Beta Build 13202, Raid Loot, Blizzcon, Class Changes, Blue Posts

[Boubouille]

Cataclysm Beta - Build 13202 (Codename Pumpkin)
A wild beta build appears! It might or might not be deployed on beta servers soon depending on Blizzard's mood and raid testing.

Achievements Changes

Guild Achievements

• Profit Sharing now requires 100,000 gold, up from 50,000 gold. Now rewards the Guild Herald companion pet.
• Saving For A Rainy Day now requires 200,000 gold, up from 100,000 gold. No longer rewards the Guild Herald companion pet.

Dungeons & Raids

• 1000 Valor Points - Earn 1000 Valor Points
• 5000 Valor Points - Earn 5000 Valor Points
• 25,000 Valor Points - Earn 25,000 Valor Points
• 50,000 Valor Points - Earn 50,000 Valor Points

Player vs. Player

• 1000 Conquest Points - Earn 1000 Conquest Points
• 5000 Conquest Points - Earn 5000 Conquest Points
• 25,000 Conquest Points - Earn 25,000 Conquest Points
• 50,000 Conquest Points - Earn 50,000 Conquest Points

Spell Changes

Guild Perks

• Bartering now reduces the price of items from all vendors by 10%, up from 5%.

Companion Pets

• Moonkin Hatchling - Right Click to summon or dismiss a Moonkin Hatchling. / Instant

Enchanting

• Enchant Weapon - Landslide no longer works with ranged weapons.
• Enchant Weapon - Power Torrent now increases Intellect by 500 instead of spell power.
• Enchant Weapon - Hurricane no longer works with ranged weapons.
• Enchant Weapon - Elemental Slayer no longer works with ranged weapons.
• Enchant Weapon - Avalanche no longer works with ranged weapons.
• Enchant 2H Weapon - Mighty Agility *New* - Permanently enchant a two-handed weapon to increase Agility by 130. Requires a level 300 or higher item.
  Creates Greater Celestial Essence. / Reagents: Hypnotic Dust x 3, Greater Celestial Essence x 3, Heavenly Shard x 3

Engineering

• Spinal Healing Injector is now applied to the gloves instead of belt.
• Z50 Mana Gulper is now applied to the gloves instead of belt.

Druid (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Feral

• Rip now scales from 18/37/55/74/92% of Attack Power depending on combo points, up from 8/16/24/32/40%.
• Ferocious Bite now scales from 10.9/21.8/32.7/43.6/54.5% of Attack Power depending on combo points, up from 7/14/21/28/35%.
• Rake now causes scales from 2% of Attack Power for bleed damage, up from 1%. Now scales from 42% of AP for additional bleed damage over 9 sec, up from 18% of AP.
• Mangle additional damage has been increased from 726 to 1136.
• Vengeance - Entering Cat Form will cancel this effect.

Mage (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Arcane

• Arcane Specialization now increases damage of your Arcane spells by 25%, up from 15%.

Fire

• Fire Specialization now increases damage of your Fire spells by 25%, up from 10%.

Frost

• Frost Specialization now increases damage of your Frost spells by 25%, up from 15%.

Paladin (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Holy

• Seal of Insight - Unleashing this Seal's energy now also restores 15% of the Paladin's base mana.
• Mastery: Illuminated Healing now only affects your direct healing spells, instead of all healing spells.

Protection

• Touched by the Light now increases spell hit by 8%, up from 6%.

Retribution

• Guardian of Ancient Kings now causes 1750 damage plus 1750 per Application, down from 5250 plus 5250.
• Sheath of Light now increases spell hit by 8%, up from 6%.

Priest (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Holy

• Holy Nova now heals up to 5 targets.

Shadow

• Mind Soothe now also affects Dragonkin. Does not cause threat.
• Shadow Word: Death now deals three times as much damage to targets below 25% health.

Warlock (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Affliction

• Seed of Corruption now deals 567 to 660 to all enemies within 15 yards, down from 1186 to 1379.

Demonology

• Summon Infernal now deals 438 to 494 fire damage when it lands, up from 29.

Destruction

• Incinerate now deals 579 to 673 Fire Damage and an additional 96 to 112 Fire damage if the target is affected by Immolate. Changed from 540 to 627 with an additional 135 to 156.
• Rain of Fire now deals 2455 Fire damage over 8 sec, up from 1890.

Warrior (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Arms

• Taste for Blood will not occur more than once every 5 sec, down from 6 sec.

Cataclysm Raid Loot Update
Last night's testing revealed more loot on beta servers!

ilvl	Type	Spec	Slot	Item
359	Axe	Phys.DPS	Off-Hand	Maimgor's Bite
359	Crossbow	Phys.DPS	Ranged	Dragonheart Piercer
359	Dagger	Spell DPS	Main Hand	Incineratus
359	Dagger	Spell DPS	Main Hand	Blade of the Witching Hour
359	Finger	Melee	Finger	Ring of Rivalry
359	Fist Weap.	Melee	Off-Hand	Blackwing Descent Trash Loot Strength Fist Weapon - Set
359	Fist Weap.	Phys.DPS	Main Hand	Blackwing Descent Trash Loot Agility Fist Weapon - Set
359	Mace	Melee	Two-Hand	Akirus the Worm-Breaker
359	Sword	Melee	One-Hand	Lava Spine
359	Sword	Phys.DPS	One-Hand	Fang of Twilight
359	Sword	Spell DPS	Main Hand	Maldo's Sword Cane
359	Plate	Heal	Chest	Breastplate of Avenging Flame
359	Plate	Melee	Feet	Treads of Savage Beatings
359	Plate	Tank	Feet	Molten Tantrum Boots
359	Plate	Tank	Head	Daybreaker Helm
359	Plate	Tank	Shoulder	Heaving Plates of Protection
359	Mail	Spell	Legs	Phase-Twister Leggings
359	Mail	Spell	Waist	Lifecycle Waistguard
359	Mail	Spell	Waist	Waistguard of Hatred
359	Mail	Phys.DPS	Legs	Leggings of Lethal Force
359	Leather	Spell	Chest	Scorched Wormling Vest
359	Leather	Phys.DPS	Head	Tsanga's Helm
359	Leather	Phys.DPS	Wrist	Parasitic Bands
359	Cloth	Heal	Head	Helm of Eldritch Authority
359	Cloth	Spell DPS	Legs	Flame Pillar Leggings
359	Cloth	Spell DPS	Wrist	Bracers of the Dark Pool
359	Cloak	Tank	Back	Ironstar's Impenetrable Cover
359	Cloak	Spell Spirit	Back	Drape of the Twins
359	Neck	Phys.DPS	Neck	Necklace of Strife
359	Neck	Spell DPS	Neck	Valiona's Medallion
359	Trinket	Tank	Trinket	Vial of Stolen Memories
359	Trinket	Spell DPS	Trinket	Theralion's Mirror
359	Trinket	Tank	Trinket	Symbiotic Worm

BlizzCon 2010 Begins This Week
BlizzCon is indeed this week and you can expect a full coverage of the event on MMO-Champion!

Are you ready for BlizzCon 2010? Blizzard Entertainment's two-day gaming festival begins this Friday, October 22, at the Anaheim Convention Center. The sold-out show features developer discussion panels, top-tier tournament competition, the popular costume and dance contests hosted by Jay Mohr, an epic closing concert starring Tenacious D, and much more.

You can still join us from home by purchasing a BlizzCon Virtual Ticket (http://blizzcon.rayv.com), featuring more than 50 hours of live HD coverage as well as the exclusive BlizzCon 2010 World of Warcraft pet and StarCraft II in-game items. The Virtual Ticket is available globally via Internet stream and also through DIRECTV in the U.S. For more information, read our recent press release (http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/news/?d=2010-10#180800) or visit BlizzCon.com (http://blizzcon.com).

Beta Raid Testing Schedule for Oct. 19

Yet more raid testing!

There will be two sessions, an EU session starting at 11AM server time (PDT), and a US timed session at 4PM server time (PDT). We'll open the zones on all Beta realms (including KR!) for both sessions, and possibly longer.

The following encounters will be tested:

Maloriak in Blackwing Descent
Atramedes in Blackwing Descent

Blackwing Descent is a raid zone with an entrance located along the side of Blackrock Mountain.

Since these are the beta realms, this schedule is subject to change at a moment's notice due to bugs and server issues. More raid tests will be occurring over the next few weeks.

Class balance as of Oct 18, 2010

We are going to take the resilience buff down a little.

It should end up as a 25% buff from where it stood originally, not a 50% buff. For point of comparison, maxing out resilience before our first hotfix reduced damage by ~50%. After out hotfix, the damage reduction with max resilience was 80%. With this most recent change, damage reduction with max resilience will go down to 60%.

Part of what is going on here is that we don't want newly leveled characters to explode in PvP, while still making sure that well-geared characters aren't invulnerable. The current resilience curve makes that a tricky thing to balance. Perhaps in the future resilience needs diminishing returns so that it doesn't keep getting better and better the more you have.

While we don't have any additional announcements to make at this time, there are some additional balance tweaks we're working on. Some of our adjustments at level 80 ended up causing certain classes to be overpowered or underpowered at level 85.

Cataclysm System Requirements

In preparation for the launch of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, we have updated our recommended minimum system requirements. These new requirements correspond with patch 4.0.1. We suggest players check out our related support article for all of the details to ensure your gameplay experience is as ideal as possible.

http://us.blizzard.com/support/artic...rticleId=21054

Cataclysm Preview: The Stonecore

What mysteries await within the Temple of Earth? Journey to the heart of Deepholm in our latest dungeon preview featuring the Stonecore. Considered sacred by the Twilight’s Hammer followers and acting as a haven to the elements of earth, this level 82-84 dungeon will not relinquish its secrets easily.

Learn more on our new preview page: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/catac...stonecore.html

Blue Posts

What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been 310% Hotfix
The hotfix is scheduled to go live tonight. (Source)

Missing Glyphs in 4.0.1
The missing glyphs we know of are Mage Armor, Long Word and possibly Vanish. The others have been found through discovery as far as we know. (Source)

Druid (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Unshifting clears Vengeance
We could make shifting to Cat clear Vengeance but let it stay on in caster form. We're only paranoid about Cat AP for obvious reasons. (Source)


Paladin (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Holy Paladins on Beta
After looking at more of the raid attempts on beta, we are worried that Holy paladins are doing too much area healing and not enough single target healing.

While we definitely want to scoot paladins away from their Lich King monopoly on tank healing and towards raid healing, we don't want to go too far. We're thinking about nerfing Holy Radiance and buffing single target healing. Again, the goal is not that Holy paladins only ever heal the tank, but we want them to actually be able to heal the tank as well.

On Holy Radiance, we think the 20 yard range shifted the spell from one where position was relevant to just blowing it on cooldown. We'll probably keep the 20 yard radius, but have a falloff to where the healing is highest within 8-10 yards of the paladin. This will also help the spell stay relevant in 5-player dungeons without being overpowered in larger raids. The cap for Holy Radiance (and Healing Rain for that matter) also aren't working correctly at the moment.

If we decide to buff single target healing, it would probably just be points on the 5 direct heals. We think Beacon is in a good place and aren't looking to overhaul the overall Holy mechanics. It's just a numbers issue.

Judging Seal of Insight (a change I alluded to earlier) will help with mana problems, especially when Divine Plea is on cooldown or you're nervous about using it. (Source)

Beacon of Light Nerf
We thought Beacon was overpowered when the paladin could literally heal two targets to 100% at once. In that era, there was never a reason to heal the Beaconed target. Not only was it powerful, it was really easy and required little action or decision on the part of the paladin. Having the Beacon splash some healing onto a target who may or may not need it feels balance-able to us. It means the paladin still needs to decide when to heal the Beaconed target indirectly (i.e. use Beacon) or when to heal them directly. It means there is the risk of doing the wrong thing, which could mean switching Beacon when you shouldn't have or healing the Beacon when you should have healed someone else. (Source)

[KevyB]

Mage nerf was a cool break while it lasted....

Back to business i guess, let the QQ re-commence

But the holy nova nerf... wtf is the point of first making it really useful in raid-environment, and then gimping it down again... /facedesk

[Collected]

Wait.. aren't those mage changes a reverse of the incoming "nerf"?

[Corgyll]

Is it old news that at least one piece of the Blizzcon goodiebag-stuff has been leaked?

[zarbus]

"Fire Mages, Shadow Priests, and Destruction Warlocks do too much DPS." undoes it

[Foxhoundn]

Hey Blizz, there is a class that is broken ATM. Its enhancement shaman. Stop ignoring it. Thanks

[Vorselia]

Wait.. aren't those mage changes a reverse of the incoming "nerf"?

That nerf is on live wasn't it (It was their hotfix they did last week). This is for beta, and reserves it back.

[Cernunnos]

Fist weapon set. Fuck yeah!

[Deleted]

Oh noes, SoC nerf!

[Alraml]

They've obviously concluded that the mastery bonus isn't the problem. The trees themselves will probably be getting various nerfs instead

[Falkus]

Guardian of Ancient Kings still useless. No surprise there. What were we supposed to do with it, again?

[greyghost]

Less set-it-and-forget-it passive healing and more active healing makes for a less bored holy paladin.

I approve.

Guardian of Ancient Kings still useless for ret paladins. No surprise there. What were we supposed to do with it, again?

needed an important clarification there.

Before the nerf it was... what? Meleeing for 1,000 damage a swing? When everything has 100k HP pools?

I wonder if they altered the way it scales with the paladin's stats, though.

[mezmir]

Pardon my specialness in not knowing, but what classes could use a slow offhand fist weapon with strength? Dont shammies use agi?

I would absolutely LOVE blizz if they give dk's fist weapons. lol. I mean seriously, why not.

[The Last DJ]

Hey Blizz, there is a class that is broken ATM. Its enhancement shaman. Stop ignoring it. Thanks

Hi, you must be new here. Chairs are over there, refreshments are served promptly on the hour every two hours.

Enhancement shamans have been "making do" with their class adjustments/nerfs for what? Three expansions now. We're blissfully mediocre DPS until something comes along that makes us explode in PURE DPS AWESUM (Feral Spirits, LvB on MW, changes to WF/FT that make logical sense, etc), then Blizzard goes "whoa whoa whoa whoa, dial that back, there, kiddos", and we're brought back in line. It's just the way of the shaman class, really. We're the only hybrid out there that really follows the "jack of all trades, master of none" line Blizzard was following with their so-called "hybrid tax". Then again, we're more a halfassed hybrid like Warriors or DKs.

Really though, the best thing any shaman (especially Enhancement) can do is hold on to their yarmulke and wait for that gentle *woosh* of air that is being passed over. Hell, we're lucky we got anything other than a new Stormstrike icon. ...although, I guess the strange lightning bolt graphic thinger for the Power Auras counts ... fml.

[Deleted]

I've noticed that no-one's yet commented on the new bosses that were looked at last night, so thought I'd share these videos with you of the Yogscast checking out the three bosses that Blizzard revealed last night. We did our best to work out the strategies, but I think you'll agree they all look pretty badass!

(all videos are in a playlist, so I'll just link you the first)

[The Last DJ]

Pardon my specialness in not knowing, but what classes could use a slow offhand fist weapon with strength? Dont shammies use agi?

I would absolutely LOVE blizz if they give dk's fist weapons. lol. I mean seriously, why not.

I said the same thing (about the weapon speed/stat), then I recalled Single Minded Fury for Warriors and herped till I derped.

[greyghost]

They've obviously concluded that the mastery bonus isn't the problem. The trees themselves will probably be getting various nerfs instead

That's what I was thinking, too. New Shatter's probably approaching the chopping block...

---------- Post added 2010-10-19 at 09:41 AM ----------

Fist weapon set. Fuck yeah!

IMO if it dosen't have a proc to turn you into some giant freaking drakanoid or some other animal it's not worth it. =)

[Vasz]

I've noticed that no-one's yet commented on the new bosses that were looked at last night, so thought I'd share these videos with you of the Yogscast checking out the three bosses that Blizzard revealed last night. We did our best to work out the strategies, but I think you'll agree they all look pretty badass!

(all videos are in a playlist, so I'll just link you the first)

Thanks for the video link, that looks a great fight.

[greyghost]

I've noticed that no-one's yet commented on the new bosses that were looked at last night, so thought I'd share these videos with you of the Yogscast checking out the three bosses that Blizzard revealed last night. We did our best to work out the strategies, but I think you'll agree they all look pretty badass!

(all videos are in a playlist, so I'll just link you the first)

Yeah, I saw those up on my youtube subscriptions earlier. I loved the look at the Al'Aqir's 3 djinn guards, that fight looks like it'll be loads of fun.

[Deleted]

the system requirements are lower the i thought....You guys think that 2 GB are really enough to play cata at ultra? I need an advice because i meet all requirements but i was kinda sure to have to upgrade my ram to 4 gb!!!! Suggestion needed guys!!