Cataclysm

[Shrike]

The main problem with the badge system is TBC was the difficulty of heroics. If you didn't have CC, you weren't going (i.e. dps warriors and shaman). So you never had the access to badge gear that those who did have CC did. The only other alternative was running Karazhan every week, but that was still limited to how many badges you could pull out of it, which again limited access to the badge gear--particularly the T6 equivalent stuff. Ask me how I know. And, yeah, I spent a lot of time PvPing to get gear because of this (shitty 1hander itemization, I'm looking at YOU).

The present system certainly isn't perfect (not leastways because it encouraged the plague known as gearscore), but it made smooth progression a lot easier--mostly. That's assuming you can overlook the insanity of four tiers of gear and 27 item levels within a tier. Additionally, 1hander itemization still blew goats and was arguably even worse than TBC until ICC came out, but it finally did get fixed. Sorta. Still, it was fairly easy to get stuff to progress.

My real concern is what's going to happen to guilds. Relatively easy PuG raids were a big help in gearing up in this expansion. That looks like it's going to end in Cataclysm. If you find yourself on the outs on your guild's raiding schedule for whatever reason, it doesn't look like it'll be easy to work around that with PuGs or alliance setups.

[dd0029]

I always figured that badge item inflation managed to bring people up to speed; you certainly don't need to progress through Naxx->Ulduar->TOC before doing ICC nowadays, and the badge item model is a lot better now than it was in TBC.

Yeah, you don't need to now.  But with everything I keep seeing, it's all TBC rehashed.  That comment about filling holes also has me curious.  Right now, badges have been a complete gearing method outside of weapons for two tiers which really eased the flow.  I'm just getting really strong "Vision" flashbacks from these endgame comments.

[Ingmar]

This is just the release progression. When the next tier hits, they will add catch-up gear for badge points. Stop worrying so much.

[Morfiend]

New Cataclysm beta build. Decent amount of class changes.

[Nevermore]

As usual, the poor underpowered Mages get tons of nerfs.   

[Ironwood]

Yeah, that's a little strange.  I really expected Mages to get hammered.

Also, druid healing is far too easy and low maintenance as it is.  And it got buffed ?

I'm confused.

[Ingmar]

This is the beta build, the mages already got their nerfs on live - the spec passives got whacked on all 3 specs. The numbers are supposedly different at 85 so they're operating off of different passives there I think.

The mana stuff in particular on healers on live doesn't reflect what the 85 raids are showing, because of where ratings are and how large mana pools are relatively speaking.

[Morfiend]

This is the beta build, the mages already got their nerfs on live - the spec passives got whacked on all 3 specs. The numbers are supposedly different at 85 so they're operating off of different passives there I think.

The mana stuff in particular on healers on live doesn't reflect what the 85 raids are showing, because of where ratings are and how large mana pools are relatively speaking.

A few of my friends on the beta said mages are a completely different story at 85, and the buffs are indeed needed. It is a bit hard to stomach when getting hit for 25k by a mage in PVP is the norm at 80.

[Merusk]

These Cata heroic/ raid changes make me glad I focused on my tank/ dps hybrids instead of straight DPS over the last year.  Jebus it's going to suck waiting in queue forever as dps with the lack of Heroic-Geared Tanks for things.

The priest changes confuse me.  Was renew too powerful in beta, or is this simply a "Vision" change because they want priests to use renew less and pom/ poh more?   I should learn more about healing with these damn new chakra mechanics.

[SurfD]

If people are still running WotLK heroics now, I don't think you have to worry about them not doing so in Cata.

The problem here is that A: Cata heroics are supposed to be pretty damn punnishingly hard, which means that they will probably be an exercise in rage inducing failure for 95% of Dungeon Finder groups, which leads directly to B: that trying to find a non dungeon finder group on your server to do heroics with will suffer from the same problem you have now when trying to get an undergeared (or even appropriately geared) character into entry level raids: everyone will want you to overgear the content for an "easy run", making it impossible to get any kind of Pug Heroic group going unless you have a guild to support you.

It will be "LFM Naxx 10 run, must have {insert ulduar equivilent gearscore here}" all over again, execept for 5 man heroics.

[Ingmar]

We'll see if "punishingly" is really accurate soon enough I guess. A lot of the early reports on difficulty came from people who wandered into them early (i.e. in their quest greens instead of full normal blues) and with class balance still heavily in flux (and encounters untuned and buggy). The people going in with premades seem to be having better luck.

[SurfD]

We'll see if "punishingly" is really accurate soon enough I guess. A lot of the early reports on difficulty came from people who wandered into them early (i.e. in their quest greens instead of full normal blues) and with class balance still heavily in flux (and encounters untuned and buggy). The people going in with premades seem to be having better luck.

From what i have been told, unless you have an almost complete set of level 85 dungeon normal blues, level 85 heroic bosses will wreck you.  Especially for tanks and healers.

[Ingmar]

Yeah that doesn't sound too surprising. Tanks always have to gear up more urgently than everyone else anyway.

[K9]

Honestly, I'm fine with some hard heroics. The most enjoyable 5-man instances Blizzard have ever made were the TBC heroics. Sure they had a clownshoes raiding model back then, but for entertaining 5-man content TBC is still king.

[Sjofn]

I'd prefer somewhere between TBC and WotLK, personally. Some of the TBC ones were just way too stupidly hard for who was supposed to be running them.

[Ashamanchill]

My favorite dungeon in WoW at this point? ToC. That's right, the room with three bosses. I no longer base how much I like an instance based on my first run through, because I know the fun of it wears off after the 90th time.

I wish I had the willpower to sit out the beginning of cata and come in when their requirement for things is lower, and decently inflated raid gear is availible for Valor points. Sadly, I don't.

[WindupAtheist]

This shit where every mount goes whatever your highest trained speed is? I fucking love it. LOVE IT. All my cool looking old normal-speed mounts, totally viable again. Hell yes.

[Nightblade]

This shit where every mount goes whatever your highest trained speed is? I fucking love it. LOVE IT. All my cool looking old normal-speed mounts, totally viable again. Hell yes.

Now you can ride your normal looking mount whilst wearing your giant flaming / electric crackling shoulder pads adorned with blinking eyeballs and neon lights... That are also on fire.

[Azazel]

wish I had the willpower to sit out the beginning of cata and come in when their requirement for things is lower, and decently inflated raid gear is availible for Valor points. Sadly, I don't.

Absolutely my plan! 

[Merusk]

This shit where every mount goes whatever your highest trained speed is? I fucking love it. LOVE IT. All my cool looking old normal-speed mounts, totally viable again. Hell yes.

I've been riding around on the Palomino on my mage because I like the look and don't think a heavily-armored warhorse is a good visual fit for a mage.   I got a tell yesterday saying "Ha, Ha, Journeyman mount!"   

[Sjofn]

This shit where every mount goes whatever your highest trained speed is? I fucking love it. LOVE IT. All my cool looking old normal-speed mounts, totally viable again. Hell yes.

I've totally been using my paladin's little horse instead of the charger. 

[caladein]

Yes, I definitely look forward to free 310% speed magic carpets on my Priest whenever I bother resubscribing.

[Typhon]

Wasn't something like this (Deathwing is Coming! - link is to MMO Champion) done pretty frequently in EQ?  I remember it as sucking each and every time.

The forum (currently) seems to think this idea is genius.  I'm guessing that it will be a common occurrence initially and then dropping off.  I'm still not quite getting how getting killed with no chance of mitigation or escape is fun.

Has this happened in beta?  Can anyone comment?

[Sjofn]

Well, they are at least warning you that it's going to happen AND you get a Feat of Strength. People put up with a lot for those.

To be fair, I also found the whole Waking the Sleeper thing hilarious, as well as the ONE non-leashed mob in Dark Age of Camelot killing everyone in his awesome path (I miss you, Ukobat!).

[Lantyssa]

Makes me want to play (at all) on a server where they'll never kill him for endless Deathwing insta-gib spam.

[Azazel]

Well, they are at least warning you that it's going to happen AND you get a Feat of Strength. People put up with a lot for those.

This.

Also, Yes, it's very EverQuest.

[Fordel]

Well, they are at least warning you that it's going to happen AND you get a Feat of Strength. People put up with a lot for those.

To be fair, I also found the whole Waking the Sleeper thing hilarious, as well as the ONE non-leashed mob in Dark Age of Camelot killing everyone in his awesome path (I miss you, Ukobat!).

Ukobat just killed people, the Giant Raidboss mushroom in Hib SI used to kill people, then eat their gravestones too. It also ate the forge once.

[Sjofn]

Shit, I forgot about that. That is ALSO awesome. 

[Ingmar]

Some more tanking changes in the pipe:

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/27397548532/upcoming-tanking-changes/

[Typhon]

I know I'm being hypercritical because I think he's a douchebag but the warrior changes seem like a nerf (based upon what shield block was intended to do for warriors, not what it was actually doing) and completely obtuse at the same time.

Ingmar can you explain that shit because I'm reading it like this

0) Bock reduces damage by 30%

1) Warriors could get close to 100% block chance so shield block was essentially worthless

2) Because of this, where it would take you over 100% we have it add to a critical block chance
(what the fuck is critical block?  increased damage absorption?)

3) Mastery increases block chance by 1.5%. 
Is this an increase?  Decrease?  If Warriors were already able to block avoidance cap, why would they increase this? (answered my own question - Wars can cap avoidance, not necessarily block.

4) You only get critical block when Shield Block is up.
Ok, so the maximum that crit block can be increased is the 25% from shield block?

5) The new warrior Mastery is 1.5% block and 1.5% critical block per point of mastery.
Oh, ok, so the maximum that crit block can be is 25% from shield block and whatever you have from your Mastery... but whatever you have from your mastery only applies when you shield block?

What a clusterfuck of a change notice.  I definitely need to stop reading this shit or read it much, much more so that it makes sense.

[caladein]

2) Because of this, where it would take you over 100% we have it add to a critical block chance
(what the fuck is critical block?  increased damage absorption?)

Critical Block = Block twice the damage.

[Ingmar]

I know I'm being hypercritical because I think he's a douchebag but the warrior changes seem like a nerf (based upon what shield block was intended to do for warriors, not what it was actually doing) and completely obtuse at the same time.

Ingmar can you explain that shit because I'm reading it like this

0) Bock reduces damage by 30%

1) Warriors could get close to 100% block chance so shield block was essentially worthless

2) Because of this, where it would take you over 100% we have it add to a critical block chance
(what the fuck is critical block?  increased damage absorption?)

3) Mastery increases block chance by 1.5%.  
Is this an increase?  Decrease?  If Warriors were already able to block avoidance cap, why would they increase this? (answered my own question - Wars can cap avoidance, not necessarily block.

4) You only get critical block when Shield Block is up.
Ok, so the maximum that crit block can be increased is the 25% from shield block?

5) The new warrior Mastery is 1.5% block and 1.5% critical block per point of mastery.
Oh, ok, so the maximum that crit block can be is 25% from shield block and whatever you have from your Mastery... but whatever you have from your mastery only applies when you shield block?

What a clusterfuck of a change notice.  I definitely need to stop reading this shit or read it much, much more so that it makes sense.

It was actually posted by Nethaera and Zarhym....

Anyway, critical block is a chance to block twice as much damage whenever we block (we already had this before from a talent, it is turning into our mastery.)

Chance to critical block on an attack you block is determined by mastery. You can critical block without shield block up, having shield block up will just make it much more likely that any given block is critical.

Mastery is changing from:

- each point adds 1.25% to block chance and 2.5% to critical block chance

to:

- each point adds 1.5% to both block and critical block chance

You have 8 points of mastery base so that will be 12% on each just by default. I don't know if the base chance itself is changing, that is +10% block and +20% critical block just for picking to be a prot warrior. (So that would be I think a starting point of 27% chance to block and 32% chance to critical block.)

EDIT: The thing about 'only critical block when shield block is up' is talking about the conversion of block+avoidance over 100% to critical block chance. You will always get your regular chance to crit block, just now if you push the shield block button and that pushes you over 100%, you get the excess converted to crit block for the duration of shield block.

I think it is a good change in the long term, it was working pretty strangely before. We had not enough block chance when shield block was down, and too much when it was up.

[Ingmar]

Some other related changes coming:

Here are a few additional changes we are making which will be applied in patch 4.0.3a:


    * Guardian of Ancient Kings -- Damage reduction changed from 60% to 50%. Cooldown still 2 minutes (talented). Duration still 12 seconds.

    * Icebound Fortitude -- Damage reduction changed from 30% to 20% (or 60% to 50% talented). Cooldown still 2 minutes. Duration still 12 seconds.

    * Shield Wall -- Damage reduction changed from 40% to 50%. Cooldown still 2 minutes (talented). Duration still 12 seconds.

    * Glyph of Shield Wall -- Now buffs damage reduction by 10% (to 60%), but only adds 1 minute of cooldown.

    * Survival Instincts -- Damage reduction changed from 60% to 50%. Cooldown reduced from 5 minutes to 2 minutes. Duration still 12 seconds.

    * Bear Form -- Stamina bonus lowered from 20% to 10% and Heart of the Wild health bonus from 10% to 6%. Bear health should be close to plate tank health with this change.

[Ashamanchill]

I want to kick Ghostcrawler in the teeth for these changes to Feral Druids.

[Ingmar]

I want to kick Ghostcrawler in the teeth for these changes to Feral Druids.

Have you been raiding at 85 on the beta? Apparently they have both way more hp than other tanks and also take less damage. That couldn't be left alone.

EDIT: Really the changes to bring HP totals in line with each other are like 3 years overdue. "I have a lot of HP" is not a playstyle difference, and it makes balancing encounters really squirrely. They can differentiate the tanks through what they do, not what their basic stats are. Especially now that vengeance stacks AP up to 10% of your hp, and savage defense scales with AP. It was very obviously going to spiral out of control very fast.