Cataclysm

[caladein]

Stolen from SA by way of EJ:

Didn't preorder the digital copy?
Want to pre-download all the Cata Data?

Open up Launcher.WTF and set your accountType from "LK" to "CT"
Do the same in config.wtf.

Enjoy.

Other bonus of this is you don't need to log in to start the pre-load if you did buy the digital copy, which is not happening if your account's lapsed.

[Rendakor]

Does that work now caladein? Or do we have to wait until the pre-download starts?

[caladein]

I did it, started up the launcher and it immediately went to work downloading about 800MB.  This is after having patched to 4.0.1 a few weeks ago.

[Setanta]

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!"   

I love this on my pally and 'lock journeyman mounts - the lock journeyman owns most other horse models in it's simplicity.

Pity the original kodos still look like ass

[SurfD]

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.

I am not sure exactly how this change is going to go over.  My biggest concern is Savage Defense not proccing off of Lacerate Ticks.  Bears are in general a fairly slow hiting class, without a huge number of instant attacks that dont already have decently long cooldown attached to them.   

Savage defense is supposed to be our equivilent to block.  However with this change, I am concerned that with any decently fast hitting boss or any time we have more then maybe two mobs on us at once, they will be eating our savage defense procs way faster then we can generate them, which may not balance comparatively to warriors or paladins who can hit fairly absurd block chance percentages in moderately decent gear.

The original tank model was something along the lines of:
Warriors and Paladins had Dodge, Parry and Block (where a lot of their mitigation comes from)
Druids had Dodge (usually equivilent to the combined dodge / parry of plate tanks), and Savage defense with extra HP as a buffer since Savage Defense would never realistically compete with block for amount of damage prevented.

I can understand that Savage Defense scaling off AP and AP scaling off Vengeance and Vengeance scaling wierdly with Massive Bear HP could all end up a bit wonky, but I think removing Savage Defense procs off of Dot crits may be overkill.

[Kitsune]

Bears hit slowly, their spammable attacks are gone, and my feral druid's critical percentage has dropped several percent from the talent changes.  So yeah, I'm now a worse tank in every regard, huzzah.

[WindupAtheist]

By the way, between "Purples are for raiders, newb!" and "Deathwing is going to one-shot your level 10, isn't that fun?" I'm detecting a particular and uncharacteristic Everquestian stench coming from this expansion. The zombie thing was pretty disruptive back in the day, but there were things to DO during that event besides die and pay repair bills helplessly.

[Sheepherder]

The original tank model was something along the lines of:
Warriors and Paladins had Dodge, Parry and Block (where a lot of their mitigation comes from)
Druids had Dodge (usually equivilent to the combined dodge / parry of plate tanks), and Savage defense with extra HP as a buffer since Savage Defense would never realistically compete with block for amount of damage prevented.

And the original tank model was shit, because block and parry were never worth gearing for until now, and in the case of parry could be detrimental.  While bears had a sizable lead in effective health.

_____ hit slowly, their spammable attacks are gone, and my __________'s critical percentage has dropped several percent from the talent changes.  So yeah, I'm now a worse tank in every regard, huzzah.

Back of the line.

[caladein]

By the way, between "Purples are for raiders, newb!" and "Deathwing is going to one-shot your level 10, isn't that fun?" I'm detecting a particular and uncharacteristic Everquestian stench coming from this expansion. The zombie thing was pretty disruptive back in the day, but there were things to DO during that event besides die and pay repair bills helplessly.

The gear progression between Normal 5s, Heroic 5s, and Raids has been an issue at the beginning of each expansion.

With TBC they tried to make it a half-step between dungeon rares and early epics by upgrading the quality but lowering the item level (minus 5 or so).  Players bitched about how they weren't a large enough upgrade and they eventually caved and just made the starting level 70 epics the same item level as the dungeon rares.

In Wrath, the only epics from the initial heroic dungeons were off the end boss and following the TBC model, they were the same item level as the rares that dropped in that instance.  Normal mode dungeons were a full tier behind.  This meant that there was effectively a three tier gap between a normal-mode 80 dungeon drop and a drop from Naxx-25.

Things are reasonably similar in Cataclysm except that 10-man gear and the same-item-level epic off the last boss in a heroic are now gone.  There is again a full tier jump (13 item levels) between normal 5s and heroic 5s and a two tier jump (13 item levels plus rare->epic) from that to T11.

The EQ crowd can take it as a small victory while they still go on about 40-mans being best mans, badges being terrible, and the need for aspirational hierarchies; but the change is only a result of Blizzard not giving a shit about mudflation and having 10s and 25s share the same gear.

[Hawkbit]

I'm not a raider; other than weeklies I've never stepped in a raid outside Naxx from this xpac.  I used to raid in Vanilla/BC, though.  I'm 100% okay with not being able to get purples, in fact I think it's for the best.  Gear isn't very 'epic' when everyone is wearing it.  Also, it makes it that much cooler when you're full blues and finally get that first purple.

As far as Deathwing one-shotting lvl 10s, I'm pretty okay with that too.  There's nothing to really be scared of in the world.  Fel Reavers were awesome in Hellfire... watching them one shot people, adding that level of urgency to get out of an area when they were around.  Back in Vanilla there were zones that had big old bosses like in Blasted Lands that would spawn and own folks too. 

People complaining about stuff that hasn't even happened yet...  let's just relax and attempt to enjoy the game.  If it's not fun either Blizzard will change it or you can quit.  It's not a hard decision. 

[SurfD]

The original tank model was something along the lines of:
Warriors and Paladins had Dodge, Parry and Block (where a lot of their mitigation comes from)
Druids had Dodge (usually equivilent to the combined dodge / parry of plate tanks), and Savage defense with extra HP as a buffer since Savage Defense would never realistically compete with block for amount of damage prevented.

And the original tank model was shit, because block and parry were never worth gearing for until now, and in the case of parry could be detrimental.  While bears had a sizable lead in effective health.

We NEEDED that lead in effective health, though, because before Savage Defense, we had quite literally NOTHING else other then higher then usual armor to set us appart from other tanks.  Having 40 - 45% dodge was great, untill you realised that an equally geared warror / Paladin probably had better avoidance then you did after you combined their Parry and Dodge percentages, were rapidly approaching the same amount of armor (yay for shields), and they ALSO had block, which they could get to pretty silly % levels (I knew at least one paladin who regularly soloed Garr in Molten core at 70 beacause he could hit around 95% chance to block, completely negating the damage that all 8 of the bosses adds did).

Expertise and the removal of Parry haste on pretty much every really hard hiting boss in the game when wrath came out also made parry MUCH less of a "bad" thing to gear for.

_____ hit slowly, their spammable attacks are gone, and my __________'s critical percentage has dropped several percent from the talent changes.  So yeah, I'm now a worse tank in every regard, huzzah.

Back of the line.

I am not really up on warrior and paladin tank mechanics, but do they need land hits to get their block to actually block? Just by putting on a shield, they automatically gain 30% or 40% chance to block when in decently statted tank gear, or somewhere around there dont they?

I am not super worried about it on big boss fights (unless the boss hits like algalon does, with an attack speed like a rogue but damage like a freight-trian), but in any situation where you are dealing with a decent group of things (like, say, instance trash), block style mechanics will destroy SD style ones in terms of efficiency.

Savage Defense (as our equivilent to block style damage absorb / prevent mechanic) ONLY procs on critical hits that we do, and ANY damage taken consumes the entire thing (meaning an add hitting you for 25 damage will consume your 5k absorb SD proc).  Since Bears have a pretty slow attack speed, Mangle, Maul, and Swipe now all have around 5-6 second cooldowns, and our only two spamable abilities (Lacerate and Pulverise) are almost completely useless when spammed, takeing SD procs off of Lacerate ticks may easily put us in a situation where we cant proc SD even remotely often enough to let it compete with block in multi mob encounters.

-------------------------------------

Ninja Edit for Kitsune:  Replacing your tank itemized Strength / Dodge Rings, Cape and Neck with equivilent Ilevel Agility DPS gear will solve that crit problem, while also probably giving you a net gain in Dodge, AP and giving you extra Haste to reforge into mastery to boot.

[Typhon]

I'm not a raider; other than weeklies I've never stepped in a raid outside Naxx from this xpac.  I used to raid in Vanilla/BC, though.  I'm 100% okay with not being able to get purples, in fact I think it's for the best.  Gear isn't very 'epic' when everyone is wearing it.  Also, it makes it that much cooler when you're full blues and finally get that first purple.

As far as Deathwing one-shotting lvl 10s, I'm pretty okay with that too.  There's nothing to really be scared of in the world.  Fel Reavers were awesome in Hellfire... watching them one shot people, adding that level of urgency to get out of an area when they were around.  Back in Vanilla there were zones that had big old bosses like in Blasted Lands that would spawn and own folks too. 

People complaining about stuff that hasn't even happened yet...  let's just relax and attempt to enjoy the game.  If it's not fun either Blizzard will change it or you can quit.  It's not a hard decision. 

1) everyone who raids will be wearing it.  So I'll be conservative and say 50% of the playerbase.  So you are correct, not 'everyone' will be wearing it.   
2) What you described does add tension.  The Ungoro TRexs are another good example.  That is not what Deathwing is.
3) lol, welcome to f13

[SurfD]

I am not exactly sure how the Deathwing event works.  There was a video of it in action (sort of) up on MMO-Champ, and the person recording the video was flying around following deathwing across the zone, and landing on the ground running through burning areas that were left behind.  Judging from the look of things, you probably have to practically be standing in his path as he flys over you vomiting fire in order to actually die, so simply getting off to one side of the zone will likely be enough to save you whenever he happens to wander by.

[Typhon]

If there is a chance to avoid it, I have much less of a problem with it because there is some interactivity.  One post described it as, "If you're in the zone, you're almost definitely screwed."

Re-reading them all seems like there is some chance for avoidance, so I'll stop being so twitchy (but just about this, mind you! twitch!)

[Sheepherder]

We NEEDED that lead in effective health, though, because before Savage Defense, we had quite literally NOTHING else other then higher then usual armor to set us appart from other tanks.  Having 40 - 45% dodge was great, untill you realised that an equally geared warror / Paladin probably had better avoidance then you did after you combined their Parry and Dodge percentages, were rapidly approaching the same amount of armor (yay for shields), and they ALSO had block, which they could get to pretty silly % levels (I knew at least one paladin who regularly soloed Garr in Molten core at 70 beacause he could hit around 95% chance to block, completely negating the damage that all 8 of the bosses adds did).

And now you don't.

More to the point: a geared defense capped warrior or the equivalent in paladin terms prior to 3.0 was guaranteed to have at least 102.4% avoidance all totaled, because at that point Shield Block and Holy Shield were short cooldowns that gave you something like 50-60% chance to block, and they were required to mitigate crushing blows, which Bear druids were, by design, meant to soak via effective health.  At that point, block rating was also around one third the value in item budget of other avoidance.

Expertise and the removal of Parry haste on pretty much every really hard hiting boss in the game when wrath came out also made parry MUCH less of a "bad" thing to gear for.

I am not really up on warrior and paladin tank mechanics, but do they need land hits to get their block to actually block? Just by putting on a shield, they automatically gain 30% or 40% chance to block when in decently statted tank gear, or somewhere around there dont they?

I am not super worried about it on big boss fights (unless the boss hits like algalon does, with an attack speed like a rogue but damage like a freight-trian), but in any situation where you are dealing with a decent group of things (like, say, instance trash), block style mechanics will destroy SD style ones in terms of efficiency.

Savage Defense (as our equivilent to block style damage absorb / prevent mechanic) ONLY procs on critical hits that we do, and ANY damage taken consumes the entire thing (meaning an add hitting you for 25 damage will consume your 5k absorb SD proc).  Since Bears have a pretty slow attack speed, Mangle, Maul, and Swipe now all have around 5-6 second cooldowns, and our only two spamable abilities (Lacerate and Pulverise) are almost completely useless when spammed, takeing SD procs off of Lacerate ticks may easily put us in a situation where we cant proc SD even remotely often enough to let it compete with block in multi mob encounters.

Parry haste was of marginal effect.  The fact that point for point it offered only slightly better survivability than agility for paladins and warriors was more than enough to make it shit, however.

Block has never required extra effort, some cooldowns have historically increased block chance.  Block is a single stat now, with lower returns per point of rating and a percentile based mitigation of damage.  Your concerns about instance trash are groundless and have already been addressed.  Read the patch notes and theorycraft, FFS.  Or just listen to Ingmar, who's already told you that bear druids are by far the best trash compactor in the beta currently.

[Chimpy]

I believe he was talking about boss haste when they were parried. I.E. getting parry bombed by Brutallus.

[Mnemon]

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.

yup. road through Stormwind on my old school black stallion and got a good 10 tells asking where I got it.

[Ingmar]

Remember, the other 3 tanks have now lost all the passive miss/dodge/parry/block that they got from having to wear +defense gear to become uncrittable. That really takes the meat out of any avoidance advantage they may have had.

[Sheepherder]

I believe he was talking about boss haste when they were parried. I.E. getting parry bombed by Brutallus.

I know, it was of marginal effect.  Because Brutallus never parry hasted.

[Ingmar]

Prince Malchezzar (phase 2) was the poster boss for getting fucked by parry haste, really.

That said, bosses parry hasting has *nothing* to do with gearing for parry yourself. They haste when *they* parry, not when we do.

[Fordel]

Prince Malchezzar (phase 2) was the poster boss for getting fucked by parry haste, really.

That said, bosses parry hasting has *nothing* to do with gearing for parry yourself. They haste when *they* parry, not when we do.

Remember when I used to just stop swinging my sword? Judge, HolyShield, Exorcisim, Cons!

[Ingmar]

Cheating paladins! 

[Fordel]

Well, really, all I turned off was auto-attack, because that was all that was left in the TBC era. 

[Soulflame]

And then half of your raid would stand in the PBAE of an elemental.   

[Fordel]

Only half the raid was considered a good run for the first few months with us.  



-edit-


From the same tank thread: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=27397548532&sid=1&pageNo=14#278




Just about every design decision in Cata that you or I don't like, at it's base, is about the bold bit. When six months down the line, nothing still works, you can blame that.

[Ashamanchill]

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.

Excuse me Mr. Robot of Logic  and reason, but I didn't say it wasn't merited, or needed, just what my first reaction was 

[Ingmar]

does not compute

[Sjofn]

Excuse me Mr. Robot of Logic  and reason, but I didn't say it wasn't merited, or needed, just what my first reaction was 

If you want to provoke him, ask him how happy he is that he doesn't have blood rage anymore.

[Chimpy]

That said, bosses parry hasting has *nothing* to do with gearing for parry yourself. They haste when *they* parry, not when we do.

Oh...yeah.

I was not really reading the previous posts and was tired when I replied.

I just remember parry bombs shredding tanks on that one annoying guy by the waterfall in BT.

[Soulflame]

Making healer mana matter is going to blow up in their face.

[Simond]

I bet tying crit block to mastery blows up first. Watch every warrior stack mastery and block then become ridiculously hard to kill.

[Sheepherder]

Diminishing returns still apply.

Evidently not at the moment.

[SurfD]

Diminishing returns still apply.

Evidently not at the moment.

They probably still do, but since diminishing returns are now calculated based on a max level of 85, things get wonky at level 80.

[Sheepherder]

No, there's absolutely no diminishing return on block.  Everything else is peachy, block isn't.

I expect that will change soon, but you never know.

[Ingmar]

Block has never had DR as far as I know. I'm not sure it really needs it frankly - it is still worse than dodge or parry even when you crit block, and we still are going to want to cap expertise and hit for threat purposes, and we're still going to want to stack stamina since it is a survival AND threat stat now, and bosses are still going to do significant amounts of magic damage. There are enough things pulling at our itemization priorities that I don't really expect stacking mastery exclusively to be a terribly productive choice.