Wrath of Lich King Stuff (was 'Blizzcon' thread) - Page 117

Mr. Crow · 05/21/08, 4:00 PM

Originally Posted by Chicken

Priest:
- Mind Soothe now only has one rank and works on targets of all levels.
- Mind Soothe now has a percentage of base mana cost instead of fixed cost.
- Mind Control now only has one rank and works on targets of all levels.
- Mind Control now has a percentage of base mana cost instead of fixed cost.
- Mind Vision now has a percentage of base mana cost instead of fixed cost.
- Psychic Scream now has a percentage of base mana cost instead of fixed cost.
- Shackle Undead now has a percentage of base mana cost instead of fixed cost.
- Holy Fire now deals more of it's damage on the initial cast, but it's damage over time duration and damage have been reduced. It should still result in a net increase in damage dealt.
- Lightwell cast time reduced to 0.5 seconds.
- Lightwell cooldown reduced to 5 minutes.
- Power Infusion cooldown reduced to 2 minutes.
- The amount of charges on Lightwell has been increased to 10.
- Inspiration can now proc from the Penance spell, in addition to all the old spells that could proc Inspiration.
- Searing Light now also increases the damage of Holy Nova and Penance.
- Shadow Resilience now reduces physical damage taken instead of it's old effect.
- Shadow Focus reduced to give 1% Shadow spell hit per point, but will now additionally reduce Shadow spell costs by 2% per point. Talent now has 3 points total to spend on it, down from 5.
- Spirit Tap now gives a 33/66/100% chance to proc, total talent points that can be put into the talent reduced to 3.
- Improved Spirit Tap added, this new talent gives your Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death spells a 50/100% chance to give 50% extra spirit and 25% mana regeneration while casting for 8 seconds.
- Improved Shadow Word: Pain now increases the damage dealt by 5/10% instead of it's old effect.
- Mind Flay's range has been increased to 30 yards.
- Shadow Form now reduces threat generated by 30% in additional to it's old effects.
- Mental Strength now increases your Intellect by 3/6/9/12/15% instead if it's old effect.
- Pain Suppresion cooldown increased to 3 minutes.
- Focused Mind now also affects Mind Sear.
- Shadow Power's extra crit chance reduced to 2/4/6/8/10%, but Shadow Power now increases the critical damage bonus of the affected spells by 10/20/30/40/50%.
- Circle of Healing now has a 8 second cooldown.
- Enlightenment now increases spell damage and healing by 1/2/3/4/5% in addition to it's old effects.
- Vampiric Touch now gives mana to your party members for 2% of your shadow damage dealt, down from 5%.

Between Spirit Tap and Improved Spirit Tap, this means the SPI-based regen is going to be happening constantly during a S-Priest's normal casting cycle. Will this stack with Meditation?

I'm not sure if the change to SW:P is a buff or not...

Mind Sear seems like a strange name for an AoE ability, since it was used as a buffed version of Mind Flay for some Shadowform-mobs. But adding it to Focused Mind seems to lock it in...

The big changes I'm happy about, though, are Shadow Power and Mind Flay. Finally, bonus crit damage on the only two spells we have that can crit! And we can finally camp with the caster groups during Prince!

With all of those in mind, combined with DIspersion for mana recovery, I think the reduction to VT is justifiable.
Shadow Power increases the crit bonus damage?

Mantua · 05/21/08, 4:01 PM

Originally Posted by Juno

Otherwise they would've had it scale with something other with attack power since full tank gear on is like 600ap in the end.

That's now although. I remember reading in the interviews they just did with the fansites that they want to increase damage output for tanks.

I suspect you'll have more AP as a tank at 80. And getting outdpsed by the tank won't be quite as laughable.

Natural · 05/21/08, 4:03 PM

Originally Posted by Juno

Really appreciate the effort in this, must've taken a long time.

A lot of interesting changes here, especially blood craze and as I assumed before, the bloodthirst change. 1.5% hp at 15000 hp would be 225hp, so it's not a huge change from before, it's just that it actually scales now and it's presumably instant so will prolly feel a lot nicer.

I believe this means it applies to your next five attacks, which is 7.5% total HP.

kalbear · 05/21/08, 4:10 PM

Any idea what (if any) cooldown there is for guardian spirit?

I'm still shocked that CoH priests were so massively nerfed. That drastically changes the role of a priest in a raid.

talzar · 05/21/08, 4:18 PM

Originally Posted by kalbear

Any idea what (if any) cooldown there is for guardian spirit?

I'm still shocked that CoH priests were so massively nerfed. That drastically changes the role of a priest in a raid.

Can't say that it's a bad thing, a lot of fights in BT and Sunwell had practically turned into mindlessly spamming CoH and Chain Heal. Honestly it wouldn't be a bad thing if they put a 4 second cooldown on Chain Heal to make shaman cast something else in between, but I suppose their spellbook is a lot smaller than a priest's.

kalbear · 05/21/08, 4:42 PM

Can't say that it's a bad thing, a lot of fights in BT and Sunwell had practically turned into mindlessly spamming CoH and Chain Heal. Honestly it wouldn't be a bad thing if they put a 4 second cooldown on Chain Heal to make shaman cast something else in between, but I suppose their spellbook is a lot smaller than a priest's.

It is if priests don't have a niche to exist in. While CoH was the only thing they did (or at least the primary one) it meant a raid spot. Removing it means...what? Guardian spirit responsibility? Duno.

As my wife said, disc looks like where it's at in terms of raid usefulness and quality. It's hard to say whether a priest will be on par with the other healing classes, but resto druids were significantly improved compared to holy priests. If shamen and paladins got similar buffs, priests won't have much of a raid spot.

Axanor · 05/21/08, 4:48 PM

Originally Posted by flyingtoastr

Hm, the spell search has 4 ranks of Seal of Blood and 3 ranks of Seal of Vengeance listed as well, lending support to the widespread belief that Blizzard has no intention of fixing the factional imbalance of paladins. Of course, as most of the Paladin stuff isn't implemented yet we could be getting a new seal that is better than both or each faction could be getting both seals, so we shall have to see.

I see no reason why they wouldn't give it to both sides in WotLK given what happened with Fear Ward and both sides getting Pallys/Shammys.

Originally Posted by Garanthir

I know it has been said before, but it bears repeating. Blizz is listening, and at least willing to throw the majority of realistic changes brought forth by the community into an Alpha client to test. There's some good stuff listed, and yes it would be great to see Moonkins get their 5-10-25 man spots.

Moonkin can get 25/10 man spots now. The 5-man viability was definitely the big issue, and that's been addressed hugely here.

Baern · 05/21/08, 4:53 PM

Originally Posted by Mantua

That's now although. I remember reading in the interviews they just did with the fansites that they want to increase damage output for tanks.

I suspect you'll have more AP as a tank at 80. And getting outdpsed by the tank won't be quite as laughable.

I mentioned this in another thread, but it probably fits better here anyway.

Seeing as it seems they want to make gear less class specific, block rating and value on tanking gear doesn't make sense.
Assuming no more crushing blows (so paladins are no longer so dependant on block rating), if the strength to block formula is changed, and prot paladins are given an AP to spell damage talent, you can now replace all block rating and value with strength on tanking gear.

Effectively, the strength scales the threat of warrior and DK (a few of the frost abilities mentioned scale with AP) while it becomes spell damage to do the same with paladins.

Your non-set plate is then useful to all tanks, and we don't have to worry about spell damage tanking gear dropping for raids without prot pallies, or block value plate dropping when you only have DKs.

Similarly, the regular dps plate would work for all plate dps specs.

Healing plate is the only issue then. I have no idea how to solve that one.

Gurro · 05/21/08, 5:01 PM

Originally Posted by Juno

Really appreciate the effort in this, must've taken a long time.

A lot of interesting changes here, especially blood craze and as I assumed before, the bloodthirst change. 1.5% hp at 15000 hp would be 225hp, so it's not a huge change from before, it's just that it actually scales now and it's presumably instant so will prolly feel a lot nicer. I just love that they're making so many talents actually useful from really crap, like bloodletting (improved rend), blood craze, improved revenge, improved disarm, improved shield bash, it's awesome. Tons of stuff will probably change but it just seems they're making classes more -fun-.

I'm also guessing the threat abilities scaling with attack power should make offspec warriors more viable as tanks, or dps tanking more viable. Otherwise they would've had it scale with something other with attack power since full tank gear on is like 600ap in the end.

Current regen on bloodthirst is 30 HP per hit for 5 hits aka 150 health aka a joke.

With the change and using your 15k HP at level 80 number that would be 225 a hit x5 = 1125 Health. Quite a huge change.

kalbear · 05/21/08, 5:03 PM

Healing plate is the only issue then. I have no idea how to solve that one.

Make it healing mail/cloth and just have two tiers of drops for it.

Alternately, make healing plate/tanking plate interchangeable with a sunmote system.

Or combine the two ideas and make healing mail/plate interchangeable with a sunmote system.

Torq · 05/21/08, 5:14 PM

Deathknight AoE taunt?

Spell 48721
Name: Blood Boil
Description: Causes all disease effects on targets within $a1 yards to painfully erupt, consuming the diseases, dealing ${$m1+$AP*0.1} damage, and forcing the target to attack the Death Knight for 3 sec.
Description2: Taunted.

Scales with AP, too!

Ellyh · 05/21/08, 5:17 PM

If they are going with the 8s cooldown on CoH they really need to buff the amount it lands for a significant amount as otherwise it's just not going to be worth getting in most situations. This seems a particularly strange limitation given all the talents to buff AoE healing they have added to the holy tree. The other thing that could be happening is that they are drastically lowering the amount of raidwide damage to be healed by effects such as CoH and Chain heal. Given current raid design (P2 Illidan anyone?) I don't think that it would be healable without the AoE healing resto shaman bring and I don't think anyone wants yet more reasons to stack them.

Maahk · 05/21/08, 5:19 PM

I agree that Blizzard is treading dangerously close to making classes too similar to one another based upon this current alpha. I understand the need for viability for different builds and classes especially in small-group situations, and I think that they are going in the direction of pushing synergies in the larger raid settings to provide the 'unique' factor. The problem is, I don't want to see a moonkin play largely like a mage with the exception of having an aura, etc.

The problem that Blizzard faces is that they created these 'hybrid' classes but then made it so that in order to be viable they have to specialize, in effect being 'like' someone else instead of being a true individual. It looks like they are taking some steps to make a hybrid behave more like a hybrid than a specialist, like the % spell damage from healing skills/talents.

I hope they continue to push this and make a given raid set-up more flexible within itself. Need a ton of burst healing at a key part of a fight? Have your shadow priests and ele shamans help out until it is under control. Need a big burst of damage but less healing? Have your resto druids and shamans help out. Need a quick off-tank for a period of time during a fight? Let your DPS warrior grab him and be able to tank him effectively, then go back to DPSing. Yeah, it's not going to be as effective as a 'pure' class, but at least it will make roles swappable in-fight (no gear swap required.)

If they do push this, it could make for some very interesting encounters stressing raid flexibility more than just a simple min/max approach. I'd be all for this. If I play a hybrid or even a 'pure' class with the ability to perform in another role, I'd rather see a hybrid set of duties in a raid, skewed toward area of specialization of course. This could be a progression past the standard 'holy trinity' class archetypes if they can do this effectively and retain the feel and individuality of each class.

Torq · 05/21/08, 5:24 PM

Here's another interesting (maybe DK) ability:

Spell 49039
Name: Lichborne
Description: Draw upon unholy energy to become undead for $d. While undead, you are immune to charm, fear and sleep effects, and your horrifying visage causes creatures to be at an additional 25% chance to miss you.
Description2: Immune to charm, fear and sleep. Chance to be hit reduced by $50397s1%. Undead.

And a placeholder with humor!

Spell 49043
Name: Navy of the Dead
Description: Okay, not really. Need a cool talent for here.
Description2:

Lunkhedd · 05/21/08, 5:28 PM

Originally Posted by Baern

Assuming no more crushing blows (so paladins are no longer so dependant on block rating), if the strength to block formula is changed, and prot paladins are given an AP to spell damage talent, you can now replace all block rating and value with strength on tanking gear.

Unfortunately, that won't work because it'll break holy and ret paladins' ability to function as offtanks and may leave paladins dangerously short of mana in various tanking situations due to lack of int. They could work around it by adding similar capabilities to new ranks of Righteous Fury, though, rather than as a protection talent. The downside there would be putting so much of the tank's operating ability into a single dispellable buff.

I suspect we'll still see block rating and block value around, though, because they are very useful to paladins and warriors, even if death knights (and shamans, the third shield class) don't have much use for them.

Healing plate is the only issue then. I have no idea how to solve that one.

Well, off the top of my head, they could add a "Holy Presence" (for lack of a better name) self-buff as an alternative to Righteous Fury that provides an ap->healing, crit->spell crit, hit/expertise->mp5 conversion or the like. Such a buff would have the advantage of letting paladins switch roles in combat, too.

Or blacksmiths could convert mail to plate and vice-versa using the "will not be traded" trade slot, which would let the same drops work for both paladins and shamans, who conveniently have similar preferences in healing gear. Barring major changes in how spirit works for both classes, anyway.

Juno · 05/21/08, 5:29 PM

Originally Posted by Gurro

Current regen on bloodthirst is 30 HP per hit for 5 hits aka 150 health aka a joke.

With the change and using your 15k HP at level 80 number that would be 225 a hit x5 = 1125 Health. Quite a huge change.

Yes, I realize that's a huge change. I didn't consider it being 1.5% hp on each hit cause that feels pretty overpowered on a 6 sec cd ability, but I guess we'll see.

Brissa · 05/21/08, 5:33 PM

Originally Posted by Kenera

Wouldn't a fury warrior in tanking gear still have more AP than an equivalently geared prot warrior?

Actually its the opposite.
A Protection warrior would have more AP because he has +10% str from talents while the fury warrior has no AP increasing talents in defensive stance.

Grizlor · 05/21/08, 5:33 PM

Between death knights auto healing themselves by being in blood presence, (the current) improved leader of the pack, and the new bloodthirst, it looks like they are trying to help mitigate some of the incidental damage melee usually is forced to suck up (constant needle spines, cave ins, water tomb, etc) that is usually less likely to hit ranged who can spread out much more.

Edit: They need to vastly increase the strength->block value ratio, maybe something as drastic as 3:1 or something.

Kenera · 05/21/08, 5:38 PM

Good to know, thank you Brissa.

As a resto shaman, I'm sincerely hoping we have more spells added to our arsenal. My role in 10mans+ is mindlessly spamming chain heal, while occasionally dropping a HW on someone who's low on health, and keeping Earth Shield up on the tank/SP. Having more spells like Earth Shield added to our arsenal instead of an OP'd raid heal would please me immensely : )

Adrammelech · 05/21/08, 5:43 PM

Feels weird to say this, but my initial impression is that Prot actually might be viable in pvp. Not as a damage dealer so much, but as a nearly unstoppable force of CC and disruption.

Baern · 05/21/08, 5:49 PM

Originally Posted by Lunkhedd

Unfortunately, that won't work because it'll break holy and ret paladins' ability to function as offtanks and may leave paladins dangerously short of mana in various tanking situations due to lack of int. They could work around it by adding similar capabilities to new ranks of Righteous Fury, though, rather than as a protection talent. The downside there would be putting so much of the tank's operating ability into a single dispellable buff.

I suspect we'll still see block rating and block value around, though, because they are very useful to paladins and warriors, even if death knights (and shamans, the third shield class) don't have much use for them.

Hadn't considered holy/ret paladins.
I had non-set items in mind only, though, so block rating/value/spell damage and so on would still be available on the set items. I just don't see how, in a 10 man especially, you can warrant shield block stats when there is a decent possibility of it being a wasted drop.

Perhaps rather than a spell damage talent it could be a new aura, although that could clash with Sanctity aura in it's use. Hell maybe just make Sanctity trainable and change it's function.

How exactly isn't necessarily important, I was just trying to show that a single piece of plate could potentially be very useful for all plate tanking classes, while still maintaining the flavour of that class.

Torq · 05/21/08, 5:50 PM

There are a lot of "Rune of xxxx" spells, and I'm curious if they might be the end products of inscription?

Spell 49871
Name: Rune of Retribution
Description: Increases damage done by $49898s1% when damaged. This effect can only trigger once every 2 seconds and can only stack up to 5 times.
Description2: Increases damage done by $49898s1% when damaged.

Macblade · 05/21/08, 5:57 PM

Originally Posted by Lord BEEF

roots indoors means 5 man invites for moonkin. I dig it.

Hmmm, might be kind of a slap in the face for the other tanks-Bear are now both a CC class and a tanking class. It would certianly make them my first choice for a 5 man tank. Maybe they should make it break on assuming bear form, otherwise I'm seeing a nerf back to where it was, leaving moonkin out in the cold again.

On the homogenization note: what is it really that makes the classes different from one another? I think the mana/rage/energy mechanic is one of the biggest things, much more so than simply the talents classes can use. I certianly don't think of my warrior as just being like my rogue because my rogue has blade flurry and my warrior has cleave and sweeping strikes. The play style is totally different because one character uses rage and the other uses energy. Just one example, but in general I think it's safe to say that class differences can, and do, go beyond the specific abilities that they have. I for one would be happy to see Boomkin and Spreist get AOE, because, as other's have mentioned, it will make both 5 mans and 10 mans much easier to coordinate. I also think that this can be done without making a boomkin a mage with an aura, or at least without making them any more of one than they are now :P

Feorthas · 05/21/08, 5:57 PM

Originally Posted by Adrammelech

Feels weird to say this, but my initial impression is that Prot actually might be viable in pvp. Not as a damage dealer so much, but as a nearly unstoppable force of CC and disruption.

The same appears to be very possible with a Frost-Spec Death Knight (with Frost being what I like to think of as their 'Control' Tree); while Unholy may be the DK PvP Tree, just as Arms is with Warriors, Tanking specs may not be utterly laughable either--without turning them into damage-dealing monsters--and that's a pretty impressive in and of itself.

I will say this though--back when arenas opened, a good friend of mine decided to do a few rounds without respeccing; while his damage was laughable, he did get two Pallies to almost simultaneously bubble because he was annoying the crap out of them so much (of course, they made the mistake of standing next to eachother and this was during the first week of arenas but I digress...). I think we won that match too

.

Maahk · 05/21/08, 6:05 PM

Looking at the death knight talent trees, I'm guessing that the 'tanking' build will be something like 20/18/33 (blood, frost, unholy.) This depends of course on other spells and abilities we may have not seen yet, but 20/18/33 picks up all of the anti-spell talents along with the avoidance, +hit, and +armor talents.

Each tree has viable tanking talents, so it's looking to me like they intend each spec to be at least able to off-tank.

Edit: Here's an example of what looks initially to be a pretty solid tanking build:

War Tools :: Talent tree Death Knight Talents