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[Pacobird]

In fairness, it had to be one of the trees, and Blood's mechanics make the most sense for conversion to straight tanking (to say nothing of the fact that the loss of ArP would necessity a large reworking to keep Blood DPS competitive).

Hunter revamp looks amazingly well-thought-out except for the fact that it's going to kill Hunter PvP if their only means of getting Focus quickly involves a cast bar.

[Bal]

I'm liking these changes. Honestly no real complaints. I mean, I hell, they're finally letting us catch 'em all. How could I complain?

[Doom]

Hunter revamp looks amazingly well-thought-out except for the fact that it's going to kill Hunter PvP if their only means of getting Focus quickly involves a cast bar.

All PvP is being largely rewritten to support dudes not dying for the crime of using cast bars or for being focused for 3 GCDs.

Oh man and we get Druid and Mage later today

[Pacobird]

I will believe that assist training is no longer the key to BGing when I see it.

[Bal]

Also that quote is stupid. Stead Shot gives you EXTRA focus, you still regen normally without it.

[Rico]

It appears that Blizzard is kind of giving up on PvE and hoping that the talent/mechanic revamps will be enough to make pushing the exact same buttons exciting for another patch, because no one seems to be getting anything new and interesting unless it's PvP focused or a longish CD.

I also LOVE that their FINAL ANSWER to god what can we do to let BM do anything but spam Steady Shot is to have them spam Steady Shot but GIVE IT A NEW NAME!! :Waylon Smithers "New Hat!":

[Niku]

I'm not going to lie, the Hunter revamps are the only thing that have actually made me gone "I would actually maybe subscribe again to play a Hunter for reals this time".

[Rico]

I like the waaaagh! Eclipse quite a bit.

[Shinra]

The level 85 balance druid ability is another hilarious addition to an already hilarious class.


"Okay, let me get this straight. You can turn into a bear, and you can turn into an owl. And if you get the talents right, you can turn into a mix between the two?"

"Yeah, but noone calls it an owlbear. They call it a moonkin. Or a chicken."

"...Ok, so you're a chicken. And they call your tree balance, because you're balanced between casting lightning bolts and uh. Star bolts."

"Right."

"And you summon magic mushrooms that do AOE damage?"

"Yep."

...

...

...

 

[Doom]

FUCK YES THIS WILL BE THE BEST TROLL DRUID EVER

In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm we’ll be making several changes to class talents and abilities. Here you will get a glimpse into some of the changes we have in store for the druid. The information you’re about to read is certainly not complete, and is only meant to act as a preview of some of the exciting new things to come. Let’s kick things off by checking out some of the new druid spells and abilities!

New Druid Abilities

Thrash (Level 81): Thrash deals damage and causes all targets within 10 yards to bleed every 2 seconds for 6 seconds. The intent here is to give bears another button to hit while tanking. Talents will affect the bleed, such as causing Swipe to deal more damage to bleeding targets. 5-second cooldown. 25 Rage.

Stampeding Roar (Level 83): The druid roars, increasing the movement of all allies within 10 yards by 40% for 8 seconds. Stampeding Roar can be used in cat or bear form, but bears might have a talent to drop the cooldown. The goal of this ability is to give both bears and cats a little more situational group utility. 3-minute cooldown. No cost.

Wild Mushroom (Level 85): Grows a magical mushroom at the target location. After 4 seconds the mushroom becomes invisible. Enemies who cross the mushroom detonate it, causing it to deal area-of-effect damage, though its damage component will remain very effective against single targets. The druid can also choose to detonate the mushroom ahead of time. This is primarily a tool for the Balance druid, and there will be talents that play off of it. No cooldown. 40-yard range. Instant cast.


Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

In addition to the new abilities listed above, we intend to make changes to some of the other abilities and mechanics with which you’re already familiar. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of our goals for each spec.

    * All heal-over-time spells (HoTs) will benefit from crit and haste innately in Cataclysm. Hasted HoTs do not reduce their duration, but instead add additional HoT ticks. Haste will also benefit Energy generation while in cat form.
    * Unlike the other healers, Restoration druids will not be receiving any new spells. They have plenty to work with already, and our challenge instead is to make sure all of them have a well-defined niche. A druid should be able to tank-heal with stacks of Lifebloom, spot-heal a group with Nourish and Regrowth, and top off lightly wounded targets with Rejuvenation.
    * We want to add tools to cat form and depth to bear form. If a Feral cat is going to fill a very similar niche to that of a rogue, warrior or Enhancement shaman, it needs a few more tools -- primarily a reliable interrupt. Bears need to be pushing a few more buttons just so the contrast between tanking and damage-dealing is not so steep.
    * Barkskin will be innately undispellable.
    * We will be buffing the damage of Mangle (cat) significantly so that when cat druids cannot Shred, they are not at such a damage-dealing loss.
    * Druids will lose Abolish Poison with the dispel mechanics change, but Restoration druids will gain Dispel Magic (on friendly targets) as a talent. All druids can still remove poisons with Cure Poison and remove curses with Remove Curse.



New Talents and Talent Changes

    * Tree of Life is changing from a passive talent to a cooldown-based talent, similar to Metamorphosis. Mechanically, it feels unfair for a druid to have to give up so much offense and utility in order to be just as good at healing as the other classes who are not asked to make that trade. We are exploring the exact benefit the druid gets from Tree of Life. It could strictly be better healing, or it could be that each heal behaves slightly different. You also will not be able to be banished in Tree of Life form (this will probably be true of Metamorphosis as well). Additionally, we would like to update the Tree of Life model so that it feels more exciting when you do decide to go into that form. Our feeling is that druids rarely actually get to show off their armor, so it would be nice to have at least one spec that looked like a night elf or tauren (and soon troll or worgen) for most of the time.
    * We want to make the Feral cat damage rotation slightly more forgiving. We do not want to remove what druids like about their gameplay, but we do want to make it less punishing to miss, say, a Savage Roar or Rake. The changes here will be on par with increasing the duration of Mangle like we did for patch 3.3.3.
    * Balance druids will have a new talent ability called Nature’s Torrent, which strikes for either Nature or Arcane damage depending on which will do the most damage (or possibly both), and moves the Eclipse meter more (details below). The improved version of Nature’s Torrent also reduces the target's movement speed. 10-second cooldown.
    * Restoration druids will have a new talent called Efflorescence, which causes a bed of healing flora to sprout beneath targets that are critically healed by Regrowth.
    * We plan on giving Feral cats and bears a Kick/Pummel equivalent -- an interrupt that is off the global cooldown and does no damage. We feel like they need this utility to be able to fill the melee role in a dungeon or raid group, and to give them more PvP utility.
    * We want to make sure Feral and Balance druids feel like good options for an Arena team. They need the tools to where you might consider a Feral druid over an Arms warrior, or a Balance druid over a mage or warlock. Remember that the PvP landscape will probably look pretty different for Cataclysm with a focus on rated, competitive Battlegrounds.



Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Balance

    * Spell Damage
    * Spell Haste
    * Eclipse


Eclipse: We are moving Eclipse from a talent into a core mechanic of the class and making it less random. Balance druids will have a new UI element that shows a sun and a moon. Whenever they cast an Arcane spell, it will move the UI closer to the sun, and buff their Nature damage. Whenever they cast a Nature spell, it will move the UI closer to the moon, and buff their Arcane damage. The gameplay intention is to alternate Arcane and Nature spells (largely Starfire and Wrath) to maintain the balance.

Feral (Cat)

    * Melee Damage
    * Melee Critical Damage
    * Bleed Damage


Feral (Bear)

    * Damage Reduction
    * Vengeance
    * Savage Defense


Bleed Damage and Savage Defense: Feral druids will receive two sets of passive bonuses depending on whether the druid is in cat or bear form. Bleed Damage will be improved for cats. Savage Defense is the current bear mechanic for converting crits into damage absorption and will be improved for bears.

Vengeance: This is a mechanic to ensure that tank damage (and therefore threat) doesn’t fall behind as damage-dealing classes improve their gear during the course of the expansion. All tanking specs will have Vengeance as their second talent tree passive bonus. Whenever a tank gets hit, Vengeance will give them a stacking attack power buff equal to 5% of the damage done, up to a maximum of 10% of the character’s unbuffed health. For boss encounters we expect that tanks will always have the attack power bonus equal to 10% of their health. The 5% and 10% bonuses assume 51 talent points have been put into the Feral tree and the druid is in bear form -- these values will be smaller at lower levels. Remember, you only get this bonus if you have spent the most talent points in the Feral tree and are in bear form, so you won’t see Balance, Restoration, or Feral druids in cat form running around with it. Vengeance will let us continue to make tank gear more or less the way we do today -- there will be some damage-dealing stats, but mostly survival-oriented stats. Druids typically have more damage-dealing stats even on their tanking gear, so the Vengeance benefit may be smaller, but overall the goal is that all four tanks do about the same damage when tanking.

Restoration

    * Healing
    * Meditation
    * HoT Scale Healing


HoT Scale Healing: HoTs will do increased healing on more wounded targets. The mechanic is similar to that of the Restoration shaman, but with HoTs instead of direct heals. In Cataclysm, we anticipate druids using a greater variety of their spells so there is a distinction between healing and HoT healing.

We hope you enjoyed this preview, and ask that you provide your initial thoughts and feedback on what was presented here. Please keep in mind, what you’ve just reviewed is a work in progress and as we move closer to the Cataclysm beta, you’ll see these changes as well as others continue to develop in response to testing and feedback.

[Rico]

"people dont realize taking away full time tree means taking away a couple hundred spell power for most trees who are in tree form 100% of the time in pve

if you took a druid into icc and told him to not go into tree form he would tell you to fuck right off"

Cannot get enough of the forums right now.

[A²]

Mages get Heroism

Mages confirmed for best class.

[A²]

n World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, we’ll be making lots of changes and additions to class talents and abilities across the board. In this preview, you’ll get an early look at what's in store for the mage class, including a rundown of some of the new spells, abilities, and talents, and an overview of how the new Mastery system will work with the different talent specs.

New Mage Spells

Flame Orb (available at level 81): Inspired by Prince Taldaram’s abilities in Ahn'kahet and Icecrown Citadel, this spell allows the mage to cast a flaming orb that travels in front in a straight line, sending beams that cause fire damage to passing targets. Once it’s cast, the mage is free to begin casting other spells as the Flame Orb travels. While the spell will be useful to any spec, Fire mages will have talents that improve it, possibly causing the Flame Orb to explode when it reaches its destination.

Time Warp (level 83): Grants a passive Haste effect much like Bloodlust or Heroism to party or raid members. It also temporarily increases the mage's own movement speed. Time Warp will be exclusive with Bloodlust and Heroism, meaning you can’t benefit from both if you’ve got the Exhaustion debuff, though the movement-speed increase will still work even when under the effects of Exhaustion.

Wall of Fog (level 85): Creates a line of frost in front of the mage, 30 yards from end to end. Enemies who cross the line are snared and take damage. The mana cost will be designed to make Wall of Fog efficient against groups, not individuals. This spell is intended to give mages a way to help control the battlefield, whether the mage is damaging incoming enemies (Blizzard can be channeled on top of Wall of Fog) or protecting a flag in a Battleground. 10-second duration. 30-second cooldown.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

In addition to introducing new spells, we're planning to make changes to some of the other abilities and mechanics you're familiar with. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we intend for each spec.

    * Arcane Missiles is being redesigned to become a proc-based spell. Whenever the mage does damage with any spell, there is a chance for Arcane Missiles to become available, similar to how the warrior’s Overpower works. The damage and mana cost of this spell will be reworked to make it very desirable to use when available. This change should make gameplay more dynamic for the mage, particularly at low levels.
    * We are planning to remove spells that don't have a clear purpose. Amplify Magic, Dampen Magic, Fire Ward, and Frost Ward are being removed from the game, and we may remove more.
    * The ability to conjure food and water will not become available until higher levels (likely around level 40), as we're making changes to ensure mages generally won’t run out of mana at lower levels. Once mages learn how to conjure food and water, the conjured item will restore both health and mana.
    * Scorch will provide a damage bonus to the mage's fire spells. Our goal is for Scorch to be part of the mage's rotation and a useful damage-dealing ability, even if someone else is supplying the group with the spell Critical Strike debuff. Scorch will provide the mage with more specific benefits, which can also be improved through talents.



New Talents and Talent Changes

    * Arcane Focus will now return mana for each spell that fails to hit your target, including Arcane Missiles that fail to launch. We want Arcane mages to have several talents that play off of how much mana the character has and give the player enough tools to manage mana.
    * The talent Playing with Fire will reduce the cooldown of Blast Wave when hit by a melee attack, instead of its current effect.
    * Pyromaniac will grant Haste when three or more targets are getting damaged by the effects of your damage-over-time (DoT) fire spells.
    * The Burnout talent will allow mages to cast spells using health when they run out of mana.



Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Arcane

    * Spell damage
    * Spell Haste
    * Mana Adept


Mana Adept: Arcane will deal damage based how much mana the mage has. For example, Arcane mages will do much more damage at 100% mana than at 50% mana. If they begin to get low on mana, they will likely want to use an ability or mechanic to bring their mana up to increase their damage.

Fire

    * Spell damage
    * Spell Crit
    * Ignite


Ignite: All direct-damage fire spells will add a damage-over-time (DoT) component when cast. The flavor will be similar to how Fireball works; however, the DoT component will be much stronger.

Frost

    * Spell damage
    * Spell Crit damage
    * Deathfrost


Deathfrost: Casting Frostbolt places a buff on the mage that increases the damage for all frost, fire, and arcane spells. The only damage spell that won't be affected by this buff is Frostbolt.

We hope you enjoyed this preview, and we’re looking forward to hearing your initial thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on Cataclysm continues.

[norn]

When Bal started talking about how Cataclysm would see cool things happen for Shamans because it was about elementals and shit, I thought he was wrong because 1) lorefag and 2) Shamans haven't improved since they lost Spirit of Wolf back in Warcraft Adventures. But it turns out they get the best new spells overall, the single best spell in Spiritwalker's Grace, the best potential spells in Earthquake and Spirit Link, and the best Mastery bonus in Elemental Overload. And if history is any indication, they'll keep their distinction of Overall Best Tier Sets.

Second place is a tie between Warlocks and Hunters. The death of shitty, old mechanics is the most exciting thing about Cataclysm, and 'soul shards', 'ammunition', and 'Hunter mana' were all in the top 5; exact placement varies per person. (the other 2 were 'weapon skill' and 'combo points not carrying to other targets'. 4.5 out of 5 ain't bad.)

Druids probably get the next nod, with a long-overdue interrupt for Ferals, ToL becoming a cooldown so we can actually see Druid gear outside of Dalaran Orgrimmar, being the only class to gain a dispel category without losing anything, arguably the largest benefit from haste of any healer, and the baking-in of Eclipse. Oh yeah, and their AoE spell is a mushroom. Should make old content Freya kills enjoyable at 85...

Death Knights come next, or so I have been led to believe: refining of rune mechanics and consolidation of talent tree roles, a convenient method of getting diseases up, Anti-PW:S Strike, and a spell reflect equivalent. Hey, Warriors use spell reflect a lot, right?

After that it's a bit hazy. Priests get Life Grip and Power Word: This Sure Would Have Been Nice For The Lich King, but boring Mastery bonuses. Having said that, there is a lot of potential in things like Holy spec 'empowered state' healing and something regarding Shadow Orb consumption. Time will tell.

Rogues get a half-measure that deals with combo points, which is better than what they've had for the last five years, and then.. some defensive cooldowns and a self-heal. I think Rogues may benefit more from the actual talent tree revamps themselves. This is probably true of every class, to be fair.

I won't touch on Warriors because Hraedon loaned me some Primordial Saronite recently and I think I owe it to him to not reopen old wounds.

Lastly, Mages. The most boring class gets the most boring preview. If Bloodlust + Drums of Speed are the most interesting thing you get—and in this case they are—you have problems as well as my condolences. But like I said on my guild forums, if you are playing a Mage, you are already well-accustomed to boredom. I wonder if new Ragnaros will be fire-immune!

[Bal]

Can't wait to see paladin changes next week. I wonder if it will just be "We're not improving anything, as we feel that this class is already performing as if it were level 85".

[Shinra]

Paladins will now have a level cap of 75. Their weapon skill will gain at the same rate as a level 85 character, but they will have fewer hit points, stat points and talent points. We believe this will bring them in line with the other classes.

[norn]

Paladin changes will be interesting. I don't know shit about Prot so I won't venture any opinions beyond the one everyone knows (Ardent Defender is impossible to balance around), which leaves Ret and Holy:

Ret will get not much. In order of likeliness: An actual effect for Crusader Strike, some change to Consecration to either remove it from the rotation or automate it somehow (cf. Desecration), an off-the-GCD interrupt like every other melee class (brofist, ferals. uh.. bropaw). FCFS Roll Dat Face will not change, and Ret's Mastery bonus will be a cooldown reduction as was revealed when the Mastery system was first shown, which will result in hitting the same buttons even faster. Awesome!

Holy should get a lot. You could certainly argue that, of the Top 5 shitty mechanics I mentioned above, Spellpower Plate is honorary #1, as Hunter mana and Soul Shards only bother those classes, but SP Plate has bothered every class, every week, for five years. I fervently hope Cataclysm will put an end to it.

Beyond itemization issues, Holy Paladins have a long road to be seriously balanced with other healers in terms of both toolbox (ours currently holds one tool: Holy Light, and then a few loose nuts and bolts) and relative power (our tool is far, far too effective while taking no brain power to utilize). Bare minimum we get a middle heal, ideally we'll get another new spell and some talents that will introduce some level of skill to the class.

Ha. Skill. Paladins. Hoo boy...

[Doom]

I wouldn't count Rogue and Mage out as too dull yet. If rated BGs and the idea that PvP involves more than 3 GCD per focus train really take off, guys who can actually time Magic Mushrooms, Smoke Bombs, Fog Walls and Fire Orbs are going to be absolutely essential.

Dare I say that the whole thing has a very DoTA like feel to it, which is appropriate seeing as most of the new abilities may have been lifted straight from it.

This is a good thing by the way. 

I am much more interested in needing a Mage/Druid combo who can box that Flag Carrier pack into a really bad spot before everybody jumps them than I am in whether or not Plate Classes or Too Much Burst Casters become the workhorses of every PvP encounter and Arena Team.

[Rico]

One of the Rogue changes being, "Oh, hey, you know that time 3 or 4 years ago when we wouldn't let you S&D on dead targets anymore?  Yeah, we decided that was dumb, but it took us even longer than fixing Shaman base health."

[Doom]

Hyjal Area Teasers up.

TORTOLLUS, GOD OF TURTLES!