Thanks to our friendly neighbourhood crab, hit scaling in Cataclysm is now looking a lot less confusing and mysterious than it once was. In a recent conversation on the forums, Ghostcrawler gave a detailed look at the hit scaling, explaining how characters get more powerful, and how boss levels work. It would appear that bosses get more powerful as the raid tiers go up. That way, players chase a new hit cap with each new tier in raiding.

It’s a neat way of doing things. By the time the Lich King fell many raiders were swimming in hit when they simply didn’t need it. The hit cap never increased, but the amount of hit on gear did. The system coming into play in Cataclysm should stop the same thing happening again.

Ghostcrawler’s posts are available for all to see here:

Consider this series of boots:

Level 83 quest blues with 10 attack power, 10 Stamina, 10 crit, 10 hit, 10 parry.
Level 85 quest blues with 12 attack power, 12 Stamina, 12 crit, 12 hit, 12 parry.
Level 85 tier 1 raid with 14 attack power, 14 Stamina, 14 crit, 14 hit, 14 parry.
Level 85 tier 2 raid with 16 attack power, 16 Stamina, 16 crit, 16 hit, 16 parry.

When yo go from level 83 to level 85 you stay at the same amount of power relative to creatures. Why? Because the creatures are gaining levels. Their health goes up, so you need that extra AP. Their damage goes up, so you need that extra health. Your chance to crit and hit and parry them goes down, so you need those stats as well.

So far, so good.

When you start raiding, the bosses are level 88. This makes them a little harder to hit and everything, so you need that extra budget on your gear to keep up. Still not a problem.

Now let’s look at the final piece of gear. You’re going from a tier 1 raid to a tier 2 raid. The boss hits harder so you need that health. The boss has more health, so you need that attack power. But the boss is still level 88 like he was in tier 1. This means you crit him more than the previous boss, because your crit went up. You do more damage to the harder boss than to the easier boss. You also hit him more (unless you’re hit capped, which you probably are) and you parry him more.

We solved, in an awkward way, the parry problem in Icecrown by putting a debuff on you. That basically allowed the creatures to scale with your gear. We couldn’t solve the crit or hit problems, so players just became more and more powerful and eventually capped those stats (or got close to it in the case of crit). Just as players are often very worried (and sometimes rightfully so) about not scaling with gear, the bosses were not scaling with your gear. All of those problems that can happen to players when their damage (or healing or tanking) don’t scale were happening to the bosses. You were scaling too well with crit, hit and parry.

A different way to go would be that the tier 2 raid boss is actually level 89 or 90 instead of level 88. Then you’d naturally need more crit and hit and parry to face him. That makes intuitive sense, but it does some weird things to our game because creature levels were never intended to be used that way. For example, the boss would get crushing blows and resists. Even worse, it does weird things to the next tier of content. If Deathwing at the end of Cataclysm (spoiler!) is a level 93 boss, then what is the first boss at the end of the next expansion? Level 93? Level 90? Level 96?

Instead, we are just faking the bosses gaining levels. We haven’t worked out the exact mechanic yet, but imagine they are level 88++ or level 88.3 or level 88 SKULL SKULL BAD SKULL. As you get more powerful and get better gear, they get more powerful… exactly like all those bosses you handled while leveling up. Rather than critting and hitting the more dangerous opponents more often, your relative power stays about the same. You scale.

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That goes straight to customer satisfaction and longevity of the game. The more you play, the more powerful you should become. Not the weaker.

You do get more powerful. You get more powerful in an absolute sense, but not in a relative sense, because the challenges you can face become more powerful too. It is a fundamental pillar of RPG design othat as you get more powerful, you are able to handle more powerful opponents. Games lose their steam pretty quickly if you become more powerful and just use that power to steamroll the same weak opponents. Where is the glory in that?

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Hit will never be an interesting stat as long as there’s a hard cap on it.

I know this is an old argument, but this is *why* we think hit is an interesting stat. If you could just stack hit forever, you probably would, because it’s a very good stat. Some of the biggest decisions to be made about gearing come when you have to engineer enough but not too much of this one stat so that you can focus on the others. We want you to look at stats other than just ilevel. Otherwise, we might as well just give all the armor and weapons a power stat, and you just pick whichever has the most power. Hit keeps you from just stacking your best stat. Maybe it doesn’t add a ton of depth to say “stack hit, then stack your best stat” but it does add some.

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.