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Ghostcrawler reveals upcoming class changes in Cataclysm
Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street has posted the blog post I think most of us have been waiting for ever since Cataclysm went live. It features a summary of where the dev team sees the PvE and PvP games at this point, including some analysis of various classes and specs, and some planned changes for those specs that are underperforming and overperforming. In PvE, Ghostcrawler mentions that Blizzard is mostly happy with the tank classes and notes that while healers do have it a bit hard, this is intentional. Heroics are meant to be a challenge. As for DPS, he offered that some classes, such as arcane mages and marksman and beast mastery hunters, are too low in their damage, while others, such as shadow priests and fire and frost mages, are being watched closely before final judgment is made on their numbers. In PvP, Ghostcrawler says Blizzard is satisfied with the decreased emphasis on healing prevention and burst damage. Crowd control and dispel mechanics, especially offensive dispels, may see some PvP nerfs, and priests will specifically be getting some PvP buffs. Stats also got some mention. A lot of stats are being neglected by some classes, and the dev team wants to fix this. Mastery will be either buffed or completely revamped for many specs, such as unholy death knights and retribution paladins. Haste may be made to scale with more attacks, such as Lacerate, Slam, and Steady Shot, in order to make the stat more desirable to certain specs. Check after the break for the complete text of Ghostcrawler's post, including a list of specifically planned (but not finalized) class changes for future patches.
Twitter developer chat tomorrow
There will be another twitter developer chat tomorrow, with Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street and Lead Content Designer Cory Stockton. The chat will take place at 5:00 p.m. PST, and if previous chats are any indication, it'll last around an hour or so. WoW.com will be keeping a liveblog of the chat for the record, and we'll be sure to point out all the major news from the chat, if it happens. Hopefully this chat will be a lot like the last one where useful information came out. I would expect Greg and Cory to cover a lot of the patch 3.3.3 changes and perhaps some information on the Ruby Sanctum coming out in patch 3.3.5. You can check out the transcripts of the previous two chats here: October 22nd, 2009 Twitter developer chat January 15th, 2009 Twitter developer chat Official Wracraft Twitter Join us for #BlizzChat on Twitter Friday, Feb.26, at 5 PM PST with World of Warcraft's lead content designer & lead systems designer. source Bornakk We will be holding our next Developer Chat on Twitter on Friday, February 26, at 5:00 p.m. PST with World of Warcraft's lead content designer and lead systems designer. This chat session will focus on Icecrown Citadel and other Fall of the Lich King content. Questions will be taken live through Twitter, so be sure to sign up for a Twitter account at https://twitter.com/signup and follow account @Warcraft in order to participate! To submit a question for the Developer Chat, please tweet using the #BlizzChat hashtag between 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. PST on February 26. Due to the character limitation on responses within Twitter, all answers will be posted on the World of Warcraft forums in a dedicated thread. source
Ghostcrawler suggests we play other games
Boredom and burnout is a common side effect of spending too much time with any one hobby. Still, it was refreshing to see Ghostcrawler, the Lead Systems Designer for WoW, recommend that players spend some time with other games. He points out that if you're feeling burned out, it's "not the worst thing in the world to try out some other games -- the past couple of years has been great for them." Of course, he did take the time to remind everyone that there is more to the game than clearing raid content or completing your latest PvP gear set. There are achievements, alts, questing, and tradeskills, to name a few. While this does indicate that Blizzard is feeling pretty confident in their chokehold on the MMO market, it's also a smart move on their part. There are already enough paranoid conspiracy theories out there claiming that the company merely wants our money, and less concerned with product quality than with elaborate plans designed to trick us into playing longer and shelling out more money. In fact, GC said this in response to one of these inspired theories.This reminds me of one of the loading screen tips that urges players to spend some time with their friends outside of this game as well as in it. As Ghostcrawler says, "just check back in with WoW every now and then."
