- Talent changes
- DK Rune changes/Hunter Focus/Pally Holy Power
- New Badge system (Justice points)
- Spell scaling
Full PTR notes after the jump.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
4.0.1 October 5th or 12th
As all current players know, 4.0.1 is coming soon. It's been available on the background downloader for a few weeks now, and odds are it's going live next Tuesday, or the week after at the latest. This is essentially the pre-Cataclysm patch. Highlights include:
Full PTR notes after the jump.
Full PTR notes after the jump.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
WoW adds ability queue in Cata/4.0
According to this thread on the official forums, there is now an ability queue in WoW. To explain, currently if you push a button during a GCD, nothing happens because of the GCD. With this change, the first button you push during GCD becomes "locked" in queue; it is set to go off as the next skill you use. To some, that might sound cool: "I can decide what skill I'm going to use next earlier! That's awesome."
However, this leaves you unable to react to the ever-changing situation of combat. What happens when a proc goes off enabling/empowering Skill A, but you just queued Skill B? What if you notice you need to re-apply a DoT, but queued another nuke? What do you do in PVP if you queued up a damaging skill, but your target just got CC'd? The case of procs is where this probably hurts the most, as some procs (Bloodsurge) only give you a few seconds to react and the queue locks you out for another 1-1.5 seconds, giving you a smaller window in which to use your proc.
If this was an optional system that you could disable, I would have no problem with it. Some players (or even certain classes) could enable it if they found it beneficial, while others would not have to suffer unwanted changes to core gameplay mechanics. Hopefully Blizzard will add a toggle for this before it goes live.
However, this leaves you unable to react to the ever-changing situation of combat. What happens when a proc goes off enabling/empowering Skill A, but you just queued Skill B? What if you notice you need to re-apply a DoT, but queued another nuke? What do you do in PVP if you queued up a damaging skill, but your target just got CC'd? The case of procs is where this probably hurts the most, as some procs (Bloodsurge) only give you a few seconds to react and the queue locks you out for another 1-1.5 seconds, giving you a smaller window in which to use your proc.
If this was an optional system that you could disable, I would have no problem with it. Some players (or even certain classes) could enable it if they found it beneficial, while others would not have to suffer unwanted changes to core gameplay mechanics. Hopefully Blizzard will add a toggle for this before it goes live.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Death Knight Tier 11 Armor Set Bonuses
Stats are finally out for all of the classes Tier 11 Armor. Unfortunately, models are only available for Warlock, Rogue, and Druid. Here's a link to all of the stats and set bonuses, but let's talk about the Death Knight sets.
DK Tier 11 Tank
Dodge seems to be the favored stat, appearing on 3/5 pieces; parry, hit and mastery all appear on two pieces. The stamina values seem REALLY high; nearly double what the ilvl 277 T10 set has now. Interesting to see that there are no high-armor (with armor in green) pieces this time around; I liked getting more mitigation from certain pieces instead of just avoidance.
The 2 piece bonus is 5% increased DS damage; not impressive but should help with threat, and traditionally the 2p has always done that instead of survivability.
The 4 piece is very nice, 50% longer duration for Icebound Fortitude. Anything that improves our cooldowns I'm a fan of, although I'll miss the T10 4p a lot going into Cata.
DK Tier 11 DPS
Haste is heavily favored for the DPS T11, it appears on 4/5 pieces (all but the legs); since haste now improved rune refresh rate, this looks good. hit rating and mastery appear on two pieces, and crit and expertise appear on one. The lack of expertise could make hitting the cap painful, but we'll see. Also interesting to note is that the DPS T11 has the same amount of stamina as the tank set; this fits with Blizzard's intent to close the gap in health pools between tanks and dps.
The 2 piece bonus makes up for the relative lack of crit rating on the armor: 5% increased crit chance with Death Coil and Frost Strike.
The 4 piece is a more broad dps increase: every time you gain a death rune (from Reaping, Blood of the North, or Blood Tap), you gain +1% attack power, stacking up to 3 times, for 30s.
Hopefully they put the models in for our tier soon!
DK Tier 11 Tank
Dodge seems to be the favored stat, appearing on 3/5 pieces; parry, hit and mastery all appear on two pieces. The stamina values seem REALLY high; nearly double what the ilvl 277 T10 set has now. Interesting to see that there are no high-armor (with armor in green) pieces this time around; I liked getting more mitigation from certain pieces instead of just avoidance.
The 2 piece bonus is 5% increased DS damage; not impressive but should help with threat, and traditionally the 2p has always done that instead of survivability.
The 4 piece is very nice, 50% longer duration for Icebound Fortitude. Anything that improves our cooldowns I'm a fan of, although I'll miss the T10 4p a lot going into Cata.
DK Tier 11 DPS
Haste is heavily favored for the DPS T11, it appears on 4/5 pieces (all but the legs); since haste now improved rune refresh rate, this looks good. hit rating and mastery appear on two pieces, and crit and expertise appear on one. The lack of expertise could make hitting the cap painful, but we'll see. Also interesting to note is that the DPS T11 has the same amount of stamina as the tank set; this fits with Blizzard's intent to close the gap in health pools between tanks and dps.
The 2 piece bonus makes up for the relative lack of crit rating on the armor: 5% increased crit chance with Death Coil and Frost Strike.
The 4 piece is a more broad dps increase: every time you gain a death rune (from Reaping, Blood of the North, or Blood Tap), you gain +1% attack power, stacking up to 3 times, for 30s.
Hopefully they put the models in for our tier soon!
Monday, September 27, 2010
Dalaran Portals Removed in Cata!
OH NOES THE SKY IS FALLING!! ILL HAVE TO TAKE A 2M FLIGHTPATH TO GET FROM ORG TO TB WAH WAH WAH RAGEQUIT!!1!!!
...
Ahem. The latest beta change has been the removal of the portals to Org/IF/Sw from Dalaran and Shatt; the intention clearly being to force players back into their faction's capital cities instead of having everyone clustered in the previous expansion's content. According to many people online, this is the end of the goddamn world. Personally, I like the change. I've always liked the PVP aspect of Warcraft (and not just WoW), and found the idea of a neutral city that the Horde and Alliance shared (while not being able to kill each other) very silly. It broke immersion (such as it is) seeing tons of humans and orcs just chilling together in a game supposedly about war.
With this change we'll be back in Org, and they'll be back in IF or SW, and encounters with the opposite faction will be more rare (and bloody). All in all a good change to make things feel more worldly. This will also be another buff to mages, as the value of portals will rise considerably.
...
Ahem. The latest beta change has been the removal of the portals to Org/IF/Sw from Dalaran and Shatt; the intention clearly being to force players back into their faction's capital cities instead of having everyone clustered in the previous expansion's content. According to many people online, this is the end of the goddamn world. Personally, I like the change. I've always liked the PVP aspect of Warcraft (and not just WoW), and found the idea of a neutral city that the Horde and Alliance shared (while not being able to kill each other) very silly. It broke immersion (such as it is) seeing tons of humans and orcs just chilling together in a game supposedly about war.
With this change we'll be back in Org, and they'll be back in IF or SW, and encounters with the opposite faction will be more rare (and bloody). All in all a good change to make things feel more worldly. This will also be another buff to mages, as the value of portals will rise considerably.
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