It’s no big surprise really that Patch 3.02 is coming out today since season 4 of the Arena Tournament was scheduled to end today and we all just did the math. But it’s still great to put all the speculations to rest and get some confirmation from a “Blue”. That’s exactly what WoW EU Blizzard poster Slorkuz did!
This means that the next time you get to see your characters, all their talent trees are going to look very different. If you haven’t decided on a spec yet, the current downtime is a great time to do some last minute spec shopping. That’s exactly what I’m doing now since I pretty much gave up really working on the specifics of the build I want back when the talents kept changing. Since all the talents trees are going to be different, all our talents points will be refunded. This is a great time to experiment and try out other specs that you find interesting. Or you could stay true with pretty much the same spec you have, just modified for patch 3.02 and later on the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Which will it be?
Blizzcon 08 is over and it seems like there really wasn’t anything explosive that was revealed as far as World of Warcraft is concerned. Sure a few things were given more clarity and a few issues made known to the devs so they could work on it but there was nothing that made you go “WOW!” (pun intended)
But if there was one thing probably qualifies as a new and cool announcement, it’s probably the one about ground mounts being usable in water. This means that when you hit the drink with your ground mount, you’ll actually stay mounted. Don’t you hate it when you’re in places like Un’goro Crater or Nagrand that have narrow bodies of water that separate pieces of land just a few steps apart. Getting to the other side of these pieces of land are annoying because the water is deep enough to dismount you so you’ll have to mount up again on the other side. This change that will be patched in after the release of Wrath of the Lich King solves this annoyance.
How, you may ask, will your kodo or nightsaber survive under water without breathing? Well just ask hunters how their pets do it. Though this really brings back the funny thought of having to buy a new mount just because your old one died…
So Blizzcon ‘08 day 1 is over and there lot of things that were talked about concerning the Wrath expansion and even Diablo 3! The other day, the dual spec feature was confirmed but we didn’t know exactly how it worked. Did you have to go back to town? Could you do it in the middle of fights? This explanation of Ghostcrawler gives us a better idea.
Basically we’ll be able to switch specs between fights so if let’s say you don’t need that other tank for a certain encounter in that 10 man raid, he can switch to a dps spec just like that and the group will be good to go.
According to MMO Champion, there are also talks for an Item rack feature to be added to the default UI. this means that like Item rack, you’ll be able to switch your gear sets more easily. This will make all this dual speccing much much easier if this is added.
Curse.com had the great opportunity to sit down with Lead Designers Tom Chilton (Kalgan) and Jeff Kaplan (Tigole) for the Blizzard Community Summit and what they learned may strike you as cool. Looks like the developers have some nice content lined up for us and other ideas that may be implemented after the release of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.
First of all, the major content patches that will come out after the expansion is released have already been lined up. This is similar to TBC when we experienced the release of the Black Temple patch then the Zul’aman patch then finally the Fury of the Sunwell patch that gave us Magister’s Terrace, Sunwell Plateau and the entire Isle of Quel’danas. According to Mr. Kaplan, there will be 3 major patches coming out and they are as follows:
Patch 3.1 - release of the patch that will include the Ulduar raid dungeon, availbale on both 10 and 25 man of course.
Patch 3.2 - release of the patch that will bring us a secret surprise raid dungeon (wonder what the surprise is…)
Patch 3.3 - release of the patch that will likely bring us the Icecrown Ciadel
Of course there’s still no timetable for when these patches are coming out so we’ll just have to wait. Fine with me since right now I’m just anxiously waiting for the expansion to come out.
Other interesting things mentioned in this summit are the following:
Dance studio - not only are new dances coming in a content patch but also the ability to combine dance moves to create your own customized dance.
Guild ratings and achievements - a feature might be added in a future patch where guilds get a rating based on their achievements for both PvE and PvP. I guess this will make it easier for guilds to recruit and players to find guilds using the rating system as a measure of what they want. I really hope this turns out to be something like the guild system in Warhammer Online where guilds actually level up based on its members’ accomplishments and are able to get special rewards based on its level.
Whew. That all sounds so cool. All this WoTLK anticipation is making so restless!
If you didn’t know by now, Blizzard won’t allow us to use our flying mounts in Northrend until level 77 which is when we can pick up the Cold Weather Flying skill. This is so that we won’t simply fly over everything and pass all that wonderful early Northrend content the developers of the game have prepared for us. Blizzard recently implemented a change that made Cold Weather Flying a trainable skill instead of the end of a short quest chain. Great right? Well actually the answer is an absolute NO! CM Vaneras tells us the details of the change that many players absolutely hate:
Cold Weather Flying was indeed a part of a quest line, but we changed it because we felt that it wasn’t clear enough where to get it.
This ability will now be purchasable instead, and the 1000 gold cost has been tuned around the amount of gold people will usually have gathered around level 77. At that level we expect you will have more than enough gold to afford getting the Cold Weather Flying ability. source
If you consider what the original quest entailed, I take the quest any day rather than spend a whopping 1000g on this. That’s the cost of a whole regular flying mount just to get the skill to use the flying mount you already have.
If the problem is players not being certain exactly where to do it, the solution is to make it clearer not add a huge training cost! Add several npc’s all over the place that lead you to where this quest is supposed to be done. Station them at inns and next to flight paths if you have to. I don’t care if 1000g is the projected amount of gold a fresh 77 might have, that’s still a lot of gold he’s going to have to spend on something that was simply quested for.
With Retribution being the most anticipated tree of the expansion for Paladins because of the drastic changes it’s getting to finally do competitive dps, the Holy and Protection trees haven’t gotten that much buzz. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t get any nice changes nor does it mean they’re going to stop. Blizzard poster Ghostcrawler listed the latest changes to the Holy and Protection trees in the official forums as shown below.
Righteous Defense — cooldown lowered to 8 sec. It had been 10 sec recently and is 15 sec on live.
Infusion of Light — now affects Flash of Light or Holy Light. Flash of Light is reduced to 0 cast time with 2 ranks, meaning that if you’re running around and get a Holy Shock crit, you can also Flash without stopping.
Judgements of the Pure — haste benefit now up to 15% with 5 ranks (was 10%).
Enlightened Judgements — range benefit is now 30 yards with 2 ranks (was 20). This means you can judge or heal from the same range without having to run around so much.
Bacon of Light — no change here, but I can never miss an opportunity to call it Bacon.
The change to lower the cooldown of Righteous Defense even further will really help those Prot paladins in their tanking job since this is pretty much their only taunt.
Infusion of Light affecting Flash of Light will certainly help Paladin mobility a bit while healing since instant cast heals is something Paladins currently lack in Live. With the new mechanics to incorporate judgements into the healing arsenal, increasing the range of judgements to be the same as the healing range sure helps you keep maximum distance to stay away from trouble while still being effective. Currently in Live, I hate it when I’m asked to keep Judgement of Light up on bosses and having to run dangerously close just to do it. The original change was great but this one is even better! The haste bonus increase of Judgement of the Pure is definitely a welcome change since faster and faster casts are always great for a class that relies on spamming their heal spells to be effective.
A long time ago, Blizzard was toying around with the idea to have two specs that you can easily switch back and forth. Well, while responding to a forum post about the bloat of the WoTLK druid Balance tree, Blizzard poster Ghostcrawler confirmed that this feature will indeed be implemented but we’ll still have to wait for the upcoming Blizzcon (October 10-11) to know the details.
Being able to switch back and forth between two specs (for free is what we’re assuming or else there’s nothing new) is something that will help everybody but especially the hybrids who change roles all the time. You can be a balance druid one moment and a resto druid a little later. This feature will really complement the spell power gear change since the affected classes won’t even need to change their gear to switch between healing and dps. Your healer has to go and you only have dps classes in your guild currently online? That shadow priest can go switch specs and heal for you. This feature will also help players switch from a PvE spec to a PvP spec anytime they need to and without the pain of spending lots of gold for respec costs and having to do dailies just to recover the cost.
My guess is that you’ll still have to see your trainer to avail of this feature since switching specs anywhere just seems too easy. You’ll probably be asked by the trainer if you want to “save” your current spec so that you can switch back to it with ease when you eventually spec out of it.
Whatever the details, this feature should give you that feeling like you’re in the Wrath beta spending one copper for respecs. Sure it’s not the same but being able to switch between two specs with ease at no cost sure is close.
Just when Blizzard added the Death Knight hero class to address the tank shortage, it seems like a healer shortage is another problem that might have to be addressed. I say might because these are all observations from some people as the Wrath of the Lich King expansion approaches.
Dizeh of the Northrend-US server tells of having a healer shortage within their guild since they want to be something else. Cipher from the same server says that he has a hard time finding healers for instances. It seems that the culprit is a combination of different things.
One reason I can think of is the one mentioned above, players wanting to be something else. With the introduction of the Death Knight class and the cool stuff that many of the dps classes are getting, it seems like a lot of players want to try them out. Right now in fact, some of my very own friends who play tanks as doing some last minute leveling before the expansion comes out and the popular choices are mage and warlock but there are some rogues and hunters as well. Only a few of my friends who have dps or tanks as their mains are leveling healers.
Another reason I can think of the removal of downranking and its effect on healer efficiency. A lot of healers have relied on downranking to be more efficient and stay effective in longer fights. With its removal, the fear of going OOM and possibly causing wipes because of it has scared away a lot of players. Not being able to heal properly makes a job that some already find boring annoying as well.
Personally, I liked my relatively short stint healing as a holy paladin so much that I’ve decided to level a druid and try healing as a Tree in the expansion. It was part of my backup plan to have another healing class in case holy paladins weren’t going to be great in the expansion. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with having two healer toons if both turn out to be great. So if there will indeed be a healer shortage, my friends can count on me if they need one.
What do you think? Do you see a healer shortage looming in your server?
With the Wrath of the Lich King expansion supposed to be coming out on November 13 this year, we can say that this is the home stretch for the Burning Crusade experience and a lot of players are doing different things to prepare for the coming of WoTLK. Maybe you’re gathering herbs to level Inscription for your character when the expansion comes out. Or maybe you’re busy going around doing those little things to get some Achievements show up when the expansion comes out.
As for me, I’ve pretty much shifted my focus away from raiding with my level 70 holy paladin and frost mage and instead focusing on trying to get my druid to 70 at least just in time for the release of the expansion. Right now my druid is close to hitting 64 and is leveling as a Moonkin although my plan is to be a Tree at 80. I know I still have some time and a little more than 6 levels is doable but with things that have been coming up lately, I haven’t been playing much. I often get jealous of some of my other friends who seem to have the same idea of doing some last minute leveling to have another 70 just in time for the release of the expansion but who were almost the same level as me and are now way ahead.
What about you? Are you also doing some last minute leveling to get your alt or main to 70 before the expansion? Are you feeling the pressure with time almost running out?
Lead Designer Jeff Kaplan (Tigole) had a word with the World of Warcraft community as he posted a few thoughts in the official forums about the future of Battlegrounds. Below are the basic points of his post. You can read the whole post here.
1. More battlegrounds content over time
If this means more BG’s, it means more fun and more variety. If I’m a guy just farming honor and not much the marks, I can have that choice of doing the one I enjoy doing rather than be stuck with something I don’t really enjoy. But adding more BG’s also gives rise to another issue. More BG’s means more marks of honor to account for and farm. This also means that each additional BG will have its own holiday weekend, stretching the time when you’ll be able to see that holiday weekend again. If Lake Wintergrasp is a success, maybe more similar locations would be better than adding additional BG’s.
2. PvP shifting to being more BG centric
The arena tournament has changed the landscape of PvP since its arrival. It’s probably accurate to say that the introduction of the first daily quests was in response to the problem that arose from players respeccing back and forth between the PvP-arena specs and their PvE raid specs. But it isn’t for everyone since not everyone has the gear and the skill to excel in arena and not everyone enjoys it either. I hate the arena tournament since it’s a zero sum game, either you win or you lose and get rewarded or punished accordingly though your ratings. At least battlegrounds give you some honor and a mark even if you lose. I also hate arena since it’s something I can’t do on my own unlike BG’s where I just queue up and find a group just like that.
Tigole mentioned that PvP will be more about Horde vs Alliance, the core of what the game is about and that means more BG content.
3. Being able to queue up anywhere in the world
Being able to queue up from anywhere would definitely make things easier for hardcore and casual PvPer alike. Looking at how this matter evolved over time, first only being able to queue up at the BG’s actual location and then not at the battlemasters and then the plan to queue up from anywhere - that’s really a huge improvement. If you consider that Warhammer Online allows you exactly that (I was told by my brother that you can join their versions of battlegrounds with just a click of a button from anywhere), then WoW shouldn’t allow itself to get left behind.
4. Experience from Battlegrounds
This really isn’t a new concept. In fact we sort of were able to do it back in the days of the old honor system. Back in the day, the purpose of marks of honor were not for purchasing gear but for turning in for honor and if you weren’t 60 yet (the level cap at the time) also experience. I had friends who used to be able to level up just from doing battlegrounds and turning in these marks of honor back in the day. The new honor system doesn’t allow for the gaining of experience points but with nice plan to implement the idea, this could work out once again.
Now Tigole cautions that the community shouldn’t take the post as a promise but I really hope that at least some of these ideas will be implemented sometime.
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