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[Oni Link 666]

This changed in 4.0.1, actually. If hit is no issue at all stick a +10 all stats and a whatever/stamina gem in there for best results (as dps).

Otherwise, any combination of +10 all stats and whatever/hit, or maybe full hit gems if needed.

Actually it's not in 4.01. I'm looking at my character right now and the meta bonus still just requires 1 red, 1 yellow, and 1 blue.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

Actually it's not in 4.01. I'm looking at my character right now and the meta bonus still just requires 1 red, 1 yellow, and 1 blue.

Oh, you know what? :lol

I got confused because the optimal gem for DK DPS changed from relentless earthsiege diamond (1y1b1r) to chaotic skyflare diamond (2b) and that was what I was thinking of since I had to change that.

My mistake.

 

[Sax Russel]

OK, now I've really run out of old SSes that make good comparison pics.

The terrain in Azshara has changed rather significantly, so the exact features aren't mirrored as well here, but this is the same location, geographically =P

As an added bonus, in the five minutes I spent in Azshara confirming the location on live, Azuregos spawned for some free gold.

 

[Kweh]

Is the Moonkin form for troll and worgen on the beta and ptr the final form or is it just a placeholder?
Final!

What is it currently on the beta/PTR? Just the standard Moonkin form?

 

[GasProblem]

What is it currently on the beta/PTR? Just the standard Moonkin form?

No, recolored Moonkins. Troll is a bit orange/black and has the Night Elf form, and Worgen is more brown/whitish, also Night Elf form.

 

[Dunlop]

Hitting LK on HM now. I've come to the horrible realization that you absolutely have to have a disc priest for this encounter.

I mean who is a Disc priest on purpose?

Are there any good addons to aliviate the boredom of staring at raid frames and waiting on weakened soul timers on raid member to re-bubble, I'm using vuhdo and was hoping there was a way to resort the list based on the shield expiring?

I feel so removed from the action.

 

[Willectro]

This has probably been discussed, but what is the point in removing portals from Dalaran? I know they are adding an AH so the old cities have very little purpose anymore, but Dal lags as is.

 

[Danoss]

Much like Shattrath, the portals in Dalaran will serve little purpose once the following expansion is released. They are to be replaced with trainers in both locations.

This makes a lot more sense since you can purely level in Outlands and Northrend and not need to return to Azeroth until you are ready to start with the Cataclysm content. I know when I was levelling 60-80, the only reason I returned to Azeroth was to train and visit the AH.

So essentially, the old cities become main hubs again. Dalaran will be obsolete for anyone 81-85.

 

[Bisnic]

Much like Shattrath, the portals in Dalaran will serve little purpose once the following expansion is released. They are to be replaced with trainers in both locations.

This makes a lot more sense since you can purely level in Outlands and Northrend and not need to return to Azeroth until you are ready to start with the Cataclysm content. I know when I was levelling 60-80, the only reason I returned to Azeroth was to train and visit the AH.

So essentially, the old cities become main hubs again. Dalaran will be obsolete for anyone 81-85.

Good. I was getting tired of that small city where Alliance & Horde were dancing & fishing together like buddies.

 

[webrunner]

Is there anything like Wrathgate or the end of ICC in Cataclysm? Or at least interesting 'scenes' in quests?

 

[Bisnic]

Is there anything like Wrathgate or the end of ICC in Cataclysm? Or at least interesting 'scenes' in quests?

There is cutscenes for goblins & worgens in their starting zone. But that's all i know.

I think i've seen one where Alexstrazsa & Deathwing were fighting against each other in the sky while falling to the ground, but that wasnt as good as those 2.

 

[mclem]

So essentially, the old cities become main hubs again.

On that note, I really ought to fish up Old Crafty before the place stops being quite such a wasteland.

 

[Flib]

Is there anything like Wrathgate or the end of ICC in Cataclysm? Or at least interesting 'scenes' in quests?

There aren't straight up pre-recorded cut-scenes besides the goblin/worgen ones at level 5. The engine, however, is now capable of changing camera angles constantly during quests, and they use this a lot. So there are a ton of cut-scenes now, they're just in-engine.

 

[Evlar]

I didn't know you are allowed to fly near ground-level in Dalaran with 4.0.3 until I actually did it.

 

[webrunner]

I didn't know you are allowed to fly near ground-level in Dalaran with 4.0.3 until I actually did it.

That reminds me of another question I had: how are "fly zones" handled with the main capital cities in cata? Could a raid group just air drop right out side of the castle in Stormwind?

 

[Evlar]

That reminds me of another question I had: how are "fly zones" handled with the main capital cities in cata? Could a raid group just air drop right out side of the castle in Stormwind?

Last I heard (and it's been a little while) they work in the same manner as Dalaran used to work: a dismount debuff is applied at a height of XX. I don't know whether it works the same for players of the opposing faction. Ideally, the factions would have some sort of air support to defend their capital cities...

 

[Garryk]

Orgrimmar better have some Goblin flak cannons.

 

[Flib]

There is no flying restriction in the cities, in places like orgrimmar you're expected to fly due to how the bluffs are built. It's not like Dalaran. Flying in the undercity is a pain though, the corridors are so tight.

No goblin flak cannons in Org, but there are large formations of fighter-wyvern things flying around.

 

[Evlar]

There is no flying restriction in the cities, in places like orgrimmar you're expected to fly due to how the bluffs are built. It's not like Dalaran. Flying in the undercity is a pain though, the corridors are so tight.

No goblin flak cannons in Org, but there are large formations of fighter-wyvern things flying around.

Ahhh, then that is a change from a while back, and one I'm supportive of. For a while Ironforge was completely flight-restricted which would have destroyed it as a player hub.

 

[Bisnic]

Is it still impossble to fly in the draenei & blood elf starting zones(and Isle of Queldanas too i suppose)? I find it hilarious how you can fly everywhere now, but somehow... they decided to ignore these zones for some reason.

 

[Flib]

Is it still impossble to fly in the draenei & blood elf starting zones(and Isle of Queldanas too i suppose)? I find it hilarious how you can fly everywhere now, but somehow... they decided to ignore these zones for some reason.

They're seperately instanced, so yeah, no flying.

 

[SnakeswithLasers]

Well, my paladin is now 68. LK content here I come.

The interesting part is that the moment I hit 58 (Saturday) I went to Outlands. Then with pretty limited play time I hit 68--and I've not touched another zone except for Hellfire Peninsula (aside from buying some booze in Zangarmarsh to complete a quest). Prot spec + instant queues are amazing.

If LK content is anything like this I'll be 80 just in time for that to mean nothing. But judging by how slowly it's rolling in for my Priest and Druid who are just instancing in their 70s, I think it'll be a dramatic shift.

 

[Retro]

Question for you WoW gamers. How many games besides WoW do you play? I just started playing (still somewhat clueless) and I can see that it really is time consuming. Do you guys and gals spend the vast majority of your free gaming time on WoW?

Short Answer: When there's content, I play. When there's nothing but the boring raids for 6 months, I don't.

I tend to play in spurts based on the available content. Expansions pull me in, lapses in content pull me out. For example, I played a lot when WotLK came out, and even did some high-level raiding. Between Naxx and Ulduar, there was nothing to do but roll alts and farm.

Ulduar hit, but by then my guild had fallen apart, and there was no 5-man content with that patch so I played a little, but not much.

ToC hit, and it was one 5-man (if you can even call it that) and a lot of dailies. I played more than usual just because I'm kind of a nerd for mounts and such and I liked the way a lot of the ToC stuff looked.

I was still playing kinda casually when ICC hit. I did the 5 mans for about 2 or 3 weeks, got all of the gear out of them I wanted, and barely logged in after that.

With Cataclysm, I'm planning two different routes for my alts, so I'll be leveling in different areas twice over. I'll probably pick up my main after that, get her to 85, and see what kind of 5-man content there is. I'll probably lose interest in that since I'm not going to be gearing for raids, just Heroics. I'll probably pick up a third alt then just for shits and giggles or PVP.

I'll probably also roll on another server (maybe Area 52 since there's a lot of GAFfers there) and if people raid, I might do that very very casually.

 

[Bisnic]

They're seperately instanced, so yeah, no flying.

This sucks. I guess every new blood elfs & draeneis will go to the old, but new, starting zones now. Just because now... it is them that have the outdated starting zones.:lol

 

[The Lamonster]

This sucks. I guess every new blood elfs & draeneis will go to the old, but new, starting zones now. Just because now... it is them that have the outdated starting zones.:lol

New characters can't fly, so who cares?

 

[SnakeswithLasers]

New characters can't fly, so who cares?

Soon enough you'll need 1 silver at level 5 for a mount, 10 silver at 10 for epic, then 1g at 15 for flying. And then you'll be fuckin' boned to be a Blood Elf or Draenai.

Edit: Also, where do you learn cold weather flying? Just Dalaran? I'm assuming just paying for a port to Dalaran is best, but if there's a place I can run to at 68, that'd be more self reliant.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Soon enough you'll need 1 silver at level 5 for a mount, 10 silver at 10 for epic, then 1g at 15 for flying. And then you'll be fuckin' boned to be a Blood Elf or Draenai.

Edit: Also, where do you learn cold weather flying? Just Dalaran? I'm assuming just paying for a port to Dalaran is best, but if there's a place I can run to at 68, that'd be more self reliant.

I read this as "and then you'll be fuckin boned by a Blood elf"

Soon enough you'll need 1 silver at level 5 for a mount, 10 silver at 10 for epic, then 1g at 15 for flying. And then you'll be fuckin' boned to be a Blood Elf or Draenai.

Edit: Also, where do you learn cold weather flying? Just Dalaran? I'm assuming just paying for a port to Dalaran is best, but if there's a place I can run to at 68, that'd be more self reliant.

No, there's Riding Trainers in the starting areas in both HF and BT where the Zeppelin or Boat lands.

 

[McNei1y]

Short Answer: When there's content, I play. When there's nothing but the boring raids for 6 months, I don't.

I tend to play in spurts based on the available content. Expansions pull me in, lapses in content pull me out. For example, I played a lot when WotLK came out, and even did some high-level raiding. Between Naxx and Ulduar, there was nothing to do but roll alts and farm.

Ulduar hit, but by then my guild had fallen apart, and there was no 5-man content with that patch so I played a little, but not much.

ToC hit, and it was one 5-man (if you can even call it that) and a lot of dailies. I played more than usual just because I'm kind of a nerd for mounts and such and I liked the way a lot of the ToC stuff looked.

I was still playing kinda casually when ICC hit. I did the 5 mans for about 2 or 3 weeks, got all of the gear out of them I wanted, and barely logged in after that.

With Cataclysm, I'm planning two different routes for my alts, so I'll be leveling in different areas twice over. I'll probably pick up my main after that, get her to 85, and see what kind of 5-man content there is. I'll probably lose interest in that since I'm not going to be gearing for raids, just Heroics. I'll probably pick up a third alt then just for shits and giggles or PVP.

I'll probably also roll on another server (maybe Area 52 since there's a lot of GAFfers there) and if people raid, I might do that very very casually.

Pretty much this. I have a lot of playing to do by this standard (75 hunter to get to 80, new characters and zones coming, etc) so I will be playing this for quite a bit... but I also play other games like Madden, Halo Reach, and Counter Strike.

 

[notworksafe]

I'll probably also roll on another server (maybe Area 52 since there's a lot of GAFfers there) and if people raid, I might do that very very casually.

You're more than welcome to join us. And luckily for you we have a "hardcore" raid day with a set schedule and a strict team and a "casual" raid day with a policy of "Whoever shows up, goes".

Of course lately it's been tough to fill either for ICC so we just do old content at the moment. :lol This Saturday is Ony and BWL for the two people in our guild who are doing the Scepter quests.

 

[Angry Grimace]

You're more than welcome to join us. And luckily for you we have a "hardcore" raid day with a set schedule and a strict team and a "casual" raid day with a policy of "Whoever shows up, goes".

Of course lately it's been tough to fill either for ICC so we just do old content at the moment. :lol This Saturday is Ony and BWL for the two people in our guild who are doing the Scepter quests.

Start farming for legendaries for the We Are Legendary achievement :lol

A friend of mine duoed MC pretty much every week in his guild for like 40 weeks. They have Sulfuras, Thunderfury, Shadowmourne, Valanyr, and I think one of the Warglaives.

 

[Bisnic]

New characters can't fly, so who cares?

My 80s would have loved to fly around Bloodmyst Isle or Eversong Woods, just to look at it from a different angle, but yeah... other than that, i don't care much about flying there. It's also outdated because their quests are going to be 4 years old pretty soon and won't be as interesting as all the new(and probably better) lvl 1-20 quests.

 

[notworksafe]

Haha, already been working on it! At the moment we have two Thunderfuries, a Warglaive, and a Sulf in progress. It's hard though because we have so many people that want Ingots for various purposes. :lol

Since we don't run 25s as a guild, we'll have to wait until 85 to get Shadowmourne/Val'anyr

 

[SnakeswithLasers]

No, there's Riding Trainers in the starting areas in both HF and BT where the Zeppelin or Boat lands.

Rad.

I read this as "and then you'll be fuckin boned by a Blood elf"

Not rad.

 

[Iadien]

2 more gigs downloading, my Warcraft folder is getting a bit big.

 

[Flib]

Remember when I talked about how much harder healing will be? Blizzard just had to release a statement called "Why Does Blizzard Hate Healers?" :lol :lol

You may have heard that healing in Cataclysm is going to feel different. The role will be more challenging, particularly in terms of resource management. This won’t be news to a lot of regular forum readers, but I see enough “why nerf healers?” concerns that I thought it was still a worthwhile topic for an inaugural developer blog.

As a blanket statement, healer mana wasn’t a big concern in Wrath of the Lich King. You could run out of mana sometimes, but it really didn’t affect your spell choice in the way it did prior to Lich King. We think resources should be important, though. A lot of gameplay in a wide variety of games comes down to managing a limited resource, whether it's Vespene Gas in an RTS, ammo in an FPS, or even time in a puzzle game. Managing your resources well makes you a better player. Not being limited by resources can feel empowering over a short period of time, but only because it feels like you’re breaking the rules. In fact you are breaking the rules, and once those short periods of time have ended, a game can quickly lose its luster. Godmode isn’t nearly as compelling in the long term as it might seem at first glance.

Now, it is true that resource management is an even bigger part of the game for healers than it is for other roles. “Not fair!” you might be ready to cry. I used this analogy once before, and it seemed to resonate with lots of people, so I’ll use it again. Dealing damage is like a sprint. You typically want to go as fast as you can. Healing isn’t a race though -- it’s more like darts. You want to be as precise as you can. A big part of the healing gameplay is using the right tool for the right job. The resource cost of those tools is one of the things that differentiates them. Remove the resource constraint and you lose one dimension that differentiates the tools. Good healers used to pride themselves on keeping everyone standing up without running out of mana.

For a number of reasons, all of which were completely our fault, healers had too much mana regeneration in Wrath of the Lich King. Let’s look at the consequences of infinite mana for a moment.

For starters, those expensive, fast heals were never a difficult choice. Expensive doesn’t really apply in the absence of a cost, so they were just fast heals. Why wouldn’t you want to cast a fast heal? Healer gameplay became smaller because they had fewer options. Rather than choosing the right tool, everyone picked a spell such as Power Word: Shield, Flash of Light or Rejuv, and just used that spell. Over and over. We think a cornerstone of good gameplay is making interesting decisions. When your toolbox is too small (because the expensive or slow spells are immediately discarded as tools) then you are making fewer interesting decisions.

Second, since healers weren’t really running out of mana, we had to find other ways to make those raid encounters that were designed to be challenging actually challenging. That often came down to very high tank or raid damage. So now not only did healers not have much of a choice about which spell to use, but they also had to use that spell every global cooldown or risk someone dying. This made healing stressful without the reward of having made good decisions. If you healed the wrong target, hesitated for a moment, or had a laggy connection, then someone was going to die.

Third, anything that played off of mana regeneration, such as a talent, a stat like Spirit, or even a proc from a trinket, became undesirable. Furthermore, since mana wasn’t a concern, overhealing was also not a concern, and players did it with abandon. When everything is an overheal already, then stats like critical strike chance also become devalued.

Fourth, PvP balance suffered. When healers could easily heal anyone to full without fear of overhealing or running out of mana, then battles became very binary. You either killed someone or you didn’t. Nobody sat in a wounded state very long. There was no sense of a changing tide or someone coming from behind. Imagine a tennis match where the outcome of the first serve won or lost the entire match. We could have improved this situation by increasing health pools, which is exactly what we did for Cataclysm, but larger health pools with infinite mana would just make bosses feel unthreatening.

To be clear, we don’t want healers to constantly run out of mana. We want them to run out of mana when they don’t play well. And we don’t want them to always fail. But we do want them to feel good when they are challenged, and overcome those challenges to succeed. When someone is wounded, we want healers to consider whether to use a slow, efficient heal (because they aren’t in immediate threat of dying) or a fast, expensive heal (because they are). That’s called triage, and it was notably missing from the Lich King healing environment. We think triage will make healing more fun. We’re making this change not to make healers sad by nerfing them, but to make healers happy by making the game more fun for them.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

They're seperately instanced, so yeah, no flying.

So? They were modeled for BC and should have been done in a way to allow flying. Were no strangers to ocean limits.

 

[Rapstah]

So? They were modeled for BC and should have been done in a way to allow flying. Were no strangers to ocean limits.

The border between Ghostlands and EPL is where the problems appear.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

The border between Ghostlands and EPL is where the problems appear.

Not really. What happens when you try to fly into it from EPL? Invisible wall perhaps? They have to do something there that could also be done on the flip side. A more intelligent thing would be to have a invisible portal.

 

[SnakeswithLasers]

Remember when I talked about how much harder healing will be? Blizzard just had to release a statement called "Why Does Blizzard Hate Healers?" :lol :lol

I think all of that sounds great.

The one thing I'm worried about is not so much the healers, but the 4 other members of a party who will be cocks to healers since they're used to waddling through a dungeon with no regard to their health.

Personally, I'm put off from healing right now because I haven't done it in a while and don't know the tools super well, but everyone else is so used to just running through everything willy nilly that there isn't much patience for learning.

 

[Evlar]

I want to say, as a healer main, I'm still completely on board with the changes to healing and mana regen dynamics in general. Specific implementations will need to be tweaked (like, say, Disc PvP) but the direction is the correct one.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

I think all of that sounds great.

The one thing I'm worried about is not so much the healers, but the 4 other members of a party who will be cocks to healers since they're used to waddling through a dungeon with no regard to their health.

Personally, I'm put off from healing right now because I haven't done it in a while and don't know the tools super well, but everyone else is so used to just running through everything willy nilly that there isn't much patience for learning.

Might start out like that I guess, but word of mouth should fix it. 4/5 ppl can't stay ignorant. I hope.

 

[Bisnic]

I know, for one thing, i wont queue as healer in the LFD. Dont wanna deal with dps or tank getting one shotted for standing in fire and going "wtf healer". The dangerous fire against the pre-cata BRD elemental boss is already proof that some people never bother to look at what's going on under their own feet. They die in a matter of seconds because "i didnt see the fire". Too busy looking at health bars i suppose.

 

[notworksafe]

It depends. Those players that started in Vanilla/BC will get it. People that started in Wrath and beyond are going to be the whiners, because they've never had to run a dungeon that isn't massive AOE spam by all players without stopping for a breath.

 

[Evlar]

I know, for one thing, i wont queue as healer in the LFD. Dont wanna deal with dps or tank getting one shotted for standing in fire and going "wtf healer". The dangerous fire against the pre-cata BRD elemental boss is already proof that some people never bother to look at what's going on under their own feet. They die in a matter of seconds because "i didnt see the fire". Too busy looking at health bars i suppose.

Haven't been yelled at yet in the pre-Cata encounters despite several DPS biting it while standing in the fire. Crossing my fingers that this means a good portion of the playerbase will start taking responsibility for their own mistakes.

 

[Bisnic]

Haven't been yelled at yet in the pre-Cata encounters despite several DPS biting it while standing in the fire. Crossing my fingers that this means a good portion of the playerbase will start taking responsibility for their own mistakes.

Yeah i'm surprised that, so far, all the DPS that died in the fire against the pre-cata fire boss didn't put the blame on me. I guess they noticed they died so fast that no heals could save them.

But i guesss a lot more stupids will resubscribe once Cataclysm will launch and the "wtf healer l2play" will appear.

 

[notworksafe]

Not likely. I've had many times in these pre-Cata dungeons where DPS will just pull early, before everyone has the quest. Then they refuse to stop/slow DPS to a point where I can grab and hold on to all the mobs and blame both myself and the healers for their death before they either rage quit or try to start a Vote to Kick.

I've had it happen 3-4 times on both Princess and Firelord. Makes me so happy that I have a guild to run instances with in Cataclysm.

Also on Firelord I often get the DPS that pull adds and then proceed to run AWAY from both tank and healer while proclaiming how bad we are at our respective jobs. smh.

 

[Jazzy Network]

Might start a shammy. Is 2 handed enhancement shammy viable? I don't wanna go elemental and am not a huge fan of dual wielding.

 

[notworksafe]

Might start a shammy. Is 2 handed enhancement shammy viable? I don't wanna go elemental and am not a huge fan of dual wielding.

Not in the slightest anymore.

 

[LaserBuddha]

I wanted to switch my Shadow Priest back to Holy (stopped playing WoW when 3.1 was released, and just started playing again a month ago as Shadow), but now I'm kinda nervous. I didn't get a whole lot of raid experience as a healer, just a couple of Naxx runs, and of course plenty of easy 5-mans.

I'm already apprehensive about switching back now that Holy healing is so much more complicated, with chakras and whatnot. Now that we are learning that Healing will be hard in Cata, even for those who know what they're doing, I'm wondering if I'd be setting myself up for massive fail.

Should I maybe just do it and jump into some Heroics now for practice? If so, should I just be fine using my T10 Shadow Priest set? I don't really want to invest in new gear this close to Cata.

 

[Rapstah]

I wanted to switch my Shadow Priest back to Holy (stopped playing WoW when 3.1 was released, and just started playing again a month ago as Shadow), but now I'm kinda nervous. I didn't get a whole lot of raid experience as a healer, just a couple of Naxx runs, and of course plenty of easy 5-mans.

I'm already apprehensive about switching back now that Holy healing is so much more complicated, with chakras and whatnot. Now that we are learning that Healing will be hard in Cata, even for those who know what they're doing, I'm wondering if I'd be setting myself up for massive fail.

Should I maybe just do it and jump into some Heroics now for practice? If so, should I just be fine using my T10 Shadow Priest set? I don't really want to invest in new gear this close to Cata.

WOTLK launch heroics are pretty much healable in greens, so you'll be fine with your shadow set for those. However, the 3.3 ICC heroics could/will be too hard, and your higher-than-usual average item level will get you into those. Beware.