not true.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Phred on October 21, 2006, 11:34:16 PM Not a tester but it's been asked all over the place. Not true. Definately not true. They did up the quest log to 25 though. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Modern Angel on October 22, 2006, 11:02:43 AM That's real nice. Everything I've read has said there are an absolute million quests. More than enough to fill up even a 25 in perpetuity.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Phred on October 22, 2006, 03:34:58 PM That's real nice. Everything I've read has said there are an absolute million quests. More than enough to fill up even a 25 in perpetuity. That's a slight exageration. I've had no trouble keeping up with quests and I didn't even delete every quest in my book when I transferred over to beta. I suppose if you initially ran all over the continent you could overfill your book but eash area has about 15-20 quests in your level range when you arrive there from my experience. I actually ran out of quests to do in L66. Every quest I could do was done except for a couple of elite quests it was next to impossible to get groups for. Amazingly even in beta for some reason it's very hard to find people willing or needing to team up to kill elite mobs in the later zones. Dispite /who saying the zone is full of appropriate leveled people using the lfg tool or just /general chat has yeilded no results for me and the one person I found to team up on one quest said they took 2 1/2 days to find a group for the quests I was looking for. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Simond on October 23, 2006, 11:49:27 AM Blizzard 'improves' (read: ruins) the male BE model (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=36935276&sid=1) :crying_panda:
(Apologies in advance for linking to the Official WoW forums) Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Morfiend on October 23, 2006, 12:39:33 PM I also0 liked the old models a bit better, but honestly its being blown out of proportion (pun intended). I logged in last night after seeing all these threads, and in game you can hardly tell that they are a bit more buff. Also, I think the amimations work a bit better on the new model. The old one had a sort of boneless feel when he would swing a 1h weapon. But as stated I did like them a bit more lean.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Morat20 on October 23, 2006, 01:06:01 PM Has there been anymore changes on Hunter pet scaling? Last word I got was that after they normalized outland pets with the pre-TBC pets, even BM specced hunters were hosed. Pets couldn't hold aggro worth a flip, no chance at end-game surviveability, etc.
All things considered, I have no idea what Blizzard should do about pets. The idea is good -- lower your ranged DPS some in return for getting a small DPS pet that can keep them at range (thus beating on the pet, not you), but it's not working out in practice. When you hit raids, you're effectively taking a DPS nerf because pets can't handle elite mobs -- they die to AoE attacks and such designed to make life hard for well geared tanks. In terms of single-target DPS, I would have thought it'd go Rogues>Hunters>Warlock>Mages>Warriors. Against multiple targets, Mages of course should reign supreme. :) In actuality, though, it's a darn good raiding night when I'm up there with the mages -- simply because I'm sacrificing 80+ DPS from my pet, 'cause I can't use it. I take a big DPS nerf for nothing. And I'm not sure there's a solution. If you upgrade pets enough to survive against elite mobs, then you're unbalancing them for PvP -- unless you're willing to acknowledge that in PvP a Hunter's pet is not worth trying to kill, and letting the poor clothies take the pet DPS (and interrupts) as they try to burn down the Hunter. I guess one option is to make Hunter pets immune to PvE AoE -- but I'm pretty sure that's going to cause a lot of problems too. I just don't see a way to scale pets to make them surviveable -- and able to contribute their 10% or so of Hunter DPS -- at end-game, and not make them effectively overbearing in PvP. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: MrHat on October 23, 2006, 01:15:21 PM The solution is to seperate them into PvE pets, and PVP pets. Different abilities for different sides. The BM tree could reflect this, each skilll doing 1 of 2 things, letting you chose.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Righ on October 23, 2006, 01:25:25 PM They should ping-pong between each class being overpowered and underpowered on a regular basis. Their next MMORPG should have three classes.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Morat20 on October 23, 2006, 01:31:45 PM The solution is to seperate them into PvE pets, and PVP pets. Different abilities for different sides. The BM tree could reflect this, each skilll doing 1 of 2 things, letting you chose. I dunno. What's the downside of making Hunter pets immune to PvE AoE physical effects -- right there, your pets tend to live through most boss fights. Aren't Warlock imps much the same way?What's the downside there? PvP they're still open to AoE, most non-raid bosses aren't big on AoE damage, and then you could more carefully balance BM versus MM versus Survival. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Chenghiz on October 23, 2006, 02:55:10 PM Warlock pets can gain aoe avoidance - I think hunter pets should be able to as well, definitely. As for hunter pet nerfing, I get the impression that 'can't hold aggro, not survivable' was the general outcry on the WoW-Hunter forums. On the EJ boards the response was still negative but not quite so drastically so.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: pants on October 23, 2006, 04:02:33 PM Warlock pets can gain aoe avoidance - I think hunter pets should be able to as well, definitely. As for hunter pet nerfing, I get the impression that 'can't hold aggro, not survivable' was the general outcry on the WoW-Hunter forums. On the EJ boards the response was still negative but not quite so drastically so. From what I was reading, the original TBC hunter pets from Outland were monstrously overpowered. Like being able to solo 3-4 elites of the same level at once, without the hunter having to do anything. So they needed to be nerfed, sounds like the nerf bat has hit too hard tho. Expect it to be unnerfed a bit, although it is going to be damn hard to get right. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Zetor on October 24, 2006, 02:43:47 AM Quote PARIS, France -- Blizzard Entertainment® today announced that the release date for World of Warcraft®: The Burning Crusade™, the highly anticipated expansion for World of Warcraft, will be in January 2007. By adding a few extra weeks to the development cycle beyond its original target date, Blizzard will be able to extend the closed beta test and further refine the new content that will ship with the game. Pushed back to Jan 2007... wtf is Vivendi thinking? You gotta milk that holiday season, cmon!“We appreciate the enthusiasm surrounding World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, and we’re excited about putting the finishing touches on all of the new content,” said Mike Morhaime, president and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We feel confident that the extra time spent polishing the game will result in the high-quality experience that our players expect and deserve.” Blizzard began the closed-beta phase of testing on World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade earlier this month. The January 2007 release window will allow extra time for current beta testers to participate in the final stages of development and continue providing valuable feedback. Further information on specific worldwide release dates, pricing, and other details will be announced in the near future. Source: here (http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=71337407&sid=1) and here (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=38244050&sid=1) -- Z. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Velorath on October 24, 2006, 03:08:22 AM I'm a little disappointed, but better for them to get as much of the class balancing out of the way as possible before release. I've got too many other games to play in the next couple months anyway.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Shavnir on October 24, 2006, 03:33:47 AM Eh, would it really be a Blizzard game if it wasn't delayed beyond people's expectations?
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Fabricated on October 24, 2006, 03:46:43 AM I am physically incapable of being surprised by a delay of a Blizzard title.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Trippy on October 24, 2006, 04:14:43 AM Eh, would it really be a Blizzard game if it wasn't delayed beyond people's expectations? WoW got forced out before Christmas but this time around I'm guessing Vivendi didn't want to piss off the Blizzard employees (e.g. by making them work through Thanksgiving) given that WoW is the goose that's laying the golden eggs for Vivendi.Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Merusk on October 24, 2006, 04:19:54 AM Well, there's that and the fact that the beta hasn't even tested L70 or any of the content and abilities therin. Damn near impossible to test balance issues and bug content when that happens. If they don't up Beta's cap to 70 in today's downtime, I wouldn't expect them to hit a January date either.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Numtini on October 24, 2006, 04:28:02 AM I sort of figured it was going to be delayed, if for no other reason than that it was Blizzard. I'm more amused than anything else and the teeth gnashing on the forums is as much entertainment as the game itself.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Simond on October 24, 2006, 04:42:51 AM Arse.
... Heigh ho, back to my corps (minor, trivail) war in EVE for a few weeks. Edit: Trippy, I don't think this is good news for the TBC dev team - instead of shoving whatever was ready out the door at the end of November (and taking six months or so afterwards to patch in whatever was missing), they're going to be chained to their PCs until TBC goes live. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Phred on October 24, 2006, 04:50:55 AM Doesnt surprise me in the slightest. I doubt it'll hurt sales much either. Did it hurt diablo or starcraft? I believe both released after xmas.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: lamaros on October 24, 2006, 05:52:56 AM I dont think it will hurt them much at all. WoW didn't get most of the subscribers they have now on the original release alone, so thinking that they require a christmas release now doesn't maketh sense.
And I think the Devs were going to be chained to their PCs whichever way they did it. An early release wouldn't mean any slowing of the testing and patch cycle. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Venkman on October 24, 2006, 06:13:29 AM I seriously doubt (http://www.darniaq.com/wordpress/2006/10/uncategorized/wow-expansion-delay-to-jan-2007/) this'll be a problem for them. Either they're avoiding the gluttony (good for MMORPGs), have so many pre-orders they don't need retail presence in December anyway (so sorry for that lack of foot-traffic aid there buddy retailers), or figure the rise in Gift Card gift-giving for the holidays will translated into January sales of boxes anyway (back atcha retail partners).
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Paelos on October 24, 2006, 07:09:47 AM Hmmm, this gives me more time to get to Naxx before it becomes completely obselete.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Jayce on October 24, 2006, 07:37:57 AM I for one am glad to see at least one development house that doesn't have "SHIP IT BY XMAS" engraved on a millstone and hanging around every developer's necks as a condition of employment.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Modern Angel on October 24, 2006, 08:04:29 AM I'm surprised only from the standpoint that they'll miss the Xmas release and that all the reports I'd read from beta said that things were shaping up quite nicely. It's Blizzard, though... no skin off my nose. The release of the full new talent trees is a nice halfway point. I'll be really curious how the 41 point talents scale with current content.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Righ on October 24, 2006, 08:30:03 AM I'm not surprised that there are a lot of fans who think this is a good thing largely because its what Blizzard are doing.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Morat20 on October 24, 2006, 09:27:19 AM Warlock pets can gain aoe avoidance - I think hunter pets should be able to as well, definitely. As for hunter pet nerfing, I get the impression that 'can't hold aggro, not survivable' was the general outcry on the WoW-Hunter forums. On the EJ boards the response was still negative but not quite so drastically so. From what I was reading, the original TBC hunter pets from Outland were monstrously overpowered. Like being able to solo 3-4 elites of the same level at once, without the hunter having to do anything. So they needed to be nerfed, sounds like the nerf bat has hit too hard tho. Expect it to be unnerfed a bit, although it is going to be damn hard to get right. Problem is that now the pet scaling is too small -- pets have all the surviveability of a wet napkin and even BM pets have to spam intimidate and kill to keep aggro. On the one hand, they've now got a constant baseline as all pets scale the same. On the other hand, they need to actually adjust it so that pets scale properly and remain useful. As it is, you wouldn't spec BM even for levelling 60 to 70 -- much less raid. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Signe on October 24, 2006, 09:45:43 AM Yay! Blizzard stuck a big pointy stick up me arse! Yay! Blizzard did something! Yay! (http://smiley.onegreatguy.net/yay2.gif)
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Nija on October 24, 2006, 10:57:19 AM Pushed back to Jan 2007... wtf is Vivendi thinking? You gotta milk that holiday season, cmon! -- Z. What were they thinking? I bet they were thinking they'd have lines of 200 people at midnight at every eletronics retailer in the country. No matter what date they choose. Monthly subscriptions aren't good christmas presents. 'Hey honey, I got you this neat PDA phone for christmas! Yeah, only trouble is that in order to use any of the cool features you'll have to pay $50/mo on top of what you already pay... LOVE YOU!' The gift that keeps on giving! Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Dren on October 24, 2006, 11:37:11 AM Pushed back to Jan 2007... wtf is Vivendi thinking? You gotta milk that holiday season, cmon! -- Z. What were they thinking? I bet they were thinking they'd have lines of 200 people at midnight at every eletronics retailer in the country. No matter what date they choose. Monthly subscriptions aren't good christmas presents. 'Hey honey, I got you this neat PDA phone for christmas! Yeah, only trouble is that in order to use any of the cool features you'll have to pay $50/mo on top of what you already pay... LOVE YOU!' The gift that keeps on giving! The difference is this is an expansion, so the suck... gift receiver will already have the subscription. I agree they sell just as many either way though. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Dren on October 24, 2006, 11:37:43 AM Yay! Blizzard stuck a big pointy stick up me arse! Yay! Blizzard did something! Yay! (http://smiley.onegreatguy.net/yay2.gif) Finally, Signe posts her RL picture! *Edit: You look funny without a nose.* Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Signe on October 24, 2006, 12:04:38 PM I smell funny, too.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Furiously on October 24, 2006, 01:00:41 PM Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Signe on October 24, 2006, 01:02:01 PM NJ was so 3 months ago!
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Lantyssa on October 25, 2006, 07:09:45 PM It lingers.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Xanthippe on October 25, 2006, 08:29:29 PM I've heard that about NJ.
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Signe on October 25, 2006, 08:42:40 PM Yes. It's surrounded by NY, PA and CT. All very, very strange places. NJ has a whole magazine dedicated to how weird it is. It even weirded ME out!
Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: jpark on October 25, 2006, 11:16:10 PM Factions and crafting.
1. Is crafting more useful (e.g. weapons smith)? 2. Is there any effort to offer new phat lewts for existing factions (e.g. Argent dawn, thorium brotherhood) or do they concentrate all new phat lewts purely on new factions we have yet to grind to advance? 3. I hear a rumor it will take as much effort to level from 60 to 70 as from 1 to 60 - any information on this? Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Zetor on October 26, 2006, 12:00:56 AM Based on the experiences of a guildie in beta..
- Crafting seems very useful in BC. Plenty of accessible epic and blue patterns, easily on par with the top loots in game right now. Whether this'll keep up as new uber gear is introduced, remains to be seen. - Not much to do with old factions, but there are a truckload of new factions, with a bit of EQ1ish bent... there are 2 new factions per zone, but you gain rep with them fairly quickly. Also, if you gain faction w ith say, the Cenarion Expedition, you'll also gain Cen Circle faction. There's only one Gelkis/Timbermaw-style 'faction grind' to speak of (that I know about) and it's about appeasing the mushroom people in Yangar Marsh in order to access the quests related to the Coilfang Reservoir. - Levelling right now is very quick. Two days were enough to get from 60 to 63 with non-hardcore play, but that was with full rested xp [which they have since wiped]. However, Blizz is saying that the current rate of levelling is artificially sped up in order to better test stuff. -- Z. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Driakos on October 26, 2006, 12:36:01 AM Based on the experiences of a guildie in beta.. - Not much to do with old factions, but there are a truckload of new factions, with a bit of EQ1ish bent... there are 2 new factions per zone, but you gain rep with them fairly quickly. Also, if you gain faction w ith say, the Cenarion Expedition, you'll also gain Cen Circle faction. There's only one Gelkis/Timbermaw-style 'faction grind' to speak of (that I know about) and it's about appeasing the mushroom people in Yangar Marsh in order to access the quests related to the Coilfang Reservoir. So far this is true for me. By the time you are done with the quests for a particular faction, you are very high up in that faction. Even in the newbie Blood Elf zone, I came out of there with Exalted in Tranquillian (Blood Elf version of the Crossroads, or Sepulcher) rep, once I finished the last of the quests. There was BG style Faction loot to buy as I ranked up too. Not as good as if I twinked my newbie, but as a new character on a new shard, it would be pretty respectable stuff. Especially for how easy/cheap it was. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Typhon on October 26, 2006, 03:40:10 AM Yes. It's surrounded by NY, PA and CT. All very, very strange places. NJ has a whole magazine dedicated to how weird it is. It even weirded ME out! It's DE, not CT, ya silly. No, I'm not a geography nazi, I commute from South-Central NJ to Newark DE everyday (so it would be hard for me not to know). "Weird New Jersey" is alway surprisingly thick for a indy-type rag... I guess NJ is pretty weird. [Edit: grammar fix] Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Xanthippe on October 26, 2006, 08:42:44 AM What about the Thorium Brotherhood, Argent Dawn, and Cenarion Circle, specifically? Are those factions still relevent in the BC?
I have 2 60s, a hunter-engineer-alchemist and a priest-tailor-enchanter (who also lacks faction with everyone practically), and a 45 warlock who I want to pvp with (no trade skills on her, just gathering skills). Does it make more sense to grind faction now, wait until BC and meanwhile level up my warlock? I'm at the point with my tailor that I need to turn in the expensive stuff to get rep with TB. Is Blizz abandoning that faction line or adding nice stuff to it? Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Driakos on October 26, 2006, 10:34:19 AM What about the Thorium Brotherhood, Argent Dawn, and Cenarion Circle, specifically? Are those factions still relevent in the BC? I have 2 60s, a hunter-engineer-alchemist and a priest-tailor-enchanter (who also lacks faction with everyone practically), and a 45 warlock who I want to pvp with (no trade skills on her, just gathering skills). Does it make more sense to grind faction now, wait until BC and meanwhile level up my warlock? I'm at the point with my tailor that I need to turn in the expensive stuff to get rep with TB. Is Blizz abandoning that faction line or adding nice stuff to it? I would wait for any faction grind. There's a whole new slew of quests, and some might give faction for pre-BC factions. I have earned Cenarion Circle faction in the Outlands, at a lesser rate than Cenarion Expedition. I stopped with the runecloth turn-ins for Darkspear Troll faction (I want to ride a Raptor as an Undead), because I'll just wait for BC, to earn some more Troll rep through quests. I haven't seen any Thorium Brotherhood quests/rep opportunities, but I haven't been looking. I've earned some AD rep, but I can't remember from what. Probably killing the undead Nethergarde soldiers at the Armory. I'm going to stockpile a lot of gold. Buying the new 375 skillcap + recipes gets really expensive. Master level skinning was 10g. Then I dropped 60g easy on Master level leatherworking, plus the recipes the vendor initially trained. The +8 Stam armor kits are kinda nice though :) Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Zetor on October 26, 2006, 01:14:08 PM Here (http://beta.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=690884&sid=1) is a comprehensive list of the smith plans discovered so far. Good stuff overall, I'd say... also, no mention of the Thorium Brotherhood to be found anywhere.
-- Z. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Merusk on October 26, 2006, 05:40:21 PM More questions for the testers!!
1) Earlier or in another thread someone posted that you need 300 enchanting to DE a level 61 item. Is this true for all levels & items, or just the BC stuff? 2) Also in another thread someone posted that 1.13 was going to go live even though BC was delayed. Anyone have a source/ link for this or is it wild internet rumor? This is the first place I'd heard it. 3) They patch you guys to let you hit L70 yet? Every time I try to hit the beta boards and read them they're down. Yay blizzard forum servers. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Calantus on October 26, 2006, 08:26:30 PM Here is a post where a blue talks about the content patch. (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=38084084&postId=381406658&sid=1#2)
It's not his original post on the subject but if all you want is proof then that'll do it. He stated at one point what's in it (only saying essentially honor changes, new talents, and "more"). It should still be in there somewhere but a quick scan didn't find it. If you want to track it down just search for his posts in the general forums. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: Merusk on October 27, 2006, 04:20:57 AM Here is a post where a blue talks about the content patch. (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=38084084&postId=381406658&sid=1#2) It's not his original post on the subject but if all you want is proof then that'll do it. He stated at one point what's in it (only saying essentially honor changes, new talents, and "more"). It should still be in there somewhere but a quick scan didn't find it. If you want to track it down just search for his posts in the general forums. Thanka =) Found it (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=38233956&postId=381406569&sid=1#62) once I knew who posted it. (Their 'search for posts by this user' feature is pretty nifty in that you can read the entire post on one page, not just the preview like we've got.) Of course, after that he backs off and only says "details coming soon." Sneaky bastard. Title: Re: Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted Post by: SurfD on October 27, 2006, 04:08:27 PM Weaponsmithing is supposedly REALLY sweet in expantion. A lot of the warriors in my guild are re-speccing weaponsmith for some of the absolutely sick stuff you can craft. Massively nasty 2 handed axes and the like. The main reason so many are speccing however, is that some of the best items are BOP when crafted (sort of like the class specific Epic Craftable Robes that drop from BRS / Strath / Scholo in current game).
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