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The War Within Alpha - Earthen Allied Race: Racials and Models, Harronir Models
Are we approaching a Solo Raid WoW Experience?
Muffins released a pretty nice video of the Beta servers and this should give you a pretty good idea of how things changed in Kalimdor after the Cataclysm.
Forums Requiring Authenticator Code
BlizzCon 2010 Virtual Ticket Now On Sale
Blue posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Increased HP on Cataclysm creatures
The speed at which a green geared level 80 coming out of Northrend kills creatures in these zones is more in line with what we expect for and from combat times. Raid geared level 80s will still kill level 80 NPCs in under 10 seconds, but at least they will be able to fire off a few abilities before the creature is killed.
Furthermore, upon completion of the first series of quests in Hyjal or Vashj'ir, quest geared level 80 from Northrend should see a significant jump in power due to quest reward itemization. (Source)
Optional and Situational Talents
Exactly. This is the kind of thing a lot of players are going to have to get used to, and frankly, it's a paradigm shift we are still adjusting too as well. We want there to be some talents where you say "Hmmm. I'm not sure I want that." The "Hmmm" is key.
If everyone can instantly can dismiss a given talent as garbage, then it's not a decision. It's also not a decision if you are comparing say Selfless Healer to a +10% self damage talent on a primary ability. (Source)[...] There are going to be non-negotiable talents. We don't really want to make the Prot spec that skips Hammer of the Righteous to be competitive. We don't want every talent to feel like that though. (Source)
Glyphs on Beta
You'd be better off just ignoring glyphs completely at this point. Trying to view the talent changes through the lens of old glyphs is just going to lead to strange feedback. This is true of every class. We have turned off some glyphs in beta that really change gameplay to the extent that it will mess up feedback. Perhaps we should just turn them all off until we work on glyphs. (Source)
Tanks Stamina curves
Since I am sure it will be asked based on that info, paladins and warriors have the same Stamina curves now. A naked warrior and paladin of the same race will have the same health at 85. Both Protection trees get the same amount of Stamina as a passive. That number will likely be something like 10 or 15% Stamina depending on tuning. (In our current build it is 15%.) In similar gear, their health should be very similar. We'll provide the differences in their cooldowns and how they tank. DKs and druids are likely to have different amounts of health as well.
Again, this could change.
(Source)Shield and Tanking Weapons Itemization
We are making two kinds of shield (healer and tank) and one-handed tanking weapons. We are trying to make all of the tanking weapons about the same speed (no slow vs. fast). With all of the changes, using a one-handed Str weapon might be a reasonable substitute in many cases. We might eventually decide to no longer make tanking weapons (since druids and DKs don't really have them) but we're still doing it for now. (Source)
Paladin (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)Crusader Strike
We have been trying Crusader Strike out at both 3 seconds and 4 seconds to see what fits the best. At the moment it is 3 sec (talented) for Ret and 4 sec for Prot and Holy. It all depends on how many other things are going on that you have to juggle. Inquisition, Zealotry and Exorcism and Divine Purpose procs in addition to the basics of CS, TV and Judgement with Holy Wrath filling in any holes can add up to a lot.
While we definitely want Ret to have an actual rotation in the sense that you aren't just hitting things when they come off of cooldown, we don't want to make it more complex than the other dps specs in the game.
(Source)Haste effect on Seal of Vengeance and Judgement of the Wise
Excellent question. It isn't a talent, but Seal of Truth (Seal of Vengeance) will tick faster with haste and Judgement of the Wise's periodic mana energize will tick faster with haste. A Ret paladin with enough haste might have enough mana to throw out the occasional Consecration, while a fresh 85 might not be able to afford it often. (Source)
Divine Guardian / Divine Protection
Divine Guardian doesn't affect the paladin. Otherwise we feared it would just get used as another tank cooldown instead of for the raid utility for which it was intended.
We're strongly considering changing Divine Protection into a short cooldown. It is currently a clone of Shield Wall. Considering the paladin 85 also offers strong emergency damage reduction, we thought they could use a short cooldown ability (say 30-60 sec). Shield Block for warriors is being repositioned more as a short cooldown ability. (Source)
Avenger's Shield
Avenger's Shield silences as a baseline effect. It no longer dazes, since all that seemed to accomplish was making pulling take longer. (Source)
Righteous Fury
Righteous Fury now affects all threat. (Source)
Holy Shield and Glyph of Salvation
I'm not optimistic that we'll keep the Salv glyph, but we'll see. As to Holy Shield, it is going through rapid iteration. Our current implementation has it providing 5% block per stack of Holy Power, up to a max of 15%. So you can use Holy Power for threat, healing or mitigation depending on current circumstances. You should be able to keep the 15% block up all the time with a very small amount of effort.
Warriors get 15% block baseline, so this means the paladin has to work harder for it. Seeing as how the paladin doesn't have to maintain Demo Shout or Thunderclap's debuff, this doesn't seem too great a burden. (Source)
Let Holy Wrath apply Vindication
This is, in fact, exactly what we did. (Source)
Is Paladin getting too complicated?
As a response to some of the sky falling rhetoric in this thread (not specifically the post I quoted, which was worded quite reasonably) and others like it, allow me to offer the following:
We have said many times in the past several months that we don't think paladins have enough going on. Now that we're starting to deliver on that, it doesn't surprise me at all to see some concern that things are changing. I'm sure there are some players out there that just really liked the 6969 rotation, but in a game as large as WoW, there are some players who like anything. We need to do what we think is right for the game, and that includes adding some depth to the paladin class. Our goal is to make the class more fun. We don't expect every forum poster is going to 100% agree that we're going about that in the same way they would. We think in the end though that the class will be more fun. (Source)
Holy Power: Will this get a new UI element similar to the Warlock shards or Rogue combo points?
Yes. (Source)
Touched by the Light
Prot paladins get it as a passive. It converts Str to spell power but does not affect healing. Part of what we're trying to do is get paladins to specialize more and be less capable of doing everything with one spec. (Source)
Word of Glory and Inquisition
All paladins can use the heal (Word of Glory) and the self-buff (Inquisition). Prot paladins have a talent to allow them to get a defensive use (Holy Shield). Proper use of Holy Power will distinguish a good paladin from a bad, but the system is far more forgiving than combo points. Consider that if you totally ignored Holy Shield you'd be giving up 15% block. Decent, but not life-threatening. (Source)
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