Cata Class Previews

[Odon]

Also a lot of this shit is from the wotlk beta, WTB new ideas. -_-

[fantasticdan]

The shot launcher is nice tho, it being off the GCD is going to make scatter-trapping a complete joke.

I think they just mean using the trap launcher ability before you use the trap is off the gcd, not that it makes the trap off the gcd as well. Probably won't be any different than using freezing arrow now, except that the base cooldown for the launcher is twice as long.

[Odon]

I think they just mean using the trap launcher ability before you use the trap is off the gcd, not that it makes the trap off the gcd as well. Probably won't be any different than using freezing arrow now, except that the base cooldown for the launcher is twice as long.

I'm just hoping it's off the GCD from the way its worded since the CD is twice as long as you said.

[Lucavi]

I'm kind of wondering how a mobile hunter is supposed to regain focus. Does this change mean that viper sting will now work against ALL targets, instead of those that just have mana pools? I can't see the mobile hunter being able to stay with a running target and snare him with 2 shots all but draining his focus pool.

Sounds interesting, but I really wanted the original camo back. I don't want them to see me at all, or at the very least, it should be as hard to see as those stupid haunt ghosts that follow everyone around like pedobears.

[fantasticdan]

I'm just hoping it's off the GCD from the way its worded since the CD is twice as long as you said.

Talents like resourcefulness will probably reduce the cooldown back down to what it was for sv.

I was hoping for some kinda of self-heal or self-dispel ability after rogues got recuperate thou, hunters will still be the only class without either.

[Norellicus]

It's fucking stupid for PVP, all someone has to do is drop an AoE on you and its gone from they way they worded it.
I will say this tho, if you can use it in combat (Which I'm assuming you can.) I'll be macroing it to Kill Shot.

The shots focus costs are way too high, Aimed/Chim at 40-60 is fine, but

• Concussive Shot/Tranquilizing Shot: 35 Focus.
• Rapid Fire/Master’s Call/Disengage: 30 Focus.

Is fucking absurd, trying to make us more like rogues and then putting our defensive abilities into the focus costs is complete bullshit.

The shot launcher is nice tho, it being off the GCD is going to make scatter-trapping a complete joke.

They also need to lower our GCD down to one second if they plan on giving BM hunters all this haste. It's already a 1.5 second cast baseline as BM

And they need to make stings un-dispelable or VERY hard to, dropping 30 focus on a shot just to have it dispelled. Would be asinine to say the least.

Overall going from mana to focus is probably going to be a nerf, and it will make the class more interesting.

I may be getting whooshed here but the ironic thing is that those exact words are precisely what they're trying to accomplish >_>

[Odon]

Nah, I really think it will. Granted I hated the micromanaging system of rogues and this seems slightly worse than them. If I didn't invest so much into my hunter I would reroll, but I'll give it a chance. It's not even Beta yet.

[Eaglestrike]

And you get more focus from haste, so just gear lots of haste.

[Odon]

Sounds like they are shoving it down our throats anyway.

[Correction]

Nah, I really think it will. Granted I hated the micromanaging system of rogues and this seems slightly worse than them. If I didn't invest so much into my hunter I would reroll, but I'll give it a chance. It's not even Beta yet.

What micromanagement for rogues? You talking about gearing, where rogues are constantly brushing up against the crit cap and can't wear more than one piece of gear with expertise on it? Or is there something else I'm not seeing?

[Odon]

What micromanagement for rogues? You talking about gearing, where rogues are constantly brushing up against the crit cap and can't wear more than one piece of gear with expertise on it? Or is there something else I'm not seeing?

The combo/energy point system.

[Gulkeeva]

I wouldn't be using camo for... killshot in pvp.. for me killshot.. "kills" I rather have it on something like chim shot so the additional damage proc is massive !

[Odon]

You PVE hero that shit up in BGs that don't count! When heals top someone off before the killshot lands its REALLY annoying. I'd probably just use it as another shield against spell cleave the more I think about it tho.

[Noobta]

Eh, I don't mind the focus changes. Not having JoW in a raid fucks up hunter dps as it is. Disengage/RF costing focus is pretty dumb though.

[[Cookies]]

Spoiler: show

In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm we’ll be making several changes to class talents and abilities. Here you will get a glimpse into some of the changes we have in store for the druid. The information you’re about to read is certainly not complete, and is only meant to act as a preview of some of the exciting new things to come. Let’s kick things off by checking out some of the new druid spells and abilities!

New Druid Abilities

Thrash (Level 81): Thrash deals damage and causes all targets within 10 yards to bleed every 2 seconds for 6 seconds. The intent here is to give bears another button to hit while tanking. Talents will affect the bleed, such as causing Swipe to deal more damage to bleeding targets. 5-second cooldown. 25 Rage.

Stampeding Roar (Level 83): The druid roars, increasing the movement of all allies within 10 yards by 40% for 8 seconds. Stampeding Roar can be used in cat or bear form, but bears might have a talent to drop the cooldown. The goal of this ability is to give both bears and cats a little more situational group utility. 3-minute cooldown. No cost.

Wild Mushroom (Level 85): Grows a magical mushroom at the target location. After 4 seconds the mushroom becomes invisible. Enemies who cross the mushroom detonate it, causing it to deal area-of-effect damage, though its damage component will remain very effective against single targets. The druid can also choose to detonate the mushroom ahead of time. This is primarily a tool for the Balance druid, and there will be talents that play off of it. No cooldown. 40-yard range. Instant cast.


Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

In addition to the new abilities listed above, we intend to make changes to some of the other abilities and mechanics with which you’re already familiar. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of our goals for each spec.

* All heal-over-time spells (HoTs) will benefit from crit and haste innately in Cataclysm. Hasted HoTs do not reduce their duration, but instead add additional HoT ticks. Haste will also benefit Energy generation while in cat form.
* Unlike the other healers, Restoration druids will not be receiving any new spells. They have plenty to work with already, and our challenge instead is to make sure all of them have a well-defined niche. A druid should be able to tank-heal with stacks of Lifebloom, spot-heal a group with Nourish and Regrowth, and top off lightly wounded targets with Rejuvenation.
* We want to add tools to cat form and depth to bear form. If a Feral cat is going to fill a very similar niche to that of a rogue, warrior or Enhancement shaman, it needs a few more tools -- primarily a reliable interrupt. Bears need to be pushing a few more buttons just so the contrast between tanking and damage-dealing is not so steep.
* Barkskin will be innately undispellable.
* We will be buffing the damage of Mangle (cat) significantly so that when cat druids cannot Shred, they are not at such a damage-dealing loss.
* Druids will lose Abolish Poison with the dispel mechanics change, but Restoration druids will gain Dispel Magic (on friendly targets) as a talent. All druids can still remove poisons with Cure Poison and remove curses with Remove Curse.



New Talents and Talent Changes

* Tree of Life is changing from a passive talent to a cooldown-based talent, similar to Metamorphosis. Mechanically, it feels unfair for a druid to have to give up so much offense and utility in order to be just as good at healing as the other classes who are not asked to make that trade. We are exploring the exact benefit the druid gets from Tree of Life. It could strictly be better healing, or it could be that each heal behaves slightly different. You also will not be able to be banished in Tree of Life form (this will probably be true of Metamorphosis as well). Additionally, we would like to update the Tree of Life model so that it feels more exciting when you do decide to go into that form. Our feeling is that druids rarely actually get to show off their armor, so it would be nice to have at least one spec that looked like a night elf or tauren (and soon troll or worgen) for most of the time.
* We want to make the Feral cat damage rotation slightly more forgiving. We do not want to remove what druids like about their gameplay, but we do want to make it less punishing to miss, say, a Savage Roar or Rake. The changes here will be on par with increasing the duration of Mangle like we did for patch 3.3.3.
* Balance druids will have a new talent ability called Nature’s Torrent, which strikes for either Nature or Arcane damage depending on which will do the most damage (or possibly both), and moves the Eclipse meter more (details below). The improved version of Nature’s Torrent also reduces the target's movement speed. 10-second cooldown.
* Restoration druids will have a new talent called Efflorescence, which causes a bed of healing flora to sprout beneath targets that are critically healed by Regrowth.
* We plan on giving Feral cats and bears a Kick/Pummel equivalent -- an interrupt that is off the global cooldown and does no damage. We feel like they need this utility to be able to fill the melee role in a dungeon or raid group, and to give them more PvP utility.
* We want to make sure Feral and Balance druids feel like good options for an Arena team. They need the tools to where you might consider a Feral druid over an Arms warrior, or a Balance druid over a mage or warlock. Remember that the PvP landscape will probably look pretty different for Cataclysm with a focus on rated, competitive Battlegrounds.



Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Balance

* Spell Damage
* Spell Haste
* Eclipse


Eclipse: We are moving Eclipse from a talent into a core mechanic of the class and making it less random. Balance druids will have a new UI element that shows a sun and a moon. Whenever they cast an Arcane spell, it will move the UI closer to the sun, and buff their Nature damage. Whenever they cast a Nature spell, it will move the UI closer to the moon, and buff their Arcane damage. The gameplay intention is to alternate Arcane and Nature spells (largely Starfire and Wrath) to maintain the balance.

Feral (Cat)

* Melee Damage
* Melee Critical Damage
* Bleed Damage


Feral (Bear)

* Damage Reduction
* Vengeance
* Savage Defense


Bleed Damage and Savage Defense: Feral druids will receive two sets of passive bonuses depending on whether the druid is in cat or bear form. Bleed Damage will be improved for cats. Savage Defense is the current bear mechanic for converting crits into damage absorption and will be improved for bears.

Vengeance: This is a mechanic to ensure that tank damage (and therefore threat) doesn’t fall behind as damage-dealing classes improve their gear during the course of the expansion. All tanking specs will have Vengeance as their second talent tree passive bonus. Whenever a tank gets hit, Vengeance will give them a stacking attack power buff equal to 5% of the damage done, up to a maximum of 10% of the character’s unbuffed health. For boss encounters we expect that tanks will always have the attack power bonus equal to 10% of their health. The 5% and 10% bonuses assume 51 talent points have been put into the Feral tree and the druid is in bear form -- these values will be smaller at lower levels. Remember, you only get this bonus if you have spent the most talent points in the Feral tree and are in bear form, so you won’t see Balance, Restoration, or Feral druids in cat form running around with it. Vengeance will let us continue to make tank gear more or less the way we do today -- there will be some damage-dealing stats, but mostly survival-oriented stats. Druids typically have more damage-dealing stats even on their tanking gear, so the Vengeance benefit may be smaller, but overall the goal is that all four tanks do about the same damage when tanking.

Restoration

* Healing
* Meditation
* HoT Scale Healing


HoT Scale Healing: HoTs will do increased healing on more wounded targets. The mechanic is similar to that of the Restoration shaman, but with HoTs instead of direct heals. In Cataclysm, we anticipate druids using a greater variety of their spells so there is a distinction between healing and HoT healing.

We hope you enjoyed this preview, and ask that you provide your initial thoughts and feedback on what was presented here. Please keep in mind, what you’ve just reviewed is a work in progress and as we move closer to the Cataclysm beta, you’ll see these changes as well as others continue to develop in response to testing and feedback.

I'll be sad to see Tree of Life go, it'll feel really wierd being the only spec that doesn't use a constant form. Balance changes look promising though.

[fantasticdan]

Focus costs on defensive/offensive cooldowns probably won't even make it to the first beta test.

In other news:

Wild Mushroom (Level 85): Grows a magical mushroom at the target location. After 4 seconds the mushroom becomes invisible. Enemies who cross the mushroom detonate it, causing it to deal area-of-effect damage, though its damage component will remain very effective against single targets. The druid can also choose to detonate the mushroom ahead of time. This is primarily a tool for the Balance druid, and there will be talents that play off of it. No cooldown. 40-yard range. Instant cast.

lol

[Correction]

Yup, what a feral druid needed in PvP was more utility...

wait what the fuck?

[Noobta]

Druid = Teemo from LoL

[Korietsu]

Mage changes are going to be either super OP, or completely fucking retarded. Calling it now, evocation removed, lifetapesque ability added.

[brisk]

lol at Wild Mushroom. Sounds pretty interesting though. Eclipse changes looks promising since they are making it less random/reliant on DPS. God I hate the RNG gods fucking me over during BL sometimes during Lunar Eclipse.