Nov. 9, 2009
De-Beta-able
At this point, the only thing we can do is speculate about the mana to focus/energy conversion of Cataclysm.
If you ignore combo points (which we aren’t planning on adding to hunters), then the biggest decision energy-users face is whether to use a single 60 energy attack or two 30 energy attacks. The answer depends on a lot of variables, including which does more damage, what is on cooldown, the synergy between the abilities, etc.
If you consider the cat druid (because it’s slightly simpler) and ignore finishing moves, then the druid rotation would look something like getting up a +bleed attack, applying a bleed dot, getting up a +damage buff, and then doing the actual damage. You could imagine something similar like that for hunters. I don’t mean hunters are going to be a +bleed class, but more that the choice of what attack to push next should have some decision behind it. It won’t just be Serpent Sting x 1, Chimera Shot x 1000. Repeat.
Also most of the answers quoted above were from Blizzcon. These answers fall into three basic categories: things we know we’re going to do, things we’d like to do, and things we hadn’t really thought about before someone asked a question (e.g. taming mounts).
Also, Enhancement shamans will almost certainly stay as mana-users but still share (non Int) gear with hunters. This likely means some kind of attack power to mana regen mechanic like Ret paladins have currently. However development on stuff like this is still early.
The latest PTR patch had a bunch of bug fixes.
- Concussive Barrage: This ability is no longer subject to spell reflects.
- Explosive Trap: The damage from this trap will now scale properly with the hunter’s attack power.
- Glyph of Immolation Trap: Now properly increases damage by 100%. In addition, this glyph will now modify the tooltip of Immolation Trap correctly.
- Glyph of Mending: This glyph will now modify the amount healed in the tooltip on Mend Pet.
- Point of No Escape: This ability no longer stacks and now only functions for the hunter.
- Roar of Sacrifice: Corrected tooltip error.
- Silencing Shot: Updated tooltip to include the functionality that this ability also interrupts spellcasting on NPCs.
- Volley: The tooltip for this ability will now update properly from haste.
- Carapace of the Old God: Now tradable using the Bind-on-Pickup trade system.
- Crystalforged Trinket: Can now be refunded at its vendor.
- Dragonstalker Set: No longer displays a duration on the Nature’s Ally buff.
- Giantstalker Set: No longer displays a duration on the Nature’s Ally buff.
- Insignia of the Alliance: Item level changed to 60.
- Insignia of the Horde: Item level changed to 60.
- Level 58 PvP Items: A variety of PvP items with a minimum level of 58 were not being translated properly when a player used the Paid Faction Change service. That has been corrected. Paladin- and shaman-specific items still will not be translated, as there is no opposite version to translate them into.
- Qiraji Bindings of Command: Now tradable using the Bind-on-Pickup trade system.
- Reclaimed Shadowstrike: No longer has a cooldown to create Reclaimed Thunderstrike.
- Reinforced Shadowstrike: No longer has a cooldown to create Reinforced Thunderstrike.
- Windrunner Set: The set bonus which grants Greatness to the hunter’s pet will no longer spuriously show the hunter also gaining that buff.
Nov. 3, 2009
Replenishment and Cataclysm
Don’t expect it to go away for Cataclysm. Since it specifically mentions non-Spirit based regen and the fact we’re going to be switched to focus…
We still like Replenishment. There are only so many ways a class can buff a group’s damage or stats, so boosting regen is a distinct buff that is brought by a sufficiently large number of classes. It’s really nice to have Replenishment, but with mana regen from gear and talents being what they are now, you can certainly run without it.
We don’t plan on cutting Replenishment for Cataclysm. However, since Spirit largely becomes a stat that only healers care about, one of two things will likely happen: you bring Replenishment just for the healers, or Replenishment changes to affect both Spirit and non-Spirit based regen, but affects Spirit more.
Replenishment seems to offend some healers who don’t want to feel reliant on other classes. But we have explicitly designed WoW’s endgame content to be largely group-based, and synergies like this are a part of that. Tanks have to depend on priests for stamina buffs and hunters and rogues for threat buffs. At a higher level, all dps have to rely on dps buffs to do their job.
Oct. 27, 2009
Race Change Now Available
The new World of Warcraft Race Change service is now live. After purchasing a Race Change for a character, a player can choose any race of their same faction that is compatible with the character’s current class. For more information on the Race Change service, please read the FAQ, or visit the Race Change page to get started.
Oct. 26, 2009
All things being equal
Ghostcrawler wrote an extensive post regarding DPS and the hybrid versus pure argument.
What is a hybrid tax? Why is there a hybrid tax?
We only recognize two types of classes for PvE purposes:
Can respec to fulfill a different role = hybrid.
Cannot respec to fulfill a different role = pure.
The roles are tank, healing and damage.
In our design, having two healing trees (priest) or half a tanking tree (druid) or three dps trees (DK) does not put these classes in different categories of hybridness. A hybrid is a hybrid.
It’s the roles that your class lets you do that is important, not how those roles are organized into talent trees. The paladin is one way to organize the trees (a tanking tree, healing tree and melee dps tree) but not the only way. However, there is a reason we don’t do this for every class — it would be boring.
In our design, the pure dps classes (hunter, mage, warlock and rogue) should do slightly higher dps than hybrid damage-dealers all things being equal. All things are rarely equal. Player skill, gear, raid comp, latency, random luck and most importantly the specifics of the encounter will often favor one class, spec or player over another.
The reason we want pures to do slightly higher damage is that pures can only fulfill one role. If your guild or raid has no more need for damage-dealers, there is no way for these classes to raid with you. By contrast, the six other classes always have the option to respec for another role either temporarily or for the long haul.
The Blizzard definition of hybrid in this context has nothing to do with whether you can perform multiple roles within a single fight or even within a single raid. It has more to do with the potential for your class to ever fulfill more than one role.
Likewise, the Blizzard definition of hybrid in this context has nothing to do with the power of certain buffs or class synergy. We want all classes to bring useful tools to the raid.
Just because you’re not interested in doing anything other than damage does not qualify your class as a pure as long as the option to change roles is there. For the pure classes the only option is to reroll. We think the pure classes would start to disappear over time, at least from high-end raiding, if there was no advantage for being a pure. The hybrid advantage is flexibility.
There is not a “5% rule” that says pures should be 5% higher than hybrids in every circumstance. Again, most of the time other factors such as the encounter specifics will have a greater effect. The “5% rule” was either something a player suggested that stuck or something we threw out at some point as an example. It isn’t a hard and fast rule. We aren’t going to provide a hard and fast rule because players would then attempt to invoke that rule every time they thought their damage was too low instead of exploring other ways to improve their character’s performance.
This philosophy largely evolved in Wrath of the Lich King and is the design we plan on carrying forward to Cataclysm. In vanilla WoW, every class typically had one role. In BC, we tried to promote other roles for some classes, but we still didn’t make everyone play by the same rules. Warriors, and I hate to pick on them, were intended to be the best tank while also deliver dps that we would now label as competitive with rogues. By contrast, druids, paladins, priests and shaman were intended to be competitive healers, but have dramatically lower dps than pures and warriors. Likewise, druids, paladins, priests and shaman brought many unique and powerful buffs that were intended to compensate for their low dps. We spread these buffs out to a much greater degree in Lich King, and plan on refining that implementation for Cataclysm.
TLDR:
Hybrid = can respec to fulfill a different role (damage, tanking, or healing).
Hybrid != can fill multiple roles at the same time.
Hybrid != has awesome, amazing buffs or utility.
Hybrid != pure. Beyond that, there are no shades of gray among hybrids.
In general, we ask that players focus their feedback more on class mechanics and what is fun or not fun about the classes and not simply on “My dps is too low so you must buff me.”
Oct. 16, 2009
He who is patient obtains
A new update to the PTR.
- Pet Leveling: Hunter pets now need only 5% of the experience a player needs to level, down from 10%.