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Make Tough Choices about Specs

For some players, a few talents are under-tuned or not interesting enough. Since the number is not large, there will be not much difficulty to replace. The talent trees still have traps for the unwary. For instance, a Fury build that skips over Raging Blow is making a serious mistake. That may seem obvious to current players but it’s the kind of thing someone returning to the game after a hiatus might not understand immediately. While there is something to be said for safe choices, it would also be nice if the talents we expected players to have were talents they always had.

True hybrid builds are neglected by some players. To be fair, these builds were either not very competitive or were just cherry picking a few powerful talents in order to create something that was likely overpowered, especially in PvP. In other words, the reality of the hybrid build never lived up to the myth. But now it’s impossible to have a hybrid build, and we understand some players want them back. There are tough choices within the trees of many specs, but there aren’t very many of them within each spec.

More Attractive Choices in PvE

Recent hunter hotfixes are mainly related wiht target. However, there’s a little more to it. The team has a few different goals with these hotfixes. While Marksmanship burst is supposed to be reduced in PvP, that’s only part of the story. At the same time Survival and Beast mastery will be made more attractive choices in PvE. The Marksmanship damage would decrease in fights where little or no movement is required, and reducing the amount of Aimed Shot spam once mobs drop below 80%. Marksmanship’s burst damage in PvP is actually beyond expected. Because Aimed Shot was the best place to bring burst back into line, its damage was cut down.
To make up for the loss of dps and improve Survival and Beast Mastery output, Aspect of the Hawk should now provide 2000 attack power at level 85, which can also make the talent One with Nature more powerful as well. The net effect of the change to Aspect of the Hawk should result in a buff to Survival and Beast Mastery in PvE and (in combination with the Aimed Shot nerf) a slight reduction to PvE Marksmanship dps. The changes can also make Aimed Shot less attractive once a target drops below 80% health and Careful Aim no longer applies.

Melee Mobility for Warriors

Warriors are always on move. So do the Arms warriors. Actually they are so mobile that kiting cannot be used against them, and their uptime was very high as a result. As a matter of fact, you can get to a place where melee generally just had too much up-time on casters, especially healers. Conditions were prompting a move toward more instant cast spells and casting on the move, if you are willing to take PvP back to a place where cast time spells could still have a place on the battlefield. The technique may introduce more choices in PvP both for the casters and melee as to what abilities to use, when to close the gap, when to make space, what to interrupt, etc.
Instead of offering casters yet more tools to generate breathing space and perpetuate that arms race, it made sense to take a second look at melee mobility instead. Focusing your attention on the target is important. However, it is totally nonsense to allow close to 100% up time either. Without high up-time warriors may not bring as much to an Arena or Rated Battleground team. Consequently, new utility will be added in a future patch to solve this problem.

Hotfix Changes in Patch 4.0.6

There are hotfixes immediately followed by a patch, which is not something new. The hotfixes can play a big part in Cataclysm, including Battlegrounds, Dungeons & Raids, Death knight, Paladin, Priest, Warrior, etc. In those new community sites, hotfix changes usually take the place of front page news through the blogs, which can bring some important information to you. Prior to throwing out pretty much the same amount of hotfixes, the team did work to improve the patch 4.0.6. Difference being we didn’t have a great way to tell anyone about them. So now hotfixes are very visible and it makes it seem like we’re going crazy with them, when really it’s just increased transparency into the changes we’re making.
There is huge amount of latest information about the patches, and the balance changes made by the designers took into account their own play experience. Besides, the experience from players is among the main reason for making balance changes. Usually the balance feedback goes along with crash reports, bug reports, and so on. All of them involve a test environment with people actively playing helps us catch a great number of issues. And the bug reports posted are also very helpful and worth reading.

NPC Equalization in Cataclysm

In Cataclysm, there are two ways to accumulate wealth. One is to collect sets of epic gear and the other is to make a few quick coins in the auction house. In spite of the styles of play you prefer, you should be armed with tools and knowledge you need to protect yourself against account compromise. To achieve this goal, you may want to follow some tips and suggestions. Because the team encourages account security awareness for quite a while now, you may have leant something. The team try to be sure that as many players as possible have secure accounts, which is one of the main concerns of many.
Some work has been doing on the NPC equalization in the next major patch to ensure each capital city has the same trade skill. There is no plan to extend the dailies and portals in Stormwind and Orgrimmar to the other cities. They were specifically chosen as the main capital hubs for Cataclysm. At the same time, new and redesigned areas for the dailies and portal hub will be used on some expansions of the main cities in Cataclysm.

Dungeon Reopened with Nicer Loots

The team is presently working on preparations to bring some of the initial content and updates of Wow: Cataclysm to the Public Test Realms. Now let’s look at things you may find in the first 4.1 test client. First, it is about the Gurubashi Tribe Persists. Before a 20-player dungeon released in patch 1.7 will reopen its gates, featuring updated lore, all-new encounters, achievements, and improved loot. It is now a level-85 five-player Heroic difficulty dungeon. There will be an epic-quality item level 353 loot. The minimum average item level to enter this Heroic dungeon is 346.
The other is about the Return of Zul’Aman. The level-70 ten-player dungeon will be once again introduced as a level-85 Heroic five-player dungeon, providing epic-quality item level 353 loot. The minimum average item level to enter this Heroic dungeon is also 346. Here players will see some updated gameplay mechanics, as well as new environment textures and lighting. According some insiders, new versions of the rare raptor, tiger, and bear mounts can be obtained, while the old versions of these mounts will continue to be distinctive.

More Ferals Utility for Players

Although much of attention was given to max level, lower levels are worth being tuned. It is a legitimate concern. The new bear AE rotation is a high level spell, which was based around Thrash. It works at high level, but without Thrash there is a lot of down time and it can be hard to AE tank. Because lower level dungeons would not get balance on a razor’s edge, AE’ing is the norm, which can feel bad for lower level druids which needs solve.
Feral PvP is difficult to control and have a lot of utility. Players wanted more utility so that they could actually be a valuable member of their team. As a result, the team gave Ferals a lot of utility they used not to have. However, in turn they should be made easier to control. There are a few different ways the team has gone on this and that some players would no doubt have preferred to keep the iconic ability to not be crowd controlled instead of gaining things like an interrupt and better crowd control of their own.

AoE power of damage-dealing specs

Balancing the AoE power of the different damage-dealing specs always catches the attention of the design team. It is expected that some changes will made throughout the testing process. While the team wants to make fewer balance changes in patch 4.1, there are still quite a few updates available. The changes don’t encompass the entirety of the 4.1 changes, nor do the initial Public Test Realm patch notes. Two specs spend most of their Holy Power on damage-dealing abilities, with occasional healing.
A replacement-ability was added to warriors at level 83: Rallying Cry. Inner Rage is now available at level 56. It was intended to solve an excess rage problem that largely isn’t affecting warriors anymore. Colossus Smash now ignores 70% of an opponent’s armor, down from 100%. Fury and Arms warriors can be compensated by increasing the damage of other attacks. Retribution and Protection paladins will be given reasonable healing on themselves or others, though paladins sometimes may not use their Holy Power on anything but their heals in some situations.

Move Existing Themes Forward

If you made some achievement you will be awarded a title. The Exalted worked differently as the team wanted to move the title to a different achievement altogether. In this case, if you have the achievement you’ll keep the title. If you’re close to getting the achievement, you might want to hurry and get it before 4.1 because after 4.1 you’d need to also gain the additional rep to meet the requirements, earn the achievement, and get the title. There is much latest content in Cataclysm. There’s also a plethora of updated content to advance the story.
Similarly, there’s plenty of new content still to come in this expansion. However, the team will keep moving existing themes forward when the story calls for it. There were specific reasons for originally entering Zul’Gurub and Zul’Aman, but those reasons by no means wrap up the story of the ancient troll empire. These city ruins still are considered as a major purpose in troll lore, beyond just offering new locations to get loot.

Vote to Kick in Group Queue

The team has made quite a few of hotfixes to deal with the use of the Dungeon Finder and vote kick tools. The following hotfixes are going to need realm restarts to implement, which involves the coming maintenance. Players who are outside a dungeon for more than a few minutes are now will be kicked. If queuing as a group with a tank or healer, and the tank or healer drops group (or is kicked) soon after joining, those that queued with them are going to also be removed from the dungeon.
A vote will be needed, when three or more players group queue with each other for them to kick anyone they did not group queue with. If a group with 4 kicks one person that they did not group queue with they will each receive a more severe penalty to their ability to initiate future kicks. If someone initiates a vote kick for someone they group queued with they cannot lead to a penalty of possible kicks.

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