Innervate T.T

My guess is that they are reworking the lighting mechanics to make it more dynamic and up to date. If that is the case, it is definetly a good thing.

Wow. Those images make Ironforge seem so... sad and empty.

Either Frost Nova has no upper bound, or it's so high that it's hard to hit it. I've basically been able to treat Frost Nova as unbreakable on beta.

Is it no longer a guaranteed break on the first crit? Surely that's a bug.

Mmm, I noticed the dark and gloomy lighting when I returned to Ironforge to pick up a new mount from Kharanos lastnight. I figured it was somehow related to the "Razing of Orgrimmar" text we've seen. I'll chat to NPC's around Ironforge and see if anyone says anything similar. It's not just the lighting either; the entire city has a strange, green glow to it. Aftermath of an invasion? I guess we'll know soon enough.

Frost Nova was reverted from always breaking on critical to sometimes (usually?) breaking on damage, with the break chance being related to the damage taken but not whether it was a critical. Always breaking on crit was only around for like a patch or two. Since the break chance is related to damage crits still have a larger chance to break it, but not an "unreasonable" extra chance.

To clarify, on beta I can crit Frostbolt followed by 2-3 Ice Lances and still not break Frost Nova. I can think of maybe a single time it has broken early. But this happens on PTRs sometimes, so we can't tell if it's intended at this point.

This is in the patch notes, I think this is referring to the change that lowered nova's shatter burst, then brought it back up.

- Chance to break crowd control from damage: The increased chance for
a spell to break from taking a critical strike has been removed.
Instead, all targets over level 60 have a slightly larger chance to
break out of crowd-controlling effects when they take damage.

Of course, we've all been there when Frostbolt/Ice Lance double crit you, and then you're still nova'd in place for an extra Ice Lance crit to the face.

Is anyone else upset at how Blizzard is homogenizing abilities across classes? And in addition to that, trivializing group synergy by making certain buffs/spells apply raid-wide?

Here are some examples of how classes are becoming less unique in WotLK:

• Shamans get Cleanse/Dispel (Cleanse Spirit) and Polymorph (Hex)
• Warriors get Avenger's Shield (shockwave)
• Hunters get Execute (Kill Shot) and Entangle (Bear Trap)
• Druids get OOC rez (Revive), Last Stand (Beserk)
• Priests & Druids get Chain Heal (smart raid CoH, Flourish)
• Priests get Holy Shock (Penance)
• Pallies get Prayer of Healing (Beacon of Light), Evocate (Divine Plea), Shield Slam (Shield of Righteousness)
• Rogues get Disarm (Dismantle), ranged Whirwind (Fan of Knives)
• Salv is removed, Tranquil air also- threat built into mechanics
• Auras are raid-wide, so are totems
• All AoE healing spells now apply raid-wide
• Crushing Blows are removed, Shield Block becomes insignificant

Where are we going with this? I mean we might as well give every healer a HoT, an AoE heal, a direct heal and a Dispel/Cleanse/Abolish Disease. And then we could give all DPS classes a DoT, a direct damage spell and a Pet. And all classes than can tank get a Taunt, a Cleave and a temporary increase to Hit Points.

All these changes point to a lack of creativity at Blizzard. Not only that, but also at a general dumbing-down of the game itself. I've heard people say that its in order to bring balance to 10-man raids. But we do Kara and ZA just fine with raid compositions that vary wildly.

What are your thoughts on this, EJ? Do you welcome merging class abilities and simplifying raid mechanics to make gameplay more "convenient"? Or would you rather retain the individual flavor of WoW's classes, the strategic decisions that go into raiding at the "cost" of the game retaining some small ioda of complexity even if that means not every single person who buys it can experience it all?

Those people are correct. The fact that you can do Kara and ZA with all of the abilities right now just means they were designed with TBC abilities in mind.

Giving more diverse abilities to other classes will open up opportunities for more diverse fights, because you're no longer screwed if you can't find a specific class for some reason.

ZA and Kara aren't really cutting-edge raiding though. In WotLK 10-man progression will go just as far as 25-man progression. And if you'd add in a fight with lots of random raid damage, you're almost required to bring someone with a "smart" AoE heal. Now that's only a Shaman, in WotLK you'll have other options. Hard-hitting boss? A Warrior for Thunderclap will make a huge difference, but you don't want to be forced to bringing a Prot Warrior. So Paladins and Druids have similar abilities/talents.

Right now, 10-man progression doesn't require much min/maxing (with the possible exception of the ZA bear run), but when the 10-man content is top-tier in WotLK, you don't want half your raid-setup to be forced by encounters requiring certain class/spec abilities.

I feel the uniqueness of classes is being maintained by staying within the thematic boundaries of each class. A good example if Warlocks and Mages, both classes are going through some heavy changes to "like" the same gear but at the same time the changes have kept the mechanics and play styles different. An even better example is Protection Paladins and Protection Warriors.

All your tanks having a melee slow is a good thing, all your tanks having a different way to apply the melee slow is a much, much better thing.

I can't believe someone's actually complaining about this.

There are still tons of unique things the various classes bring to raids. But with making 10 mans "work" a priority, they needed to provide ways to make the various specs be able to "replace" their original spec (Boomkins and Shadowpriests getting AoE, for example.) Note, however, that most of these abilities are NOT being given out as class abilities, but as talents.

The only issue I see about them nixing salv (and boosting the threat scaling of tank abilities) is that they will probably need to make devastate only be high threat in Defensive Stance. There are bound to be Gorefiends and Kaz'rogals in WotLK, And I'd much rather have a prot warrior eking out semi respectable dps in fury hand-me-downs than a prot paladin trying to heal.

* Shamans get Cleanse/Dispel (Cleanse Spirit) and Polymorph (Hex)
* Warriors get Avenger's Shield (shockwave)
* Hunters get Execute (Kill Shot) and Entangle (Bear Trap)
* Druids get OOC rez (Revive), Last Stand (Beserk)
* Priests & Druids get Chain Heal (smart raid CoH, Flourish)
* Priests get Holy Shock (Penance)
* Pallies get Prayer of Healing (Beacon of Light), Evocate (Divine Plea), Shield Slam (Shield of Righteousness)
* Rogues get Disarm (Dismantle), ranged Whirwind (Fan of Knives)
* Salv is removed, Tranquil air also- threat built into mechanics
* Auras are raid-wide, so are totems
* All AoE healing spells now apply raid-wide
* Crushing Blows are removed, Shield Block becomes insignificant

• They only added removing Curses and rolled their remove Disease and Poison into a single skill. A nice change since before only druids and mages were capable of removing curses (and you want your mages DPSing instead of spamming remove curse)
• Shockwave is hardly like Avenger's Shield. It's a 10 yard PB AoE stun with high threat.
• I'll give you the Killshot, but Blizzard seems to be somewhat lost with Hunter design choices
• I can't see why anyone would complain about druids getting an OOC rez. As noted before, doing 5mans with a druid healer is annoying if someone dies and no backup rezzers are available. As for Berserk, I think it's their first OH-SHI button (the rage->health CD doesn't count, it's pathethic outside of pvp and solo) which along with the block changes should push bears more for a MT role.
• The only thing that's similar with those spells is that they all heal nearby party members. Every healer should have an AOE heal for 5 mans.
• Again, the only thing that's similar with those spells is that they both heal friendlies and damage enemies.
• This complaint is just silly, paladins have been complaining almost the whole expansions that when they run out of mana, they stay out of mana.
• Rogues already had a disarm, it was talented and depended on a proc. They just worked it into a baseline skill that's easier to use. Fan of Knives has triple the cooldown of Whirlwind and has unlimited targets while Whirlwind is limited to four targets.
• Why on earth are you complaining about the removal of salvation & TA? Now you don't need a paladin for every instance just to buff DPS with salvation.
• Now you're just starting to grasp at straws. Blizzard didn't take your niche away, they just made it like so that other classes who share your role can fill in for your niche in a pinch, but can't hold it forever.

The Internet complains about everything, especially sites like these with a high concenctration of people who know what they want and how they want it.

Aside from the fact that some of those comparisons are questionable, no, it isn't a problem for the game. It is excellent for it. And I'd counter that it actually shows considerable creativity to come up with similar spells that manage to be thematically different but have similar usefulness - which so far they have done and excellent job with.

Having "different" abilities does not make the game complex. It makes it imbalanced. Horde having shaman and alliance having paladins did not make WoW more robust or complicated - it made raiding stupid, because Salvation was better than the entire Shaman class for a long time. In Sunwell, having specific "niche" roles for healers made paladins buffbot and sit out on several fights, and had guilds stacking shaman because they could actually heal and increase DPS. In PvP, "niche" healing has allowed druids and priests to dominate arena healing for almost a year, to the point where shaman and paladins are all but extinct in tournaments.

Now if they gave everyone exactly the same spells and abilities with no variation, WoW would be a very boring game. But that is a huge strawman argument - giving paladins a hugely expensive and situational AE heal does not make them CoH priests, nor does giving prot paladins a type of "oh shit" button make them warriors. Giving each class tools to do all types of jobs in different ways is important, and it is unfortunate it has taken them this long to do it.

I have every confidence that WOTLK raids will be every bit as challenging, complex, and interesting as Sunwell, because none of those things have anything to do with "homogenization" in the way Blizzard is streamlining the game. And the best part is, maybe we won't need to bring 5 resto shaman on every fight anymore, either.

I very much doubt its a bug, more like intended change.

Emphasis mine.

Entangle is targeted. Traps are not. I can't throw them at anyone. So no, I don't really see Bear Trap as being comparable to Entangle, aside from the fact that is a rooting ability that deals moderate damage. Aside from that, they differ greatly.

Looking through the code for UnitFrames.lua in the WotLK beta (http://wowcompares.com/3018681/FrameXML/UnitFrame.lua), it seems like the new mana regen/energy regen mechanic also works for health in the same way InstantHealth and LibQuickHealth would.

This looks like the settings to make mana/energy update every frame:
And this looks like the setting to make health update every frame:
I've also found an intresting addition to the GlobalStrings (http://wowcompares.com/3018681/Frame...a?diff=3018634)
Seems like they could be preparing to add in a threat meter in the next few builds that the promised awhile ago.

This is a no brainer here. New changes = win, plain and simple. I don't like having a Warrior as a MT be a must in 10 man progression (or 25, for that matter.) I don't like having to be locked into taking a priest and either a pally or a druid, and that's it for 10 mans. I don't like telling a druid 'no, you can't come heal my 5 man, because there's no real rezzer.' I don't like telling Ret Pallies 'you can't come at all.' I don't like telling DPS from the outset of an encounter that they can only do 70-80% of their DPS, because we don't have a single pally at all for Salv. I don't like being forced to take a mage, because the only CC that a set of mobs is susceptible to is Polymorph.

These aren't all the same exact spells. Different coefficients, different costs, different ways that the spells and abilities are being used...it's not like all casters are becoming mages, all tanks are becoming warriors, all healers are becoming priests. It's simply different means of accomplishing the same effect. And that's really it. It's something that allows for far more diversity in group composition, AND allows Blizzard to tune encounters far more tightly than they otherwise would have been able to.

I believe this will also allow Blizzard to have more creative 5/10 man bosses than would otherwise be the case. Blizz will be able to assume a 5 man group has a wider variety of abilities than is the case in TBC. This allows them to use more mechanics to make the fights more interesting.