Arena Tournament 2010, Blue posts

[Wesly]

for once why can't blizzard artwork show a troll owning something rather than being the helpless victim?

[lolipopp]

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL 20$

[hammybiter]

Overused stats in WotLK
Yeah, I agree with that. For a number of reasons (that I've gone into before), we allowed some stats to become much more valuable than competing stats that also occur on your gear. We're really trying to prevent this in Cataclysm. We're making changes including, but not limited to, letting hots and dots crit, asking healers to care about mana regen, getting rid of group buffs that improve hit, keeping combat rating from getting inflated, etc. (Source)

([url=http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/24401521630/twitter-chat-on-warrior-aoe-tanking/][b](Source)[/blizzquote]

Sigh, I hate stacking hit as it now.. Hopefully they reduce how much we need to carry then.. Because it is just dumb for rogues compared to my warrior..

[Sargerus]

We change our minds sometimes, like about letting Charge work in combat for example.

In fact, one of the reasons we changed our minds about Heroic Leap (and Camo, and Trap Launcher) were so many players that were sad about seeing those abilities not make it in LK.

Man, I gonna laugh so hard if they decide to remove HL just before Cata release :P

[rainCZ]

Cheer TR !!!

[Nuronv]

I believe they have said "fast" and "small" in same description before.

I though the same as well, I think we just automatically read it that way as that is the model we are used to at the moment. I've had a search through US and EU blue quotes and can't find any that use the word small in conjunction with the fast heal. Perhaps they are leaving it vague on purpose.

[shiftybear]

AE Tanking in Cataclysm
That would make tanking easier for sure. Is making tanking easier really more fun? At what point is it so easy that you're just standing there getting beat on? (Source)

[/quote]

Its called Paladin tanking. A complete snore fest (9696969zzzzzzz96zzz9696zzzz).

[Waterisbest]

Someone finally concerned about all the resto druids changes.

1) Hots gaining extra ticks with haste.
2) Hots now being critable.
3) Hots doing more healing when target is at low hp.
3) ToF making regrowth instant and making lifebloom give 2 stacks.
4) Tranquility being raid-wide.

Too many buffs compared to other classes. This will make Resto Druids much more valuable then Priest and Shamans when it comes to raid healing, especially in 10 mans. In 10 man, it will be bring a Resto Druid and random healer for tank healing (maybe a 3rd healer for 10man hc). In 25 man they will dominate by far as well, now that the raid will never be full health, so they will always be 100% efficient and providing excellent "Oh Shit!" healing.

Guilds will go with 3 resto druids, 1 paladin, 1 priest (disc) and priest (holy)/resto shaman.

Even though Resto Shamans got some awesome spells, they look excellent on paper, but won't be that good in actual play.

1) Healing rain. Has a long cd, diminishing returns, applied to an area rather then directly on players, meaning if players move from that area, the healing is lost. Whereas Wild Growth does not have are restriction and much lower cd.

2) Spirit Walker's Grace. Spells can now be casted while moving, 2 mins cd. Whereas ToF now makes Regrowth instant and LB provide 2 stacks. Not to mention the hots.

3) Spirit Link. No info on this, but by looking at things, it is a damage reduction spell, one which takes some damage from the target and applies it to another. Nothing special really.

Disc Priest are the only healers which look decent besides Resto Druids. Because they bring damage reduction. Disc Priest + Resto Druid = win for any 10man raid. I am not really familiar with all the Holy Priest and Holy Paladin changes (as I don't play either of them) but they don't look so awesome.

I know these are not the final changes and we have beta and haven't seen the encounters. But these are some legit concerns.

[Fuzzzie]

The prize for this arena tournament is a skin for your celestial steed so you don't get made fun of anymore.

[Deleted]

Reminder about previous paladin heal change notes:

Here's a bit more clarification on some of these changes. Also, please keep in mind that this is merely a preview and we'll still have more to go in testing up to and including any other changes that aren't listed here in the preview.

We've updated the Flash of Light reference to make it a bit more clear in the original post as follows.

• Flash of Light remains a fast heal, but will be more expensive to justify the cast speed. Holy Light will be the go-to heal that has average efficiency and throughput. Beacon of Light needs to be changed so that its benefit is letting the paladin heal two targets at once, not letting the paladin get two heals for the mana cost of one. It’s intended to save GCDs and targeting time, not mana.

In addition we’re changing the paladin heal design to match that of the other healers. Holy Light is the middle heal. It’s very efficient, but not particularly fast and doesn’t have a lot of throughput. Flash of Light will be the faster heal that costs more mana. (Currently paladins sort of flip the model around by having a fast, efficient heal.) Holy paladins can talent into an additional heal that is like a giant Holy Light. It might take three of these big heals (or two crits) to get a tank from death’s door back to 100% health.

Currently on live, Beacon of Light is a tool that allows paladins to target more than just the main tank. In Cataclysm if it just doubles their healing, it is going to be overpowered. We have two ways we might handle this and we’ll experiment to see which feels better. The first is that Beacon only works on some heals, such as Flash of Light or Holy Light (but not the big one). An alternative idea is that Beacon increases the mana cost of a heal cast on a beaconed target, since you’re essentially getting a double heal. Under this model, Beacon itself would cost no mana.

Also on the live realms currently, paladins have huge mana pools and massive throughput. The trade-off is that they are excellent single target healers and much weaker in other roles. We want paladins to be slightly more interchangeable with other healers. In Cataclysm, you should be able to have a Holy priest on the tank and a Holy paladin on the raid. We’re not sure we’ll back off of the current healing roles completely, but we definitely want to add more breadth to those whose roles are currently too narrow.

As for the Guardian of Ancient Kings. First, it's important to understand that this is not a pet nor does it have a pet bar associated with it. Second, it's also not meant to last for very long. So, it's not a pet in the traditional sense. It's a friend in need when you need it, but not a permanent companion.

Paladin Healing model
We talked a lot about keeping the paladin model inverted, where the small heal is super efficient. There is probably a way it could still work. In the end we were just concerned that it would end up biting us in the rear. Somewhere along the way we'd have to make special rules to handle the paladin, who would risk being too mana efficient or too incapable of healing when forced to heal outside of their mana-efficient comfort zone. Could we have designed it? Probably. But frankly I'd rather spend our time on more interesting mechanics and spells. I'd rather the new AE heal really make paladins feel like they can AE heal rather than really making sure FoL felt small, cheap and fast. I agree it erodes a little bit of distinction among the classes, but only a little bit. There are far more interesting ways to make healers feel unique than in the relative mana efficiency of their small spell. (Source)

[Puntar]

AoE tanking ain't that hard with any class...

I really hope they remove all the AoE, its very boring. It has dumbed down dps ALOT. Seems like most dps classes are just doing 1-2 attacks in most heroics. Everyone forgot LOS, CC, silence pulls. Could be a problem with two must scaling also, when lich came out 3000 dps was pretty good in raids. Now you do 10 000 or more (well not me, but those in the latest tier). Why such huge scaling?

200 ilvl (epic) 2h weapon = 186,6 dps

245 ilvl - 2h weapon = 255,7 dps

264 ilvl - 2h weapon = 294,7 dps

277 ilvl - 2h weapon = 325,7 dps

284 ilvl - 2h weapon = 344,2 dps

Look at the difference in dps! Almost double. Sure, most people have weapon at 245 - 251 range, still weapon dps scaling is ... mind boggling.

Look at the difference between 245 and 284 weapon. more than 30% better dps from weapon alone, yet ilevel difference is only 15,9%

[DrgnDancer]

Paladin (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Healing Hands
Healing Hands is one of the ways we want to let paladins raid heal and it might even be the dominant way. We want to give them a group heal that isn't Circle of Healing or Chain Heal or HEALING STREAM TOTEM, because we've already done those spells and we want to do something new here (OH WAIT HEALING STREAM TOTEM).

Except that the proposed ability is completely unlike Healing stream Totem. First, there's mobility. If HST is like Death and Decay, the new Paladin heal is like Swipe. D&D is great (in some ways better) if you know where the MoBs will be, and won't need to move them. Swipe is much better if the MoBs spawn randomly or you have to move them around. The Paladin will become the mobile source of group healing, as opposed to a totem which is a statically placed item that you have to avoid getting out of range for.

Perhaps more importantly, I assume, the new Paladin ability will be a real heal, ticking for a reasonable amount of health. HST just ticks for a little bit to kind of offer supplemental heals. You can't "raid heal" with HST except in the most trivial of circumstances.

Edit: As I think about it, the Totem is even more limited than D&D, because it only appears near the Shaman's current location. It's more like Consecrate. Great if you happen to be standing where you need the threat, but not so much if you need to move.

[Deleted]

Someone finally concerned about all the resto druids changes.

1) Hots gaining extra ticks with haste.
2) Hots now being critable.
3) Hots doing more healing when target is at low hp.
3) ToF making regrowth instant and making lifebloom give 2 stacks.
4) Tranquility being raid-wide.

Too many buffs compared to other classes. This will make Resto Druids much more valuable then Priest and Shamans when it comes to raid healing, especially in 10 mans. In 10 man, it will be bring a Resto Druid and random healer for tank healing (maybe a 3rd healer for 10man hc). In 25 man they will dominate by far as well, now that the raid will never be full health, so they will always be 100% efficient and providing excellent "Oh Shit!" healing.

You're overreacting. You are viewing these changes against the current environment and context. It's as if you think these changes are coming in just another patch. I don't think you realise how much things will change in Cataclysm.

All health pools will be huge relative to where they are now. In addition, the mana costs of all spells will greatly increase. This will have a huge impact on overhealing. With the additional changes to the paladin healing model, for example, I'm guessing overhealing will be rare. In such an environment, stats like haste, if they were kept as they are now, would actually be a significant disadvantage. You would eat through mana while gaining next to nothing. That's why haste, and to a lesser extent crit, is being re-worked. If druids attempted to spam Rejuv as they do now, by raid-wide pre-hotting against incoming damage (effectively acting like super-efficient PWS shielders), they would be OOM in next to no time. Most of the time all healers will simply not be able to afford keeping everyone topped up nor will they need to (due to incoming damage changes).

In other words, if anything druids are going to be the most affected by all the changes because due to lots of HoT spells, many of them instant, and now with much higher mana costs, they will not be able to chain HoTs per target or spam group wide heals. Even when they do, if their spells remained exactly as they are now, their HoT spells alone would be by far the most inefficient healing from the the lowest health. This is why HoT Scale Healing was introduced - it improves throughput for "boot-strap" heals in particular.

With regards to Tree of Life, no one knows how long and how often the cooldown can be used. And in fact, they haven't set in stone (certainly not published) what it will actually do. If they make it too powerful and general, it becomes a huge crutch for druids. Their healing will be luckluster or even gimped whenever they are not able to use ToL. It would also make a mockery of Blizzard's class balancing system since healers are balanced in caster form without taking into account active cooldowns. If they make it too powerful but situational, it could end up becoming like the current Tranquility. People will start to realise its simply not needed most of the time, its tricky to organise in a raid and eventually (especially due to passive bonuses that require respeccing into), they could just ignore it all together. So, making a ToL that is useful but not a crutch and not situational to the point of being useless, will be very tricky indeed. This is one of the reasons why some PvE healing druids did not want ToL to be switched from passive to active - they would rather it had been removed entirely if they could no longer have a mainly passive healing ability for sustained healing throughput.

As for tranquility becoming raid-wide, well every other healer has more oh-shit buttons - especially paladins. Priests also have a viable raid-wide oh-shit button (Divine Hymn + Divine Aegis). How come druids are the only ones without oh-shit buttons? Nature's Swiftness barely counts since all other healers have at least that button. So, finally they make Tranquility useful.

TL;DR. The druid changes cannot be considered in isolation, especially not against the current healing environment, type of incoming damage and stat system. They could be fair changes or even underpowered and situational come Cataclysm. In addition, Cataclysm will be the expansion of reactive healing not pro-active healing. This is a big blow to the current druid healing model - certainly druids are the most affected due to the ease of pre-hotting - and, in my opinion, a power shift towards preventative healing (priests and to a lesser extent paladins).

[Amatoxin]

From the tourny FAQ, it still shows Armored Murloc Pet being the pet. and Vanquisher being the title rewards...

[Stixxz]

Heroic leap removed again?

[xalenthas]

Someone finally concerned about all the resto druids changes.

1) Hots gaining extra ticks with haste.
2) Hots now being critable.
3) Hots doing more healing when target is at low hp.
3) ToF making regrowth instant and making lifebloom give 2 stacks.
4) Tranquility being raid-wide.

Too many buffs compared to other classes...

People really need to get out of thinking that the next expansion means were playing wow version 4.0 and instead think of it as become WoW2, i.e. how things are and interact now all stops and a whole new system is coming in.

Maybe even with extra hot ticks the the total healing provided is less than now
Maybe the new hot crits only bring it up to the current levels
etc

We don't know (possibly Blizzard isn't certain either) and won't until people start getting into the Beta.

What they [Blizz] are doing is putting in tools (namely Mastery) to make their life easier with regards to balancing the various specs, though that's just one of the possibilities.

[Luris]

I do not agree with the picture of the Arena with a troll getting his head bashed.
Should've been a gnome... :P

So many changes, it's nice to keep reading and reading even if it not all makes it to the end cut.

[Deleted]

I do not agree with the picture of the Arena with a troll getting his head bashed.

Political correctness in WoW - whatever next...

Should've been a gnome... :P

Racist! Reminds me of Dark Legacy "woblin"

[Twoshorty]

Good luck to peeps in Arena Tournament.

[Paulkariya]

He couldn't have meant Intimidating shout could he? ???


I am pretty sure he meant demo shout...