Throne of the Four Winds - Skywall Raid Instance
Let's post something new today! The Throne of the Four Winds is the raid instance in Skywall, the elemental plane of Air. It will feature 2 encounters:


  • A fight against the "Conclave of Wind", a Djinn council. (The Djinn model in the game files is the one used by Siamat)
  • A fight against Al'akir, the Elemental Lord of Air. (No models yet)

The instance looks similar to the Vortex Pinnacle, the 5-man dungeon of Skywall and players will move between platforms with their flying mounts.




Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Hunter (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Volley removed
I know I'm going to regret posting in this thread again, but I think it's the right thing to do so I'll take one for the team.

We think Multi-Shot is a more interesting ability and can fill the hunter AE niche (along with Explosive Trap). We'll have to change Multi-Shot from the current version to get it there. I'm very sorry if for some unusual reason Volley was your favorite spell as a hunter. We've been trying to consolidate abilities and free up some bar space and having multiple AEs that competed with each other seems like a good area to hit up. The Volley and Multi-Shot niches were very similar, which resulted in the latter being dead. We wanted to pick one and we though Multi-Shot felt more huntery and less "clunky" (to use a favorite Wow forums term).

Do consider that you won't be AE'ing yourselves through Cataclysm content the way you do currently. When you do need to AE, hunters will have the tools to do so. In situations where you do have to AE, you are probably not also trying to CC. When you're back to the level of trivializing lower level content, nobody is going to say "Don't bring a hunter. Their AE spam isn't spammy enough." We don't consider easily breaking rogues out of stealth a good reason to keep Volley around.

I think that hits most of the reasonable concerns. I care much less about addressing the unreasonable ones.

As always, those of you whose sole contribution is to post very inane or derogatory things will be banned.

Man, have we come a long way from "AE is only for trash." (Source)

Paladin (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
One Man Army
Yes. Many of the problems we've had with Ret are of the "one man army" category, where a paladin can do a lot of damage, then go defensive and heal themselves up. We love the kit of the paladin who can heal as well as do damage, but it needs to be tightly controlled. Word of Glory gives us that control. We have the room to make the spell really powerful because we know its on a tight cooldown and you sacrifice dps to use it. We can't do that today with say Flash of Light, because once you can cast one strong FoL, you can cast a bunch of them until you go OOM (at which point you Judge or Divine Plea, and you're going again). Similarly, we can make Selfless Healer nearly overpowered because you can't use it on yourself and because even with it you're not going to out compete a Holy paladin in healing. If you can occasionally contribute to group healing in tight spots, then that's great. That's some utility you can provide. (Note: Don't oversell this as "I'll get brought to raids because of my healing.") (Source)

Class balance and RNG
That's the wrong view to take though. The equivalent would be "I'm balanced around getting a crit every swing, so when that doesn't happen, RNG screws me." You get a Templar's Verdict every 3 Crusader Strikes. Sometimes you get lucky and need fewer. You of course need to pay attention for when that happens and be able to react to it and alter your immediate plans. That right there is the element we think is most missing from today's Ret paladin. (Source)

Words of Glory
The amount it heals is most definitely balanced around how good it will be for Holy.
Those numbers don't have to be the same though. The new talent tree design affords us a lot more flexibility in that regard. Part of the reason Word of Glory is so useful to Holy is because it costs no mana. Ret doesn't really care about mana, because it comes and goes easily, but a Ret generally won't be able to sit there and queue up several Holy Lights in a row. They will be able to sometimes use a Word of Glory though. (Source)

New World of Warcraft Fan Wallpaper
The World of Warcraft Fan Wallpapers have been updated with a new wallpaper titled "Cataclysm" by Kenvd.

This article was originally published in forum thread: Throne of the Four Winds, Blue Posts, Wallpaper started by Boubouille View original post
Comments 133 Comments
  1. Lazertrooper's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Rude Hero View Post
    "The Throne of the Four Winds is the raid instance in Skywall, the elemental plane of Air. It will feature 2 encounters"

    WOAH. That seems a little more extreme to me. As posters have said before me, the wording makes it seem like there are two encounters, one of which is Iron Council-style.

    I don't mind keeping some of the raids small, but I hope that the total number of raid encounters available at release will be comparable to or greater than Wrath's. From what we've heard so far, it sounds like there will be three raids upon release- Skywall, Bastion of Twilight and Blackwing Descent. It looks like they'll have 2, 4 and 6 bosses respectively, adding up to 12. Add an algalon-style fight to each raid and you have 15. How does that compare to the other expansions?
    It's already better than wotlk which only had 2 bosses on release.
  1. Rude Hero's Avatar
    On Volley:

    Yes, if hunters lost volley and multi-shot remained the same as it is now, that would suck. That's not going to happen. I expect it to either drastically increase in the number of targets it can hit or become a targeted fan of knives. Volley just doesn't work with energy/fous.


    On Paladins:

    I was going to go more in-depth on this but... protection pallies aren't a threat, ret paladins are so kitable it's not even funny, and holy paladins are a pain, just like every other healer in the game.

    Pro tip: Every ability they have (even bubble!) is of the holy school. Use your counterspells and silences, please.

    ---------- Post added 2010-08-25 at 05:30 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Lazertrooper View Post
    It's already better than wotlk which only had 2 bosses on release.
    Oh yeah, it blasts wrath out of the water, with its refurbished content. But didn't BC (I didn't raid during it, so forgive me if I'm wrong) have a ton more? Like 20+ if you count the 10-man Karazhan?
  1. Lazertrooper's Avatar
    Yes and tbc on release was amazing. the only bad thing about tbc was the huge jump from karazhan to gruul/magtheridon.

    but then again, people who could clear karazhan and heroics prenerf didn't have much problem getting 25 people together for gruul/mag anyways.
  1. Hatemachine's Avatar
    Are these Skywall screenshots on DirectX 10 or 11? If the way these beautiful textures are being displayed is because of DirectX 11, I'm gonna cry. :-/
  1. phenom568's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Lazertrooper View Post
    It's already better than wotlk which only had 2 bosses on release.
    Um....lets me see your naxx 60 kill, otherwise the entire place was new for you.

    ---------- Post added 2010-08-25 at 10:43 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Rude Hero View Post
    On Volley:

    Yes, if hunters lost volley and multi-shot remained the same as it is now, that would suck. That's not going to happen. I expect it to either drastically increase in the number of targets it can hit or become a targeted fan of knives. Volley just doesn't work with energy/fous.


    On Paladins:

    I was going to go more in-depth on this but... protection pallies aren't a threat, ret paladins are so kitable it's not even funny, and holy paladins are a pain, just like every other healer in the game.

    Pro tip: Every ability they have (even bubble!) is of the holy school. Use your counterspells and silences, please.

    ---------- Post added 2010-08-25 at 05:30 PM ----------



    Oh yeah, it blasts wrath out of the water, with its refurbished content. But didn't BC (I didn't raid during it, so forgive me if I'm wrong) have a ton more? Like 20+ if you count the 10-man Karazhan?
    Now if only pallys had some sort of instant heal on a 6 sec timer....O WAIT....stop being bad.

    Again i ask did you clear naxx at 60....betting not so it was new content for you.
  1. Rude Hero's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by phenom568 View Post
    Um....lets me see your naxx 60 kill, otherwise the entire place was new for you.

    ---------- Post added 2010-08-25 at 10:43 PM ----------


    Now if only pallys had some sort of instant heal on a 6 sec timer....O WAIT....stop being bad.

    Again i ask did you clear naxx at 60....betting not so it was new content for you.
    First of all, let's keep this friendly. The focus of my post wasn't complaining about naxx. I'm trying to figure out how much I should be impressed by Cataclysm's entry level raid content compared to previous expansions. Cataclysm will have less bosses than wrath did at release, but they're all completely new fights.

    Second of all, I already said that all healers were a pain to kill. Holy paladins are no exception. And last time I checked, neither ret nor prot paladins had access to the 6 second cooldown holy shock. They might even get an instant flash of light every once in a while!

    Personally, I eat paladins alive on my warrior and (especially) my mage... so... are you asking me to stop being good?
  1. Legendairee's Avatar
    there are 3 entry level raids, with a total of over 10 iirc bosses
  1. delage35's Avatar
    Even the inane moaning like you typed below isn't enough to get you banned from anything.

    But you might ask, why is my post inane (and therefore irrelevant since it will be ignored by the devs)?

    Good question: it's because every point you raised was already addressed and explained. You've offered nothing in the form of a logical rationale to go in a different direction.

    1) Multishot gets changed to become something in between what it is now and what volley is now rather than keeping them both... what it is now does not stay the same while volley gets removed. You're really just moaning about keeping the ability name "multishot" for an ability you've never seen or used that is a hybrid of the two. You go girl!

    2) The new hybrid AE aligns with other AE changes occurring in other classes for Cata; ie tuned for the role they expect hunters to play relative to other classes. God forbid they design a game where each class has a separate style of play and role that fits in with the rest of the game.

    3) According to their numbers, multishot got largely ignored in favor of volley, so both versions of AE existing in parallel previously is also meaningless.

    Introduce a new idea and maybe folks would care.


    Quote Originally Posted by omslemming View Post
    `As always, those of you whose sole contribution is to post very inane or derogatory things will be banned.`


    in other words typical blizzard, disagree with us in any way and youll be banned, as a hunter who uses volley a lot for aoe situations I think i have a right to moan about this, all i can say is whatever they put in the game to replace it better be as useful/damaging or or your gonna get a lot of pissed off hunters in the game.

    multishot that hits 1 or 2 mobs is nothing like volley so to compare the 2 is crazy, thats like saying a rogues blade flurry is a valid aoe ability in a group of 5 or 6 mobs......ignoring the fact it only hits some of them.

    the bigger question is why? why can you not have volley and multishot working side by side the same as you have for years why change something that noone im aware of qqs about(i dont recall any volley sucks qqs) it just seems blizz are changing things for the sake of it now stop trying to over complicate things like this blizzard because in doing so your proably going to end of removing abilitys like this that a lot of people use for some unknown reason i cant think of other then u fancied stirring the class yet again.

    `
  1. Deepfriedegg's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Lazertrooper View Post
    It's already better than wotlk which only had 2 bosses on release.
    I think 18 is not 2... Naxx had 15, and then one in Obsidian Sanctum, Eye of Eternity and Vault of Archavon. I think you wanted to point out that Naxx wasnt new and you dont count Archavon to be a raid boss. But in fact, Archavon required a raid group and dropped raiding loot. And also Naxxramas´s loot improved "a bit" from level 60 so it was relevant raiding content. 18 bosses are 18 bosses, not 2
  1. Azerox's Avatar
    Nice wallpaper

    Garrosh beiing a big man with feathers from his pops .. fail xD
  1. Lazertrooper's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Deepfriedegg View Post
    I think 18 is not 2... Naxx had 15, and then one in Obsidian Sanctum, Eye of Eternity and Vault of Archavon. I think you wanted to point out that Naxx wasnt new and you dont count Archavon to be a raid boss. But in fact, Archavon required a raid group and dropped raiding loot. And also Naxxramas´s loot improved "a bit" from level 60 so it was relevant raiding content. 18 bosses are 18 bosses, not 2
    Mechanics of naxxramas was watered down so much. nevermind naxx, heroics was basically normal, no challenge at all. the fact that a piss easy boss like lokan caused so much whine is demonstration that wotlk whines are worthless. the fact that wotlk did not give the same amount of subscription rise as tbc is another proof that wotlk raid design is a failure.

    2 bosses are 2 bosses, not 18. what you say is irrelevent. If you want to support activision so badly, feel welcome to buy their shares instead of coming here posting crap information.

    Atm, cataclysm has over 5 times more raiding content on release than wotlk, so stuff that.
  1. Poper's Avatar
    Volley removed because is not realistic for a hunter... but we can summon arrows from tin air??? (no ammo) sure!!.....
  1. Rakkam's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Mstermeg View Post
    I would prefer it if they made heroics hard no matter what your gear is at, they have the means and know-how to do it

    Ever go into BC heroic and try to solo it on an ICC geared 80? Damn hard considering they are a whopping 10 levels below you!!
    I plow trough heroic MG terrace with my protection paladin and Feral druid, both mostly Item level 232.

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