Burning Crusade Goes Beta, NDA Lifted

[Merusk]

That's a damn fine change to Combat Exp.  The Sta was just pushing it with the new item budgets, and the previous 4% agi was crazy. Upping my Int as a mana-hungry DPSer is a-ok with me, though.

I also like the earlier change of moving Hawk Eye to the first tier.

I keep flip-flopping on that one.  Sure it seems like a useful talent, but only because it gets out out of some MC boss's AOEs.  They learned their lesson there and increased the range in BWL and beyond past your max range.  I expect with the smaller dungeons it'll also be harder to find max-range and use it effectively.

In PvP, yeah it's great. Gives you more distance to plug things before they can close.   

Also, it's not like I wasn't going to be spending the required 5 points in Survival anyway to pick up the slaying talents.  So I'd still be 9 points into Surv, regardless of where the talent was.

It did quiet down the community, though.

[Typhon]

Rage normally decays at a rate of 3 per 3 seconds, so Anger Management's functionality hasn't really changed at all from the old wording; it's just different.

It's entirely possible that I didin't understand the old Anger Management, but my take was that it reduced the out of combat decay only.  The new version still reduces the out of combat decay (by 1/3), but now has an effect when in combat - and that effect is to generate rage.  I see this as an improvement and something to be aware of if you take this ability (i.e., hamstring something and kite it till your rage builds enough for a finisher).  And something to be aware of if you are fighting a warrior (just because you are kiting him now and he has no rage, doesn't mean you can kite him forever).

[Ironwood]

I agree that it's not really clear yet.

Any warrior in the beta who can let us know ?

[Phred]

I didnt transfer my warrior over but the old anger management also generated rage while you were in combat. I remember doing zf when it had stuck in combat bugs and having a full rage bar to start fights. It was also posted on this board a long time ago by another warrior but at the time we thought it was a bug.

[Ironwood]

That was a bug.  They fixed it.

[Velorath]

I also like the earlier change of moving Hawk Eye to the first tier.

I keep flip-flopping on that one.  Sure it seems like a useful talent, but only because it gets out out of some MC boss's AOEs.  They learned their lesson there and increased the range in BWL and beyond past your max range.  I expect with the smaller dungeons it'll also be harder to find max-range and use it effectively.

In PvP, yeah it's great. Gives you more distance to plug things before they can close.   

I PVP'd a lot for a while so found it pretty useful.  It was especially good when doing defence in AV where I could run out of Drek's room and snipe a healer before running back in.

[Phred]

That was a bug.  They fixed it.

Um, what was a bug? Rage ticking up while in combat? Because it sure sounds like that's the way it works now.

[Ironwood]

I know.  But previously, a bug.  All you had to do was target summat, hit the sword icon and your rage would start to build.  Tanking became a lot easier.  But it was a bug with Anger Management and they fixed it.

Seriously, you could do it a room away and you had 100 rage easy.  I would be surprised if they changed it back.  It was cheap as fuck.

[Merusk]

I know.  But previously, a bug.  All you had to do was target summat, hit the sword icon and your rage would start to build.  Tanking became a lot easier.  But it was a bug with Anger Management and they fixed it.

Seriously, you could do it a room away and you had 100 rage easy.  I would be surprised if they changed it back.  It was cheap as fuck.

They may have reworked Bloodrage to not trigger "in combat" anymore.  Yeah it was a bug before, but when combined with bloodrage, you'd always have tanks at full rage and able to hit a boss with everything from the start.  Double cheese.

[Ironwood]

Not being able to trigger Bloodrage in combat ?  That'd be horrible.  That's what it's for - when you can't charge.

:)

[Merusk]

Not being able to trigger Bloodrage in combat ?  That'd be horrible.  That's what it's for - when you can't charge.

:)

Not quite what I meant.   Hitting bloodrage right now flags you as being in combat, even if you're not engaged with a mob. (Try and eat after popping it in a city)  That's how you used to be able to fill your rage meter prior to actually hitting anything.  Remove this flag from bloodrage, and you remove the "engage at full rage" cheese tactic.

[schild]

Just came by to say "lol@delay."

[Phred]

Just came by to say "lol@delay."

It beats shipped a partially finished expansion and hoping you can patch in the finished content faster than the players reach it.

[Morfiend]

Just came by to say "lol@delay."

How can there be a delay if they havent announced the release date yet?

[Ironwood]

Not being able to trigger Bloodrage in combat ?  That'd be horrible.  That's what it's for - when you can't charge.

:)

Not quite what I meant.   Hitting bloodrage right now flags you as being in combat, even if you're not engaged with a mob. (Try and eat after popping it in a city)  That's how you used to be able to fill your rage meter prior to actually hitting anything.  Remove this flag from bloodrage, and you remove the "engage at full rage" cheese tactic.

I was being all kinds of slow yesterday.  I get you now.

[Dren]

Just came by to say "lol@delay."

How can there be a delay if they havent announced the release date yet?

I suppose I'm going to have to go hunt for this information since it wasn't provided.  Yes, I never even heard a "real" date.  What's this about delay?  Who's saying it?  What's the new prediction? (Note: Release Dates from Blizzard have no place in our reality.)

[Simond]

The only place I've seen anything about a delay is Tobold's blog, where he was just reporting on rumours from the WoW beta boards.

Bearing in mind Blizzard have already said that TBC will not be complete when it ships...well, that tends to imply that the expansion ships in late Nov/early Dec no matter what (because that's when Vivendi says it ships).

My guesses as to the 'missing' instances: Black Temple, one of the CoT instances (the 'opening of the original Dark Portal' one) and maybe a couple more high-end/raid instances that nobody's even heard of yet.

[Morfiend]

I havent seen any information any any of that stuff. first, there has been no release date set. I have seen no official word on a delay ether. Blizzard activly holds off on release dates just so they can push their stuff back, and not have thousands of people complainging. I have always said I thought the xpac would release in the second week of November. So far the beta has been very good, and the devs have been working VERY fast to patch and tweek stuff. Much faster than in the original beta. The level is capped at 67 right now, so they cant test any of the end game instances and stuff, and im not even sure which ones are implimented so far. The Blood Elves and Draenei areas are pretty much done and good to go. If we have a patch this comming week, and they let people go to 70, I still think we could be on schedule for a 2nd to 3rd week of November release. Thats all my own speculation though.

[Chenghiz]

From what I read over on the EJ boards, the level 70 patch won't be for a few more weeks. However if BC has already gone gold, which has apparently been confirmed, they could easily keep testing and adjusting all the way up to release day.

[bhodi]

"gold" means nothing but a stable enough version to install with. It'll just update to the most recent when it first connects.

[Modern Angel]

Sometime tomorrow or the next day I'll log on to Guild Wars. I just sort of do it and then immediately log back off once a week, crying about what might have been. That's not important. What IS important is that real soon I'm going to log on, download some shit in the background and have their next expansion just sitting there. All the CD is for is a little music, a cinematic, maybe some art... all that shit is already done. No doubt in my mind the CD are sitting in warehouses right now.

[Chenghiz]

Yeah, that's the point. All the heavy assets are already set in stone and on CDs, so they have more time to work with balance and content before release.

[Dren]

I know the reasons why they wouldn't do it, but it would be nice if they just let you buy the CD, install the new artwork, music, etc., but not activate it until the patch goes through.  That way we wouldn't all be fighting over our shipments or shelf boxes on the release date.

Of course, that doesn't fix the issue of actually downloading the patch and installing it.  Then fighting the log in servers while they are under the load of the current 6 million added to the ?? that return for the expansion.

I predict at least a 1-2 week long maelstrom of discontent amongst the masses.

Oh, the forums will be down that entire time.  You heard it here first!

[Sogrinaugh]

Does any beta tester play a shaman or priest?  Have spiritual healing/purification been fixed?  Currently, these talents operate unlike all the other +% talents.  For example, Firepower (mage), shadow mastery (warlock), concussion (shaman), Darkness (priest), all apply thier +10% bonus to damage after gear is taken into account, meaning these talents scale with gear.  Currently, purification and spiritual healing are applied before gear-based bonuses, meaning the benefit they provide is static, and does not scale with gear.  Even now, it has gotten to the point where close to 50-60% of the damage or healing your character does, comes from gear, and in the expansion we can expect this to become even worse.  So these supposedly core resto/holy talents become near-worthless the more geared your character becomes.

Do any beta shaman players know if Improved Chain Heal bonus is applied before or after equipment?

[Zane0]

Spiritual healing has been fixed, I hear.

[bhodi]

Yes, spiritual healing adds bonus after gear now. I can't say about the others.

[Sogrinaugh]

Well if they fixed spiritual healing that bodes well for purification. 

[Morat20]

I hear Hunter pets just got whacked with the nerfstick. I suspect they'll undo some of it, but with current scaling this actually makes the BM spec worse at 70 than at 60.

[Chenghiz]

I just heard that they made the Outlands pets' stats continue the progression from Azeroth pets, rather than being much better than one would expect.

[Morat20]

I just heard that they made the Outlands pets' stats continue the progression from Azeroth pets, rather than being much better than one would expect.

That's what I got too -- it amounted to an overall nerf of pets. The screaming from the Beastmaster Hunters (I admit to wanting to spec back to BM) is unwarrented. They can't balance pets when you have TBC pets that are horribly overpowered compared to non-TBC pets. I suspect pets will be readjusted over the next few rounds now that they have a static baseline.

[Xanthippe]

New question - mooncloth.  Should I keep my stockpile (heh it's only like 10 pieces) or sell now? 

Is there a new use for mooncloth or is there a  mooncloth equivalent for 70?

[Zane0]

I think you can "upgrade" mooncloth into primal mooncloth, or something.  Don't quote me on this!

[Phred]

I think you can "upgrade" mooncloth into primal mooncloth, or something.  Don't quote me on this!

I don't know either but I do know one of the specializations is mooncloth of some sort.

[Simond]

I have heard third-hand rumours (i.e. don't quote me) that primal mooncloth doesn't use 'normal' mooncloth in it's creation - it's supposed to be another 'Purify other_clothx2' recipe.

But take that with a large pinch of salt.

[Calantus]

"Warning - while you were typing a new reply has been posted. You may wish to review your post." Meh, was gonna say the same thing as Simond (complete with disclaimer!).