Cataclysm Mounts - Drakes of the Wind, Stone Drakes, and Camels
Mounts didn't get a lot of love on the front page since the beginning of the beta. A lot of stuff was implemented in-game during the latest beta update and we now have a decent idea of what to expect in-game. I tried to restrict it to the mounts that we will most likely see in-game, more recolors are available but they aren't always linked to an item, etc ... Let's keep it simple for the moment.

This is not a complete list of all the mounts added to the game with Cataclysm, I'll do that a little later when most of them are added to the game.

Drakes of the Wind
The only known drop location is the Reins of the Drake of the East Wind rewarded from Glory of the Cataclysm Raider achievement.




Stone Drakes
Only 2 stone drakes seems to be implemented for the moment, the only known drop location is the Reins of the Volcanic Stone Drake from the Glory of the Cataclysm Hero achievement.




Camels
Last but not least, camels! Absolutely no idea where they are from, but they will most likely be linked to Uldum. No animations yet = No video needed.



Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Crowd Control spells cast time increased to 2 sec
Pretty much. The crowd control spells were never designed around the existence of haste. Asking anyone to interrupt a 1.1 second Polymorph isn't reasonable. Health pools are going to be a lot larger, so control is going to play a larger role than burst compared to the live environment. On the other hand, dispels are more expensive in Cataclysm and you can waste a dispel now if there is nothing there to dispel.

So I'm right in my sentiment that, instead of correcting haste affecting utility spells, we now all get to suffer even further exacerbated haste dominance?
I never follow this line of thinking. Yes, making it harder to have a [very fast] cast time requires more haste. But you have to make a big trade off for that haste, such as having a lower crit chance for your damage spells. That seems like a reasonable enough trade off that you'll at least have to consider it.

You can argue that haste is over-valued in PvP because of the risk of interruption, which is much less of a big deal in PvE. Therefore making the cost per stat of haste higher in PvP seems perfectly reasonable. I wouldn't call that "exacerbated dominance." I'd say it's adjusting it to its actual value in PvP compared to other stats. (Source)

Buffs improvements in talents
There is no difference between "talents that increase potency of buffs" and "talents that increase range of buffs". In both cases you must spend talent points to bring a buff up to par with something other classes offer. In both cases, the baseline buff has something about it that's inferior. So if there's some sort of difference that I'm missing here, please share with the class. No one else can see the difference either.
That's not our definition. If you bring an 8% attack power buff and someone else brings a 10% attack power buff, then the other guy will generally be more desirable. If you have an 8% attack power buff but a talent that brings it up to 2% (and only that), then you have a talent you probably don't want to spend and feel dumb spending whenever the 10% guy isn't around. This is the case with many talents in Lich King, such as Improved Blessing of Might. These are the class of talents that we said we would remove (and then proceeded to do so).

Once you get beyond the buff itself, there are a variety of ways it is produced by a character. Sometimes it's a base spell. Sometimes it's a talent. Sometimes it's a passive aura. Sometimes it's a proc. Sometimes it goes away when the dude dies. Sometimes it lasts for a duration. We're not interested in making all of these parameters identical, and we think the game would suffer from a pervasive sameness were we to do so. We also think most raiders are sensible enough not to disqualify someone because his buff isn't produced in the absolute most convenient way possible. "Our dps would go up 2% if we had 10% attack power instead of 8% attack power" seems like a reasonable sentiment. "Our dps would go up if the range on this buff were longer" seems like you're really down in the weeds of things to actually worry about. (Source)

Goblins & Worgens DK on Beta
Both goblin and worgen will be unable to finish the DK starting zone until we get back to it and add the goblin/worgen "Special Surprise" quests. Until then you'll be stuck. (Source)

Hunter (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Rhumba removed from the game
We were sad to see this talent go, because we thought it was cool too. However, BM just had too many damage-oriented talents, which was preventing those hunters from being able to pick up the utility or fun talents, which in turn violated a major goal of the talent tree revamps. (Source)

Swapping pets
If our pet dies, can we use Feign Death, drop combat, and instantly bring out one of our 5 different pets in that short window of being out of combat in an Arena Match?
No, because you have to dismiss a pet before you can summon a new one. You also need to rez a dead pet before you can dismiss it. It's possible that allowing all of that in combat is fine since it would take so long to actually pull off and in the meantime you could just have rezzed your pet (or healed an injured one rather than dismissing it).

On the other hand, dismissal no longer affects happiness in any way since the new model is you can swap them more regularly. Your pets just have to learn not to get all emo about it. (Source)

Priest (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Lightwell
How to make lightwell work: Change clicking range to 15y, Make clicking it not change target
As I have said previously, this is the plan. We just haven't been able to test it yet, and the talent has enough baggage that it's hard to get players to even try it. (Source)

Shaman (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Elemental shamans
Elemental Reach affects all shocks. (Elemental only).

Totemic Reach increases the range of Searing Totem. (Tier 2 Enhance, so available to all shaman.)

If you're fighting a shaman with a bunch of Lightning orbs and you're worried about damage, just go hit the shaman. That still removes the orbs.

Rolling Thunder is 2% mana return, not 1%.

[...] Yes, we have made further changes to the tree since the build that you have available now. They are predominantly talent changes and not gameplay changes. Earth Shock was the big one. (Source)

Warlock (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Demonic Rebirth
Demonic Rebirth has a long cooldown. (Source)

The MMO Report
It's monday, and it's time for my weekly answer to people who point out that this site can't be called MMO-Champion if it only talks about WoW. Thank you MMO Report!



Comics
Dark Legacy Comic #252 and Teh Gladiators #160 + #161 are out!

This article was originally published in forum thread: Cataclysm Mounts Preview, Blue Posts, Comics started by Boubouille View original post
Comments 133 Comments
  1. AdamsGaming's Avatar
    I came. These mounts look spectacular.
  1. Xanekus's Avatar
    third!!1
  1. uriahworld's Avatar
    Travler's Tundra Camels!
  1. TheWaffler's Avatar
    I should fill out the CURSE survey... why exactly?

    Edit: Also, I see the mmo-report doesn't work. Again. Maybe one day I'll get to see another one. -_-
  1. Glanbera's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by TheWaffler View Post
    I should full out the CURSE survey... why exactly?

    Edit: Also, I see the mmo-report doesn't work. Again. Maybe one day I'll get to see another one. -_-
    It took me less then 15sec to fill out, why not?

    About the mounts, the camels looks retarded. I love them.
  1. forsaker's Avatar
    Camels look hilarious... I want one now
  1. Alayea's Avatar
    Love the East and South drakes, but all the other mounts are rather meh.
  1. gunner_recall's Avatar
    Drakes of the Winds make me think of this

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVhC-...feature=search
  1. Oneru's Avatar
    Is the camel's lower jaw based on Deathwing's chin?


    Love em though, they look comfy. Tauren on a camel, hope they have strong ankles.
  1. TheWaffler's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Glanbera View Post
    It took me less then 15sec to fill out, why not?
    I'm not doing something for CURSE unless they give me damn good reason.
  1. Alayea's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by TheWaffler View Post
    I'm not doing something for CURSE unless they give me damn good reason.
    I normally don't do surveys, but this one doesn't ask or require personal/identifiable information from you. So I thought, "Eh, I like pushing buttons anyway." It was really quick too, had only six simple questions (although I think one was a duplicate).


    Edit: I take that back. Questions 4 and 5 are very similar, but one asks about the past month and the other about the past week.
  1. Jedistene's Avatar
    Mounts look awesome.
  1. Tsudots's Avatar
    I actually kind of like the Volcanic stone drake the best. Hopefully I'll get a chance to get them all though
  1. Sontrowa's Avatar
    I really like the new drakes. The redesign of their faces and such make them just different enough to make me happy. Heck, I like the N,E,S,W Wind Drakes better than the stone drakes! Not that the stone drakes are bad. Plus, armor as a standard on the mounts? Hell yeah!
  1. Razia's Avatar
    Drake of the West Wind looks like it found a few buckets of paint to play with.
  1. Unholynight's Avatar
    cool drakes, but I think ICC drake is better
  1. Lucetia's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by TheWaffler View Post
    I'm not doing something for CURSE unless they give me damn good reason.
    They host the servers that this site is using? Thought that would be good enough reason, unless of course you don't enjoy coming here.

    Quote Originally Posted by AdamsGaming View Post
    I came. These mounts look spectacular.
    I think they look great too, but you know after first patch in Cataclysm everyone will bag on how bad they look and such just because everyone has one. Either way I think they look great and can't wait to get one. Just curious on how to get the other versions now too so I can just do a random color macro =P
  1. TheWaffler's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Lucetia View Post
    They host the servers that this site is using? Thought that would be good enough reason, unless of course you don't enjoy coming here.
    Not good enough.
  1. Hoodi's Avatar
    Cool mounts.

    MMO report was good as usual.

    Was very very skeptical about the rail flight side of the starwars mmo but i was pleasently suprised ( bioware should just forget all that ground shit and just make a space starwars mmo) free flight.
  1. Swampmoose's Avatar
    Mounts aren't too bad. Camel is the best. The stone drakes look like the same old boring Wrath mounts (example, bronze drake) with a few extra spikes here and there. New designs like the Proto Drakes, Dragonhawks, CAMELZ! are more exciting. Hopefully with new content patches will come some new designs.

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