Druid Forms Preview, In-Game Fixes, Blue posts

[Boubouille]

Patch 3.2 Druid Forms - Preview Compilation
Below is a small compilation of all the new druid forms next to their respectives hair colors / skin tones based on the latest blue post from Zarhym. (Also, do not forget that taurens will be able to change their skin tones with this patch)

Recent In-Game Fixes - 06/4/09

• Commanding Shout and Battle Shout are again free to use during the preparation period of battlegrounds and arenas.
• To resolve an exploit we have removed all non-boss chests from dungeons introduced in The Burning Crusade: Ramparts, Blood Furnance, Shattered Halls, Steam Vault, Underbog, Slave Pens, Arcatraz, Botanica, Mechanaar, Shadow Labyrinth, Sethekk Halls, Mana-Tombs, and Auchenai Crypts.

Blue posts

PTR 3.2 will be here "soon enough"
We do not plan to release any animations of the new form art, but the test realms will be coming soon enough so everyone can play around with them. (Source)

Allowing rerolls to start at level 55
We've seen requests to add a /level or similar feature before. I can tell you, this is not something we have plans to implement currently, or in the near future. We believe that there is still value and entertainment to be had in the various Terrestrial Azerothian zones. (Source)

Achievements - Brewfest rare drop mounts
There are currently no plans to change the setup for this achievement from how it worked last year which is all drops off Coren Direbrew in BRD. Brewfest is still a ways out though, so changes could happen. Last time we talked about this there were no plans to change the drop rates or remove it from the meta. Like I said before, things could still change, but don't be surprised if nothing changes. [...] I doubt we will make them purchasable with tokens, if we want to make changes to this we will likely go a different route. (Source)

Death Knight (3.1 Skills List / 3.1 Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Overpowered Death Knights
Personally when I make a joke about DKs being OP, I am alluding to the the fact that they were OP, particularly right after we shipped. We got some things wrong and we've been correcting them. To deny they were too powerful would make us look ill-informed or overly defensive. I like to be as honest with the community as I can be so that there is a chance the community will trust us when we lay out our design intent on something.

[...] I will say that we don't think DKs are perfectly balanced, but we don't think they are dominating tanking, dps and PvP to the degree that they once were. (Source)

Druid (3.1 Skills List / 3.1 Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Appearance of new forms
It's hard to really get a feel for their exact appearance in a frozen shot with only one type of lighting. I think you'll see certain tones that may not be as apparent in the screen shots come out more in-game, especially with the night elf forms where there are very subtle variations in tone throughout each cat and bear model to give them that Darnassian look. (Source)

Restoration 4 pieces T8 Bonus
It's not a hot. Genesis does not affect it because Genesis only affects the periodic healing of Rejuv, Regrowth, Lifebloom and Wildgrowth. Empowered Rejuv affects all healing, so it affects it. Improved Rejuv works like Genesis. We typically don't count procs from items as "your spells" but it just depends on how the talent is set up.

[...] This is going to sound technical, but this is the way it works.

Empowered Rejuv says "the bonus healing effects on your heal over time spells." What it means is "the bonus healing on Rejuv, Regrowth, Tranq, LB and WG." The set bonus heal is treated as Rejuv.

Improved Rejuv says "Increases the effect of your Rejuvenation spell." What it means is "the periodic healing of Rejuv." The set bonus is treated as Rejuv, but it is not a periodic heal, so the talent doesn't apply.

I'm not trying to lawyer our way out of this. I'm just explaining why the bonus works as we would expect it to work. I could see a case for changing Improved Rejuv to affect the set bonus, but honestly we are unlikely to do that. As players point out, the bonus works really well already. Furthermore, we try as a general rule not to monkey with existing talents to make items work a certain way. There are thousands of items and many of them are only relevant for a few months, while the talents themselves are relevant for years. It isn't worth the risk or baggage to change a spell to work with an item most of the time. We did recently make an exception for the Balance set bonus and we will continue to do so as needed. (Source)

Paladin (3.1 Skills List / 3.1 Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Holy could become "too good" if it was changed
I meant "too good" in the sense of healing per second and longevity. You can spam very fast Holy Lights virtually forever, or at least much longer than the typical boss encounter lasts. The big negatives for a Holy paladin right now are having insanely high overhealing (but who cares since mana is cheap?) and having a narrow niche of single target (usually tank) healing. Improve the efficiency (not mana efficiency but replace the overhealing with actual healing) or let paladins heal multiple targets at once and I think it would be hard to argue that any of the other classes could compete. (Source)

Holy Paladins issues
I agree nobody would get benched for overhealing. But when mana does matter then overhealing does too. Some paladins are saying "Yes, I overheal but what choice do I have?" which is fair. It's a liability, though perhaps a small one. (Source)

[...] I would say lack of ability to heal multiples and lack of ability to move. We have let other specs creep into the paladin role with perhaps not letting the paladin creep out enough. Again, we're not talking about overhauling the Holy tree or getting 5 new healing spells next patch. While we're not prepared to announce our plans yet, I also don't want anyone's imagination to run wild here. (Source)

Shaman (3.1 Skills List / 3.1 Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Chain Heal in Ulduar
Looking at a 10 minute Ulduar fight with a very competent Resto shaman, I see 100 Chain Heals, 80 Lesser Healing Waves, 36 Riptides, and a couple of NS'd Healing Waves. (Like many heals, HW isn't going to be attractive until hp / mana matters.) I'm not going to out this player for you to Armory him, so you can say he needs to L2P if you want.

Different shamans heal differently, but we find the assertion that CH is dead to be a little overblown. There are some improvements we can make to Resto, especially for PvP, and they still seem to need mana (or at least MP5) more than some of the other healers, but we really don't think Chain Heal is in a terrible place. If you're on tank healing duty, you're going to CH less. If the raid damage comes at predictable intervals, then priest and druid AEs may stomp on yours. But when your groups are tight and the damage is coming in constantly (Thorim for instance, though that is not the fight I referenced above) then CH is a great spell. We'd rather see shamans mixing up their heals as above than doing 90% of healing from the one spell.

[...] We're okay with CH being used more on some fights than others. That means it's up to the shaman to know the best times to use it versus switch to another spell, which we think is more interesting than always having a go-to spell for every occasion. (Source)

Tidal Waves
I'd just like to know if it is intended for Tidal Waves to get relatively worse as we pick up more haste due to the GCD, until we get enough mana regeneration to sustain healing wave spam (unlikely right now or in the near future) instead.
This is something we plan on addressing. (Source)

[Varkie]

I like the preview compilation, much better to view the skin/hair colours now with the forms and way earier ;D

And I think they all rock.

[NotafamaDruid]

So that's what female cows look like without gear?

[Yepp]

So that's what female cows look like without gear?

Nah, it´s just like normal advertising. They photoshoped them to look better!

[FritzTheCat]

Allowing rerolls to start at level 55
We've seen requests to add a /level or similar feature before. I can tell you, this is not something we have plans to implement currently, or in the near future. We believe that there is still value and entertainment to be had in the various Terrestrial Azerothian zones. (Source)


...so there were really enough whiny pussies begging for this that they had to say something?

Oh my fucking god... just because you got a happy-go-lucky facerolling death knight to play with with 55 free levels doesn't mean you should get any other toon with 55 free levels! DK's were done that way because it was sort of hard not to, lore-wise, I mean... oh god, I don't even want to explain what a shitty idea this is. For fucks sake just suck it up and spend the couple of days/weeks/months (however much you play) to level that other toon!

/disgusted rant

[NotafamaDruid]

Allowing rerolls to start at level 55
We've seen requests to add a /level or similar feature before. I can tell you, this is not something we have plans to implement currently, or in the near future. We believe that there is still value and entertainment to be had in the various Terrestrial Azerothian zones. (Source)


...so there were really enough whiny pussies begging for this that they had to say something?

Oh my fucking god... just because you got a happy-go-lucky facerolling death knight to play with with 55 free levels doesn't mean you should get any other toon with 55 free levels! DK's were done that way because it was sort of hard not to, lore-wise, I mean... oh god, I don't even want to explain what a shitty idea this is. For fucks sake just suck it up and spend the couple of days/weeks/months (however much you play) to level that other toon!

/disgusted rant

Stop pretending that you like leveling in Azeroth.

[gringo]

Oh my fucking god... just because you got a happy-go-lucky facerolling death knight to play with with 55 free levels doesn't mean you should get any other toon with 55 free levels! DK's were done that way because it was sort of hard not to, lore-wise, I mean... oh god, I don't even want to explain what a shitty idea this is. For fucks sake just suck it up and spend the couple of days/weeks/months (however much you play) to level that other toon!

/disgusted rant

Yeah right. After having leveled countless characters to 60 or 70 on variuos realms I can't really see any fun in it anymore. Unless you are using RAF and have a few buddies to go instancing.
TBC leveling is getting old too, it's just doing random quests for the XP and wait till you finally ding 68 so you can leave these forsaken (!) lands.
So, I can't see any harm in letting ppl start a character at level 55 or even 65 if they have leveled at least on char 1-80 on any given realm.

[Couga]

WTB mix and match for druid skins, my favourite fur colour matches my least favourite cat/bear combo. Ah well, guess Blizzard are staying true to their trade-off concept.

[Couga]

Dip your white bear ass in a bucket of paint!!

I'm all out, you have some spare?

[draxanlee]

Yeah right. After having leveled countless characters to 60 or 70 on variuos realms I can't really see any fun in it anymore. Unless you are using RAF and have a few buddies to go instancing.
TBC leveling is getting old too, it's just doing random quests for the XP and wait till you finally ding 68 so you can leave these forsaken (!) lands.
So, I can't see any harm in letting ppl start a character at level 55 or even 65 if they have leveled at least on char 1-80 on any given realm.

This

[bbr]

Holy Paladins issues
I agree nobody would get benched for overhealing. But when mana does matter then overhealing does too. Some paladins are saying "Yes, I overheal but what choice do I have?" which is fair. It's a liability, though perhaps a small one. (Source)

I think vezax is the only fight where mana is an issue.
Anywhere else, 70+ overhealing at the minimum, which is insane.

They could make it like:
* If your heal lands on a target with 100% health, it jumps to a secondary target and heals for 25% of the original heal.

[Morzita]

True NE cat models

http://i44.tinypic.com/2vjefzr.jpg

[Burls]

So taurens can go Michael Jackson on us? Or should i say Mookal Jackson..... ;D

[Maradar]

True NE cat models

http://i44.tinypic.com/2vjefzr.jpg

Win.

[snerlor]

Boubouille, could you please edit "Taurens" to "Tauren"? I was a quiet reader until now, but I have to point out that Taurens is not the plural of Tauren. It's simply Tauren. And it is/was misspelled a lot on MMO-Champion...

Sorry for off-topic.

Greets,
Snerlor

[FritzTheCat]

Yeah right. After having leveled countless characters to 60 or 70 on variuos realms I can't really see any fun in it anymore. Unless you are using RAF and have a few buddies to go instancing.
TBC leveling is getting old too, it's just doing random quests for the XP and wait till you finally ding 68 so you can leave these forsaken (!) lands.
So, I can't see any harm in letting ppl start a character at level 55 or even 65 if they have leveled at least on char 1-80 on any given realm.

Right, and alienate the countless players who've levelled all their alts themselves the hard way, and took the time to learn to play those toons in that time, and who are thus not running around being giant failures like the first huge waves of DKs that had no idea what they were doing.

I hope they do it so you see the harm in it first hand.

[Slyce]

Right, and alienate the countless players who've levelled all their alts themselves the hard way, and took the time to learn to play those toons in that time, and who are thus not running around being giant failures like the first huge waves of DKs that had no idea what they were doing.

I hope they do it so you see the harm in it first hand.

I believe you are the failure...I'm sorry not everyone enjoys pressing 1 button for the first 20 levels as you do. They should at least allow the option to start off at 20 or even 30, but seriously I could care less about the lore crap...yes flame me now, incoming nerd rage

[bbr]

Achievements - Brewfest rare drop mounts
There are currently no plans to change the setup for this achievement from how it worked last year which is all drops off Coren Direbrew in BRD. Brewfest is still a ways out though, so changes could happen. Last time we talked about this there were no plans to change the drop rates or remove it from the meta. Like I said before, things could still change, but don't be surprised if nothing changes. [...] I doubt we will make them purchasable with tokens, if we want to make changes to this we will likely go a different route. (Source)

They were purchasable before.
Then they were not.
Lets hope they become so again.

[Kaedi]

Damn those new druid forms are gonna get confusing.

Real nice idea for druids though.

[Qrcio]

True NE cat models

http://i44.tinypic.com/2vjefzr.jpg

Epic