This news will be
updated once the new questions and answers are out.
General
Q.
Will there be account-wide Achievements? If so, can we expect to see
things like vanity gifts for having multiple characters?
A. It’s
an idea we definitely want to do, but it’s pretty challenging
technically, so it’s not on the immediate horizon. We can’t promise
anything obviously, but I wouldn’t feel the need to get difficult
Achievements on more than one character on the same account.
Q:
What about some class specific quests for Cataclysm? I enjoyed them in
the early levels of WoW!
A: It’s very expensive to create
class-specific raids given the literally thousands of new quests we are
already adding for Cataclysm; however, we are going to have
class-specific dungeon quests for everyone at levels 20 and 50. These
won’t be as involved as, say, the old Benediction quest line, but they
will give you a way to get some blue loot that isn’t otherwise
available.
Q: What are your thoughts on there being guild
housing as a possible guild leveling reward?
A. Our design
dilemma with guild housing relates to what players might do in a guild
house. If you generally hang out there, and have vendors and banks and
Auction House access, then you stay there all the time and it makes the
cities feel pretty dead. In a game with instanced dungeons and now
phases, we are reluctant to provide more reasons for players to not see
other players. It’s a social game! If we can come up with a good role
for guild houses then we’ll definitely do them in the future.
Q:
Will WoW ever get a new weapon type?
A. Doubtful.
A #2.
Tauren will be able to dual-wield gnomes on a stick.
Raids & Dungeons
Q. With each expansion
boss mechanics become more and more complex. Don't you think that bosses
will be overcomplicated soon?
A. We have a lot of players who
have been killing bosses for six years now. We think we need to keep it
fresh for them. Having normal vs. Hard modes is our way of making sure
the complexity doesn’t make those fights inaccessible for some players.
Player vs. Player
Q. Are all characters
getting 5% stun/fear reduction baseline since they are no longer
talents?
A. We would rather adjust the crowd control durations to
appropriate levels. Currently some crowd-control effects are so easy to
get out of that only really layered (using crowd control effects of
different diminishing returns) really matters. We don’t want all of PvP
to be kiting each other around with instant nukes and heals. Knowing
what average durations are (rather than having some classes with
duration reducers and some without) will let us judge the baseline
better. We think players are individually just looking at their own
trees now and thinking that they were made less powerful without
realizing how across-the-board all the changes are.
Q. Is
your goal to not having to use a talent specialization solely for PvP?
If so, please elaborate on how you plan to accomplish that?
A.
This is almost impossible to “fix.” With the nature of talents min/max
will always be possible. That said, we’re trying to move away from
having purely PvP or purely PvE talents as much as possible, which will
make the pure PvP specializations less painful to play in PvE and vice
versa.
A #2. We are removing many of the PvP talents, as well as
trying to make some of the PvP talents a little more useful for PvE (for
example, a talent that currently procs on taking critical damage could
instead proc on taking any damage, including AoE damage, as well). While
we recognize that very competitive players might still want unique
talent builds for PvP vs. PvE, the hope is that more players might be
able to use the same specialization more often for multiple aspects of
the game.
Q: I PvP a lot in the level 10-19 bracket. What are
some cool new abilities we'll see at level 10 in Warsong Gulch?
A.
Since all players will be getting a signature ability like Mortal
Strike, Summon Water Elemental, or Mangle when choosing a specialization
at level 10, we think players will see a lot of new abilities in the
level 10-19 Warsong Gulch bracket that have never been seen before.
A
#2. Since all players will be getting a signature ability, such as
Mortal Strike, Summon Water Elemental, and Mangle for picking a talent
tree at level 10, I think there will be a lot of new abilities seen in
the 10-19 Warsong Gulch that we never saw before.
Classes - Damage Dealing
Q. Will the ability
to run while shooting effect PvP or PvE battles more? What was the
initial intention of the new ability?
A. With how encounters are
today, damage-dealing while on the move is increasingly becoming
important. You’ll see in a lot of classes we specifically are giving new
ways for players to still do damage while on the move. That said, your
damage while standing still casting or on a target in melee range should
always be optimal.
Classes - Healing
Q.
Some of the new talent trees for healers seem to emphasize a style of
"mana regeneration by dealing damage." Is that intentional? If so, why?
A.
Yes. In almost any situation, there are periods where heals are not
urgently needed 100% of the time. Today, you probably just cast heals
anyway in case someone takes damage, since mana doesn’t matter much. But
if mana did matter, the “right” thing to do would be to do nothing.
Talents such as Telluric Currents provide an active way to recharge mana
while contributing damage.
Q: Do you expect anyone, alts or
new players, to level as a healer specialization? Do you think locking
them to Holy or Restoration early is bad?
A. We expect leveling
with as DPS will probably always be more efficient, just because killing
things is faster than surviving longer while you kill things.
Furthermore, we don’t want the healing specializations to be as good at
killing things or the DPS specialization not to have a role. We do,
however, think we can make leveling as a healer more enjoyable than it
is today. Also, it will be a lot easier to use Dungeon Finder to level
as a healer.
Classes - Tanking
Q:
Any plan to make "Crit Immunity" passive from choosing a tank tree
instead of spending talents on it?
A. No, and you can blame the
druids. We want a tanking specialization in Bear Form to feel different
from a DPS specialization in Cat Form, otherwise it doesn’t feel fair to
other classes when the Feral druid can do everything with the same
talent specialization. We try to put crit immunity in talents you would
normally take.
Classes - 31-Point Talent Trees
and Masteries
Q. With the 31-point tree, many talents
still cost two or three points. Is this going to be changed, as it
basically increases their cost?
A. For the most part, yes. There
are some overpowered talents that don’t need the boost, but many of the
others will have their effects increased.
Q. How do the
mastery bonuses work now that they don't show up on the talent interface
anymore?
A. The mastery bonuses will be trainable passive
bonuses somewhere around level 75. Each talent specialization will have a
different Mastery available on the trainer with a base potency with 0
Mastery Rating. The character sheet interface will have additional
information on the additional potency gained from Mastery Rating.
Q.
If every specialization is intended to take their 31-point talent, why
is it not baseline at the level you could acquire it?
A. Those
talents are a good “brass ring” to work towards. They often change your
character pretty dramatically when you get them, so it’s a fun moment.
There is definitely an interesting philosophical discussion about talent
trees and how many talents should be mandatory vs. optional. Some
players would like a model where everything is on equal footing with
everything else. Others want to make sure there are some safe decisions
so that they don’t have to do tons of theory-crafting research every
time they talent their character. We are trying to shoot for something
in the middle where we have some expectation for how a particular spec
will play (for example, we don’t want to have to develop and support the
non-Chaos Bolt Destruction rotation) but players can still decide if
say Blitz is something their Arms warrior will use or not.
Q:
How will pets scale with Mastery their masters' Mastery?
A. The
talent specializations that rely heavily on pets (Beast Mastery and
Demonology, for example) have a Mastery that makes Mastery rating also
increase pet damage. Other specializations that have pets, but whose
pets do not benefit from Mastery, will have their Masteries balanced
accordingly, taking into account that pets will not benefit from them.
Q:
Will there be a "hard cap" for Mastery rating (to avoid having 101%
chance of getting a critical block, for example)?
A, In the
course of finalizing all of the Masteries for the various talent
specializations, we will make sure that, in the expected gear a player
can acquire from the final Cataclysm raid tiers, the player will not
crash into a "hard cap" unless they go out of their way to stack Mastery
more than is reasonable. This may require redesigning some of the
Masteries as the rest of the class designs are finalized.
Q:
Ever thought of changing tiers to unlock with 3 Points instead of 5, now
that 5 tier talents are gone?
A. We considered this idea, but
ultimately decided against it.
Q: Are we going to be able to
view the Mastery talent previews for Cataclysm soon as we can currently?
A.
With the talent tree redesign, all the Masteries need to be
re-implemented, and, in some cases, redesigned. This will require at
least a couple of weeks before they will be available on beta.
Q:
Can you provide some clarity on the 3rd Mastery that is affected item
stats?
A. We recognized the earlier implementation of Mastery in
the beta was confusing. Mastery is no longer directly associated with a
talent tree, but is instead a passive effect learned from a trainer at a
later level. That passive effect will now grant the third Mastery bonus
you formerly saw in the talent tree pane. The passive effect will have a
base value, and then Mastery rating will increase that effect further.
The other two Mastery bonuses previously listed at the top of the talent
tree pane have been removed, but, in some cases, have been
reimplemented as passive specialization bonuses. Currently, in the beta,
you cannot see any of the Masteries, as they need to be reimplemented
after the talent tree redesign.
Q. Why not make each tier a
3-point system instead of 5 to advance?
A. We considered this and
decided against it.
Q. Will we see these talent changes in
Wrath of the Lich King, before the release of Cataclysm, like we did
with the last expansion?
A. Yes.
Q: It was said that
players would be allowed to choose based on their play style. Do you
believe fewer talents will accomplish this?
A. The talents that
we are pruning are typically things like extra strength or coefficient
boosts to spells. It’s hard to have a different play style based on
talents like that. We are trying to keep the talents that really change
gameplay. A Retribution paladin that feels like he can help out healing
on 5-player dungeon runs might take the two-point talent to improve
healing. A Protection warrior who tanks a lot of 5-player dungeons might
want talents that help with AoE pulls, while one that is a raid
off-tank might want, say, Safeguard and Vigilance instead.
Q:
With the new 31-point tree system, how will players use
dual-specialization? Do we get to choose a new tree when we first use
our secondary specialization (off-spec)?
A. You can use
dual-specialization for a different specialization in beta, if you
choose, much as you can today. We are going to lower the level at which
you can use dual-specialization, as well as the cost for purchasing it,
because we recognize that using Dungeon Finder while leveling is likely
to be popular.
Classes - General
Q.
Have some of the old talents been made into new glyphs?
A.
Usually when we cut a talent it’s because we thought it was a bad
talent, but we might bring some talents that were so situational to fit
in the new model back as glyphs. We are still designing glyphs. Players
shouldn’t necessarily assume that any of their current glyphs are going
to still be around. Some will, but many are changing.
Q: How
much of an impact will the new medium glyphs have on the fun factor of
choices in the new 31-point talent trees?
A. We hope it adds a
lot. Part of the problem is that if there is, say, a Glyph of Mutilate,
you feel like you have to take that as an Assassination rogue over
anything else. The Medium glyphs are designed to let you customize your
character a little more. They are the glyphs you would take if Mutilate
didn’t exist.
Incidentally, the new tiers are called Prime,
Major, and Minor. Majors are the new Mediums. Glyph of Mutilate would be
a Prime.
Q. In general, do you expect mana-saving talents to
be something all players take, or are they designed to be optional
utility?
A. For healers, we expect players will take most of
these talents (maybe not the ones related to taking damage or dealing
damage though). For non-healers, we make sure all of them have
reasonably reliable ways to restore mana, but these often come with the
potential for damage-dealing loss. In that vein, the mana-saving talents
can be thought of as damage-dealing talents, and nukers can take them
if they think they impact their bottom line. After all, we all know that
the only thing that matters at the end of the day is who won the
meters.
Q: What class are you currently most happy with how
the talents are currently set up? Is there one you feel needs more work?
A.
They all need more work!
Q: Are there plans to give more
procs to some classes to make the rotations a little more interesting?
A.
Yea, for classes or specializations that need them. Paladins are
getting a few.
A #2. Sure, we want all specializations to have
interesting rotations. There is a point though when you can be
overwhelmed by the amount of procs going on and the gameplay becomes
erratic and not very fun. So it’s a constant balance between the two.
Q.
Will we be seeing more talents that reward use of rarely used spells
(i.e. Destruction now opens with Soul Fire, barely used before)?
A.
Talents like this are intended to be used as openers for PvE, or for
target-swapping in PvE and PvP. There are a lot of encounters where you
have to kill newly spawned monsters as soon as possible, which these
talents are great for. Or, when you need to change targets in PvP on a
high health mob, boom instant critical with Improved Feral Charge,
Careful Aim, or haste with Improved Soul Fire.
A #2. Given the
scarcity of action bar space, rarely used abilities are generally
becoming more appealing or being cut from the game entirely.
Q.
Can we expect more fun talents and maybe even shiny new abilities in
further iterations of the new talent trees?
A. Yes, the current beta
trees are still very much works in progress. As paladins in particular
will see shortly, that ongoing work certainly can include fun talents
and shiny new abilities.
Q: What is the conversion rate for
intellect to spell power for Cataclysm? Will it differ with each class?
A.
Each point of intellect grants one point of spell power, excepting the
first 10 points. This is vaguely similar to attack power, where each
point of strength or agility gives two attack power, excepting the first
10 points.
We realize this slightly reduces the spell power per
budget on items, so we also increased the amount of spell power granted
by caster weapons, and that increase entirely makes up for the deficit.
Those weapons will continue to have spell power as well as intellect,
and the amount of spell power will be significantly larger than in
3.3.5.
Q. How will brand new players know what a good leveling
specialization is? Are they expected to know what site to visit and
read up?
A. We believe that the new talent tree design will make
it much easier for a neophyte player to pick a talent specialization and
navigate its talent tree successfully with a viable specialization.
A
#2. We hope that most talent builds are decent for leveling. Giving
players a good ability at level 10 definitely helps with this. We are
trying to avoid the traps of bad talents by just removing them
altogether (Unbridled Wrath, RIP).
Death Knight (Forums / 3.3.5
Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Q.
Is there any intent to bring back the On A Pale Horse talent for Death
Knights, possibly in a different tree?
A. Yes, On a Pale Horse is
back as a sub-specialization-accessible Frost talent in our latest
internal build.
Q. What is the intent and thoughts on changing
the rune cost of Scourge Strike?
A. In Wrath of the Lich King,
it is closer to being a clone of Obliterate with a slightly different
feel than we’d like. We want to change that. We’re also very aware of
the rotational problems inherent in decoupling the Unholy and Frost
runes. Rest assured, our solution will not be expecting you to Icy Touch
alongside each Scourge Strike.
Q. Death knight tanks in
Cataclysm seem to be gaining a lot of defensive buttons. As a death
knight I love it, but will those numbers be changing soon?
A.
It’s possible that some of it may need to be scaled back, but we like
the cooldown aspect of death knight tanking and would like to preserve
it.
Q. Since implementing and receiving feedback on the new
death knight rune system, have you made any changes to it you can reveal
to us?
A. It still needs a lot of iteration. We don’t want there
to be significant “dead time” in death knight rotations. Also, the
Runic Empowerment ability has some bugs with displaying the current
state of available runes, which complicate the situation. Look for more
death knight changes in the near future.
Q. Do you plan to
give the Unholy tree a more centralized focus, instead of split between
Scourge Strike, diseases, ghoul, auto-attack, Anti-Magic Shell?
A.
In a sense, that IS a centralized focus. Unholy death knights are about
diseases and Unholy pets. Frost is about icy attacks and runic power.
Blood is about tanking and self-healing.
Q. Dark Simulacrum
for death knight has a pretty long cooldown. What's the reasoning behind
that exactly? (just curious)
A. It’s been reduced to 1 minute in
the latest build, but it’s also an extremely powerful ability with
which we expect players to pull off fun and scary things.
Q.
Is there a plan to support dual-wield tanking for death knights
(something like Threat of Thassarian versus Might of Frozen Wastes)?
A.
It will be technically possible to dual wield and tank, but it will not
be optimal threat-wise.
Q. Death knights are the only tanks
without a stun, which is pretty key for a few things, like adds on
Heroic Lich King. Any plans to give them one?
A. There’s a video
of a death knight solo-tanking 10-player Heroic Lich King. Impressive
stuff. But just like stuns are incredibly good on Lich King, there are a
number of fights where mechanics like Death Grip, or the ability to
pre-drop a Death and Decay to pick up spawning adds, are incredibly
useful. That’s part of class and encounter diversity.
Q. It
seems that our DPS with Runic Empowerment is very random, will that be
changed?
A. Runic Empowerment is being changed to a trained
ability so that all specializations can access it without feeling forced
to, since we see it as a core part of death knight gameplay in
Cataclysm. The way the talent is engineered, it should never disrupt
your rotation, but rather give you bonus resources layered on top of
your rotation. The proc rate is high enough that the actual variability
in procs over time shouldn’t be excessive.
Druid
Q. Will druids finally get
shapeshifting on a separate global cooldown like hunter aspects &
warrior stances?
A. We have no plans to remove shapeshifting from
the global cooldown. Shapeshifting can be used to escape Root and
Polymorph mechanics, and so cannot have no global cooldown.
Q.
Is Moonfire designed to be a damage-over-time spell with an instant
cast nuke, or the other way around?
A. Both. We want the instant
nuke to be more meaningful in Cataclysm, especially on the move.
Q:
Cat and Bear builds are only off by about 3 talent points. Why not just
consolidate fully at that point?
A. This is definitely one of
our concerns. We don’t want a player to be able to have an optimal DPS
specialization in Cat Form and be able to tank. We will definitely
engineer the Feral tree such that being a viable tank, or even off-tank,
will have some cost in terms of lost DPS while in Cat Form. The druid
talent trees currently in beta are very rough and need more polish.
Q:
Will Arcane spells do more damage with higher Lunar power on the scale?
And will more Mastery increase that bonus damage?
A. Currently,
the plan is for Mastery to increase the damage bonus of Eclipse (both
Lunar and Solar).
Q. Last time I checked the Feral druid tree,
there were only 5 points in the first tier which means NO choices. Is
that getting fixed?
A. Still working on early Feral.
Q:
Last time I checked feral druid tree, there were only 5 points in the
first tier which means NO choices. Is that getting fixed?
A. Yes.
Q.
What's the deal with Typhoon? Is it going back into talents or will it
be a standard druid spell?
A. Typhoon is now back in the tree.
Sorry about that.
Q. Druids now get Swiftmend at level 10 for
being Restoration, but it is a talent in the tree. What is the plan
there?
A. This was a data error and has been corrected.
Q:
Any word on that cosmetic Tree of Life Form glyph? Some players are sad
to lose Tree of Life Form completely.
A. The only new glyph we
are ready to announce right now is the Glyph of Divine Shield, which
reduces the cast time of your Hearthstone whenever Divine Shield is
active.
Q. Druids were always a "jack of all trades, but
master of none" and usually mocked when specializing. Will new talents
change this?
A. In my own raids, I find druids of all 3
specializations that excel at their chosen specialization. So, I don’t
understand your question.
Q. Why was the Feral druid's mana
reduction cost removed from King of the Jungle? And what happened to two
combo points on critical strikes?
A. These are data errors that
will be corrected. Neither is intended to be cut.
Q: Moonkin:
What are your plans for Eclipse, and why does it infect so many of our
talents? What are your plans to make Moonkin fun?
A. The model we
are trying now lets Solar and Lunar Eclipse procs last for about 45
seconds, and each spell of the appropriate type that you cast moves the
bar back closer to the middle again. The buff is canceled by reaching
the middle. This should let Moonkin "hold" the buff for short periods of
time when they need to move or get out of the fire.
Q:
Moonkin: What are your plans for Eclipse, and why does it infect so many
of our talents? What are your plans to make Moonkin fun?
A. The
model we are trying now lets Solar and Lunar Eclipse procs last for
about 45 seconds, and each spell of the appropriate type that you cast
moves the bar back closer to the middle again. The buff is canceled by
reaching the middle. This should let Moonkin "hold" the buff for short
periods of time when they need to move or get out of the fire.
Q.
Skull Bash has a 1-minute cooldown. Is it supposed to be that way, or
can we expect it to be lowered to the likes of Shield Bash?
A.
The base cooldown is 60 seconds to keep the ability from being used by
Balance and Restoration druids to layer too much crowd control. A Feral
tree talent reduces the cooldown to 10 seconds, putting it in line with
Kick and other similar interrupt abilities.
Hunter
Q. What is the design
choice behind the focus recharge in Aspect of Fox, is it meant to
replace Viper?
A. Aspect of the Fox is intended to be used for
mobile damage or kiting. There is still some tuning to be done on Focus
and this aspect, but that is the design goal.
Q. Will Hunters
be able to pet-tank through cata (even if just beast masters)?
A.
What, you didn’t see that video where some guy tanked Marowgar with his
Gorilla?
Q. How are you trying to separate the play styles
of the hunter specializations? What makes Cobra Shot feel different from
Steady Shot?
A. Cobra Shot is ideal for Beast Mastery and
Survival hunters because they don’t really have any other way of keeping
Serpent Sting up (Cobra Shot extends Serpent Sting’s duration), and
also for Survival because it is “Elemental” damage. It's also useful in
PvP or in some other niche situations, say, when a creature is immune to
physical damage. Now you have a solution.
Q. Concerning
Marksmanship hunters, why is the PvP talent Resistance is Futile a
prerequisite for PvE talent Marked for Death?
A. In an upcoming
build it won’t be a prerequisite, and we want to change it to proc a
free Kill Command instead of an instant critical.
Mage
Q. Will each Mage talent tree
be on a level PvE and PvP footing, or do you plan to make them bias to
specific modes?
A. The idea is to make them have equal footing.
If that doesn’t work out, then we would prefer for one specialization to
not be completely dead. But we want, for example, for players to choose
Frost because they like Frost.
Q. Will mages get pets for
Arcane and Fire specializations at any time?
A. No.
Paladin
Q. Any thought to having
Retribution paladins use spell power plate to help put Holy paladins on
equal footing as other healers?
A. We think Retribution paladins
needs to use strength plate. Changing this would require a lot of funky
solutions, such as how we handle Crusader Strike damage, and trying to
control Retribution from being too powerful a healer. We realize it’s
odd to itemize spell power plate for one specialization, but we think
all of the solutions to this issue are worse than just living with it.
Q:
What is the goal when re-designing the paladin class? How do you plan
to change rotations, talents, etc?
A. All of the paladin
specializations will make use of a new resource called Holy Power. Holy
Power accumulates from using Crusader Strike, Holy Shock, and some other
talents. Holy Power can be consumed to augment a variety of abilities,
including:
•An instant mana-free heal: Word of Glory
•A buff
to increase holy damage done: Inquisition
•A massive physical melee
attack for Retribution paladins: Templar’s Verdict
•Holy Shield’s
duration is now extended by Holy Power
•Divine Storm’s damage is now
increased by Holy Power
We also introduced several new heals for
Holy Paladins including Healing Hands (an AoE heal-over-time that is
applied to all players standing near the paladin), Light of Dawn (a cone
heal with a 30-yard range), as well as a new heal called Divine Light,
which is similar to a priest's Greater Heal, and the new instant heal
mentioned above, Word of Glory.
Q: Are Protection paladins
still going to refresh Divine Plea on melee hit (via a talent or trained
ability)?
A. Yes.
Q: Can you give us a sneak peek at
one or two of the new Retribution abilities or talents?
A.
Templar’s Verdict: An instant weapon attack that causes a percentage of
weapon damage. Consumes all applications of Holy Power to increase
damage dealt:
•1 Holy Power: 55% Weapon Damage
•2 Holy Power:
125% Weapon Damage
•3 Holy Power: 225% Weapon Damage
Word of
Glory: Consumes all Holy Power to heal a friendly target for a specific
amount per application of Holy Power (0 mana cost, 0 cooldown, instant
cast).
Q: If Judgement of Wisdom is being removed from the
game, are paladins getting a new Judgement so we don't all have to use
Judgement of Light?
A. There will only be one Judgement spell.
This spell places a single debuff on the target with the effects
currently associated with Judgement of Light and Judgement of Justice.
The Judgement of Wisdom effect has been retired completely.
Q:
Are the improved aura talents going away? They were still present in
beta.
A. If you mean talents like Improved Devotion Aura, then
those are gone. We still have talents that, say, increase healing on
targets of your auras. Improved Concentration Aura still exists. In
genera, though, you shouldn’t have to worry about having raid buffs of
different power competing with each other.
Q. Are Protection
Paladins still going to refresh Divine Plea on melee hit (via a talent
or trained ability)?
A. Yes.
Priest
Q. Why is Vampiric Touch
being changed back after the 3.0 Replenishment revamp?
A. Talents
like these are still in development flux. Players should expect most
abilities to stay generally the same as they are today. For example,
when revamping the trees we changed some ranks of talents down from five
points to three, and didn’t re-balance the talent for three points.
Most five-pointers that become three-pointers will be as strong as they
were when they were five-pointers.
Q. I'm excited about the
Smite mechanic in Disc. Are you going to do anything about hit so that
mechanic can be effective?
A. We had a talent to give you a bunch
of spell hit in a beta build, but spell hit on your offensive spells is
a hard sell in the new talent model. But yes, we want to do something
about spell hit for the Discipline Archangel specialization, possibly
move up Twisting Faith to a tier that Discipline can obtain it in Shadow
(so your spirit would convert to hit as Discipline/Shadow
sub-specialization).
Q. Please talk about Lightwell. There has
been much wailing about it on priest forums. Are you intent on keeping
it in?
A. Lightwell is complicated because it deals very much
with the healing philosophy we’re trying to resurrect in Cataclysm.
Remember when your raid would make a conscious effort to survive before
doing damage, would bring stacks of bandages and use them throughout the
fight to save their healers mana? Lightwell is very strong – if not
overpowered – in that environment.
Q. Will Holy priests get
some fun talents, like Evangelism and Archangel in the Discipline tree?
At the moment it will be expensive for Holy to take those.
A.
While we still have a ways to go in design on the talents, we want Holy
to be able to also do an Archangel sub-specialization if they wish. In
some ways it may be stronger than the Discipline main specialization
version.
Q. Where do you see priests fitting in the healing
world? They seem very 'jack of all, master of none' with the new trees.
A.
It’s difficult to judge healer strength right now, as all spells are
still going to be tweaked with good mana cost/healing amounts. We will
say we want both priest healing specializations to be unique, powerful
and fun.
Q: Will Leap of Faith get some sort of secondary
buff? Pulling a high aggro target to a clothie healer seems dangerous
A.
This ability is intended to save party and raid members from imminent
danger,such as pulling someone out of a fire that would otherwise kill
them. It does not need a secondary buff.
Q. A lot of Shadow
priests' talents seem mandatory. Any chance for a trimmed down tree? We
feel like we need to pick all of them.
A. Some changes are
underway for Shadow priest trees.
Q. Still "un-fun" talents in
the 3-point trees like Spirit Tap. Are damage-dealing specialization
mana regeneration talents that may feel mandatory staying in game?
A.
Spirit Tap and other purely “leveling talents” are being re-evaluated.
Q.
Power Infusion: not in beta talents. Coming back, or gone for good?
A.
If it’s not in your build, that’s a bug! It’ll be back.
Rogue
Q. How does Smoke Bomb help
me take on a Frost mage? Isn't Blizzard a pretty trivial counter to keep
me in combat?
A. Keep you in combat, perhaps. But Frostbolt you?
Polymorph you to stop you from killing the stunned healer that you just
shrouded in smoke? Nope!
Q. What's the plan to give Subtlety
some pressure versus plate? A slow-ticking Rupture isn't going to cut
it. Shadow damage during Dance?
A. That’s an interesting idea.
Subtlety is probably going to end up as the lowest-damage of the three
rogue specializations to make up for its superior mobility, but that
doesn’t mean it's harmless, either. And no, Rupture isn’t intended to be
the PvP solution to that situation.
Q. The Combat tree seems
really lackluster; i was taking talents like +armor and Recuperate to
fill up my tree. Any plans to buff it?
A. If you were able to
spend all 41 points on nothing but increasing your damage, we’d consider
that a failure in our current design, because those would be the only
choices. But with “utility”; talents there’s no clear answer -- some
rogues, even serious raiding min/max types, might have preferred to be
able to use Sprint more often rather than taking Reinforced Leather, for
example. In the end, we’ll make sure you’re able to do the damage you
need to do, in order to have fun and feel competitive in all aspects of
the game.
Q. Recuperate makes me feel like a tiny unkillable
god of death. ...you aren't going to nerf this are you?
A. Wait,
but it doesn’t make you hit harder, so how can it be overpowered?
Q.
How do you optimize the sub-specialization choices for an Assassination
rogue? Some needed talents are not reachable in the current trees.
A.
Right now you have to spend too many talent points to get all the
“essential” Assassination talents. You end up taking pretty much the
entire bottom half of the tree. In the next build, things have been
streamlined a little so that you should be able to credibly take spend
31 points there.
Shaman
Q. Do you consider Primal
Wisdom or Shamanistic Rage "required" so Enhancement shaman won't run
out of mana? Is running out of mana intended to be a danger?
A.
Yes, once high-level Enhancement shaman have all their abilities and are
using them in sequence, Primal Wisdom will be required to sustain a
rotation. We’d like to let shaman use Shamanistic Rage for survival or
emergency situations, rather than assuming rotational use for mana.
Q.
With the new implemented Lava Surge, will Chain Lightning become useful
for multiple mobs only?
A. It always has had, and will continue
to have, some niche use as a gap-filler against single targets when Lava
Burst has around a second left on its cooldown. Lava Surge won’t always
proc, but it’s likely to be more of a multi-target ability, yes.
Q.
Will Spirit Link make a return after all? Ghostcrawler mentioned he'd
like to bring it back, but no sighting of it yet.
A. Anything’s
possible, but at this point it isn’t looking good for our beloved
talent…. If we changed it to be an absorb or a different sort of
mechanic, then it wouldn’t be the iconic Spirit Link that we all
remember from Warcraft III. But that core damage-sharing mechanic poses
major design and balance challenges (e.g. does a rogue really want to
start taking damage suddenly because the shaman in his group decided to
link him to the tank?).
Q. With Elemental Fury becoming a
passive for Elemental shaman, will Enhancement be seeing more physical
based damage?
A. Spells like Lava Burst and shocks will always be
a big part of Enhancement’s damage, but yes, we’d like weapon attacks
like Stormstrike and Lava Lash to be a larger part of Enhancement
Shamans’ damage in Cataclysm. N.B.: Mental Quickness is getting a boost
to help compensate for the loss of Elemental Fury.
Q. Are
there any plans of making totems utility only (e.g. Earthbind,
Grounding) and turning buff totems into auras or cast buffs?
A.
Not at this time. We’re aware of the concerns regarding the use of buff
totems among some shaman, but the positional aspect is something that we
consider inherent to the nature of totems. By increasing totem
durations, consolidating some buff totems, and introducing the
multi-drop totem spells in Wrath of the Lich King, we’ve attempted to
mitigate as much of the inconvenience as possible, while preserving the
core gameplay of paying attention to where totems are being dropped.
Q.
How does Deep Healing work? Will it heal severely less at high health
that it is difficult to keep a target at a safe level of health?
A.
No, view it as a perk that boosts your heals when that extra healing is
most needed. It’s a class-specific bonus, so healing overall won’t be
balanced around the expectation that Deep Healing applies.
Warlock
Q. How will the Demon Soul
talent work? Is it like a replacement for Demonology's Metamorphosis,
another cooldown to pop, or...?
A. While Demonology has
potentially two (with Metamorphosis and Demonic Empowerment), warlocks
in general usually don’t have a power-up ability they can cast for burst
damage in PvP or PvE. This is what it is intended to be.
Q.
Can we finally have Soul Link baseline, or at least give each tree its
own defense mechanic so that we aren't forced into Demonology for PvP?
A.
It is a possibility, we’re still talking about it.
Q. Can
Master Summoner become default for all warlocks? 6-second cast time is
long enough for a pet.
A. But how often are you summoning a pet?
You can also use a shard to summon one instantly. We want killing a
warlock's pet in PvP to be a meaningful investment of time and effort,
and likewise we want summoning/resurrecting your pet to be a meaningful
investment of time and effort.
Q. You've stated warlock trees
have a way to go. Any plans you'd like to share? Early Demonology in
specific seems really boring.
A. The first two tiers of all
specializations are intended to be what we call “scaling talents,” or
general percentage modifiers on abilities. Consider them entry-level
talents -- easy to understand for newer players and good
sub-specialization candidates. That said, a lot of early Demonology
talents have changed in an upcoming build.
Q. Any plans to
alleviate Affliction's target-switching woes? Bane of Havoc used to be
in reach of all specializations. Now it's only for Destruction.
A.
Maaaybe.
Q. What are you planning for Doomguard and Infernal?
That Demonology talent is quite... strange.
A. Look now, they are
now… Diamonds. I mean, guardians. The Doomguard does strong ranged
damage and the Infernal is good for area-of-effect damage. They're
shared cooldowns, so it's your choice which you want to use. 10-minute
cooldown. No more stones or figurines!
Warrior
Q. Will
rend (sigh) be refreshed by Thunderclap on all targets used with Blood
and
Thunder?
A. Yes. The idea is that you Rend once and then Thunder
Clap
from then on. We still hope it’s an optional talent, not the only way
warriors
can AoE tank.
Q. Slam's design is pretty archaic and not very
fun. Is
there any chance of Slam becoming an instant-attack baseline ability?
A.
We think it makes the ability feel different. Slam as an instant attack
isn’t
very different from some of the other attacks. As it’s designed though,
Fury
shouldn’t use Slam at all without procs and Arms should only use it with
the
Improved Slam talent. We tried (briefly) making Slam a low-level
ability, but
weren’t happy with it.
Q: Are Fury Warriors still going to see
a new
attack to fill the loss of Whirlwind? Any insight?
A. Yes! It’s
called
Raging Blow (at least for the moment), because we wanted to distance is a
little
from the old Enraged Assault. It's Fury-only and can only be used when
Enraged,
but does not consume the Enrage. It does indeed strike with both weapons
(including the animation).
Q: Will Whirlwind still be a part
of a Fury
warrior's rotation on single mobs or will it be multi-mobs only?
A.
Multiple mobs only.
Q: Concussion Blow is rarely used these
days
outside of PvP. Any plans for it? Will you unlink it from Vigilance?
A.
It’s pretty useful on Mr. Lich King….
Q: How is Heroic Leap
working so
far? Is it progressing better than your last attempt at putting it
in-game?
A. We’re pretty happy with it so far. The version we
have right
now lets the warrior target where they want to leap, so they can use it
as an
escape tool as well. We all know paladins would never retreat from a
battle, but
warriors have been known to do so.
Q. Why does fury have two
31-point
talents? Wouldn't it be simpler to merge them so one doesn't have to
re-specialize when new weapons drop?
A. We feel the decision on
which of
these two talents to choose is based on play style (two fast weapons, or
two
slow two-handed weapons), not based on which weapons most recently
dropped (like
the former Arms weapon specialization talents which have been cut).
We
expect the player to decide which type of dual wielder they are and
collect
weapons and gear that fit that type.
Q: What do you think
warriors
will be more unique for in PvP now that Mortal Strike is available to
other
classes and reduced to 20%?
A. We don’t think warriors need a
unique
ability that is so awesome that you just have to have a warrior on your
Arena
team. That is bad mojo for all the other classes. We do want warriors to
be
useful in PvP, however. One ability we are trying out for Arms is
"Throwdown,"
which lets them knock an opponent to the ground for five seconds. Since
it’s
usable in Battle Stance, they can also use it as a Pummel in a
pinch.
Q: You mentioned Disarming Glare isn't likely to make
it. Could
you expand on this a bit?
A. We cut it in exchange for the
Throwdown
talent above.
Q: Why does Fury have two 31-point talents?
Wouldn't it
be simpler to merge them so one doesn't have to re-specialize when new
weapons
drop?
A. We view swapping from two-handed to one-handed weapons
as more
of a play style choice than swapping from mace to axe because the axe
has more
DPS. You are rarely going to be in a situation where a boss drops two
one-handed
weapons that are superior to your two-handed weapon.
Q: Hi,
it's me
Rend! I'm sort of terrible, but if tanks are having to use me in
Cataclysm, may
I be a good ability now?!
A. Get back to the back of the bus,
Rend.
In all seriousness, though, we don’t want Rend to be the
answer to
Protection warrior threat. It isn’t going to keep mobs glued to you. We
do think
we have room to boost its damage though, even for warriors with a DPS
specialization. One change we’ve made is letting it do a tick of damage
immediately, so that you see and feel damage right on the application
instead of
waiting for the first tick.
Miscellaneous
Q:
Are there any plans to add Ghostcrawler in-game as a critter or elite
crab?
A. Ghostcrawler would be very emo were he to gaze down from
his Throne of Lies and behold the mass crustacean slaughter that would
result in having more manifestations of his persona in the game.
Q:
I don't care about Real ID, new talent points, or ponies, but I must
have a double rainbow in a city so all can bask in its glory!
A.
Due to company policy, I’m afraid we must reserve all rainbows for our
friends working on Diablo III.
Q: Let's talk fashion. Any
chance we could get a tophat AND monocle to display at the same time?
A.
Why, yes. Indubitably. Tut-tut, my good chap and cheerio!
Q:
So, Worgen get top hats, and that's awesome. Are there any plans to
give Goblins something cool? Maybe those sunglasses?
A. Quadruple
pigtails maybe?
Q: What size shoes does Ghostcrawler wear?
A.
I generally go barefoot on the yacht. Around on the office, I am often
carried on gnome palanquin, so shoes are not required.
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