Shaman Tier 10 Video
Last week I mentioned that I wasn't sure if I will post a video of the shaman T10. Hopefully the small issues I had with the shoulders animation has been fixed and I took the time to make a small video of how the proc looks.
Quote from Blizzard staff
Reasons behind the removal of Crashin' & Trashin' from Merrymaker
For players who weren't there when this gift was given out, it's, well, kind of hard to get. We have plans to fix this in the future but they weren't implemented in time for this year's event. (Source)
Icecrown 5-Man and Random Dungeons
I actually got one of them when I was doing the testing on the PTR, so yes, they are part of the table. One thing to keep in mind though is that you have to unlock the Halls of Reflection by doing the Pit of Saron and the Pit of Saron is locked until you do the Forge of Souls. I was not able to queue for locked two dungeons until I opened them up so that probably locks them from the random heroic rotation as well. (Source)
Trash mobs in Wrath of the Lich King raids
A lot of players have an impression of Wrath of the Lich King trash tanking as the tank spamming their AE moves while the raid uses Fan of Knives, Blizzard, Volley, Hurricane, Mind Sear, etc. This wasn't necessarily something we set out to do. We buffed warrior and druid AE threat abilities in response to paladins having such an easy time of it throughout Burning Crusade. At the same time we also buffed a lot of the AE spells, particularly for those classes / specs that didn't have good ones.
I wouldn't call this is a stirring victory though. It meant that crowd control was irrelevant on a lot of fights. It was important on say Freya or Vezax trash before everyone became so overgeared, but our raid trash didn't feel at all like the BC raid trash (which is both good and bad I suppose). Likewise, classes with a lot of ramp up time (e.g. warlocks, Shadow priests) or whose most interesting mechanics really only kick in on single targets (e.g. combo points) just didn't have as much fun on the AE extravaganza.
A better design might be that you use e.g. Thunderclap when a group of adds spawn in, but you don't keep applying Thunderclap over and over to lock them down. (This is a little bit of a bad example because there are other reasons to use Tclap obviously). Instead, you tank maybe a 1-4 adds while the raid CCs and then burns down single targets at a time. Vezax trash generally worked like this. TK and SSC trash certainly worked like this. Now not every trash pull has to be the same. It's fine to have say the Solarian trash that you're clearly supposed to just AE down and can't effectively tank all at once. It's fine if groups shift more to AE when the instance is truly on farm. The majority of tanking abilities are just designed around the assumption of tanking 1-2 things at once though, so AE tanking just doesn't have much depth. (Surprise: sort of how AE dps and healing don't have as much depth.)
I suspect too that our encounter design has probably adjusted to fit the current state of things, so I wouldn't worry that Cataclysm is going to constantly bombard you with large add groups while your DnD is on cooldown and your group constantly calls you a bad tank for not being able to manage the adds. Related, runes on cooldown works out as a reasonable gating mechanism overall, but I'm not sure the emergency buttons are doing what they should. Things like Blood Tap need to be more about "Oops, I have no runes for DnD, but I really need it this instant." (Source)
Tanking class disparities
I would agree with most of this, though I wouldn't use that tone of course. I feel like the heart of the matter here is your definition of "easier."
Does easier mean he wipes less than you? If so, this is a big problem. I don't think it's happening though.
Does easier mean you don't need the same amount of gear? This is a slightly smaller problem, though I'll point out again that the server firsts are typically done with very little new gear, which reinforces that skill and coordination can outweigh big gear disparities.
Does easier mean you have to work a little harder at playing your class?
Does easier mean the healers have to work harder?
Does easier mean your group can have a little more slop in its execution?
If you agree with any of these issues other than the first one though, I have to ask why it's such a big deal. That falls more into quality of life issues. What I keep reading in this forum (though remarkably not so much on other WoW-dedicated forums) is that warriors and DKs have a higher failure rate on "bosses that matter" to the extent that they are being replaced by paladins and perhaps druids. We don't have a lot of evidence either of those things are happening though, which is why I have spent so much effort trying to understand where some of you are coming from. (Source)
Death Knight (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Death Knight and tanking
We think it's still a good goal to have DKs who are tanking use different abilities than DKs who are doing dps. I don't thing tying Blood Tap to Vampiric Blood et al. the way it has been has worked out well however. That wasn't really where we were going with it.
I'm arm-waving here, but imagine a world where (say it in movie preview announcer voice):
-- Blood Tap finishes the cooldown of all your runes. It's on a 15 sec cooldown.
-- You can use Blood Tap for an emergency Death and Decay.
-- Neither of these are things you do rotationally, the way you hit Plague Strike, Icy Tough and Blood Strike though. You use them for emergencies.
-- These emergencies aren't super common because there aren't encounters where large groups of mobs regularly stream in that will one-shot the healers if they aren't tanked. If it's a large pull, sure AE tank that, but the individual mobs will die quickly. On large pulls with serious mobs, you CC the dangerous casters, kill a couple of others as quickly as you can, and have the tanks pull out a couple of the mobs, essentially tying them up too.
-- Likewise, Consecrate (especially Consecrate) gets somehow changed to a similar mechanic. Now nobody is just spamming AE threat moves to keep stuff stuck to them.
-- Imagine a Hyjal raid where the dangerous adds have to be tanked or CC'd, and then the weaker minions are just blown up with AE. These weaker guys don't have to be tanked because they won't one-shot a dps player (though you may have to Frost Nova once in awhile or whatever).
How would you enforce this on dps? I'm curious.
Make Death and Decay cause almost no damage but very high threat, and let dps DKs use Blood Boil or something. I'm not saying that's the best solution, but it isn't an unsolvable problem.
I'm not sure where you're going GC... I've read the thread and imagined all this, and it sounds cool but... what do you mean? Are you saying that this sort of mechanic is the direction you'd like to head in the future or what?
Yes. I was answering Devium's question in a round about way. We could make DnD take one rune, or give it a short cooldown and make it free. It would make it easier for DKs to AE tank, but I'm not sure it's a good direction for the game ultimately. (Though if DKs have horrible problems AE tanking in Icecrown, we'd fix it anyway.)
Rogue (Forums / Talent Calculator)
What would happen if Assassination was overpowered in 3.3?
Yes, there would be a change. The goal is not to get every rogue to go Assassination. The goal is to give you options. If Combat totally out-performed Assassination even on a target as simple as a static dummy then we can't see why anyone would try Assassination. I know some of you are concerned that the Mutilate buff was too high. We'll have some better real-world (not that it is a "real world") soon (tm). (Source)
Warrior (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Tanking as a warrior
The red flag part is a...
More...
Last week I mentioned that I wasn't sure if I will post a video of the shaman T10. Hopefully the small issues I had with the shoulders animation has been fixed and I took the time to make a small video of how the proc looks.
- Equip: Periodically calls forth the spirits of the Shoveltusk to bolster the bearer's spirits in battle.
- Tier 10 Armor Page
Quote from Blizzard staff
Reasons behind the removal of Crashin' & Trashin' from Merrymaker
For players who weren't there when this gift was given out, it's, well, kind of hard to get. We have plans to fix this in the future but they weren't implemented in time for this year's event. (Source)
Icecrown 5-Man and Random Dungeons
I actually got one of them when I was doing the testing on the PTR, so yes, they are part of the table. One thing to keep in mind though is that you have to unlock the Halls of Reflection by doing the Pit of Saron and the Pit of Saron is locked until you do the Forge of Souls. I was not able to queue for locked two dungeons until I opened them up so that probably locks them from the random heroic rotation as well. (Source)
Trash mobs in Wrath of the Lich King raids
A lot of players have an impression of Wrath of the Lich King trash tanking as the tank spamming their AE moves while the raid uses Fan of Knives, Blizzard, Volley, Hurricane, Mind Sear, etc. This wasn't necessarily something we set out to do. We buffed warrior and druid AE threat abilities in response to paladins having such an easy time of it throughout Burning Crusade. At the same time we also buffed a lot of the AE spells, particularly for those classes / specs that didn't have good ones.
I wouldn't call this is a stirring victory though. It meant that crowd control was irrelevant on a lot of fights. It was important on say Freya or Vezax trash before everyone became so overgeared, but our raid trash didn't feel at all like the BC raid trash (which is both good and bad I suppose). Likewise, classes with a lot of ramp up time (e.g. warlocks, Shadow priests) or whose most interesting mechanics really only kick in on single targets (e.g. combo points) just didn't have as much fun on the AE extravaganza.
A better design might be that you use e.g. Thunderclap when a group of adds spawn in, but you don't keep applying Thunderclap over and over to lock them down. (This is a little bit of a bad example because there are other reasons to use Tclap obviously). Instead, you tank maybe a 1-4 adds while the raid CCs and then burns down single targets at a time. Vezax trash generally worked like this. TK and SSC trash certainly worked like this. Now not every trash pull has to be the same. It's fine to have say the Solarian trash that you're clearly supposed to just AE down and can't effectively tank all at once. It's fine if groups shift more to AE when the instance is truly on farm. The majority of tanking abilities are just designed around the assumption of tanking 1-2 things at once though, so AE tanking just doesn't have much depth. (Surprise: sort of how AE dps and healing don't have as much depth.)
I suspect too that our encounter design has probably adjusted to fit the current state of things, so I wouldn't worry that Cataclysm is going to constantly bombard you with large add groups while your DnD is on cooldown and your group constantly calls you a bad tank for not being able to manage the adds. Related, runes on cooldown works out as a reasonable gating mechanism overall, but I'm not sure the emergency buttons are doing what they should. Things like Blood Tap need to be more about "Oops, I have no runes for DnD, but I really need it this instant." (Source)
Tanking class disparities
I would agree with most of this, though I wouldn't use that tone of course. I feel like the heart of the matter here is your definition of "easier."
Does easier mean he wipes less than you? If so, this is a big problem. I don't think it's happening though.
Does easier mean you don't need the same amount of gear? This is a slightly smaller problem, though I'll point out again that the server firsts are typically done with very little new gear, which reinforces that skill and coordination can outweigh big gear disparities.
Does easier mean you have to work a little harder at playing your class?
Does easier mean the healers have to work harder?
Does easier mean your group can have a little more slop in its execution?
If you agree with any of these issues other than the first one though, I have to ask why it's such a big deal. That falls more into quality of life issues. What I keep reading in this forum (though remarkably not so much on other WoW-dedicated forums) is that warriors and DKs have a higher failure rate on "bosses that matter" to the extent that they are being replaced by paladins and perhaps druids. We don't have a lot of evidence either of those things are happening though, which is why I have spent so much effort trying to understand where some of you are coming from. (Source)
Death Knight and tanking
We think it's still a good goal to have DKs who are tanking use different abilities than DKs who are doing dps. I don't thing tying Blood Tap to Vampiric Blood et al. the way it has been has worked out well however. That wasn't really where we were going with it.
I'm arm-waving here, but imagine a world where (say it in movie preview announcer voice):
-- Blood Tap finishes the cooldown of all your runes. It's on a 15 sec cooldown.
-- You can use Blood Tap for an emergency Death and Decay.
-- Neither of these are things you do rotationally, the way you hit Plague Strike, Icy Tough and Blood Strike though. You use them for emergencies.
-- These emergencies aren't super common because there aren't encounters where large groups of mobs regularly stream in that will one-shot the healers if they aren't tanked. If it's a large pull, sure AE tank that, but the individual mobs will die quickly. On large pulls with serious mobs, you CC the dangerous casters, kill a couple of others as quickly as you can, and have the tanks pull out a couple of the mobs, essentially tying them up too.
-- Likewise, Consecrate (especially Consecrate) gets somehow changed to a similar mechanic. Now nobody is just spamming AE threat moves to keep stuff stuck to them.
-- Imagine a Hyjal raid where the dangerous adds have to be tanked or CC'd, and then the weaker minions are just blown up with AE. These weaker guys don't have to be tanked because they won't one-shot a dps player (though you may have to Frost Nova once in awhile or whatever).
How would you enforce this on dps? I'm curious.
Make Death and Decay cause almost no damage but very high threat, and let dps DKs use Blood Boil or something. I'm not saying that's the best solution, but it isn't an unsolvable problem.
I'm not sure where you're going GC... I've read the thread and imagined all this, and it sounds cool but... what do you mean? Are you saying that this sort of mechanic is the direction you'd like to head in the future or what?
Yes. I was answering Devium's question in a round about way. We could make DnD take one rune, or give it a short cooldown and make it free. It would make it easier for DKs to AE tank, but I'm not sure it's a good direction for the game ultimately. (Though if DKs have horrible problems AE tanking in Icecrown, we'd fix it anyway.)
What would happen if Assassination was overpowered in 3.3?
Yes, there would be a change. The goal is not to get every rogue to go Assassination. The goal is to give you options. If Combat totally out-performed Assassination even on a target as simple as a static dummy then we can't see why anyone would try Assassination. I know some of you are concerned that the Mutilate buff was too high. We'll have some better real-world (not that it is a "real world") soon (tm). (Source)
Tanking as a warrior
The red flag part is a...
More...