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[Fularu]

This warrior preview is a disaster...

Rend 2.0? Charge 2.0? A "Never reach 100 rage or you'll suffer from it" inner rage craptastic talent? WW nerf? MS nerf?

This is absolutely terrible.

 

[Door2Dawn]

This warrior preview is a disaster...

Rend 2.0? Charge 2.0? A "Never reach 100 rage or you'll suffer from it" inner rage craptastic talent? WW nerf? MS nerf?

This is absolutely terrible.

Yeah, its a shame everything is set in stone, and there is in no way possible to change.

 

[JPBrowncoat]

Leap of Faith will probably be used mostly to pull back the Leeroy Jenkins. I know I'm gonna piss off a lot of impatient tanks in randoms with it. =D

 

[Retro]

Leap of Faith will probably be used mostly to pull back the Leeroy Jenkins. I know I'm gonna piss off a lot of impatient tanks in randoms with it. =D

Fuck you in advance! :lol

Most of the time the tank is getting whispers from the DPS saying "OMFG PULL ALREADY"

 

[Fularu]

Yeah, its a shame everything is set in stone, and there is in no way possible to change.

Do I need to remind you of Enraged regenaration and Heroic Throw?

Do I need to remind you of Bloodbath? And its canning shortly after? Of the original Leap of Faith (which at least was a talent you spent points into)?

This preview is terrible and knowing blizzard, beta won't change much of it for the good, it will just nerf those already prety useless new abilities.

And just lol at the sunder nerf.

 

[JPBrowncoat]

Fuck you in advance! :lol

Most of the time the tank is getting whispers from the DPS saying "OMFG PULL ALREADY"

Hah I will reserve it for very special tanks, like the ones in Halls of Stone (or Lightning?) who go for the next mob after the furnace while everyone still has the armor reduction.

I do plan on griefing my friends with it all the time though!

 

[Angry Grimace]

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will bring with it several changes to class talents and abilities. In this preview, you'll get a glimpse at some of the new abilities, spells, and talents in store for the death knight class, along with an early look at some improvements we plan to make to the rune resource system.

New Death Knight Abilities

Outbreak (level 81): Outbreak infects the target with both Frost Fever and Blood Plague at no rune cost. This ability allows death knights to apply diseases quickly when they are switching targets or when their diseases have been dispelled.

Necrotic Strike (level 83): Necrotic Strike is a new attack that deals weapon damage and applies a debuff that absorbs an amount of healing based on the damage done. For context, imagine that the death knight can choose between doing 8,000 damage outright with a certain ability, or dealing 6,000 damage and absorbing 4,000 points in incoming heals with Necrotic Strike -- the burst is smaller, but a larger overall amount of healing would be required to bring the target back to full health.

This ability is meant to bring back some of the old flavor from when death knights could dispel heal-over-time (HoT) effects. It also gives the class a bit more PvP utility without simply replicating a Mortal Strike-style effect.

Dark Simulacrum (level 85): The death knight strikes a target, applying a debuff that allows the death knight to copy the opponent's next spell cast and unleash it. Unlike Spell Reflection, Dark Simulacrum does not cancel the incoming spell. In general, if you can't reflect an ability, you won't be able to copy it either.

Rune System Changes

While we're satisfied with the way the rune system works overall, we're making a few major changes to the mechanics that will ultimately help death knight players feel less constrained. Here's the rationale behind the changes, followed by an explanation of how the new system will work.


* In the current rune system, any time a rune is sitting idle, death knights are losing out on potential damage output. By comparison, rogues spend most of their time at low energy levels, and if they're unable to use their skills for a few seconds, that energy builds up and can be spent later, minimizing the net loss from the interruption.

* A death knight's runes, on the other hand, cannot be used until they are fully active. If a death knight ever goes more than a few seconds without spending an available rune, that resource is essentially wasted. Because the death knight is pushing buttons constantly, it can be difficult to add new mechanics to the class because the player doesn't have any free global cooldowns to use them. We can't grant extra resources or reduced cost, because there is no time to spend them. Missing an attack is devastating, and it's impossible to save resources for when they're most useful.

* Additionally, each individual death knight ability has a fairly low impact on its own, making it feel like most of the death knight's attacks are weak. The death knight's rotations are also more easily affected by latency or a player's timing being just a little off. At times, it feels like death knights aren't able to take advantage of their unique resource mechanic, which can diminish the fun.

* The new rune system will change how runes regenerate, from filling simultaneously to filling sequentially. For example, if you use two Blood runes, then the first rune will fill up before the second one starts to fill up. Essentially, you have three sets of runes filling every 10 seconds instead of six individual runes filling every 10 seconds. (Haste will cause runes to fill faster.) Another way to think of this is having three runes that go up to 200% each (allowing extra "storage"), rather than six runes that go up to 100% each.

* As this is a major change to the death knight's mechanics, it will of course require us to retune many of the class's current abilities. For example, each ability needs to hit harder or otherwise be more meaningful since the death knight is getting fewer resources per unit of time. Some abilities will need to have their costs reduced as a result.


Talent Changes

Next we'll outline some of the death knight talent-tree changes we're planning in Cataclysm. This list is by no means comprehensive, but it should give you a sense of how we're intending each death knight spec to perform.


* One of the biggest changes we're making is converting Blood into a dedicated tanking tree. While we feel that having three tanking trees was successful overall, it's less necessary in a world with dual-specialization. In addition, the current breakdown isn't as compatible with the Mastery-based passive talent-tree bonuses we want to add (see below). We'd rather spend time tweaking and balancing one good tanking tree rather than having a tank always wondering if they picked the "correct" tree out of three possibilities.

* Blood seemed like the best fit for tanking. Unholy has always had a strong niche with diseases, magic, and command over pets. Frost now feels like a solid dual-wield tree with Frost magic damage and decent crowd control. Blood's niche was self-healing -- fitting for a tank -- as well as strong weapon swings, which could easily be migrated to Frost and Unholy.

* Our plan is to move the most interesting and fun tanking talents and abilities to Blood. For example, you will likely see Vampiric Blood and Will of the Necropolis remain, while Bone Shield will move over from Unholy.


Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Blood
Damage reduction
Vengeance
Healing Absorption

Frost
Melee damage
Melee Haste
Runic Power Generation

Unholy
Melee damage
Melee and spell critical damage
Disease Damage

Healing Absorption: When you heal yourself, you'll receive an additional effect that absorbs incoming damage.

Runic Power Generation: This will function as the name implies, and the new rune system will make generating Runic Power more appealing.

Disease Damage: Unholy death knights will be able to get more out of their diseases, which are integral to the tree's play style.

Vengeance: This new mechanic is designed to ensure that tank damage output (and therefore threat) doesn't fall behind as damage-dealing classes improve their gear during the course of the expansion. All tanking specs will have Vengeance as their second talent tree passive bonus. Whenever a tank gets hit, Vengeance will grant a stacking Attack Power buff equal to 5% of the damage done, up to a maximum of 10% of the character's unbuffed health. For boss encounters, we expect that tanks will always have an Attack Power bonus equal to 10% of their health. The 5% and 10% bonuses assume 51 talent points have been put into the Blood tree; these values will be smaller at lower levels.

You only get the Vengeance bonus if you have spent the most talent points in the Blood tree, so you won't see Frost or Unholy death knights running around with it. Vengeance will let us continue to design tank gear more or less the way we do today; there will be some damage-dealing stats, but mostly survival-oriented stats. Druids typically have more damage-dealing stats even on their tanking gear, so their Vengeance benefit may be smaller, but the goal is that all four tanks will do about the same damage when tanking.

We hope you enjoyed this preview, and we're looking forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on Cataclysm continues.

Not really disappointed (I main a DK and don't really think DK's need anything new), but it's a little lame for those of us that PvE mostly that for the most part it's all PvP related stuff other than Outbreak (which is a trash ability like mind spike; casting IT and PS is probably better DPS).

 

[Tamanon]

Going to have to see the Rune changes in action, but Necrotic Strike and Dark Simulacrum look great.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Going to have to see the Rune changes in action, but Necrotic Strike and Dark Simulacrum look great.

I have a feeling Dark Simulacrum is the kind of ability that Blizzard likes the idea of but never ends up implementing right.

 

[Door2Dawn]

I guess they're still going with the frost= dual-wield route, lame.

 

[arhra]

I have a feeling Dark Simulacrum is the kind of ability that Blizzard likes the idea of but never ends up implementing right.

See mage sheeping healer. Hit mage with Dark Simulacrum. Mage sheeps healer. DK sheeps mage. Diseases and autoattack automatically break Sheep (assuming it automatically fires off the copied spell, as anything else would be pretty awkward and weird).

Brilliant ability!

Alternately, hit mage with Dark Simulacrum. Mage teleports to Ironforge. Oops.

 

[mclem]

But it sounds like it would do the exact opposite; all three effects you get are things you probably want a lot of. My problem is that with replacing those other stats makes it sound as though it's not really a choice at all.

With the mention of "a lot of", it suggests that you're thinking everything gets buffed by the Mastery stat; if I remember right, isn't it the case that the first two Mastery effects are based solely on the number of points you have in that tree; it's the third one that is based on both the number of points you have in the tree *and* your Mastery stat on gear? In that case, it's only single-dipping, not triple-dipping, so it keeps the stat comparisons somewhat interesting.

 

[HarryDemeanor]

Alternately, hit mage with Dark Simulacrum. Mage teleports to Ironforge. Oops.

Greatest backfire ever!

 

[Angry Grimace]

The Rune changes are outrageous and ridiculous. I can't see that making it through beta. It essentially sounds like you literally just cut the number of attacks you do in half and rely on standing there autoattacking. I'm probably getting the mechanics wrong, but that's how it sounds, and it sounds fucking lame.

 

[arhra]

The Rune changes are outrageous and ridiculous. I can't see that making it through beta. It essentially sounds like you literally just cut the number of attacks you do in half and rely on standing there autoattacking. I'm probably getting the mechanics wrong, but that's how it sounds, and it sounds fucking lame.

After reading it a few times it think i figured it out - just think of it as three rogue-style energy bars in segments that only light up when they fill entirely, with abilities that always cost 50 <blood/frost/unholy> energy (or 50 each of frost/unholy for dual-rune attacks).

Each set of runes (B/U/F) will fill entirely over 10s, so 5s refresh for an individual rune. Shouldn't have any effect on how many attacks you can get overall, just means that you don't waste runes if you can't use them immediately.

 

[Angry Grimace]

After reading it a few times it think i figured it out - just think of it as three rogue-style energy bars in segments that only light up when they fill entirely, with abilities that always cost 50 <blood/frost/unholy> energy (or 50 each of frost/unholy for dual-rune attacks).

Each set of runes (B/U/F) will fill entirely over 10s, so 5s refresh for an individual rune. Shouldn't have any effect on how many attacks you can get overall, just means that you don't waste runes if you can't use them immediately.

You're probably right; I'm still having a lot of trouble conceptualizing this or even why they are doing this. I don't know what's wrong with the current system.

I'm still planning on maining my Mage in Cataclysm, however.

 

[Flib]

You're probably right; I'm still having a lot of trouble conceptualizing this or even why they are doing this. I don't know what's wrong with the current system.

I'm still planning on maining my Mage in Cataclysm, however.

I agree with you, but I have a feeling they are just explaining it really badly.

 

[arhra]

You're probably right; I'm still having a lot of trouble conceptualizing this or even why they are doing this. I don't know what's wrong with the current system.

I'm still planning on maining my Mage in Cataclysm, however.

Have you ever played a rogue seriously? If so, the benefit should be pretty obvious to you. Going to a cooldown-limited class (which is basically what DKs are currently) after playing my rogue definitely felt clunkier and far more punishing in terms of latency or movement.

With cooldowns, if you don't hit an ability right as it comes off CD (or as soon as possible given GCD restraints in many cases), you've definitely lost damage and dps. With energy (or the cata rune system), as long as you're not rigidly GCD-locked, waiting a second or two to hit an ability means you don't lose any damage, just delayed it slightly (because it means there's less time until you can hit your next ability because the excess energy/rune carries over, so you've not actually lost any overall dps unless you've let your energy/runes cap out and wasted some regen).

If possible, i'd love it if they could move all classes over to a similar system - it's just more fun than rigid cooldowns on everything.

 

[Cipherr]

What the hell are you even talking about now? That wasn't the point at all, you literally have no clue what the point of the conversation you're trying to have is.


What I'm saying is, I don't think it's a bad thing at all that Armor Penetration wasn't as good for Paladins as it was for Warriors. It's not bad that stats don't have an equal value to every class at all, and in general most classes were all viable for PvE content in Wrath from 3.0.3 to now, so I'm skeptical it's a necessary change.

It was a needed change, if only so we stop capping stuff.


Im working on capping out my arpen on my hunter atm. Seriously, stats that we cap out by the end of an expansion is just stupid. The value for it is greater than everything else until you hit 1400 then it dives to zero. I think we need as few stats like that as possible.

Arp was just an easy target. But Im glad they are doing it. Its just silly.

 

[Touchdown]

Druid info tomorrow!! Yay

 

[arhra]

GC has posted a clarification about the new DK rune mechanic:

I'll take a stab at explaining the rune mechanic. Once you see it in action, it's pretty easy to understand.

Just focus on Blood Runes for the moment. The big change is that rune #2 will never start filling up until rune #1 is full. They always fill 1 then 2. Today 1 and 2 can both fill at the same time.

In Cataclysm, when you're killing things, you use rune 1. Then any extra "red" in rune 2 will fill rune 1 back up again. If both of them are full, you can use 2 Blood Runes immediately. But after that, rune 1 will fill up first and then rune 2. If it helps, imagine rune 2 is the extra tank.

This sounds like it will slow down DK attacks, and it will to a point. That's part of what we're trying to accomplish. We can then fill those extra GCDs with things like free abilities or runic power abilities or we have room to add talents that make runes fill faster. Remember, slow attacks can hit harder though. Instead of DKs hitting fast like a rogue, they'll hit slower and harder, like a warrior, which fits a lot of player's image of a DK anyway. Dual wield will hit faster of course.

I'll try another comparison. Imagine that all rogue abilities cost 100 energy. They have to wait until they get 100 energy, and then immediately use an attack so that they aren't wasting future energy. That's how DKs play now, except they have 6 runes to watch. Now imagine the same rogue except all his abilities cost 50 energy. If he hits an attack when he has 60 energy, then 50 is consumed but he has 10 energy still left and a head start on the next attack. That's the way we want DKs to play.

If that still doesn't make sense, then focus on what the experience will be, which is that you'll have more breathing room in your rotation and won't have to hit a button every single GCD. If you don't use a strike the second it's available, that's more okay because the extra tank will store extra rune resources rather than just wasting it. You'll still be hitting a lot of buttons though. We're keeping double rune strikes and Death Runes and disease multipliers and all of that. We'll have to make some changes in some abilities to accommodate the resource change, but it won't be unrecognizable to you.

We're not sure DKs even need Rune Strike any longer. If it survives, we'll turn it into an instant swing. But if we turn it into an instant swing, then it really isn't that different from existing strikes so it's possible we can just make a tanking rotation without it.

So yeah, exactly what i said earlier about it being basically energy.

 

[Angry Grimace]

GC has posted a clarification about the new DK rune mechanic:


So yeah, exactly what i said earlier about it being basically energy.

So from interesting to boring. I think Blizzard "sees" problems where none really exist. I don't expect this to make a difference in DK output, but it sounds like it will make playing one far less interesting. Slowing down the number of buttons you push simply can't make the game more interesting in any way, imo since it was never "confusing" in the first place. I don't get "slow attacks will hit harder," as some kind of compensation; you're making it less fun to do the same thing, how does that sound better to Blizzard?

I simply don't understand the motivation behind; Ghostcrawler is explicitly saying you'll have less to do because you'll be standing around auto-attacking waiting for shit. If I wanted to play a rogue, I'd play my rogue (which is level 74, but my girlfriend leveled it to 70, so I know very little about it). I don't know, the pace of the DK is part of what it is. I don't see why it needed to be changed; it's not a hard class at all and part of the fun is how much you get to do.

 

[Kletian]

So from interesting to boring. I think Blizzard "sees" problems where none really exist. I don't expect this to make a difference in DK output, but it sounds like it will make playing one far less interesting. Slowing down the number of buttons you push simply can't make the game more interesting in any way, imo since it was never "confusing" in the first place. I don't get "slow attacks will hit harder," as some kind of compensation; you're making it less fun to do the same thing, how does that sound better to Blizzard?

I simply don't understand the motivation behind; Ghostcrawler is explicitly saying you'll have less to do because you'll be standing around auto-attacking waiting for shit. If I wanted to play a rogue, I'd play my rogue (which is level 74, but my girlfriend leveled it to 70, so I know very little about it). I don't know, the pace of the DK is part of what it is. I don't see why it needed to be changed; it's not a hard class at all and part of the fun is how much you get to do.

You want to rag on any of the other class changes while we're at it here Grimace? :lol

 

[Angry Grimace]

You want to rag on any of the other class changes while we're at it here Grimace? :lol

I have a lot of high level characters (Warrior/Death Knight/Paladin/Druid/Priest/Mage and lvl 74 Rogue), so expect more "WTF" later on. :lol

I really just don't understand this one; I've never met a DK who thought the class played too fast or didn't like/understand how runes worked.

 

[notworksafe]

lI really just don't understand this one; I've never met a DK who thought the class played too fast or didn't like/understand how runes worked.

It's not about it going too fast or anything. It's more about managing rune cooldowns. Instead of having to wait for two runes to charge before being able to take an action with those runes, you now have a staggered rune cooldown so that you are actually able to do more without having to wait as long for a rune to recharge.

I think it's a cool idea because it makes the class actually more interactive rather then burn runes, spend RP, repeat. Instead it could be a bit of a mix. Burn a rune, spend some RP, burn another rune. A bit more of a flexible attack pattern then a super tight and boring rotation.

Also, Healing Absorption sounds like a really sweet ability. That's one I'm interested in seeing in practice.

 

[HarryDemeanor]

Rogue preview is up!

In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, we'll be making several changes to class talents and abilities across the board. Here, you'll get a glimpse at what's in store for the rogue class, including a look the new high-level abilities and an overview of how the new Mastery system will work with the rogue's different talent specs.

New Rogue Abilities

Redirect (available at level 81): Rogues will be getting a new ability to help them deal with changing targets. Redirect will transfer any active combo points to the rogue's current target, helping to ensure combo points aren't wasted when swapping targets or when targets die. In addition, self-buff abilities like Slice and Dice will no longer require a target, so rogues can spend extra combo points on those types of abilities (more on this below). Redirect will have a 1-minute cooldown and no other costs.

Combat Readiness (level 83): Combat Readiness is a new ability that we intend rogues to trigger defensively. While this ability is active, whenever the rogue is struck by a melee or ranged attack, he or she will gain a stacking buff called Combat Insight that results in a 10% reduction in damage taken. Combat Insight will stack up to 5 times and the timer will be refreshed whenever a new stack is applied. Our goal is to make rogues better equipped to go toe-to-toe with other melee classes when Evasion or stuns are not in play. This ability lasts 6 seconds and has a 2-minute cooldown.

Smoke Bomb (level 85): The rogue drops a Smoke Bomb, creating a cloud that interferes with enemy targeting. Enemies who are outside the cloud will find themselves unable to target units inside the cloud with single-target abilities. Enemies can move inside the cloud to attack, or they can use area-of-effect (AoE) abilities at any time to attack opponents in a cloud. In PvP, this will open up new dimensions of tactical positional gameplay, as the ability offers a variety of offensive and defensive uses. In PvE, Smoke Cloud can serve to shield your group from hostile ranged attacks, while also drawing enemies closer without the need to rely on conventional line-of-sight obstructions. Smoke Cloud lasts 10 seconds and has a 3-minute cooldown.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

We're also planning to make changes to some of the other abilities and mechanics you're already familiar with. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we want for each spec.

In PvP, we want to reduce the rogue's dependency on binary cooldowns and "stun-locks," and give them more passive survivability in return. One major change is that we'll put Cheap Shot on the same diminishing return as other stuns. The increase to Armor and Stamina on cloth, leather, and mail gear will help with this goal as well.

In PvE, even accounting for active modifiers like Slice and Dice and Envenom, a very large portion of the rogue's damage is attributable to passive sources of damage. Yes, they are using abilities for the entire duration of a fight, but we want to reduce the percentage of rogue damage that comes from auto-attacks and poisons. More of their damage will be coming from active abilities and special attacks.

We would like to improve the rogue leveling experience. Positional attacks and DoT-ramping mechanics will be de-emphasized at low levels and then re-introduced at higher levels for group gameplay. We are also providing rogues with a new low-level ability, Recuperate, to convert combo points into a small heal-over-time (HoT).

To complement the change to combo points, non-damage abilities such as Recuperate and Slice and Dice will no longer have target requirements and can be used with any of the rogue's existing combo points, including combo points remaining on recently killed targets. This will not affect damage abilities, which will still require combo points to be present on the specific target you want to damage. To coincide with this, the UI will be updated so that rogues know how many combo points they have active.

Ambush will now work with all weapons, but will have a reduced coefficient when not using a dagger. When opening from Stealth, all rogues will be able to choose from burst damage, DoT abilities, or a stun.

As we've done recently with some of the Subtlety abilities, we want to make sure more rogue abilities aren't overly penalized by weapon choice. With a few exceptions (like Backstab), you should be able to use a dagger, axe, mace, sword, or fist weapon without being penalized for most attacks.

Deadly Throw and Fan of Knives will now use the weapon in the ranged slot. In addition, we hope to allow rogues to apply poisons to their throwing weapons.

We are very happy with Tricks of the Trade as a general mechanic and as a way to give rogues more group utility, but we don't want it to account for as much threat transfer as it does now.

New Talents and Talent Changes

In Cataclysm, the overall feel of each of the rogue's talent trees will change, as we would like each tree to have a clearly defined niche and purpose. The talent details below are meant to give you an idea of what we're going for.

Assassination will be more about daggers, poisons, and burst damage.

Combat will be all about swords, maces, fist weapons, axes, and being engaged toe-to-toe with your enemies. A Combat rogue will be able to survive longer without needing to rely on Stealth and evasion mechanics.

The Subtlety tree will primarily be based around utilizing Stealth, openers, finishers, and survivability. It'll be about daggers, too, but less so than Assassination.

In general, Subtlety rogues needs to do more damage than they do today, and the other trees need to have more tools.

Weapon-specialization talents (for all classes, not just rogues) are going away. We do not want you to have to respec when you get a different weapon. Interesting talents, such as Hack and Slash, will work with all weapons. Boring talents, such as Mace Specialization and Close Quarters Combat, will be going away.

The Assassination and Combat talent trees currently have a lot of passive bonuses. We plan to dial back the amount of Critical Strike Rating provided by these trees so that rogues still want it on their gear.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Assassination
Melee damage
Melee critical damage
Poison damage

Combat
Melee damage
Melee Haste
Harder-hitting combo-point generators

Subtlety
Melee damage
Armor Penetration
Harder-hitting finishers

The initial tier of rogue Mastery bonuses will be very similar between the trees. However, the deeper that a player goes into any tree, the more specialized and beneficial the Masteries will be to the play style for that spec. Assassination will have better poisons than the other two specs. Combat will have very steady and consistent overall damage. Subtlety will have strong finishers.

We hope you enjoyed this preview, and we're looking forward to hearing your initial thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on Cataclysm continues.

 

[Infinitemadness]

I'm more satisfied than I thought I would be with the Rogue preview.

 

[Swag]

Can't decide what to play :lol

 

[JPBrowncoat]

My friend was just saying how cool it'd be if poisons could go on thrown weapons. Smoke bomb is gonna be sweet. Just imagine Halls of Reflection.

 

[sykoex]

My friend was just saying how cool it'd be if poisons could go on thrown weapons. Smoke bomb is gonna be sweet. Just imagine Halls of Reflection.

Seriously. I'm wondering if it's gonna be like consecrate or if you can just drop it where ever you want, like a healer at range who got aggro on a caster.

 

[Oni Link 666]

It's weird, I kind of saw the thrown weapons for FOK coming. Ever since they changed the graphic for FOK I've wanted them to use the thrown weapon art instead. Shourikens would just look way cooler. Oh and I guess all the changes to the damage of FOK depending on the weapons used throughout WOTLK and how they group it up in the same talent that modifies deadly throw kind of hinted that they wanted to do this.

I'm liking the sound of giving Rogues more survivability in for PVP.

I'm also liking the no more weapon specializations. That pretty much means they have 3 or more talents with 15 possible points freeing up. Hopefully they put in some of those fun talents they've been talking so much about. I want some subtlety like stuff for combat. I mean some ninja shit like in Naruto.

 

[Rapstah]

Those are some pretty damn good changes for rogues. I might roll one, my highest one is a level 20 gnome that still has all the Christmas quests from 2006...

 

[Kletian]

Man, maybe because all I've ever played is Rogue, but I can't help but feel dissapointed with our changes.

Redirect - Something we've been promised since TBC, bout time we get it.
Combat Readiness - I dont see this being any more than a PvP Ability, so I'll never use it.
Smoke Bomb - Sounds cool, but something tells me they arent going to let me drop one on the Tanks to prevent them from taking damage for 10 seconds. And really it sounds like their fix to Vanish without ACTUALLY fixing Vanish :lol

FoK - Soooo when I have a bow equipped I'll be throwing bows all over the place? :lol

Also, why does Blizzard tink we actually use our Range weapons for anything outside of the occaisonal PvP encounter (if you guys even do then I don't know). If they upped our attack speed with Throwing weapons (keep bows the same) Then I could see the advantage of putting poisons on them. But man when would I think that throwing my weapon would be better than just stabbing them.

Now, if the poison will be applied when I hit FoK, now we're getting somewhere.

 

[Rinent]

Would anyone be able to send me a scroll of resurrection. I have an urge to play but don't know if I want to commit or just muck around for a day or 2.
Cheers.

 

[mclem]

Smoke Bomb - Sounds cool, but something tells me they arent going to let me drop one on the Tanks to prevent them from taking damage for 10 seconds. And really it sounds like their fix to Vanish without ACTUALLY fixing Vanish :lol

I find this the most interesting one. Dropping it on the tank won't make a difference; do note that the people inside the cloud can attack one-another as normal, and there's not many situations where the tank is out of melee range from the mob they're tanking. One thing where it *does* seem to help a lot is that it makes pulling casters a lot easier if the rogue and the tank co-operate - I've always been very fond (probably *too* fond) of LoS pulling, and this allows me to do that - after a fashion - without actually needing something to LoS behind.

But the main reason I find this interesting is: this will probably be used as a boss mechanic too. Note that it says "ENEMIES outside the cloud will be unable to target UNITS inside the cloud" - if it works exactly as phrased, that means that an enemy cloud dropped on the tank means the tank suddenly can't be healed directly unless they move out or a healer moves in.

FoK - Soooo when I have a bow equipped I'll be throwing bows all over the place? :lol

I suspect there's an underlying plan to move rogues entirely to thrown weapons over bows.

But man when would I think that throwing my weapon would be better than just stabbing them.

When that's what you do with Deadly Poison and Fan of Knives, I would imagine.

 

[Kletian]

I find this the most interesting one. Dropping it on the tank won't make a difference; do note that the people inside the cloud can attack one-another as normal, and there's not many situations where the tank is out of melee range from the mob they're tanking. One thing where it *does* seem to help a lot is that it makes pulling casters a lot easier if the rogue and the tank co-operate - I've always been very fond (probably *too* fond) of LoS pulling, and this allows me to do that - after a fashion - without actually needing something to LoS behind.

But the main reason I find this interesting is: this will probably be used as a boss mechanic too. Note that it says "ENEMIES outside the cloud will be unable to target UNITS inside the cloud" - if it works exactly as phrased, that means that an enemy cloud dropped on the tank means the tank suddenly can't be healed directly unless they move out or a healer moves in.


I suspect there's an underlying plan to move rogues entirely to thrown weapons over bows.


When that's what you do with Deadly Poison and Fan of Knives, I would imagine.

Well Smokebomb all depends on how big the Area is that it creates. Putting a 5 yard Cloud around the tank could protect him from something like Marrowgarr who's too big to fit in the cloud, unless they don't have to be completely in the cloud to hit the target.

 

[Acosta]

Dark Simulacrum (level 85): The death knight strikes a target, applying a debuff that allows the death knight to copy the opponent's next spell cast and unleash it. Unlike Spell Reflection, Dark Simulacrum does not cancel the incoming spell. In general, if you can't reflect an ability, you won't be able to copy it either.

Love it!

The change sof the rune systems are nice too and they are necessary, in high latency situations, the rune system it´s a nightmare, I actually ended favouring DK builds with the most simple rotations because I had problems to keep my pace in certain situations.

 

[mclem]

Well Smokebomb all depends on how big the Area is that it creates. Putting a 5 yard Cloud around the tank could protect him from something like Marrowgarr who's too big to fit in the cloud, unless they don't have to be completely in the cloud to hit the target.

I suspect it would either work based on hitboxes rather than the centre of the mob, or the cloud would have some sort of -threat component; either would fix that issue.

 

[Retro]

Our goal is to make rogues better equipped to go toe-to-toe with other melee classes when Evasion or stuns are not in play.

.... When does that ever happen? :lol

 

[explodet]

I have a lot of high level characters (Warrior/Death Knight/Paladin/Druid/Priest/Mage and lvl 74 Rogue), so expect more "WTF" later on. :lol

Shaman/Paladin/Warlock/Warrior/Death Knight/Druid with lvl 71 Mage reporting. x_x

So far I'm digging the Shaman changes, neutral with the Warlock changes, scratching my head at the Warrior changes... and my DKs have had its playstyle changed so many damn times already, what's one more?

 

[FLEABttn]

Doing away with weapon specs with rogues is long overdue. Missing out on a good chunk of DPS just because the RNG hates you isn't a good mechanic.

Doubt I'd go back to my rogue though.

 

[Alex]

Those are pretty good previews for Priest and Rogue, my only complaint with any of it thus far is the angle on the new armor skill for Priest. Kind of seems pretty lackluster in what it's in response to, but we'll see how talents and further development effect it.

Still, I'd almost rather they don't do these previews due to the way the kiddies take them at face value and react with absolutely no information besides a couple of new abilities and some development goals. Those being usually ignored, as seen a fair bit in this very thread!

 

[yacobod]

i usually dont participate in the betas, i'm pretty bored with ICC and 3.3 in general, would be nice to get into beta right about now and play around, wonder when they will start doing a public beta

 

[Angry Grimace]

Today is the Mage one right? That's the one I'm most interested in since I plan to use my Mage in Cataclysm as my "main," although I'm sure I'll play most of them at some point.

i usually dont participate in the betas, i'm pretty bored with ICC and 3.3 in general, would be nice to get into beta right about now and play around, wonder when they will start doing a public beta

I get that.

It's shocking how much more fun Ulduar was than Icecrown Citadel. Really. I know everyone got tired of Ulduar after a billion months of it, but it really was pretty awesome.

 

[Askani]

Today is the Mage one right?

Yes. Hunter, Druid and Mage are today.

 

[Flib]

It's shocking how much more fun Ulduar was than Icecrown Citadel. Really. I know everyone got tired of Ulduar after a billion months of it, but it really was pretty awesome.

Agreed, even with getting burned out on it. Granted, I have only done half of ICC since I'm no longer in a guild after I returned to the game and mine had fallen apart in the interim, but I really haven't enjoyed it nearly as much as Ulduar. I did love the whole theme, art and music of ulduar though, but I also thought the boss mechanics were more fun.

 

[Retro]

With the upcoming World of Warcraft: Cataclysm many game elements will be changing, and each class will be receiving a number of tweaks. Here, we will explore the changes that are being made to the gun-wielding, pet-training hunter. The information you’re about to read is certainly not complete, and is only meant to act as a preview of some of the exciting new things to come. Without further ado, let’s take a look at the new hunter abilities!

New Hunter Abilities

Cobra Shot (level 81): A new shot that deals Nature damage instead of Physical damage. This ability will share a cooldown with Steady Shot. This will give hunters an alternative to Steady Shot on heavily-armored targets, and we will have talent incentives in the Beast Mastery tree to make this a signature shot.

Trap Launcher (level 83): When used, the next trap can be shot to a location within 40 yards. This provides the current Freezing Arrow treatment to all traps and, as a result, we will be removing the current ability Freezing Arrow. 1-minute cooldown. No global cooldown.

Camouflage (level 85): The hunter enters an obscured state that prevents him or her from taking ranged damage. The character would still be subject to melee or area-of-effect attacks, and dealing or taking damage will break the Camouflage effect. The hunter can move and set traps when under Camouflage, and will receive a damage bonus when attacking while under Camouflage (which will then break the effect).

Resource Mechanic Change
Here we come to the meat of the upcoming hunter changes.

Hunters will no longer use mana; instead the class will use Focus. Focus generates much like Energy, by building up. It will not be affected by Intellect at all. Haste will improve its generation. Hunters will generate roughly 6 Focus per second, slightly less than rogues' Energy generation rate of around 10 Energy per second. Below, we have listed some examples of how we intend Focus costs to operate:

Steady Shot/Cobra Shot: No cost. Generates 9 Focus per shot (or 12 per second instead of 6).
Arcane Shot/Chimera Shot /Explosive Shot: 45 Focus.
Aimed Shot/Multi-Shot: 60 Focus.
Concussive Shot/Tranquilizing Shot: 35 Focus.
Rapid Fire/Master’s Call/Disengage: 30 Focus.


Changes to Abilities and Mechanics
In addition to the resource change and new abilities listed above, we intend to make adjustments to some of the other abilities and mechanics you already know well. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we’re going for with each spec.

-A major change coming for the hunter is the removal of ammunition. Guns, bows, and crossbows will now do damage without consuming ammunition at all. There will be no more ammo slot on the hunter’s character display. Any ammunition that a hunter has at the time of the change will become gray sellable items. Existing quivers will be converted into large bags -- though each hunter can only have one and non-hunters will not benefit from this change -- and we will not be making any additional quivers.

-Pet management will also change. Hunters will now have two types of attainable pets: active pets and stored pets. Hunters will be able to have up to three active pets (perhaps five for Beast Mastery specialized players) and will have the ability to switch among these pets any time they are out of combat, without going to town. They will also be able to have a large number of pets in storage at the stables. In order to swap a pet from active to passive, a hunter will still need to visit their local Stable Master. However, this should afford ample storage for the many Spirit Beasts wandering the lands of Azeroth.

- Additionally, hunters will now start with a race-appropriate pet at level 1 and will be able to tame a different pet at level 10. We are also changing many pet family abilities to provide important buffs and debuffs. The intention is to allow the hunter to be able to swap pets and fill a position if a certain role is missing from the group. The goal is to have all pets provide a damage increase that is very similar and no greater than any other pet. Some examples of the changes we are making to the pet families are listed below:

-Wind Serpents: Will provide a debuff that increases the amount of spell damage taken by an enemy (similar to a weaker version of the warlock ability Curse of Elements).

Ravagers: Will provide a debuff that will increase an enemy's Physical damage vulnerability (similar to a weaker version of the warrior ability Rampage).

Hyenas: Will provide bleed damage (similar to a weaker version of the druid ability Mangle).

-Stings and other periodic effects will now benefit from haste and critical strike ratings. Hasted damage-over-time abilities do not lose duration, but instead add additional damage ticks.

-Viper Sting will now restore 9 Focus every 3 seconds.

-We are reinforcing hunters as a ranged class. To this end, the class will now start with ranged abilities at level 1, and we will be removing some melee abilities, such as Mongoose Bite.


New Talents and Talent Changes

-Beast Mastery hunters will have a new talent called Careful Aim, which increases the damage of the next Steady Shot or Cobra Shot, but also increases the cast time of these abilities. The intention is to make the combination of spells into a decent damage opener, especially in conjunction with the new ability Camouflage.

-Beast Mastery hunters will also have talents that make Cobra Shot superior to Steady Shot, such as Longevity reducing the cast time of Cobra Shot to 1.5 seconds.

-Rapid Recuperation will cause Rapid Fire to give 20/40/60 Focus immediately and will cause Rapid Killing to generate 3 Focus per second.

-Efficiency will reduce the Focus cost of Chimera Shot, Aimed Shot, and Arcane Shot.

-Thrill of the Hunt grants Focus when you land a critical strike.

-Hunter vs. Wild increases the hunter’s Focus generation when his or her pet is snared, stunned, or rooted.


Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Beast Mastery
Ranged Damage
Haste
Pet Damage

Marksmanship
Ranged Damage
Armor Penetration
Double Shot

Survival
Ranged Damage
Ranged Critical Damage
Elemental Damage

Pet Damage: Many of the passive benefits to pet damage will no longer be available in the Beast Mastery talent tree. However, these will be provided through the new Mastery mechanic.

Double Shot: The hunter will have a chance to launch a free attack off of the global cooldown for 50% damage.

Elemental Damage: Hunter abilities such as traps, Black Arrow, and Explosive Shot will do elemental damage of the following types: Arcane, Fire, Frost, Nature, and Shadow.

We hope you enjoyed this preview, and ask that you provide your initial thoughts and feedback on what was presented here. Please keep in mind that what you’ve just reviewed is a work in progress and as we move closer to the Cataclysm beta, you’ll see these planned changes as well as others continue to develop in response to feedback and testing.

 

[Ferrio]

Wow Rogues got a *great* preview. That's the kind of stuff I was hoping for warrior... such a shame.

 

[Flib]

Wow, actually really happy with the hunter preview, I'm pumped. Seems like they're making the class a lot more interesting.

 

[ShallNoiseUpon]

Bringing back all sorts of WotLK beta stuff with Camo/Spirit Link/Heroic Leap