Vanity Pet Selling

When WoW introduced achievements it brought a whole new type of “grinding” with it. Players love completing achievements, and one fun one that a huge portion of the WoW population engages in is the rare vanity pet collecting. These pets are attained through a wide variety of places, but for our purposes we’re going to just focus on the ones we can purchase. This strategy may sound simplistic, and it is, but it’s insanely effective, profitable, and a speedy way to go from 1,000 to 2,000 gold.

First things first, we need to make our pet collection rounds. I generally buy about 10 of each individual pet that I will take back and sell over a number of days.

Neutral Vendors

Dealer Rashaad, Netherstorm

• Blue Dragonhawk Hatchling, 10g
• Brown Rabbit Crate, 10g
• Cat Carrier (Siamese), 60s
• Cockroach, 50s
• Crimson Snake, 50s,
• Mana Wyrmling, 40g
• Parrot Cage (Senegal), 40s
• Red Moth Egg, 10g

Magus Tirth, Shimmering Flats

• Ancona Chicken, 1g

Narkk, Booty Bay

• Parrot Cage (Cockatiel), 40s
• Parrot Cage (Senegal), 40s

Alliance Vendors

Sixx, The Exodar

• Blue Moth Egg, 50s
• White Moth Egg, 50s
• Yellow Moth Egg, 50s

Donni Anthania, Elwynn Forest

• Cat Carrier (Bombay), 40s
• Cat Carrier (Cornish Rex), 40s
• Cat Carrier (Orange Tabby), 40s
• Cat Carrier (Silver Tabby), 40s

Shylenai, Darnassus

• Great Horned Owl, 50s
• Hawk Owl, 50s

Yarlyn Amberstill, Dun Morogh

• Rabit Crate (Snowshoe), 20s

Horde Vendors

Xan’tish, Orgrimmar

• Black Kingsnake, 50s
• Brown Snake, 50s
• Crimson Snake, 50s

Halpa, Thunder Bluff

• Prairie Dog Whistle, 50s

Jilanne, Eversong Woods

• Golden Dragonhawk Hatchling, 50s
• Red Dragonhawk Hatchling, 50s
• Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling, 50s

It may take some time to gather all of the pets. Obviously, some of these locations are a bit out of the way, but this is why we really want to make it worth our trip by buying up a decent stock of these pets. After a few trips you may get a better idea for the demand on your server, and increase or decrease the types of pets you are focusing on. In addition, this strategy does deal with some cross faction trading. If you’re not comfortable with that, just stick with your faction and the neutral vendor. The neutral vendor in Netherstorm is really the big one we want to make sure we hit.

Here’s the total we spent (assuming we bought 10 of each), 816 gold.

Pricing Our Items

The next big step is pricing our items. This is tricky with any item, but especially true for an item that is so ambiguous in value. Now, at a certain level you simply have to keep your prices in line to compete on your server, but if there is low supply we can simply set our own. For an item like this bigger is always better. Here is the model I generally use:

• Pets 1g or less, multiply by 5x – 10x
• Pets 10g, multiply by 3x – 5x
• Pets 40g, multiply by 2x – 3x

I’ve been selling pets like this for a long time, and week after week I continue to unload the same pets for an extrordinary profit margin. All it takes is a quick “world buying tour” to stock up for a week or so, and then all the work is done. I list my pets for auctions every 2 days, takes me around 90 seconds to list everything. Even when I factor in the time it took to fly around and purchase the pets this strategy still has resulted in one of the highest gold per hour strategies I’ve devised to date.

Here’s what my net looked like last week.

• 1g and under pets, average multiplier 6.8x, total cost 120, Gross Profit: 8,16 gold
• 10g pets, average multipler 3.4x, total cost 300, Gross Profit: 1,020 gold
• 40g pets, average multipler 3x, total cost 400, Gross Profit: 1,200 gold

Cost / Profit Analysis

• Gross Expenses: 816 gold
• Gross Profit: 3,036
• Net Profit: 2,220

When I think gold farming I think one thing, simple. Complex strategies don’t work for most people for that simple fact…they are just too hard to implement. The tactics I use, and teach, on a day to day basis revolve around simple, quantifiable, and repeatable strategies that  a player of any skill level can employ. Aside from my insider’s club students I haven’t revealed my pet strategy to anyone outside my inner circle…but for Markco I’d say it’s worth it. =)

If you’re tired of wasting your time with boring 1.0 type farming tactics then graduate up to the Dominate WoW Gold system and discover the hundreds of other secrets, tips, and tactics designed to make thousands of gold in minutes in a day. Check it out here

Ruby Sanctum Mini-Boss Tactics

Saviana Ragefire Strategy

• Health: 14 Million (25-man), 4 Million (10-man)

Critical boss fight tactics

1. Tanks: The tank should face the boss away from the raid to avoid breaths and other frontal attacks
2. Damage: DPS should be behind or adjacent to the boss, likewise avoiding frontal attacks
3. Healers: There is a lot of splash damage during the air phase, so this would be a good time for raid members to use cooldowns to reduce damage. In addition, healers should be prepared to lay down some AoE healing.
4. Specific Attacks: During the air phase Saviana will conflagrate 5 people /2 people by picking them up and then dropping them.
5. Specific Attacks: Savianna will periodically enrages so you will want to have a hunter on the ready with tranquilizing shot.
6. Specific Attacks: Savianna will also periodically cast nova, so you want to have the raid spread out at least 10 yards.

Baltharus the Warborn Strategy

• Health: 11 Million (25-man), 3 Million (10-man)

Critical boss fight tactics

1. Tanks: Tank Baltharus away from the raid to avoid his frontal cone attacks. Likewise, the off tank on the mirror image will tank this away from the raid.
2. Damage: DPS from behind or adjacent to avoid frontal cone attacks, including cleave.
3. Healers: Watch out for the periodic whirlwind from the mirror image. Position accordingly to avoid this.
4. Specific Attacks: As mentioned before Baltharus will summon a mirror image. This image has all the same abilities, in addition to a powerful whirlwind attack. You will want to have your off tank immediatly pick this up and move him away from the raid. This image will periodically be re-summoned and should be killed as soon as possible each time. It’s a good idea to mark Baltharus so you will not confuse him with the images.

General Zarithrian Strategy

• Health: 11 Million (25-man), 3 Million (10-man)

Critical boss fight tactics

1. Tank: Face away from the raid to avoid frontal attacks. Zarithrian also spawns a number of adds, these should be picked up by 1-2 additional off tanks.
2. Damage: Like previously, all DPS should be behind or adjacent to the boss to avoid frontal attacks. Ranged DPS should focus on killing the adds, while melee DPS will focus on killing the Zarithrian.
3. Healers: Just like with Savianna there is a lot of splash damage during the air phase, so healers should be prepared to increase healing to keep up.
4. Specific Attacks: Zarithrian will periodically cast fear, so proper use of tremor totem, fear ward, and other fear breaking / preventing abilities will be necessary.
5. Specific Attacks: Zarithrian’s adds will be casting an AoE attack, which can and should be interrupted.

Ruby Sanctum – Halion Boss Fight Strategy and Tactics

• Health: 45 Million (25-man), 18 Million (10-man)
• 3 Phases
• Tanks: Face away from the raid to avoid frontal attacks.
• Damage: Ranged DPS can be behind or adjacent, melee DPS should be adjacent to avoid the tail swipe and frontal cone attacks.
• Healers: Stay away from the frontal cone attacks and focus on your positioning.

Halion Strategy – Phase 1

1. Specific Attacks: As the encounter begins Halion will summon a wall of fire in a circle around him. So make certain your raid is all together before beginning.
2. Specific Attacks: Halion summons fireballs that fall from the sky. The location they will hit is marked by a graphic on the ground. Simply move out of the way. When they  hit the explode into fire patches on the ground that spread, move away from these to avoid taking any damage.
3. Specific Attacks: Halion will cast Mark of Combustion. When this is dispelled it releases a fire patch on the ground. When a player is afflicted by this they should run away from the main raid and then get dispelled. The longer it takes to dispel the larger the fire patch will grow to, so time is key.
4. Phase 1 ends when Halion reaches 75%.

Halion Strategy – Phase 2

1. During this phase a portal will appear, the entire raid will enter.
2. Specific Attacks: Halion will periodically cast Mark of Consumption, which behaves just like Mark of Combustion, except that it deals shadow damage. Raid members must run away from the group prior to getting dispelled.
3. Specific Attacks: The most important (and fun thing) here is the shadow orbs. Two of these orbs will circle around the stage area. Periodically these beams will link up and deal enough damage to kill any player caught between them. For this reason the entire raid, including the tank, must continually rotate maintaining a distance between the orbs in order to avoid taking this damage.
4. Phase 2 ends when Halion reaches 50%.

Halion Strategy – Phase 3

1. At 50% a new portal will open. At this point Halion will exist in both the physical realm and the twilight realm.
2. You must split your raid up in order to DPS down Halion in both realms. It’s particularly important that your DPS is balanced across both realms. If Halion is not killed at the same rate in each realm she will fade into one or the other realm and begin to regain health.
3. You should send most of your ranged DPS back through the portal, as they will have an easier time dealing with the Mark of Combustion. Likewise, your melee DPS should remain where they are at, as the rotating beams will be easier for them to navigate without having to sacrifice their DPS.
4. Phase 1 mechanics will take over for those who take the portal back to the twilight realm and phase 2 mechanics will remain for those who stay in the twilight realm.
5. Specific Buff: During this phase Halion will have a buff called Corporeality. This buff begins at 50%, which is it’s balanced state. As this percentage changes Halion will deal and receive more damage in one realm and deal and receive less damage in the other. Dealing damage to Halion in one realm will cause the buff to decrease in that realm and increase in the other, furthermore he will begin to fade into the other realm where he will rapidly regain health if not DPS’d.
6. It’s critical that the Corporeality buff remain around the 50% mark.

Ruby Sanctum – Halion Heroic Mode

• Phase 1 changes – The fireballs that fall from the sky will spawn fire elements. The large fire elemental must be picked up by an off tank and the smaller ones should be AoE’d down by the raid.
• Phase 2 changes – The number of shadow orbs circling the stage has been increased from 2 to 4, effectively creating 4 quadrants in which you must rotate.

Ruby Sanctum – Halion 25 Man Strategy Guide Video

edit: added info about spell haste, talents, and solo players

Cataclysm Guild Leveling System Changes

Compiled Cataclysm Class Changes

Cataclysm Raid and Dungeon Changes

Cataclysm Glyph Changes

Cataclysm New Zone Changes

Cataclysm PvP and Battleground Changes

Cataclysm Archeology Changes

General Cataclysm Changes

General Changes

• There are, as of the event, 3000 new quests planned for Cataclysm. That’s nearly 3 times as many quests added with Wrath of the Lich King.
• Leveling up will display a “toast” similar to earning an achievement. It will show:
  • The level you reached
  • If a new talent point is available
  • Any new abilities for that level
  • Feature unlocks: battlegrounds, dungeon finder, riding, glyphs, etc.
• Garrosh is the “acting” Warchief of the Horde.
• Garrosh’s stronghold is at the front of Orgrimmar, right as you enter through the front gate, to show “who is in charge.”
  • The Valley of Wisdom is now the Tauren district.
• A new auction house, inn and bank have been added to the Valley of Honor in Orgrimmar.
• Deathwing destroyed The Park in Stormwind. This was done to drive home the impact Deathwing has had on the world, and because he wasn’t happy about his daughter’s head hanging from the rafters.
• A new auction house, inn and bank have been added to the Dwarven District in Stormwind.
• New music will be added for all of the cities, and a large portion of the game world.
• The Forsaken have set up a foothold in Silverpine Forest and have rebuilt many areas with their unique architecture. They’ve done this to provide a base of operations for assaulting Gilneas, which is very strategically valuable to the Horde.
• Heirlooms will work for both Goblins and Worgen from the launch of the expansion. You earned them, so you get to use them — no matter what you’re leveling. They will only scale up to 80 though; new heirlooms that scale to 85 will be introduced with the new content.

Cataclysm Spell Haste, Talents, and Solo Players

Spell haste in Cataclysm
We’re not getting rid of spell haste and I agree it’s fun to get quick spells.

I was talking more about the PvP environment (and to a lesser extent PvE) where the balance has shifted too heavily towards very fast or instant spells that leave the other side with no chance to predict, react or attempt to counter what you’re going to do. It’s a problem with CC, I’d agree, but it’s also a problem with some of the really hard-hitting nukes where someone can die in a couple of GCDs before they can pop a defensive cooldown or even get healed.

We want combat to be less binary, where someone can get into a wounded state and then move either towards being fully healed or being dead depending on what they and everyone else involved in the battle do. We want there to be some back and forth — some chances to make mistakes and then recover from them. PvP can currently feel like a tennis match where the team who scores the first point wins.

There still need to be moments where if you line up all your cooldowns you can kill someone who is wounded, but those need to be not every spell you cast. Given talents and gear, fully three-second cast time spells aren’t really going to be that common for actual casters, but spell interactions are balanced around having a cast time so that the other side has a chance to respond. When every spell is at the GCD cap or hasted by a talent or proc then you sometimes die before you even know what happened.

31/41/51 Points Talents
We design the 31, 41 and 51-point talents to be attractive if not mandatory. There are very few builds that don’t go down to the bottom of a tree and we don’t think the ones that don’t are in some way more interesting builds.

Remember, the passive bonuses are just that — bonuses. If you find a build that avoids 51 points in one tree but picks up something really awesome instead, you will still be fully functional.

Solo players
You can still choose to level up Archaeology, which is going to have quite a bit of content. We are also updating all of the other professions to make them more interesting. In addition to goblins and worgen, we have redone the questing for most of the original zones, and all of the lower-level zones. If you like solo play, you will find literally thousands of new quests. We will also offer more achievements, many of which are designed with the solo player in mind.

There are also two buckets of solo players: one is the type of player who pretty much treats WoW as a single-player game and doesn’t interact much with other players. The other category is the player who may have lots of friends online but doesn’t feel like they have the time commitment for very organized and scheduled PvP or raiding. The new dungeons and BGs will also offer you lots of content if you are someone who plays alone but doesn’t mind working together with strangers for short periods of time. The big Cataclysm feature you will miss out on as a solo player is the guild revamp. Again, if you just like to play alone but don’t mind being part of a guild, you will still be able to help your guild contribute though.

Edit: added more about paths of the titans

• No longer involved in Path of the Titans, since it was removed.
• Will now help to “dig into the lore of the game” — essentially being used as a vehicle for storytelling.
• There are two types of “artifacts” players will be able to uncover through Archaeology.
• The first will be more of a lore or story artifact.
• The second can reward items; cosmetic or fun in most cases, with the rare usable weapon.
• It will not provide any must-have items.

Archaeology
We have some end-game plans for Archaeology. I would compare it to Cooking, which isn’t mandatory, but useful enough that nobody is surprised at the appearance of a Fish Feast.

Archaeology rewards
Many of the archaeology items are stored in your journal, not your bags, so inventory space shouldn’t be a big problem. While many of the artifacts are only there for rewards, the rare finds run the gamut from unique toys to usable weapons to special pets.

Paths of the Titans Removed

Further clarification on the removal of Path of the Titans

Path of the Titans Removal
We still think it would be cool to add some kind of post-game progression to allow for player customization, but we would have to be very careful and do it right. Nobody wanted to see a feature that felt like it delivered on half its potential. Nobody wanted to be thinking about how we were going to “fix the flawed Paths system” in 5.0. If we can come up with a design we like, then we’ll try again in the future.

A big part of game design is triage — knowing when something is good enough, knowing when something can be good with just a little more work, and knowing when something is a lost cause… at least for now. There are very few WoW features that we kill outright. Most go into a design parking lot, and we get together every few months to review those features and consider what to work on next.

[...] Fortunately, one of the benefits of being Blizzard is we don’t have to ship a product until we think it’s ready. Our marketing department works with us on the game, but they understand that when the game is ready is ultimately up to the team. We didn’t cut it because we ran out of time. We cut it because we didn’t think the design we had was fun. At the high level we still like the idea, and if we can solve some of the problems we might bring it back in the future.

edit: added additional information on interrupts and classic pvp titles

Battlegrounds – General

• Launching with two battlegrounds: Twin Peaks and the Battle for Gilneas. More to come post-release.
• Twin Peaks will be a capture-the-flag map similar to Warsong Gulch with a few small differences.
  • Two graveyards for each faction, with one of them being in the middle of the map. Dying out in the field will cause you to spawn here rather than at your base.
  • It’s relatively similar in size to WSG, but the field itself is larger, with the bases taking up less space.
  • Twin Peaks will NOT be replacing Warsong Gulch like some players were expecting it to.
• Blizzard wants to focus on introducing new BGs to offer a variety of environments, rather than focusing on updating older ones.

Rated Battlegrounds

• Players will participate in rated battlegrounds by forming their raid group prior to joining the queue.
• You will only face off against other rated groups.
• Each week the format for rated battlegrounds will be different. It will rotate between 10, 15 and 25-player battlegrounds.
• Rating loss will not exist until after a certain threshold.
• Conquest points will be rewarded for winning rated battlegrounds.
• There will be a limitation on the number of Conquest points you can earn each week to prevent feeling like you must participate in both arenas and rated battlegrounds.
• There will be end-of-season rewards for rated BG teams similar to arenas:
  • The classic Honor titles will be coming back and rewarded to the top teams each season.
  • The “Gladiator” equivalent teams will also receive epic ground mounts. Ground mounts because they want to reward something you can ride in the battleground and be proud of / show off.

Cataclysm Interrupts and Classic PvP Titles

Interrupts in PvP
We don’t want interrupts to be binary either. They shouldn’t be able to lock a caster down. We currently have something of an arms race where the melee got more mobility and interrupts, so the casters got more escape methods and instant spells. We just need some bilateral disarmament, so that melee can sometimes interrupt spells.

Characters with existing PvP ranks titles
The plan at the moment is to grandfather in anyone with an existing BG PvP title and just let you keep it.

Uldum

• It’s keeping with the Egyptian theme; “WoW does Egypt,” according to Alex Afrasiabi.
• The tour was impressive; the zone looks great. Incredibly detailed textures on the terrain and buildings. Lots of pyramids and other Egyptian-themed sculptures.
• Uldum was locked away, protected by a Titan machine which created a projection of a large, impassible mountain, but the Cataclysm destroyed that machine — opening up access to Uldum.
• The Tol’Vir are still planned to be a new race introduced here. Not ready to be shown though.

Deepholm

• The Elemental Plane of Earth, where Deathwing was nursed back to health and “rebuilt”.
• It’s essentially the “core” of a sphere (though not Azeroth; it exists on its own plane).
• Deathwing ruptured out through a tower in the middle of Deepholm and entered Azeroth through the Maelstrom, according to Alex Afrasiabi. It looks like Blizzard changed their mind since BlizzCon.
• Therazane will be present here and is involved in a reputation similar to Sons of Hodir, “with the lessons learned from that,” says Alex Afrasiabi.
• Orgrim’s Hammer and The Skybreaker are both here. Orgrim’s Hammer has been shot down by The Skybreaker.
• You will encounter many stone and crystal creatures here.

Cataclysm Zone Change Video

edit: added more specifics about the new glyph system

• Path of the Titans has been scrapped and will not be implemented.
• Instead Blizzard will focus on improving the glyph system, as they feel it didn’t quite hit the intended goals in Wrath.
• Glyphs will now be available in 3 categories: Major, “Medium” (PH name) and Minor.
  • Major glyphs are core to each class and will be expected to be used to perform at maximum level.
  • Medium glyphs will be to provide “fun” alterations to abilities.
  • Minor glyphs will largely function as they do today.
• Based on the mockup shown, you’ll be able to have 3 glyphs of each type at level 85: Major, Medium and Minor.
• The glyph UI will now display all of the glyphs available to your class, even if you haven’t learned them yet, to the right of the section where you apply your glyphs.
• Blizzard wants to make glyphs permanent so you don’t have to carry a stack of them around. Simply learn the glyph and then you can swap it whenever you want.

Cataclysm Glyphs / Inscription

More on the updates for glyphs and inscription

Glyphs in Cataclysm
Minor glyphs are fine in our opinion. They weren’t intended to offer power and they are certainly much more flexible than major glyphs. Some classes need some better minor glyphs though (e.g. warlock).

Medium glyphs are the kind of glyph you’d take if you had more choices. For example, a Fury warrior these days in PvE probably takes Execution, Whirlwind and Heroic Strike. Why wouldn’t you? You hit all of those buttons a lot. The glyph of Cleave isn’t bad, but you just don’t find yourself in situations where you would use it as much as Heroic Strike, so it just never competes. If it wasn’t competing with Heroic Strike though, say it was in a different category, then it might be worth considering. Bloodthirst would be an excellent medium glyph, because it is useful but doesn’t contribute to dps. Medium glyphs are good for situational abilities, cooldowns, defense and utility.

Now having said that, we are also taking a hard look at the major glyphs. Glyph of Sprint (movement speed) is a pretty interesting one. It is probably a dps increase given that it helps your time on target, but it’s hard to put a number on that. It’s very easy to put a number on Glyph of Eviscerate (crit chance). It’s a math problem. That glyph is either going to be demonstrably better or worse than the other majors, leading to the cookie-cutter mentality. We already have plenty parts of the game where there really isn’t a wrong choice to be made — with enchants and meta-gems for example, there is typically a right or wrong answer given that we don’t make several per spec. We do make several glyphs per spec, so we think they can be cooler. Customization was our original design for glyphs, and frankly we just didn’t deliver on it. They feel like talents, and pretty simple talents at that.

The challenge for us is that ALL glyphs have to follow this model. If they don’t for some classes, as happened in LK, then eventually the whole thing unravels. We have a much better feel for what makes an interesting gylph now. I’m not going to promise we’re going to deliver on it this time around, because we weren’t able to the first time. But it is a goal and we’re going to spend a lot of time on it.

Non-Consumable/Learnable Glyphs in Cataclysm
Making glyphs more interesting to every player is more important than making consumable glyphs a reliable money-maker for Inscription, given that there are plenty of other ways to handle the latter.

edit: additional information regarding movement, instance lockouts, and Grim Batol at the bottom

Raiding – General

• Players will be able to “downshift” their 25-player raid, splitting it up into 10-player versions.
  • Raids will be able to split into up to 3 10-player raids.
  • These raids will start at the same progress point the 25-player was at for the lockout.
  • There are no plans to allow 10-player raids to combine into a 25-player raid.
• There will be more freedom for moving from raid ID to raid ID. Players will be able to join other raids, even when saved to a raid ID, as long as that raid has killed at least the same bosses in the instance you have during their lockout.
  • While this sounds like the potential for cross-realm raiding, that isn’t possible yet. It isn’t ruled out for the future though.
• There will be more “Algalon” style encounters for both 10 and 25-player heroic modes which will offer loot a half-tier better than the rest of the instance.
• 25-player raids will provide around 50% more loot per-player. That includes items and the new currency used to purchase items.
• The goal of the philosophy shift for 10 and 25 providing the same loot  is to make it a playstyle choice where you choose the format that fits you, not the one you feel obligated to do.
• 10-player raids in Wrath of the Lich King were deliberately easier because that was the goal of it at the time. That is not the case for Cataclysm.

Grim Batol – Bastion of Twilight (Raid)

• Described as the “Naxxramas” of Cataclysm; it will be an entry-level raid for the expansion.
• 5 bosses in total.
• Cho’gall is the end-boss of the dungeon.
• One encounter will require “dual-strafing” — whatever that means.
• Another encounter will be a “council” fight called the Twilight Ascendants; Twilight’s Hammer members who have ascended and become elementals.
• Upon defeating Cho’gall on heroic mode, the floor beneath you will collapse and you’ll fall into a cavern of flowing lava that hides a “horrifying secret,” according to Alex Afrasiabi. Speculation time!

Skywall – Vortex Pinnacle (Dungeon)

• A dungeon where flying mounts work, but no flying combat (yay, not Oculus 2.0)
• The dungeon sports new cloud tech, and the visuals shown during the presentation were stunning. It’s a palace area floating in the sky; it’s the Elemental Plane of Air.
• Players will encounter djinn, or at least Warcraft’s take on the mythical creature.
• One of the bosses is said to be a “storm dragon”
• Another is an elemental lord

Cataclysm Raid and Dungeon Updates

Movement in Cataclysm
Movement is supposed to be a challenge in PvE. Handling the times when you have to move elegantly is one of the differences between a kill and a wipe. For Cataclysm we are making sure everyone has something they can do when mobile, whether it’s Moonfire for Balance or Fel Flame for warlocks. In the same way you need to master when to AE and when to single target, you need to master when to use the mobile spells and when to not use them.

25/10 Man Raids shared raid ID
We thought the LK design was asking raiders to raid more than they wanted to. When you see a boss twice a week, you just burn out on the fight that much faster.

If you really love raiding, as many of us do, bring an alt the second time around.

5 Bosses in the Bastion of Twilight (Grim Batol Raid)
As to the number of bosses, the 5 is just from Bastion of Twilight. There are two additional raid instances in the first tier of content and together they’ll offer enough bosses for us to fully itemize, around a dozen or so.

• Shaman
• Rogue
• Mage
• Druid
• Priest
• Warrior
• Paladin
• Hunter
• Death Knight
• Warlock

Additional Class Talent Updates / Changes

Druid

Restoration feedback
Couple of points…

I’m seeing a lot of Resto druids say something like “I won’t take talents that buff Nourish and Healing Touch because I won’t use those spells.” You will probably use those spells more in Cataclysm. That doesn’t mean you won’t also be using Rejuv, Regrowth and Lifebloom.

Critical heals aren’t useful now because they often just result in overhealing. In a game in which your heals aren’t always topping someone off, then a critical heal represents a lot of “free” healing which saves you both GCDs and mana. It’s in players’ nature to want to minimize the impact of random elements, but you should be careful not to marginalize anything that gives you extra healing just because it isn’t 100% predictable.

Perseverance
We think talents like this are good, even in PvE. First, they aren’t strictly mandatory. If you think you can get by with taking a little more damage, go for it. Second, you don’t have to spend all 5 points for them to be useful. They are good sinks if you need to spend just an extra point or two somewhere. Third, taking less damage probably will be a bigger deal in Cataclysm. If healer mana becomes a factor in some wipes, as we expect, then it wouldn’t surprise as all to see raid leaders start linking damage *taken* meters as ways to get everyone to contribute to keeping the group alive. The attitude that nobody takes damage besides the tank or that damage to anyone besides the tank is trivial is outdated even for current content, let alone Cataclysm.

Hunter

Counterattack
Counterattack is probably going away. We haven’t released new hunter trees yet.

Priest

Is the Shadow tree unfinished?
Shadow priests should not be able to pick up every point in Shadow without giving up anything else attractive. That’s not how we want talent trees to work. It just looks like that for the time being so that we can get the priest playable.

Optional talents are not bloat; they’re a choice
Right. If there are a lot of choices and you can’t possibly get everything, then it’s a good talent tree. We’d define bloat as say a tree in which the mid-tiers offer nothing interesting or effective such that you just have to pick up some almost at random to get down to talents you actually want. Really though “bloat” just gets so overused on the boards that you’d be a lot more effective in giving feedback describing specific talent choices that you feel aren’t fair rather than the somewhat generic “make this 5 pointer 3 points so I can get more stuff” posts that I’m reading a lot of tonight.

As far as Shadow, I would anticipate a few more talent points in Shadow itself or else some more attractive talents in mid-Disc (it wouldn’t take much to make Archangel work for instance), or both.

Lightwell
We generally keep talents because we think the core idea is strong even if the current numbers or the current combat environment don’t allow the talent to shine. Original ideas by their very nature are going to be harder to get right than clones of other abilities. But we need more original ideas and fewer clones. Turning Lightwell into Healing Stream Totem would almost certainly work. But would it be interesting? Do Holy priests even need another smart heal?

The problem with both Lightwell and Riposte in LK has to do with the pace of combat. A small self-heal isn’t useful in an environment where the healers either keep you up easily or you die to spike damage regardless of the decisions you make. An attack speed debuff isn’t super useful in a PvP environment where players die so quickly. But with the larger health pools in Cataclysm, both of those talents become more useful. Saving priest mana and GCDs by using Lightwell could help turn a failure into a victory. Slowing down incoming damage can help a rogue go toe-to-toe with another melee class.

If the trees are unfinished, what should I give feedback on?
Empowered Shadow Orbs and Shadowy Apparition are brand new talents and Mind Melt has some different effects. Start with those.

Rogue

Shiv being changed to remove Enrage effects
Shiv is changing a little bit to be more of an enrage dispel.

Shaman

Wait, no 2H Enhancement? Why can Frost DKs go 2H then?
Letting the Frost DK go 2H as an option is pretty easy. All of the mechanics already work. It just needs a talent to offset a couple of DW talents. For shaman, it’s a lot harder. There is no equivalent for Lava Lash or Stormstrike. DK combat isn’t heavily tied into weapon swing speeds, but shaman most definitely are. Sure we could solve all of those problems, but that takes a lot of development time, and if you consider all of the challenges we’ve faced over the years related to shaman weapon speed and enchant choices, it could be a considerable amount of development time. We’d spend that time if we thought it was really important, but we think the class functions just fine with two weapons and we’d rather spend our effort on other shaman issues.

Warrior

Who was it that determined we weren’t fond on next-swing attacks?
We weren’t fond of the mechanic. It wasn’t up to a vote. But we also know a lot of warriors didn’t like it either. It takes the most visceral moments of combat — hitting a button and seeing damage — and turns it into an autoattack, probably the least exciting moment of combat.

AoE in Cataclysm: Whirlwind and Bladestorm
You’ll do fine on AoE, which will be more rare in Catalcysm regardless. The change to Whirlwind will not affect Bladestorm.

Mortal Strike was once an iconic ability, now it’s handed out to nearly everyone
The problem of course is that if only you get the debuff or if only you get the best debuff then warriors are mandatory for anything PvP which might be fine for you but doesn’t really feel fair to everyone else. Sometimes I wish we’d just remove the debuff because it’s almost impossible to balance around both having and not having it. We can make sure Mortal Strike hits hard but we’re unlikely to do anything that improves the debuff.

Core problem: Swapping to a shield – will weapon swapping be made easier?
Keep in mind that swapping to a shield is supposed to be a decision. If we wanted it to be effortless we would not make those abilities require a shield. We don’t want solving the puzzle to be coming up with a clever macro.

Scaling with gear
Scaling awesomely with gear as compensation for doing bad damage when undergeared is not good game design. Warrior damage with great gear is much too high right now, as it is at the end of every expansion. This isn’t surprising to anyone really. The current rage model just doesn’t work and we need something more consistent. Consistency is the way to make sure you stay competitive from beginning to end (rather than averaging out at competitive because you’re too low at the beginning and too high at the end).