Cataclysm

[Lantyssa]

They could hire James Brown to do mood music.

[Nevermore]

Since it's still so early in beta and obviously things will be changing a lot as development progresses (they've already done away with the parry changes, for example) I've been withholding comment on the preliminary spell/talents lists that are up.  I do have a couple of thoughts, though:

Feral Druid's Stampeding Roar looks like a completely useless waste of time skill, but talented Skull Bash is pure awesome on a stick.  Thus, Stampeding Roar will go in as is and Skull Bash will be watered down to near uselessness. 

Although I was looking forward to Hunters getting Focus instead of Mana, and still am to a certain extent, it currently looks like they're redesigning Hunters to be much less mobile by forcing them to rely heavily on Steady/Cobra/Aimed shot (Aimed now has a cast time instead of being instant) with the occasional instant shot worked in when they aren't on cooldown and the Focus is available.  The specific numbers don't concern me since those will be changing up to and after release, but I'm disappointed in the basic design since it turns Hunters into physical damage casters much more so than they are on live now.  It'll especially hurt in PvP.

On the other hand, I predict Camouflage will be the most bitched about (by non-Hunters) new skill out of all the new skills since the current version provides actual stealth when not moving.  I kind of doubt it'll make it live in its current form.

I have some thoughts on Shaman, Rogues (Honor Among Thieves nerf  ) and DKs (Pillar of Frost  ) but it's mostly about their talents and those will be changing a lot for a while yet.

[WindupAtheist]

But you know what, fine, let's pretend it's the same. If my worgen newbie quests talk about how I need to spread this shit around to every living thing on Azeroth, you know, just in case, I will freely admit the worgen are evil in the same way the Forsaken are.

It's fucking great how five years worth of fanwank excuses have suddenly gone up in a cloud of smoke.

"She probably barely knows about the plague. The plague is probably only meant to work on undead. Okay it works on humans but it's probably only meant to defend them from the Scarlet Crusade. They have you spread it around, but those quests are like 5 years old and barely count. Sylvanas has mellowed out with time."

Whoops!

I mean, I as a Horde player am supposed to be cool with old human guy's plan of "Yes, let's give another one of my race's heroes a crack at being the Lich King.  What could possibly go wrong?"?  Of course, because he's a good guy, not like Prince Douchebag and Douchebag "I am the Road Warrior" Hellscream.

The whole conclusion to the Lich King story (at least until Fire Mode Lich King turns up as the boss 2 expansions from now) is the biggest lore fail in the history of the game. The less said about it, the better.

The Lich King novel claims that Arthas has usurped Ner'zhul as the dominant personality. But he still tells you "I was once a shaman!" when you meet him in Howling Fjord.

The book says Arthas killed off his remaining humanity. The game backs this up by having you run into that little boy ghost that represents his lost humanity, and by having Tirion destroy his heart after realizing he's unredeemable. Then the Lich King gets owned by Tirion and as he's laying there, not only does he no longer remember being a shaman or show any sign of Ner'zhul, he has a touching little "Is it over?" moment with the ghost of his father.

Then we get a load of crap from Tirion and Bolvar about how the Scourge will run rampant over the world without a Lich King. Which along with "Is it over?" implies that Arthas was still good deep down and was holding them back. And anyway, why should they run rampant now that Arthas is dead? Shouldn't they all "wake up" like the Forsaken?

Whatever, they throw the Lich King hat on Bolvar so he can take control of the Scourge. At least it's over now. But wait, now we've got Sylvanas blathering about how the Val'kyr became "unemployed" when Arthas bought it. The hell? Didn't we just hear how they were using Bolvar as a stand-in Lich King to prevent shit like that?

It's not even strictly their usual routine of throwing in silly retcons to facilitate gameplay, which I understand and approve of. They contradict themselves repeatedly within the space of a single expansion for no obvious reason.

[Lantyssa]

Then we get a load of crap from Tirion and Bolvar about how the Scourge will run rampant over the world without a Lich King. Which along with "Is it over?" implies that Arthas was still good deep down and was holding them back. And anyway, why should they run rampant now that Arthas is dead? Shouldn't they all "wake up" like the Forsaken?

Which is sad since Arthas as a human was as good as Sylvanas is now.  The whole "holding back the Scourge" routine bothers me to no end.

Well, pretty much anything involving Arthas bothers me to no end.  It's like Mary Sue meets black and white morality when they can't even get right and wrong straight.

[Lakov_Sanite]

The arthas shtick is dumb no to ways about it but that said..

I have played undead for 5 years.
When I started playing, I felt they were evil.
I still believe they are evil.
It looks like they will be getting evil(er)
I'm ok with that.

[Rasix]

The arthas shtick is dumb no to ways about it but that said..

I have played undead for 5 years.
When I started playing, I felt they were evil.
I still believe they are evil.
It looks like they will be getting evil(er)
I'm ok with that.

Ditto.  If anything it keeps my rogue undead instead of an eventual goblin change.  Ankle stabbing is rather tempting, however.

[apocrypha]

In other news, I've just received a beta invite. Checked it, it's legit.

Very conflicted.... on the one hand I love me some beta testing and it'd be kinda cool to do, but on the other hand I don't wanna spoil it for myself plus I am still trying to restrict my WoW time because so much of my work involves sitting, which is still bad for me.

[Rasix]

Do you have to be subbed currently to get a beta invite?

[Fordel]

Feral Druid's Stampeding Roar looks like a completely useless waste of time skill, but talented Skull Bash is pure awesome on a stick.  Thus, Stampeding Roar will go in as is and Skull Bash will be watered down to near uselessness. 

What's your problem with group sprint? I can think of half a dozen wotlk encounters and tons of pvp situations where it would be useful.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Feral Druid's Stampeding Roar looks like a completely useless waste of time skill, but talented Skull Bash is pure awesome on a stick.  Thus, Stampeding Roar will go in as is and Skull Bash will be watered down to near uselessness. 

What's your problem with group sprint? I can think of half a dozen wotlk encounters and tons of pvp situations where it would be useful.

Everyone wants something that will be useful to 'them' such is the way of the world....of warcraft.

Life grip is still in though! go go gadget griefing!

[Fordel]

But even if you use it just for yourself, it's an extra sprint!

[Sjofn]

In other news, I've just received a beta invite. Checked it, it's legit.

Very conflicted.... on the one hand I love me some beta testing and it'd be kinda cool to do, but on the other hand I don't wanna spoil it for myself plus I am still trying to restrict my WoW time because so much of my work involves sitting, which is still bad for me.

You can give your invite to meeeeee. 

[caladein]

Feral Druid's Stampeding Roar looks like a completely useless waste of time skill, but talented Skull Bash is pure awesome on a stick.  Thus, Stampeding Roar will go in as is and Skull Bash will be watered down to near uselessness. 

What's your problem with group sprint? I can think of half a dozen wotlk encounters and tons of pvp situations where it would be useful.

Considering what happened with Unholy Aura I don't see Stampeding Roar go live without a rather large cooldown.  It's that good.

[Fordel]

It's currently 2 minutes. Six second duration.


Beta blah blah changes etc though, so who knows!

[Merusk]

Feral Druid's Stampeding Roar looks like a completely useless waste of time skill, but talented Skull Bash is pure awesome on a stick.  Thus, Stampeding Roar will go in as is and Skull Bash will be watered down to near uselessness. 

What's your problem with group sprint? I can think of half a dozen wotlk encounters and tons of pvp situations where it would be useful.

Considering what happened with Unholy Aura I don't see Stampeding Roar go live without a rather large cooldown.  It's that good.

They'll just balance encounters with it in mind.  "Bring the person not the class" doesn't apply to 25-mans, after all.

[Malakili]

They'll just balance encounters with it in mind.  "Bring the person not the class" doesn't apply to 25-mans, after all.

 

[Nevermore]

Feral Druid's Stampeding Roar looks like a completely useless waste of time skill, but talented Skull Bash is pure awesome on a stick.  Thus, Stampeding Roar will go in as is and Skull Bash will be watered down to near uselessness. 

What's your problem with group sprint? I can think of half a dozen wotlk encounters and tons of pvp situations where it would be useful.

Because it's only 6 seconds of 40% runspeed in a whole 10' radius (that's almost melee range) every 2 minutes, and it does nothing about roots and snares.

[Fordel]

10 Yards is two yards larger then the area a Hurricane or Blizzard will cover, that's plenty of coverage to get the melee group out of danger in any "don't stand here or you'll explode" effect.


Six seconds at that speed will give you like 45 yards of separation.


Two minutes is decent cool down for a group ability.

[Nevermore]

If there's a sudden need for everyone to move faster for some reason, I would imagine a lot more people would be using Swiftness Potions, which is a 50% runspeed increase for 15 seconds usable every minute, which a character can use starting at level 5.  But I've had yet to have a raid leader say 'don't forget your Swiftness Potions' because that kind of need for speed is rarely, if ever, needed in PvE.

[Ingmar]

Swiftness potions used in combat work like any potions - they lock you out of all other potions until you're out of combat again, which is why you'd typically never expect to use one in a raid encounter currently - it is too important for people to be able to pop their mana pots or wild magic or haste or stoneskin type potions instead.

Even so a read through the swiftness potion comments on Wowhead lists several encounters they're handy in. I liked this comment:

A must have for people (like me) who repeatedly fail at the Thaddius jump.

[apocrypha]

You can give your invite to meeeeee. 

It's OK, my conflict has been resolved by the fact that the beta downloader tracker hasn't been responding for 12 hours now. 

[Lantyssa]

How about a different tack?  A run speed buff is completely useless to someone like me who doesn't raid.  At least I don't have to worry about finding button realestate for yet another highly situational ability.

[apocrypha]

I can see a group runspeed buff being useful for... skipping the mobs on the approach to the ice tunnel in PoS, or running down quickly after a mage/hunter/rogue has bugged Hadronox in AN.

Other than that PvP will be the best use of it. WSG flag-cap squads will love it.

[Ironwood]

So, apparently the Friends and Family Beta NDA is now over and I'm allowed to talk about it.

YOU CHAPS HAVE BEEN BUGGING ME FOR PAGES AND PAGES NOW AND I WASN'T ALLOWED TO SAY ANYTHING.  YOU SUCK.


YOU JUDGEMENTAL NUTJOBS.

[Rendakor]

Raid encounters where a group runspeed buff will be useful:

Lady Deathwhisper: D&D dropped on melee, Switching from adds to boss in P1
Rotface: Ooze Explosion
Blood Princes: Empowered Shock Vortex
Sindragosa: Blistering Cold
Lich King: Spreading for Defile, Moving onto and off of the platform during phase transitions

And that's just in regular ICC, off the top of my head. It's not an amazing ability, although it wouldn't surprise me if it becomes required in Cataclysm due to encounters being balanced around it. This is even more likely due to the fact that it's a core druid skill, not a talent (which is what I had originally thought it was).

[Selby]

...and I'm allowed to talk about it.

It was a buggy mess 95% of the time I tried to log in and run it.  Random crashes and random inabilities to log in were most of my problem.  I was a good tester and submitted my error reports every time =P  So even if I wanted to talk about it I had nothing exciting to report except "not ready for primetime."

[Ironwood]

Both starting zones were bug free and working as intended for me.

...

And both were UTTER shit.

[Ingmar]

Both starting zones were bug free and working as intended for me.

...

And both were UTTER shit.

When I played them at Blizzcon they were both pretty cool, I thought.

[Lantyssa]

Not that I don't often agree with your opinions, IW, but could you elaborate a bit?

[Ironwood]

Yes.

The Worgen is much better and much more fun.  Why ?  Because you're a Worgen.  Also, the story makes some kind of sense, though not much.  But it's still not very good.  You're a human, minding your own business, smack, damn, you're cursed, whoops, you're now cured and stable, arg, undead invasion, eep, cataclysm, things sink into the sea, rawr, running to find your place in the world. Now done a bit of revenge and some loot gathering and, hey, thrown into the wide world to level in the usual shitty zones.  Poop.  Total poop, though linear, with a little bit of story and some fun.

But it's not enough.  It's tiny, teeny toaty and by the time you're done, you're once again totally up against the wall that is 'hey, time to level another fucking toon.  No thanks'.  With no new class to make it interesting and, frankly, the Worgen idea merely being a different skin (forget the race powers, they're totally forgettable), it's an utter waste of time with nothing to reccomend it.

Seriously, without a new class or anything to differentiate you, you're doing Tranquillien again.  Except, and here's the REAL kicker, it's nowhere NEAR as much fun, excitement or interest as the starting Blood Elf zone.  It's phased crap.  The phasing itself is seven different types of annoying as you can actually phase yourself out of quests and, amusingly, phase yourself out of wife.  We loved that one.  I totally got accused of ditching her on purpose.

I'll talk a little bit more on the Goblin in a bit, but it's worse.  Much, much, much worse.

[Malakili]

 It's phased crap.

I was hoping that would stop it with that crap in this expansion, not that I really am going to buy it at this point anyway.

[Simond]

Yes, they were planning to stop using phasing in an expansion where one of the selling points is "Phasing is great and we're going to use it to show the world changing over time in response to player actions"  

And I'm guessing Ironwood doesn't like the goblin zones because they have too much fun and not enough Serious Business?

[caladein]

Phasing while solo is cool.  The problem with phasing arises when you get to a group and can't see each other because you're in a different phase.  It's like long chain quests taken to their natural, completely retarded, conclusion.

[Sjofn]

OK, hoping they would stop with the "phasing crap" in this expansion. That is ... not likely the majority opinion. Or even a sizable minority opinion. By and large, people seem to like phasing, because it makes quests you do do something. If you don't like phasing, you are probably going to be hugely disappointed forever, because I think it's going to become more common, not less.

Also anyone who thinks worgen > goblin is fundamentally broken. The mere act of being a goblin means the goblin starter zone wins.  

[Lakov_Sanite]

"The worgen area is great but it ends and then you need to level again"

Thank you Captain, your invaluable insight emboldens us all.