Crowd Control spells cast time increased to 2 sec (Source Re: Polymorph)
Pretty much. The crowd control spells were never designed around the
existence of haste. Asking anyone to interrupt a 1.1 second Polymorph
isn't reasonable. Health pools are going to be a lot larger, so control
is going to play a larger role than burst compared to the live
environment. On the other hand, dispels are more expensive in Cataclysm
and you can waste a dispel now if there is nothing there to dispel.
So I'm right in my sentiment that, instead of correcting haste
affecting utility spells, we now all get to suffer even further
exacerbated haste dominance?
I never follow this line of thinking. Yes, making it harder to have a
[very fast] cast time requires more haste. But you have to make a big
trade off for that haste, such as having a lower crit chance for your
damage spells. That seems like a reasonable enough trade off that
you'll at least have to consider it.
You can argue that haste is over-valued in PvP because of the risk of
interruption, which is much less of a big deal in PvE. Therefore making
the cost per stat of haste higher in PvP seems perfectly reasonable. I
wouldn't call that "exacerbated dominance." I'd say it's adjusting it
to its actual value in PvP compared to other stats.
Buffs improvements in talents (Source Re: Shaman 12803 changes discussion)
There is no difference between "talents that increase potency of
buffs" and "talents that increase range of buffs". In both cases you
must spend talent points to bring a buff up to par with something other
classes offer. In both cases, the baseline buff has something about it
that's inferior. So if there's some sort of difference that I'm missing
here, please share with the class. No one else can see the difference
either.
That's not our definition. If you bring an 8% attack power buff and
someone else brings a 10% attack power buff, then the other guy will
generally be more desirable. If you have an 8% attack power buff but a
talent that brings it up to 2% (and only that), then you have a talent
you probably don't want to spend and feel dumb spending whenever the
10% guy isn't around. This is the case with many talents in Lich King,
such as Improved Blessing of Might. These are the class of talents that
we said we would remove (and then proceeded to do so).
Once you get beyond the buff itself, there are a variety of ways it is
produced by a character. Sometimes it's a base spell. Sometimes it's a
talent. Sometimes it's a passive aura. Sometimes it's a proc. Sometimes
it goes away when the dude dies. Sometimes it lasts for a duration.
We're not interested in making all of these parameters identical, and
we think the game would suffer from a pervasive sameness were we to do
so. We also think most raiders are sensible enough not to disqualify
someone because his buff isn't produced in the absolute most convenient
way possible. "Our dps would go up 2% if we had 10% attack power
instead of 8% attack power" seems like a reasonable sentiment. "Our dps
would go up if the range on this buff were longer" seems like you're
really down in the weeds of things to actually worry about.
Goblins & Worgens DK on Beta (Source Re: Death knight lvl 57 - no quests, no NPCs)
Both goblin and worgen will be unable to finish the DK starting zone
until we get back to it and add the goblin/worgen "Special Surprise"
quests. Until then you'll be stuck.
Hunter
Rhumba removed from the game (Source Re: So, why delete Rhumba?)
We were sad to see this talent go, because we thought it was cool too.
However, BM just had too many damage-oriented talents, which was
preventing those hunters from being able to pick up the utility or fun
talents, which in turn violated a major goal of the talent tree
revamps.
Swapping pets (Source Re: Soul Link Removed - Beta Build 12803)
If our pet dies, can we use Feign Death, drop combat, and instantly
bring out one of our 5 different pets in that short window of being out
of combat in an Arena Match?
No, because you have to dismiss a pet before you can summon a new one.
You also need to rez a dead pet before you can dismiss it. It's
possible that allowing all of that in combat is fine since it would
take so long to actually pull off and in the meantime you could just
have rezzed your pet (or healed an injured one rather than dismissing
it).
On the other hand, dismissal no longer affects happiness in any way
since the new model is you can swap them more regularly. Your pets just
have to learn not to get all emo about it.
Priest
Lightwell (Source Re: Lightwell Changes Build 12803)
How to make lightwell work: Change clicking range to 15y, Make clicking it not change target
As I have said previously, this is the plan. We just haven't been able
to test it yet, and the talent has enough baggage that it's hard to get
players to even try it.
Shaman
Elemental shamans (Source Re: Shaman 12803 changes discussion)
Elemental Reach affects all shocks. (Elemental only).
Totemic Reach increases the range of Searing Totem. (Tier 2 Enhance, so available to all shaman.)
If you're fighting a shaman with a bunch of Lightning orbs and you're
worried about damage, just go hit the shaman. That still removes the
orbs.
Rolling Thunder is 2% mana return, not 1%.
[...] Yes, we have made further changes to the tree since the build
that you have available now. They are predominantly talent changes and
not gameplay changes. Earth Shock was the big one.
Warlock
Demonic Rebirth (Source Re: Demonic Rebirth (Warlock - Beta))
Demonic Rebirth has a long cooldown.
To clear up a lot of misinformation...
