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  1. #1

    LVL80 Premades, Beta class changes, Nax, Blue posts

    Update - Team Passes for MLG Dallas WoW 3v3 Tournament on October 3rd - 5th are now available ! You can buy them here !

    Update - New PvP Trinkets and Rings.

    Level 80 Premade available on Beta servers !
    That's it, level 80 premade characters are available on beta servers ! The feature isn't available on european servers yet but will most likely be activated within the next hours.


    All characters are level 80 with 4x22 or 4x20 slot bags depending on classes, PvP gear including full set of weapons, an epic flying and ground mount. Exalted with one or two faction depending on classes and friendly with the rest, maxed weapon skills and First Aid. Gear is also fully enchanted.


    Premades also come with LK Honor 2 Rings and Trinkets, they're upgraded versions of the PvP Gear we already saw on beta servers.



    Naxxramas available for testing in an upcoming build
    Naxxramas should be available for testing very soon on beta servers, and it will include loot ! As a reminder the known drops from Naxxramas are :

    All these items have been datamined on beta servers recently but just like any item in the beta they obviously can change.
    Originally Posted by Daelo
    The trash has indeed been adjusted. Highlights include:

    • Longer trash sections between bosses ( to Patchwerk, to Razuvious, to Faerlina) have been toned down.
    • Heigan gauntlet is no longer a gauntlet, now there's a very small one AFTER Heigan.
    • A few new creatures have been added in a couple places.
    • Newer models for many of the creatures.
    • Some of the trash encounters have different numbers of creatures for 10 and 25 player modes.

    One other thing...

    Naxxramas should be available for beta testing soon in both 10 and 25 player flavors, including loot!

    Upcoming Beta Classes Changes
    Guess what ? The official talent calculator have been updated once again with upcoming class changes ! Below is the list.
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    Death Knight (Skills List / Talent Calc. (8885))
    Blood
    Talents
    • Might of Morgraine (Tier 9) now affects Obliterate. Critical Strike Damage bonus has been reduced to 15/30/45%. (Previously 20/40/60%)
    • Dark Conviction (Tier 3) now increases crit chance with weapons, spells, and abilities by 1/2/3/4/5%. (Previously just affected weapons)

    Frost
    Talents
    • Frost Strike (Tier 9) runic power cost increased to 40 (Previously was 50)
    • Blood of the North (Tier 8 ) has been changed to 3 ranks.
    • Howling Blast (Tier 7) damage slightly reduced. Range increased to 30 yards (Up from 20).
    • Frost Aura (Tier 7) is now passive. Increases spell resistance by 40/80 to all party/raid members withing 45 yards.
    • Merciless Combat (Tier 6) now increases damage done with Howling Blast, Frost Strike, Icy Touch, and Obliterate to targets under 35% by 20%.(Previously increased damage by 60%)
    • Improved Icy Touch (Tier 1) changed to: Your Icy Touch does an additional 10% damage and your Frost Fever reduces melee attack speed by an additional 2/4/6%.
    • Toughness (Tier 1) now reduces the duration of all movement slowing effects by 10/20/30/40/50% in addition to its armor increasing effect.

    Unholy
    Talents
    • Unholy Command (Tier 2) now affects the cooldown of Dark Command.
    • Outbreak (Tier 3) no longer affects Scourge Strike. It now increases the damage of Plague Strike in addition to Blood Boil and Pestilence by 10%.
    • Scourge Strike (Tier 9) damage slightly reduced.

    Druid (Skills List / Talent Calc. (8885))
    Restoration
    • Nature's Focus now affects Wrath, Engangling Roots, and Cyclone - Gives you a 23/46/70% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting the Healing Touch, Wrath, Entangling Roots, Cyclone, Nourish, Regrowth and Tranquility spells.
    • Tree of Life mana cost reduced from 978 to 684 Mana. Now increases healing received by raid members by 3% (instead of 25% of your spirit) - Shapeshift into the Tree of Life. While in this form you increase healing received by 3% for all party and raid members within 45 yards, and you can only cast Restoration and Barkskin spells, but the mana cost of your healing over time spells is reduced by 20%. The act of shapeshifting frees the caster of Polymorph and Movement Impairing effects.
    • Improved Tree of Life now reduces the mana cost of your heal over time spells while in Tree of Life Form by an additional 5/10/15%. (Old - increases the effect of your Tree of Life Aura by 5/10/15%.)

    Paladin (Skills List / Talent Calc. (8885))
    Protection
    • Toughness now increases your armor value from items by 2/4/6/8/10% and reduces the duration of all movement slowing effects by 10/20/30/40/50%. (Didn't reduce movement slowing effects before)
    • Shield Specialization now Increases the amount of damage absorbed by your shield by 10/20/30%. (Old - Increases your block value by 10/20/30%.)
    • Avenger's Shield (Rank 4) has been added. 1142 Mana, 658-788 Holy Damage.
    • Blessing of Sanctuary has been changed - Places a Blessing on the friendly target, reducing damage taken from all sources by 3% for 10 min. In addition, when the target blocks, parries, or dodges a melee attack the target will gain 10 rage, 20 runic power, or 2% of the maximum mana. (Old - Places a Blessing on the friendly target, reducing damage dealt from all sources by up to 10 for 10 min. In addition, when the target blocks a melee attack the attacker will take 14 Holy damage.)

    Retribution
    • Vengeance now stacks up to 2 times instead of 3.
    • Judgement of the Wise now gives your Judgement spells a 33/66/100% chance to grant up to 10 party or raid members mana regeneration equal to 0.5% of their maximum mana per second. (Old - Your Judgement spells restore mana up to 3 group or raid members totalling 20/40/60% of the damage caused.)
    • Crusader Strike doesn't refresh Judgements on target anymore.

    Warlock (Skills List / Talent Calc. (8885))
    Affliction
    • Frailty now Increases the amount of attack power reduced by your Curse of Weakness by 10/20%, and increases the amount of attack power granted by your Curse of Recklessness by 50/100%.
    • Shadow Embrace now increases Shadow damage dealt to the target by 2/4/6/8/10%. (Old - Reduced physical damage caused by 1/2/3/4/5%)

    Demonology
    • Demonic Empathy changed to When you or your pet critically hits with a spell or ability, the other's damage done by their next 3 spells or abilities is increased by 2/4/6%. Lasts 15 sec. (Old - the other has a 33% chance to have their casting or attack speed increased by 30% for 8 sec on critical hit.)
    • Demonic Pact mechanics changed - Your pet's criticals apply the Demonic Pact effect to your party or raid members. Demonic Pact increases spell by 10% of your Spell Damage for 12 sec. (Old - Same effect, but a debuff was applied to the mob)

    Blue posts
    [blizzquote] Druid (Skills List / Talent Calc. (8885))
    Tanking in WotLK and Feral DPS
    [...] Believe me, if we ever hit a brick wall where we just can't make druids work without parry, then guess what will happen. [...]

    Agreed. As far as scaling is concerned, we've made great efforts to scale abilities so that upgrading your gear doesn't totally change their effectiveness. Here's the problem with Feral druids: because they have so few stats (in the sense that e.g. parry and spellpower aren't important to Feral), it's easy to focus on those stats. If those stats scale really well, then we run into problems where druids can either hit the caps or get such high numbers that the content starts to break. Once druids hit the armor cap in BC, they could start improving dps stats which would eventually have overshadowed other tanks in both mitigation and threat. When they stacked agility, agility and more agility, it just improved their tanking and damage really quickly.

    Warlocks were in a pretty similar situation with spell damage. They wanted almost nothing else and kept stacking the same thing and pretty soon they outstripped similar classes.

    From a design point of view, the challenge isn't making druids amazing tanks and dps. The challenge is preventing them from getting too good too easily. (Note, mean old Ghostcrawler is not saying we're trying to keep Ferals really weak. Just remember that while your goal as players is to get as good as possible, ours as designers is to keep you in proportion to other classes.)

    Is Mother Bear as effective at level 80 as it is at level 70? Yes. Does it scale with AP or armor? No. Does getting AP and armor still make you a better tank? Yes. Will you spec out of Mother Bear when you reach a certain gear plateau? Unlikely. Until recently, Sunder Armor did not scale. It was just crappier the better your gear became and was less effective at generating threat as everyone else's threat increased.

    As to cats, we don't know yet if their dps is too low or not. We should have a better idea soon. (Source)

    Hunter (Skills List / Talent Calc. (8885))
    Aspect of the Viper Changes
    We're going to be changing it so that procs/hits restore a % of your base mana each time you hit, rather than base it off your actual DPS/damage. While the return of mana based on your actual damage numbers do make the ability a lot of fun (at least I thought so!), it has bad scaling issues. (Source)

    Silencing Shot interrupt effect
    Yes, it should interrupt now. If you find it not working please report so in the bug forum. (Source)

    Lock and Load
    It should proc from Frost and Snake traps, I'll have QA look into it. (Source)

    Expose Weakness
    Expose Weakness is more of a group utility talent than "backbone" of the Survival Hunter's DPS. (Source)

    Bugged Hunter abilities and Master's Call
    We did a major bug fixing pass recently, a lot of the bugged talents and abilities should be fixed in an upcoming build (including Master's Call). (Source)

    Priest (Skills List / Talent Calc. (8885))
    Guardian Spirit cooldown removed
    Oh, and we did remove the global cooldown from Guardian Spirit (Source)

    Divine Hymn
    Divine Hymn is intended to be PvP utility and an emergency tool in PvE. Accidentally pull 3+ mobs? Hit Divine Hymn, they all fall asleep, and you have some time to get your bearings and set things up. I don't think it will become that useful until you start doing more challenging dungeons/heroics, though. (Source)

    Any and all mobs can be afflicted by Divine Hymn's effect unless they were specifically intended not to by the encounter/raid and dungeon designers.

    Broken Talents and Naxxramas raiding feedback
    I feel ya on the broken talents, these are all working in my local build which should be public very soon. Don't worry too much on talents being broken as why you feel the class is not "polished," no talent should be broken or not working when we're finished.

    By the way, I did Naxx 10-man the other day as Discipline and our tank didn't notice any reduced threat with Divine Aegis (with around ~30 spell crit) or Power Word: Shield. It probably did lower his threat, but it was pretty minimal and it definitely wasn't an issue for us. Against a hard hitting boss/mob you hardly even get to see the visual on the tank. One lame side effect is that because a good portion of Disc Priests "healing" is through absorption mechanics, you don't really see that in a healing meter, though that's kind of a side issue. Our tank was excited by how much he was absorbing with Divine Aegis/Power Word: Shield though. (Source)

    Developper Q&A (full version)
    Well, something specifically I'm concerned about is Guardian Spirit. Can you comment if there are any planned changes for it? Compared to other 51-point talents for other healing classes, Guardian Spirit feels very lackluster.
    I think our fail Rogues would of died a lot more on the Heigan dance without Guardian Spirit. It has a lot of uses, and we currently like how it's has a choice/decision in when using it instead of "just hit it every time it's up." (Source)

    Inner fire still has charges. Why?
    Keeping the charges mechanic. There are glyphs, talents now that increase the number of charges. I've discussed this in length before.

    Divine Spirit: Possibly the only raid buff in the game that requires 23 points. It's not a great talent and it's not clear why we still need to invest in it. Make it base, but keep an improved divine spirit in the tree. Spirit is becoming a major stat in WotLK and it should have an accompanying buff.
    I see players point on this post-raid buff revamp, but for this expansion it's likely going to stay a talent.

    Shadow Resilience: Would it be completely overpowered to just make this a flat 2/4% damage reduction to everything?
    Unnecessary, talents have stat budgets and that is going over the budget.

    Improved Fade: Why, oh why, do we still have this talent? It's been around since release and it seems like its only purpose is to immediately point out bad players.
    It's good with Improved Shadowform now. Other than that synergy, I see the argument that it could be better.

    Shadow Affinity: Is another effect going to be attached to this talent? Every other aggro reduction talent in the game has a secondary effect. Maybe attach dispel protection to this talent?
    Been thinking about removing the Shadow dispel chance from Silent Resolve and putting it into Shadow affinity instead. But in the end that really wouldn't change very much.

    Blessed Recovery: Broken; refreshes on noncritical hits (via procs from resilience), and the healing is nominal even without this problem.
    Agreed this talent could be better.

    Holy Nova: Now practically useless with the downranking change; not enough healing, not enough damage, party-limited. Needs focus or a unique mechanic. This ability will virtually disappear from priest specs in Wrath if it isn't addressed.
    Agreed, could improve this spell somewhat. Not an easy one.

    Improved Mana Burn: 3 second Mana Burn is pretty much useless in both PvP and PvE these days. This talent is required to make Mana Burn PvP viable, so it doesn't really improve Mana Burn at all.
    Fine with this talent.

    Surge of Light: It's a nice soloing talent, but given that Discipline is now the tree that scales with crit, its placement is odd, and it does nothing to buff your healing ability. Adding Flash Heal to the instant cast proc would make this talent quite worth it, even in a Holy build which isn't focused on crit.
    We've talked about that specific idea before, but not sure the tree needs instant cast flash heals right now.

    Blessed Resilience: It's not clear that this talent provides enough PvP survivability for a deep Holy build, at this point. But I suppose that remains to be seen.
    It's always been better than Focused Will IMO, it's just that the tree is less popular because of the lack of Pain Suppression. Guardian Spirit can act as a Pain Suppression replacement now, and the tree can hold it's own in PvP. I think you'll be seeing a diverse mix of Holy vs. Disc Priests in PvP from now on (hopefully).

    Silence: Somewhat outdated, the cooldown and range are prohibitive. A very modest decrease in cooldown (~5 seconds) and/or a standard range (30 yards) would be a welcome update.
    Not a big issue. We'll think about it, maybe a Glyph.

    Shaman (Skills List / Talent Calc. (8885))
    New ranks for Totems / Enchants
    Just built all the new ranks of totems/enchants etc., should be up in an upcoming build. (Source)

    Warlock (Skills List / Talent Calc. (8885))
    New Talent in Affliction
    There will be a new talent in Affliction in an upcoming build. Keywords: "DoT" and "Crit" (Well, sorta) (Source)

    Warrior (Skills List / Talent Calc. (8885))
    Developper Q&A (Source)
    Also - and here's my #1 concern as a tanking warrior... Our threat scales very, very, VERY badly. If we outgear an instance, we're next to useless.
    More dps will definitely help -- it generates a lot of rage. But we're still looking at granting more rage based on dodge and parry too. As far as your threat scaling badly in the endgame content, more dps and AP scaling on things like Sunder and Conc Blow will help with that too.

    Why do you feel this Tier 9 talent is any better or different than what we have been doing with intercept and intervene? Managing the rage is easy for both of those so please don't go down that route.
    It's up more often, provides a stun and generates more rage. Warbringer will generate rage. Trust me.

    Can you confirm that we'll be able to do this without having to switch gear?
    Yes. That is the goal. Prot pallies too. You won't be doing as much damage as an Arms warrior, but you shouldn't be standing around wishing you had enough rage to have fun. You will likely also keep your shield on when soloing, though some warrirors do this on Live. To be honest, I am a little nervous that when we next do our tests, Prot's dps is going to be higher than Arms. That's probably overkill, and you might laugh at the thought, but that's the degree of changes we're talking about. (And we would certainly readjust if that ends up being the case.)

    Paladins cant heal without changing gear.
    They can't keep a MT up like a Holy paladin can. But the design is to let them do something when they aren't tanking. The situation should be much better in Lich King (while still making sure Holy healing >> Prot healing).

    That's the point, if I'm reading Ghost correctly she's implying that all 4 tanks should have backup options when they don't have to actively tank, so that they aren't useless when their mob dies. Ferals and DKs are already able to switch to effective DPS pretty easily, and Ghost seems to be saying that prot warriors (and I assume prot paladins) should be able to as well. I'm just trying to make sure that this means mid-fight, otherwise the DKs and Ferals have a big advantage in multi-mob bossfights.
    I'm not saying you can bring 6 tanks to Naxx and kill Saphiron. But if you have 2 tanks and go to a single tank fight, the other tank should be able to do something other than skill up their trade skills.

  2. #2

    Re: LVL80 Premades, Beta class changes, Nax, Blue posts

    ;D

    I'm excited about more good Prot Warrior changes soon!
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  3. #3

    Re: LVL80 Premades, Beta class changes, Nax, Blue posts

    I'd rather have Blizzard focus on tanking changes rather than making dps while prot spec viable. I am sure all the other tanks would appreciate this too. Honestly, if your guild needs a dps not a tank you will be better off respeccing.
    This user has been banned.

  4. #4

    Re: LVL80 Premades, Beta class changes, Nax, Blue posts

    uh, the reason they're increasing our dps is to give us a better platform for building threat while increasing our utility in raid situations (and not having to slow down the raid by subbing people in)

    Personally, I love the prot changes so far. The new vigilance is going to stack some REAL NICE threat on me, in combat charge sounds cool but i'm not sure how viable it is. I wish the shockwave ability was dispersed in a 180degree zone, rather than the 30-40degree cone it is now though.

  5. #5

    Re: LVL80 Premades, Beta class changes, Nax, Blue posts

    this was also sent out with a wave of beta invites (Bout time i got one )

  6. #6

    Re: LVL80 Premades, Beta class changes, Nax, Blue posts

    Soon.. the wave of prot pally changes shall come..
    soon....

  7. #7

    Re: LVL80 Premades, Beta class changes, Nax, Blue posts

    Hmmm, Nax will be available for testing?

    We don't even have Storm Peaks back yet. ???

  8. #8

    Re: LVL80 Premades, Beta class changes, Nax, Blue posts

    There will be a new talent in Affliction in an upcoming build. Keywords: "DoT" and "Crit" (Well, sorta) (Source)
    Does this scare anyone else? Considering locks' current state.

  9. #9

    Re: LVL80 Premades, Beta class changes, Nax, Blue posts

    Does blizz hate priests? Everybody else asks for buffs and gets em, we get a SCREW YOU FINE AS IS and even a maybe next expansion...

  10. #10
    The Hedgehog Elementium's Avatar
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    Re: LVL80 Premades, Beta class changes, Nax, Blue posts

    and.. They're saving the massive shaman changes for last right? ya know.. saving the best for last?..

  11. #11
    Khody
    Guest

    Re: LVL80 Premades, Beta class changes, Nax, Blue posts

    Crusader strike section is in the Protection updates rather then the Retribution.

  12. #12

    Re: LVL80 Premades, Beta class changes, Nax, Blue posts

    Divine Hymn is going to be an awesome spell for PvP, sure it's level 80, and with a ten minute cooldown for such a situational effect but it'll be so cool wh- *PURGE/SPELLSTEAL/TRANQ SHOT/DEVOUR MAGIC/DISPEL MAGIC*

    ...

    Uh, well at least it'll be good in arena against melee, like wh- *WILL OF THE FORSAKEN/LICHBORNE*

    ...

    Well, ... I guess at least the 12-15 talent point sinkhole for Power Word Shield in Disc might help so-*PURGE/SPELLSTEAL/TRANQ SHOT/DEVOUR MAGIC/DISPEL MAGIC*

    ...

    Well luckily Warriors, Rogues and Hunters weren't buffed and Focused Will and Pain Suppression weren't nerfed.

    ...

    *Cry*

  13. #13

    Re: LVL80 Premades, Beta class changes, Nax, Blue posts

    Quote Originally Posted by Khody
    Crusader strike section is in the Protection updates rather then the Retribution.
    No it's not.

  14. #14

    Re: LVL80 Premades, Beta class changes, Nax, Blue posts

    European copies still greyed out tho...

  15. #15
    Khody
    Guest

    Re: LVL80 Premades, Beta class changes, Nax, Blue posts

    Quote Originally Posted by Boubouille
    No it's not. <coughs>
    Smooth move bibi!

    <3

  16. #16

    Re: LVL80 Premades, Beta class changes, Nax, Blue posts

    Gotta love how they comment priests silence fixing... "maybe a glyph" Imo warriors should use glyph to get their shield equiped and rogues need glyph to use poisons and hunters could have minor glyph to be able to use bows.

  17. #17

    Re: LVL80 Premades, Beta class changes, Nax, Blue posts

    I love how the only change that Blizzard has made to Hunters that A) fixed a large number of our biggest issues, B) was not suggested in any way by a Hunter, and C) was FUN has been nerfed into uselessness.

    R.I.P. Good Aspect of the Viper, 2008-2008.
    Signature removed. Please read our guidelines. Venara

  18. #18

    Re: LVL80 Premades, Beta class changes, Nax, Blue posts

    Aspect of Viper was out of line in it`s old form. Scaled like hell, since dmg goes up faster than your relative manapool.

  19. #19

    Re: LVL80 Premades, Beta class changes, Nax, Blue posts

    Yeah, it actually gave us infinite resources but inhibited our ability to DPS once we exhausted our current reserve of resources.

    Just like *gasp* every other physical damage dealing class! (i.e. Rogues, Warriors, and DKs)

    How silly of us to expect to be treated the same.
    Signature removed. Please read our guidelines. Venara

  20. #20

    Re: LVL80 Premades, Beta class changes, Nax, Blue posts

    Curse of the blue bar.

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