Cataclysm Class Changes

[Fordel]

Prot Warriors don't seem to be getting as much only because the Prot Warrior tree is already the prototype for the new style of Cata talent tree.




Life Grip will be fine for PvE, they'll make it group/raid only and the novelty of screwing with your raidmates will wear off in a week or two.



PvP is where it will live or die.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Prot Warriors don't seem to be getting as much only because the Prot Warrior tree is already the prototype for the new style of Cata talent tree.




Life Grip will be fine for PvE, they'll make it group/raid only and the novelty of screwing with your raidmates will wear off in a week or two.



PvP is where it will live or die.

Speaking as a priest....gripping someone to their death will NEVER get old.

[Ingmar]

The reasoning behind removing divine spirit is pretty wonky. As a raid-wide buff it's already useless to 3/4 or more of most raids. The argument that it makes it too hard to balance mana regen between solo, group and raid play is retarded, since I don't see how 80 spirit makes or breaks anything. I don't see any changes to Fel Intel either so...

Just some more of GC's half-baked logic I guess.

I think you're crossing up your 'how spirit works now' with 'how spirit will work in the expansion'. It seems likely to me that replenishment and blessing of wisdom will also get nerfed/changed so mana regen is more of a constant based on your gear level.

[caladein]

The reasoning behind removing divine spirit is pretty wonky. As a raid-wide buff it's already useless to 3/4 or more of most raids. The argument that it makes it too hard to balance mana regen between solo, group and raid play is retarded, since I don't see how 80 spirit makes or breaks anything. I don't see any changes to Fel Intel either so...

Just some more of GC's half-baked logic I guess.

They're stripping the Spirit out of Blessing of Kings and Mark of the Wild so I would imagine they'll take it out of of Fel Intelligence too.  I can buy their "consistency" argument since they're also knocking down Replenishment and stripping out the raid +Hit buffs in the same vein as the Spirit ones.

[Fordel]

I'm really glad for the removal of +hit buffs like misery or imp FF. Hopefully the Draenei racial as well.

[K9]

The reasoning behind removing divine spirit is pretty wonky. As a raid-wide buff it's already useless to 3/4 or more of most raids. The argument that it makes it too hard to balance mana regen between solo, group and raid play is retarded, since I don't see how 80 spirit makes or breaks anything. I don't see any changes to Fel Intel either so...

Just some more of GC's half-baked logic I guess.

I think you're crossing up your 'how spirit works now' with 'how spirit will work in the expansion'. It seems likely to me that replenishment and blessing of wisdom will also get nerfed/changed so mana regen is more of a constant based on your gear level.

I guess I'll wait and see if they axe BoW too. The issue I take is the notion that they can't balance around the presence or absence of a buff. They manage to do it fine at the moment, with the exception of Heroism there's really no must-have buff. I'm just astonished that they think a single buff will make a night-and-day difference.

[Fordel]

They don't manage that 'just fine' right now. My mana regen is non-existent without Replenishment currently. With it, I never have to drink, without, it's drink/potion every other pull.

[kildorn]

Life Grip and PW:Barrier will likely get axed or heavily changed, again. <3 But my main complaint is that 45s is too long to pull all the people who stand in fires the hell out of them!

Shaman changes seem intensive. I sort of dig the whole primal strike thing, though I'm a little confused why they're getting another good raid heal. Was Chain Heal starting to show weaknesses in the high end, or is it being heavily altered to be situational? I mean, I guess they can go the priest route and have tons of AE heals lying around in a back pocket, it'll make them more fun to heal with.

And yes, Lava Burst should be lower level. 71-75 or so is just lame on a shaman, because it's obvious that you're balanced around a spell you don't have.

edit: Yes, Replenishment is a stupidly overpowered buff right now. And it was only worse when they saw that and then thought it would be good to give it out like candy. The buff was too good, fix mana regen and nerf it, don't just make it so it's an assumed buff ><

[Fordel]

Healing Rain fills a nice Niche that Chain Heal doesn't cover. Since it's ground targeted, people could actually move out of the fire and into the rain 

[Ingmar]

The reasoning behind removing divine spirit is pretty wonky. As a raid-wide buff it's already useless to 3/4 or more of most raids. The argument that it makes it too hard to balance mana regen between solo, group and raid play is retarded, since I don't see how 80 spirit makes or breaks anything. I don't see any changes to Fel Intel either so...

Just some more of GC's half-baked logic I guess.

I think you're crossing up your 'how spirit works now' with 'how spirit will work in the expansion'. It seems likely to me that replenishment and blessing of wisdom will also get nerfed/changed so mana regen is more of a constant based on your gear level.

I guess I'll wait and see if they axe BoW too. The issue I take is the notion that they can't balance around the presence or absence of a buff. They manage to do it fine at the moment, with the exception of Heroism there's really no must-have buff. I'm just astonished that they think a single buff will make a night-and-day difference.

Beyond replenishment as Fordel mentions, sunder armor comes to mind (another one they're nerfing for the same reason.)

[K9]

The reasoning behind removing divine spirit is pretty wonky. As a raid-wide buff it's already useless to 3/4 or more of most raids. The argument that it makes it too hard to balance mana regen between solo, group and raid play is retarded, since I don't see how 80 spirit makes or breaks anything. I don't see any changes to Fel Intel either so...

Just some more of GC's half-baked logic I guess.

I think you're crossing up your 'how spirit works now' with 'how spirit will work in the expansion'. It seems likely to me that replenishment and blessing of wisdom will also get nerfed/changed so mana regen is more of a constant based on your gear level.

I guess I'll wait and see if they axe BoW too. The issue I take is the notion that they can't balance around the presence or absence of a buff. They manage to do it fine at the moment, with the exception of Heroism there's really no must-have buff. I'm just astonished that they think a single buff will make a night-and-day difference.

Beyond replenishment as Fordel mentions, sunder armor comes to mind (another one they're nerfing for the same reason.)

Expose armour does the same as sunder I thought?

Replenishment is pretty heartily retarded I'll agree, although it is spread over a bunch of classes unlike heroism, which was my point. It's much easier for your raid to lack heroism than replenishment in my experience.

[Ingmar]

Theoretically yes but in practice you'll never see a rogue expose due to how many combo points it eats up. It is free (warrior tank) or nearly free (warrior dps) for a warrior to provide it.

[Merusk]

Prot Warriors don't seem to be getting as much only because the Prot Warrior tree is already the prototype for the new style of Cata talent tree.




Life Grip will be fine for PvE, they'll make it group/raid only and the novelty of screwing with your raidmates will wear off in a week or two.



PvP is where it will live or die.

Speaking as a priest....gripping someone to their death will NEVER get old.

It hasn't gotten old on the DK yet.  Giving it to my priest? Hilarious.  I'll be "LG"ing folks who annoy me INTO fires.  Fuck you, gnomes.

[Nevermore]

Expecting griefers to stop griefing because they'll get bored doing it is about the worst assumption a developer could make.

[Lakov_Sanite]

To be fair, I wouldn't grief in pugs but if I get bored with raids or dumb guild members? It's over the cliff you go.

[K9]

Pull people into Shadow Trap/Rocket Strike 

[WindupAtheist]

Have it pull players directly onto your own location, so you can't drag them off a cliff without being over it yourself. Don't let it cast on the move, so you can't drag players off a cliff you're currently falling off of.

[Sjofn]

I am interested to see how the rune system change works out. Also  Outbreak  .

[Arinon]

I spend most of my time on my DK PvPing and all three of those new DK skills look amazing.  We play a weardown game now with mixed results.  With burst out and efficiency in we should have quite the potential there.  Spell copy and anti-healing?  Sign me up.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, I don't PvP at all on my DK, but the necrotic strike seems like it would be really nice for that.

[ezrast]

Shaman changes seem intensive. I sort of dig the whole primal strike thing, though I'm a little confused why they're getting another good raid heal. Was Chain Heal starting to show weaknesses in the high end, or is it being heavily altered to be situational? I mean, I guess they can go the priest route and have tons of AE heals lying around in a back pocket, it'll make them more fun to heal with.

Shamans are mainly raid healers, but our only mechanism for AoE healing is CH spam. The whole "right tool at the right time" thing they're pushing for healing in Cat doesn't really work if you only have one tool.

[Nevermore]

I'm pretty ambivalent about the DK changes.  Nothing bad like the tanking tree change but nothing that great, either.  Necrotic Strike and Dark Simulacrum both look to have limited use in PvE.  The former looks like it could be good in PvP depending on cooldown time but the latter I think will be a disappointment to people.  Since it's a strike it won't be that hard to avoid so to be any good it would have to have a very short cooldown and be able to copy things like buffs and heals.  Even then it would be pretty easy to game to make it virtually useless.  With Spell Reflect the caster doesn't really know when the Warrior will be reflecting.  But with DS, the debuff will be right there for the caster to see.  Plus it doesn't prevent any damage like Spell Reflect does.  An entertaining toy of a skill maybe, but hardly something to really look forward to.

Outbreak will be convenient but with that one minute cooldown I don't know if it'll really accomplish what their hoping it'll accomplish.  Same with the change to runes.  Maybe it's my spec or my playstyle, but I'm rarely having to rely just on autoattacking while waiting for runes to refresh so at best the change to runes won't really make any difference.  At worst it'll do the opposite of what they hope.  We'll have to see when playtesting starts.

Oh, they also didn't mention Rune Strike.  I'm assuming it'll pretty much be exactly the same as it is now, only instead of being 'on next' it'll just be an instant attack usable after a dodge/parry using runic power.  I think it would be a mistake to make it cost a variable amount of runic power a la heroic/maul.

[Lantyssa]

Outbreak will be convenient but with that one minute cooldown I don't know if it'll really accomplish what their hoping it'll accomplish.  Same with the change to runes.  Maybe it's my spec or my playstyle, but I'm rarely having to rely just on autoattacking while waiting for runes to refresh so at best the change to runes won't really make any difference.  At worst it'll do the opposite of what they hope.  We'll have to see when playtesting starts.

I don't have problems either.  For the brief moment my runes are on cooldown I'm casting Death Coil.  I never feel like I'm wasting my resources.  (Is it because I have the Frost/Unholy to Death flips, extra RP pool and regen?)  So that the opposite happens is my concern.

The disease change I'll likely never use.  I use Pestilence to spread the love and I'm already glphyed to refresh all my diseases with Blood Boil.

Since I'm losing my Blood DPS, there's nothing about these changes which excite me.

[Ingmar]

Spell reflect creates a giant shiny shield over my head and puts a buff on me, so any caster that is paying attention is aware of it. The strike thingy should at least be decent for PVE reflecting stuff, there's actually more spots that works for us than you might think.

[Sjofn]

If I am trying to front load threat, which I sometimes do believe it or not, I drop D&D and howling blast, but then I cannot plague strike until a rune comes back, which drives me goddamn crazy. Bring on the outbreak, for that reason ALONE I want it (and yes I know I will no longer be using howling blast, but I would still have to drop D&D, IT, PS, pest ... whoops, no runes to do a goddamn thing like blood boil for a bit, to say nothing of the GCDs all that shit eats up).

[Arinon]

I don't have problems either.  For the brief moment my runes are on cooldown I'm casting Death Coil.  I never feel like I'm wasting my resources. 

The fact that you rarely have time to do anything but keep runes on cooldown is part of the reason for all the changes.  Some of the various PvE DPS specs have very tight rotations with pretty heavy penalties for mistakes or target switches.  I'm running under the assumption that DKs will have more then a free global or two every 20 seconds.  If that's not the case then I completely agree that a lot of this is a solid 'meh' as far as PvE is concerned.

The spell copy thing isn't so much about what you copy but forcing the caster to react to you instead of you having to react to him.  If you snag a Poly/Fear/Cyclone with it great, but that's gravy.

[Nevermore]

If I am trying to front load threat, which I sometimes do believe it or not, I drop D&D and howling blast, but then I cannot plague strike until a rune comes back, which drives me goddamn crazy.

That's literally the only time I'm ever rune starved, if I Howling Blast and D&D right after.  But with Blood the only tanking tree and it not having HB, that won't be a problem anymore anyway. 

[Sjofn]

I addressed the "as a blood spec" frontload. It's even more GCD and rune intensive, making outbreak even MORE important to me. You're downplaying something that will be very important, and it makes me sad.

[Nevermore]

The only comment I made about Outbreak is that I don't think it'll accomplish what they hope with that cooldown.  It's not a skill I hate, just one I'm not hugely excited over.  What I'm talking about with regards to being rune starved (or lack of being rune starved, usually) is the new rune system, which seems to address a problem that doesn't really exist.

[Sjofn]

I think you're misunderstanding what they think the problem is, then.

It's not "oh noes, DKs are rune-starved" it's "DKs have a very, very tight rotation they must not deviate from ever EVER, because a rune not on cooldown is a wasted rune, and that's sort of bullshit, especially since it means they have no GCDs to do anything that might actually be interesting, so let's try and fix that."

[Nevermore]

That's why I mentioned it might have something to do with my spec.  I don't use a set rotation because I'm always changing things up depending on Rime and Killing Machine procs.  Blood and Unholy specs could very well be different.

[Sjofn]

Probably more your playstyle than spec, as I am also frost, if you recall.

[Ingmar]

As far as I can tell the basic issue is similar to the warrior heroic strike one - if you're not turning every single white swing you can into a heroic strike (for prot anyway, arms and fury are different in their own ways), you're going to underperform. Same with runes, any rune that lies around for a second or two without being spent immediately is wasted potential, but then you have the added issue of runic power also possibly sitting around being unused so there's just too much pulling at you. You're not rune starved, you're *gcd* starved. Not enough GCDs to push fast enough to spend all the resources you should in order to maximize dps or whatever. The change should alleviate that some so playing the DK optimally isn't a carpal tunnel nightmare (and same for warriors.)

Which I guess is just what Sjofn just said anyway.

[Sjofn]

It is, but apparently I am not saying it right, so maybe you said it better!

[Nonentity]

Added Death Knight changes and clarification.