WoTLK Beta

[Correction]

lol hit rating.

[Noobta]

Don't worry, on top of the 50g each way to respec, in wotlk you'll also need to reglyph every time if you want to be optimal.

Don't they have plans so that you can have 2 specs? Or something like that.

[fantasticdan]

Don't they have plans so that you can have 2 specs? Or something like that.

They did, but they seemed to have changed their mind.

[Ishido]

They did, but they seemed to have changed their mind.

Or it just hasn't been implemented since it really isn't a priority.

Also Ghostcrawler has given hints that Illidan will "forget" how to shear.

edit: also most glyphs seem to be really cheap, and they stack so it's not exactly a huge deal. Also, dailies give more money now, the static costs of respeccing isn't as big of a deal anymore.

[Correction]

The shield block change is not a terrible one. It just means tanks will spend less time mindlessly spamming the ability and more time reacting to boss abilities. Maybe we'll see more Shear-like abilities on long cooldowns and fights will be more interesting to tank overall.

[aers]

Paladins already have to respec to be viable at any of their other abilities.

...welcome to everyone else?

[Ishido]

The shield block change is not a terrible one. It just means tanks will spend less time mindlessly spamming the ability and more time reacting to boss abilities. Maybe we'll see more Shear-like abilities on long cooldowns and fights will be more interesting to tank overall.

If I had to guess I would say there will be no abilities like shear that require block.

[Eaglestrike]

...welcome to everyone else?

No. The argument was that since paladins are hybrids able to perform multiple roles they should be weaker at all of their roles to compensate. However since you cannot perform multiple roles at the same time or as the same spec there's no reason for them to be weaker at all of their roles to compensate for that versatility.

[Ishido]

No. The argument was that since paladins are hybrids able to perform multiple roles they should be weaker at all of their roles to compensate. However since you cannot perform multiple roles at the same time or as the same spec there's no reason for them to be weaker at all of their roles to compensate for that versatility.

Welcome to what ferals have been arguing for years. Shamans, Paladins, and Druids all deal with this.

[Eaglestrike]

Welcome to what ferals have been arguing for years. Shamans, Paladins, and Druids all deal with this.

I agree. And honestly I think it's a bit silly they're now essentially making "4 specs" for druids with splitting feral into bear/cat. I can understand from a gear consolidation point of view, but I think it's still a heavy nerf. They should keep the tree the same for cat/bear and just make more innate differences between forms. Give cat a threat reduction baseline (like berserker stance) so they'd still do OT duties in bear and give bear/cat different increases from stats. This is already done so I don't see why they couldn't simply tweak those formulas instead of make someone spec differently for each.

[Gulkeeva]

Well there still playing with idea's n stuff atm, never know.

I noticed they recently boosted hunter dps ninja style at least which is nice, went up almost 200 average dps with same spec/pet/gear/level.

On a side note... got every profession at 375 ingame... from cooking to JC n BS... and everything to get inscription to 360... (well LW is 352 but good enough for wotlk!)

Just soorta sucks you can't really stock pile anything to power level a bit toward 400 without it costing an arm and a leg atm ;/

[Correction]

Just soorta sucks you can't really stock pile anything to power level a bit toward 400 without it costing an arm and a leg atm ;/

This has always been true for any near-capped profession though.

[Foof]

I agree. And honestly I think it's a bit silly they're now essentially making "4 specs" for druids with splitting feral into bear/cat. I can understand from a gear consolidation point of view, but I think it's still a heavy nerf. They should keep the tree the same for cat/bear and just make more innate differences between forms. Give cat a threat reduction baseline (like berserker stance) so they'd still do OT duties in bear and give bear/cat different increases from stats. This is already done so I don't see why they couldn't simply tweak those formulas instead of make someone spec differently for each.

Feral was the closest thing they got to a hybrid and now that's gone. I guess I should be happy about it since it'll mean the role I choose will perform better. Still kind of sucks though.

Cat already has a threat reduction btw. Think it's the same that rogues have.

[Ishido]

Feral was the closest thing they got to a hybrid and now that's gone. I guess I should be happy about it since it'll mean the role I choose will perform better. Still kind of sucks though.

Cat already has a threat reduction btw. Think it's the same that rogues have.

Correct, and I agree. It will be nice to do more than 60% of a rogue's DPS.

[Fayttt]

Wish druids had a vanish or something, though. Cower sucks imo, maybe its just me but I never see a huge threat drop. And when I get like 7 crits in a row, it's kinda hard not to pull agro. And then I have to rely on cower to drop agro. I guess Shadowmeld will help for that kind of situation now though.

[Norellicus]

The problem is, Cower didn't scale, and it was modified by the threat reduction of Cat Form (you'd only get 70% of the actual threat amount displayed reduced). When you've got bleed effects ticking for over 1k every second, plus white hits and CP generators, there's no way Cower could stay ahead of it.

[Fayttt]

Yeah. I remember on VR a couple weeks ago I was even cowering every time it came off of cooldown, and had autoattack off, and after about 45 seconds I still managed to pull agro and die, heh.

[Foof]

Yup cower sucks. Rouge version sucks too (feint I think?). Noone really uses either :/

I haven't been on beta so I could be totally off in worrying about it, but I don't see how tanks are going to keep threat when stuff goes live. Between not having salv and TA and damage scaling...it might be rough. As of now I can just barely keep up with a tank in threat if I don't have salv. When they bring us up to speed with other DPS and go through all our cooldowns (zerk + tiger's fury = burssssssssssst) things might get messy. At least rouges have vanish and tricks of the trade, hunters have feign, warlocks have shatter, etc. I guess spriests may have trouble too since their damage is getting boosted a ton (and they dont have an aggro drop afaik).

[Ishido]

All tank threat genereation has been buffed or is intended to be buffed. The idea is to essentially have salv be passive at all times, and not be a required buff.

If you're a cat DPSing and pulling aggro and you have salv, it probably means your tank needs to generate more threat.

[Correction]

With the removal of Defiance from the protection tree it's pretty clear to me that Blizzard intends to simply boost the natural threat modifiers given to things like Dire Bear Form, Defensive Stance, etc.