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Cataclysm Mounts - Drakes of the Wind, Stone Drakes, and Camels
Mounts didn't get a lot of love on the front page since the beginning of the beta. A lot of stuff was implemented in-game during the latest beta update and we now have a decent idea of what to expect in-game. I tried to restrict it to the mounts that we will most likely see in-game, more recolors are available but they aren't always linked to an item, etc ... Let's keep it simple for the moment.
This is not a complete list of all the mounts added to the game with Cataclysm, I'll do that a little later when most of them are added to the game.
Drakes of the Wind
The only known drop location is the Reins of the Drake of the East Wind rewarded from Glory of the Cataclysm Raider achievement.
Stone Drakes
Only 2 stone drakes seems to be implemented for the moment, the only known drop location is the Reins of the Volcanic Stone Drake from the Glory of the Cataclysm Hero achievement.
Camels
Last but not least, camels! Absolutely no idea where they are from, but they will most likely be linked to Uldum.
Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Crowd Control spells cast time increased to 2 sec
Pretty much. The crowd control spells were never designed around the existence of haste. Asking anyone to interrupt a 1.1 second Polymorph isn't reasonable. Health pools are going to be a lot larger, so control is going to play a larger role than burst compared to the live environment. On the other hand, dispels are more expensive in Cataclysm and you can waste a dispel now if there is nothing there to dispel.
So I'm right in my sentiment that, instead of correcting haste affecting utility spells, we now all get to suffer even further exacerbated haste dominance?
I never follow this line of thinking. Yes, making it harder to have a [very fast] cast time requires more haste. But you have to make a big trade off for that haste, such as having a lower crit chance for your damage spells. That seems like a reasonable enough trade off that you'll at least have to consider it.
You can argue that haste is over-valued in PvP because of the risk of interruption, which is much less of a big deal in PvE. Therefore making the cost per stat of haste higher in PvP seems perfectly reasonable. I wouldn't call that "exacerbated dominance." I'd say it's adjusting it to its actual value in PvP compared to other stats. (Source)
Buffs improvements in talents
There is no difference between "talents that increase potency of buffs" and "talents that increase range of buffs". In both cases you must spend talent points to bring a buff up to par with something other classes offer. In both cases, the baseline buff has something about it that's inferior. So if there's some sort of difference that I'm missing here, please share with the class. No one else can see the difference either.
That's not our definition. If you bring an 8% attack power buff and someone else brings a 10% attack power buff, then the other guy will generally be more desirable. If you have an 8% attack power buff but a talent that brings it up to 2% (and only that), then you have a talent you probably don't want to spend and feel dumb spending whenever the 10% guy isn't around. This is the case with many talents in Lich King, such as Improved Blessing of Might. These are the class of talents that we said we would remove (and then proceeded to do so).
Once you get beyond the buff itself, there are a variety of ways it is produced by a character. Sometimes it's a base spell. Sometimes it's a talent. Sometimes it's a passive aura. Sometimes it's a proc. Sometimes it goes away when the dude dies. Sometimes it lasts for a duration. We're not interested in making all of these parameters identical, and we think the game would suffer from a pervasive sameness were we to do so. We also think most raiders are sensible enough not to disqualify someone because his buff isn't produced in the absolute most convenient way possible. "Our dps would go up 2% if we had 10% attack power instead of 8% attack power" seems like a reasonable sentiment. "Our dps would go up if the range on this buff were longer" seems like you're really down in the weeds of things to actually worry about. (Source)
Goblins & Worgens DK on Beta
Both goblin and worgen will be unable to finish the DK starting zone until we get back to it and add the goblin/worgen "Special Surprise" quests. Until then you'll be stuck. (Source)
Hunter (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Rhumba removed from the game
We were sad to see this talent go, because we thought it was cool too. However, BM just had too many damage-oriented talents, which was preventing those hunters from being able to pick up the utility or fun talents, which in turn violated a major goal of the talent tree revamps. (Source)
Swapping pets
If our pet dies, can we use Feign Death, drop combat, and instantly bring out one of our 5 different pets in that short window of being out of combat in an Arena Match?
No, because you have to dismiss a pet before you can summon a new one. You also need to rez a dead pet before you can dismiss it. It's possible that allowing all of that in combat is fine since it would take so long to actually pull off and in the meantime you could just have rezzed your pet (or healed an injured one rather than dismissing it).
On the other hand, dismissal no longer affects happiness in any way since the new model is you can swap them more regularly. Your pets just have to learn not to get all emo about it. (Source)
Priest (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Lightwell
How to make lightwell work: Change clicking range to 15y, Make clicking it not change target
As I have said previously, this is the plan. We just haven't been able to test it yet, and the talent has enough baggage that it's hard to get players to even try it. (Source)
Shaman (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Elemental shamans
Elemental Reach affects all shocks. (Elemental only).
Totemic Reach increases the range of Searing Totem. (Tier 2 Enhance, so available to all shaman.)
If you're fighting a shaman with a bunch of Lightning orbs and you're worried about damage, just go hit the shaman. That still removes the orbs.
Rolling Thunder is 2% mana return, not 1%.
[...] Yes, we have made further changes to the tree since the build that you have available now. They are predominantly talent changes and not gameplay changes. Earth Shock was the big one. (Source)
Warlock (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Demonic Rebirth
Demonic Rebirth has a long cooldown. (Source)
The MMO Report
It's monday, and it's time for my weekly answer to people who point out that this site can't be called MMO-Champion if it only talks about WoW. Thank you MMO Report!
Comics
Dark Legacy Comic #252 and Teh Gladiators #160 + #161 are out!
More...
Cataclysm Mounts - Drakes of the Wind, Stone Drakes, and Camels
Mounts didn't get a lot of love on the front page since the beginning of the beta. A lot of stuff was implemented in-game during the latest beta update and we now have a decent idea of what to expect in-game. I tried to restrict it to the mounts that we will most likely see in-game, more recolors are available but they aren't always linked to an item, etc ... Let's keep it simple for the moment.
This is not a complete list of all the mounts added to the game with Cataclysm, I'll do that a little later when most of them are added to the game.
Drakes of the Wind
The only known drop location is the Reins of the Drake of the East Wind rewarded from Glory of the Cataclysm Raider achievement.
Stone Drakes
Only 2 stone drakes seems to be implemented for the moment, the only known drop location is the Reins of the Volcanic Stone Drake from the Glory of the Cataclysm Hero achievement.
Camels
Last but not least, camels! Absolutely no idea where they are from, but they will most likely be linked to Uldum.
Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Crowd Control spells cast time increased to 2 sec
Pretty much. The crowd control spells were never designed around the existence of haste. Asking anyone to interrupt a 1.1 second Polymorph isn't reasonable. Health pools are going to be a lot larger, so control is going to play a larger role than burst compared to the live environment. On the other hand, dispels are more expensive in Cataclysm and you can waste a dispel now if there is nothing there to dispel.
So I'm right in my sentiment that, instead of correcting haste affecting utility spells, we now all get to suffer even further exacerbated haste dominance?
I never follow this line of thinking. Yes, making it harder to have a [very fast] cast time requires more haste. But you have to make a big trade off for that haste, such as having a lower crit chance for your damage spells. That seems like a reasonable enough trade off that you'll at least have to consider it.
You can argue that haste is over-valued in PvP because of the risk of interruption, which is much less of a big deal in PvE. Therefore making the cost per stat of haste higher in PvP seems perfectly reasonable. I wouldn't call that "exacerbated dominance." I'd say it's adjusting it to its actual value in PvP compared to other stats. (Source)
Buffs improvements in talents
There is no difference between "talents that increase potency of buffs" and "talents that increase range of buffs". In both cases you must spend talent points to bring a buff up to par with something other classes offer. In both cases, the baseline buff has something about it that's inferior. So if there's some sort of difference that I'm missing here, please share with the class. No one else can see the difference either.
That's not our definition. If you bring an 8% attack power buff and someone else brings a 10% attack power buff, then the other guy will generally be more desirable. If you have an 8% attack power buff but a talent that brings it up to 2% (and only that), then you have a talent you probably don't want to spend and feel dumb spending whenever the 10% guy isn't around. This is the case with many talents in Lich King, such as Improved Blessing of Might. These are the class of talents that we said we would remove (and then proceeded to do so).
Once you get beyond the buff itself, there are a variety of ways it is produced by a character. Sometimes it's a base spell. Sometimes it's a talent. Sometimes it's a passive aura. Sometimes it's a proc. Sometimes it goes away when the dude dies. Sometimes it lasts for a duration. We're not interested in making all of these parameters identical, and we think the game would suffer from a pervasive sameness were we to do so. We also think most raiders are sensible enough not to disqualify someone because his buff isn't produced in the absolute most convenient way possible. "Our dps would go up 2% if we had 10% attack power instead of 8% attack power" seems like a reasonable sentiment. "Our dps would go up if the range on this buff were longer" seems like you're really down in the weeds of things to actually worry about. (Source)
Goblins & Worgens DK on Beta
Both goblin and worgen will be unable to finish the DK starting zone until we get back to it and add the goblin/worgen "Special Surprise" quests. Until then you'll be stuck. (Source)
Rhumba removed from the game
We were sad to see this talent go, because we thought it was cool too. However, BM just had too many damage-oriented talents, which was preventing those hunters from being able to pick up the utility or fun talents, which in turn violated a major goal of the talent tree revamps. (Source)
Swapping pets
If our pet dies, can we use Feign Death, drop combat, and instantly bring out one of our 5 different pets in that short window of being out of combat in an Arena Match?
No, because you have to dismiss a pet before you can summon a new one. You also need to rez a dead pet before you can dismiss it. It's possible that allowing all of that in combat is fine since it would take so long to actually pull off and in the meantime you could just have rezzed your pet (or healed an injured one rather than dismissing it).
On the other hand, dismissal no longer affects happiness in any way since the new model is you can swap them more regularly. Your pets just have to learn not to get all emo about it. (Source)
Lightwell
How to make lightwell work: Change clicking range to 15y, Make clicking it not change target
As I have said previously, this is the plan. We just haven't been able to test it yet, and the talent has enough baggage that it's hard to get players to even try it. (Source)
Elemental shamans
Elemental Reach affects all shocks. (Elemental only).
Totemic Reach increases the range of Searing Totem. (Tier 2 Enhance, so available to all shaman.)
If you're fighting a shaman with a bunch of Lightning orbs and you're worried about damage, just go hit the shaman. That still removes the orbs.
Rolling Thunder is 2% mana return, not 1%.
[...] Yes, we have made further changes to the tree since the build that you have available now. They are predominantly talent changes and not gameplay changes. Earth Shock was the big one. (Source)
Demonic Rebirth
Demonic Rebirth has a long cooldown. (Source)
The MMO Report
It's monday, and it's time for my weekly answer to people who point out that this site can't be called MMO-Champion if it only talks about WoW. Thank you MMO Report!
Comics
Dark Legacy Comic #252 and Teh Gladiators #160 + #161 are out!
More...
