AT World of Warcraft Thread (Cataclysm, Where do you play, General BS and all that)

[lupi]

Originally Posted by Bashiok (Source)
Patch 4.0.1 will bring about major changes to all World of Warcraft classes, including sweeping talent tree revamps, altered spells, and improved abilities. We wanted to go over some of the more complex changes that are being made. If your class isn't listed here, it does not mean we didn't spend as much time on it -- the class will still receive a broad range of updates to talents, spells, and abilities -- we simply feel that these mechanics merit additional explanation.

Death Knight (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Runes
•The way in which runes regenerate has been changed. Rather than each rune type (Blood, Frost, Unholy) regenerating simultaneously, they now fill sequentially. For example, if you use two Blood runes, then the first rune will fill up before the second one starts to fill up. You essentially have three sets of runes filling every 10 seconds instead of six individual runes filling every 10 seconds. This allows the death knight rotation to be more forgiving, so that the player can take advantage of things like ability procs or respond to movement. This system makes it a little easier to get back on track without six separate runes now "out of sync" from the standard rotation.

You're a Bloody Tank
•The time has come to dedicate a death knight talent tree to tanking, and that is what is in store for the Blood tree. We felt that we could offer a more focused and polished tanking tree rather than having to scatter similar tools throughout the trees. This also allows us to really focus the other trees into more flavorful damage-dealing specializations.

Runic Empowerment
•This mechanic allows for runes which were on cooldown to instantly activate, which prevents the rotation from becoming too predictable and boring.

Druid (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Eclipse
•This is a new mechanic being added for Balance druids. The resource is managed through a new bar near the health and mana bars. As the druid casts Arcane spells, the bar moves towards the sun element until the druid achieves a Solar Eclipse, which buffs Nature damage. The goal is then to cast Nature spells, until the bar moves toward the moon element, which triggers a Lunar Eclipse and buffs Arcane damage. The gameplay becomes trying to quickly move the bar from one end to the other in order to maximize each Eclipse buff.

Hunter (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Focus
•This is a new resource which has replaced mana. Hunters never felt like they should be casting mana-based spells, and having a resource that lasted for a long time and then was painfully gone didn’t lead to compelling gameplay.

Pets
•Hunters can now use Call Pet to choose from among five different pets. They can swap out any of these five pets with other pets they have tamed by visiting a Stable Master. The Stable Master now allows the hunter to store twenty pets total.
•Pet families have been updated. Each family can now provide unique buffs to parties or raids, so if a class buff is needed for a raid and that class isn't represented in the group, chances are a hunter can provide a little assistance by calling out a specific pet.

Ammo
•Ammo is no more. As a hunter, you're just that good now.
•Any quivers or pouches used to store ammo will automatically be converted into a bag of roughly equal value.

Paladin (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Holy Power
•This is a new resource which works similarly to combo points. Paladins will generally want to build up Holy Power until it shines through with a bright yellow glowing effect. Once Holy Power has been built up, it can be consumed to augment existing abilities. For example, Word of Glory can be used to cast an instant-cast free heal. This gives paladins several options for how to spend their Holy Power, depending on the scenario.

Warlock (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Soul Shards
•As items, Soul Shards are going away entirely.
•Any shard bags used to store Soul Shards will automatically be converted into a bag of roughly equal value.
•Soul Shards are now a new resource for warlocks. Each warlock will have a total of three. These Soul Shards can be expended using a new spell, Soul Burn, which allows the warlock to augment the next spell cast. The augmentation effect will vary depending on which spell is used, and all warlock spells which can be empowered by Soul Burn will have a tooltip listing of the effect it grants. Soul Shards will no longer be necessary for summoning demons or casting any other spell typically used when out of combat.

Warrior (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Rage
•Rage is being normalized so that its generation is no longer based on damage done by auto-attacks. Each auto-attack will provide a set amount of Rage, with off-hand weapons granting 50% of the rage main-hand weapons do. Haste will allow Rage to generate more rapidly by increasing attack speed. In addition, while taking damage, the amount of Rage generated will now be based on the warrior's health rather than the opponent's level. The essence of this change is to improve the scaling that occurs with warrior gear. With warriors balanced around the top tiers of items, we've found that the class tends to underperform more drastically than others in lower-quality items. These changes should correct that.

 

[guyver01]

Only class I haven't leveled. Playing a prot warrior made me hate them.

my main is a prot warrior... and i just finished levelling my DK about a month ago.... i levelled as unholy.

Was alot of fun playing as DPS as opposed to tanking.

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

Since I don't have my old account, I'm dual boxing a mage and hunter to 80. Both are currently at 71. The new hunter changes sound awesome and I've never played a caster so I thought I'd try a mage.

I miss my old rogue but they seem horrible these days anyway.

Once I get these 2 to 80, I'll start on Druid/Shadow Priest/Pally. It should only take 20 hours to get to 60 with Refer a friend. Then I'll choose 2 of those to get to 80.

Does Pally and Druid make a good 2 person ranged dps combo or should I stick the Pally with a Shadow Priest or Warlock?

 

[Aikouka]

Does Pally and Druid make a good 2 person ranged dps combo or should I stick the Pally with a Shadow Priest or Warlock?

I do Pally+Warlock, but that was just what I ended up with. Moonkin would be fine since you can spot heal (or just dual spec it for elites). I just leave the caster on follow and ensure the melee keeps aggro. This can be easily done with Pallies using Righteous Fury.

 

[JD50]

I five boxed for a while a year or two ago, it was pretty badass. Look up keyclone, it's great for multi-boxing and as far as I know it's perfectly legal. At least it was back when I used it.

 

[lupi]

Originally Posted by Bashiok (Source)
Extended maintenance will begin tonight at midnight, Tuesday, October 12 for the release of patch 4.0.1. Maintenance will begin at 12:01 AM PDT and conclude at approximately 12:01 PM PDT. During this time all realms and many web services will be unavailable.

Due to the size of the patch we highly recommend you enable your background downloader. If you need assistance doing so please visit http://us.blizzard.com/support/artic...rticleId=35274

 

[Aikouka]

I five boxed for a while a year or two ago, it was pretty badass. Look up keyclone, it's great for multi-boxing and as far as I know it's perfectly legal. At least it was back when I used it.

Doesn't that simply clone the same key pressed in one window to the next? I assume that would only work well if your class has one of those "spammable buttons"... so casters like Elemental Shamans, Mages and Warlocks would work well since they could just spam their long-ranged cast (Lightning Bolt, Fireball/Frostbolt/Arcane Blast, Shadowbolt) with that same key.

It'd be kind of odd for melee though.

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

I five boxed for a while a year or two ago, it was pretty badass. Look up keyclone, it's great for multi-boxing and as far as I know it's perfectly legal. At least it was back when I used it.

Yeah it is still legal. I use ISboxer but my laptop will only run 2 and even then the frame rate isn't great. I don't have everything set up very well but it is ok for just levelling.

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

Doesn't that simply clone the same key pressed in one window to the next? I assume that would only work well if your class has one of those "spammable buttons"... so casters like Elemental Shamans, Mages and Warlocks would work well since they could just spam their long-ranged cast (Lightning Bolt, Fireball/Frostbolt/Arcane Blast, Shadowbolt) with that same key.

It'd be kind of odd for melee though.

It is harder for melee but you just gotta get used to it.

I'm not great at setting this stuff up but I made my slave characters move with the arrow keys and my main move with wasd. Then I have buttons which are only mapped to the slave for arcane shot and stuff.

It works ok for 2 but I can't imagine setting it up for 5 different classes all working together. I know it is possible. I'd like to try it for the challenge when I get a better computer but then that also means 5 accounts.....

 

[JD50]

Doesn't that simply clone the same key pressed in one window to the next? I assume that would only work well if your class has one of those "spammable buttons"... so casters like Elemental Shamans, Mages and Warlocks would work well since they could just spam their long-ranged cast (Lightning Bolt, Fireball/Frostbolt/Arcane Blast, Shadowbolt) with that same key.

It'd be kind of odd for melee though.

Yea, you can only really do it with one melee toon. Your main is your melee toon, then you have 1 healer and 3 casters. Your healer and casters follow your main. I usually set up 3 or 4 separate buttons for my healer, a few buttons for my caster's main nukes, and the rest was for my melee character. Worked great with a paly as my tank, once you get aggro just spam away with your casters and occasionaly heal your caster. I got my party up to mid 20's before I quit, I was fully clearing 5 man dungeons all by myself. It was pretty cool.

 

[JD50]

It is harder for melee but you just gotta get used to it.

I'm not great at setting this stuff up but I made my slave characters move with the arrow keys and my main move with wasd. Then I have buttons which are only mapped to the slave for arcane shot and stuff.

It works ok for 2 but I can't imagine setting it up for 5 different classes all working together. I know it is possible. I'd like to try it for the challenge when I get a better computer but then that also means 5 accounts.....

It's actually not as hard as it looks, just takes some time to set up. You basically have a follow macro for all of your slaves, and then one button that makes them stop and move in different directions once you start a fight.

 

[lupi]

ugh, forgot all about the glyph changes.

 

[QuantumPion]

Bah I can't decide whether to make my druid or my old mage my main for cataclysm. I kind of want to start playing again now but my gear sucks so I don't think I'd have much to do raiding wise.

 

[Aikouka]

ugh, forgot all about the glyph changes.

Some classes have good glyphs, but others were pretty poor... I had trouble finding Death Knight major glyphs as there simply aren't any good DPS ones!

I can't find any good Enhancement Shaman major glyphs either, but some of them seem sort of decent, but nothing that will increase DPS.

EDIT:

I think I might use the Stoneclaw Totem glyph... given there isn't much else better to use. The totem protects our totems for 10,500 damage at level 85, and given the glyph gives us 4x that much, it'll be around half of our HP! It's only on a 30 second cooldown too, so it could rather help if we get into raid fights with lots of raid damage or high damage at certain points. With that, we can drop the totem and greatly reduce the damage we take.

 

[lupi]

killed gravis slipknot today, first time I think i've ever seen him. too bad they don't track old world rares.

 

[lupi]

World of Warcraft Client Patch 4.0.1

The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/
The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

Cataclysm Systems Patch

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will be in stores on December 7, 2010 and the time has come to prep for the official launch by implementing its first major patch. Players can experience many major game and user interface systems updates in the first official patch for the upcoming third expansion, patch 4.0.1.

General


•Cataclysm Launcher Update


•The new Cataclysm Launcher allows you to stream game data while you play. This will reduce the time you spend downloading, installing, and patching World of Warcraft. We'd like to get your feedback on the toolset and gameplay experience. Please head to the forums here for additional information: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=26726066731


•Reforging


•Players can now visit special Reforging NPCs in capital cities located near Enchanting trainers. 40% of any one secondary stat on an item can be can be allocated to add a new secondary stat to the item. The stat being added cannot already exist on the item. An item cannot have more than one reforged stat at a time, though the Reforging of an item can be undone and changed.

Dungeons & Raids


•Flexible Raid Lock System


•Icecrown Citadel and Ruby Sanctum now use the new Flexible Raid Lock system. This system provides the opportunity for a character to defeat each raid zone’s encounters once a week. A character may now complete the encounters during the week with different raids of either 10 or 25 players.

•Learn more about this feature by visiting our official forums here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=27026324753&sid=1


•Icecrown Citadel


•The Chill of the Throne effect has been removed.

Currency


•PvE Currency Changes


•All Emblems of Frost and Emblems of Triumph have been converted to new Justice Points.

•Any dungeon or raid which awarded these emblems will reward Justice Points instead. Anything below Emblems of Triumph, including badges from The Burning Crusade dungeon and raid content, have been converted into gold and sent to players via the in-game mail system.

•Any bosses players defeat that are level-appropriate to them award Justice Points.

•All items that previously cost emblems or badges of any type now cost Justice Points.

•Higher-tier Valor Points will be awarded to players who kill dungeon and raid bosses in the latest tier of PvE content after the launch of Cataclysm.


•PvP Currency Changes


•All Arena Points, Honor Points, Battleground Marks of Honor, Stone Keeper's Shards, Venture Coins, and Spirit Shards have been converted into new Honor Points.

•Honor Points will be awarded instead of these currencies, with the exception of Arena Points.

•Higher-tier Conquest Points will be awarded to players competing in each of the latest Arena or Rated Battleground seasons after the launch of Cataclysm.


•For more information on the changes to the currencies and conversion rates for each type, please visit our Cataclysm forum: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?sid=1&topicId=26850245012

Classes: General


•Many class talents, spells, and abilities have been overhauled, added, or removed.

•All spell and ability tooltips will now display damage averages rather than minimum and maximum damage potential. This feature is on by default but can be changed via the Display settings under User Interface options.

•Ammo has been removed from the game.

•The character levels at which classes gain new spells and abilities have changed.

•Many item and class stats have been changed or removed.

•Mastery rating has been added as a new stat which provides unique benefits for characters based on class and talent specialization. Mastery rating does not currently exist on items in the game, however, Reforging can be used to add Mastery rating as a secondary stat to existing items.

•Rage has been normalized.

•Spells and abilities no longer have multiple ranks and now scale with character level.

•Talent trees have been altered. All player talent specializations have been reset, allowing for free re-specialization.


•Each specialization has been reduced to a 31-point talent tree.

•Players will now get a total of 41 talent points to spend.

•Players will be asked to choose a specialization at level 10. Doing so will result in the unlocking of a spell or ability unique to that specialization, as well as one or more passive bonuses.

•Once a talent specialization has been chosen, players may only place points in the primary tree until at least 31 points have been spent there.

•The initial announcement regarding these talent tree changes can be found on our Cataclysm forum: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25626290449&sid=1

Death Knights


•A dedicated tanking tree (Blood) has been implemented.

•The effects of Blood Presence and Frost Presence have been exchanged.

•The way in which runes recharge has changed.

Druids


•A new Eclipse mechanic has been added for druids.

Hunters


•Five pets can now be stored with the hunter at all times. Any one of these five pets can be summoned via the Call Pet ability.

•Focus has replaced mana as a new resource.

•Hunters now start with a pet at level 1.

•The Stable will now store 20 pets. If a pet is moved into the Stable, its talents are wiped.

Mages


•There is now a new spell fly-out UI feature for mage portals. Clicking on the Teleport or Portal buttons will expand the list of choices available.

Paladins


•Paladins now have a new resource bar.

Warlocks


•There is now a new spell fly-out UI feature for warlock pets. Clicking on this single button will open up the list of available pets to summon.

•Soul Shards have been removed from the game as items. Instead, they now exist as a resource system necessary for using, or altering the mechanics of certain spells.

Items


•Resilience no longer reduces the chance a player will be critically hit by an opponent.

•Durability: cloth, leather, and mail now have as many points of durability as plate, making the repair cost on death much closer to equal for all classes.

Professions


•The glyph system has been updated to now feature three different types of glyphs. Many class glyphs have been added, altered, or moved to different glyph types.

User Interface


•Spell Alerts have been added to notify players when procs on select spells and abilities occur. A visual notification will display around the character and the activated ability will be highlighted on the action bar.

•The Guild Interface has been redesigned to incorporate additional functionality, including new sorting and organizational options.

•The Arena Teams pane has been improved.

•The Character pane has been redesigned. Character stats can now be shown or hidden via the Show All Details/Hide All Details button on the bottom left. When shown, all character stats will be visible in a window to the right of the pane. Stat sections can be reorganized by clicking and dragging them up or down the pane.

•The Professions panes now have more filtering and search functionality, as well as buttons to easily link recipes in the chat frame.

•A Professions screen has been added to the Spellbook to better display the details of a character’s primary and secondary professions.

•Many of the yellow System Messages that would display in the chat frame when leveling up have been removed.

•New text animations now alert players as they level up, also providing information on when new talents, spells and abilities are available.

•Professions and Class Trainers windows have been altered to more clearly display available and upcoming purchases.

•New Raid frames are now available. They can also be used in place of the standard 5-player party interface via the User Interface options.

•The Spellbook interface has been improved for greater ease-of-use and visual appeal.

•For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros Forum: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?sid=1&forumId=11114

Graphics


•Improved water and lava rendering system (Video Options - Liquid Detail on the Graphics Panel)

•Dynamic Sunshafts effect (Video Options - Sunshafts on the Graphics Panel)

•Multi-monitor support (Video Options - Monitor on the Graphics Panel)

•OpenGL Hardware Cursor support for Windows (Video Options - Hardware Cursor on the Advanced Panel)

•Experimental support for DX11 (enabled by passing ‘-d3d11’ on the command line or adding SET gxApi "d3d11" to the Config.WTF file)

 

[rh71]

- updated graphics? Interesting. I wonder if my card fan will spin like a jet taking off. It already does whenever fire is on the screen.

-

•Resilience no longer reduces the chance a player will be critically hit by an opponent.

Haven't been keeping up... so is nothing replacing this? Are we relying on high stam? Wouldn't seem fair to some classes.

- enhance sham vs. rogue... who did more dmg in raids - was it close? Who does more in cata? I keep reading shammies are more of a support role but they seem more fun so far.

 

[ViviTheMage]

patch day?!

 

[Aikouka]

Haven't been keeping up... so is nothing replacing this? Are we relying on high stam? Wouldn't seem fair to some classes.

Nothing is replacing it. The high stam values combined with Resilience's -(player)damage effect is pretty much their goal.

enhance sham vs. rogue... who did more dmg in raids - was it close? Who does more in cata? I keep reading shammies are more of a support role but they seem more fun so far.

Rogues did more, but Shamans weren't slouches or "bottom feeders." The thing is, Enh Shamans have a huuuuuge priority list, which most don't really follow, and people tend to complain about the complexity of Druids, but Shamans would have their rotation change because of a simple totem swap.

Oh and that reminds me... I forgot to buy the proper totem before the point switch, damnit! I've been using the 264 ele totem, because well... it's better . But now all totems, librams, relics and sigils have stats (and a gem slot), so the ele one... not so good .

 

[nageov3t]

•Durability: cloth, leather, and mail now have as many points of durability as plate, making the repair cost on death much closer to equal for all classes.

/facepalm

 

[FallenHero]

- updated graphics? Interesting. I wonder if my card fan will spin like a jet taking off. It already does whenever fire is on the screen.

-
Haven't been keeping up... so is nothing replacing this? Are we relying on high stam? Wouldn't seem fair to some classes.

- enhance sham vs. rogue... who did more dmg in raids - was it close? Who does more in cata? I keep reading shammies are more of a support role but they seem more fun so far.

Resil just reduces damage taken, not the chance to crit. It was an arms race that they needed to get rid of and I believe it is a good move. It opens up specs for pvp that weren't viable before.

And the stam buildup is going to be nuts. In case you don't know, expect a 500% increase in Stam by level 85 and only a 50% increase in damage.

 

[Anubis]

Resil just reduces damage taken, not the chance to crit. It was an arms race that they needed to get rid of and I believe it is a good move. It opens up specs for pvp that weren't viable before.

And the stam buildup is going to be nuts. In case you don't know, expect a 500% increase in Stam by level 85 and only a 50% increase in damage.

this is true, i posted numbers which i think were in the other thread but when the servers go live sometime today your base health will be 10k larger then it was yesterday

at level 83 with only 1 new item on the beta i was rocking 42k HP on my lock

 

[Scotteq]

patch day?!

Yes, it is Patch Day. BIG one, too. I fired up the comp and downloader when I got up this morning, and still had 3 hours left on 4.0.0 when I went to work. So I left it running. Presumably 4.0.1 will also have to be done when the first has completed. Have to work, tho... So it'll have to wait until I get back home.

 

[lupi]

Balance druids - yuck, glad I don't play one.


Talents: damn, didn't realize they also reduced the amount of points you get and locking you into one tree is an-interesting change.

 

[FallenHero]

Yes, it is Patch Day. BIG one, too. I fired up the comp and downloader when I got up this morning, and still had 3 hours left on 4.0.0 when I went to work. So I left it running. Presumably 4.0.1 will also have to be done when the first has completed. Have to work, tho... So it'll have to wait until I get back home.

If you had downloaded everything prior via the background downloader, it is about a gig today total download. Otherwise, you are looking at 5.5-6 gig download.

Get your blood going!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdMpKcPck2w