WotLK Release Date, Articles Updates, Blue Posts

[Boubouille]

Wrath of the Lich King to be Released in 2008
Shacknews reported that according to Mike Morhaime (Blizzard Entertainment's CEO), Wrath of the Lich King will be released between October and December 2008.

"We have said that it will be coming out this year," Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime revealed in a conference call today. "I can tell you it's not coming in the July to September quarter."

As for the Wrath of the Lich King beta, Morhaime noted that "testing is going very well." During the call, Morhaime also mentioned that 40% of the World of Warcraft subscribers that left for Age of Conan have since returned.

Source - Shacknews


PvP Zones Update - Lake Wintergrasp and Strand of the Ancients
The articles for Lake Wintergrasp and Strand of the Ancients are here ! In both articles you will find a summary of what we know about each zone (mostly from the WWI until we can access them on Beta servers), a few screenshots (pictures of the WWI PvP Panels included), and hopefuly a few more things in the upcoming days.

Dungeons Update - Chamber of Aspects and Eye of Eternity
Today we're also adding the Chamber of Aspects and The Eye of Eternity to our dungeon pages. As far as we know both zones are single-encounter raid dungeons, the first one will let you fight a black dragon named "Sartharion, the Onyx Guardian". The Eye of Eternity is the last dungeon of the Nexus and will let you face Malygos himself !

Blue posts

Badge of Justices / Arena & Honor Points in WotLK

• The current Badges of Justice should still be obtainable via level 70 heroic dungeons after Wrath of the Lich King launches but only used for level 70 gear. We currently plan to continue with a badge type of system, but new ones will drop in Wrath of the Lich King. (Source)
• We talked about this a bit in the last episode of BlizzCast, like how we plan to expand on the system and possibly have different tiers of badges and such, so this can't come as a big surprise that you can't stack up 800 Badges of Justice and buy level 80 gear right away. (Source)
• We are still working out the details on how we want to handle honor/arena points, we'll have more details soon enough though. (Source)
  

Warrior

• Defense is usually a pretty easy stat to max out with gear, whereas you can't really do that on dodge. We saw some tanks actually spec out of Anticipation at the T6 or so level because it just stops being as useful as your gear improves. Hit is another stat we don't really like to hit in talent trees, since it's possible to hit the cap with gear alone. (Source)
• The problem with the old Shield Block was it was never a choice. It was available so often, and always so useful, that you could just about put a brick on the key you use for Shield Block. We're trying to get Shield Block to feel more like a mini-Shield Wall. Use it when Something Bad is about to happen. We're not trying to nerf it -- we're trying to make it more fun. (Source)
• We have to be careful with this talent (Stalwart Protector) because prot warriors are going to generate a lot more rage than before, just because their dps is going to be higher. A lot of tanking gear comes with strength now. Strength is a good stat, and even before the shield block change, it was probably the best +threat stat you have. I sort of feel that for too long we have all emphasized mitigation as the primary role of a tank, when in reality it's only half the job. Doing more dps will let tanks be more fun when not-tanking, and for warriors, might make a lot of rage starvation issues go away. (Source)
• Devastate includes Sunder Armor as part of its effect. Any benefit to Sunder will apply. (Source)
  

Mage

• Changing Mana Shield - We're talking about it... (Source)
• Living Bomb - We've considered giving it a knock back or *ahem* "knock up" but we felt that probably wouldn't be desired for what Living Bomb is made for. It works for Thunderstorm (Elemental Shaman Talent) because Shaman's aren't an AOE class, and because it's cooldown controlled. I don't think we're done yet with Living Bomb, just not completely sure with what we want with it yet. (Source)
• We nuked Shatter Shield and put it into a talent instead (as you've noticed). The new Mage ability has yet to be unveiled... (Source)
  

Paladin

• Like I promised, the paladin changes were more sweeping than most changes. As such, it's going to take us some time to go through a second pass on the abilities and get everything polished up enough to evaluate the shiny, new paladin. I expect we'll be a lot more active on this forum when that happens. (Source)
• Beacon of Light - We're working on tweaking this spell a bit to make it fit the Paladin's "kit" a bit more... look for the change in an upcoming build. (Source)
  

Priest

• We're actually doing Priest glyphs now, get your ideas in before it's too late!! (Source)
• Aggro Generation of Aegis / Shields - I am concerned about this, and will make sure it's not too much of a problem. If it is, we can always do a glyph or talent that causes the target to regen rage/runic power etc. when they absorb damage through your spells. That will be a last resort, however. (Source)
• If you've noticed a lot of the ranks have similar mana costs, though I do agree Mind Sear's mana cost seems particularly high... I've been assured that the mana costs for the new ranks of spells and for the new spells are accurate in relation to the mana pools players will have with the new itemization. We'll make sure the mana cost isn't offensive when we do some internal raid testing in the coming weeks. We also made the ability not work on the primary target because we didn't want Mind Sear to be used as a ghetto Mind Flay and because we found it was annoying when the target you were casting Mind Sear on died, causing you to re-cast it. (Source)
  

Hunter

• The devilsaur is an exotic pet that will ultimately require 51-BM to tame. There are several other exotic pets that are not implemented yet. (The moth is not an exotic pet.) The size of the devilsaur is not a bug, but I also can't promise it's going to stay that way. It would be awesome if it did, but only if it doesn't cause a bunch of other problems, like clipping through terrain and making it impossible to see mailboxes in Dalaran. (Source)
  

Pictures from Sean -

[mrchee]

Warrior

• The problem with the old Shield Block was it was never a choice. It was available so often, and always so useful, that you could just about put a brick on the key you use for Shield Block. We're trying to get Shield Block to feel more like a mini-Shield Wall. Use it when Something Bad is about to happen. We're not trying to nerf it -- we're trying to make it more fun. (Source)

Paladin holy shield is exact same thing, yet you buff it with more charges. THANKS FOR MAKING SENSE.
Paladins get +16% Stam, wars get +5%
Paladins get holy shield buffed, wars get shield block nerfed
Paladins get 4 (!!!!!) minute cooldown shield wall, war remains at 30 mins.
Paladins get rip off of shield slam, but goes through armor too
Paladins get rip off of thunderclap
Paladins still get expertise in their tanking tree, wars lose it
etc
etc

[Prefix]

Hah SO nice...I have yet to see a devilsaur in game but man they look awesome.

You are level 70 and have never seen a Devilsaur?!

[saeros]

hope they decrease devilsaur size ;D ;D

[bbr]

I SO am going to get a devilsaur.
It should be smaller though, or it'll just block too much fov


Also posted for news submission,
Beta date : http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=11859.0
And $1022 on ebay for a beta key wtf o_O : http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=11865.0 Also trough shacknews

[insidelane]

Priest

• because we didn't want Mind Sear to be used as a ghetto Mind Flay and because we found it was annoying when the target you were casting Mind Sear on died, causing you to re-cast it. (Source)
  

hahahah

[Tycho]

Paladins get +16% Stam, wars get +5%

Warriors have higher base health. Pallies also have traditionally been REQUIRED to stack more stats and less mitigation than warriors, so even with +16%, T6/6.5 warriors typically STILL HAD MORE HP ANYWAY.

That said, with the WotLK changes DK's, Wars and Pallies will all use virtually the same gear, so they might tweak the % a bit.

Paladins get holy shield buffed, wars get shield block nerfed

Pally HS is +30%, War SB is +100% (!!!). Warriors also generate bonus rage on blocks.

It seems to have been un-buffed last update. Regardless, HS is what it is because pallies are meant to have the edge in AoE situations.

Paladins get 4 (!!!!!) minute cooldown shield wall, war remains at 30 mins.

You get Last Stand on 6 minute (!!!!) cooldown.

Pally "shield wall" is also 50%, war is 75%.

Paladins get rip off of shield slam, but goes through armor too

Warriors Shield Slams can proc free insta-slams. Warrior shield slams dispell effects. Warrior shield bashes can potentially silence.

Paladins get rip off of thunderclap

Good?

Paladins still get expertise in their tanking tree, wars lose it

Not sure what's up with that one, tbh.

....

Pallies can now finally compete with warriors as tanks, and it's about time! If you ever played a pally you'd get tired of the constant "SHUT UP AND HEAL FGT" psts.

[Chemo]

Warrior

* Defense is usually a pretty easy stat to max out with gear, whereas you can't really do that on dodge. We saw some tanks actually spec out of Anticipation at the T6 or so level because it just stops being as useful as your gear improves. Hit is another stat we don't really like to hit in talent trees, since it's possible to hit the cap with gear alone.

pfff hitcap with gear as prot warri? show me :-!
tps problems because misses etc ...


and with t6, i still have rage problem in bt or somewhere else -.-

[Cocoa]

pfff hitcap with gear as prot warri? show me :-!
tps problems because misses etc ...


and with t6, i still have rage problem in bt or somewhere else -.-

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...er&n=Altarboyy

he's arms and in farming or pvp gear i can't tell, but check back when he's prot, i'm pretty sure he's hit-capped

[retinol]

--As for the Wrath of the Lich King beta, Morhaime noted that "testing is going very well." During the call, Morhaime also mentioned that 40% of the World of Warcraft subscribers that left for Age of Conan have since returned.--

LoL, I left WoW for AoC, and still i'm playing it, but idd as the article say, ppl that were playing AoC are back to WoW (40% of them), it's probably true, considering that i sold my mage for 600£, so in someway it seems that the owner of that account is back from a short break, however is just a new player/owner. funny ;D

[Jordybe]

pfff hitcap with gear as prot warri? show me :-!
tps problems because misses etc ...


and with t6, i still have rage problem in bt or somewhere else -.-

omg Im a prot warrior with 5/5 MH and 5/9 BT I still need some items from BT and MH and im almost hitcapped... 8,9% hit and like 30expertise. Just use a hit rating food buff for tps.
I use my hit capped gear for teron gorefiend and trash. my avoidance gear is for the other bosses.

[Newor]

Warriors have higher base health. Pallies also have traditionally been REQUIRED to stack more stats and less mitigation than warriors, so even with +16%, T6/6.5 warriors typically STILL HAD MORE HP ANYWAY.

"300 HP"? lol, the only thing paladins had to have besides the "default warrior tank stats" is spelldamage, and not that much (just look at a bunch of prot paladins using almost full prot warrior gear without spelldamage, even choosing the prot warrior 2.4 badge gear instead of the paladin ones). Warrior not having strengh on its gear is a huge threat nerf while paladins not having it is a plus (only enchanting spellpower instead of mongoose on his weapon + any ubber badge gear with spelldamage and you're done with it).

Higher mitigation and survival is what warriors were all about. Warriors suck at aoe tanking while paladins shine at it. People didn't understand that and think that paladins should be exactly the same as a warrior, but with the plus of powerfull aoe tanking abilities (and get pissed that blizzard gave a ghetto aoe 51-talent skill for prot warriors).

People even choose Druids over Warriors for high hitting bosses 'cause they can eat crushing blows in a way a warrior or paladin will never be able.

That said, with the WotLK changes DK's, Wars and Pallies will all use virtually the same gear, so they might tweak the % a bit.

It seems to have been un-buffed last update. Regardless, HS is what it is because pallies are meant to have the edge in AoE situations.

You get Last Stand on 6 minute (!!!!) cooldown.

Pally "shield wall" is also 50%, war is 75%.

Spellpower remains the same for paladins and strengh was a useless stat for them, now they'll be able to use it to increase even more their spellpower (all that while paladins get damage buffs from spellpower in their spells that they didn't had or were small buffs), while for warriors, strengh was, is and will still be a powerfull stat, that we'll only have (back) in wotlk, and you'll not get a "%str to crit chance or increased threat for each ability" like paladins will get for spellpower (remember, holy damage bypass mitigation, while damage from str not).

And please, I think that every warrior would choose the 4 min/50% shield wall instead of 30min/75% one. (and lol, last stand will never surpass a shield wall utility, lol and pallies have LoH, wich is powerfull now in wotlk with 20min CD and not draining all mana).

Warriors Shield Slams can proc free insta-slams. Warrior shield slams dispell effects. Warrior shield bashes can potentially silence.

You can only proc free insta-slam if you actually use one, if you loose threat, you loose rage, without rage, no slam, no free slams (and remember, talented and only 2% chance of that happening). Blizzard says that prot warriors will gain rage even without getting hit by the mob, but... yet to be seen.

Dispel is more usefull for PvP and shield bash silence is talented (and not that usefull in PvE... tons of *immune* mobs).

Pallies can now finally compete with warriors as tanks, and it's about time!

Only in WotLK? Do you play WoW since the prot paladin revamp in 2.0 or stopped before 2.0 and trying again when wotlk launches? Currently, Paladins ARE the 1st tank choice in TBC, be it 5-man/heroic, 10-man raid or 25-man raid. Warriors and Druids became the situational tankers (when you need charge/intercepts, spell reflect, mobs are immune to spell damage...). The only reason prot warriors are still used in 5-man/heroics is because we are on a shortage of tankers on most servers, so, most of the time you can't choose what type of tanker you'll take and instead take the one that is avaiable. Altough sometimes I see ppl asking for prot paladins only even with this tank avaiability problem.

I bet you never been removed from a ZA raid because you can't aoe tanking there easily. Go play a prot warrior and get removed after the bear boss or not even get into the raid group 'cause they will try the timer, where you can't keep changing ppl and loose precious time and using a paladin against the bear boss would be the same (while using a warrior for the gauntlet is not).

Paladins have blessings (and for now, BoS!) where warriors can only shout one buff for the entire party (and only 2 mins wasting a much needed rage for threat skills). Wanna Kings/Salv of battle shout? lol.

If you ever played a pally you'd get tired of the constant "SHUT UP AND HEAL FGT" psts.

Playing as a prot paladin in PvP? LoL. Not that they're not usefull in PvP, but that's the only place where a prot paladin could hear that. If you're tanking and ppl says that to you, please, leave the group, they aren't good players and the run will only give you repair costs from wipes.

In fact that's much more a Ret paladin problem (both PvE and PvP).

[Legionn]

I like the changes they've made so far for warrior tanks and can't wait to try them out. I do feel however that they have made it too easy for paladins to tank. I know tankadins have been ignored for awhile till recently, but come on, send some of that love our way too.

[Clasifyd]

Tankadins have changed a HUGE amount in WotLK and are still being balanced and fine tuned (as noted in the above blue posts). Before anyone starts with the QQ, at least give the dust a chance to settle.

Blizzard is trying to make all tanks viable in all situations, so you don't have to rely on 'gimmick' abilities, and I for one, respect that wish. Each tank will still have his specialty, but will 'borrow' some key skills from other classes. I understand that tank envy is a terrible thing, but there's no sense in complaining about other classes ability to tank better than you in certain situations. If you're going to worry about how your class should be improved so you can be better than other classes, why not switch your focus and worry about how TANKS can be improved? After all, shouldn't we be complaining about that rogue that consistently pulls aggro instead of beating on our chests and trying to prove that warriors are better than pallys or visa versa? All I'm saying is that all us tanks are in this together.

/end diplomatic rant

[Amgyn]

Can somebody on Beta forums post this for priest glyph suggestions? ( http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...6142&pageNo=1& )

Major Glyph of Redemption - Gives your Spirit of Redepmtion a 2% chance to resurect you with 50% hp/mp after effect wears off.


Thanks!

[Tycho]

"300 HP"? lol, the only thing paladins had to have besides the "default warrior tank stats" is spelldamage, and not that much (just look at a bunch of prot paladins using almost full prot warrior gear without spelldamage, even choosing the prot warrior 2.4 badge gear instead of the paladin ones). Warrior not having strengh on its gear is a huge threat nerf while paladins not having it is a plus (only enchanting spellpower instead of mongoose on his weapon + any ubber badge gear with spelldamage and you're done with it).

Spell damage is an expensive stat. Virtually every warrior item has far more avoidance/mitigation compared to the pally equivalent at the same ilevel. Every piece of tier pally gear has +int and +spelldamage which means less +sta or +avoidance.

Higher mitigation and survival is what warriors were all about. Warriors suck at aoe tanking while paladins shine at it. People didn't understand that and think that paladins should be exactly the same as a warrior, but with the plus of powerfull aoe tanking abilities (and get pissed that blizzard gave a ghetto aoe 51-talent skill for prot warriors).

Yea, pallies shine at group trash tanking, something that isn't required. Nihilum doesn't use one (or didn't), even for Hyjal. Try going every 25man raid start-to-finish without a single warrior - it's not possible.

Spellpower remains the same for paladins and strengh was a useless stat for them, now they'll be able to use it to increase even more their spellpower...

In wrath, no pally tanks will have +SD on gear...

(all that while paladins get damage buffs from spellpower in their spells that they didn't had or were small buffs),

Pretty much all pally skills will now scale on +AP. The 51-point talent even scales based just on weapon physical damage...

while for warriors, strengh was, is and will still be a powerfull stat, that we'll only have (back) in wotlk, and you'll not get a "%str to crit chance or increased threat for each ability" like paladins will get for spellpower (remember, holy damage bypass mitigation, while damage from str not).

+Str will be tankadin's most important threat stat in Wrath as well.

And please, I think that every warrior would choose the 4 min/50% shield wall instead of 30min/75% one. (and lol, last stand will never surpass a shield wall utility, lol and pallies have LoH, wich is powerfull now in wotlk with 20min CD and not draining all mana).

So, pally has low-cd weak SW, warrior has high-cd strong SW.

Pally has long-cd expensive Last Stand, warrior has short-cd cheap Last Stand.

/shrug

You can only proc free insta-slam if you actually use one, if you loose threat, you loose rage, without rage, no slam, no free slams (and remember, talented and only 2% chance of that happening). Blizzard says that prot warriors will gain rage even without getting hit by the mob, but... yet to be seen.

Well, sure, but why would you *not* use shield slam? O_o It's a ton of threat, you should be smashing it.

Free rage on dodges, parries, blocks, more rage from all that +Str causing more damage...

Only in WotLK? Do you play WoW since the prot paladin revamp in 2.0 or stopped before 2.0 and trying again when wotlk launches? Currently, Paladins ARE the 1st tank choice in TBC, be it 5-man/heroic, 10-man raid or 25-man raid.

Uh. What? Everyone can do 5-mans and 10-mans, they're jokes. So what if pallies can do them a 30s faster because of consecrate O_o...

25mans is and always has been warrior, warrior, warrior. Warriors have more mitigation, more hp, more emergency buttons, more boss threat....better, better, better. In Sunwell tankadins REALLY hurt for threat. That's why Nihilum and smart guilds LOL@tankadins.

Paladins have blessings (and for now, BoS!) where warriors can only shout one buff for the entire party (and only 2 mins wasting a much needed rage for threat skills). Wanna Kings/Salv of battle shout? lol.

No more Salv in WotLK, btw.

Blessings are nice, but hardly required. And for tanking, if I had to pick one or the other... I would probably prefer Commanding Shout over Kings in most situations, tbh.

[Mahtamori]

"300 HP"? lol, <..>

Any Paladin would stop reading right there. For your future benefit, the difference is closer to 1500, although the exact number escapes me. That is, significantly more than 10% base HP more.

[Fablewynd]

Paladins are protectors, guardians, it only makes sense that they would be a tank, protecting the rest of the group.

Warriors are, well, the clue is in the name, warriors. They are the damage dealers, they are the soldiers.

Just because WoW has changed the dynamic so that warriors are tanks, in most fantasy style games, warriors are usually the DPS.

Cry less.

C
x

[veneretio]

It's somewhat frustrating to see Devs stating that Defense just wasn't useful enough when in reality 19.7 Defense Rating offers the same Avoidance as 18.9 Dodge Rating which is significantly better than 23.65 Parry Rating required for that same 1% Avoidance too.

And to say Strength was our best Threat stat is just foolish. Expertise Rating, Hit Rating and Block Value all easily trumped it.

[Qwios]

--As for the Wrath of the Lich King beta, Morhaime noted that "testing is going very well." During the call, Morhaime also mentioned that 40% of the World of Warcraft subscribers that left for Age of Conan have since returned.--

LoL, I left WoW for AoC, and still i'm playing it, but idd as the article say, ppl that were playing AoC are back to WoW (40% of them), it's probably true, considering that i sold my mage for 600£, so in someway it seems that the owner of that account is back from a short break, however is just a new player/owner. funny ;D

Glad you're having fun, but there is no denying that a lot of folks jumped ship already. I know the bulk of the folks from my guilds jaunt into AoC stopped playing it a month or so ago myself and my roommate included. But yeah there's one or two that are still playing, just like there are a few that still play LotRO.