03-14-2005, 05:03 PM
The test server was up and fairly stable yesterday. I spent a few hours playing with my druid. Here are a few random observations (in no particular order). Keep in mind that all of this is from memory as I didn't take any notes.
In the time I was on I managed to get a few quests. Most led either to Silithius or Dire Maul. Darnassus and Feathermoon Stronghold are the places to get these. I spent a little time in Silithius and then went with a group to Dire Maul. The server went down an hour into Dire Maul, and I went back to my normal server.
So what did I see? The new interface is much like CTMod. Two extra hotbars along the bottom, which can be hotkeyed, and two bars to the right, rather than one left and one right like CTMod. The quest log allows you to shift-click collection quests to add them to a reminder window near the minimap which shows how many of each item you still need to get. You can lock the hotbar buttons. Each buff has a timer, showing how long until it expires. Tab targetting now seems to function correctly.
Silithius (am I spelling this correctly?) has horde and alliance flight paths near the entrance from Un'Goro. The alliance path goes to Gadgetzan. The mobs are itemized, though I mostly saw silver drops. There is a barrier stretching across the entire map from east to west about halfway down the zone. I don't know if this was there before, I'd never spent much time in this region. There is a large gong near the barrier which I assume provides access through some quest.
The meeting stone for Dire Maul is west of the entrance. Only the party leader can click the stone to look for more members. The stones appear to function. What I saw of the instance had ogres, treants and the flower and plant mobs from Un'Goro and Maraudon. There were also satyrs. Lots of herb drops here, in particular wildvine seemed to drop fairly often. This should make leatherworkers happy. The mobs were level 56 and 57. None of what I saw was much challenge for a party of level 60 players. We found at least 3 seperate entrances into the instance, which allow you to bypass the earlier mobs. One entrance requires the Crescent key, which we didn't get far enough to locate.
I was most concerned with druid changes, so I can tell you a little about that. I used DamageWatch to get the DPS numbers I give. This add-on keeps track of how long you are in each battle, how much damage you did in that encounter, and divides to give you DPS. I like this approach, and I understand what it's telling me.
The new druid skills seem well done. Barkskin reduces physical damage by 20% for 15 secs, while slowing casting and attack speed. Spells can't be interrupted by damage taken. This seems to me to be the druid's fade. It gives the tank a chance to come get aggro off the healer. I didn't have a chance to see if channeled spells work well with Barkskin.
The new bear skill allows you to get 20 life for each rage. It's possible to dump a full rage bar with this and get 2000 life. This will be very good for druid tanks. The conversion happens over 10 secs if I recall correctly.
The biggest change is cat damage. The new cat skill gives the druid a direct damage finishing move, and a decent place to dump combo points. It also dumps any extra energy into damage (much like execute for the Warrior). I had a 4 point crit for above 900. I'm quite sure that 5 point 1300 crits will be possible. For fights I started stealthed from behind I was getting at least 100 DPS, and I had several fights where I got 170-200 DPS. This is a very big improvement. My current cat is lucky to get 100 DPS in any fight, now matter how it starts. My cat skills were rusty from disuse; a better button masher might be able to get better numbers. With the group in Dire Maul I spent some time in cat form and was getting at least 80 DPS in every fight.
The Wildheart shoulders have a new, and impressive, graphic. I was styling. :)
I'd be happy to try to answer any questions people might have. I can't think of anything else to tell you all at the moment.
-DC
In the time I was on I managed to get a few quests. Most led either to Silithius or Dire Maul. Darnassus and Feathermoon Stronghold are the places to get these. I spent a little time in Silithius and then went with a group to Dire Maul. The server went down an hour into Dire Maul, and I went back to my normal server.
So what did I see? The new interface is much like CTMod. Two extra hotbars along the bottom, which can be hotkeyed, and two bars to the right, rather than one left and one right like CTMod. The quest log allows you to shift-click collection quests to add them to a reminder window near the minimap which shows how many of each item you still need to get. You can lock the hotbar buttons. Each buff has a timer, showing how long until it expires. Tab targetting now seems to function correctly.
Silithius (am I spelling this correctly?) has horde and alliance flight paths near the entrance from Un'Goro. The alliance path goes to Gadgetzan. The mobs are itemized, though I mostly saw silver drops. There is a barrier stretching across the entire map from east to west about halfway down the zone. I don't know if this was there before, I'd never spent much time in this region. There is a large gong near the barrier which I assume provides access through some quest.
The meeting stone for Dire Maul is west of the entrance. Only the party leader can click the stone to look for more members. The stones appear to function. What I saw of the instance had ogres, treants and the flower and plant mobs from Un'Goro and Maraudon. There were also satyrs. Lots of herb drops here, in particular wildvine seemed to drop fairly often. This should make leatherworkers happy. The mobs were level 56 and 57. None of what I saw was much challenge for a party of level 60 players. We found at least 3 seperate entrances into the instance, which allow you to bypass the earlier mobs. One entrance requires the Crescent key, which we didn't get far enough to locate.
I was most concerned with druid changes, so I can tell you a little about that. I used DamageWatch to get the DPS numbers I give. This add-on keeps track of how long you are in each battle, how much damage you did in that encounter, and divides to give you DPS. I like this approach, and I understand what it's telling me.
The new druid skills seem well done. Barkskin reduces physical damage by 20% for 15 secs, while slowing casting and attack speed. Spells can't be interrupted by damage taken. This seems to me to be the druid's fade. It gives the tank a chance to come get aggro off the healer. I didn't have a chance to see if channeled spells work well with Barkskin.
The new bear skill allows you to get 20 life for each rage. It's possible to dump a full rage bar with this and get 2000 life. This will be very good for druid tanks. The conversion happens over 10 secs if I recall correctly.
The biggest change is cat damage. The new cat skill gives the druid a direct damage finishing move, and a decent place to dump combo points. It also dumps any extra energy into damage (much like execute for the Warrior). I had a 4 point crit for above 900. I'm quite sure that 5 point 1300 crits will be possible. For fights I started stealthed from behind I was getting at least 100 DPS, and I had several fights where I got 170-200 DPS. This is a very big improvement. My current cat is lucky to get 100 DPS in any fight, now matter how it starts. My cat skills were rusty from disuse; a better button masher might be able to get better numbers. With the group in Dire Maul I spent some time in cat form and was getting at least 80 DPS in every fight.
The Wildheart shoulders have a new, and impressive, graphic. I was styling. :)
I'd be happy to try to answer any questions people might have. I can't think of anything else to tell you all at the moment.
-DC
