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Creative Creations - Wrath of the Lich King Machinima and Stand of the Exiles
Yesterday, 03:59 PM |
Zuelu 
View Thread (1 Comments)
This week for Creative Creations, in terms of our Machinima we go from Classic to Wrath of the Lich King, and we also take a look at some Draenic Creative Writing.
Wrath of the Lich King
This week for Machinima we have Wrath of the Lich King by Onix. This is a great work combining raid video with Machinima wonder, Onix's vision of the major steps in Wrath are sitting in the limelight. From the Lana'thel face time, to the monologue of Uther combined with great Warcraft III era backdrops make this Machinima well worth the watch.
Stand of the Exiles
Stand of the Exiles, brought to life by Billiedoll of Fanfiction.net, is the story of a Draenei Priestess and a Draenei Vindicator after the attack on Shattrath City by Illidan's Army of Blood Elves. From the swamps of Zangarmarsh to the Ruins of Farahlon (modern day Netherstorm), this couple, guided by the Light in their respective teachings, learn that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and they most certainly don't kill each other.
Again, if you find a Machinima or Story (or one of your own), feel free to message me or post about it in our Creative Writing, Machinima & Lore forum.
Wrath of the Lich King
This week for Machinima we have Wrath of the Lich King by Onix. This is a great work combining raid video with Machinima wonder, Onix's vision of the major steps in Wrath are sitting in the limelight. From the Lana'thel face time, to the monologue of Uther combined with great Warcraft III era backdrops make this Machinima well worth the watch.
Stand of the Exiles
Stand of the Exiles, brought to life by Billiedoll of Fanfiction.net, is the story of a Draenei Priestess and a Draenei Vindicator after the attack on Shattrath City by Illidan's Army of Blood Elves. From the swamps of Zangarmarsh to the Ruins of Farahlon (modern day Netherstorm), this couple, guided by the Light in their respective teachings, learn that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and they most certainly don't kill each other.
Again, if you find a Machinima or Story (or one of your own), feel free to message me or post about it in our Creative Writing, Machinima & Lore forum.
Blue Tracker Updates, StarCraft II Beta Invites & Full Reset
Yesterday, 10:58 AM |
Kody
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Blue Tracker Updates
We updated the blue tracker last night with a few new things and bug fixes. Here are some of the changes:
Blue Posts
StarCraft II Beta Invites
Check your email addresses if you're already in the StarCraft II beta. Yesterday Blizzard sent out "Friend Invites" for all (or most) beta participants, allowing you to bring one person into the beta. If anyone is looking for keys, be sure to post in this thread and hopefully someone can hook you up with one if they have any extra!
StarCraft II Beta Full Reset
It looks like Blizzard is gearing up for a new phase of beta as they're planning to do a full database reset, wiping all information aside from who is actually in the beta. Check out the post below for details.
We updated the blue tracker last night with a few new things and bug fixes. Here are some of the changes:
- The Share feature has mostly returned. There's still a bug with the forum quote version that we need to get fixed.
- To bring up the Share functionality, simply mouse over the blue
icon on each blue post.
- To bring up the Share functionality, simply mouse over the blue
- It now tracks the StarCraft II Beta forum and the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game forum.
- Proper post times should now be displayed after the recent Daylight Savings Time change.
Blue Posts
Quote
Managing resources as tanks and using it for threat vs staying alive (Source)
Yeah we think this is a problem. It makes sense that a tank need to spend some percentage of button presses on the "staying alive" component of tanking and not all on the "boss control" part of tanking. We just need a "staying alive" button that doesn't feel very maintenance-y. There is kind of a sweet spot between pushing something on cooldown and never ever pushing it because you need to save it for an emergency that might not ever come.
We've also kind of let tanks (except DKs) opt out of having to manage their resource, and threat by and large isn't hard to maintain on single targets, at least 10-20 seconds into a fight. Tanks always have a lot of responsibility for positioning the mob and everything but that probably still leaves some bandwidth for making decisions about staying alive that we aren't really filling at the moment.
Shield Block (and Holy Shield) will be more meaningful in the Cataclysm block model too.
Why not make "100% uptime" abilities passive since the classes are balanced around them? (Source)
It's just a matter of degree. Slice and Dice isn't too bad used as every other finisher or so (though even then it's such a game-changer that having it fall off is devastating). Slice and Dice as something you had to do every other attack would be masochistic (and yeah, Hunger for Blood might be close).
Brain Freeze doesn't proc all that often to where you're literally doing Frost Bolt / Fireball / Frost Bolt / Fireball.
Really though one of the biggest differences is the role. If dps specs don't have some kind of rotation or priority system, they become boring to play. With tanks and healers, they have a lot going on in addition to using their abilities. We do ask dps specs to sometimes do really important things in a raid, and they often have to move out of the fire or whatever, but then again, so do the healers and tanks.
I'm not saying tanks shouldn't be hitting buttons often. They need to do be fun. But there are two extremes that both sort of suck. One is you have to hit a button constantly that has very little depth to the decision. The other is that you never want to push the button because you're saving it. Cooldown plays into this a lot. On a 15 sec cooldown, any time you're saving the ability, you're probably wasting it. On a 10 min cooldown, any time you use the ability you feel like you're wasting it. Somewhere in the 2-3 minute timeframe you can feel like it's okay to use the abilities often, but you can also hold them on occasion for those scary periods where the boss is bursting damage on you or the healers are repositioning or whatever.
I don't think we're horribly off with the cooldowns today, but I think we are off.
Operation Gnomeregan level ranges (Source)
Players of all levels will be able to take part in some form or another. We'll have more details for you as we get a little closer to the event.
It's too late to bring back crowd control; you're not going to do it (Source)
There can be something in between Heroic Shadow Labs when it shipped and Heroic Nexus today in your 251 / 264 gear. Stopping to crowd control some of the pulls isn't so terribly onerous, given that the dungeons themselves are a lot shorter than they were in the day when Scholomance was serious business.
I'll still argue some (but not all) of it was the gear. Naxx was available immediately and relatively undertuned, especially in the 25 player version. In BC I spent a lot of time finishing up all of those Shadowmoon quests with blue rewards so that I could handle Karazhan. In Lich King many of us were in Naxx before we saw some of the heroic dungeons. By the time we got back to those dungeons, we totally overgeared them.
Heroic Halls of Reflection isn't a great example because of the nature of the first room, but if you look at something like Heroic Pit of Saron, that dungeon took a bit of learning before it was a milk run. The pulls before the tunnel at the end typically require crowd control until you overgear it with raid drops and Frost badge gear.
But to go back to the Naxx example, if all the Blizzards, Pestilences and Volleys hit for less damage, then you'd single target stuff down more, and it all of the mobs weren't dying at once, then the tank would be in more danger from dying to too much damage. (This will be particularly true when block doesn't scale so well to lots of weak attackers.)
We give classes a lot of tools and when half of those tools (to exaggerate) aren't ever used, then classes feel shallow. Not every pull will require CC, but more of them will than today.
Hunter
Beast Mastery still needs help (Source)
If you're talking best possible gear, we think BM is pretty close to Survival in 3.3.3. Marks is ahead, and that's largely a function of armor pen, but again you are talking about absolute best gear. If you aren't in Icecrown 25 hard modes, then gear is likely to have just as much effect on your damage as spec. Ideally, things are balanced at all levels between level 1 and 80 with BiS gear, but there are going to be a lot of points along the way where that's probably not true. We see Survival hunters beat Marks hunters all the time in what I would categorize as average (meaning not server first guilds but capable of progressing) raids. Hopefully we'll see some BM guys up there too, but it may take higher gear levels.
Beast Mastery trails far behind with BiS gear (Source)
We didn't obviously compare the gear of every hunter out there. We looked at a few different levels of progression and BM is pretty close to SV in a lot of cases. Eurytos up above thinks BM is pretty close to SV, and in fact I'll quote him in a minute. If you're a BM fan I think you can raid as BM in 3.3.3 without utterly embarrassing yourself. Are there hunters out there who can out dps you? Sure. But there would be hunters out there who could beat you even if you were both MM. Any of us can pull out parses where the Elemental shaman or Shadow priest or Blood DK is topping the meters for that particular raid and still making ICC progression. Let's assume BM and SV are 1500-2000 dps behind MM. At that level, the damage is probably close enough where skill and gear are going to have a much greater impact than your spec for most of you.
Is that acceptable for Lich King 25 hard mode? Probably not. But the guilds at that level of progression are obsessed about even minimal dps gains, and they need to be. I'm not sure we can ever balance all 3 specs of a given class to be within 100 or so dps of each other on the most challenging content given that the specs have different mechanics that produce different strengths and weaknesses on different encounters. Balance at the hardest of the hard core is different from balance at the rest of the game, and much of the community would do well to focus less on maximum dps potential with the best gear and focus more on what they themselves can do. BM in 3.3.2 was unacceptably low in PvE. I'm not sure it is now.
Rogue
Our minor glyphs suck aside from Glyph of Vanish (Source)
I would disagree and say that all of the minor rogue glyphs are pretty decent in one way or another. So maybe this is just a detachment of what people see as useful for their own play style. They're certainly more subjective than "you must have these major glyphs if you're this spec". But I think that's pretty cool, that you can pick and choose the ones that match what you want to do and not have a clear "omg you HAVE to have these or you're a dumb!"
They're quality of life improvements or fun alterations, that's essentially what minor glyphs are.
Warrior
Using Shield Block to survive is no different from using Shield Slam to maintain threat (Source)
I think they are different though. You are probably not going to die from failing to push Shield Slam, except possibly very early on the pull when threat is dicey (and today, even that is unlikely.) The other problem is the resource issue I mentioned before. Back in BC (especially early), warriors had to prioritize rage a little more. If you hit Heroic Strike so much that you lacked rage for a Shield Slam (or a Shield Block), then you were doing it wrong. In today's environment, many Prot warriors might as well take the rage bar off their screen. (Caveat: This does not mean being eternally rage starved is fun. It just means that choosing which ability to use is more fun than hitting them on cooldown.)
To go back to a few discussions on this forum lately, you (and I mean y'all plural, not Devium specifically because he gets into that a little in his post) have to ask yourself what you like about being a tank. For some players, they just like getting the attention and if being a tank is trivial, no biggy. Others like to have some kind of challenge, whether that means competing for threat, staying alive, positioning the mob, or all of the above. To have a challenge then there needs to be some penalty (even a small one) for making the wrong decision. The potential to screw up needs to exist. For a rogue that might be letting SnD fall off. For a priest that might be using Guardian Spirit when you didn't need it (or ideally running OOM by overhealing way too much.) For a warrior it might be not using Shield Wall when you needed to use it, but I'm not sure those decisions roll around often enough.
Yeah we think this is a problem. It makes sense that a tank need to spend some percentage of button presses on the "staying alive" component of tanking and not all on the "boss control" part of tanking. We just need a "staying alive" button that doesn't feel very maintenance-y. There is kind of a sweet spot between pushing something on cooldown and never ever pushing it because you need to save it for an emergency that might not ever come.
We've also kind of let tanks (except DKs) opt out of having to manage their resource, and threat by and large isn't hard to maintain on single targets, at least 10-20 seconds into a fight. Tanks always have a lot of responsibility for positioning the mob and everything but that probably still leaves some bandwidth for making decisions about staying alive that we aren't really filling at the moment.
Shield Block (and Holy Shield) will be more meaningful in the Cataclysm block model too.
Why not make "100% uptime" abilities passive since the classes are balanced around them? (Source)
It's just a matter of degree. Slice and Dice isn't too bad used as every other finisher or so (though even then it's such a game-changer that having it fall off is devastating). Slice and Dice as something you had to do every other attack would be masochistic (and yeah, Hunger for Blood might be close).
Brain Freeze doesn't proc all that often to where you're literally doing Frost Bolt / Fireball / Frost Bolt / Fireball.
Really though one of the biggest differences is the role. If dps specs don't have some kind of rotation or priority system, they become boring to play. With tanks and healers, they have a lot going on in addition to using their abilities. We do ask dps specs to sometimes do really important things in a raid, and they often have to move out of the fire or whatever, but then again, so do the healers and tanks.
I'm not saying tanks shouldn't be hitting buttons often. They need to do be fun. But there are two extremes that both sort of suck. One is you have to hit a button constantly that has very little depth to the decision. The other is that you never want to push the button because you're saving it. Cooldown plays into this a lot. On a 15 sec cooldown, any time you're saving the ability, you're probably wasting it. On a 10 min cooldown, any time you use the ability you feel like you're wasting it. Somewhere in the 2-3 minute timeframe you can feel like it's okay to use the abilities often, but you can also hold them on occasion for those scary periods where the boss is bursting damage on you or the healers are repositioning or whatever.
I don't think we're horribly off with the cooldowns today, but I think we are off.
Operation Gnomeregan level ranges (Source)
Players of all levels will be able to take part in some form or another. We'll have more details for you as we get a little closer to the event.
It's too late to bring back crowd control; you're not going to do it (Source)
There can be something in between Heroic Shadow Labs when it shipped and Heroic Nexus today in your 251 / 264 gear. Stopping to crowd control some of the pulls isn't so terribly onerous, given that the dungeons themselves are a lot shorter than they were in the day when Scholomance was serious business.
I'll still argue some (but not all) of it was the gear. Naxx was available immediately and relatively undertuned, especially in the 25 player version. In BC I spent a lot of time finishing up all of those Shadowmoon quests with blue rewards so that I could handle Karazhan. In Lich King many of us were in Naxx before we saw some of the heroic dungeons. By the time we got back to those dungeons, we totally overgeared them.
Heroic Halls of Reflection isn't a great example because of the nature of the first room, but if you look at something like Heroic Pit of Saron, that dungeon took a bit of learning before it was a milk run. The pulls before the tunnel at the end typically require crowd control until you overgear it with raid drops and Frost badge gear.
But to go back to the Naxx example, if all the Blizzards, Pestilences and Volleys hit for less damage, then you'd single target stuff down more, and it all of the mobs weren't dying at once, then the tank would be in more danger from dying to too much damage. (This will be particularly true when block doesn't scale so well to lots of weak attackers.)
We give classes a lot of tools and when half of those tools (to exaggerate) aren't ever used, then classes feel shallow. Not every pull will require CC, but more of them will than today.
Hunter
Beast Mastery still needs help (Source)
If you're talking best possible gear, we think BM is pretty close to Survival in 3.3.3. Marks is ahead, and that's largely a function of armor pen, but again you are talking about absolute best gear. If you aren't in Icecrown 25 hard modes, then gear is likely to have just as much effect on your damage as spec. Ideally, things are balanced at all levels between level 1 and 80 with BiS gear, but there are going to be a lot of points along the way where that's probably not true. We see Survival hunters beat Marks hunters all the time in what I would categorize as average (meaning not server first guilds but capable of progressing) raids. Hopefully we'll see some BM guys up there too, but it may take higher gear levels.
Beast Mastery trails far behind with BiS gear (Source)
We didn't obviously compare the gear of every hunter out there. We looked at a few different levels of progression and BM is pretty close to SV in a lot of cases. Eurytos up above thinks BM is pretty close to SV, and in fact I'll quote him in a minute. If you're a BM fan I think you can raid as BM in 3.3.3 without utterly embarrassing yourself. Are there hunters out there who can out dps you? Sure. But there would be hunters out there who could beat you even if you were both MM. Any of us can pull out parses where the Elemental shaman or Shadow priest or Blood DK is topping the meters for that particular raid and still making ICC progression. Let's assume BM and SV are 1500-2000 dps behind MM. At that level, the damage is probably close enough where skill and gear are going to have a much greater impact than your spec for most of you.
Is that acceptable for Lich King 25 hard mode? Probably not. But the guilds at that level of progression are obsessed about even minimal dps gains, and they need to be. I'm not sure we can ever balance all 3 specs of a given class to be within 100 or so dps of each other on the most challenging content given that the specs have different mechanics that produce different strengths and weaknesses on different encounters. Balance at the hardest of the hard core is different from balance at the rest of the game, and much of the community would do well to focus less on maximum dps potential with the best gear and focus more on what they themselves can do. BM in 3.3.2 was unacceptably low in PvE. I'm not sure it is now.
Rogue
Our minor glyphs suck aside from Glyph of Vanish (Source)
I would disagree and say that all of the minor rogue glyphs are pretty decent in one way or another. So maybe this is just a detachment of what people see as useful for their own play style. They're certainly more subjective than "you must have these major glyphs if you're this spec". But I think that's pretty cool, that you can pick and choose the ones that match what you want to do and not have a clear "omg you HAVE to have these or you're a dumb!"
They're quality of life improvements or fun alterations, that's essentially what minor glyphs are.
Warrior
Using Shield Block to survive is no different from using Shield Slam to maintain threat (Source)
I think they are different though. You are probably not going to die from failing to push Shield Slam, except possibly very early on the pull when threat is dicey (and today, even that is unlikely.) The other problem is the resource issue I mentioned before. Back in BC (especially early), warriors had to prioritize rage a little more. If you hit Heroic Strike so much that you lacked rage for a Shield Slam (or a Shield Block), then you were doing it wrong. In today's environment, many Prot warriors might as well take the rage bar off their screen. (Caveat: This does not mean being eternally rage starved is fun. It just means that choosing which ability to use is more fun than hitting them on cooldown.)
To go back to a few discussions on this forum lately, you (and I mean y'all plural, not Devium specifically because he gets into that a little in his post) have to ask yourself what you like about being a tank. For some players, they just like getting the attention and if being a tank is trivial, no biggy. Others like to have some kind of challenge, whether that means competing for threat, staying alive, positioning the mob, or all of the above. To have a challenge then there needs to be some penalty (even a small one) for making the wrong decision. The potential to screw up needs to exist. For a rogue that might be letting SnD fall off. For a priest that might be using Guardian Spirit when you didn't need it (or ideally running OOM by overhealing way too much.) For a warrior it might be not using Shield Wall when you needed to use it, but I'm not sure those decisions roll around often enough.
StarCraft II Beta Invites
Check your email addresses if you're already in the StarCraft II beta. Yesterday Blizzard sent out "Friend Invites" for all (or most) beta participants, allowing you to bring one person into the beta. If anyone is looking for keys, be sure to post in this thread and hopefully someone can hook you up with one if they have any extra!
StarCraft II Beta Full Reset
It looks like Blizzard is gearing up for a new phase of beta as they're planning to do a full database reset, wiping all information aside from who is actually in the beta. Check out the post below for details.
Quote
Quote from: Bashiok (Source)
In the near future, we will be doing a full reset of the beta database. This reset will wipe the following information for all players:
Due to the amount of people currently participating in the beta, this database reset will allow us to monitor and test conditions similar to a game release (albeit smaller). We want to thank everyone for their patience and continued help and support in testing StarCraft II.
In the near future, we will be doing a full reset of the beta database. This reset will wipe the following information for all players:
- Character and identifier
- Friends list
- Profile
- League placement
- Ladder rank
Due to the amount of people currently participating in the beta, this database reset will allow us to monitor and test conditions similar to a game release (albeit smaller). We want to thank everyone for their patience and continued help and support in testing StarCraft II.
We all know that the Cataclysm is impending, and I thought it a better time than any to talk about the stat changes due in Cataclysm. Lore from Tankspot has graciously decided to give his opinions on the topic, and answer multiple side questions in regards to the changes.
As a fore-note, all comments provided are from the knowledge of Cataclysm stat changes at the time of the interview and posting. I will be doing a follow-up with Lore when the Cataclysm Beta is released.
Parry
Lore: For quite a while now, Dodge and Parry have basically been the exact same thing, just with different degrees of effectiveness.
Seems Blizzard read Lore's mind and decided to change parry up slightly. While it still fully avoids a TOTAL of one hit, it will reduce the damage of the parried hit by 50% and the one after it. While you will still be hit by one hit, parry retains it's full function, it has (finally) become different from dodge. Lore also raised a little concern about dodge possibly walking in on parry's fun.
Lore: My initial guess is that Dodge will be stronger, just because if you parry one hit and then immediately dodge the next you could basically lose out of half of the effect of your parry, but that's the kind of thing they look for during beta.
Block
Block Value in Cataclysm is going away in it's entirety. Before you start cringing, Blizzard is taking care of us. Instead of making it a value, based off strength and gear, it is becoming a flat 30%. Blizzard did mention that block chances will probably be lower, but Lore thinks it's time to rejoice for Paladins and Warriors.
Lore: The block change is ultimately good for the game. It's basically impossible to balance as it is; changing it to a percentage rather than a flat number will make it a much more reliable number, which will help the developers keep the tanks closer together in terms of survivability.
As for Warriors and Paladins becoming the premier tanks...
Lore: I don't think the change is going to make Paladins and Warriors overpowered, just easier to balance.
Mastery
Arguably the most misunderstood stat of the Cataclysm expansion, the stat on your gear is intended to ramp up your final mastery (presumably after you put 51+ points in a tree). What does this mean? No one is sure yet.
Lore: I'm honestly not sure what mastery is going to do; If I had to guess, I'd guess that the Final Mastery bonus will be threat related; we tanks have so many different survival stats to juggle and relatively few ways to increase threat.
Mastery may spell the end of freedom of tree tanking-wise for Death Knights.
Lore: I don't think that Death Knights will be Kiddy Cornered into a talent tree for tanking by Mastery; If they do, Blizzard will have tried everything in their arsenal to keep it from happening. They may end up doing something like Feral; You do more damage in Blood Presence, you have more health in Frost Presence, etc. If the Final mastery bonus is threat related, it makes it even more unlikely. We'll have to see.
Defense
As most have learned, Defense is going away. Through this change, we can estimate that the three plate wearing tanks will lose a good 13-14% (or possibly more) avoidance from miss and the added bonus of dodge and parry from defense. Before you scream "WHY BLIZZARD WHY?!?", there is a reason. Blizzard wants to reduce tank avoidance, and bring us back to a more...nostalgic era.
Lore: It's almost like Blizzard is bringing us back to Classic WoW; Large health pools compared to Boss damage, large amounts of efficient heals coming in, and if the tank's health gets low, he either avoids a hit (thus allowing the stream of heals to catch up) or the healers switch to an in-efficient big heal (and thus use more mana). The entire tanking and healing game is going to be put on its head.
Also, coming in tandem with this change is that in each tanking "stance" (Righteous Fury, Defensive Stance, Dire Bear, Frost Presence), there is a built in feature that reduces the chance to be critically hit (similar to the function of Survival of the Fittest). It's time for another toast, says Lore.
Lore: This change will help out tanks starting out a bunch. It will allow anyone to jump in and tank (similar to their original intent in Wrath) as long as they have correct gear and tree setup. Will this solve the tank drought? Maybe. Will this make it easier to gear up a brand new 85 for tanking? Absolutely.
Accuracy Stats (Hit and Expertise)
In Cataclysm, the accuracy stats (hit and expertise) will be changing so that more of each will be required as you progress; I.E. : You need 5% hit in Tier 11, 8% in Tier 12, etc. Time will tell if this is a blessing, or a curse.
Lore: At the early stages, specifically this expansion, in order to make any significant headway in the threat department, you would have to give up boatloads of survivability, and in Icecrown we're trying to figure out ways to get rid of hit. This change might not exactly solve the age old dilemma of threat generation in it's entirety, but it will fix several key aspects; you won't be sitting in the desert without any hit but you won't be drowning in it either.
Mage Tanks?
Lore: Unlikely.
That's it for now! Again, thanks to Lore for his comments and predictions. Next week, we go in depth with the Pally Tank.
As a fore-note, all comments provided are from the knowledge of Cataclysm stat changes at the time of the interview and posting. I will be doing a follow-up with Lore when the Cataclysm Beta is released.
Parry
Lore: For quite a while now, Dodge and Parry have basically been the exact same thing, just with different degrees of effectiveness.
Seems Blizzard read Lore's mind and decided to change parry up slightly. While it still fully avoids a TOTAL of one hit, it will reduce the damage of the parried hit by 50% and the one after it. While you will still be hit by one hit, parry retains it's full function, it has (finally) become different from dodge. Lore also raised a little concern about dodge possibly walking in on parry's fun.
Lore: My initial guess is that Dodge will be stronger, just because if you parry one hit and then immediately dodge the next you could basically lose out of half of the effect of your parry, but that's the kind of thing they look for during beta.
Block
Block Value in Cataclysm is going away in it's entirety. Before you start cringing, Blizzard is taking care of us. Instead of making it a value, based off strength and gear, it is becoming a flat 30%. Blizzard did mention that block chances will probably be lower, but Lore thinks it's time to rejoice for Paladins and Warriors.
Lore: The block change is ultimately good for the game. It's basically impossible to balance as it is; changing it to a percentage rather than a flat number will make it a much more reliable number, which will help the developers keep the tanks closer together in terms of survivability.
As for Warriors and Paladins becoming the premier tanks...
Lore: I don't think the change is going to make Paladins and Warriors overpowered, just easier to balance.
Mastery
Arguably the most misunderstood stat of the Cataclysm expansion, the stat on your gear is intended to ramp up your final mastery (presumably after you put 51+ points in a tree). What does this mean? No one is sure yet.
Lore: I'm honestly not sure what mastery is going to do; If I had to guess, I'd guess that the Final Mastery bonus will be threat related; we tanks have so many different survival stats to juggle and relatively few ways to increase threat.
Mastery may spell the end of freedom of tree tanking-wise for Death Knights.
Lore: I don't think that Death Knights will be Kiddy Cornered into a talent tree for tanking by Mastery; If they do, Blizzard will have tried everything in their arsenal to keep it from happening. They may end up doing something like Feral; You do more damage in Blood Presence, you have more health in Frost Presence, etc. If the Final mastery bonus is threat related, it makes it even more unlikely. We'll have to see.
Defense
As most have learned, Defense is going away. Through this change, we can estimate that the three plate wearing tanks will lose a good 13-14% (or possibly more) avoidance from miss and the added bonus of dodge and parry from defense. Before you scream "WHY BLIZZARD WHY?!?", there is a reason. Blizzard wants to reduce tank avoidance, and bring us back to a more...nostalgic era.
Lore: It's almost like Blizzard is bringing us back to Classic WoW; Large health pools compared to Boss damage, large amounts of efficient heals coming in, and if the tank's health gets low, he either avoids a hit (thus allowing the stream of heals to catch up) or the healers switch to an in-efficient big heal (and thus use more mana). The entire tanking and healing game is going to be put on its head.
Also, coming in tandem with this change is that in each tanking "stance" (Righteous Fury, Defensive Stance, Dire Bear, Frost Presence), there is a built in feature that reduces the chance to be critically hit (similar to the function of Survival of the Fittest). It's time for another toast, says Lore.
Lore: This change will help out tanks starting out a bunch. It will allow anyone to jump in and tank (similar to their original intent in Wrath) as long as they have correct gear and tree setup. Will this solve the tank drought? Maybe. Will this make it easier to gear up a brand new 85 for tanking? Absolutely.
Accuracy Stats (Hit and Expertise)
In Cataclysm, the accuracy stats (hit and expertise) will be changing so that more of each will be required as you progress; I.E. : You need 5% hit in Tier 11, 8% in Tier 12, etc. Time will tell if this is a blessing, or a curse.
Lore: At the early stages, specifically this expansion, in order to make any significant headway in the threat department, you would have to give up boatloads of survivability, and in Icecrown we're trying to figure out ways to get rid of hit. This change might not exactly solve the age old dilemma of threat generation in it's entirety, but it will fix several key aspects; you won't be sitting in the desert without any hit but you won't be drowning in it either.
Mage Tanks?
Lore: Unlikely.
That's it for now! Again, thanks to Lore for his comments and predictions. Next week, we go in depth with the Pally Tank.
This should come as a pleasant surprise for everyone who thought the current TCG would die due to Blizzard and Upper Deck parting ways. It looks like not only is it being kept alive for the foreseeable future, but Blizzard has already found another means of publishing the TCG and they will also be releasing the Wrathgate and Icecrown expansions, as planned, this spring and summer.
What this means is that players will be able to obtain the new mounts being added in patch 3.3.3, the Wooly White Rhino and the Blazing Hippogryph. With this news it could mean that the Celestial Dragon Wyrm and Celestial Horse may be future TCG rewards as well, but we'll have to wait and see whether that's true or not.
Click the spoiler tag to read the official blue post on the topic -- including tournament dates and locations -- found on the new TCG forums (which we'll be adding to the blue tracker as soon as possible).
What this means is that players will be able to obtain the new mounts being added in patch 3.3.3, the Wooly White Rhino and the Blazing Hippogryph. With this news it could mean that the Celestial Dragon Wyrm and Celestial Horse may be future TCG rewards as well, but we'll have to wait and see whether that's true or not.
Click the spoiler tag to read the official blue post on the topic -- including tournament dates and locations -- found on the new TCG forums (which we'll be adding to the blue tracker as soon as possible).
Spoiler
Legendaries are sought-after, powerful weapons. With Wrath of the Lich King and Ulduar, Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings saw the light of day. However, Ulduar was released fairly early in Wrath of the Lich King. Val'anyr was buffed from ilevel 239 to ilevel 245 to give it a longer life span, yet with heroic Icecrown Citadel, there will be ilevel 284 weapons to be twisted from Arthas's dead fingers.
All other legendaries have lasted throughout its expansion. Will Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings do the same, or will it get replaced before Cataclysm hits the shelves?
Best by a large margin
The best people to answer this question are the wielders themselves. Ariohn, a paladin from the German guild For the Horde feels that Val'anyr is stronger for his class than for any of the other classes it is available for. "It is the best weapon for the paladin by a large margin compared to other classes," Ariohn says.
Raynie, a paladin from the French guild Wraith, elaborates further on the mace's strength. "It is a little different for a Flash of Light spec where you need a huge amount of spellpower, but at the moment, it is the best weapon for a paladin, a least for a Holy Light oriented one. This weapon is so good because the proc scales with your gear. The more spellpower you have, the more powerful the shield is," Raynie says.
Both Ariohn and Raynie will use their Val'anyrs throughout Icecrown Citadel. However, Ariohn will most likely replace it with the heroic version of Bloodsurge, Kel'Thuzad's Blade of Agony. Raynie is not equally impressed by the ilevel 284 weapons. "I'll use this mace at least until the end of Wrath of the Lich King. Bloodsurge, Kel'Thuzad's Blade of Agony and Royal Scepter of Terenas II grant 300 more spellpower than Val'anyr, but this stat isn't very attractive for a paladin because Holy Light already heals for so much," he explains.
The Wraith paladin even sees himself using the legendary in Cataclysm. "I think Blizzard will nerf the proc in patch 4.0 or 4.1 because they don't want players to feel the need to go back into level 80 raids to get the best weapon when everyone will be level 85. Blizzard also wants to increase players' health pool and bring down the mana regeneration so you can't spam Holy Light all night long. So if a tank is going to have more than 100 000 hit points, maybe the spellpower weapons from Cataclysm will become useful for a paladin," he says.
Already replaced
While many questioned the mace's strength for druids, Val'anyr proved to be really strong for them. Yet with Icecrown Citadel, another proc weapon has threatened the legendary. Trauma, especially the ilevel 277 version, also offers a lot more spellpower, a stat that is highly sought after by restoration druids.
"Arguably, Val'anyr is still our best in slot weapon, but it is sort of a toss-up between that and 277 Trauma. I will use it at least until the end of this expansion, not sure how items will work come Cataclysm," says Shibou, restoration druid in the US guild Exodus. The legendary proc equals about 8-10 percent of his healing done, and that is what he would look for in a possible replacement.
Restoration druid in the US guild Vodka, Minizeke, has actually stopped using his legendary exclusively. "I use Val'anyr when I know high burst AoE is coming and the internal cooldown on the proc is up. When high raid damage is incoming, I will swap my Val'anyr for the bubbles and then swap back to Trauma since it has no internal cooldown," he explains.
Minizeke is not too happy about the legendary already getting replaced. To him, both 277 Trauma and Archus, Greatstaff of Antonidas are better weapons. "It is depressing, because every other legendary in the game has lasted until the next expansion. But people are kidding themselves if they think Val'anyr is still best in slot. I think the only class that would benefit from it till Cataclysm is paladin, since spellpower is not that big an issue for them," he says.
A bit wasted
Priests are somewhat special as they are the only class with two different healing specs. Out of all healers, raid healing discipline priests probably benefit the least from the legendary. Val'anyr does not proc off Power Word: Shield, and with high ilevel weapons available, a discipline priest loses out on a lot of spellpower by using the legendary. Even when tank healing, a disc priest won't be able to push out the sheer numbers that a holy paladin can.
"I think for discipline, Val'anyr is a bit wasted. It still doesn't work with the Power Word: Shield glyph, it did for a day and that's when Blizzard had a bug with shields crashing servers," says Lawliepop from the US guild Blood Legion.
For holy, she thinks the weapon is a lot stronger. "It can be effective in many fights. I like the way Blizzard has toyed with regard to weapons having unique procs. If there was a very good or interesting proc, I would switch. But obviously, the numbers would have to be reasonably close for that to happen," she says.
Priest blogger Matticus, who plays the priest Mallet in the US guild Conquest, likes his Val'anyr a lot. "I intend to use it until the end of this expansion and for as long as possible into the next one. As holy, it creates a large number of shields in a short time capable of protecting players from any raid wide damage effects, or at least mitigate some of it. I would need a replacement weapon that is vastly superior to it to consider switching it. Even then, I would rather have any healer weapons go to everyone else first," he says.
Unquestionably good
Interestingly enough, it seems significantly harder to find shaman healers wielding Val'anyr than finding any of the other classes. Going through guild list after guild list, very few restoration shamans use the legendary. "Shamans were probably the weakest healers when the maces were being handed out," says Dox. He plays a restoration shaman in the US guild Gentlemens Club.
Gentlemens Club actually has two shamans with Val'anyr. Both Dox and his guildmate Melna feel that the mace is stronger on a holy paladin than on a shaman, as the paladin can keep the shield up at max value on a main tank for the entire duration of the proc. Though they also feel it is strong for shamans. "It is unquestionably good, but the shield it gives is hard to measure as far as usefulness in a raid situation. One of the best benefits is that other group members with the mace can help stack the shield," says Melna.
He thinks he will use Val'anyr for the rest of this expansion. To replace it, he would need an item with enough spellpower or other stats to outweigh the value of the proc. "Blizzard may also add an item with a better proc. Trauma is in the game at the moment, but the proc on that item seems to be a lot worse than the one on Val'anyr," he says.
Dox agrees that Trauma isn't worth it. However, he thinks he might replace his legendary once the Lich King is dead in heroic 25-man mode. "As soon as heroic Lich King weapons are available, it is probably time to upgrade. The increased stats of 284 items will probably overpower the proc."
All other legendaries have lasted throughout its expansion. Will Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings do the same, or will it get replaced before Cataclysm hits the shelves?
Best by a large margin
The best people to answer this question are the wielders themselves. Ariohn, a paladin from the German guild For the Horde feels that Val'anyr is stronger for his class than for any of the other classes it is available for. "It is the best weapon for the paladin by a large margin compared to other classes," Ariohn says.
Raynie, a paladin from the French guild Wraith, elaborates further on the mace's strength. "It is a little different for a Flash of Light spec where you need a huge amount of spellpower, but at the moment, it is the best weapon for a paladin, a least for a Holy Light oriented one. This weapon is so good because the proc scales with your gear. The more spellpower you have, the more powerful the shield is," Raynie says.
Both Ariohn and Raynie will use their Val'anyrs throughout Icecrown Citadel. However, Ariohn will most likely replace it with the heroic version of Bloodsurge, Kel'Thuzad's Blade of Agony. Raynie is not equally impressed by the ilevel 284 weapons. "I'll use this mace at least until the end of Wrath of the Lich King. Bloodsurge, Kel'Thuzad's Blade of Agony and Royal Scepter of Terenas II grant 300 more spellpower than Val'anyr, but this stat isn't very attractive for a paladin because Holy Light already heals for so much," he explains.
The Wraith paladin even sees himself using the legendary in Cataclysm. "I think Blizzard will nerf the proc in patch 4.0 or 4.1 because they don't want players to feel the need to go back into level 80 raids to get the best weapon when everyone will be level 85. Blizzard also wants to increase players' health pool and bring down the mana regeneration so you can't spam Holy Light all night long. So if a tank is going to have more than 100 000 hit points, maybe the spellpower weapons from Cataclysm will become useful for a paladin," he says.
Already replaced
While many questioned the mace's strength for druids, Val'anyr proved to be really strong for them. Yet with Icecrown Citadel, another proc weapon has threatened the legendary. Trauma, especially the ilevel 277 version, also offers a lot more spellpower, a stat that is highly sought after by restoration druids.
"Arguably, Val'anyr is still our best in slot weapon, but it is sort of a toss-up between that and 277 Trauma. I will use it at least until the end of this expansion, not sure how items will work come Cataclysm," says Shibou, restoration druid in the US guild Exodus. The legendary proc equals about 8-10 percent of his healing done, and that is what he would look for in a possible replacement.
Restoration druid in the US guild Vodka, Minizeke, has actually stopped using his legendary exclusively. "I use Val'anyr when I know high burst AoE is coming and the internal cooldown on the proc is up. When high raid damage is incoming, I will swap my Val'anyr for the bubbles and then swap back to Trauma since it has no internal cooldown," he explains.
Minizeke is not too happy about the legendary already getting replaced. To him, both 277 Trauma and Archus, Greatstaff of Antonidas are better weapons. "It is depressing, because every other legendary in the game has lasted until the next expansion. But people are kidding themselves if they think Val'anyr is still best in slot. I think the only class that would benefit from it till Cataclysm is paladin, since spellpower is not that big an issue for them," he says.
A bit wasted
Priests are somewhat special as they are the only class with two different healing specs. Out of all healers, raid healing discipline priests probably benefit the least from the legendary. Val'anyr does not proc off Power Word: Shield, and with high ilevel weapons available, a discipline priest loses out on a lot of spellpower by using the legendary. Even when tank healing, a disc priest won't be able to push out the sheer numbers that a holy paladin can.
"I think for discipline, Val'anyr is a bit wasted. It still doesn't work with the Power Word: Shield glyph, it did for a day and that's when Blizzard had a bug with shields crashing servers," says Lawliepop from the US guild Blood Legion.
For holy, she thinks the weapon is a lot stronger. "It can be effective in many fights. I like the way Blizzard has toyed with regard to weapons having unique procs. If there was a very good or interesting proc, I would switch. But obviously, the numbers would have to be reasonably close for that to happen," she says.
Priest blogger Matticus, who plays the priest Mallet in the US guild Conquest, likes his Val'anyr a lot. "I intend to use it until the end of this expansion and for as long as possible into the next one. As holy, it creates a large number of shields in a short time capable of protecting players from any raid wide damage effects, or at least mitigate some of it. I would need a replacement weapon that is vastly superior to it to consider switching it. Even then, I would rather have any healer weapons go to everyone else first," he says.
Unquestionably good
Interestingly enough, it seems significantly harder to find shaman healers wielding Val'anyr than finding any of the other classes. Going through guild list after guild list, very few restoration shamans use the legendary. "Shamans were probably the weakest healers when the maces were being handed out," says Dox. He plays a restoration shaman in the US guild Gentlemens Club.
Gentlemens Club actually has two shamans with Val'anyr. Both Dox and his guildmate Melna feel that the mace is stronger on a holy paladin than on a shaman, as the paladin can keep the shield up at max value on a main tank for the entire duration of the proc. Though they also feel it is strong for shamans. "It is unquestionably good, but the shield it gives is hard to measure as far as usefulness in a raid situation. One of the best benefits is that other group members with the mace can help stack the shield," says Melna.
He thinks he will use Val'anyr for the rest of this expansion. To replace it, he would need an item with enough spellpower or other stats to outweigh the value of the proc. "Blizzard may also add an item with a better proc. Trauma is in the game at the moment, but the proc on that item seems to be a lot worse than the one on Val'anyr," he says.
Dox agrees that Trauma isn't worth it. However, he thinks he might replace his legendary once the Lich King is dead in heroic 25-man mode. "As soon as heroic Lich King weapons are available, it is probably time to upgrade. The increased stats of 284 items will probably overpower the proc."
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