Cataclysm

[Zetor]

Racials are going to be pretty f'd up [talking about pvp here]. For some reason they made the human racial (which WAS overpowered with two top-end pve trinkets) completely useless by giving it a 3 min cd. And as you said, goblin/worgen will have a much better racial than anyone else.

They also buffed undead, but orcs/gnomes/draenei/dwarves and to an extent trolls are still sitting in the Crap Racial Bin. :P

[fuser]

Are warriors fun? I've been tossing up starting one. But they always seemed a little bland to me back in the Vanilla days. How do the DPS versions play?

I can give you input on leveling one at the moment. I started leveling one about two months ago on the side, and its insanely fun. Past level 15 I have done zero quests besides dungeon, just leveling via LFD insta queues or PVP weekends. Mine is decked out in everything besides the fishing contest heirloom and your a totally unstoppable monster. Cycling between the two shield blocks, last stand and lifeblood you can pretty much tank anything with a marginal healer.

[Ingmar]

Racials are going to be pretty f'd up [talking about pvp here]. For some reason they made the human racial (which WAS overpowered with two top-end pve trinkets) completely useless by giving it a 3 min cd. And as you said, goblin/worgen will have a much better racial than anyone else.

They also buffed undead, but orcs/gnomes/draenei/dwarves and to an extent trolls are still sitting in the Crap Racial Bin. :P

Whatever, I get super archaeology, that is all I care about! (Actally the extra 5 expertise with maces is really quite nice too, stoneform has its uses too.)

[Polysorbate80]

Stoneform is still pretty useful, but it used to be such a wonderful "fuck you" to the rogues that jumped me in BGs...

[Ingmar]

Yeah I miss the duration aspect to the poison immunity.

[Morfiend]

They also buffed undead, but orcs/gnomes/draenei/dwarves and to an extent trolls are still sitting in the Crap Racial Bin. :P

I dont know about that. Draenei get the nice hit racial, which frees up a bunch of stat space, and with reforging, its going to be much more useful. Also Orcs and Trolls have very nice PVE racials.

But yeah, compared to Goblin/Worgen, all the others are pretty crappy.

[Azazel]

That'd be Fury Warriors (still).

Couldn't shammies do something similar at some stage?

And is Fury War worthwhile/fun?

[Azazel]

I can give you input on leveling one at the moment. I started leveling one about two months ago on the side, and its insanely fun. Past level 15 I have done zero quests besides dungeon, just leveling via LFD insta queues or PVP weekends. Mine is decked out in everything besides the fishing contest heirloom and your a totally unstoppable monster. Cycling between the two shield blocks, last stand and lifeblood you can pretty much tank anything with a marginal healer.

Sounds alright, actually. Are you Prot or fury?

[Ingmar]

Sounds like prot (with alchemyherbalism).

[Lantyssa]

Couldn't shammies do something similar at some stage?

No one but Fury Warriors could ever dual wield two-handers.

[fuser]

Yep prot and herbalism (armory).

[Ingmar]

You may be thinking of the 'debate' that raged for a while among shamans as to whether 2h was better to use than DW once they got access to it, I think a lot of times it was summed up as "the 2h/DW argument" so that might have led you to think they were dual wielding 2hs? (It never was even close but the 2h people were really stubborn with their clinging to it.)

[NiX]

Managed to snag a copy of BC for $10. Now to find vanilla and WotLK for cheap.

[dd0029]

Ok, here's a question for someone that knows about priests and the beta and whatnot.  What happened to Prayer of anything?  I don't have it anymore and can not find anything about it being removed.

[Shrike]

You may be thinking of the 'debate' that raged for a while among shamans as to whether 2h was better to use than DW once they got access to it, I think a lot of times it was summed up as "the 2h/DW argument" so that might have led you to think they were dual wielding 2hs? (It never was even close but the 2h people were really stubborn with their clinging to it.)

This dumbass argument goes on to this day. It's mutated a bit, since even the most brain dead vanilla-addled shammie has figured out that 2h isn't even in the same universe as DW when it comes to actual damage output. Nowadays, it's couched in the "argument" that it was more fun back in vanilla and we were feared and loathed in PvP. Um, yeah. I remember those days on my fury warrior, and I didn't give two shits about horde shaman. They died like everyone else. Occasionally, they got lucky. Note the word "occasionally."

It was a big deal during TBC, too. I recall seeing horde shaman again and again with 2handers in BGs. I always--without exception--destroyed them with my DW shaman. Every. Single. Time. And I did keep track.

It's normally open season on these bozos on the O-fficial forums, but it comes up again and again. Like a zombie.

[Chimpy]

Before they nerfed windfury weapon to the ground in vanilla (about the time Arathi Basin was released) a shaman with the right weapon and decent enhance gear with a lot of crit could roll people almost instantly. But the right weapons were almost never in the hands of shaman at the time as they were "warrior items" for most guilds: Spinal Reaper and Hand of Ragnaros. Or the 2h hammer off trash from BWL was ok as well but I think that may have come after they nerfed WF.

But once they lowered the bonus AP and made it not be able to proc on iteself, it was not all that great anymore. Plus, almost no one played a shaman in BGs spec'd full enhance, they just spec'd deep enough into the tree to use 2handers (and the whining you would hear about having to re-level weapon skill to 300 after any respec was ridiculous).

[Morfiend]

Before they nerfed windfury weapon to the ground in vanilla (about the time Arathi Basin was released) a shaman with the right weapon and decent enhance gear with a lot of crit could roll people almost instantly.

This.

We had a shaman in my guild who would take out whole groups of Alliance by himself with 2h and windfury. He didnt even have a "super fantastic weapon".

[Ingmar]

That all happened before they even got DW though.

[Chimpy]

That all happened before they even got DW though.

I did say "way back in vanilla" :p

There also were a couple of 2h setups in TBC that would do comparable DPS to DW but it required some very specific pieces of gear from BT/Hyjal and a very specific rotation and an oddly stacked group from what I remember reading. But no one would use them just like up until just before Sunwell, everyone was against having a Retty in the raid (which was another "need specific gear/group comp" thing) because it flew in the face of "conventional wisdom".

The real reason that DW shaman were so much better overall than 2h was the relative lack of need for +hit to overcome the DW penalty like warriors and rogues.

[birdsguts]

Before they nerfed windfury weapon to the ground in vanilla (about the time Arathi Basin was released) a shaman with the right weapon and decent enhance gear with a lot of crit could roll people almost instantly.

This.

We had a shaman in my guild who would take out whole groups of Alliance by himself with 2h and windfury. He didnt even have a "super fantastic weapon".

Man that's back when I actually played this game. I just had an old crappy Arcanite Reaper and it was hilarious how fast guys would go down when WF actually proc-ed.

[Arrrgh]

Ok, here's a question for someone that knows about priests and the beta and whatnot.  What happened to Prayer of anything?  I don't have it anymore and can not find anything about it being removed.

?

Prayer of Mending and Healing are still there.

[Sheepherder]

crappy Arcanite Reaper

Heh.

[Rendakor]

Ok, here's a question for someone that knows about priests and the beta and whatnot.  What happened to Prayer of anything?  I don't have it anymore and can not find anything about it being removed.

?

Prayer of Mending and Healing are still there.

But what about Prayer of anything?

[dd0029]

Ok smart people, specifically Prayer of Fortitude and Prayer of Shadow Protection.  I can not find anything talking about how they plan to handle the group buff functionality. 

Divine Spirit and it's group buff appear to be completely gone as well.

[Rendakor]

I believe Fort and Shadow Prot are staying as-is, although there is no longer a talent that improves fortitude.

[dd0029]

I believe Fort and Shadow Prot are staying as-is, although there is no longer a talent that improves fortitude.

That's my point, they are not.  I logged in my priest to the beta and could not find Prayer of Fortitude or Prayer of Shadow Protection.  Wowhead is not showing an active Prayer of Fortitude in their beta section.  They old trainer books have even apparently gone grey.

[Arrrgh]

I believe Fort and Shadow Prot are staying as-is, although there is no longer a talent that improves fortitude.

That's my point, they are not.  I logged in my priest to the beta and could not find Prayer of Fortitude or Prayer of Shadow Protection.  Wowhead is not showing an active Prayer of Fortitude in their beta section.  They old trainer books have even apparently gone grey.

Oh, plain old fort is both a single and a group buff now.

[Shrike]

There also were a couple of 2h setups in TBC that would do comparable DPS to DW but it required some very specific pieces of gear from BT/Hyjal and a very specific rotation and an oddly stacked group from what I remember reading. But no one would use them just like up until just before Sunwell, everyone was against having a Retty in the raid (which was another "need specific gear/group comp" thing) because it flew in the face of "conventional wisdom".

The real reason that DW shaman were so much better overall than 2h was the relative lack of need for +hit to overcome the DW penalty like warriors and rogues.

Um, no. DW was so far better than any 2 setup in TBC it wasn't even a contest. It didn't matter what wonder 2h you had or cherry-picked group combo. The hit talents in the shaman trees were nice when gearing up, but really didn't have anything to do with that superiority. I ran into horde shaman repeatedly with T6 2handers (when I had S2 axes) and these fights were so one sided it wasn't even amusing (well, actually it was, but I need some sort of superlative here). I never lost a fight to a 2h shaman in TBC. Ever. And they happened a lot.

If you would have tried that 2h stunt in a raid, you'd have been told to knock off the stupid shit and get your real weapons out. I recall spending some time on dummies with both S2 axes and a T5 2hander, and the difference was on the order of 40-50% better with DW in damage output.

Hell, recently, some bozo on the shaman forums was trying to sell this snake oil again and "proved" that 2h was "acceptable" when he pulled 8.8k in ICC--with a 300dps 2hander. I pull 14k in ICC with 205dps 1handers. You can run it on the sim and see the yawning gulf in effectiveness. Moreover the gulf widens--again--in Cataclysm.

[Lastwolf]

I believe Fort and Shadow Prot are staying as-is, although there is no longer a talent that improves fortitude.

That's my point, they are not.  I logged in my priest to the beta and could not find Prayer of Fortitude or Prayer of Shadow Protection.  Wowhead is not showing an active Prayer of Fortitude in their beta section.  They old trainer books have even apparently gone grey.

Oh, plain old fort is both a single and a group buff now.

Also doesn't stack with Commanding shout any more, If I recall

[NiX]

So, do the new races hit with the expansion or the changes that are going through prior to the launch?

[Ingmar]

Expansion.

[Morfiend]

So, do the new races hit with the expansion or the changes that are going through prior to the launch?

Races with the expansion, but the new class combinations with 4.0.3.

[Paelos]

I'm honestly confused as to what exactly is coming and if I should even bother logging in before the expansion is in my hands.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Next week is supposedly the stats/talents/spells revamp so its potentially important to come back and learn how your shit got broken/buffed and how to re-play your class.

[NiX]

Expansion.

Thank you!

Snagged vanilla WoW for $18. Time to find a copy of WotLK and I'm set.