And no, we didn’t get an invite. Luckily though, lots of other people did, and they’re all queueing up to show you what’s in store. Just to start off the inevitable barrage of Cataclysm news and announcements, a YouTube video created by EnhancementReznik has been posted to show all the changed zones in the upcoming expansion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA3lNoBKPkE

Give it a watch, guys. The new zones look fantastic, and Blizzard have really pulled of the damage caused by Deathwing.

Having been over both trees, I’m no closer to a decision. For this post, we’ll take a look at the Priest talents, focussing on the Discipline tree, since that’s the one I have the most experience with. The Discipline tree has seen some huge changes in the early tiers, and the changes are interesting to say the least. From the addition of Power Word: Barrier to a slew of DPS talents, this is not the Discipline tree that we’ve been used to during Wrath. Not by a long shot.

The two Tier 1 talents are the same as they always have been, Twin Disciplines for boosting damage and healing… and the amount absorbed by Power Word: Shield! That’s right, Twin Disciplines now boosts absorption by 5% on top of the current effects. Or at least it finally tells you in the tooltip that it does, anyway. Unbreakable Will is the same good old PvP talent that it always has been.

Tier 2 now holds Improved Inner Fire and Martyrdom , no change there. Focused Power has been moved up from Tier 6, and is joined by a new talent called Penitence, which is a 3 point talent. Penitence increases the critical effect chance of Smite and Penance. Sounds weird, right? You wait until we get to Tiers 4 and 5.

Tier 3 still features Inner Focus and Improved Power Word: Shield, but has a new addition in the form of Atonement, 3 points. Atonement is… interesting. When you deal damage with Smite, you instantly heal a nearby low health target for 45% of the damage. Repeat after me: Erm, what?

Tier 4 gives us Evangelism, which requires Penitence. Evangelism increases the damage done by your Smite, Holy Fire, Holy Nova and Penance spells by 4% and reduces the mana cost of those spells by 6% for 15 seconds. 2 points, stacks 5 times. Now… I’ll forgive you for yelling “But that’s for levelling, you idiot!” Bear with me though. Tier 5 holds a surprise. Tier 4 still holds Mental Agility and Improved Mana Burn, so it’s not all strange territory!

Tier 5… the most important set of talents that I’ve ever seen. Ever. We’ll start with the boring one: Enlightenment. Increase total mana and health by 6%. Ok? Ok. That’s that bit done. Now, for the good stuff:

Archangel: Consumes your Evangelism effects, instantly restoring 3% of your total mana and increasing your healing done by 3% for each stack. Also allows you to channel Penance while moving. Lasts 18 seconds.
That, ladies and gents, is insane. And you know what? I love it. We don’t yet know whether it’s an on use effect (I’m guessing so), or whether it’ll have a cooldown. I’m sure it will though.

The other amazing talent that we’ve been waiting for is…

Power Word: Barrier! Summons a holy barrier on the target location that absorbs 293.25 damage done to party or raid members within it each time they take damage. While within the barrier, spellcasting will not be interrupted by damage. The barrier lasts for 15 sec or until it absorbs 1955 damage.

That’s the new stuff, pretty much. Soul Warding has moved down to Tier 6, and is now a 3 point talent that reduces the cooldown by 3 seconds and reduces the mana cost of Power Word: Shield by 15%.
Everything under that is exactly as it always was, bar a little fiddling around of positions. The old staples of Rapture, Divine Aegis, Grace (with some changes to the stack effect, IE it now provides a 12% buff to healing), Pain Suppression, and of course Penance are still present.

Now, I may be reading the signals wrong, but I suspect that what’s happening here is that Blizzard are trying to push us towards a bit of combat healing. It’s not a playstyle that suits everyone, so it’s going to be very interesting to see how people react to this preview.

Personally, I think it’s a great idea. I’m not just saying that for the sake of agreeing with Blizzard either. I love dealing damage while in a healing capacity, not for the big numbers or anything like that, but for spicing up the encounters. This kind of meld between offensive and defensive spellcasting is perfectly suited for the Discipline tree. The DPS talents in the Discipline tree are perfectly complimented by a few similar talents in the base of the Holy tree. Talents like Divine Fury, and Searing Light which reduce the cast time and boost the damage of your DPS and Penance spells respectively. Divine Accuracy on the second Tier, which increase your chance to hit with Smite, Holy Fire, Holy Nova and Penance.

Holy, whilst containing DPS boosting talents, simply does not have the same synergy as Discipline when it comes to slipping in some Smites or Holy Fires whilst healing. Discipline is a mobile spec, you can run around the place without people dying in the time it takes to get from A to B. The addition of Atonement and Evangelism, and especially Archangel show a desire to get Discipline Priests doing more than just spamming bubbles and firing off Penance every 12 seconds.

If our Discipline tree looks anything like this preview when Cataclysm launches, I’ll be a very happy Priest.

Ah yeah, just as some food for thought… don’t expect it to last but, Discipline may well have another trick up it’s sleeve if Blizzard are feeling really generous:
http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#bVI0uGhckhsffRtMEzcc00000000M

There’s a single free point there. I’d like to draw your attention to a signature Holy talent on Tier 5. Something to think about, eh?

So what are you waiting for? Join us in the forum!

Here it is again guys, regular as clockwork, every Thursday! Today we discussed the wonder that is heirloom gear, the wonder that is the dungeon finder, and the not-so-wonder of the PuG we were part of while we were recording. On the other hand, it meant I got to try my hand at Death Knight tanking again, so every cloud has a silver lining!

We’ll start with the Shaman. I enjoy healing with mine, and throwing on an Elemental spec and hurling balls of lightning and lava at people is just downright awesome as well, but I’ve always felt there’s something lacking about the class. Levelling is a pain, due to a confusing mix of ranged and melee range attacks, although downtime isn’t too bad now we have the increased health and mana regen at lower levels. I think my issue with the Shaman is that feeling of being nailed to the floor. You place your totems, and… well, you usually end up anchored to them. The lack of mobility and repetitive rotations make for a good, just not exciting playing experience.

I’m expecting big things of the Shaman come Cataclysm however. A melee attack gained at level 3 will push Enhancement to better performance at lower levels. A new heal at level 4 will keep the martyrs healers interested and give some extra survivability to those hellish points where you pull 3 mobs too many. Really though, the goodies start rolling in when enter the early 80s. Unleash Weapon (level 81): Unleashes the power of your weapon enchants for additional effects. The nature of the spell changes with the enchant, making it viable for every spec. It’s instant cast, with a shortish cooldown of 15 seconds… Shamans just got a new attack/heal to play with! There’s Healing Rain, which is pretty self explanatory. It rains, and people it rains on get healed. What more do you want? At 85 though, you get possibly the coolest spell Shamans could ask for: Spiritwalker’s Grace. For 10 seconds, you can move while casting. Let me repeat that again, just in case you missed it. You can move while casting. That there is going to be good. Really good. Really, really good. I said I was expecting big things of the Shaman. I suspect I will not be disappointed.

Priests! Without wanting to sound like I do nothing else with my life, I have an Undead Priest at 80, currently dual specced for Shadow and Discipline. I prefer Discipline (I liked it before it was cool, I’ll have you know), but you can’t go wrong melting some faces. I’m of the rare (and probably wrong) opinion that there’s not much you can do with Priests really. Every spec I’ve tried has been absolutely fine, but then I’m not ripping through ICC25 Heroic.

So far, we know that Priests are getting a basic nuke for those occasions where DoTs just aren’t going to cut it. That’s… alright I guess. Nothing special is it? An instant cast spell, on a caster class? Big whoop. Shadow gets a few more interesting abilities, such as Shadow Orbs, but overall I wasn’t expecting a lot of changes to that spec, and it seems we won’t be getting many either. Holy gets a neat little ability that increases the healing from a spell the more you use it, which is a good idea in theory. How well it will pan out is anyone’s guess, but provided it’s balanced right it should give some interesting results. An alternative to Inner Fire will apparently be available… and it’s sounds rubbish. Increased movement speed and 10% mana cost reduction on instant cast spells. As opposed to more armour and spellpower. Yeah… best leave that alone, for the moment. Finally, the big 85 ability will Leap of Faith, which is Death Grip in reverse. The potential for abuse of this spell is off the scale. It’s beyond the scale. It’s so far away from the scale that the scale is nothing more than a dot on the horizon. I can’t wait to see how long it lasts.

Oh yeah, and Discipline is getting Power Word: Barrier. Nearly forgot about that.*

*Best news of the expansion. Ever. EVER.

Finally, we’ll finish this segment off with the Rogue. Last time I played mine in Burning Crusade, stabbing people was the order of the day, and as far as I know that’s not changed. The Rogue only really does 2 things: Hit people, and hit people hard to make them wander around in a daze. They have a neat toolbox of little tricks, like lockpicking and disctracting mobs, but really it boils down to “Where is that guys spine and how do I stick something in it?”.

To that end, Rogues are getting the ability to move their combo points from one target to another on the fly, which should be good. They’re also getting a stacking damage reduction ability, which they need. My Hunter’s Hyena has more armour than a Rogue. They get killed far too easily if you get the jump on them. Finally, they get Smoke Bomb, which is kind of like Anti-Magic Zone, only unbelievably awesome. Throw down the smoke, and anything outside it’s area of effect loses it’s target on you, and cannot hit you with single target abilities. I see one major issue with this, however. I doubt Smoke Bomb will be a subtle ability. I suspect everyone will know when it’s happened, and the area it occupies will suddenly be the target of every AOE capable class in the game, all of them laying down the hurt.

Next time, Hunters, Mages and Warlocks. Tune in for Part 3 later in the week!

What’s got me thinking though, is wondering how deep the class changes are going to go. Blizzard have given a few hints and tips about what’s going to happen, but at this stage most of it is meaningless noise. That doesn’t stop us from being able to speculate and hope though, right? That’s what these guys were doing after a jaunt through Karazhan the other day:

A change that I’ve found interesting is the decision to make Tree of Life a cooldown, as opposed to a permanent form change for Druids. I only ever got into the early 30s with my Druid, but the defining feature of our nature loving friends is that they are capable of changing their form at will to augment and improve the abilities of their chosen spec. A Druid that stays in caster form… I don’t really know how to approach that idea. On the one hand, Tree of Life is currently a flat buff that happens to change the way you look, but then again so is Moonkin form and Shadowform. As yet, we’ve no suggestion that those forms are going to be altered in any way. Tree of Life will be something to keep an eye out on, I think. It’ll be… interesting, to see how that works out.

Warriors are getting their Rage normalised come Cataclysm, which sounds like a good idea on paper but I suspect will take a lot of tweaking come the time. At the moment my experience of Warriors in dungeons seems revolve around an equal split of them either having so much rage they don’t know what to do with it or so little that they either can’t keep aggro or can’t do enough DPS to stay on the meters at all. Normalising that vital component is going to take some work.

Death Knights… well, I don’t know how much change they’ll see. We already know that Blood is going to be the tanking tree, Frost the dual wield tree, and Unholy the 2hand DPS tree… so, basically it’s going to be how it is at end game now pretty much. Sounds like a big change, but really most of the ground work has already been done by the players. I’m intend to enjoy the last hurrah of Unholy tanking as I level my Death Knight, but I won’t be gutted when Blood becomes THE tree for that. As long as Unholy keeps the permanent Ghoul, I’m happy.

Now… a class close to my heart. The Paladin. I rolled mine well after they became popular. I started healing just after Holy got nerfed. I tanked before Ardent Defender got fixed. I even played Retribution, despite my deep dislike of DPSing. Whatever they do to Paladins, it can’t be enough. Despite my love my tankadin, Paladins are… boring. That’s it. They are boring. As Retribution, you get a choice 5 buttons to press. The way you decide which of these to press is simple. You press whichever button is linked to the ability which isn’t on cooldown. It’s mind numbing. As a tank, you start your 6969 rotation, and once you’ve started, you’re locked into it until either you or the mobs you’ve attacked are dead. Boring. As Holy, you cast Beacon of Light, maybe Judgement of Wisdom, and the Flash of Light, pretty much for the same duration as the tank does his rotation, i.e. until either you or the group of mobs are dead. BORING.

Whatever happens, I hope Blizzard do something to mix up the Paladin class a bit. It’s referred to as a face roll class, and as one of it’s staunchest supporters, I can honestly see why. It’s just so… BORING! The new cooldowns and abilities that are being added should be interesting, and provide a bit more in terms of choice and rotation for all 3 specs, but it’s going to take more than a few new shiny spells to make the class less dull and listless.

Part 2 will be up later in the week, after I’ve found things to moan about with my Priest and Shaman.

Apparently, Podcasts are all the rage these days. As always, we here at WarAnvil are right on top of the trends, and have decided to produce our own weekly Podcast! This week, Grim and I finished our run of Karazhan (and we’re very aware that we’re a few years late, thank you very much), and recorded the Podcast whilst doing so. There’s no real theme to this first one, it’s mainly banter and some in-depth (read: guesswork) discussion of the mechanics of some of the Karazhan fights.

Hope you enjoy it, look out for the next one. You never know, we might improve as we go along.

We have come to the start of a new era in the World of Warcraft. With the implementation of Dual Talent Specialisation, everyone can do everything that their class was made for. Mages can go down the Frost tree for some PvP, leave the Battleground, hit a button and be ready for raiding Ulduar, Frostfire build and all. Paladins can switch from healing to tanking in five seconds. Warriors can either be useful and do what they were intended for, or DPS instead. But in all of this wonder and diversity, there is a very, very serious problem lurking in the background, just waiting to destroy that decent PuG run you’ve been enjoying.

“It’s for my other spec.”

With every player and their dog running around with two specs on hand, the question of loot has become even more problematic. For instance, my Priest has Shadow for levelling, and Discipline for instances. Discipline calls for crit and intellect, mainly. Shadow calls for spirit, and a hell of a lot of it, as does Holy I believe. Already, I have an issue. I have two specs, and they require two different types of gear. Technically speaking I require two different sets of gear, and so I could say that I need every piece of cloth that drops in a given run.

I don’t need to tell you that that is unacceptable. It astounds me that some people believe that just because they’ve spent 1000 gold voluntarily, that they deserve twice as much loot as everyone else. There are people already saying that they intend to need on anything that drops that fits their two specs. Why stop there? 50 gold is all it costs to respec one of their specs again, so why not need on everything? My Paladin can tank, heal and dps. So, by the reasoning of others, I should get first choice of cloth, leather, mail and plate, regardless of the stats on them. I should also be allowed to need on every weapon I can use.

Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it? Well, I’m afraid to say I can see this sort of behaviour becoming standard practice for some.

With this in mind, I think its worth drawing up rules when you go into groups. I was discussing this issue with Grim as we slaughtered our way through Grizzly Hills yesterday, and we both came to the same conclusion:

You need on the spec you’re using now. If something you need drops, and it’s for your other spec, you get second choice. If no-one else needs it, you can take it. That has been standard practice for us, and no doubt millions of other players for years. Attitudes shouldn’t change; unless stated otherwise, your “other” spec is your offspec. At the moment, I need on gear that’s relevant for my levelling spec. Tanks we’ve run with have needed on gear for their tank spec.

Don’t let other people who have a fale sense of entitlement take more than their fair share.  You wouldn’t have let them do it before, don’t let them do it now. Nothing has changed.