BlizzCon 2011: Classes, Items, and Professions Q&A Liveblog

Yes everyone, it's time for everyone's favorite panel and liveblog -- the one where you get to see what Ghostcrawler and Chilton have to say about the questions your fellow players are asking them.

We've been brought some memorable quotes from this panel over the years: "Don't nerf me, bro!" "Ghostcrawler promised me a pony!"

Good times had by all, and some real information comes out, too. Join in after the break for the liveblog.

The live panel is over; thanks for reading. Check out the transcript below.

2:00PM That's it for the panel! Thanks for joining us. The next liveblog will be the general Q&A panel.

1:59PM A: AA removal very controversial. Some think, even around the office, we might give it back. We're not sure. (GC): downside of lack of AA is that if that monkey has 5 health let, you can just smack the monkey, you have to wait until you get an attack up first.

1:58PM Q: Monk is amazing. With removal of auto-attack, can we see this with other classes? If so, hunters are going to be very confused.

1:57PM A: If we allowed perfects of blues, then no one would use the blues. I don't know if there's an easy solution to making every crafter feel wanted, other than daily cooldowns or what not. BoP chaos orbs are a good way, maybe we should do something like that for JCers this time.

1:56PM Q: Can you bring back the old perfect cuts, the procs, the rare procs?

1:55PM A: Your bows/guns will be buffed.

1:55PM Q: Removing hunter melee weapons, we're going to lose a lot of stats. How are we going to get the DPS back?

1:54PM A: Locks different from hunters there, and we like that. We did talk about going to a lock to reset the name if you don't like it.

1:53PM Q: Noncombat pets getting named, any chance for locks naming their demons?

1:53PM A: We don't want to introduce one spec that gets only one item; like holy paladins getting plate int gear.

1:52PM Q: Any discussion of monks using melee cloth?

1:52PM A: Not going to apply to fire totems, too big of a DPS increase.

1:51PM Q: Level 90 shaman talents; put down 3 totems at once -- apply to firetotems?

1:50PM A: When you go into the healer stance, Chi will change to mana, and you'll use mana for your healing spells. As for how will healing work, think proximity -- very mobile, you're in proximity of people healing, you can also DPS on boss. Place statues around the raid, and time you DPS the boss your statues emit healing near them. So range gets a statue, DPS boss, healing the range.

1:49PM Q: Thanks for the priest talent that lets me swap my health with my guild leader and kill him many times. [lots of laughs and applause] -- now actual question; how is monk healing going to work?

1:47PM A: There was an reaction of eng. sucks, then the reaction to eng. was too good. There's been a swing there. We want to nail down this profession skill, b/c it could be its own class if we let it get away from us. I don't want to give away examples right now that may or may not happen. There's going to be a lot of focus on it this time [in MoP]. Get on the forums and make that giant post again, let us know.

1:46PM Q: Eng. -- what happened? It was so exciting for one patch, then it seems like it's just forgotten about.

1:44PM A: No plans for that.

1:44PM Q: Hunters - eliminating use of melee weapons. Can you equip them for show? Any way we can get some mace love?

1:44PM A: Um... yes. We want them to be cool, but don't want everyone to switch to Eng. because the items are tool cool.

1:43PM Q: Eng. have gotten some cool stuff in the past, but they're worthless now. More powerful versions of those items, or more fun to use? Like freeze ray or an underwater mount.

1:42PM A: It's something we're thinking about, looking at, considering. If we do, we want the quality to be what you remember, not just zap the numbers up to 85.

1:41PM Q: Hunter epic quest line coming back?

1:41PM A: The artists can do a lot of things that we can't.

1:41PM Q: You're panda poster art is dual wielding polearms.

1:41PM A: Haven't had a niche yet. That said, going forward, it's something we can look at.

1:40PM Q: Strength polearms?

1:40PM A: We'd like to, but that's art and it take a long time to do. GC: It's not that we don't like throwing money at these problems, but we don't want to do old DK tiers when we can get new content out.

1:39PM Q: Previous tiers of DK gear (before DKs came into existance)?

1:39PM A: I've seen it, it's awesome, you guys will see it soon.

1:39PM Q: DK Tier 13?

1:39PM A: We have a new minor glyph for shadow priests that removes the alpha, so you can see you gear.

1:38PM Q: Can you allow S. Priests to have their shadowform shroud while mounted?

1:38PM A: We're not happy with arcane barrage right now. Details coming out in the near future. Decided to wait until 5.0 instead of 4.3.

1:37PM Q: Arance Mage mastery, created possibility for managing resource, we were promised this toolkit to manage or mana; but all we got was arcane blast, and clearing our arcane blast stack. Are we going to get anything else to help us [mages] not be two button wonders?

1:36PM A: (GC): "I'd love to see an orange shield."

1:36PM A: It's something we're looking at. "The story and the kit have to fit."

1:35PM Q: Can we get some tank love for a legendary?

1:34PM A: (GC) We want to clean up the rotation, and not bury players under a pile of spells. We're looking at introducing a new spell at 87. We don't know yet what the mage on will be.

1:34PM Q: Are we getting new spells at 85, 90? What are the mages spells?

1:33PM A: If we didn't do something like that, we'd have to change the bonus completely.

1:32PM Q: T13 4pc Bear bonus - I get you don't want cats to get it, but it restricts ability to provide dps to raid.

1:32PM A: Wild mushroom healing type spell. But overall, we think the resto druid healing kit is good. Some of the healing playstyle where mindless aoe healing happens is on the encounter design. [yes, they're saying it's the encounter, not them]

1:31PM Q: AoE heal is mindlessly spamming some HoTs, any plans to not do this?

1:30PM Restokin is up!

1:30PM A: You're definitely doing to be loosing that DPS. Other tanks can't do it, and you won't be able to do it either. Tanks are not going to have rip or shread, and cats are not going to have survive. increases.

1:29PM Q: As a tank druid, I can swap to cat and do viable DPS. In future, keeping hybridization so I can do that?

1:29PM A: They're unpredictable, and that's cool. We're looking for a lot of ways to sex it up and make it more fun. Possibilities: Random encounters with something like a mummy, flare gun that pops a ladder up and takes you to a random dig sit. Just possibilities, no promises.

1:27PM Q: Arch has been ignored other than a few added thing. Going to see more with it - like cooldowns not be nuts on arch vanity items?

1:27PM A: One of the things that make consumables fun is that they go away. If they were just perm. things that you kept around then you'd loose the impact as to what a transformation is. We've given you warning when you're about to loose them. But we just don't want you to have these everywhere.

1:26PM Q: You can loose and gain a transformation. Why can't that happen with nonenfogger? (Spelling again, sorry)

1:25PM A: A lot of talents don't do more damage or healing. A lot of them are not quantifiable and change numbers. So I don't agree with your premise; I don't see that as happening for most of them.

1:25PM Q: New talent system looks fun - still looks difficult to balance. Still going to have someone crunch numbers to figure out what's best.

1:24PM A: We have some things given to rogues that are useful, like stuns. We're not going to give everyone everything that makes rogues awesome and rogues rogues.

1:23PM Q: From Our Chase Christian! What are you going to do with rogues to give them some utility?

1:22PM (This guy is rambling and arguing with the devs now, we're not going to liveblog this. Basically, switch to shadow to do DPS.)

1:21PM A: It's easier to level as holy now than it was in classic. Not a priority to make holy a dps spec.

1:20PM Q: Is there any plan on making PvE solo for holy priests and disc?

1:19PM A: Animation doesn't support every transformation, so we just block everything because it'd have just created hundreds of bugs.

1:19PM Q: Nonngenfogger (spelling, sorry) elixir. Why can I mount while transformed as a skeleton?

1:18PM A: Gargoyle designed to be ranged. Unholy DK is less successful spec; we're not going to do a disruptive change right now, but in 5.0, we're going to work to make sure there's more pairty to the value of the secondary stats.

1:17PM Q: Gargoyles have the melee attack, but the range is so much better.

1:17PM A: In 5.0 Hurricane will have an Arcane version -- meaning no waiting for AoE. Otherwise, there's a balance between eclipse, and we like the way it's wroking.

1:16PM Q: Wondering about eclipse. Better than it's ever been. Still periods of time where boomkins can be really low on damage, and then being in solar when we need to do AoE.

1:16PM A: One problem we've had is they've got spike damage; which means less healing needed in some cases. We're increasing survivability bonuses for DKs. Part of the DK experience is being brought really low to doing awesome things to save yourself, to bring yourself from 20% to 100%.

1:14PM Q: DK tanks - we're in a bad place, problems with avoidance working against mastery, talents/abilities not always working, and the 2pc set bonus based on Imm. Dem. and being on low health; and when healers doing their jobs right, we don't have a set bonus. What are you guys doing to fix this? Can we get a new 2pc set bonus?

1:13PM A: Legendary items are looked at case by case basis. If the story supports it, and we find a cool interesting item possibility, then we'd have to think about it very carefully. Everything is always possible. GC: "I love the idea myself."

1:12PM Q: Faction specific legendary?

1:11PM A: Druid specs is already 4 specs. Monks will compete more with rogues for weapons, not really talking about dual wielding druids. No plans for new enchant drops.

1:11PM Q: Can Feral Druids get some double fist weapon love? Bonus questions: New enchant drops?

1:10PM A: Event items are expensive to be BoA, so it might not happen. Other old items are getting ressurected.

1:09PM Q: Event items become BoA?

1:09PM A: (GC) I've heard that question so many times, it's totally understandable. We talk about it all the time. No idea if we can do it yet. One idea is keeping a cap on the max number of characters, but removing limits on individual realms. No promises though.

1:08PM Q: I have 10 classes. 11th slot?

1:08PM A: It fits nicely in something like Rogues, but overall it's not something that fits nicely into the current design. [So no, it looks like]. It could show up in otherplaces though.

1:07PM Q: Currently you can get up to 130 resources (like rogues). Any plans to continue this in MoP?

1:06PM A: We've made it more like the DK active tanking. Use resources to keep yourself alive instead of to just generate threat.

1:06PM Q: Active tanking debuffs on the new trees, how does that play into the active tanking model?

1:05PM A: Balancing PvE and PvP healing is a big challenge. It's more about decision making and quick swapping. We got there in the beginning of Cataclysm; but now we're seeing a lot of different comps with gear that changes thing. It's something we talk about all the time, and I don't think we've solved the problem yet. Something we're still working on.

1:04PM Q: Are you satisfied with the state of healing in PvP?

1:03PM A: Yes, kinda true. Shadow orbs are going to be like a secondary resource system. That's our current thought.

1:03PM Q: "Shadow priests seem to be going to a more resource based system. Is that true?"

1:02PM GC: "I know you guys [Paladins] hate me, but it's too easy. Maybe we can pick on Warlocks a little bit. But you guys scare me."

1:01PM GC: "A ret paladin killed my parents."