[WoW] Panel @WWI

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by Zbkuk

I know, but I'm talking about pug perception of tank gear. If you show up with that stuff they are going to scoff at you a surprising amount of the time, even for a non-heroic instance.

Part of the problem I noticed while leveling a new character also is alot of the quest tanking gear also happens to be on the same selection list as dps gear. It's an annoying choice to make.

They could have made factions more useful in TBC and put the 'group-spec' items on faction vendors or something at least. A series of blue quality lvl 61~67 tanking and healing items would have been great.

[Vinen]

Originally Posted by Zarcath

How many people do heroics for gear? Honest question, I maybe had to get one piece of gear from heroics (Suneater), I only run heroics for badges. Usually Mech/SH since they're relatively fast. I avoid H-Bot/Arc since the length/risk isn't worth the badges (with pugs anyway). Don't do H-Sethekk or H-Crypts either. H-Slabs I'll do sometimes...

This is part of the problem.
People should be doing Heroics for gear. Not just badges-

I think the only piece of gear I wore from a Heroic was the belt from Heroic Ramps... and that was for all of a day until I replaced it with Natural Power.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by Modo Icecrown

As it stands currently in TBC, I enjoy the normal-> Heroic difficulty ratio. I don't see any reason why they should tone down the dungeons

The problem is they just did "dmgx10, healthx2, done!"

It shows a lack of creativity or care.

The added difficulty should come from 'smarter' bosses and mobs. Give a boss a new attack, make him more mobile. Give mobs more crowd control, make larger packs.

When it's the same shit I did 10 times on normal mode I feel cheated. When the only thing that changes is how many hitpoints I need to survive I feel "What's the point?"

Take the opportunity to redesign the dungeon encounters. On shattered halls heroic shadow council cabalists are attempting to ressurect Kargath and you're sent to stop them before it's too late. If you don't beat the zone in under 45 minutes a relatively easy last boss is replaced with a resurrected assbeat kargath.

Take advantage of the opportunity rather then just making the same shit, different skin.

[Modo Icecrown]

Yeah Zehn you're right on the money - I agree completely with that. I'm all for making encounters more interesting, I just want there to be a transition. I don't really know why I want that, when I really think about it. It's probably just cause I really enjoyed gearing up and tanking my first heroic, it really felt difficult when I first started.

IT IS A PAIN in the freaking ARSE to aquire tankadin Gear

It's all farmable stuff, they have lists over at Maintankadin that are really easy to figure out.

[LadyVex]

I'm just now leveling up a tankadin (Level 46) so honest to god question but...

Shouldn't some of that shit have spellpower? It looks like protection warrior gear and less like tankadin.

I realize it's immensely necessary to be crit immune first and to have good mitigation and avoidance, but I'd agree when someone said "Hard to find Tankadin gear" as none of that seems catered to protection pallies.

Is it that necessary? Righteous Fury seems to make it so doing more holy damage = more threat etc, so therefore you'd want spellpower somewhere along the way?

Am I on crack, is it not that big of a deal, or what?

Edit:

Part of the problem I noticed while leveling a new character also is alot of the quest tanking gear also happens to be on the same selection list as dps gear.

Yes, this was something I also noticed. Often times however, I found that you would have a quest that yielded a dps or tank item, only to get another quest yielding relatively similar items so you could have one of each. This wasn't true for some quests like the one in hellfire for the trinkets; tank trinket, or dps? I think my prot paladin will go dps, just because I've been prot for awhile now and my leveling method is: Equip awesome shield, enable righteous fury, cast seal of light, cast holy shield, pull an entire camp of mobs, repeat casting holy shield until everything is dead and you end the fight with full mana and health...profit!

[Zest]

Paladin TPS is still pretty good without a huge amount of spellpower, but your mitigation is weaker than both Druids and Warriors. TPS doesn't really matter if you die.

Short dungeons can be epic. BWL felt pretty epic, and you could tackle the first four bosses with almost zero trash (aside from the Suppression Room which is really part of the Broodloard encounter anyway).

[LadyVex]

Ugh, they made up for it with the trash after Broodlord however; I basically wanted to kill myself clearing from Broodlord to the last drake, fuck.

[Aria]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

Part of the problem I noticed while leveling a new character also is alot of the quest tanking gear also happens to be on the same selection list as dps gear. It's an annoying choice to make.

They could have made factions more useful in TBC and put the 'group-spec' items on faction vendors or something at least. A series of blue quality lvl 61~67 tanking and healing items would have been great.

Yep, in trying to gear up my warrior I noticed a lot of the items this guide was suggesting were stuff from 60-68 quests that I got DPS gear from.

[Believe]

On topic, anyone else feel like we didn't really learn a whole lot from the WWI?
I was expecting a lot more new information.


PS: The WWI non-combat pet...

[TheCutlery]

Originally Posted by LadyVex

Shouldn't some of that shit have spellpower? It looks like protection warrior gear and less like tankadin.

I realize it's immensely necessary to be crit immune first and to have good mitigation and avoidance, but I'd agree when someone said "Hard to find Tankadin gear" as none of that seems catered to protection pallies.

Is it that necessary? Righteous Fury seems to make it so doing more holy damage = more threat etc, so therefore you'd want spellpower somewhere along the way?

Am I on crack, is it not that big of a deal, or what?

Yeah, it's not that big of a deal. You can do fine with wearing the exact same shit as a warrior with a Continuum Blade. Maybe 2 pc of the Blue dungeon set for 15% less mana on consecrate, other than that, spell power isn't a huge deal since you're either AE'ing so many mobs that threat doesn't matter once the first one dies, or you're doing a single mob with JoC and SoR on and you're doing just a ton of holy damage anyway.

And yes, retarded dps is a huge problem as well. I once saw a rogue using daggers for hemo, and when I called him on it he goes "My guild wants me to spec this way." Uhh, your guild wants you to do less dps? Get the fuck out of my group. That's the beauty of being a tank, and a competant one at that. There is zero issue finding groups.

[Itzena]

Originally Posted by Believe

On topic, anyone else feel like we didn't really learn a whole lot from the WWI?
I was expecting a lot more new information.

There was a fair bit - the summaries just didn't get posted here, for some reason.
Edit: And a fair bit got leaked form the alpha, of course.

Here's some from mmochampion:
World Wide Invitational - Day 2 Panels

Quote from Blizzard staff
This post will be updated in a few minutes

Lake Wintergrasp

* PvE elements are being added to this PvP Zone, for example the equivalent of Elemental Plateau in Outland is in Lake Wintergrasp.
* Siege Combat will be in both Lake Wintergrasp and the new Battleground (see below)
* Siege vehicles incude air combat with flying vehicles.
* You can destroy the buildings within Lake Wintergrasp and in the Battleground.
* Lake Wintergrasp will feature an attack/defend game type. Just like the Auchindoun Spirit Towers, when your faction holds a tower it will keep it for a certain amount of time and retain all the advantage for a few hours.
* Northrend "Spirit Shards" will be used to reward players. When your faction controls Lake Wintergrasp all the bosses in Northrend will start dropping them. You can then use these shards to buy rewards from a merchant, they won't be more powerful any other reward but just an alternative to other sources of equipement (like gearing up for PvP very quickly).
* "Wintergrasp Marks of Honor" will drop as well and will be redeemable for items through the honor system and other NPCs.
* Bridges will be used as "choke point" in the map, siege vehicles can't travel through water.
* The goal of Lake Wintergrasp is to capture the "Wintergrasp Keep", everything in that keep is destructable and you will have to break into the keep to capture the point.
* Players will be able to control stationnary cannons on each tower to defend the keep.
* Bridges are very large and very tall, players should be able to see them from anywhere in the map. They're also totally destructable as well.


Siege Vehicles
The Demolisher

* The Demolisher has both short and long range attacks
* It is meant to bombard players and buildings from a long distance, it's also equipped with a ram to siege buildings.
* It can hold up to 3 passengers, passengers are exposed and can be targeted individually. However, players can cast while the vehicle is moving if they're in it.


Forsaken Catapult

* The catapult is faster than the demolisher but its range is slightly lower.
* It does slightly less damage.
* It cannot hold any pessenger.


The Siege Engine

* This is the siege weapon with the longest range.
* The gunner is sitting in the turrent and has full control of the turret.
* The driver is only moving the vehicle.
* The passengers in this vehicle are fully protected but can't shoot other enemies.
* It's also got a very powerful ramming attack


Flying machine

* Flying Machines can bomb enemies, they're swift but very vulnerable to anti-air attacks.


Goblin Shredder

* The shredder is an anti-air vehicle.
* It will use anti-air rockets, they're long range homing missiles.
* This is a personal armor suit, if the vehicle is destroyed the player just jumps out and keep fighting on his own.
* You can use your sawblade as close range melee attacks.
* The shredder can jump into the air just like rocket boots for players. This can also be used to jump over walls.
* The shredder is very vulnerable to siege damage.


Arenas

* The point is to keep arenas simple, while leaving room to innovate.
* Stream lost at this point, will update later.


Dalaran Arena

* The arena is fairly small and mounts won't be allowed here.
* Arenas will introduce new "movable" objects, changing the line of sight of the battlefield every few seconds in the arena. For instance pillars might go up and down randomly, on a timer, etc ...
* There is a pipe coming from the ceilling, every once in a while a column of water will start dropping from this pipe.
* Each team will start in a pipe on one side of the map, as the match begins a column of water will "push" the teams out of their pipes to prevent camping.


Orgrimmar Arena

* There might have objects dealing damage to players, pillars moving up and down based on a timer. There will be visual signs on the battleground to warn players before something happens.
* Triggered objects will deal damage to players, for example when the pillars go down spikes will come up.
* Teams will be very close to each other at the beginning of the match. Players will start in elevators rising from the ground and will start 10 yards away from the enemy team.
* Mounts will be allowed in this arena.
* If you stay on a pillar when it rises up you go up with it.
* There will be spikes around the elevators, they will go down a few seconds after you reached the fighting area to let you the time to check what classes you're facing.


Northrend Battleground

* This battleground is located on an island south of Dragonblight
* This is also an attack/defend game type battleground.
* One team will attack and the other one defend, you will have a specific amount of time to succeed. After the end of the round teams will switch sides.
* Attackers will come from boats and defenders will start in the middle of the beach.
* There are 3 sections of walls in the Area, after each wall there are capture points and graveyards to make the attack on the next points faster.
* Attackers will get more siege vehicles depending on their progression throughout the siege.
* The battleground will be either 10vs10 or 15vs15, this isn't decided yet.


Q&A

* The battleground reporting system is being tuned to let player police themselves easier.
* A spectator mode is planned, but devs keep in mind that some players won't want to have other players spectacting them.
* Everything is done to make outdoor PvP more pleasant and prevent server crashes. All objectives in Wintergrasp are all spaced appart to prevent players from gathering at the same point, that's also why there are a lot of rivers in the zone.
* There isn't any plan to add racial abilities to each race.
* PvP rewards won't be changed, you will still be able to get some of the best item for some slots from the honor system, and the 5-part set from the Arenas.
* Battlegrounds starting without even teams is definitely a problem. Some changes will be made to the queue system to prevent the overlapping between the queues of each battleground and make sure that matches start with the same amount of players on each side.



Raids & Dungeons Panel
Quote from Blizzard staff
Raids & Dungeons

* There will be 8 Level Up dungeons and 4 Max Level Dungeons.
* There will be a 10/25 players mode for each raid dungeon.
* Heroic dungeons will be made slightly easier, at least devs are going to make sure you don't necessarily need a specific class like a prot warrior to complete it.
* Some dungeons were too long in Burning Crusade and completing a dungeon shouldn't take more than an hour.
* Quests didn't feel as connected as they should and dungeons quest should implicate a bit more in the background of the instance. Killing bosses might even have an impact on the world.
* Gun'drak will be a level 80 Dungeon and the last objective of a huge questline going through the whole zone (Zul'Drak).
* Black Temple and Hyjal Summit were released too early, on a second thought it would probably have been better to release Zul'aman first instead of postponing it for more than a year. Developpers are going to make sure that Arthas is and feels like the final boss of Wrath of the Lich King.
* Attunements to enter Heroic instances will be removed.


Reputation

* You will be able to earn reputation toward a specific faction by becoming its "champion", for example by wearing a Cenarion Circle tabard while running Hellfire Ramparts you will earn reputation for both Honor Hold/Thrallmar and Cenarion Circle. Obviously tabards reputation requirements will be changed to something like friendly/honored.


Itemization

* More PvP gear will be delivered through the PvE system, it won't be the best gear but it will give you a chance to get started.
* More PvP gear will be added as reputation rewards.
* More items will drop from 25-man dungeons.
* Items will be changed by removing "unecessary" stats to make them usable by more classes at the same time.
* More recipes and plans will be added to the game, with a better representation between professions. Even if some recipes will still drop from a specific boss in a dungeon like in BC, devs will try to make some of them easier to obtain.


Death Knights

* Death Knights will be able to tank 5-man, heroics, raids dungeons, but in a "different" way. It will also fill a few more roles and won't be here just to tank.


The Oculus (LVL 80 Dungeon - Borean Tundra)

* The dungeon will allow players to use flying mounts, parts of the dungeon will allow you to get a drake and combat while mounted by using different abilities of each drake. Some drakes will be able to tank, some will heal, others will DPS.


Halls of Stone (LVL 77-79 - Storm Peaks)

* Halls of Stone will be located in Ulduar in Storm Peaks.
* All the dungeons in Ulduar were built by Titans and will really feel huge, however devs didn't want players to need a mount or anything like that to go through it and tried to keep it small.
* The storyline of Uldaman will continue in Ulduar.


Caverns of Time: Stratholme (LVL 80 - Tanaris)

* The faction requirement on the Caverns of Time teleport will be removed.
* The dungeon is fully scripted just like Old Hillsbrad. There are a couple of timed encounters, it will be non-linear and you will be able to choose your encounters.
* Players will be fighting alongside Prince Arthas before he falls to the Lich King.
* The same voice acting as Warcraft 3 will be used in the instance. (Jaina / Arthas / Uthar)
* The Infinite Dragonflight storyline will continue here.


Q&A

* Whenever it's possible, devs would prefer to deliver legendary items through quests like Atiesh instead of having them just drop from Bosses.
* There won't be any attunement for heroic or entry level raid instances. The remaining attunements will be very simple to understand.
* "Wipe management" is a very important part of the design and developpers are doing their best to make sure that corpse run in dungeons aren't too long.
* Titles might be added for kills, entering a specific area, etc ...
* More tokens will drop to minimize the impact of randomization, sometimes increasing the amount of items dropping from a boss isn't enough.
* Dungeons aren't going to be overall easier, but will be more accessible. Bosses might not be easier to kill but will be easier to understand for new players.

[Itzena]

No. 2: New WotLK Screenshots and Artworks (Screenshots & Concept Art)

No. 3: World Wide Invitational Panels

Quote from Blizzard staff
Raids & Dungeons

* Sunwell Plateau is the last content patch before the expansion release.
* There isn't any plan to nerf Kil'jaeden right now, he's intended to be the last boss before the expansion and is meant to be hard.
* Raiding armor sets and PvP rewards sets will look different and won't share the same model anymore in Wrath of the Lich King.
* Uldum was on the original list of dungeons to be added to Wrath of the Lich King but right now it's still unsure if we'll see it or not.


PvP

* Raiding armor sets and PvP rewards sets will look different and won't share the same model anymore in Wrath of the Lich King.


Class Mechanics

* Most of the shaman totems, Unleashed Rage, and Battle Shout are some of the buffs changed in WotLK to affect the whole raid instead of the party.
* Dynamic Line of Sight will be introduced in WotLK PvP, for exemple a pillar might move up and down every 20 seconds, or we might have movable items. More info about Arenas in tomorrow's panel.
* The attacker/target range mechanics are being re-evaluated it might be changed for Wrath of the Lich King to fix most of the existing bugs, including the ones affecting the attack range of Feral Druids.
* Even if it looks like a lot of classes are being changed to make them "more hybrid", but developers still want to keep the classes as distinct as possible.
* There is a plan to give player access to two talent specs to switch between them without having to respec all the time. More details in the future.


World

* You will be able to use your flying mount again at level 77, and might be able to take passengers at level 80.
* A harbor will be added to Stormwind to transport players to Northrend, a new zone will be added in Northern Plaguelands as the Death Knight starting area, and an arena will be added to Orgrimmar in place of the existing empty one.


Professions

* Inscription trading skill is intended to be for both casters and melees, inscriptions benefits every class. The current plan is to use herbalism as the primary gathering profession.


Death Knight

* People playing a Death Knights will see the original voice of their race slightly modified to make it sound more ... Death Knight-ish.
* Tanks will be interchangeable in 5-man dungeons but tanks will have a speciality in 25-man raids. Death Knights will be best against casters and shouldn't be too far behind on other encounters.


Rogue

* Dagger specialization will be improved for rogues in Wrath of the Lich King.


Warlock

* There isn't any plan to change the soul shard farming as it's part of the class, but an "emergency soul shard" ability might be added.


Druid

* There will be a new model for the Druid's Dire Bear form and the Dire Cat form will be introduced.


Paladin

* Retribution paladins will share their itemization with Death Knights and Warriors. Their group utility will be increased by making them more efficient DPS-wise.


Warrior

* The plan is to improve the warrior specs to make sure that DPS warriors would be able to tank a little, while protection warriors would be able to DPS slightly more with new abilities like Shockwave.

Quote from Blizzard staff
Druid

* Entangling roots will be useable indoor.
* Nourish will be a new healing spell, healing for more hit points for each HoT effect on the target.
* There isn't any plan to change cyclone


Hunter

* All kind of pets will have their own talent tree. A tanking talent tree, a DPS talent tree, and an utility talent tree. Each kind of pet family will have its own talent tree and its own unique ability.
* The shot clipping will be removed from Steady Shot, you'll be able to use it without "interrupting" your autoshot. Hunters will be able to just smash their button.
* There are going to be new pets in WotLK.
* The skill points for each pets are being changed to the new "Pet talents" and will disappear.


Priest

* Divine Hymn will be a deep-holy talent protecting your party from attackers, any attacks done to you or your party will cause the attacker to be afflicted by sleep.
* The 51 point talent for Shadow Priests is Dispersion : You disperse into pure shadow energy, reducing all damage taken by -90%. You are unable to attack or cast spells, but you regenerate 6% health and mana every 1 sec for 6 seconds.
* Guardian Spirit - Calls upon a guardian spirit to heal and watch over the friendly target. The spirit heals the target for 642 every 2 sec, and also prevents the target from dying by sacrificing itself. Lasts 10 seconds.


Mage

* Mages are getting a Frostfire bolt dealing Frost-Fire damage to make elementalists more viable.


Shaman

* Totems are being "condensed" into a smaller amount of totems, for exemple Strength of Earth and Grace of Air totems will be merged into the same totem
* A new weapon enchantment will be available "Earthliving Weapon". It will increase the healing power of the Shaman.
* Flametongue will give spell damage bonus to the Shaman.
* Totems are being moved to physical school, you can't counterspell anymore.
* Totems will also affect raid members, not just the local party.
* Shamans are getting "Hex", a polymorph-like spell on a medium cooldown allowing them to turn an enemy into a frog. The enemy cannot cast or attack but is still in control of his character.
* Windfury won't be a weapon enchant anymore and will be changed to a buff. You will be able to use it in bear form or with poison.


Rogue

* Rogues will get a talent called "Fan of Knives", an AoE ability allowing them to attack all enemies within a short range. It will be some kind of "emergency" ability and you won't be able to spam it.
* Sap will now work on more targets, humanoids, beasts, dragonkins, demons. "Anything with a skull and a brain inside of it".


Paladin

* Retribution paladins itemization will be moved to the same item as Warriors/Death Knights
* A new reactive healing spell will be added - Hand of Purity.
* Paladin's short-term-blessings no longer overwrite long-term-blessings.


Warlock

* Demonic Circle will allow warlocks to scribe a circle in the ground to teleport to it later with another spell.
* The 51-Point demonogy talent is a Demon-Form, this will allow you cast AOE Shadowbolts


Warrior

* Titan's Grip is a new Fury talent and allows warriors to wear 2 hand weapons with a single hand.
* Protection Warriors are getting a spell called "Shockwave" allowing them to damage and stun all the monsters in front of them.
* Bladestorm will be a new Arms talent whirlwinding all enemies in range every x seconds for a few seconds.

[The Ancient]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

The problem is they just did "dmgx10, healthx2, done!"

But this isn't true? Almost every Heroic boss has a new ability which adds to the encounter beyond larger dps or health pool.

[Modo Icecrown]

I can't really think of many heroic bosses who have really different abilities on heroic. Maybe they have more adds or another ability you just have to heal through. That's not that interesting though. The trash is the same way.

[Pyros]

Originally Posted by The Ancient

But this isn't true? Almost every Heroic boss has a new ability which adds to the encounter beyond larger dps or health pool.

SOME bosses have SOME tweaks, but I don't think it comes close to new abilities. Trying to think about it now, there was hmm, nothing new on any of the hellfire bosses? In SSC dungeons, there was...nothing new either? In TK dungeons, the robot in mech changed to thaddius style(big change) but that was it. In CoT, I don't remember doing them much, I'm not even sure I've ever bothered doing heroic hillsbrad, but I'll bet there wasn't anything new.

They might have boosted some abilities(the fire elem girl or the last boss in mech would spawn more adds on heroic), but that's not really new. You had to look out for different mechanics maybe, but they existed most of the time in normal, it was just so easy most people wouldn't pay attention to them.