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The War Within Alpha - Warbands Feature Overview
I didn't post the talent calculator on patch days because of a few issues caused by the new client (The annoying 0 values on most of the new spells). The problem is now resolved, feel free to use the Cataclysm Talent Calculator again.
Cataclysm Build 12694 - Reputation Enchantments
The latest beta build added the spells for reputation enchantments, nothing really super-interesting but I figured it would make a couple of theorycrafters happy.
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Concentration Aura
Someone else is getting Concentration Aura. Place your bets. (Source)
200% crits
Warlocks and mages get 200% crits.
We have talents or passives for the hybrid classes because we want the nukers to get the big crits but not the healers. But for mages and warlocks, it seemed silly to have identical passives that say "you get 200% crits" when we don't do that for all the melee classes who get 200% crits.
Incidentally, hunters also get 200% crits in Cataclysm. They already did for the most part on all of their physical attacks, but unless I'm mistaken, attacks like Arcane Shot could only get a 150% crits. That is fixed for Cataclysm. (Source)
Raid Buffs in Cataclysm
Nobody has more powerful versions. All raid buffs are identical in power in Cataclysm. Some have different durations or radii or other measurements of convenience. "I won't get brought because his buff is more powerful than mine," is a pretty reasonable argument. "I won't get brought because his buff is more convenient than mine," just doesn't carry the same punch.
Players are going to find themselves in situations all the time where they bring the same buff that someone else brings. Shaman and paladins are probably in the best situation of bring able to bring something no matter what else the group already has. But we still want for groups to be able to bring say two Fire mages, and in that case, their contributions are identical. (Source)
Failed specs
Yet, even though Enhance's dps was low, there were thousands of dps shaman raiding ICC. By far the majority of raids had at least one. The only specs we really failed on in LK raiding were Frost mage, Subtlety rogue, BM hunter and Arms warrior. (Source)
Hybrid Builds
We really haven't ever supported the true hybrid builds where someone goes halfway down two trees. It would be one thing if someone really wanted to play say an Affliction warlock who also emphasized demons or the Ret paladin who also wanted to be a better healer. But almost without exception the hybrid builds that have ever existed involved sneaking down into a second tree to get an overpowered talent or two. The developers never really wanted the last talent in a tree to be a decision. They want you to get that talent. When players would make builds that didn't go to the bottom of their tree they would feel like something was wrong with the tree. Nobody wants that 31-point talent to be a hard choice.
So, yeah, go get that 31-point talent. You'll have some decisions to make on the way down and then you'll have 10 points that can get you 3 or 4 additional talents from a pool of 15 or so that are left over. Not all of those builds will make sense, but many of them will. That feels like plenty of choice to me and both you and we will know that you have the basics that make your spec work. (Source)
Rogue (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Subtlety
We're going to make Dirty Tricks baseline.
We still think the mobility between Subtlety and the other trees is a little far apart. This is something we want to address.
We also think Subtlety's damage against heavy armored targets is probably a little low and we're looking at that as well.
However, as we said in the Twitter dev chat, if you had a tree with Assassination's burst or Combat's timers *and* Shadowstep and Prep, why would you play anything else in PvP? In PvE, we want to get all 3 rogue specs to be as close together as possible. But part of that involves Rupture and Honor Among Thieves, which are just more potent in PvE than PvP. In PvP, we think it's fair that Subtlety does less toe-to-toe damage given that the tree has so many advantages when not toe-to-toe. (Source)
Sprint cooldown
I will admit that the 3 min cooldown on Sprint feels a bit antiquated. It's something we're discussing but it's too soon to promise anything. (Source)
Shaman (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Totems not as useful as before?
This is a pretty common sentiment among shaman, but it's just not one we agree with. Elemental shaman having to give up their dps totem for a dps buff was a situation we weren't happy with. But Enhance giving up a dps buff for utility totems -- and very powerful utility totems -- isn't the same thing in our minds.
We don't want to have to balance the game around the assumption that Earthbind or Tremor Totem are up 100% of the time in a raid, which they would be if they also gave you the Strength of Earth buff. (For starters, we'd have to give equivalents to other classes since otherwise having a shaman would be a huge advantage.) Once you remove Tremor and Earthbind, (and disregarding Stoneclaw and Earth Elemental as super situational) then you're left with Strength of Earth vs. Stoneskin, and the powers of those two really aren't comparable. If you have one shaman, drop Strength of Earth. If you have two, or someone else who can bring that buff, then you can add Stoneskin. If you really need Earthbind or Tremor for an encounter, then you can live without Strength of Earth. Most of the time in PvE when you need those other two, it's not for the entirety of the fight anyway. (Source)
[...] If the model was that shaman were brought for their buffs then that would be a problem. But the model is that shaman are brought because they contribute to the group as a whole, which includes bringing some buffs (and to be fair, more than most classes) but also doing competitive dps. If your dps is too low, then *that* is the problem, not that you don't bring a powerful buff so awesome that you're virtually guaranteed a raid spot even if you go AFK half the time. (Source)
[...] And if you have a paladin, you probably have Devotion Aura, so then there is no reason to drop Stoneskin either. And if the group also has a warrior, then that warrior might Battle Shout, rendering Horn of Winter useless. You just aren't going to be guaranteed a raid slot because you bring the only reasonable version of a group buff. The good news is that nobody is. (Source)
Warrior (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Rage Normalization - Crits no longer generate extra rage
We actually are concerned that even with normalization that rage scales too well with gear. Currently on beta, rage generation feels about right at level 80, but the income drops down more and more with higher levels. Now we have no doubt once warriors get epic gear with tons of haste and crit that they will have plenty of rage again, but that's the problem that rage normalization was really intended to fix.
The solution we're looking at, and I predict a lot you aren't going to like it, is not to have crits provide extra rage. That will let us bump rage income across the board without it getting infinite again at the epic level. This actually provides a certain amount of consistency with other classes because then crit would be about bigger numbers and haste would be about being able to do more because you have more resources to work with.
We think to feel right that warriors (and bears) generally need enough rage income to hit their main rotational buttons, but not Heroic Strike or Cleave. You might occasionally have to wait a second for that Bloodthirst or Mortal Strike, but we don't want that to be a regular occurrence (unless you just squandered your rage by playing badly.) Getting a lot of rage, because say you were stunned or took a lot of damage from something or the shaman popped Bloodlust, then just lets you Heroic Strike or Cleave more, get bigger Executes, save GCDs from going to Bloodrage, etc.
But also to feel right, this needs to occur in both quest greens and fully-gemmed and enchanted endgame gear. We don't think that is happening enough yet on beta.
Rest assured, you'll still scale just fine with gear.
Hit rating and rage generation
We know Cataclysm warriors will value hit pretty highly, and to be honest that's not a bad place to be coming off of LK where warriors viewed hit as junk. Then again, part of that was because of the Heroic Strike bug, so maybe hit would have been more valuable even in LK.
We're also taking a hard look at combat ratings across the board right now in Cataclysm. We removed so many passive combat ratings from the talent trees (as well as things like Misery and the Draenei racial) that we're concerned that our current ratings are too brutal. If we relax those, then everyone will see their hit go up.
If after all that dust settles warriors still are penalized too much for a miss then we might consider something to address that, but only if we were confident that warriors would still desire hit on gear more than they did in LK. (Source)
Rage "nerf"
It's just tricky because we know that warriors used to the Icecrown raiding environment are going to feel rage nerfed almost no matter what. Some of those warriors are going to complain about being rage starved anytime they aren't hitting Heroic Strike on cooldown. We just have to be very cautious when we get feedback. It is 100% supposed to be a nerf, but only to the degree of having to pay attention to that red bar up there under your health. It isn't supposed to be a dps nerf (minus the Heroic Strike bug and Shadowmourne and other things that make Fury dps too high on live). (Source)
Warrior Scaling
Totally. A little more rage is fine. Cats get more combo points as their geat gets better. Mages get more mana. We're just worried that the Cataclysm numbers currently in beta will make warriors still scale too well with gear, which means the leveling warriors don't have fun or the warriors facing the Bastion of Twilight out-dps the other classes. (Source)
Someone else is getting Concentration Aura. Place your bets. (Source)
200% crits
Warlocks and mages get 200% crits.
We have talents or passives for the hybrid classes because we want the nukers to get the big crits but not the healers. But for mages and warlocks, it seemed silly to have identical passives that say "you get 200% crits" when we don't do that for all the melee classes who get 200% crits.
Incidentally, hunters also get 200% crits in Cataclysm. They already did for the most part on all of their physical attacks, but unless I'm mistaken, attacks like Arcane Shot could only get a 150% crits. That is fixed for Cataclysm. (Source)
Raid Buffs in Cataclysm
Nobody has more powerful versions. All raid buffs are identical in power in Cataclysm. Some have different durations or radii or other measurements of convenience. "I won't get brought because his buff is more powerful than mine," is a pretty reasonable argument. "I won't get brought because his buff is more convenient than mine," just doesn't carry the same punch.
Players are going to find themselves in situations all the time where they bring the same buff that someone else brings. Shaman and paladins are probably in the best situation of bring able to bring something no matter what else the group already has. But we still want for groups to be able to bring say two Fire mages, and in that case, their contributions are identical. (Source)
Failed specs
Yet, even though Enhance's dps was low, there were thousands of dps shaman raiding ICC. By far the majority of raids had at least one. The only specs we really failed on in LK raiding were Frost mage, Subtlety rogue, BM hunter and Arms warrior. (Source)
Hybrid Builds
We really haven't ever supported the true hybrid builds where someone goes halfway down two trees. It would be one thing if someone really wanted to play say an Affliction warlock who also emphasized demons or the Ret paladin who also wanted to be a better healer. But almost without exception the hybrid builds that have ever existed involved sneaking down into a second tree to get an overpowered talent or two. The developers never really wanted the last talent in a tree to be a decision. They want you to get that talent. When players would make builds that didn't go to the bottom of their tree they would feel like something was wrong with the tree. Nobody wants that 31-point talent to be a hard choice.
So, yeah, go get that 31-point talent. You'll have some decisions to make on the way down and then you'll have 10 points that can get you 3 or 4 additional talents from a pool of 15 or so that are left over. Not all of those builds will make sense, but many of them will. That feels like plenty of choice to me and both you and we will know that you have the basics that make your spec work. (Source)
Rogue (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)Subtlety
We're going to make Dirty Tricks baseline.
We still think the mobility between Subtlety and the other trees is a little far apart. This is something we want to address.
We also think Subtlety's damage against heavy armored targets is probably a little low and we're looking at that as well.
However, as we said in the Twitter dev chat, if you had a tree with Assassination's burst or Combat's timers *and* Shadowstep and Prep, why would you play anything else in PvP? In PvE, we want to get all 3 rogue specs to be as close together as possible. But part of that involves Rupture and Honor Among Thieves, which are just more potent in PvE than PvP. In PvP, we think it's fair that Subtlety does less toe-to-toe damage given that the tree has so many advantages when not toe-to-toe. (Source)
Sprint cooldown
I will admit that the 3 min cooldown on Sprint feels a bit antiquated. It's something we're discussing but it's too soon to promise anything. (Source)
Shaman (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)Totems not as useful as before?
This is a pretty common sentiment among shaman, but it's just not one we agree with. Elemental shaman having to give up their dps totem for a dps buff was a situation we weren't happy with. But Enhance giving up a dps buff for utility totems -- and very powerful utility totems -- isn't the same thing in our minds.
We don't want to have to balance the game around the assumption that Earthbind or Tremor Totem are up 100% of the time in a raid, which they would be if they also gave you the Strength of Earth buff. (For starters, we'd have to give equivalents to other classes since otherwise having a shaman would be a huge advantage.) Once you remove Tremor and Earthbind, (and disregarding Stoneclaw and Earth Elemental as super situational) then you're left with Strength of Earth vs. Stoneskin, and the powers of those two really aren't comparable. If you have one shaman, drop Strength of Earth. If you have two, or someone else who can bring that buff, then you can add Stoneskin. If you really need Earthbind or Tremor for an encounter, then you can live without Strength of Earth. Most of the time in PvE when you need those other two, it's not for the entirety of the fight anyway. (Source)
[...] If the model was that shaman were brought for their buffs then that would be a problem. But the model is that shaman are brought because they contribute to the group as a whole, which includes bringing some buffs (and to be fair, more than most classes) but also doing competitive dps. If your dps is too low, then *that* is the problem, not that you don't bring a powerful buff so awesome that you're virtually guaranteed a raid spot even if you go AFK half the time. (Source)
[...] And if you have a paladin, you probably have Devotion Aura, so then there is no reason to drop Stoneskin either. And if the group also has a warrior, then that warrior might Battle Shout, rendering Horn of Winter useless. You just aren't going to be guaranteed a raid slot because you bring the only reasonable version of a group buff. The good news is that nobody is. (Source)
Warrior (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)Rage Normalization - Crits no longer generate extra rage
We actually are concerned that even with normalization that rage scales too well with gear. Currently on beta, rage generation feels about right at level 80, but the income drops down more and more with higher levels. Now we have no doubt once warriors get epic gear with tons of haste and crit that they will have plenty of rage again, but that's the problem that rage normalization was really intended to fix.
The solution we're looking at, and I predict a lot you aren't going to like it, is not to have crits provide extra rage. That will let us bump rage income across the board without it getting infinite again at the epic level. This actually provides a certain amount of consistency with other classes because then crit would be about bigger numbers and haste would be about being able to do more because you have more resources to work with.
We think to feel right that warriors (and bears) generally need enough rage income to hit their main rotational buttons, but not Heroic Strike or Cleave. You might occasionally have to wait a second for that Bloodthirst or Mortal Strike, but we don't want that to be a regular occurrence (unless you just squandered your rage by playing badly.) Getting a lot of rage, because say you were stunned or took a lot of damage from something or the shaman popped Bloodlust, then just lets you Heroic Strike or Cleave more, get bigger Executes, save GCDs from going to Bloodrage, etc.
But also to feel right, this needs to occur in both quest greens and fully-gemmed and enchanted endgame gear. We don't think that is happening enough yet on beta.
Rest assured, you'll still scale just fine with gear.
Hit rating and rage generation
We know Cataclysm warriors will value hit pretty highly, and to be honest that's not a bad place to be coming off of LK where warriors viewed hit as junk. Then again, part of that was because of the Heroic Strike bug, so maybe hit would have been more valuable even in LK.
We're also taking a hard look at combat ratings across the board right now in Cataclysm. We removed so many passive combat ratings from the talent trees (as well as things like Misery and the Draenei racial) that we're concerned that our current ratings are too brutal. If we relax those, then everyone will see their hit go up.
If after all that dust settles warriors still are penalized too much for a miss then we might consider something to address that, but only if we were confident that warriors would still desire hit on gear more than they did in LK. (Source)
Rage "nerf"
It's just tricky because we know that warriors used to the Icecrown raiding environment are going to feel rage nerfed almost no matter what. Some of those warriors are going to complain about being rage starved anytime they aren't hitting Heroic Strike on cooldown. We just have to be very cautious when we get feedback. It is 100% supposed to be a nerf, but only to the degree of having to pay attention to that red bar up there under your health. It isn't supposed to be a dps nerf (minus the Heroic Strike bug and Shadowmourne and other things that make Fury dps too high on live). (Source)
Warrior Scaling
Totally. A little more rage is fine. Cats get more combo points as their geat gets better. Mages get more mana. We're just worried that the Cataclysm numbers currently in beta will make warriors still scale too well with gear, which means the leveling warriors don't have fun or the warriors facing the Bastion of Twilight out-dps the other classes. (Source)
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