When King Greymane severed ties with the Alliance after the Second War, the kingdom of Gilneas became independent from all other nations and opposing forces. Although the massive Greymane Wall protected Gilneas from outside threats, a virulent worgen curse and civil war crippled the kingdom from within. As the Cataclysm strikes and the Greymane Wall's gates are destroyed, the people of Gilneas must come to terms with their dark curse and learn to persevere through catastrophic earthquakes and an unrelenting Forsaken invasion. The Horde recognizes this land as a strategic location with key resources to fuel the faction's war effort against the Alliance, and Horde forces will not stop their siege until the city and its surrounding territories are under their control. To protect its lands from the Horde, the once-isolated nation of Gilneas must now work with the Alliance.

Controlling Resources
The Battle for Gilneas is a new 10 vs. 10 Battleground for level-85 players. Much like they do in Arathi Basin, teams must control strategic capture points on the map to accumulate resources. The first team to gather 2000 resources wins.

The Battle
Teams will start at opposite ends of the map with default graveyards nearby. Once the match begins, teams will race toward each other to vie for control of three strategic points; each point will allow your team to gain resources and additional graveyards. Adding to the intensity of the battle are many obstacles that block line of sight, as well as chokepoints for fending off enemy advances.

The Overlook
In the center of the map is an area known as the Overlook. Hills on either side of the map create chokepoints, while narrow paths through the hills provide teams with alternate routes. A river dividing the map will also lead opponents toward a single bridge. In some cases, dominating the Overlook might be the key to controlling the capture points.

Capture Points
In The Battle for Gilneas, three distinct resource points are available for the taking by either the Horde or the Alliance: the Mines, the Lighthouse, and the Waterworks. Once any of these points is held by a team, access to nearby graveyards will be granted. In addition, workers from the controlling faction will show up to collect the resources necessary to win the battle.

Chaos will be unleashed upon Azeroth when Deathwing returns, but many steadfast leaders will see the Cataclysm as an opportunity to further the cause of their people... or simply attain more power. The situation in Gilneas is no different. Will the embattled Gilneans be able to defend their land after realigning with the Alliance? Or will the Forsaken, reinforced by Garrosh's Horde, seize this near-forgotten territory as a new stronghold in the Eastern Kingdoms?

Here's some information on how each of the currencies will be converted in the next content patch. Keep in mind these values may change, and they can get a bit math heavy. Just know that our intent is to appropriately value each mark and provide a conversion we feel is fair.

The following items are immediately converted to gold:

• Emblem of Heroism = 5.5 gold each
• Emblem of Valor = 5.5 gold each
• Emblem of Conquest = 5.5 gold each
• Badge of Justice = 1.833 gold each

Your New Honor Points total will be the sum of the following amounts:

• Old Honor * 0.024
• Old Arena Points * 0.85
• Battleground Mark of Honor * 2.976
• Wintergrasp Mark of Honor * 19.08
• Stone Keeper Shard * 1.6
• Venture Coin * 3
• Spirit Shard * 1

Your Justice Points total will be equal to (Emblems of Triumph + Emblems of Frost ) * 2.75

Again, the softcap for both Honor and Justice conversions is 4000 points. This means that if a character converts to above 4,000 points, it will not be possible for them to earn more until they fall below the 4,000 cap.

A hardcap will be implemented in a following patch before Cataclysm's release. At that time, any excess points above 4,000 will be converted as follows:

• Honor points above 4,000 are converted to gold at a rate of 35 silver per point of Honor.
• Justice points above 4,000 are converted to gold at a rate of 2 gold per point of Justice.

As we discussed in our previous announcement (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...Id=24401796793), we're refining the currency systems used for purchasing PvE and PvP items in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, and the transition to this new system will take place in two stages. Today, we're going into more detail on how these changes will be rolled out, so if you haven't yet, make sure to check out the prior article to get up to speed on the currency names.

One change of note since that original announcement is that we've changed the name of the low-tier PvE currency from Hero Points to Justice Points. The original announcement post has been updated to reflect this.

Out With the Old

In the upcoming 4.0 patch we'll begin the first stage of the conversion to the new currencies. Emblems of Triumph and Emblems of Frost will be converted into Justice Points. For this initial conversion there will be a soft cap of points you can have, with a hard cap enforced later as detailed below. All PvE emblems and badges below Frost and Triumph will be converted into gold. This even includes legacy badges, like Badges of Justice. If any of these older currencies are converted into gold, the player will receive it through an in-game letter.

At this time any bosses a player defeats that are level-appropriate to them (and previously awarded badges or emblems upon defeat) will award them with the new Justice Points. Similarly, any items that previously cost emblems or badges of any type will now cost Justice Points instead.

On the PvP side, Season 8 will end with the release of patch 4.0, and all Arena Points, Honor Points, any leftover Battleground Marks of Honor, Stone Keeper's Shards, Venture Coins, and Spirit Shards will be converted into the new Honor Points. The new Honor Point pool will also have a soft cap for these conversions, but a hard cap will be enforced later. At the time of conversion, items that previously cost Honor or Arena Points will be sold in exchange for the new Honor Points. Rated Arenas and Rated Battlegrounds won't be available again until Season 9 (shortly after the release of Cataclysm), when they can be entered to win the higher-tier PvP Conquest Points.

In addition, purchasing any item with these secondary currencies (Honor Points and Justice Points) will now require that the purchaser meet the item's minimum level requirement.

It's important to note that these conversions are not 1:1, but are indicative of the level and relative worth of each before the conversion to the new point systems. For example, Stone Keeper's Shards will convert into more Honor Points than Spirit Shards.

Tip of the Cap

While we previously announced that there's a limit to the amount of these new currencies you can stockpile, we're providing a grace period in the form of a soft cap. This soft cap will allow the initial conversion to push the amount owned over the cap, but will not allow any further points to be earned (or returned through item refunds) until enough points are spent to put you below the hard cap.

For instance, a player has 3000 Emblems of Triumph, and 1200 Emblems of Frost; at the time of conversion they'll be given 4200 Justice Points. The hard cap for Justice Points is 4000, so that player won't be able to earn any more Justice Points until he or she spends enough points to reduce the total to under 4000. This also applies to the new PvP Honor Points, which also have a cap of 4000.

Shortly before Cataclysm is released, another patch will enforce the hard cap, marking the second stage of the currency conversion. Any Justice or Honor Points above the hard cap will be converted to gold, and just like in the first stage of the conversion, the player will receive an in-game letter explaining that some of their currencies were converted into gold as well as delivering the gold itself.

Cataclysm Dungeons Difficulty
We want dungeons to be challenging. Not brutal, but challenging. Yes, trying to get us to change our minds on that is going to take some pretty spectacular debate skills on your part given just how much feedback we've received on it over the past year or so. But you can try to explain to us what it is about more challenging 5-player dungeons that threatens you, or what you dislike, and we can try to accommodate you. For example, the dungeons aren't going to be four hour trash-clearing fests like Heroic Shadow Labyrinth. Likewise, we're not going to ask healers to sit on their hands for long stretches of time for fear of wasting mana, because everyone has an efficient spell they can use when nobody is in imminent danger. On the other hand, if you just hate the idea of healers having a resource at all, well that goes against the design of the game. (Source)

Archaeology
There is definitely a large component of Archaeology which should be very attractive to completionists. It's quite awesome though. I think it'll add a lot of flavor to the game without necessarily being one of those "must have X" professions/skills/abilities.

Allowing you to explore some ruins in Azeroth you may have otherwise overlooked and learn more about this world's rich history is something we're very excited about. It has elements that feel a bit like questing, but you have much more freedom to choose how and when you want to explore the world for new artifacts. It's been set up to allow for a fairly simple expansion of content over time as well, so we look forward to giving digging deeper into Archaeology in the future. (Source)

PvP Balancing in 4.0.1 and Arena Season
When the class changes go live, damage is going to be very high relative to health for level 80 characters. We are spending most our PvP balancing effort at level 85, since that by far is what matters most to players. The health pools at 85, decaying combat ratings (because you'll be going from tier 3 gear to tier 0 gear), extra talent points and the 3 new abilities make a huge difference overall.

Since the current PvP season will end when these changes go live, they shouldn't have a lasting impact on ratings, titles and the like. We are prepared to just drop a temporary player damage nerf on all BGs and Arenas if necessary just so things don't feel too silly until everyone can level up to 85.

How things feel at 85 is of far more importance to us. We fully expect to see a lot of posts from freaked out players who imagine 85 will feel just like 80, but it won't. The gain in survivability is substantial. (Source)

Resilience Rating in 4.0.1
20% less damage taken overall by players, pets, minions.
For now, just imagine that it's N less damage taken. The salient point is that resilience will no longer affect crit chance. We don't like the crit (and talents based on crits, etc.) are devalued in high resilience environments.

Health pools grow enormously going from level 80 to 85. Resilience needs to be strong enough that it's still an attractive stat for PvP gear, but you won't blow up in one or two globals* even with low resilience.

* - If you let someone build up towards one of their very powerful attacks, then you deserve what you get. But you shouldn't need to worry about dying the second combat starts unless you're decently outnumbered. (Source)

Shaman (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Enhancement Changes
In our current Cataclysm build, we have cut the Primal Wisdom talent (and give it as part of the Enhancement passive) and reduced Unleashed Rage from 3 to 2 ranks, but with the same overall effect. That should take care of the extra talent points that the tree seemed to have.

We are still working on making the Searing Totem a little smarter. (Source)

Archaeology just went in this build for the first time and we don't yet have any of the support around it to teach players what to do. It has been informative to watch players learn to swim by drowning, but we thought it was time to offer a little more direction.

Digsites
Once you train archaeology, you can see digsites on your map (not your minimap - your map). There are always 4 digsites per continent. These will not change until you dig one out. Most of the time, you're probably only going to be concerned with the 4 sites on your current continent, but at higher character and archaeology skill levels, there will be 16 sites active at one time (4 each in Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor, Outland and Northrend.)

You will only find sites in zones of your level or lower. A level 25 player will have all 4 sites per continent in level 25 zones. (This means Outland and Northrend will have no sites at this time.) A level 80 player will have all 4 sites in any zone. A low level Kalimdor player might have sites in Ashenvale and Stonetalon, while a level 82 might have Uldum, Ashenvale, Stonetalon and Silithus.

Sites are race specific. You can usually guess the race by the location. Kalimdor tends to have a lot of night elf ruins. Eastern Kingdoms tends to have a lot of dwarf ruins.

Some races are only available on some continents (such as orc and draenei on Outland). You need to have a minimum character level and a minimum archaeology level to use these. Currently you can see them if you are a certain character level but can't gather from them until your archaeology skill is higher. For Outland, the skill is 300. While somewhat consistent with other gathering skills, we think this is confusing and we will change it so that you don't even see the digsites until your archaeology skill is sufficiently high. Tol'vir artifacts are the most rewarding, but also require near max archaeology skill to recover.

Some players are reporting some issues with digsites not showing up correctly. We'll look into these bugs.

Unlike other gathering skills, digsites are player-specific. Other players will be searching in different locations. There is no competition for digsites.

Fragments
Each digsite can be searched 3 times before it despawns and a new site spawns. If there is a digsite somewhere too far away from you or otherwise inconvenient, just ignore it and hit the closer ones. You won't run out.

To search a digsite, use the Survey ability. The survey tool will spawn and point in the approximate direction of the artifact. Red means you're far away. Yellow means you're close. Green means you may be within 40 yards or so. When you discover your find, you'll get fragments specific to a particular race.

There are two main strategies to surveying. You can attempt to triangulate by moving around the outer edge of a digsite. (Like quest blobs, the digsites are not necessarily circular.) Other players just keep surveying, heading in the direction the tool points until they strike paydirt.

Remember, the thing you uncover is yours. There is no competition with other players and nobody can gank your node.

Artifacts
Whenever you get a new fragment for a race, you'll start a research project. You can only work on one artifact per race at a time. When you have enough fragments, click Solve to complete that artifact. You won't waste excess fragments -- they will just start the next project. You can be working on one project for each race at a time.

Most artifacts are common. These give you a little bit of lore or flavor text and an item you can sell for a small profit (presumably to a museum!) The profit increases as the value of the artifact increases. You can estimate this by the number of fragments needed to finish the artifact. You will only find cheaper artifacts at low level, but you can find cheap and valuable artifacts at higher level (the reason for this is we want players to be able to find all the artifacts if they want to). You won't find a second copy of a common object until you have found all the artifacts of that race. If you get stuck at a certain skill level of archaeology or character level, you may find an artifact more than once until you reach the next tier.

Some artifacts are rare. These always make a blue or purple item. Many of these have no in-game power and are toys or for flavor. Some of them are actual weapons and armor. The latter items are all bound to account. They aren't heirlooms in that they don't scale, but you can pass them around. So if you are level 80 and you find a level 60 axe, you can always have another character use it when they are level 60. You will never get a rare artifact more than once.

The future
We designed archaeology to be easily expandable, so we plan to add much more content in future patches, including new races to research (though to be fair, there's a sizable amount of content already). We also have a feature that is not available on beta yet, that allows you to use your archaeology skill for a slight (think Fish Feast-level) bonus in the Cataclysm dungeons.

AQ20 is a 10-player raid in Cataclysm
ZG is being removed as a L60 raid. Havent heard anything about AQ20 though.
AQ20 has been converted to a 10 player raid. (Source)

Reforging on 4.0.1 PTRs
We've been creating a lot of builds lately for 4.0.1 and Cataclysm beta, so Reforging NPCs may not yet be available. As with all PTR processes, the patch notes are not comprehensive. Some changes may not be reflected in the notes, while others may not yet be available in the current build.

If Reforging is not yet active, it should be in an upcoming build. We want to give players a chance to try out the new feature. With all of the class changes going in, Reforging will allow players the opportunity to customize their gear a bit more before Cataclysm actually ships. It will also allow you to add Mastery to existing items if you so choose. (Source)

World Changes / New Race and Class combinations in Patch 4.0.1
The world will not be changing in patch 4.0.1. We are planning to apply those changes in patch 4.0.3 shortly before Cataclysm launch. (Source)

[...] New race/class combinations and changes to the old world (including quests) should be patch 4.0.3. I know it's kind of confusing since we typically release one major patch right before the release of the next expansion. In this case, many of the systems changes will be added in 4.0.1, while a lot of content changes will be added in 4.0.3.

The expansion will then provide players with access to the new races, new zones, level 85 cap, flight in Azeroth, Archaeology, etc. (Source)

Reduced XP from 70 to 80
This is still a possibility, but it's probably not something we're going to do immediately with the release of Cataclysm. (Source)

Guild XP for boss kills
Guild xp for boss kills is scaled on a few factors.

- Boss level
- Normal / Heroic
- Amount of guild members present (more xp for raids, since they are limited to once a week)

Hope this helps. (Source)

Spamming cheap heals in Cataclysm
Right now on the Beta videos a lot of the healers seem to be spamming the weak "Heal" for 90% of the time. So spamming is ok and we are expected to spam for most of the fight as long as what we're spamming is a weak spell? is this truly what is intended for Cata healers?
No, that's not the intent. We made those heals very cheap so that healers wouldn't be in constant terror of running out of mana. We also are making the normal modes easier than the heroic modes. You'll have to pair the right heal for the right situation to a greater degree in heroic modes. I think part of what you're seeing is that healers are using the base heal because they can get away with it. It's also possible that in our effort to distinguish them from the more expensive heals that we made the base heals too cheap or efficient. (Source)

Mage (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Arcane Mastery
According to Kavan on EJ, this theory of aiming to maintain your mana above some percentage is wrong anyways. If there was a magical percentage, it would be 40% because the idea is to gradually ramp up your cycle's mps as you get closer and closer to using evocation. What matters is the time at which your evocation comes off cooldown, not some magical percentage point at which mastery becomes more or less effective.
I think that's more accurate. Generally speaking, the approach is something along the lines of...

Evocation and mana gem are available at the start so you burn some mana quickly, use gem and dps cooldowns, burn more down to 40%, evoc back to 100%, play conservatively until mana cooldowns are available, burn more, then come back up and play conservatively, then nearing the end of the fight you try to time your burn down once again to match the end of the fight.

I like arcane mastery because it adds some depth to an otherwise shallow spec. It changes the way I play mid encounter in a controlled way as opposed to stupid stuff like hot streak where I just hope for the best. I will be making some mistakes (none as dumb as waiting until 20% mana to evocate or using arcane missiles every time it's up LULZ), gradually over time I'll get bored and look into / math out minor details and make fewer/smaller mistakes.
Yeah, that. My gut says it'll be very hard for players to perfectly optimize their fights since optimal behavior will be different from fight to fight and further vary based on mastery level, but most players will (hopefully) be able to use general guidelines to get reasonable results from the spec. (Source)

Warrior (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Slam Scaling
It's not important to keep Slam scaling with haste so long as Arms scales with haste. It's only a problem if you'd get to the point of dropping Slam from your rotation or something, which we think is unlikely. We'll make sure Heroic Strike never eclipses Slam. Heroic Strike isn't supposed to be a button you're ever excited about pushing at the expense of something else. It's just there so the rage doesn't go to waste. (Source)

Blood Frenzy
That Blood Frenzy changes lets us give Arms as much rage as needed from haste to make sure that haste is valuable from the resource-generation side. It's already valuable from the damage side -- it is not the case that increasing haste is a dps loss for Arms. I realize you might have made this post before mine in the beta forum. The challenge of communicating in two places at once. (Source)

Arms Rotation
The Arms rotation is Rend, Colossus Smash, Mortal Strike and Slam, with Overpower and additional Colossus Smash procs, and Heroic Strike as a rage dump. (Source)