Lovely Charm Bracelet from killing blows only (Source Re: Lovely Charms going to Killing blows?)
You
can get these from any mob "of worth" so you can do any sort of kill
quest to get these including from killing any mobs involved in daily
quests. [...] Yes, it comes from killing blows. On my healing character,
I've had no issues with getting these, (other than when I forgot to
have empty space in my bags for them.)
[...] I did not get them
from instances. It's pretty easy to grab a bunch of mobs and kill them
solo and just as easy to get them via daily quests (or even normal
questing) that you are working on as you're doing them.
The event
just started so, no, there are no current plans to change the
functionality of this. Should we feel it's necessary to make a change,
we'll let you know.
Tanking Cooldowns (Source Re: Explain why Dru hp was fine but not pally)
One
caution is you have to be really careful in how you factor in cooldowns
to estimates or simulations of tank survivability. Some attempts just
assume that e.g. Barkskin is responsible for X% of damage not done over
the course of the encounter. That might be true on some encounters, but
it definitely is not on others. When you can or need to use those
abilities makes a big difference. On some fights, those cooldowns just
give you a little slop room if the healers have a lot on their plate or
have to move or something. On others you just aren't going to survive
without a cooldown.
Dispells in Cataclysm (Source Re: Dispels in Cataclysm PvP)
We'll
talk more about the Cataclysm dispel design when we get a little
closer. Overall the philosophy is that a dispel should be a counter.
That means, to us, that you should have to consider when it makes sense
to use. Dispels shouldn't be a test of how quickly you can mash that key
when you see the icon pop up. Dispelling at the wrong time should cost
you. We also don't want to see such extremely different outcomes
depending on the class of dispeller you have with you.
Itemization in Cataclysm (Source Re: Cata changes with itemization.
Actually,
we aren't trying to make gear choices easier. We like when it's a hard
call on whether to upgrade vs. stick with what you have, etc. In
designer parlance terms, that is an "interesting decision."
Non-interesting decisions are typically no-brainers.
We want to
remove some of the confusion over a complicated stat system, which we
think we can do without reducing the system's depth. In fact, the other
motivation for the stats overhaul was to solve some of the problems
where a certain stat trumps all or a certain stat is always junk. If we
nail that, then gear choices will actually be harder in Cataclysm, not
easier.
As an example, when you aren't close to a crit cap and
when buffs don't provide so much crit and talents don't provide so much
crit, then haste vs. crit can be a pretty interesting choice. Haste lets
you cast spells faster, but crit makes those spells you cast hit
harder. At a very basic level you are choosing more spells vs. bigger
spells, but because of a number of other factors, it's not that cut and
dried. Haste may provide a dps increase for a caster according to a
spreadsheet, but it depends and it might cause you to change your
rotation. If you have spell A that hits so hard that you need to use it
on cooldown, and spell B gets boosted by haste, then you can run into
the situation where more haste on B isn't an improvement because you
can't squeeze in another B before it's time to use A again. If you
aren't able to capitalize on the extra haste, then more isn't always
good for you. (That's in an ideal world. The way stats work in Icecrown,
if you like haste, it's nearly always a no-brainer stat for you.)
Comparing
armor pen vs. say attack power is much mathier, because they really
just both buff melee damage in pretty much the same way. The only time
it matters is when you're near a cap or if you're a spec that does a lot
of spell damage. But you learn pretty quickly for your spec whether
armor pen is an awesome stat for you or just an okay stat.
Many
of your gear choices in Cataclysm should come down to haste vs. crit vs.
mastery. You may still have one of those you like the most, but it
shouldn't be double the value of the other stats, so you may have to
look at the total package of stats on that item (Do I need more hit? If I
take that hit, can I swap it out somewhere else?) Add in set bonuses
and procs, and I'm not sure the gear choice will be all that easy, but
it should be easier to understand.
Rogue
Vanish
We
tried a different approach to fix Vanish in a recent patch while it was
up on the PTR. It didn't fix the problem (which has everything to do
with spells already being in the air) and let rogues use Vanish as a
second Cloak, which wasn't the intent. When we backed out that change,
we said we were going to try a different approach where we calculate
when spells are launched on the server side. Nothing has changed since
then and I really can't give you any more information than that. Making
more "Lol Vanish doesn't work" threads isn't going to speed that process
along, and will just continue to annoy other forum participants.