Cataclysm NDA Lifted! Beta Begins! Exclamation points abused!

[Crusader]

What I hope is that Blizz will reconsider how easy it is to get epics. I liked the classic model better. Greens are normal, to be replaced with blues in dungeons (I would include heroics) and epics only in 25-40 man raids (and no silly badge system). Now there's nothing epic about epics, while in classing an epic item actually meant something. Now everyone who puts a few hours in it can walk around in a full epic set with little effort. There's no meaning to it any more. And now, when I want to raid some kid yells things about my gearscore. My standard reply is that my skillscore is greater then his.

[Tal]

What I hope is that Blizz will reconsider how easy it is to get epics. I liked the classic model better. Greens are normal, to be replaced with blues in dungeons (I would include heroics) and epics only in 25-40 man raids (and no silly badge system). Now there's nothing epic about epics, while in classing an epic item actually meant something. Now everyone who puts a few hours in it can walk around in a full epic set with little effort. There's no meaning to it any more. And now, when I want to raid some kid yells things about my gearscore. My standard reply is that my skillscore is greater then his.

I disagree. I recently decided to swap to my Paladin as my main in Cataclysm. As a result I was able to use heroic drops and badges to get her in raiding shape in surprisingly short order. It didn't feel as grindy as the swap from the paladin to the warrior in classic.

Add in dual spec and you need a full epic set for your secondary spec and it becomes even harder to gear up.

[TheDragoon]

I pretty much agree with Crusader that it would be nice to see more variety than just "either it's an epic or you're a noob". I don't have a quick reference handy, but there was at least one quote from Blizzard in the past that they were looking to move toward having the greens (normal quests) -> blues (dungeon) -> epics (raids) progression in Cataclysm. However, they have also stated that they were happy with the way the badging system works other than the fact that they would like to only use two tiers of badges: The current raiding tier badges and all other tiers. Given that perspective on the badge system, I would expect that epics will be available for badges, at latest, after one tier of raiding has come and gone, downgrading the gear available for the first tier of raiding to be available with the non-progression badging system.

I disagree. I recently decided to swap to my Paladin as my main in Cataclysm. As a result I was able to use heroic drops and badges to get her in raiding shape in surprisingly short order. It didn't feel as grindy as the swap from the paladin to the warrior in classic.

Add in dual spec and you need a full epic set for your secondary spec and it becomes even harder to gear up.

I would be very surprised if Blizzard took that "catch-up" progression path away. It has been highly successful in TBC and WotLK so I doubt they would remove it. That said, it's perfectly possible Blizzard could make blue items available for heroic points rather than epics (at least initially). It could actually be a kind of cool design to have blues available from heroic 5-man level content but epics from raiding, but make their ilvl the same. I doubt they would go to the trouble of changing epics to blues at a higher ilvl when downgrading previously progression-level badge gear to the non-progression tier, but it would be kind of a fun way to preserve the differences between 5-man and raiding.

[Jester]

What I hope is that Blizz will reconsider how easy it is to get epics. I liked the classic model better.

I remember classic. People got epics for /afking in Molten Core.

-Jester

---

I guess it boils down to a puzzling question for me:

Why are people so obsessed with the colour purple?*

-Jester

*... maybe it's an Oprah thing?

[Treesh]

What I hope is that Blizz will reconsider how easy it is to get epics. I liked the classic model better.

I remember classic. People got epics for /afking in Molten Core.

-Jester

Or running directly to a group of healers when a person was the bomb. Because healers really love being purposely blown up on.

[Frag]

Because healers really love being purposely blown up on.

And this would be why I tank!

~Frag

[Concillian]

What I hope is that Blizz will reconsider how easy it is to get epics. I liked the classic model better. Greens are normal, to be replaced with blues in dungeons (I would include heroics) and epics only in 25-40 man raids (and no silly badge system). Now there's nothing epic about epics, while in classing an epic item actually meant something.

That system is REALLY beyond terrible for every guild that is not leeching recruits from other guilds who are gearing up players for them.

It works okay when "Molten Core" is the primary raiding instance. People can get geared in 5-mans and you can recruit anyone. However once you get to the "AQ40" or "Naxx" of that expansion, you have nowhere to recruit from except other guilds that have fallen apart because of natural attrition.

The result is that the leeching guilds are the ones doing well, and the "feeder" guilds are getting completely shafted, with stagnant progression because they're constantly gearing people, then losing them. Even the leeching guilds are given a much larger pool to pull from when you have "feeder" guilds able to find recruits better.

It's why I KNEW that Blizz would backtrack on it's decision on badges they started Wrath with. They tried to go back to a system like was in 1.x... It doesn't work well, so they backtracked. It essentially makes anyone new progress through all raiding content to be geared for the instance that opens 2 years into an expansion, and very few can actually do that.

If the goal is to "feel epic" well, that's a matter of perception. You can "feel epic" doing anything someone else is not. There are plenty of progression guilds who will be killing things the more casual guilds are not, and they should have plenty of epic feeling for that. The current system does tend to mirror reality to some extent though, with "early adopters" of new technology paving the way for affordability for the "regular Joes". The early adopters have much higher cost which funds the manufacturing cost reductions. While there is no actual cost or whatever in WoW, the model does make some sense, and the advantage is exclusive for some time before it becomes the norm.

[Mavfin]

What I hope is that Blizz will reconsider how easy it is to get epics. I liked the classic model better. Greens are normal, to be replaced with blues in dungeons (I would include heroics) and epics only in 25-40 man raids (and no silly badge system). Now there's nothing epic about epics, while in classing an epic item actually meant something.

That system is REALLY beyond terrible for every guild that is not leeching recruits from other guilds who are gearing up players for them.

That pretty much covers it. The only people who really like that system are generally the people who are already at the top and don't have to worry about gearing up behind the times, or recruiting anyone who isn't already geared out. i.e. most of the people who like it are the bleeding edge, and it feels like most of them just want it the old way so they can be more special; i.e. 'get out of my epics, scrubs!'

[Concillian]

That pretty much covers it. The only people who really like that system are generally the people who are already at the top and don't have to worry about gearing up behind the times, or recruiting anyone who isn't already geared out. i.e. most of the people who like it are the bleeding edge, and it feels like most of them just want it the old way so they can be more special; i.e. 'get out of my epics, scrubs!'

Not so they can be more special, so they can feel more special.

The difference is in their own perception of themselves. This is why the difference is so silly. They're near "the top" in both cases, The reality of the situation is very similar in both cases, the only difference is how they perceive themselves.

[Tal]

Or running directly to a group of healers when a person was the bomb. Because healers really love being purposely blown up on.

Nowadays we hug whatever toon Lissa is on because we figure he deserves it for something he did.

[Lissa]

Or running directly to a group of healers when a person was the bomb. Because healers really love being purposely blown up on.

Nowadays we hug whatever toon Lissa is on because we figure he deserves it for something he did.

Tal forgets that it'll come back in some way...it always comes back in some way... >.>

[Chesspiece_face]

Or running directly to a group of healers when a person was the bomb. Because healers really love being purposely blown up on.

Nowadays we hug whatever toon Lissa is on because we figure he deserves it for something he did.

Heroic Sindragosa = Healer's Revenge.

[Crusader]

The point I was trying to make was that I would like a difference in colorization. Nowadays everyone walks around in epics. It has no meaning any more. What's worse, there are now several power levels in epics, which I can't see at a glance. In the classic model someone in full blues was a good player. Greens were ok for starting the endgame instances like Scholomance and Stratholme (which have the same role heroics have now). Someone in full blues could start raiding. Nowadays someone needs full epics and some arcane number called gearscore which isn't listen anywhere in the game, but instead requires external tools to calculate. It's ridiculous. What's worse, people nowadays are recruited for that score, instead of their skill level. Back in classic people would get trial runs and whatnot to see how good they are and class elders would look at how well they do their rotations and whatnot. That's completely blown away now.

I just want a system where I can see Green=normal, Blue = good and purple = top-notch. Because now purple can mean anything from worthless to godlike and the other colors just mean junk. Might as well make green and blue items grey. Because that's the value they hold nowadays.

[Treesh]

I just want a system where I can see Green=normal, Blue = good and purple = top-notch. Because now purple can mean anything from worthless to godlike and the other colors just mean junk. Might as well make green and blue items grey. Because that's the value they hold nowadays.

You had that back in the day of 40 man raids too. I can tell you of a few people who had so much better gear than I did, but when you got right down to it, didn't know what in the hell they were doing or just barely managed to scrape by. I can't give you an accurate observation about Burning Crusade content because, well, I only played with guildies and even when I played with our worst folks, they were still better than PuGs so I've got skewed memories of just pure awesomeness. =)

[Tal]

The point I was trying to make was that I would like a difference in colorization. Nowadays everyone walks around in epics. It has no meaning any more. What's worse, there are now several power levels in epics, which I can't see at a glance. In the classic model someone in full blues was a good player. Greens were ok for starting the endgame instances like Scholomance and Stratholme (which have the same role heroics have now). Someone in full blues could start raiding. Nowadays someone needs full epics and some arcane number called gearscore which isn't listen anywhere in the game, but instead requires external tools to calculate. It's ridiculous. What's worse, people nowadays are recruited for that score, instead of their skill level. Back in classic people would get trial runs and whatnot to see how good they are and class elders would look at how well they do their rotations and whatnot. That's completely blown away now.

I just want a system where I can see Green=normal, Blue = good and purple = top-notch. Because now purple can mean anything from worthless to godlike and the other colors just mean junk. Might as well make green and blue items grey. Because that's the value they hold nowadays.

The system you're concerned with has nothing to do with Blizzard and how they make items and everything to do with how PEOPLE run guilds. Lurkers on Stormrage have never recruited but if we were to do so there would be an application process and discussions with the prospective member to assess just how well they know their class and role. THEN gearing would be looked at along with a trial run to see how well they perform and fit in with the Guild.

Fun fact: I collected the Lightforge set on Sharanna in Classic...as a prot paladin. Those blues did NOTHING to affect my role in raids.

[Kevin]

The system you're concerned with has nothing to do with Blizzard and how they make items and everything to do with how PEOPLE run guilds. Lurkers on Stormrage have never recruited but if we were to do so there would be an application process and discussions with the prospective member to assess just how well they know their class and role. THEN gearing would be looked at along with a trial run to see how well they perform and fit in with the Guild.

Fun fact: I collected the Lightforge set on Sharanna in Classic...as a prot paladin. Those blues did NOTHING to affect my role in raids.

For a guild applicant I would look at gear and performance to see if the person is utilizing their gear as a quick metric. Are you hitting 90% of your theorycrafted max DPS for the gear you have and not dying in fires? OK you know how to play that class, and that is a pretty quick measure.

Do your gear choices make sense for the talent choices you've made and the gear you have available to you? OK you seem to understand how your gear and skills interact. And I worded that the way I did intentionally because I've seen several off the wall specs, that were done to try something new or just because it was fun for that person, and so they had gear that didn't fit the norm for that class but sure fit for what they were trying to do, and that tells me a lot too.

[vor_lord]

The point I was trying to make was that I would like a difference in colorization. Nowadays everyone walks around in epics. It has no meaning any more.

"Because when everyone's special, no one is."

[RTM]

Speaking of talents, what do folks think of what is quite possibly the biggest change of the expansion: the talent revamp?

I think it's great, personally. While it doesn't seem like there would be many people who haven't played WoW already, Blizzard seems to be focusing on improving the experience for players totally new to the game. It goes hand-in-hand with the 1-60 content revamp, and I think they will be successful in pulling in a lot of new people.

Talents were due a complete revamp for sure. A max level character could see a large change in playstyle by respeccing but a low level character really doesn't have much to look forward to until higher levels. You turn level 10 and get your first talent point, only to be faced with the relatively boring choices of +1 crit%, +5% mana, or some other minor boost. It all adds up when you're 80, of course, but at level 10 it's not anything to be excited about.

Getting your spec-defining abilities at 10 along with a clear description of what that spec should be doing will go a long way towards preventing terrible builds and making levelling more fun. The removal of most of the boring +1% to x talents will make getting a new talent point a genuinely exciting thing.

New talent trees can be viewed here btw. They're from the beta so obviously aren't finalized.

[Tuftears]

Still waiting on the srs druid talent tree revamp, purrsonally. You know the resto druid talent tree (for example) isn't finished because resto druids will get Swiftmend as their 'special' ability, but there's still a talent for Swiftmend in the middle of the resto tree. The feral druid tree is probably going to be fluffed up a bit as well to make it impossible to take all the bear/cat talents in one go.

[Tuftears]

Speaking of talents, what do folks think of what is quite possibly the biggest change of the expansion: the talent revamp?

New release of trees came out today. Not a lot exciting happening for feral druids, I think. I'm a little concerned about how non-blocking druids (and DKs) will stack up against warriors and paladins, but I gather that Savage Defense will start reducing a percentage of the incoming damage instead of a fixed amount (based on AP).

The action seems to be happening in the paladin trees at the moment, IMO. Paladins will get not one but two AOE heals - the second being a cone heal. (can I get a rousing chorus of 'wtf Blizzard' here?) Not sure as yet how they're going to setup the Holy Power interaction for holy paladins; the only viable option to use HPwr on right now seems to be the instant heal. It would be interesting if they made a % healing buff that could be triggered with HPwr - that's what they did for Ret, so you have to juggle your holy damage buff with a direct damage spell for HPwr dumping.