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Blue posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Equal Effective Health among all tanks
Assuming you are defining Effective Health as armor x health, then it isn't and never has been our goal to have effective health be identical among all the tanks. Cooldowns, avoidance, emergency buttons and other class mechanics are all part of that package for us. What matters to us is whether or not the four tanks can tank the content with more or less the same chance of success. That's the metric we use, not a single number. (Source)
Lack of Swords Itemization
What? We love swords. Like a brother. A potentially dangerous, but nonetheless epic brother.
Overall, though, a fewer number of classes can equip swords as compared to those that can equip axes and maces. As a result, when only a finite number of items can be created within a specific period of time, it makes sound design sense to create more axes and maces than one-handed and two-handed swords.
Now, you may only be considering my statement in terms of itemization, but that's a trap I don't want you to fall into. Keep in mind that stats only make up half an item, and that the other half is the way the item appears in the game. We have incredibly talented, hard working artists; however, those artists still must manage their time efficiently and produce quality work that will best benefit the game. So, when determining what item artwork to develop and in what quantity, the weapon types that are used by more players (e.g. axes and maces) tend to be created in greater abundance.
Even so, there's still quite a few swords planned for Cataclysm that are just downright awesome.
(Source)
Cross-Realm BoA Mails
Adding the ability for players to be able to mail Bind on Account items cross-realm is something we've discussed on more than one occasion. We understand that players would greatly appreciate having the option to send heirlooms, for example, to lower-level characters on different realms, so we're exploring the possibility. It's definitely on our radar! Due to the necessary infrastructure changes that would need to occur before cross-realm mail can be integrated, though, we have no immediate plans for adding this functionality as of yet. (Source)
Block %
Without defense gear any longer and with no block rating on gear, you're probably at ~5% block, which is way too low. We need base block to be higher, but we still haven't fully decided if that's something all characters get or just warriors / paladins, or just tanks, etc. (Source)
Threat Reduction Talents - Gone
The new "reduced fat" talent trees have no threat reduction talents. (Source)
Death Knight (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator)
Death Knight Tanking/Self-Healing
Our intent is that DKs take more damage to compensate for all of the self-healing. As Regill points out, Blood Craze is accessible now and we want Enraged Regen to be more attractive. (Source)
Druid (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator)
Omen of Clarity
If I had to guess, Omen of Clarity will be a trained ability. It's too useful to different kinds of druids. Even if you put it shallow in Resto, Feral wouldn't be able to benefit from it until very high level.
But we'll see.... (Source)
Eclipse
I just posted a similar thing in another thread, but I wouldn't worry too much about the current Cataclysm implementation of Eclipse. We've been focused on getting the UI functional and having it get turned on at the right moment when you spec Balance. Last time I logged into the beta as a druid, I was having Eclipse procs show up in my combat log... as a Feral. Clearly it's not ready for prime time yet.
I'm not sure we'd ever go with charges for the mechanic. That just goes against everything we're trying to do for class design. We don't want set rotations where you know you can go 1231 ad infinitum. We want players to respond to dynamic things happening that they won't be able to predict with 100% certainty. We want the best players to be those who pay attention, not those who can follow a rote rotation. Talents like Ruthlessness and Omen of Clarity are put in precisely to screw up rotations, but also to reward players who can handle that uncertainty.
You're not going to be able to fully maximize every Eclipse proc, in the same way a mage may lose a Fireball channel if she suddenly has to move or a rogue may lose combo points if he needs to quickly switch targets. But as with those example, we also want to make sure the druid isn't totally boned if something happens and you can't take full advantage of an Eclipse.
Give us a couple of beta builds, and there will be a more fully functional Eclipse that you can then comment on. (Source)
Eclipse #2
I wouldn't put much stock in the current tuning of Eclipse in Cataclysm. We just barely have the mechanic working at all.
We will still give Balance druids the Eclipse bar at level 10, along with an active ability. At high level, mastery on gear will enhance the Arcane and Nature bonuses of the bar. (Source)
Paladin (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator)
Divine Storm back into the talent tree
After further reflection, we don't think Divine Storm makes a good level 10 Ret ability. It really wants to be an AE attack, and it's just hard to make an AE attack a signature ability usable in as many situations as a signature attack deserves to be.
Divine Storm will probably go back into the talent tree. It won't be the 31-point though. Both the 31-point and the 10 ability need to have more single-target use. That means something like 3 new abilities for Retribution and several new or modified talents on top of that. Crazy.
As you can see, we're still iterating a lot on paladins. Our lack of communication is because things are changing quickly, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to share it all until things feel a little more stable. (Source)
Beacon of Light in Cataclysm (Source)
Paladin healing with Beacon is a lot more dynamic than it was without.
I think it works fine with the Cataclysm healing style. It will let you (sometimes) heal two targets at once, which is a great use of GCDs.
Beacon of Light does need dispel protection, or PvP is going to suck. Same with sacred shield.
Dispels are more expensive in Cataclysm in a few ways. I'm not sure it's going to be very strategic to dispel a spell that can immediately be reapplied.
Warlock (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator)
Pet scaling
The plan is for your pets to scale 100% with your stats. In fact, group buffs don't even work on pets any longer so that they don't double dip from those buffs. (Source)
Removing Passive Talents
If you look at the warlock trees, there are tons of talents that buff Corruption and add range and crit damage and whatever. A couple of those per tree are okay but clearly we need to remove a lot of them and that means adding new talents, which unfortunately is slow. (Source)
Soul Harvest (Soul Harvest)
Outside of combat (which means between encounters, not when you can get out of combat for 2 sec in an Arena), you can get the shards back quickly from killing things or using Harvest Soul if there is nothing conveniently around to kill. We don't want Harvest Soul to be super convenient. It's your backup option.
If we find that it's super frustrating as a lock in a long encounter (including a long Arena match), then we'll look at ways to get shards back in combat. However our prediction is as soon as we do that, locks will start blowing their shards on cooldown and then getting frustrated at a slow Aspect of the Viper-like mechanic to get them back. (Source)
Soul Link
Our thought at the moment is to put Soul Link in the second tier of talents where it is accessible to any PvP-focused warlock. (Source)
Warrior (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator)
Plans for Last Stand
I said that we'd like to remove the glyph and just make the talent all there is. Not sure if we would use the glyphed or unglyphed cooldown yet though. (Source)
Unrelenting Assault
Unrelenting Assault: This talent has been removed. (Source)
[b]Thunder Clap Spam
We're not happy with the no cooldown model. We'll try to handle the terror of "streaming adds" in another way. (Source)
Fury / Victory Rush
Also, is there still a chance fury will get a new melee attack or is the whole victory rush thing that GC talked about the new plan?
Undecided.
Our concern about Victory Rush is that Arms already has two big procs to watch for (Overpower and Execute) compared to Fury's one (Slam). Adding Victory Rush procs to Fury makes them feel a lot more like Arms. The right answer might lie somewhere outside of Victory Rush. (Source)
Assuming you are defining Effective Health as armor x health, then it isn't and never has been our goal to have effective health be identical among all the tanks. Cooldowns, avoidance, emergency buttons and other class mechanics are all part of that package for us. What matters to us is whether or not the four tanks can tank the content with more or less the same chance of success. That's the metric we use, not a single number. (Source)
Lack of Swords Itemization
What? We love swords. Like a brother. A potentially dangerous, but nonetheless epic brother.
Overall, though, a fewer number of classes can equip swords as compared to those that can equip axes and maces. As a result, when only a finite number of items can be created within a specific period of time, it makes sound design sense to create more axes and maces than one-handed and two-handed swords.
Now, you may only be considering my statement in terms of itemization, but that's a trap I don't want you to fall into. Keep in mind that stats only make up half an item, and that the other half is the way the item appears in the game. We have incredibly talented, hard working artists; however, those artists still must manage their time efficiently and produce quality work that will best benefit the game. So, when determining what item artwork to develop and in what quantity, the weapon types that are used by more players (e.g. axes and maces) tend to be created in greater abundance.
Even so, there's still quite a few swords planned for Cataclysm that are just downright awesome.
(Source)Cross-Realm BoA Mails
Adding the ability for players to be able to mail Bind on Account items cross-realm is something we've discussed on more than one occasion. We understand that players would greatly appreciate having the option to send heirlooms, for example, to lower-level characters on different realms, so we're exploring the possibility. It's definitely on our radar! Due to the necessary infrastructure changes that would need to occur before cross-realm mail can be integrated, though, we have no immediate plans for adding this functionality as of yet. (Source)
Block %
Without defense gear any longer and with no block rating on gear, you're probably at ~5% block, which is way too low. We need base block to be higher, but we still haven't fully decided if that's something all characters get or just warriors / paladins, or just tanks, etc. (Source)
Threat Reduction Talents - Gone
The new "reduced fat" talent trees have no threat reduction talents. (Source)
Death Knight (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator)Death Knight Tanking/Self-Healing
Our intent is that DKs take more damage to compensate for all of the self-healing. As Regill points out, Blood Craze is accessible now and we want Enraged Regen to be more attractive. (Source)
Druid (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator)Omen of Clarity
If I had to guess, Omen of Clarity will be a trained ability. It's too useful to different kinds of druids. Even if you put it shallow in Resto, Feral wouldn't be able to benefit from it until very high level.
But we'll see.... (Source)
Eclipse
I just posted a similar thing in another thread, but I wouldn't worry too much about the current Cataclysm implementation of Eclipse. We've been focused on getting the UI functional and having it get turned on at the right moment when you spec Balance. Last time I logged into the beta as a druid, I was having Eclipse procs show up in my combat log... as a Feral. Clearly it's not ready for prime time yet.
I'm not sure we'd ever go with charges for the mechanic. That just goes against everything we're trying to do for class design. We don't want set rotations where you know you can go 1231 ad infinitum. We want players to respond to dynamic things happening that they won't be able to predict with 100% certainty. We want the best players to be those who pay attention, not those who can follow a rote rotation. Talents like Ruthlessness and Omen of Clarity are put in precisely to screw up rotations, but also to reward players who can handle that uncertainty.
You're not going to be able to fully maximize every Eclipse proc, in the same way a mage may lose a Fireball channel if she suddenly has to move or a rogue may lose combo points if he needs to quickly switch targets. But as with those example, we also want to make sure the druid isn't totally boned if something happens and you can't take full advantage of an Eclipse.
Give us a couple of beta builds, and there will be a more fully functional Eclipse that you can then comment on. (Source)
Eclipse #2
I wouldn't put much stock in the current tuning of Eclipse in Cataclysm. We just barely have the mechanic working at all.
We will still give Balance druids the Eclipse bar at level 10, along with an active ability. At high level, mastery on gear will enhance the Arcane and Nature bonuses of the bar. (Source)
Paladin (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator)Divine Storm back into the talent tree
After further reflection, we don't think Divine Storm makes a good level 10 Ret ability. It really wants to be an AE attack, and it's just hard to make an AE attack a signature ability usable in as many situations as a signature attack deserves to be.
Divine Storm will probably go back into the talent tree. It won't be the 31-point though. Both the 31-point and the 10 ability need to have more single-target use. That means something like 3 new abilities for Retribution and several new or modified talents on top of that. Crazy.
As you can see, we're still iterating a lot on paladins. Our lack of communication is because things are changing quickly, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to share it all until things feel a little more stable. (Source)
Beacon of Light in Cataclysm (Source)
Paladin healing with Beacon is a lot more dynamic than it was without.
I think it works fine with the Cataclysm healing style. It will let you (sometimes) heal two targets at once, which is a great use of GCDs.
Beacon of Light does need dispel protection, or PvP is going to suck. Same with sacred shield.
Dispels are more expensive in Cataclysm in a few ways. I'm not sure it's going to be very strategic to dispel a spell that can immediately be reapplied.
Warlock (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator)Pet scaling
The plan is for your pets to scale 100% with your stats. In fact, group buffs don't even work on pets any longer so that they don't double dip from those buffs. (Source)
Removing Passive Talents
If you look at the warlock trees, there are tons of talents that buff Corruption and add range and crit damage and whatever. A couple of those per tree are okay but clearly we need to remove a lot of them and that means adding new talents, which unfortunately is slow. (Source)
Soul Harvest (Soul Harvest)
Outside of combat (which means between encounters, not when you can get out of combat for 2 sec in an Arena), you can get the shards back quickly from killing things or using Harvest Soul if there is nothing conveniently around to kill. We don't want Harvest Soul to be super convenient. It's your backup option.
If we find that it's super frustrating as a lock in a long encounter (including a long Arena match), then we'll look at ways to get shards back in combat. However our prediction is as soon as we do that, locks will start blowing their shards on cooldown and then getting frustrated at a slow Aspect of the Viper-like mechanic to get them back. (Source)
Soul Link
Our thought at the moment is to put Soul Link in the second tier of talents where it is accessible to any PvP-focused warlock. (Source)
Warrior (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator)Plans for Last Stand
I said that we'd like to remove the glyph and just make the talent all there is. Not sure if we would use the glyphed or unglyphed cooldown yet though. (Source)
Unrelenting Assault
Unrelenting Assault: This talent has been removed. (Source)
[b]Thunder Clap Spam
We're not happy with the no cooldown model. We'll try to handle the terror of "streaming adds" in another way. (Source)
Fury / Victory Rush
Also, is there still a chance fury will get a new melee attack or is the whole victory rush thing that GC talked about the new plan?
Undecided.
Our concern about Victory Rush is that Arms already has two big procs to watch for (Overpower and Execute) compared to Fury's one (Slam). Adding Victory Rush procs to Fury makes them feel a lot more like Arms. The right answer might lie somewhere outside of Victory Rush. (Source)
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