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Encrypted Text: More rogue poison news from Ghostcrawler
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here. Two weeks ago, I asked you to throw out everything you knew about rogue poisons. I was being silly, because I know that would be a lot to ask. Many of us have spent years learning the intricacies of the poison system, studying PPM charts and evaluating our options. Unfortunately, it looks like there was actually no hyperbole in my original request. With the latest round of info we've received, every single poison mechanic in the game will be overhauled in Mists of Pandaria. We already know about the new lethal/non-lethal designations and how we'll be able to have two poisons on both of our weapons at all times. We already know that poisons will be critting for double damage in Mists and that their crit chance will be calculated based on our melee crit rate. These improvements are just what we needed to increase our utility options and to boost crit's viability as a secondary stat. In addition to these sweeping changes to poison crit mechanics, we've learned that poison's hit mechanics are also being revamped.
Lichborne: The effect of the new stat changes on death knights
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. We're still a couple of weeks away from the dam burst that is the Mists of Pandaria press event, but in the meantime, Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street has posted a new Dev Watercooler. He listed some stat changes coming in Mists that, while ostensibly not as complicated as those in Wrath, still hold some interesting and possibly major implications for class balance in the coming expansion. Let's dive right in and see what they mean for death knights. Blocking takes a week While it doesn't directly affect us, the blocking changes will certainly shake up the tanking hierarchy that we're a part of, so it's worth pointing out that the usual single roll combat table for dodging, parrying, or blocking a hit is gone. Instead, the chance to block will be calculated only after the dodge and parry chance is calculated. This essentially means that being unhittable is gone. You can't just stack to 102.4%. Of course, death knights and druids have never been able to do this, but they will now be joined by the shield tanks.
Looking at the PvP stat changes outlined by Ghostcrawler
I'm sure you all have seen the latest Dev Watercooler by the big man (Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street) himself. And I'm sure you will all have noticed the biggest news in there (in my opinion, anyway) is the section about the PvP-related changes to resilience. Disclaimer: This is not absolute. Just like the changes, it's almost impossible to see how they will play out without trying them for ourselves once the beta comes along. But I want to hear your opinions, both on these changes and on my thoughts. Let's talk it out, people! First and foremost, I don't know about you, but I am really not digging the names. I reckon a tidy solution might be to sling in a PvP section in the character pane. If Blizzard did it within the character pane, it would just avoid the clumsiness of adding the "PvP" into the actual stat, and (I think) it would make it easy for players to understand what they were looking at. Of course, Blizzard could call the new stats "Bob" and "Vera" for all it would really matter to their performance!
The Queue: Live, from Hollywood, it's the Fox Van Allen show
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. The stunningly handsome Fox Van Allen will be your host today. I'm sure some of you are already familiar with my travels, but I've been in California since Tuesday. The last few days, I've been checking in at the Venice Beach offices of Tecca (my new day job), and yesterday afternoon, I went down to Irvine to get lunch with Mike Sacco. Of course, no trip to southern California would ever be complete without a trip to The Price is Right. I met up with actress Michele Morrow in Hollywood, and after a few mimosas, an afternoon of pricing games, and a cocktail at lunch, we went back and recorded a brief vlog. (What a terrible word that is. Vlog.) Enjoy. Oh, wait -- what's that? I have to answer your questions today, too? What nonsense is this? I'm supposed to be vacationing. Darren asked: Do you think Blizzard will take a few minutes while working on Mists and reduce the level requirement for the Outland cooking and fishing dailies? Its kinda dumb that they arent available until you character is already in Northrend.
Ghostcrawler explains stat changes in Mists of Pandaria
As promised, Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street, the Lead Systems Designer for World of Warcraft, has returned to the official WoW blog with an explanation of stat changes in Mists of Pandaria. Here's a quick rundown of some important changes, with the full blue post after the break. Spell resistance is gone, and so is spell penetration. The chance to block will be handled by a separate combat roll for each attack that is not avoided. Resilience will be renamed "Defense (PvP)" or possibly "PvP Defense." All players will have 30% base Defense, the same way all characters have some base Stamina. All spells and abilities will crit for double damage, baseline. Lots more after the break.
Dev Watercooler: Ghostcrawler on class roles
With the Mists of Pandaria press event still a month down the road, Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street has posted a new Dev Watercooler to keep us busy. This time, he philosophizes on the role of class roles. He cautions up front that this is not meant to be any sort of announcement or even hint at what's to come in Mists of Pandaria. But at the same time, the struggle of what to do with class roles is one that's always relevant and ongoing within the game, and that includes Mists of Pandaria. Ghostcrawler gets right into the meat of it with this blog, asking questions and discussing various methods of balance. Do we strive for perfect balance among all DPS specs? Is it fine to leave certain specs with specialties? Should we return to the days of the solid divide between PvP and PvE specs, as it was in the vanilla era? Should each class just have one DPS talent tree? Read on for all of Ghostcrawler's comments.
Scattered Shots: Frostheim's interview with an imaginary Ghostcrawler
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. This is not actually an interview with Ghostcrawler. I did not ask him any of these questions, and he did not answer with any of these answers. But in a deeper sense, a more spiritual sense, Ghostcrawler and I are two lost souls reaching for each other across the vastness of the information superhighway, each seeking that other half to fill the emptiness within us. We are platonic life partners bound by the love of the hunter experience. Because of this connection we share, this ephemeral bond, I am able to predict how he'd answer if we did in fact conduct an interview. If I happened to sit at a bar next to Ghostcrawler in the not-too-distant future and our eyes met over a glass of stout in a moment of magic, I think we can agree that everything in the following transcript is exactly as he would say it. The only thing that might possibly be different is the words.
Blizzard talks Mists of Pandaria talent tree tweaks
Blizzard lead systems designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street has penned a small novella on the official World of Warcraft website. The subject of the text dump is talent trees, and more specifically, how they'll be affected by the game's upcoming Mists of Pandaria expansion. Street addresses 10 of the most common concerns that players have voiced regarding the changes, and some of his answers are more interesting than you might think. As an example, many WoW players have said that the talent revamp will result in fewer choices across the board. Street admits that this sentiment is "ultimately correct," though he does qualify that with an assertion that players will have more choices that matter. Head to Battle.net to read the rest of his explanations.
Ghostcrawler on the philosophy behind the Mists of Pandaria talent trees
Greg Street, aka Ghostcrawler (the lead systems designer), has posted some comments today dealing with the philosophy behind the talent system changes in Mists of Pandaria. He makes note that Blizzard's been getting a lot of feedback on these changes and that it wants more. (And he's serious, too -- the devs all do listen to what the community is saying.) Some of the more interesting points include that the new system really is giving us fewer choices overall but making sure that the choices we have actually matter. This has been a fundamental shift that Blizzard has been moving toward for the past few years, away from the cookie-cutter builds and non-choice choices. Greg even goes as far to say, "Look, we tried the talent tree model for seven years. We think it's fundamentally flawed and unfixable." That's a pretty huge thing for Blizzard to admit; kudos to Blizzard for realizing this and talking openly about it. The full post after the break.
Raid Rx: A new balance for intellect and spirit in Mists of Pandaria
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poohbah of World of Matticus and a founder of Plus Heal, a discussion community for healers of all experience levels and interests. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading, the Matticast. One of the proposed revamps coming in Mists of Pandaria is the way intellect and spirit interact with each other in regards to healers. For the new healer, understanding the current formula for mana regen can be a little daunting. To make it really easy, let's just say that it plays off both your spirit and your intellect. However, your intellect has a gradually increasing impact on how much mana you gain back in combat situations as your gear improves. It appears that will no longer be the case heading into the next expansion. Ghostcrawler (lead systems designer) helped shed some light on the issue in a blue post earlier in the week. The highlights? Intellect becomes a sheer throughput stat Spirit controls the rate of mana regen Mana pools will remain fixed
Ghostcrawler explains patch 4.3 balance changes
With patch 4.3 on the horizon, Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street (lead systems designer) has taken to the WoW community blog to discuss class and balance changes that are coming with the next big update to the game. Ghostcrawler had previously discussed some balance changes in part one of his balance change blogs, but it was missing some classes that Blizzard wasn't ready to talk about just yet. Now, we've got notes and discussions on each class currently in game. I'm a huge fan of Ghostcrawler's to-the-point blog posts about the focus and design of classes, and this is just another in the now long line of awesome insights into the design process. Death knight and druid tanks are getting some buffs to bring them more in line with the block-heavy warriors and paladins, and block capping for both warriors and paladins is not being discouraged. Feral druids are getting a Glyph of Shred change that will hopefully help their rotations, and beast mastery hunters are getting a slight buff. As we found out from before, paladins' Holy Radiance is getting a change to be more of a focused AOE heal, and priests are getting a buff to Guardian Spirit. Shaman initially were hit with a huge Wind Shear nerf, which has been rolled back slightly. Demonology and destruction warlocks are getting a slight buff to be more competitive with afflocks, and hopefully warrior "charge jumping" has been fixed for good. You've promised me this before, Ghostcrawler! Where's my charge-jumping pony-moose? Check out the full blog post after the jump.
Class balance questions answered by WoW developers
In just a few moments, Blizzard's second developer Q&A hosted via CoverItLive will begin. Last time around, players were invited to ask questions about all things Mists of Pandaria, and it really went quite well. This afternoon, in a session timed to fit European players' schedules, the Q&A will sharpen its focus and discuss class balance and design. The Q&A will be hosted and moderated by Blizzard Entertainment community managers Zarhym and Bashiok with developers Celestalon, Ghostcrawler, Koraa, Watcher, Wradyx, and Xelnath in attendance as panelists. If you wish to attend the event, the CoverItLive client has been embedded behind the cut below. To participate, you can log into CoverItLive with your Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, or OpenID credentials. If you don't want to use any of those, you are allowed to sign in as a guest. If you're unable to attend to event at all, don't fret: we'll have a transcript for you right here on WoW Insider once the panel has concluded. Update: The Q&A is now live! Update #2: The Q&A has ended and our transcript will be available shortly. Update #3: Here's our transcript!
Encrypted Text: How PoisonSwapper shaped rogues forever
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here. Rogues are a pure DPS class, which means that all three of our ability trees are DPS-focused. We don't have the capability to heal or tank, and our ranged attack arsenal is weaker than a hunter's argument that he deserves a Crystallized Firestone for his Ranseur of Hatred. While there are other pure DPS classes like the mage and warlock, rogue specs have more in common than fire and arcane or destruction and demonology. Our combo point rotation system defines each talent tree's playstyle, and many of our signature spells are shared between all specs. Because of the similarities between our specs, there are several concepts that apply to all rogues. I've called these axioms, rules, and laws in the past, but the truth is that they're not always inscribed in stone for everyone to read. I'm talking about the knowledge that established rogues take for granted, as we're so used to our habits that we forget why we started them in the first place.
Ol' Grumpy and the grimoire of gear inflation
Hello again, everybody. I'm Ol' Grumpy. You might remember me from such posts as Ol' Grumpy and the Goblet of Firelands adjustments or Ol' Grumpy's guide to outdated content and you. This time, we're going to be talking about what gear inflation is, how it happens, and why something eventually has to be done about it. Gear inflation has actually been a concern of mine since about halfway through Wrath of the Lich King's expansion cycle. Back then, it was armor penetration that really set off my gear inflation warning bells, a stat that's since gone the way of the dodo. If you remember ArP, you remember that it start acting extremely weird at higher gear levels and often had to be adjusted and capped to keep it from doing things like reducing target armor into the negative. In essence, for a brief period after Ulduar dropped, ArP could actually cause your target to have negative armor values so that their damage taken was increased by a percentage instead of just reduced by a percentage. This was very wonky. It was quickly capped and the stat adjusted. But by ICC levels of gear, it was possible again to reach 100% ArP, and doing so was absolutely your best bet as a melee DPS. Now, let's be honest: Gear inflation is the inevitable by-product of a game where one increases in power via leveling and gaining new gear. It must happen. If you simply look at gear from original World of Warcraft's 1 to 60 game, you'll see that gear steadily increases in power and that raid gear from MC to BWL/AQ and to the now-vanished Naxxramas-40 steadily increases in power. Indeed, Naxx-40 gear was such an upgrade in power that it was roughly as strong as blue drops from level 70 instances. You could raid Karazhan in Naxx-40 gear. The Burning Crusade dealt with gear inflation differently than its successors did because it could.
Class design and balance Q&A session coming this Wednesday
Hot off the heels of its wildly successful Mists of Pandaria live Q&A, the WoW dev team plans to hold another online Q&A, this time on the subject of class design and balance. Community Manager Zarhym's just announced that it will take place on Wednesday, Nov. 9, from 10:45 a.m. to noon PST. The chat will be held on CoverItLive, hosted by Bashiok and Zarhym. Answering questions will be Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street along with Celestalon, Koraa, Watcher, Wradyx, and Xelnath. As with the last Q&A, the chat will use the CoverItLive system, so make sure you're signed up and familiar with it if you want to ask a question. Check after the break for the text of the announcement.
Encrypted Text: Hot rogue news from the developer Q&A
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here. I went all the way to BlizzCon this year, stood in line to ask the developers about rogue utility in person, and didn't really get an answer that anyone was satisfied with. Rogue utility came from our stuns, which every melee class now has in spades. I hung my head and accepted that rogues were going to suffer through another expansion without any improvements. I had been hoping that Ghostcrawler, WoW's lead systems developer, would have more news to share. But then, at first light on the fifth day after BlizzCon, Ghostcrawler appeared atop the hill on his brilliant crab Shadowfax. His white robes shone brilliantly in the bright dawn, and his nerf bat was raised high over his head. With him rode 1,000 answers, ready to rush down the hill to trample our questions, which were rallying in the valley below. As he parted his lips, a beautiful song poured forth: "We are reworking poisons."
Mists of Pandaria live developer Q&A transcript
Blizzard held a Mists of Pandaria live developer Q&A this evening. It was moderated by Community Manager Zarhym, with most of the questions being answered by Cory "Mumper" Stockton and Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street. The questions ran the gamut from serious to silly and offered a lot of great insight into the upcoming expansion and the inner workings of the development team. Highlights include, but are not limited to: The new Pandaria faction hubs New guild levels and perks New talent system Pet Battle system, including a possible spectator mode The possible abolishing of prime glyphs Ghostcrawler's feelings on #OccupyGregStreet Matticus. Just ... Matticus. The developers have already expressed interest in holding more of these chats, and I know I'm all in favor of it. For more information on the content of this evening's chat, check the official site, or stick with us after the break for a complete transcript.
First Mists of Pandaria developer chat Thursday
Missed BlizzCon this year? Went, but didn't get a chance to ask a question? Well, here's your chance! Community Manager Zarhym has announced that the first Mists of Pandaria developer chat will be held at 5 p.m. PDT this Thursday, Oct. 27. One important thing to note: This chat will use the CoverItLive system instead of Twitter, so you'll want to register an account prior to the chat if you intend to ask a question. If you can't make the chat, don't worry -- your fearless WoW Insider writers will have a transcript and analysis ready shortly after the chat ends. See the full post below: Developer Chat This Thursday, October 27, we'll be hosting a one-hour live online developer Q&A with Lead Content Designer Cory "Mumper" Stockton and Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street, beginning at 5:00 p.m. PDT. I'll be moderating the discussion to help facilitate a smooth and productive conversation. Given all the information revealed last weekend at BlizzCon 2011, we feel it's fitting for this chat to be focused on the next expansion, World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria. While we've held some developer "chats" in the past, we're going to be using CoverItLive for this event. We welcome anyone to join us for the chat, but in order to participate you'll want to visit the official CoverItLive website beforehand to create an account -- it only takes a few moments. The Q&A itself, however, will take place on the front page of our website with the CoverItLive platform embedded in a blog. Once the chat goes live, all you have to do is log into the CoverItLive client embedded on our front page, ask any question relating to Mists of Pandaria, and read along as the developers field as many questions as they can. This will be a moderated chat, meaning your questions will only initially be seen by the developers. If selected, your question will be published for all to see, and an answer will be provided. We ask that you keep the questions as concise as possible and understand that we won't be able to get to all of them. We'll be choosing questions based on the information we can reasonably provide, and what kinds of answers we feel will be the most compelling for the entire audience. Questions can no longer be submitted once the chat ends, but you'll still be able to review a transcript of the questions and answers that were posted. We'll be taking note of what works and what doesn't during this Thursday's chat, as we hope to make CoverItLive our standard tool for facilitating live developer Q&A sessions going forward. Join us this Thursday at 5:00 p.m. and let's all work to make this a successful discussion between players and developers! source
Everything is Ghostcrawler's fault with #OccupyGregStreet
Greg Street, better known as Ghostcrawler (lead systems designer on World of Warcraft), is at the center of a vast game designer conspiracy ruining the in-game lives of millions of players. Or so goes the popular theory espoused by the exploding Twitter hashtag #OccupyGregStreet spoofing (what else?) the Occupy Wall Street movement. As Mike Sacco explained in WoW Insider's back room chat, the joke originated from a conversation he'd had at BlizzCon with Narci (@druidis4fite) of Flavor Text, and as far as I can tell, the first tweets are from Narci and @malgrim on the con's second day. WoW Insider's first tweet with the hashtag went live around 1:00 this morning. Things snowballed from there and reached new levels of hilarity when the official World of Warcraft Twitter account (@warcraft) got in on the joke.
BlizzCon 2011: Blizzard reveals new talent system
Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street got on stage at Blizzcon a few moments ago to unveil an entirely overhauled talent system for Mists of Pandaria, the next World of Warcraft expansion. After four expansions of "cookie cutter" talent builds, Blizzard has broken and reconstructed the entire talent system in order to put the choice for talents directly into the hands of the players. They strove for this in Cataclysm and made some good advances, but ultimately fell short of the goal. Like the current talent system, players will choose their specialization at level 10. This specialization chooses what abilities you'll be gaining as you'll level up, rather than there being baseline talents. There will be a few baseline class abilities, but not nearly as many. According to Ghostcrawler, these spec abilities will be "anything your spec requires." Spec abilities will be learned out in the field when you level; you only need to visit the trainer to choose a new specialization! In the preview at Blizzcon, the holy specialization for paladins received staple holy abilities, such as Holy Shock, Holy Light, and Beacon of Light. Some specialization abilities will be available to two specs, such as both ret and prot getting Hammer of the Righteous. The other part of the talent system is that there is now one talent tree for every class. At every 15 levels, you get one talent point, which can be put into one of three talents for that level. You can't go back and take previous talents. These talents are looking to be abilities, not boring things like passive healing or damage buttons. There are no ranks for these talents. The goal is for there to be no mandatory talents, and that you should choose what you want on a per fight/per content/per choice basis. Retalenting should be as accessible as reglyphing is right now. So, for example, a paladin will choose holy for her spec, and as she levels up will gain all her core holy abilities. When she hits level 15, she will gain her first talent point, which will be usable on either Speed of Light, Long Arm of the Law, or Pursuit of Justice, which all sound like a speed boost to me. Once she makes this change, she won't be allowed to choose the other two talents when she gets her next talent point, though she can later choose to retalent if she feels she chose poorly. The three choices you have to take at any level will all share a same theme in common. In the previous paragraph, you have three talents that will be mobility based. (Warriors also get mobility talents at 15, their choices being Juggernaght, Warbringer, and Double Time.) The idea is that you don't forego a mobility ability for a dps ability, or a cc for a survivability cooldown. An important point to note is that even though these abilities have the same names as current talents in the game, they will not have the same effect. They are being redesigned to try to appeal to all three specs in a talent. The point of new talents is to offer a form of utility that you can customize for your playstyle, and not mandatory choices for maximum DPS/HPS/Survivability. All in all, it's looking to be a simplified, better, and ultimately more choice-driven take on talenting, and I couldn't be more excited. Turn to WoW Insider for all your BlizzCon 2011 news and information. Look for our liveblogs of the convention panels, interviews with WoW celebrities -- and of course, lots of pictures of people in costumes. It's all here at WoW Insider!
