WOW News – World of Warcraft news portal

This twitter developer chat was focused on the recent beta talent tree overhaul announced for Cataclysm. Lots of information came out including drastic changes to the paladin class. A lot of the answers had to do with the fact that a couple classes aren’t very done in the current beta build that everyone has been poring over.

Some highlights:

• paladins will be using a new Holy Power resource system in addition to mana
• all death knights will gain Runic Empowerment via trainers for all specs
• no planned hard cap for the new Mastery stat
• still no guild housing

The full categorized round-up is after the break.

Continue reading Twitter developer chat for July 16, 2010, organized by category

Filed under: Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, Warrior, Blizzard, Interviews, Death Knight, Cataclysm, Worgen, Goblin

Twitter developer chat for July 16, 2010, organized by category originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 16 Jul 2010 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week, Frostheim uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Got hunter questions? Feel free to email Frostheim.

Okay, take a deep breath. The NDA has been lifted and we’re about to take a look at what’s been going on with the hunter class behind closed doors. Those of us who have been desperately keeping our mouths shut until we were vibrating with the secret knowledge we possess can finally climb to the rooftops and start shouting about the awesomeness contained within.

Because those hunter class previews we had earlier in the year? That was nothing. Nothing I tell you compared to the sweet, sweet huntery goodness lurking behind the closed beta doors.

Join me after the cut as we begin to scrape the surface of some of the awesomesauce hidden in the Cataclysm beta. I think you’ll join me in agreeing that it’s been worth the wait. Hold tight to your seat, folks; this is a killer ride.

Continue reading Scattered Shots: Cataclysm beta hunter info

Filed under: Hunter, (Hunter) Scattered Shots, Cataclysm

Scattered Shots: Cataclysm beta hunter info originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 01 Jul 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

It’s time again for Arcane Brilliance, the weekly mage column that asks the question: Which balls are the best? The answer, of course, is also provided by Arcane Brilliance: balls of fire. Balls of fire are the best. Wait, what kind of balls were you thinking about? That’s pretty gross. But Arcane Brilliance likes where your head is.

When the Cataclysm class previews were announced by Blizzard lo those many months ago, my initial reactions were a decidedly mixed bag.

Arcane scared the crap out of me. Mana Adept? It took several weeks and many hours of therapy before I could envision any sort of scenario in which that idea didn’t sound like a terrible, terrible idea.

Frost struck me as kind of meh. I gradually became more excited after I thought about it for a while, but Deathfrost and Wall of Fog simply weren’t all that thrilling as initial concepts.

Fire, on the other hand, sounded awesome.

A giant ball of conjured flame that travels along a set path, sending out tendrils of destruction that incinerate anything in its path? Sexy.

Continue reading Arcane Brilliance: Great balls of fire

Filed under: Mage, Analysis / Opinion, (Mage) Arcane Brilliance

Arcane Brilliance: Great balls of fire originally appeared on WoW.com on Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting feral/restoration druids and those who group with them. This week, Allie hopes she is too unimportant and destitute to be worth suing.

While finishing the bear, tree and cat gearing guides, I dickered over whether it’d be worth it to examine the Cataclysm talent changes. It’s kind of dumb to devote a column to changes that, for all we know, Blizzard slid into the upcoming beta just to scare data miners, but I finally decided … what the hell. I enjoyed watching Wrath‘s development during its beta and often wish I’d written more about the class changes as they evolved. Anyway, this is a snapshot of what we know in May 2010.

There is the minor matter of the, uh, Cataclysm talent changes no longer being publicly available. As with all alpha leaks, there’s the ever-present threat of Blizzard raining lawyers on your head like some Biblical plague, but then I thought — what good is working for an evil corporation if I can’t marshal our own soulless legal tyrants? And how much fun would it be to watch Blizzard legal battling Aol legal? Aol’s lawyers hate life and themselves, and this is the stuff of great entertainment. Why not haul out the deck chair, pack a lunch and have the traditional American day out at the Ninth Circuit Court enjoying the Fisticuffs of the Damned?

Continue reading Shifting Perspectives: Cataclysm talent changes

Filed under: Druid, (Druid) Shifting Perspectives, Cataclysm

Shifting Perspectives: Cataclysm talent changes originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 18 May 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

It’s time again for another Arcane Brilliance, the weekly mage column that needs more screenshots. Yes, I’m reminding all of you that I need more pictures of mages to open this column with. They can be any pictures of mages, whether they’re mages killing warlocks, or mages setting warlocks on fire, or mages destroying a warlock’s self-esteem, or a mage stealing a warlock’s lunch money, or a mage sneaking into a warlock’s backyard and salting the earth so that nothing can grow there for a hundred years. Really, any mage screenshot will do. Send them to arcanebrilliancepics@wow.com; put “Mage screenshot” in the subject line, and sign the email with whatever name you want the picture to be credited to. My email’s getting lonely. Seriously, all I get now are fake beta invites and porn. Sometimes in the same email.

Mana Adept concerns me.

I don’t think I’m alone, in my concern, either. In fact, I think it’s safe to assume that a very large percentage of arcane mages, upon reading about the coming mastery bonus for their spec of choice in the recent Cataclysm class preview, let out a collective sigh of deep unease.

The mastery bonuses for fire and frost are fairly straightforward. Fire is getting a powerful DoT component added to all of their direct-damage fire spells. Frost is getting a damage buff applied to all of their damaging spells but Frostbolt. Compare those to the mysteries of Mana Adept:

Bashiok

Mana Adept: Arcane will deal damage based how much mana the mage has. For example, Arcane mages will do much more damage at 100% mana than at 50% mana. If they begin to get low on mana, they will likely want to use an ability or mechanic to bring their mana up to increase their damage.

source

Continue reading Arcane Brilliance: Why Mana Adept might not suck

Filed under: Mage, (Mage) Arcane Brilliance

Arcane Brilliance: Why Mana Adept might not suck originally appeared on WoW.com on Sat, 24 Apr 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

• Death Knight
• Druid
• Hunter
• Mage
• Rogue
• Shaman
• Paladin
• Priest
• Warlock
• Warrior
• Other tidbits

Update: The dev chat is now over.

Continue reading Twitter developer chat for April 16, 2010, organized by category

Filed under: Blizzard, Interviews, Cataclysm

Twitter developer chat for April 16, 2010, organized by category originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 16 Apr 2010 19:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Just in case the news of a star pony has distracted everyone, there will be a Twitter developer chat this evening at 5:00 p.m. PDT / 7:00 p.m. CDT / 8:00 p.m. EDT. For those of you unfamiliar with these, a couple of developers start answering your tweets directed at @warcraft or just with the #BlizzChat hash tag. As usual, we will have a live transcript of the event up here on WoW.com as it happens.

We’re hoping to hear additional information as well as clarification on the recent class previews and expect that will take up most of the time.

Previous chat transcripts:

• Feb. 26, 2010
• Jan. 15, 2010
• Oct. 22, 2009

Bornakk

We will be holding our next developer chat on Twitter this Friday, April 16, at 5:00 p.m. PDT with two members of World of Warcraft’s class design team. This chat session will focus on the recently released Cataclysm class previews that you can see here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=24038460683&sid=1

Questions will be taken live through Twitter, so be sure to sign up for a Twitter account and follow @Warcraft (http://www.twitter.com/warcraft) in order to participate!

To submit a question for the developer chat, please tweet using the #BlizzChat hashtag between 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. PST on April 16. Due to the character limitation on responses within Twitter, all answers will be posted on the World of Warcraft forums in a dedicated thread.

source

Filed under: Blizzard, Interviews, Cataclysm

Reminder: Twitter developer chat today originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Nethaera posted several points of clarification to the Cataclysm paladin preview announced earlier today.

Of primary note is the following revamped Flash of Light information:

Flash of Light remains a fast heal, but will be more expensive to justify the cast speed. Holy Light will be the go-to heal that has average efficiency and throughput. Beacon of Light needs to be changed so that its benefit is letting the paladin heal two targets at once, not letting the paladin get two heals for the mana cost of one. It’s intended to save GCDs and targeting time, not mana.

Neth’s full statement after the break.

Continue reading Paladin Cataclysm clarifications

Filed under: Paladin, Cataclysm

Paladin Cataclysm clarifications originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 14 Apr 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

As we’ve been expecting, we now have the first glimpse of what the paladin class will be like in Cataclysm. These changes are straight from Blizzard, and they provide great insight into where the designers want to take things. Please remember that these changes are for the beta and will very likely be modified as the expansion nears release.

Some of the major highlights:

• Guardian of Ancient Kings (level 85): Summons a temporary guardian that looks like a winged creature of light armed with a sword. The visual is similar to that of the Resurrection spell used by the paladin in Warcraft III. The guardian has a different effect depending on the talent spec of the paladin. For Holy paladins, the guardian heals the most wounded ally in the area. For Protection paladins, the guardian absorbs some incoming damage. For Retribution paladins, it damages an enemy, similar to the death knight Gargoyle or the Nibelung staff. 3-minute cooldown. 30-second duration (this might vary depending on which guardian appears).
• Healing Hands (level 83): Healing Hands is a new healing spell. The paladin radiates heals from him or herself, almost like a Healing Stream Totem. It has a short range, but a long enough duration that the paladin can cast other heals while Healing Hands remains active. 15-second cooldown. 6-second duration.
• Blinding Shield (level 81): Causes damage and blinds all nearby targets. This effect might end up only damaging those facing the paladin’s shield, in a manner similar to Eadric the Pure’s ability Radiance in Trial of the Champion. The Holy tree will have a talent to increase the damage and critical strike chance, while the Protection tree will have a talent to make this spell instant cast. 2-second base cast time. Requires a shield.

The full Blizzard announcement after the break.

Continue reading Cataclysm Class Changes: Paladin

Filed under: Paladin, Cataclysm

Cataclysm Class Changes: Paladin originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 14 Apr 2010 10:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Wryxian

We are thankful for all the paladins and their patience in having to wait just a bit longer than others to get their Cataclysm class preview. While we had initially announced that we were planning to post the Paladin preview on Friday, April 16, we can now reveal that it will instead be posted on Wednesday, April 14!

source

Filed under: Paladin, Cataclysm

Paladin class preview schedule change originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 13 Apr 2010 05:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments