Abigor
06-28-2008, 07:55 PM
***General Information***
Titan's Grip is confirmed -- two-handed dual wielding for Fury Warriors.
Hunter pet skill points are out, and pets are getting their own Talent trees.
Shaman CC is official.
Ret Pallys are getting new itemization.
Rogues are going to be able to sap a lot more.
Q: Will we be able to use flying mounts in Northrend? A: Yes, we are allowing players to use flying mounts in Wrath. Their wings might have to be defrosted a little bit. There will be some kind of attunement. New flying mounts will be introduced, possibly able to carry passengers at level 80.
Q:What do you have planned for armor customization in Wrath. A: We do plan to make raiding armor sets in Raiding look distinctive from PvP sets.
Q: What changes will you make in the old world, specifically filling in areas that are blank. A: We're huge fans of the old world. A few new things: we're adding a harbor to Stormwind, its transport to Northwind. We will also be extending an area in Northern Plaguelands for the Death Knights to have a starting area. We are planning on putting one of our new arenas in Ogrimmar in place of the empty Arena there now. We want people to continue to play in the old world.
Q: We have Gnome DKs, what about Gnome Paladins? (booing from audience). A: i was going to say yes, but by popular vote I'm going to have to say no. (audience cheering.) ha ha!
Q: What did you learn about Arenas so far? A: Line of sight, how much that affects players. We are going to introduce dynamic LOS in Wrath, for example a pillar may move up and down every 20secs or movable items. Randomness into the Arena vs player skill is the balance. We will have more info about the Arena in tomorrow's panel.
Q: Even Nihilum could kill Kil'jaeden. Will you nerf Sunwell Plateau before Wrath launches? A: Naxxramas will be retuned for 10 and 25 man and will be first tier raid. That is a good example of content people couldn't experience before. As far as the difficulty of Kil'jaeden, he is designed to be the final raid boss of the expansion. He is the unobtainable goal and we have no plans to nerf it. We monitor player progression and if we need to nerf it, we will, but have no plans now.
Q: PvP players have to do more PvP to be better for PvE. Is there plans to better separate the two? A: Its a fine line to walk. We don't want one to feel like they have to do the other, but we want players to feel like if they participate in the other gameplay, there is something there for them and that the two playstyles aren't exlusive to each other. We plan itemization changes planned for Wrath to smooth things out between the two.
Q: Which party buffs will become raid buffs in Wrath? A: Most of the Shaman totems, Unleashed Rage and Battle Shout as a couple of examples.
Q: Uldum in Tanaris, is that going to be later content or a release in Wrath? A: Uldum is a dungeon that a lot of players want to see, and it was on our list for Northrend. I can't say whether we'll see it or not but it's something we want to get to players. There's still a lot in the old world that we plan on hooking into, but we don't want to launch it all in one expansion. Others like Grim Batol, just not all in one expansion.
Q: Will ugly mismatched armor be a problem in Wrath the way it was in TBC? (cheering) A: We ended up having a little clown action, ok, a lot of clown action in TBC. We aren't going to eliminate it, but we are going to improve it. You won't be happy 100%, but we could just solve it by making everything gray.
Q: Any plans to be able to switch between Talent specs easier? A: We are working on a plan to give players access to two Talent specs. More details in the future.
Q: Why does the animal boss (spider boss) in lower Karazhan drop such crappy loot? A: That was a specific idea we had were there was a boss that dropped loot that didn't require 10 people. You have 8 people logged on you could get some faction and some loot.
***Class Information***
Death Knight
One thing they're talking about is that they don't want to leave the Death Knight in the specific role according to their class -- they don't want to pigeon hole Death Knights by the spec they choose. The speaker plainly said that it's problematic for designers that tanks are forced to either be tank spec or DPS spec -- they want to avoid this restricting dynamic for Death Knights.
He also spoke about class-defining abilities. Runes, right now, have a 10 second cool down. The Armies of Undead are meant to call masses of undead -- invoke the feeling of how Arthas is the Lich King, and able to pull large groups of undead to attack enemies.
The speaker definitely seemed concerned about the tank shortage. They want to avoid pegging a death knight spec as only one spec at a time, so that each character has as many options in play as possible.
The Death Knight starting area will be an extended area in Northern Plaguelands. The developers feel strongly about keeping people interested in playing in the Old World so they are creating this new zone.
Along those same lines, the voice emotes will be changed for Death Knights according to race. A Tauren DK will sound very different from a Dwarf DK; conversely, you will also be able to tell the race of the Death Knight by its voice.
We knew previously that DKs use runes for their abilities. Today we learned that they will have a 10 second cooldown. The short cooldown is meant to illustrate how the Lich King is able to command literal Armies of Undead.
Q: How viable do you plan on making DK's in the 25man raid. A: We want the tanks to feel interchangable at the 5man level, but at the 25 man level we want the tanks to have a specialty, DKs should be the best against casters. Shouldn't be far behind on other encounters.
For more information, check out our Death Knight analysis.
Hunters
Hunter announcement were huge at the dev panel.
Steady Shot will no longer clip autoshot -- the speaker acknowledged that Hunters hurt their own DPS by using their abilities
Pets will get "talent trees" - one utility tree, one TANKING tree, one DPS tree
A specific ability revealed was "cornered" - your pet does an additional 20% damage when they're at 20% health
Hunter... Plan for New Pets? And new pet slots?
There will definitely be new pets. (No news about new pet slots.)
Will pet skill points disappear with pet talent trees?
It's a total rewrite of the Hunter pet system. No more skill points, only pet talents now.
For more information, check out our Hunter analysis.
Mages
Will get a Frostfire bolt to make Elementalists more viable.
"Now that every other class has CC, what are you going to do so that Mages are more viable?"
Make sure their damage is competitive. They are "sidelined" by Warlocks now. Intended for Mages to be kings of AoE but Seed of Corruption was too effective. Scale up Mage damage, make sure they can overtake AoE.
For more information, check out our Mage analysis.
Priests
Divine Hymn - Allows priest to cast a hymn (holy tree) that heals party members. If an opponent strikes a party member, they go into a trance. It gives a deep holy priest not only a healing mechanic, but a pretty interestnig emergency ability to use for control
Dispersion - Reduce damage 90% regen 6% health/mana per second. 51 point shadow, a way to turtle against incoming attacks and regen. Can move but not cast spells
Guardian Spirit - Talent that prevents party member death. Castable cheat death pet. Follows a party member, if party member takes a killing blow, the spirit dies instead. All three are specifically designed to address core priest issues, or solidify their overall role.
For more information, check out our Priest analysis.
Will there be some changes made to priests in terms of damage and healing ot balance them against other classes?
Do you mean balance them up or down? Shadow Priests are huge in raids, but they're a big weakness in high-end Arena PvP, we never see them there. Dispersion is the big ability designed to help this, to help them escape from melee. Hopefully that'll do the trick.
Druids
Entangling Roots indoors: A lot of druids left out of heroics due to a lack of CC indoors. Diminishing returns off of Cyclone a "curse to the class" because Cyclone has such a short duration. No DR means you'd end up spamming Cyclone every 6 seconds the entire dungeon.
Didn't change Cyclone because "it takes too long to cast, didn't want to take Druids out of the action to recast Cyclone over and over, and chain-Cyclone in PvE"
Flourish (or nourish?) for druid -- short time cast healing spell, 1.5 sec cast, effectiveness depending on what HoTs are up
Will Druids be able to use Windfury and Mongoose in forms?
Yes, that's one of the changes. The windfury is no longer going to be WEAPON and going to be BUFF for your PC. Windfury is a buff, not a weapon enchant. It works with forms and poisons and weapon buffs etc.
Q: Will druids get male or female optional forms to choose from? A; We're thinking about swapping out flight form for male and female forms for feral. No? We do plan to have a new model for dire bear form and we plan to introduce the dire cat.
Q: Will druids have an epic ground form? A: No plans. Just epic arena wins with their current ground form.
For more information, check out our Druid analysis.
Shaman
Suffering from "totem spam" -- too many totems
Strength of Earth and Grace of Air will be combined
Totems will affect the entire raid, not just the party. Woot!
Rockbiter is out. Earthliving is the new weapon enchant, will give +healing
Flametongue is giving spell damage. Frost more reliably snares
Shaman will get Hex, a limited, emergency CC -- polymorph-like spell on a medium cooldown allowing them to turn an enemy into a frog. Hexed players will have movement control, but no casting ability.
You mentioned a Shaman Hex spell which is a .5 second cast time. What is the duration?"
8-10 seconds.
Will cyclone be changed or improved for Balance?
No.
For more information, check out our Shaman analysis.
Rogue
Fan of Knives, from Warcraft III was a core ability of the Warden, but they thought it fit Rogues more
It's a short AoE damage burst when needed (1 minute cooldown was mentioned)
Sap bigger spread now. Humanoids, beasts, dragonkin, demons. Another CC help for heroics. "Pretty much anything with a skull and brain inside of it."
Q: Any plans to increase viability of Swords specs for raiding Rogues? A: We do intend to make improvements, daggers fell behind, we do intend for daggers to be very strong in Lich King for Rogues.
Paladins
Ret has poor itemization -- trying to move it over to Warrior/DK itemization
Hand of Purity is a new "reactive healing spell" -- PoM style preemptive "healbomb"
More non-exclusive blessings -- Freedom and Protection. They won't necessarily be called blessings, but they'll be outside of that category.
Does the Ret focus for Paladins mean you plan to move away from Protection and Holy?
'I definitely want to express we don't ever plan to move away from core things like Holy/Protection." We have to work on the specs that haven't worked well enough. Hand of Purity is one example of trying to enhance Holy.
Itemization for Ret Paladins. A: There are several things coming down the pike. They will share itemization with Warriors and DKs. And we plan to enhance their group utility to melee dps and how much dps they are able to put out themselves.
For more information, check out our Paladin analysis.
Warrior
Wanted to make the class feel more like Warcraft III -- put the Bladestorm Shockwave in, and tweaked Arms and Protection.
Shockwave will help with Prot damage problem
Titan's Grip is confirmed -- dual wielding 2h weapons. Rossi will love that.
Any plans to make it so warriors don't need to waste 5 talent points to get Flurry for raids?
"We'll see." He acknowledges that the talents pigeonhole warriors, and that they want to be careful not reinforce that. Try to make it so that Death Wish Flurry doesn't turn into dominant raid DPS build. Bladestorm needs to be very attractive for DPS. Titan's grip route is the fury route for DPS, so BS if you're Arms, Titan's Grip if you're Fury. With both viable, the five talent points might not be necessary. They're fine with the flurry points, specifically, though and feels worth it to them. (Crowd is extremely unhappy with that one)
We plan to help the Prot Warrior do more dps, through Heroic Strike and Revenge improvements and maybe give Shield Slam to all Warriors.
Q: Can Warriors look forward to Retaliation become less useless in Wrath. A: We will have swarms of mobs that will attack you.
Warlock
Demonic Circle -- scribe a circle on the ground, and then teleport back there when you need to
51 point Demonology is a demon form. "Illidan form" is what Blizz is calling it around the office.
In demonform you can spam some AoE Shadowbolts.
Q: Will Soul Shard farming being addressed? All other classes can buy their reagents at vendors. And what's up with the Missing Diplomat? A: Diplomat - no answer off-hand, would have to talk to Quest guys. Soul Shards - we do have plans, emergency soul shard ability, but no plans to change it significantly. Its class defining.
Q: Do you plan on having Warlocks as viable tanks? A: They've already had opportunities to be viable tanks, but it's not a role they will fill consistently. It's an AE damage or direct damage form LOL Serhan!
Titan's Grip is confirmed -- two-handed dual wielding for Fury Warriors.
Hunter pet skill points are out, and pets are getting their own Talent trees.
Shaman CC is official.
Ret Pallys are getting new itemization.
Rogues are going to be able to sap a lot more.
Q: Will we be able to use flying mounts in Northrend? A: Yes, we are allowing players to use flying mounts in Wrath. Their wings might have to be defrosted a little bit. There will be some kind of attunement. New flying mounts will be introduced, possibly able to carry passengers at level 80.
Q:What do you have planned for armor customization in Wrath. A: We do plan to make raiding armor sets in Raiding look distinctive from PvP sets.
Q: What changes will you make in the old world, specifically filling in areas that are blank. A: We're huge fans of the old world. A few new things: we're adding a harbor to Stormwind, its transport to Northwind. We will also be extending an area in Northern Plaguelands for the Death Knights to have a starting area. We are planning on putting one of our new arenas in Ogrimmar in place of the empty Arena there now. We want people to continue to play in the old world.
Q: We have Gnome DKs, what about Gnome Paladins? (booing from audience). A: i was going to say yes, but by popular vote I'm going to have to say no. (audience cheering.) ha ha!
Q: What did you learn about Arenas so far? A: Line of sight, how much that affects players. We are going to introduce dynamic LOS in Wrath, for example a pillar may move up and down every 20secs or movable items. Randomness into the Arena vs player skill is the balance. We will have more info about the Arena in tomorrow's panel.
Q: Even Nihilum could kill Kil'jaeden. Will you nerf Sunwell Plateau before Wrath launches? A: Naxxramas will be retuned for 10 and 25 man and will be first tier raid. That is a good example of content people couldn't experience before. As far as the difficulty of Kil'jaeden, he is designed to be the final raid boss of the expansion. He is the unobtainable goal and we have no plans to nerf it. We monitor player progression and if we need to nerf it, we will, but have no plans now.
Q: PvP players have to do more PvP to be better for PvE. Is there plans to better separate the two? A: Its a fine line to walk. We don't want one to feel like they have to do the other, but we want players to feel like if they participate in the other gameplay, there is something there for them and that the two playstyles aren't exlusive to each other. We plan itemization changes planned for Wrath to smooth things out between the two.
Q: Which party buffs will become raid buffs in Wrath? A: Most of the Shaman totems, Unleashed Rage and Battle Shout as a couple of examples.
Q: Uldum in Tanaris, is that going to be later content or a release in Wrath? A: Uldum is a dungeon that a lot of players want to see, and it was on our list for Northrend. I can't say whether we'll see it or not but it's something we want to get to players. There's still a lot in the old world that we plan on hooking into, but we don't want to launch it all in one expansion. Others like Grim Batol, just not all in one expansion.
Q: Will ugly mismatched armor be a problem in Wrath the way it was in TBC? (cheering) A: We ended up having a little clown action, ok, a lot of clown action in TBC. We aren't going to eliminate it, but we are going to improve it. You won't be happy 100%, but we could just solve it by making everything gray.
Q: Any plans to be able to switch between Talent specs easier? A: We are working on a plan to give players access to two Talent specs. More details in the future.
Q: Why does the animal boss (spider boss) in lower Karazhan drop such crappy loot? A: That was a specific idea we had were there was a boss that dropped loot that didn't require 10 people. You have 8 people logged on you could get some faction and some loot.
***Class Information***
Death Knight
One thing they're talking about is that they don't want to leave the Death Knight in the specific role according to their class -- they don't want to pigeon hole Death Knights by the spec they choose. The speaker plainly said that it's problematic for designers that tanks are forced to either be tank spec or DPS spec -- they want to avoid this restricting dynamic for Death Knights.
He also spoke about class-defining abilities. Runes, right now, have a 10 second cool down. The Armies of Undead are meant to call masses of undead -- invoke the feeling of how Arthas is the Lich King, and able to pull large groups of undead to attack enemies.
The speaker definitely seemed concerned about the tank shortage. They want to avoid pegging a death knight spec as only one spec at a time, so that each character has as many options in play as possible.
The Death Knight starting area will be an extended area in Northern Plaguelands. The developers feel strongly about keeping people interested in playing in the Old World so they are creating this new zone.
Along those same lines, the voice emotes will be changed for Death Knights according to race. A Tauren DK will sound very different from a Dwarf DK; conversely, you will also be able to tell the race of the Death Knight by its voice.
We knew previously that DKs use runes for their abilities. Today we learned that they will have a 10 second cooldown. The short cooldown is meant to illustrate how the Lich King is able to command literal Armies of Undead.
Q: How viable do you plan on making DK's in the 25man raid. A: We want the tanks to feel interchangable at the 5man level, but at the 25 man level we want the tanks to have a specialty, DKs should be the best against casters. Shouldn't be far behind on other encounters.
For more information, check out our Death Knight analysis.
Hunters
Hunter announcement were huge at the dev panel.
Steady Shot will no longer clip autoshot -- the speaker acknowledged that Hunters hurt their own DPS by using their abilities
Pets will get "talent trees" - one utility tree, one TANKING tree, one DPS tree
A specific ability revealed was "cornered" - your pet does an additional 20% damage when they're at 20% health
Hunter... Plan for New Pets? And new pet slots?
There will definitely be new pets. (No news about new pet slots.)
Will pet skill points disappear with pet talent trees?
It's a total rewrite of the Hunter pet system. No more skill points, only pet talents now.
For more information, check out our Hunter analysis.
Mages
Will get a Frostfire bolt to make Elementalists more viable.
"Now that every other class has CC, what are you going to do so that Mages are more viable?"
Make sure their damage is competitive. They are "sidelined" by Warlocks now. Intended for Mages to be kings of AoE but Seed of Corruption was too effective. Scale up Mage damage, make sure they can overtake AoE.
For more information, check out our Mage analysis.
Priests
Divine Hymn - Allows priest to cast a hymn (holy tree) that heals party members. If an opponent strikes a party member, they go into a trance. It gives a deep holy priest not only a healing mechanic, but a pretty interestnig emergency ability to use for control
Dispersion - Reduce damage 90% regen 6% health/mana per second. 51 point shadow, a way to turtle against incoming attacks and regen. Can move but not cast spells
Guardian Spirit - Talent that prevents party member death. Castable cheat death pet. Follows a party member, if party member takes a killing blow, the spirit dies instead. All three are specifically designed to address core priest issues, or solidify their overall role.
For more information, check out our Priest analysis.
Will there be some changes made to priests in terms of damage and healing ot balance them against other classes?
Do you mean balance them up or down? Shadow Priests are huge in raids, but they're a big weakness in high-end Arena PvP, we never see them there. Dispersion is the big ability designed to help this, to help them escape from melee. Hopefully that'll do the trick.
Druids
Entangling Roots indoors: A lot of druids left out of heroics due to a lack of CC indoors. Diminishing returns off of Cyclone a "curse to the class" because Cyclone has such a short duration. No DR means you'd end up spamming Cyclone every 6 seconds the entire dungeon.
Didn't change Cyclone because "it takes too long to cast, didn't want to take Druids out of the action to recast Cyclone over and over, and chain-Cyclone in PvE"
Flourish (or nourish?) for druid -- short time cast healing spell, 1.5 sec cast, effectiveness depending on what HoTs are up
Will Druids be able to use Windfury and Mongoose in forms?
Yes, that's one of the changes. The windfury is no longer going to be WEAPON and going to be BUFF for your PC. Windfury is a buff, not a weapon enchant. It works with forms and poisons and weapon buffs etc.
Q: Will druids get male or female optional forms to choose from? A; We're thinking about swapping out flight form for male and female forms for feral. No? We do plan to have a new model for dire bear form and we plan to introduce the dire cat.
Q: Will druids have an epic ground form? A: No plans. Just epic arena wins with their current ground form.
For more information, check out our Druid analysis.
Shaman
Suffering from "totem spam" -- too many totems
Strength of Earth and Grace of Air will be combined
Totems will affect the entire raid, not just the party. Woot!
Rockbiter is out. Earthliving is the new weapon enchant, will give +healing
Flametongue is giving spell damage. Frost more reliably snares
Shaman will get Hex, a limited, emergency CC -- polymorph-like spell on a medium cooldown allowing them to turn an enemy into a frog. Hexed players will have movement control, but no casting ability.
You mentioned a Shaman Hex spell which is a .5 second cast time. What is the duration?"
8-10 seconds.
Will cyclone be changed or improved for Balance?
No.
For more information, check out our Shaman analysis.
Rogue
Fan of Knives, from Warcraft III was a core ability of the Warden, but they thought it fit Rogues more
It's a short AoE damage burst when needed (1 minute cooldown was mentioned)
Sap bigger spread now. Humanoids, beasts, dragonkin, demons. Another CC help for heroics. "Pretty much anything with a skull and brain inside of it."
Q: Any plans to increase viability of Swords specs for raiding Rogues? A: We do intend to make improvements, daggers fell behind, we do intend for daggers to be very strong in Lich King for Rogues.
Paladins
Ret has poor itemization -- trying to move it over to Warrior/DK itemization
Hand of Purity is a new "reactive healing spell" -- PoM style preemptive "healbomb"
More non-exclusive blessings -- Freedom and Protection. They won't necessarily be called blessings, but they'll be outside of that category.
Does the Ret focus for Paladins mean you plan to move away from Protection and Holy?
'I definitely want to express we don't ever plan to move away from core things like Holy/Protection." We have to work on the specs that haven't worked well enough. Hand of Purity is one example of trying to enhance Holy.
Itemization for Ret Paladins. A: There are several things coming down the pike. They will share itemization with Warriors and DKs. And we plan to enhance their group utility to melee dps and how much dps they are able to put out themselves.
For more information, check out our Paladin analysis.
Warrior
Wanted to make the class feel more like Warcraft III -- put the Bladestorm Shockwave in, and tweaked Arms and Protection.
Shockwave will help with Prot damage problem
Titan's Grip is confirmed -- dual wielding 2h weapons. Rossi will love that.
Any plans to make it so warriors don't need to waste 5 talent points to get Flurry for raids?
"We'll see." He acknowledges that the talents pigeonhole warriors, and that they want to be careful not reinforce that. Try to make it so that Death Wish Flurry doesn't turn into dominant raid DPS build. Bladestorm needs to be very attractive for DPS. Titan's grip route is the fury route for DPS, so BS if you're Arms, Titan's Grip if you're Fury. With both viable, the five talent points might not be necessary. They're fine with the flurry points, specifically, though and feels worth it to them. (Crowd is extremely unhappy with that one)
We plan to help the Prot Warrior do more dps, through Heroic Strike and Revenge improvements and maybe give Shield Slam to all Warriors.
Q: Can Warriors look forward to Retaliation become less useless in Wrath. A: We will have swarms of mobs that will attack you.
Warlock
Demonic Circle -- scribe a circle on the ground, and then teleport back there when you need to
51 point Demonology is a demon form. "Illidan form" is what Blizz is calling it around the office.
In demonform you can spam some AoE Shadowbolts.
Q: Will Soul Shard farming being addressed? All other classes can buy their reagents at vendors. And what's up with the Missing Diplomat? A: Diplomat - no answer off-hand, would have to talk to Quest guys. Soul Shards - we do have plans, emergency soul shard ability, but no plans to change it significantly. Its class defining.
Q: Do you plan on having Warlocks as viable tanks? A: They've already had opportunities to be viable tanks, but it's not a role they will fill consistently. It's an AE damage or direct damage form LOL Serhan!