WotLK Warrior Changes – Build 9038

All in all very minor changes, not unlike the other class changes for beta build 9038. I like the change to sudden death, which should certainly help to further solidify the talent as a key choice for arms warriors. The rage kick back will really improve its utility in arena, as dropping to zero rage without an assured killed is rarely a worthwhile.

More than anything I’m very excited to see the final result of all these protection buffs, specifically from a PvP view. The increase in taunt rage from 5 to 20 yards should really make for some interesting arena and world PvP situations. I haven’t heard any major feedback regarding protecting PvP specs, but theoretically it looks like it may be a viable solution for more defensively oriented warriors.

Warrior

Arms

• Strength of Arms – Increases your total Strength and Stamina by 2/4% and your Expertise by 2/4.
• Sudden Death – In addition, you keep 3/7/10 rage after using Execute, was added to the description.

Fury

• Unending Fury – Increases the damage done by your Slam, Whirlwind and Bloodthirst abilities by 2/4/6/8/10%. Changed from reducing rage cost.
• Execute – All ranks had a slight damage increase. Max rank: Attempt to finish off a wounded foe, causing [1456.0 + AP * 0.2] damage. Up from [1266.0 + AP * 0.2].

Protection

• Taunt – Now has a 20 yard range. Up from 5.

Oct. 1 WotLK Updates Wrap Up!

Well, pretty big day today with loads of changes across the forums, beta, and here at Zug Gaming. To make sure you didn’t miss anything I thought this occassion calls for my first WotLK wrap up post.

Honor Points Will NOT Reset In Expansion

Title pretty much sums this one up. Blizzard reversed their earlier decesion to reset honor / honor marks prior to expansion. Honor points will not be reset prior to the expansion.

Updated WotLK Glyphs

New / revised glyphs for all classes.

WotLK Beta Build 9014 Class Changes

Nothing major here, most of the changes are pretty minor and focus more on balancing. Never the less, some interested and positive adjustments to every class.

Arena Season 4 End Date / Patch 3.0.2 Launch Date

Season 4 will end October 14th, 2008, additional information regarding details and patch 3.0.2 speculation.

Major Warrior Buffs – Berserker Rage Change

Berserker rage change may be used in any stance now, confirmed by blue.

WoW Gold Tip – Jewelcrafting and Prospecting

Gold tip #6 from yours truly, check out the tutorial video regarding jewelcrafting, prospecting, and the auction house.

WotLK Paid Character Customization

I suppose it was only a matter of time, but it looks like paid character customizatoin is on the way. The guys over at worldofraids discovered a hidden image file in the current WOTLK beta build named “UI Paid Character Customization”. This is about as blatant as an upcoming change is going to get.

We already know barber shops are going to be introduced in Wrath of the Lich King, you’ll be able to get a hair cut, change your piercings, tusks, horns, and other facial and body features for a gold fee. Since the new barber shops already offer so much there’s been much speculation as to what this “paid customization” might be.

• Change your race?
• Change your sex?
• Change your faction?

What do you think the paid customization features will include?

More Death Knight FAQs

Korrath from the WoW forums made a great informational post regarding more FAQs for the Death Knight class. Lots of great info here, particularly regarding individual skills and spells (some still receiving lots of changes on the beta) and how they can be most effectively used.

Also, make sure to check out part 1 for more Death Knight FAQs.

Q: Why doesn’t Bladed Armor work with Frost Presence?

A: Frost Presence has a 30-second pulse that it uses to periodically check armor changes. Wait a little bit and it will kick in.

Q: Why does Summon Gargoyle suck?

A: It doesn’t, but it isn’t very useful when soloing and questing. The gargoyle has a fairly short cast time for its gargoyle strike; the spell hits about as hard as Death Coil, and happens every couple of seconds. It’s terrific for extended DPS in instances and groups since you have a steady influx of runic power and don’t have much down time. While you are questing, half the time is spent killing and the other half is spent running, which makes the gargoyle less useful.

Q: What’s a death rune?

A: A death rune is a rune that can be used as either unholy, frost or blood. It has lower priority than your other runes, meaning that if you have a Frost rune and a Death Rune available and cast Icy Touch, it will choose your Frost Rune first.

Q: Why does Corpse Explosion suck?

A: It needs love, and will hopefully get it soon. Currently, it isn’t worth using unless there are 6 or more targets in the area to explode.

Q: How is Dual Wielding?

A: Works for some builds, it probably won’t get much better than it currently is due to how attack power scales with white damage and yellow damage. There are a lot of divided thoughts on this. Do what you like.

Q: What’s the best spec for (tanking/DPS/PvP)?

A: Play the game, try things out, discuss. This is beta and this is a brand new class, there isn’t four years of back theorycraft and empirical testing for this class. There isn’t four seasons of previous arena history to base conjecture off of. There are a multitude of specs for blood, frost and unholy tanks, DPS and PvP, and the talent trees change every single patch.

Get out there and try it. That’s what the beta is for.

Q: I don’t know what to do, I just copied a premade DK and I’m all confused!

A: Try creating a new death knight, and do all of the starting quests. It’s an excellent method of trying things out, without all the skills overwhelming you.

Q: I’m still all confused!

A: Read more, post less. (like part 1 of my Death Knight FAQ!)

Q: Why did Blizzard make _______ suck?

A: Blizzard’s designers have budgets for everything. Sometimes they need to rein in the power in order to make things fit into the budget. It’s a sort of behind-the-scenes method of homogenizing all of the classes, in order to ensure that some semblance of balance exists.

Q: Balance? HA! This class sucks, this game sucks, the designers suck, yadda yadda

A: Yet you still give them money each month… Read more, post less.

Q: I just made a Death Knight and I don’t have any talent points! Where are they?

A: You initially start out with 0 talent points and as you complete quests in the starting area you are awarded them along with money/items. By the time you finish the Scarlet Enclave you will have the correct amount of talent points for your level.

Q: Necrosis is only doing 1 damage, is it bugged?

A: Nothing is wrong! Don’t panic, it’s just how necrosis works. Necrosis is based on the damage you do with your weapon. So if you hit a target dummy (it only has 1 hp) necrosis considers that a 1 damage attack and only hits for 1 damage as a result.

Q: Hey, I need mods, what are good ones?

A: Jaime keeps a thread with DK-Centric mods here:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=10529923372&sid=2000&pageNo=1
Q: I am STUCK on a HORSE! How do I turn it in?

A: Press 1.

Q: Aren’t we supposed to be overpowered? We are a hero class!

A: Death Knight as a “hero” class is in reference to the player and not the character. As far as game mechanics go, the Death Knight is just any other class in the game, albeit a new one. The “hero” qualification means that the class is more complex (not more powerful) than “standard” and you are beginning play later in the leveling curve. You have 25 levels to learn the inner workings of your class to play on a competitive level, every other class has already had 70 levels to learn. This requires a player comfortable with such a handicap placed upon them.

Q: Some guy totally made his ghoul explode, but my ghoul pet bar doesn’t have explode, what gives?

A: In order to make your ghoul explode, you need both the Master of Ghouls talent and Corpse Explosion. That will enable you to make your poor, innocent ghoul who implicitly trusts and loves you unconditionally, explode.

Q: Corpse dust sucks!!! It is too expensive and I hate it, will it ever go away?

A: No. Deal with it.

FAQ credits: Sunny, Ratri, Rabinahau

General Information:

Special Melee Attack hit cap: 9% (Strikes)
Two-hander melee hit cap vs. a boss: 9%
Dual wield melee hit cap vs. a boss: 28%
Spell hit cap vs. a boss: 17%

Hit rating for 1%:
Melee: 32.79
Spell: 26.23

This means that if you get 9% hit to ensure all of your melee attacks land you will still need 5.75% more hit or 151 more hit rating to reach the spell hit cap. If you are 2H capped and have Virulence, and a 3% hit debuff on the boss (Such as Misery or Imp. Faerie Fire) you will be spell hit capped as well.

Our melee attacks and spells have a critical damage bonus of 100%.

Hit rating does NOT increase the amount of critical strikes you will have on a target. It reduces the number of times that you will miss the boss.

It takes 45.91 critical strike rating to generate 1% melee or spell critical strike. The reason that hit is such a good stat until capped is because it is so much cheaper to hit 1% hit rating wise than 1% crit. Once you hit the two hander hit cap hit is no longer worth gemming or enchanting.

Haste rating does not reduce our GCD. Our GCD is only affected by Unholy Presence.

Our abilities scale with AP. Spell damage does nothing for us.

WotLK Hunter Buffs

Major hunter aimed shot changes – Now Instant Cast!

I have some good news, and some bad news. First, the bad news. Unfortunately we won’t be able to do the Aspect of the Viper change I discussed yesterday (passive instead of requiring you to attack the target) at this time because of technical limitations and its potential to shake up our current balance goals. However, we will evaluate it as an option for a future patch.

Now, the good news.

- Aimed Shot – This shot will now be instant cast, its damage/effect/cooldown will remain unchanged.
- Scatter shot – This will now be an 11-point Survival talent.
- Readiness – This will now be the 21-point Marksmanship talent.
- Trap Mastery – This will now be the 41-point Survival talent. Granted, not very sexy for a 41-pointer but we’ll do some changes there in a future patch (after WOLK ships).

These changes will be live in an upcoming beta build.

Wow…just wow, I’m at a loss for this change. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with buffing hunters for wotlk. There are certainly some areas where the class needs some help, but making aimed shot an instant cast seems “excessive” at the very least.

6 second cooldown, mortal strike debuff, and instant cast? I just don’t see how this can ever be balanced for PvP without some additional and major adjustments to hunter shot rotation.

PvP consideratios left aside, I think this will be a great buff for marks hunters in PvE. Hopefully bringing the spec closer to that of beast mastery once all the changes are finalized before wrath of the lich king.

WotLK Shaman Changes – Build 8982

More changes from build 8982, this time for the shaman class.

Skills
Elemental Combat

• Stoneclaw totem also protects your other totems, causing them to absorb damage.

Restoration

• Riptide heal value has been increased. (764-826 to 1015-1099 for Rank 4, 668-722 to 888-960 for Rank 3, etc …)
• Mana Spring Totem now restores 30 mana every 2 seconds. (Old – 90 mana every 5 seconds)

Talents
Elemental

• Storm, Earth, and Fire doesn’t increase the effect of spell power on your Lightning Bolt but reduces the cooldown of Chain Lightning by 0.5/1/1.5/2/2.5 sec instead.

Seemingly minor changes to the class, but the new stoneclaw totem in particular is very interesting. Having what essentially amounts to a shield totem, should increase the strategic element of totem placement, particularly in arena. If anything else this should make it a bit more difficult for other players to just snipe an entire totem forest in 3 seconds. Though this will all be dependent on the amount of the absorb.

Riptide just looks better and better every time I see it. Now with nearly +300 healing added to it it’s just looking stacked! (as it shoulder considering it’s so deep in the talent tree). A friend of mine who was lucky enough get a beta invite tried out the new talent earlier today, check out his results. Note: he would have had approximately 2500 healing on live with this gear / trinket / earthweapon.

Additionally, earth shield was healing for around 1300 with trinket up, and that’s without the new improved shields talent, which adds another 15%. All in all, restoration is just looking very improved for expansion.

Rogue Opportunity Changes – Build 8982

There’s been some pretty big changes to the rogue class during this wotlk beta, none larger than the change to mutilate and positional attacks, but blizzard just tossed out yet another curve ball…take a look at the rogue changes for beta build 8992.

Assassination

• Focused Attacks changed to : Your melee critical strikes have a 33/66% chance to give you 1 energy. (Old – 100%/100% , wasn’t implemented)
• Find Weakness damage increased reduced to 2/4/6%. (Old – 3/6/9%)

Combat

• Killing Spree cannot hit invisible or stealthed targets anymore.

Subtlety

• Opportunity now works all the time. (Old – Only increased the damage of attacks from behind)

Not quite as major as taking the positional requirement off mutilate, but certainly close. With this change mutilate and backstab rogues will enjoy the benefit of both opportunity and dual wield spec 100% of the time. This is a pretty huge change as it firmly places mutilate at the top of all rogue specs in my opinion, certainly for PvP purposes.

Combat still may , and in all likelihood will, remain a narrow first as far as PvE DPS is concerned, but considering all the buffs mutilate is receiving it won’t be far behind. It’s great to see a virtually unused rogue talent build such as mutilate getting some love for expansion, but I can’t help but wonder if they’ve taken it to the other extreme.

What do you think about the mutilate changes? Too much too quickly or just a generally bad build getting some much needed improvements?

WotLK Motorcycle Mount – Mechano-Hog Glory!

One of the most anticipated features of beta was finally introduced with this most recent build and the addition of the “mechano-hog” motorcycle mount. This motorcycle mount is the newest (and currently most bad ass) item of the engineering profession.

Mechano-Hog

• Requires 450 Engineering to craft and use (maybe)
• Requires level 80
• Requires 150+ riding skill
• You can carry one passenger in the side car.

I was pretty much a 100% definite to go inscription on my shaman, but after seeing how cool the new hog looks I’m not so sure!

On a side note, no word yet if this mount will be BoP for engineers or not. Presumably yes, but having this mount available to players outside of the engineering profession would provide a very unique source of income for engineers. A profession that is normally crippled by it’s inability to provide anything other than novelty items.

Thanks to my friends over at deathknight.info who initially found this video.

New Death Knight Voices

No class would be complete without it’s own separate voice effects. In this most recent beta build (8885) the death knight voice effect was finally added. It’s a combination of a sinister sounding dry humor…I know, bizarre, but never-the-less they are here. Take a listen below.

Thanks to my friends over at DeathKnight.info who originally posted this video.

WotLK Leatherworking Recipes

With any expansion you can typically expect to see some additions and improvements to all the professions, but I’m particularly excited about the recent change to leatherworking. Several new recipes have already been confirmed to exist in beta, check them out below.

• Fur Lining – Attack Power — Permanently enchant bracers to increase attack power by 120.  Can only be used on the leatherworker’s bracers, and doing so will cause them to become soulbound.
• Fur Lining – Stamina — Permanently enchant bracers to increase stamina by 90. Can only be used on the leatherworker’s bracers, and doing so will cause them to become soulbound.
• Fur Lining – Spell Damage — Permanently enchant bracers to increase spell power by 70. Can only be used on the leatherworker’s bracers, and doing so will cause them to become soulbound.
• Fur Lining – Fire Resist — Permanently enchant bracers to increase your fire resistance by 60. Can only be used on the leatherworker’s bracers, and doing so will cause them to become soulbound.
• Fur Lining – Frost Resist — Permanently enchant bracers to increase your frost resistance by 60. Can only be used on the leatherworker’s bracers, and doing so will cause them to become soulbound.
• Fur Lining – Shadow Resist — Permanently enchant bracers to increase your shadow resistance by 60. Can only be used on the leatherworker’s bracers, and doing so will cause them to become soulbound.
• Fur Lining – Nature Resist – Permanently enchant bracers to increase your nature resistance by 60. Can only be used on the leatherworker’s bracers, and doing so will cause them to become soulbound.
• Fur Lining – Arcane Resist — Permanently enchant bracers to increase your arcane resistance by 60. Can only be used on the leatherworker’s bracers, and doing so will cause them to become soulbound.

While it may seem like a small step it’s certainly a move in the right direction. Leatherworking is one of several professions that have been somewhat neglected. Generally speaking it’s these type of crafting professions that end up offering little to no benefit end game. These include tailoring, blacksmithing and leatherworking. This early leatherworking buff leads me to believe there will be similar changes in store for the all the other professions.

In Burning Crusade these crafting professions were great to have when you initially hit 70, but as soon as you get some of the even better armor and items these quickly become dated and worthless. Thus leaving with you a profession that amounted to basically nothing for the last 75% of the expansion. It will be difficult for Blizzard to create enough reason for me seriously consider going a crafting profession, but with additional benefits like this it certainly will peak my interest in the future. Hopefully we’ll see more of this.

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