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Cataclysm release date set for December 7
Blizzard has just issued an official press release setting Dec. 7, 2010, as the official release date of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm expansion. Press Release IRVINE, Calif., Oct 04, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) - Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that World of Warcraft(R): Cataclysm(TM), the highly anticipated third expansion for the world's most popular subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game*, will be released starting on December 7, 2010. The expansion will be available on DVD-ROM for Windows(R) XP/Windows Vista(R)/Windows(R) 7 and Macintosh(R) at a suggested retail price of $39.99 and will also be offered as a digital download from the Blizzard Store. A special Collector's Edition packed with bonus items will be available exclusively in retail stores for a suggested retail price of $79.99. "Cataclysm includes the best content we've ever created for World of Warcraft. It's not just an expansion, but a re-creation of much of the original Azeroth, complete with epic new high-level adventures for current players and a redesigned leveling experience for those just starting out," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "With the help of our beta testers, we're putting on the final polish, and we look forward to welcoming gamers around the world to enjoy it in just a couple of months." The first two World of Warcraft expansions, The Burning Crusade(R) and Wrath of the Lich King(R), each shattered PC game sales records upon their release.* In Cataclysm, the face of Azeroth will be forever altered by the return of the corrupted Dragon Aspect Deathwing. Players will explore once-familiar areas of the world that have now been reshaped by the devastation and filled with new adventures. In an effort to survive the planet-shattering cataclysm, two new playable races - worgen and goblins - will join the struggle between the Alliance and the Horde. As players journey to the new level cap of 85, they'll discover newly revealed locations, acquire new levels of power, and come face to face with Deathwing in a battle to determine the fate of the world. The beta test for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is currently underway. Visit the official Battle.net(R) website at http://www.battle.net to set up a Battle.net account and sign up for a chance to participate. To learn more about World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, visit http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/cataclysm.
The Light and How to Swing It: Cataclysm heroics from a holy paladin's perspective
Every Sunday, Chase Christian of The Light and How to Swing It invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. This week, we examine how it feels to heal a heroic in the new expansion I've been spending my evenings churning through heroics on the Cataclysm beta. It's a bit unsettling to heal as a holy paladin in the dungeon environment, because it feels like you're playing bizzaro-WoW. Holy Shock is your main heal, Holy Light isn't the button you go to when your tank is dipping dangerously low, and you're actually watching for procs instead of settling into a steady state of heal spamming. Not only that, but we've now got options when it comes to healing more than one target. Our precious Glyph of Holy Light is gone, but it's been replaced by far more powerful options. Holy Radiance allows us to heal either melee or ranged players, based on our location. Light of Dawn gives us our AoE toolbox a ranged option, with a sweet graphic effect to boot. The core fundamentals of paladin healers are still around, and our Hand spells are still as potent as ever, but now we've got a more robust set of tools to handle every situation. Needless to say, your number of keybindings will expand significantly.
The Queue: The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice!
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. Dogs and cat-bat-scorpions living together! Mass hysteria! Bobury asked: When Deathwing comes, where does he come from and which places does he hit first? Deathwing emerges from Deepholm, breaking the "ceiling" of the elemental plane of earth and coming out in the center of the dimensionally weak Maelstrom. We know he visits several places afterward, including Mount Hyjal, Badlands, Stormwind and Orgrimmar.
Arcane Brilliance: Catching up on mage Cataclysm changes
Each week, Arcane Brilliance steps out of a portal from parts unknown, bringing with it a knapsack full of delicious mage content conjured expressly for your consumption. Try not to overconsume, though. Nothing's worse than waking up one morning to discover your robes don't fit and your fingers are too chubby to waggle your wand properly. And after that culinary intro joke, it's time we got to the meat of the matter -- specifically, the Cataclysm beta and the constant mage changes going on therein. Each week (and sometimes more than once during each week), a new beta build hits that brings more new stuff for mages. Sometimes these changes are big, and sometimes they're not, but I feel like it's high time we spent a column talking about the more recent ones. I've let like five builds go by without dealing specifically with this stuff, so we'd better get going. I figure we'll start with the most important change and move forward from there.
Cataclysm rewards low-level faction loyalty with cloaks, bags
While stomping around your home city in Cataclysm, you might notice a new quartermaster NPC hanging around the travel area. He or she stocks a total of five items (at least so far), shown above: a high-resolution city tabard that requires friendly standing with that city; a reasonably-priced 16-slot bag (unique) requiring revered standing to purchase; and level 35 blue cloaks (also in gorgeous high resolution) in caster, agility and strength varieties, requiring exalted standing. What's interesting about the required reputation on these items is how they relate to the leveling process. If you choose to stay on your "main" continent -- Kalimdor for night elves, for example, or Eastern Kingdoms for Forsaken -- then your reputation will hit the proper level just as these items become useful. The tabard can be picked up at any time, since almost every race starts at friendly standing with its faction's cities. The bag, on the other hand, shows up at a point in the leveling process when a new player (or fresh reroll on a new server/faction) is going to start wishing he had another big bag like the backpack. And the cloaks are available at level 35 -- a level at which, on my worgen fire mage, I had just hit exalted with Darnassus and was very close to hitting exalted with Stormwind. So on top of a cloak tailored to my spec, I also had two 16-slot bags available -- which for a new player is like winning the lottery. This is a great way to educate new players on how WoW's reputation system works, and it provides some neat rewards to boot. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.
The Queue: Definitely not a kitten, at all
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. I think we can all agree that the above picture is not a kitten, thus ending the cute-baby-animals theme used in header images in The Queue once and for all. The Dark Wayne asked: There's one question that's been on my mind ever since 3.3 came out: Will we be able to obtain Shadowmourne or at least Shadow's Edge in Cataclysm? If we can, will we also still be able to get the fancy box of lore trinkets that drop when you kill the LK with it? Given that it's part of the We Are Legendary guild achievement, all signs point to yes.
The Queue: Yes, kittens again
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. Don't like kittens? Too bad, I've got a room full of them, plus enough pictures of them to wallpaper the Taj Mahal. Nyold asked: I have a question about mastery system. A lot of the description says something like "each point of mastery increases the damage by an additional 2%." Does this mean each mastery RATING found in gear, or is there another conversion from mastery rating to mastery skill (kinda like how crit rating and crit percentage is)? Mastery works like most other ratings in that there's a conversion from the points you have on gear (rating) to the effect you see on your character window (skill). The formula varies from spec to spec.
Flexible raid locks in patch 4.0.1
In patch 4.0.1, Blizzard will roll out a new "flexible raid lock" system in Icecrown Citadel and The Ruby Sanctum. This system has a few major changes in it, outlined below: You are no longer locked to the raid upon zoning in, but to a specific boss kill. You are no longer locked to a specific raid size or group. Heroics have greater restrictions placed on them. All Wrath raids will use this system once Cataclysm releases. All Cataclysm raids will use this system. This only applies to raids and not to normal or heroic dungeons. The full Blizzard statement after the break.
Raid Rx: The evolving healing UI
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. If you're looking for more healing advice, check out the Plus Heal community. I race-changed to a goblin. I look so weird with the hair and riding a Frost Wyrm. It feels like my mount could eat me in one gulp. Little by little, Blizzard continues to make adjustments to the default user interface to make the overall experience better. I don't think its intent is to completely stamp out third-party addons. But it is nice to have tools and features already in place so that a player doesn't have to feel required to get some addon in order to do something. In the past, players used threat addons like KTM and, later on, Omen. For healers, though, the ultimate addon we need to do our jobs is some form of raid frames. Whether it is Grid, Vuhdo (see the Cataclysm version if you wish to test it on the test servers) or something else, it is these addons that give us the capability to keep the raid alive and remove nasty debuffs. The default raiding UI falls short in many areas. It's not really bad or anything; we just had better choices. So what new UI elements are out there that help make the experience a better one for healers overall?
The OverAchiever: Do them now!
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, it's time to get a move on. We've had some recent news concerning achievements in categories we've already covered, and my original intent this week was to play catch-up with that in addition to finishing off the new reputation, world event, and feat of strength achievements in Cataclysm. However, given equally recent news concerning achievements that are set to become feats (and may do so as early as patch 4.0.1), I thought it would be more sensible to cover the stuff that you'd want to do as soon as possible before it disappears. I've cross-checked the list of known Cataclysm feats of strength against the feats already present in game, and as far as I know, this should be a comprehensive set of current Wrath of the Lich King achievements that will become inaccessible as of patch 4.0.1, patch 4.0.3, or Cataclysm's release (or at least, a comprehensive list as of the current beta and PTR builds). I've written this list assuming the following: Although it hasn't been officially confirmed that all of these will disappear in patch 4.0.1 or 4.0.3 rather than the expansion itself, for the time being, I'm guessing it's one of the two patches you need to worry about. With the recent announcement of arena Season 8 ending on Oct. 12, 4.0.1 may hit in less than two weeks. Zarhym's post just made it clear that the season could end as early as the 12th, not that it definitely would, and there's still a lot of stuff to fix on the PTR and beta -- but every Tuesday from hereon is a potential patch day. Accepting Oct. 5 or 12 as possible patch dates, I've included an opinion on the feasibility of getting the following achievements done as quickly as possible.
Spiritual Guidance: Welcome to Cataclysm heroics, shadow priests
Welcome to the Wednesday edition of Spiritual Guidance, where your host Fox Van Allen takes on the darker, shadowy side of priesting. While your holy columnist Dawn Moore was busy trying to plant suggestions regarding the alleged superiority of healing, Fox was busy casting Mind Control to demonstrate the superiority of the shadows. Right now, on the live Wrath servers, shadow priesting seems to fit like a glove. That's not necessarily a result of our class and mechanics being perfect -- they're not. It's a result of their feeling familiar. We've been playing under the rules of patch 3.3 for nearly a year now and it feels natural; it feels right. We're blessed with strong damage and near unlimited mana -- provided we put in the effort to know how to make both of those a reality. It's hard to accept that 4.0.1 is bringing such major changes, especially in the realm of that once unlimited mana bar. It's gone, and it's not coming back any time soon. If you need any evidence, consider this: After slashing mana regen to the bone last week, Blizzard followed up by cutting regen even more this week in the latest beta build. (For something called a "nerf," these cuts sure hit like a Mack truck, don't they?) These changes to regen may make the 80-to-85 leveling process more tedious, but they don't necessarily make it more difficult. If the pinch is going to be felt anywhere, it's going to be in 5-man instances, heroics and raids. Since raids aren't quite available yet, I decided to queue up for some heroics instead to get as much Cataclysm endgame flavor as I could. Can our mana bars handle the stress? How weird and different are our new rotations? And how can shadow priests add much-needed value to a party above and beyond the standard DPS abilities in Cataclysm? The answers to those questions -- plus a stunning 47,306 damage crit -- are all after the break.
Cataclysm Beta: New videos of druid, rogue and warlock tier 11 armor
Blizzard puts an immense amount of time and thought into every piece of tier gear (at least, you'd hope it does). For those of us who raid (even casually), it's the armor set we'll see our characters in the most. You get a blue drop out of a heroic, and you might replace it in a few weeks. You get a piece of tier gear, and ... well, the only thing that's prying that out of your hands is an even better piece of tier gear. That said, our datamining friends over at MMO-Champion have released some terrific finds today -- the tier 11 sets for druids, rogues and warlocks that so many of you will be wearing just a few months after the Cataclysm release. The druid set, which seems to turn you into some manner of electrified bird-man, is absolutely gorgeous. Warlocks get a nice, evil-looking set that comes complete with skewed horns. As for rogues ... well, somewhere out there, there's a rogue who roleplays as an Arabian ghost -- and man, is he happy today! Though the full warrior set is not yet in the Cataclysm beta files, MMO Champion did dig up the warrior tier 11 helm, so the Matt Rossi posse gets a sneak peek at its gear as an added bonus. The video for the druid tier 11 is above; rogues, warlocks and warriors will have to follow me after the break.
Encrypted Text: Cataclysm heroics from a rogue's perspective
Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the rogue class. This week, we discuss the new heroic dungeons in the upcoming expansion. I remember what it was like to play a rogue in dungeons in vanilla WoW. Our only form of long-term crowd control was Sap, and it brought us out of stealth every time we used it. Subtlety rogues could spend three talent points on Improved Sap, which still left Sap knocking us out of Stealth a tenth of the time. Every mob had some sort of AoE or whirlwind-style attack, and rogues were often right behind tanks in terms of healing necessary. We've come a long way since the old days. Tricks of the Trade, with its instant threat transfer, has become the crutch that supports even the greenest tanks. Fan of Knives is one of the best AoE abilities in the game and synergizes with our poisons for incredible potency. Improved Sap has been baked in to the ability, and we can use our CC safely on a wide variety of targets. Feint's new ability to reduce our AoE damage taken also allows us to survive most attacks. You might say that rogues are nearly perfect for running heroics. Unfortunately for us, Cataclysm's heroics have a thing or two to teach us about complacency.
The Queue: The prodigal editor
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. I did it. I finally did it. I managed to wrest control of The Queue back from McCurley. It was horrible. Horrible. The things he did to it ... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, everybody. It won't happen again, I swear. (Until I find myself incredibly busy with other WoW Insider projects again, that is.) Siaperas asked: With Zul'Gurub going the way of the dodo, is it still possible to rep up with Zandalar?
Shifting Perspectives: Restoration talents in 13066
Every week, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting feral/restoration druids and those who group with them. This week, we eschew the future in favor of the present, and are also delighted to discover that the Mac video capture bug appears to have been fixed on the beta. Many thanks to Raylis of Wyrmrest Accord for putting together a guide to troll form associations and allowing me to use it. We'll have a worgen version up once the barbershop starts cooperating! Resto's picked up a lot of interesting stuff recently. Whether these changes survive to patch 4.0.1 intact is anyone's guess, but today's column is a comprehensive look at all restoration talents as of build 13066 on a level 85 premade druid (average ilevel 335). Because the subject matter's on the dry side unless you're a healer, I've also included: Some notes concerning Cataclysm questing Why Anduin Wrynn is awesome Video of male worgen interrogation techniques (now that my video capture is actually working, you'll see more videos popping up soon) Video of said male worgen casting most of our heals with the user interface active to give you a sense of the numbers and efficiency you'll see at level 85 with pre-heroic blues
Lichborne: Unholy and the state of the Cataclysm beta talent trees
Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly source for news, guides, tips and opinions on the death knight class. With this week's Lichborne, I was hoping to have run a few heroic Cataclysm dungeons so I could report back to you on how death knights play through them -- but alas, it was not to be, as my beta client refuses to log in to the game without crashing. Luckily, there are plenty of things to discuss apart from that. This week, I'd like to discuss our talent trees as they currently are in the beta and where things are headed for us as the release date draws nearer.
Totem Talk: Totems and heroics in Cataclysm
Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration will show you how, brought to you by Joe Perez, otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and host of the BDTU: Lore edition podcast. Last week, we talked about what to expect in the upcoming patch 4.0.1 and how healing felt in the new pre-Cataclysm patch. After that, we also got news of a very important update for us in the latest PTR build, patch 13033, with Mana Tide Totem's recent change to increase our spirit by 200 percent rather than just give a flat percentage of mana back when used. The cooldown of the ability was reduced to 3 minutes, down from 5 minutes. Last week, heroic dungeons were also made available in the Cataclysm beta for us to test out, including heroic Shadowfang Keep and heroic Deadmines. This week, I would like to talk a little bit more about the changes to Mana Tide Totem and what to expect using it in the next expansion. I would also like to share with you my experiences healing through the new heroic dungeons as a restoration shaman in a new set of blue ilvl 333 gear.
Cataclysm Beta: Worgen emotes and back flip video
Worgen have recently gotten a little bit of an upgrade in the Cataclysm beta. All of their voice emotes now have appropriate sounds to go along with them, and some of their emotes have new animations. Also, like the night elves, worgen now do a flip randomly while jumping. This is, however, a back flip -- and it looks pretty cool. The video above contains a complete catalog of all the available emotes and audio and shows off the new worgen back flip. You also get a chance to see the male worgen dance in action if you've missed it before -- and it is all done with a spiffy top hat to add that little touch of class. Female worgen have yet to be fully implemented in the beta, so we will just have to wait to see if they get any special emotes or animations to go along with them. Be sure to have your speakers turned up a bit, the sound came out a little soft. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.
Justice and valorous quartermasters available in Cataclysm beta
A new beta build was made available last night, and with it, two new vendors located in Stormwind, in the command center found within the Old Town. In preparation for Cataclysm, patch 4.0.1 will bring with it a major gear currency change. These changes do away with the badge system we have now and instead replace them with a point system. Here's a reminder of the breakdown: Justice points low-tier, easy-to-get PvE points that will buy gear (like Emblems of Triumph are now) Valor points high-tier, harder-to-get PvE points that will buy gear (like Emblems of Frost are now) Honor points low-tier, easy-to-get PvP points that will buy PvP gear (like normal honor points are now) Conquest points high-tier, harder-to-get PvP points that will buy PvP gear (like arena points are now) The two new vendors sell all manner of new items, with ilvl346 gear sold by the justice quartermaster and ilvl359 gear sold by the valorous quartermaster. The valorous quartermaster also appears to sell our tier 11 gear. While not all graphics are updated at this time, you can start to get an idea of the level of stats we can expect to see on the gear. Check out our gallery to see what's been added. %Gallery-103362% World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.
The Light and How to Swing It: New paladin heals in Cataclysm
Every Sunday, Chase Christian of The Light and How to Swing It invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. This week, we examine the cool new heals that paladins can look forward to. If you've been playing a holy paladin for any period of time, you're familiar with the feeling of spamming one button. I pushed Cleanse so often in Molten Core that my mouse nearly broke, and the number 2 key on my keyboard has never forgiven me for the rough treatment it received in The Burning Crusade. Our ability selection has been a bit more flexible on Wrath, largely due to our potent mana pool, allowing us to cast any heal we want to. Holy Shock has found its way into our arsenal on a regular basis, and Flash of Light gets a fair amount of usage as a backup spell when Holy Light isn't necessary. While Cataclysm is introducing us to an entirely revamped healing model and our new core heal, Divine Light, the spells look nearly the same as they do today. Our hands do the glowy-light thing, and then someone gets some sparkles raining down over their head. Meanwhile, restoration druids are covering the ground with more flowers than Cenarius' gardener, and resto shamans are literally making rain to water them. Luckily for us, Blizzard saved a few tricks for holy paladins, and our new abilities actually have some amazing animations and useful functions.
