The Vortex Pinnacle - Skywall 5-Man Video
TotalBiscuit released a long (28 minutes) video of the new Vortex Pinnacle 5-man instance located in Uldum/Skywall.



Cataclysm Pets - Armadillo and Seagull
2 Companion pets have been added to the game in the latest beta build, the Rutsberg Seagull and the Armadillo. The texture on the armadillo seems to be a little low res but keep in mind that the pet is fairly small.

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Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

LVL 85 Dungeons too hard?
It's not quite that extreme. The problem currently is that some players are tackling Uldum or Twilight Highlands in level 83 gear, or worse, their LK epics (just had to throw that in there ). You will probably want a good mix of level 84 and 85 gear before doing the level 85 dungeons, and certainly the heroics. Eloderung says that he or she now has a decent mix of dungeon gear so the quest gear issue should be skewing things less. There are still overtuned or undertuned bosses and abilities for us to contend with though. (Source)

6% vs. 10% spellpower in Cataclysm
The 10% spell power isn't offered by a ton of specs (nor are there any other specs that we want to add it to), but the buff makes a really big difference to casters. The 6% buff is there so we could make sure you weren't totally without any kind of buff if you lacked one of the 10% guys. (Source)

Mastery Stat
Well, they are shiny and new and pretty much give you exactly what you want, so that response isn't too surprising. It's good that mastery is attractive and fun. We just don't want non-mastery gear to be viewed as junk the way some classes view some stats on Live. (Source)

Spamming the same spell
Right. It's a skill curve thing. If there is a right time to use something and a big penalty for doing something at the wrong time, then there is a bigger difference between good and less good players. If you can pretty much do something whenever, then there is less to learn about your class, less to perfect and ultimately less reward in investing in understanding the character. (Source)

Paladin (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Holy Light / Flash of Light spamming
We just don't agree that it worked. What generally happened was either the set bonuses, glyphs and librams all aligned to make either Flash of Light the best spell or Holy Light. In rare cases we got lucky and paladins could choose to gear either for a FoL or HL spam, but they were still choosing one spell over the other. They really weren't using a particular spell for a particular job, so the toolbox felt small and they were hitting the same buttons all the time.

I can almost promise you that a Holy paladin in Cataclysm will use Holy Shock, Word of Glory, Flash of Light, Holy Light, Divine Light, Holy Radiance and Light of Dawn on every challenging dungeon or raid run. That sounds a lot more fun than spamming Holy Light with the occasional Holy Shock on cooldown. (Source)

Mana costs
Mana needs to matter more. Ret (and Prot) generally need to be able to hit all of "their" buttons without being resource constrained, but then should only have enough mana to situationally use things like Holy Light, Exorcism or (untalented) Consecrate.

It's fine to cast one Exorcism at range to pull or something, but it's not something we generally want you doing outside of Art of War procs. We're pretty reluctant to put a cooldown back on the spell though. (Source)

AE Healing
We just don't believe the healing situation and the AE healing situation in particular is as dire as many of you are suggesting. We balance the encounters around the class capabilities, so if many groups are struggling on certain ones, those will be adjusted accordingly. We generally don't give classes new abilities because they have trouble on certain fights. If you're finding that you are just constantly behind the curve on every encounter, even the trash, then you are probably doing something wrong (attempting these dungeons undergeared is something we are seeing a lot) or your class has some kind of systemic bug that is affecting all of the healing you do.

Overall, the dungeons probably will end up more challenging than they were in Lich King. Even if we eventually end up with 10 minute chain pulling 5-player dungeons in Deathwing gear, there is no need to start out that way. (Source)

Holy Mastery
Incidentally, we looked at mastery for Holy paladins today and decided we were happy, for now, with the power it offers, so reforge away if you think that makes you more powerful. We might always tweak things in the future. (Source)

Changing Light of Dawn to only use Holy Power
We thought about a similar implementation a lot, but just worried that would make Light of Dawn harder to use. With a long cooldown, you at least can save it until you think you need it. Sitting on 3 Holy Power (and being unable to use Word of Glory during that time) might be brutal. (Source)

Haste/Crit/Overhealing in Cataclysm
That's an interesting perspective. Typically LK paladins tell us that they like haste because it lets them get a heal out *right now* before a tank dies, but don't like crit because it often overheals. To use a tired cliche, it did feel a lot like Whack-a-mole because you needed to heal ASAP but how hard you healed someone wasn't nearly as important. FoL could often bring someone to full and a HL crit would be tons of overhealing. (I am talking only about the stats in how they affect healing per se, not extra effects like Illumination.) In Cataclysm you won't overheal as much (making the free healing from crits more useful) but you won't be in constant fear of the tank dying in one GCD (making haste less useful). (Source)

Warrior (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Secondary effect on Heroic Leap
Adding a secondary effect to Heroic Leap, like a Thunder Clap or letting you get out of roots might be a good role for a glyph. We don't like to glyph new high level abilities immediately because then players don't appreciate what the glyph does for them, since they have never used the ability unglyphed. It's something we could consider for a future patch. (Source)
This article was originally published in forum thread: Vortex Pinnacle Video, Companion Pets, Blue Posts, started by Boubouille View original post
Comments 113 Comments
  1. The Glitch's Avatar
    TotalBiscuit, awesome video as always really enjoy your videos and your commentary^^

    Note about Water: You can buy water from City Inn Keepers

    Sparkling Oasis Water Level 80 Restores 45000 mana over 30 secs ( not much better than the jelly but a little
    Highland Spring Water Level 85 Restores 72000 mana over 30 secs

    Might make life a little better for ya for now^ My Moonkin is suffering mana issues too so I feel ya!

    Thanks again and keep up the great work
  1. Rukari's Avatar
    Other players complain about how paladins are broken, easy-mode, faceroll, the beginner class, etc

    Next expansion, paladins get completely revamped to counter this perceived problem and the other players cry that their trees aren't getting the same amount of attention even though by their own admittance they don't need it.

    Paladins get a large amount of blue posts to explain the comparably large amount of changes and the other players cry that they're not getting the same amount of attention, again, even though by their own admittance they haven't has nearly as much change.
  1. Balir's Avatar
    I don't want a Seagull pet...it would just shit on my mount anyway.
  1. cysf66's Avatar
    Great stuff
  1. steale's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Rukari View Post
    Other players complain about how paladins are broken, easy-mode, faceroll, the beginner class, etc

    Next expansion, paladins get completely revamped to counter this perceived problem and the other players cry that their trees aren't getting the same amount of attention even though by their own admittance they don't need it.

    Paladins get a large amount of blue posts to explain the comparably large amount of changes and the other players cry that they're not getting the same amount of attention, again, even though by their own admittance they haven't has nearly as much change.
    Lol well we know what class you play. Other classes complain because for all the broken mechanics and specs in the game, seeing day after day of blue walls of text answering paladin questions with the occasional footnote about warriors is retarded. The eleven year old blood elves cam wait till live to see what's changed like the rest of us apparently have to. I'd rather not get any updates at all than continue to see what paladins are getting and nothing else.
  1. Sarathos12's Avatar
    I intend to NEVER tank or heal on my paladin again (My primary and secondary spec btw). The only thing pallies will be able to do well is dps and MAYBE an EMERGENCY heal/pull. And even though they'll be able to do dps, they still won't be able to compete with the more specialized dps classes. The thing that bothers me is that blizzard obviously sees tanking/healing with a pally to be too easy, so they're going to make it a little more "interesting" (Note that "interesting" is often used as a synonym for "harder."). I don't have anything against making it "interesting," but for the love of God, Blizzard, don't get so dang carried away with it.
  1. Ikkatsu's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Rukari View Post
    Other players complain about how paladins are broken, easy-mode, faceroll, the beginner class, etc

    Next expansion, paladins get completely revamped to counter this perceived problem and the other players cry that their trees aren't getting the same amount of attention even though by their own admittance they don't need it.

    Paladins get a large amount of blue posts to explain the comparably large amount of changes and the other players cry that they're not getting the same amount of attention, again, even though by their own admittance they haven't has nearly as much change.
    Bullshit.

    Hunters have had a HUGE change and have an entirely broken spec, yet i dont think ive seen a single blue post that wasnt talking about Volley.

    Death Knights have a broken rune system (they say improved) that causes tanks to have to trade between threat generation and survivability... something that Warriors, Druids and Paladins don't need to do.
  1. swissaccount's Avatar
    i'm considering changing my warrior to DPS/pvp specs because of how many AOE tanking there are! what the hell? i thought it wasn't going to be aoe spam anymore and TB basically states prot warrs are messed
  1. Rukari's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by steale View Post
    Lol well we know what class you play. Other classes complain because for all the broken mechanics and specs in the game, seeing day after day of blue walls of text answering paladin questions with the occasional footnote about warriors is retarded. The eleven year old blood elves cam wait till live to see what's changed like the rest of us apparently have to. I'd rather not get any updates at all than continue to see what paladins are getting and nothing else.
    And we know which class you don't play.

    Nothing displays maturity more than sweeping generalizations, unprovoked insults, and lashing out at other people just because one feels they aren't getting enough attention.

    If you want someone to blame, why don't you start with the people who insisted that paladins were OP, too easy to play, and that one only had to roll their face across their keyboard to be successful as one. They're the ones that started this chain of events.

    Hatred of Paladins in this case amounts to nothing more than envy. They're doing nothing different than any other class, the only difference is what they're receiving which they have no real control over.
  1. Leetbeartank's Avatar
    28 minutes of listening to a brit whining... Terrible video.
  1. quiz's Avatar
    Nice video, i am sure they will fix that spirit ress problem but its fun to have in beta .
  1. Greyhawk's Avatar
    The irony is hearing Death Knights - the prestige OP class - complaining that paladins are getting attention, when for years they've been one of the most neglected classes by Blizzard. About time they made playing a paladin interesting again from a game perspective.

    Sorry if DKs don't get the spotlight - you've had it since the release of WotLK. Learn to share.
  1. swissaccount's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Greyhawk View Post
    The irony is hearing Death Knights - the prestige OP class - complaining that paladins are getting attention, when for years they've been one of the most neglected classes by Blizzard. About time they made playing a paladin interesting again from a game perspective.

    Sorry if DKs don't get the spotlight - you've had it since the release of WotLK. Learn to share.
    lol what? paladins/druids were the prime tanks of WOLK. DKs had their limelight in vezax and OS3D but that's it

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