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Beast mastery hunters may escape Stampede nerf
Blizzard Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street posted a lengthy Dev Watercooler yesterday, focused on Mists of Pandaria PvP. Within that Dev Watercooler, one thing he mentioned was the extremely high burst being put out by Beast Mastery Hunters, saying: Ghostcrawler Beastmastery Hunters – We agree that stacking too many cooldowns to blow someone up is not interesting, skillful, or fair. (I also want to be clear that with all of these issues, we're not blaming players for using the tools that we gave them; we're blaming ourselves.) We're taking a hard look at the various Hunter cooldowns with the intention of reducing their burst. Hunters are receiving a buff in that they will no longer need to swap between Aspect of the Hawk and Aspect of the Fox. We also hope these changes help result in higher representation of Survival and Marksman Hunters. source Very shortly after the Dev Watercooler was posted, Ghostcrawler took to twitter, announcing that a substantial bug had been discovered, which only affected beast mastery hunters in the arena: Good news. We found a bug with Stampede being too high only in Arenas. That accounts for why feedback can be so varied. More info later. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) October 31, 2012 Community Manager Zarhym emailed us late last night to inform us that the bug had been isolated and added to the beast mastery hunter-specific section of the blog. The bug is now detailed as follows:
Druid glyph changes in patch 5.0.4
When the new 5.0 patch flips over on Aug. 28, will you be ready with glyphs? Blizzard is recycling old glyphs instead of making new spell IDs and charring old ones. Some glyphs are staying the same, some are new, but some share IDs with old Cataclysm glyphs. Below is our list of new or changing glyphs for druids. This is not a list of changing tooltips, just which glyphs you ought to have if you want to automatically have the new glyphs when the patch flips over. The glyph switching occurs across roles more often than not, so feral and guardian druids will want some of the current balance and restoration glyphs in order to automatically switch over. Druids have one new glyph, Glyph of the Cheetah. Glyphs that are changing into new majors: Unburdened Rebirth becomes Blooming Tiger's Fury becomes Cat Form Monsoon becomes Cyclone Lacerate becomes Fae Silence Focus becomes the Master Shapeshifter Starsurge becomes Might of Ursoc Starfire becomes the Moonbeast Wrath becomes Nature's Grasp Rip becomes Prowl Moonfire becomes Savagery Bloodletting becomes Shred Starfall becomes Skull Bash Swiftmend becomes Stampede Savage Roar becomes Stampeding Roar Berserk becomes Survival Instincts Glyphs that are changing into new minors: Challenging Roar becomes the Chameleon Mark of the Wild becomes Charm Woodland Creature Thorns becomes Grace Insect Swarm becomes the Orca Feral Charge becomes the Predator Mangle becomes the Stag Typhoon becomes Stars It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Hunter glyph changes in patch 5.0.4
When the new 5.0 patch flips over on Aug. 28, will you be ready with glyphs? Blizzard is recycling old glyphs instead of making new spell IDs and charring old ones. Some glyphs are staying the same, some are new, but some share IDs with old Cataclysm glyphs. Below is our list of new or changing glyphs for hunters. This is not a list of changing tooltips, just which glyphs you ought to have if you want to automatically have the new glyphs when the patch flips over. Hunters have one new minor glyph that won't appear automatically anywhere, Glyph of Marking. Glyphs that are changing into new majors: Dazzled Prey becomes Animal Bond Arcane Shot becomes Camouflage Concussive Shot becomes Distracting Shot Bestial Wrath becomes Endless Wrath Immolation Trap becomes Explosive Trap Wyvern Sting becomes Icy Solace Trap Launcher becomes Marked For Death Kill Command becomes Mend Pet Silencing Shot becomes No Escape Rapid Fire becomes Pathfinding Steady Shot becomes Scattering Explosive Shot becomes Tranquilizing Shot Glyphs that are changing into new minors: Aimed Shot becomes Aspects Raptor Strikes becomes Aspect of the Beast Kill Shot becomes Aspect of the Cheetah Feign Death becomes Fireworks Scare Beast becomes Stampede Serpent Sting becomes Tame Beast It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Hunters to get Stampede in Mists of Pandaria
As part of the Mists of Pandaria press tour, Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street has revealed that hunters will be getting a new level 87 ability that will let them bring out their stable of five pets all at once as a long-cooldown DPS burst ability. Here is the full quote from the MMO-C interview: I don't think we have talked about what we are doing for the hunter yet. I think a lot of hunter players have guessed it but the hunter level 87 ability is basically you get all your pets at once for a short amount of time. So if you have 5 pets in your stable, they all come out and do damage for a little bit of time, and that's really fun cooldown for them. I think it increases Beast Master's damage by 80% while they're out, or something ridiculous like that. That's a pretty fun one. This "Stampede" ability is one that the hunter community has been requesting for years and should provide a valuable burst DPS cooldown that will serve the class well in both PvE and PvP. We have yet to get confirmation that this ability will be available to all hunter specs, but since Ghostcrawler referred to it as a hunter ability rather than a beast mastery ability, it seems likely to be a class baseline ability that enables every hunter spec to unleash a frenzy of rabid death into their opponents' faces. It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Black Friday 2010 deals roundup: ultimate mega edition (updated regularly)
<div style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.engadget.com/black-friday/2010"><img hspace="4" border="1" vspace="4" alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/11/blackfriday2010-1290609824.jpg"/></a></div> Hey guys, have you ever heard of <a href="http://www.engadget.com/tag/BlackFriday/">Black Friday</a>? It's the day after Thanksgiving where everybody gets up at the crack of dawn to go stand in line at big box retailers so they can get the cheapest deals in town. Like it or not, it's one of the greatest things about living in the United States of America, where making a competitive sport out of purchasing Christmas gifts for your loved ones is only better in reality than it would be on reality television (producers, you know where to find us). Anyway, we're rounding up some of the best deals we can find, and we're going to put them all, right here, in this one, glorious post. We'll keep updating this bad boy as long as you're here to read about the delicious deals. Because, as you know, we love you. Feel free to suggest other sales in the comments, and join us after the break for all the deals.
The Art of War(craft): Must-have PvP talents for druids in 4.0.1
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Art of War(craft), covering battlegrounds and world PvP, and Blood Sport, with the inside line for arena enthusiasts. Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? Battlemaster Zach Yonzon, old-world PvP grinder and casual battleground habitué, rambles on about anything and everything PvP. Let's try to get you prepared for Cataclysm, shall we? In the new (banged-up, broken and burnt) world of the expansion, battlegrounds play will stand toe to toe with arenas as far as gear acquisition and quite possibly have even better participation. You don't want to miss out on that. Today we'll discuss the best PvP talents you can pick up as a druid, and you can decide for yourself what other talents to round out your PvP spec. Perhaps the biggest change for druids in patch 4.0.1 is a new mechanic for balance druids called Eclipse, which relies on the buildup of lunar or solar energy conferred by casting either nature or arcane damage spells, respectively. This means that balance druids will be constantly trying to achieve an Eclipse by casting spells from one school, then shifting to another school once they've gotten the bonus. Out of all specs, balance plays the most differently compared to before the patch, but everyone gets fun tools to use in PvP. Let's check out all these toys across all specs.
Shifting Perspectives: Beta build 12803
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting feral/restoration druids and those who group with them. This week, we ponder change. Beta build 12803 dropped late Friday, and with it a number of changes to the feral and restoration specs. Some are what you'd expect after some recent forum conversations with Ghostcrawler (lead systems designer), and others came out of left field. We'll take a look past the cut.
Video: Activision, circa 1981
It was a wonderful time for America and an even more wonderful time for video games, which would, in a few years, emerge as the most important thing ever. But, back in 1981, Activision, a young scrapper in a booming industry who would one day become champion of the video game world (after defeating Apollo Creed, of course), created a now-hilarious video as a means to market the company and its products -- and that's probably the best part of this little spiel: the products. Peppered throughout the video are brief commercials for some of the company's games, including Kaboom!, Stampede and Ice Hockey -- ads very different from how Activision would market something like, say, Call of Duty: Black Ops, today. Man, remember when you could just go and call a game Ice Hockey? The times, they've done changed! [Note: Embedding has been disabled, so you'll have to head on over to YouTube to watch the video.]
Game Room adds Asteroids, Time Pilot and more
Game Pack 004 is now available for Game Room, featuring seven new titles. The two standouts are Asteroids and Time Pilot, classics of the arcade days of yore. Also in the pack are a handful of Activision Atari 2600 games, including Stampede, Grand Prix and Demons to Diamonds. Rounding out the pack is the arcade game Space Duel and the Intellivision title Shark! Shark!. The pack itself is free, while individual games run 240 ($3) to 400 ($5) depending on the license. Xbox.com: Add Game Room Game Pack 004 to your Xbox 360 download queue
Chinese WoW partial relaunch pics, comparison shots of censorship
MMOsite.com has nabbed some pictures of the return to the Chinese World of Warcraft. As you know if you've been paying attention, the game has been offline over there for a few months now, but the game just recently got approved to go back online, and so they're in the middle of a "partial relaunch" (which I believe is taking the form of a closed beta) and the servers are crowding up again. As you can see, there's a stampede (much like ours) going on in Thunder Bluff -- looks like players are happy to be online again.They also have some comparison images of the censorship found over there. Anything with skulls or bones on it is out, and the offending images have been replaced with piles of dirt and bags and debris. Blood appears as black oil rather than red liquid, and even player corpses are out. As you can see, everywhere players die, there are instead little graves and tombstones around. Very interesting. No idea if this actually "helps" in China (or what the point of the censorship is -- seems as though it's a cultural thing, more like it's a respect for death and dead bodies rather than worrying about whether people will be disturbed by the mention of violence), but of course the government over there has final say on what goes into the game, and apparently this is what they approved. Hopefully Chinese players will be headed back to Northrend before long.
WoW Patch 3.1 PTR Hunter changes
The notes for Patch 3.1 and news on some undocumented changes to classes and glyphs have recently become available, and there are plenty of changes in store for us hunters. You can expect some changes to all three trees (some of which are rather minor) as well as changes to how our pets and glyphs. Lets take a look at some of the information coming down the pipe and see just what effect it will have on our game play.Beast MasteryThe Beast Mastery tree is slated for just one minor change at the moment. There were hints from Ghostcrawler previously that the tree would receive buffs for Ulduar, but so far nothing major appears to have surfaced. For now, Improved Aspect of the Hawk is receiving a minor facelift in the form of a new spell effect being added to the talent.
The Great WoW Insider Stormwind Stampede
This was the scene last night on the Horde side of Zangarmarsh, as WoW Insider's It Came from the Blog made bovine history and ran roughly 500 cows from Mulgore to Stormwind. Amidst shouts of "For the Herd!" and "Moooo," hundreds of level one Taurens appeared in Camp Narache -- blue shirts were premade by our own Krystalle and given out to the guildies that showed up, but first we ran out of shirts, and then we ran out of guild invites as we hit the system limit. Last I heard we had eight raid groups going, we had taken over one Ventrilo server, tons of guilds from both Zangarmarsh and other realms (including those down for maintenance) got involved, and at least a few thousand yells went out across the land. Finally, at 8pm server, Krystalle counted us down and the race began.We stuck to the road for a good thirty seconds, but eventually got split up in the Barrens-- we'd planned to all go on the Zep, but another group (including me), split off to take the boat from Ratchet. In Stranglethorn, many burgers were made-- I stuck to the center of the group and watched cows get downed by tigers left and right. I didn't die until Westfall, when stupid human guards on the road decided to one-shot me.Finally, at Stormwind, the scene was chaos-- cows dead everywhere, as stepping inside an Alliance city, even on a PvE server, flags you. People were AoEing on the Stormwind bridge, and even just inside the city, guards were felling cows left and right. A few people made it to the tram (unfortunately, the closest graveyard useable by Horde is all the way at the Eastvale Logging Camp, so it was a long run back), but we heard that the first person to find our Alliance plant, Insiderspy, and blow her a kiss, was Fiverr, our winner. Fiverr gets exactly what everyone else got, though-- a great time. Here's a gallery of what happened (updated as we add more and more photos to it), and we'll put more videos after the break as we find and hear about them. Thanks to everyone who came out! For the Herd!*edited to add* Another video is available after the jump!%Gallery-5943%
Activision joins the return to retro
A slightly old news story about games that are very old. If you aren't sick of retro games yet, then Activision would like for you to read up on their offering of repackaged classics. Activision Hits Remixed will feature more than 40 games from the Atari 2600 era, such as Pitfall, Kaboom!, Chopper Command, Stampede, and Keystone Kapers. Thankfully, games that feature multiplayer will utilize the Game Share feature of the PSP, so that you and a friend can duke it out with a single UMD.The disc will also feature "modernized front-end graphics" (as fancy as the PS3's front-end?) and unlockables. I would get excited, but I'm too busy not caring.[Via Gamespot]
