lift of cataclysm NDA

[hung]

Spoilers from the beta are flooding the internets.

Biggest thing I see? if the gear list stays as is: we'll be dropping our T10 epics for crafted lvl 80 greens at launch.... (ilvl 298 for basic lvl 80 stuff!? really?)

I know the Xpac is supposed to be a gear reset, and Blizz doesn't want us to raid T11 in ICC gear... but still, kinda makes me sad.

[Eisengrad]

I admit its hard to go through the gear cycle again, but part of me looks forward to this. This is very similar to what happened at BC launch, and is being driven by two major reasons that I can see:

1) They are planning heavy re-itemization due to significant mechanics changes.
2) The expansion only has five experience levels this time.

With fewer levels in which to pace progression, it will be easier to balance content if everyone has to get new gear early in the process. Otherwise we'll be using raiding epics well into heroics, which renders quest and instance gear rewards moot for a large amount of the player base. I think they had no choice. They also stated they want to restore the rarity of epic level items in Cataclysm to Pre-LK days, and I'd kinda like a purple to be something you ooooo and aahhhh over again, and blues to be something useful, rather than 'if its not epic, it's trash.'

[Eisengrad]

Multiple responses from Blizzard about the same subject.

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/25626105 ... -obsolete/

[tethealla]

I'm happy with the idea about making a distinction between blues and epics. There definitely was one in BC and not one in Wrath. My guild started raiding Naxx in their old T6 gear. That is just silly.

I'm a little miffed that our ICC epics are being replaced so quickly though. I was hoping they'd stick around for at least a level or two. The fact that we're going to be replacing them the minute we walk into the new world seems a bit drastic.

I agree with Eisengar about the reasoning. They are massively changing the mechanics of so many classes. Right now have certain classes stacking gear with the wrong stats. Instead of going through the headache of making the old gear backwards compatible with the new system... just replace the old epics with new greens. That way you won't have warlocks screaming their spirit gear is crap or hunters and int. They can itemize the new gear properly and hand it out to us in the first set of 80-81 quests.

As a software engineer, I can tell you from experience... backwards compatibility is a pain in the rear.

[Daewen]

Less a spoiler and more of a look-ahead, there's a long blue post about how talent trees, specs, and masteries are changing in cataclysm. The previously leaked 'talent trees', you can forget them.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/185 ... ems-Update

[Eisengrad]

Wow, that is... very interesting. I'm excited they were willing to scrap it all and go in a different direction.

[tethealla]

Wow... so very different. I'm excited about the change.. I like giving each talent tree an individual feel right away. I also like giving you something real at each level. Right now you get skills every other level and meh a talent point. Unless it's a really useful point, it doesn't really matter THAT much. It sounds like it'll make a much larger difference now.

It gives new players less room for screwing up. When you're brand new, if you choose a wrong couple of points, you can still recover without having to respec. Now if you choose resto vs feral, you'll need to respec.

I can't wait to see the trees.

[tethealla]

I found a new web comic and it reminded me about a conversation that happened on guild chat a few days ago...


http://www.complexactions.com/archive/097.shtml
http://www.complexactions.com/archive/098.shtml

[Daewen]

This is why you'd want to save up an imperial fuckton of gold for cataclysm; guild perks. The wording sounds like, levelling the guild makes them available, but you have to pay money yourself to get the benefit.. for yourself.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/187 ... oss-Videos

15% more items mined/skinned/herbed? +10% cash looted, directly to GB? Summon Raid? MASS RESURRECT??

Yes please!

[tethealla]

I've seen a lot of what was in that note before. The conversion from guild talents to guild perks is relatively new. This was to remove guild drama. They just allow you access to all abilities instead of some of them. It's quite nice of them. I wonder how much it will cost us and if it's per-toon or per account.

Putting guild tabard on our mounts is kinda neat. I just recently started wearing ours. It's cute.

Now what about this:

New members of a guild won't be able to buy everything directly, they will have to contribute to the progression of the guild before they can access the top rewards. Each time a player helps towards the leveling he will gain reputation with the guild, the best rewards will require players to be exalted with their guild before they can buy it.

Guild Reputation? What is this? It says we gain reputation by helping the guild level... what happens when our guild is max level?

I wonder if people will have to buy each level before having to get the next, or if you can pick and choose. If I don't plan to PvP, do I have to pay for the honor point ones before moving down to the increase in gather skills?

So I was about to question the usefulness of mass-res. It main problem with it is you need someone alive to use it. It takes about the same amount of time for one person to run back than N people, so you save a little bit of time.... then I saw the beauty of the spell: Unlimited Range. Plus we can send a hunter back who runs a bit faster. I'm really happy they removed the cooldown from this ability. It originally had a 30m cd.

I wonder how they'll deal with the cd for the mass summon. Can you use it and then I use it or will everyone who has been summoned get a debuff? with the lock summoning stones, I'm not nearly as excited about this one. It's probably why it's at rank 20 now, and last year at blizzcon it was a choice you made between it and mass rez. I wonder if it will work for everyone in a party, in as well as out of guild... like if you're in a pug. That is where it'd be most useful I'd say. Puggers are notoriously slow.

But all in all, I am very interested in this coming out. It'll give us more reasons to daily quest when we no longer really have one... to help out the rest of the guild.