Ashen

Earth will be Strength of Earth, and Stoneskin (Assuming it stacks with Devotion Aura). In the case of AoE fights, Earthbind will be the other option.

Air will be Windfury and Wrath of Air.

Fire will be Flametongue, Totem of Wrath if you're Elemental. I don't see Enhancement Shaman not dropping Flametongue, seeing as it will be more effective than a Searing Totem in its place. (Ret Paladins, Enh Shaman, Death Knights, Prot Paladins, etc.)

Water, isn't as weak anymore. Keep in mind that it is now raid wide, with a pulse so you can effectively provide not only the entire raid with mana spring, but more importantly, another shaman can also drop healing stream, which will more or less act as a periodic raid HoT.

In TBC, Healing Stream was pretty effective on fights like Bloodboil, Kalecgos, and Felmyst, where there was some periodic damage that you could easily cut down on. (Bloodboil is obvious, Kalecgos for the first few Buffets every time your group came up top, and Felmyst for transitions into kiting phases, which also reduced healing threat on skeletons but helped people recover from the lingering noxious aura.)

I don't really know what they could add to the water totems to make them more appealing. (Age old argument of Mana Tide trainable, and replacing that talent with a totem that combines mana spring and healing stream?)

But I think there's been a good measure of significant changes. The best thing to do, is probably move Totem of Wrath to Earth, seeing as Elemental is more Nature based anyway.

I'm pretty satisfied with the Shaman changes for the most part. I had just hoped that they would have moved all Healing Spells to a "water" element, thereby placing Healing Spells and Frost Shock on the same element, and keeping Earth Shock and Lightning Bolt and other spells of that sort on Nature. But even if that doesn't happen, overall things seem to have improved a fair bit for the Shaman.

 

bellator

Ok, this may all get confusing. Please shout if i've explained anything poorly

Looking at your data, and comparing it to formula I posted:-

Downranking coefficient = 100% - 5%*(Current Level - (Spell Level + Common Levels Between Spells - 1)

1) For ranks 7 and 8, "Common Level Between Spells" value of 7 fits the equation. Whilst spells before 60 have a gap of 8, rank 7 to rank 9 has a gap of 7, thus there is logical reason to why a value of 7 is being applied to ranks 7 and 8.
2) From Rank 9, you are getting new spells every 6 levels. Rank 9 = lvl63, Rank 10 = lvl69, Rank 12 = lvl75. Thus one would assume a "Common Level Between Spells" at this point being 6 for Ranks 9,10,11. It does fit with 9.

Quick Q, Why do mages have a lvl 69 and 70 spell. Was the level 70 applied later like the AQ books.

3) The one conflicting piece of data you posted was Ranks 10 and 11. These are suddenly 20% downranking. Now based on my 'tbc max rank' spell downranking equation, these should only be downranked 10% (with perhaps rank 10 being 15%)

Based on the new arcane missiles being learned at level 75, and the new FoL being learned at 74, could it be the case that:-

Once the new rank of spell has been learned in wrath, the max rank spells of TBC (in arcane missles case, both ranks 10/11) suffer a 10% downranking at level 74, 20% at 75, 30% at 76 etc etc.

This would mean that regardless of level the old max rank tbc spell was learned or the new wrath spell was learned, all max rank spells in tbc would have suffer a 70% downranking coefficient at 80? It would allow some consistency?


I didnt no, but i'm lvl 74 and get my next rank of Holy Light at 75. My current rank is still getting 100%. I would predict that when i hit 75 it will suddenly see a 20%, and hopefully FoL will also drop to 20% too.

 

Anedris

If the boss matters (i.e., a progression encounter) the mages will just respec. A frost spec won't be optimized for frostfire bolt damage and there's no point dealing 90% of your potential damage when for a tiny fee (insignificant in comparison to your repair costs, nevermind consumables) you could do 100%.

Lava burst has a cooldown so it's not much of an answer for elemental shaman. Likely they would respec resto or sit out on a nature immune boss (just like ours did for our first couple Hydross kills).

 

Douglas

If the boss "matters", some mages will just respec.

Today, progression content is only being done by people of that sort -- other sorts are eventually forced out of attempting it, or are grudgingly forced to change their play style when they'd rather not.

One reasonable question is whether Blizzard is trying to open up progression content to other sorts of people. Another reasonable question is to what extent Blizzard should tune the entire game based around bleeding edge progression encounters and those willing to jump through the hoops they require.

 

Anedris

My point was that frostfire bolt is not a solution to immunity fights any more than the ability of a frost mage to cast fireballs is a solution to immunity fights. Frostfire bolt may be less worse than fireball for a frost mage, but it is still worse.

Blizzard should really just not include immunity fights.

 

Lockdown

I agree. Actually I was talking about mobs in general, like elemantals or such in order to farm, not raidbosses. Immunity bosses are in my opinion not a good idea, as long as it does not happen to be a specific gimmick to a given encounter (like rotating elemental immunities or 4 different types of elementals for example).

 

Erlen

On the World of Warcraft site, under the dungeon information for Caverns of Time, you can choose "The Culling of Stratholme" from the drop down box. Dungeons - Caverns of Time.

It doesn't state what new faction it is associated with, but it does give a name for the final boss of the dungeon.

 

bellator

The information under players states 10/25. I assume this is a mistake as it also has hyjal listed as having a 1 day heroic reset timer.

 

Liebestod

"Rhino". Lawl. But unless they change things, we already know who all of the 5-man bosses will be thanks to the Achievements. iirc the CoT boss is supposed to be some Chrono Lord guy, another infinite dragon.

 

Shakes

If healing stream goes raid wide water will be amazingly strong. My healing stream ticks for about 160 every 2 seconds. That means 2000 HPS if the entire raid is taking damage. And you don't even lose mana stream if it's also raid wide.

For fights where everyone is taking damage, that's nearly as good as an extra healer in the raid for 95 mana and a 1 second GCD every 2 minutes. For this reason I'd be quite surprised if healing stream goes raid wide, but we'll see.

 

Pasco

Here the blue post regarding the "August 1th" rumor:
"I'm not confirming an August 1st distribution date. I'm confirming that a wave after August 1st will be the one that incorporates the remaining BlizzCon, WWI, and Dell Beta Club invites."

Source: WoW Forums -> Next wave invites out?

So I don't know about the WWI/Blizzcon/Dell Beta keys but I received my invite today, so should some others!?

 

• Juice

 

Cranberry

Look at the combat log in this screenshot:

http://deathknight.info/wp-content/u...8203853jy8.jpg

Rejuvenation healed you for XXXX Nature. (XXX Overhealed)

I don't think the current log says that, does it?

 

Spiry

The link is broken, requesting that we visit deathknight.info to view it.

 

Jebraltar

Venia Tanks Halls of Stone | DeathKnight.info

Second screenshot from the left in the top row. Nothing particularly interesting about it other than the combat log snippet saying "Healed for xxxx (Nature)"

The link is fine, by the way, they just have direct linking from other sites disabled. (Probably an attempt to cut down on their downtime / hosting costs.)

 

Ja7us

The current log does specify elements. I've seen Holy, Nature and Physical-element heals on live.

 

Caer

This is what the combat log says on Live:

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/2...enationnd8.jpg

I had jumped off the Org bank and was only down 421 health when it ticked.

The screenshot Cranberry posts shows the element of the heal as well as the amount of overhealing in addition to what we see on Live in the combat log.

 

Ja7us

Not sure how ours differ - mine reads "Your improved Leader of the Pack heals you for xxx physical." It doesn't show overheals, though.

 

• uliko

On live it tells you the element but not how much overhealing.

 

Malag

Is there any detailed information regarding the in-game Calendar function yet?

I gather that guildleaders/officers are supposedly capable of schedueling raids on it, and that in-game holidays and battleground weekends will show. But will guildmembers be able to set themselves as Unavailable (like the Out of Office function many doubtlessly know about/use in Outlook), scheduel their own 5-/10-man groups/raids, or even sign up for the raids so leaders can verify attendance?

I think the Calendar is a great initiative from Blizzard, with a lot of potential - but without certain key features, you're bound to the usage of forums anyway.

A "guild annoncements" function in-game would also be nice. Both the GMOTD and the Guild Info tab currently available are simply too limited in their size (and visibility) for any proper usage.

 

Douglas

This is why I want an in-game instanced guild hall. I want a bulletin board in-game that you can click on to interact with sort-of like a cross between a guild bank and a mailbox. Like, multiple tabs, and some anyone can post messages to, and others only certain ranks can post messages to. So on the "open discussion" tab, random people can post about quests they're trying to do, or people can say when they're going on vacation, and on an "announcements" tab, you can keep a list of allied giulds, blacklisted PUGers, et cetera.

Yes, "real" guilds have web forums. But aren't we trying to open the game up to more people? I know in my own guild, different people are radically different with regard to how reliably they check our forums, and an in-game bulletin board would help us out.

Trophies and all might be nice, but that sort of thing is the real reason I want a guild hall.

Heck, let it be a gold sink on top of that, there's a lot you could do. Imagine if for 10k gold you could give guildmates trinkets that hearth to it once every four hours, and for 5k gold you could put in an always-exalted repair person, for 15k gold you could attach a greenhouse that had guild-scoped instanced supply of low-level herbs, or 25k gold you could buy a copper mine, et cetera.

 

Rasputin

There isn't really a need for a physical guild hall for that type of function. In fact, I would say it would be better served by a non-physical bulletin board. Just create a screen or popup you can access with a hotkey, give it tabs ordered by who can post there, and you're set. Access from anywhere, good information spreading in-game, don't have to run to SW/Org/Shatt to find out where the hell your feral is when you're trying to do Brut.

 

rhea

The ingame bulletin board (for guilds) should be part of the mailbox ui, every time a guild announce something it shows up as "new mail received". But guild hall would do so much more than just that.

 

Jerry

Information gathered from the internal Calendar API.

The Calendar is linked to your character. It is composed of events. Anyone can create events.

Events can be of any of the following types :

• Raid
• Dungeon
• Pvp
• Meeting
• Other

For each type, there are a number of event "textures" that can be selected. Events also have a date, a time, a name, a calendar type and a sequence type.

Calendar types can be :

• PLAYER
• GUILD
• SYSTEM
• HOLIDAY
• RAID_LOCKOUT
• ARENA

sequence types seem to be used only for HOLIDAY, right now, and can be START or END.

When you create an event, you can set it as repeatable.

If you are the creator (or a moderator) of a given event, you can edit most of these attributes. You can also send invitations, either to individuals (by name), to some part of your guild (if you can, probably controlled by the guild leader) or one of your arena team.

Each invitation has a status that can be :

• INVITED
• ACCEPTED
• DECLINED
• CONFIRMED
• OUT
• STANDBY

The creator and moderators of an event can change the status of each invitation. The creator can set some invitation as moderators. The creator can also set an event to be auto-approved, so that invitation status automatically switch from ACCEPTED to CONFIRMED.

Individuals are notified of pending invitations through the new GameTime display. If you have a pending invitation for a particular event, it will stand out on the calendar.

 

Rasputin

Well and good, I'm not against guild halls or player housing or any other such ingame addition. I just think that communication facilitators like a guild bulletin board should not be location-restricted, to guildhalls or mailbox or anything. It serves its purpose far better if anyone inguild can access it from anywhere ingame.