66 thoughts on “Beta (And Live) News Round-Up”

1. I am actually pretty surprised it took them this long to nerf Will of the Forsaken and Mana tap. Both skills needed a good kick in the face. Perception is a bit silly, since it really only effects a grand total of one class and one race, human rogues. Still, I won’t complain simply because the most over powered racial in the game got toned down.

2. Im confused? as far as I see it… Arcane Torrent gets a buff by gettin rid of Mana Tap, since it no longer needs to be “charged”.

   Mana Tap drained pathetic amounts of mana anyways.

   My Belf pally main is happy at least :D

3. Its a range decrease and a mana attack nerf, Teika. The arcane torrent portion gets a mana restoration ‘buff’ at later levels, when 6% outstrips the amount it would have restored normally.

4. Ugh on that Dwarf racial ability.

5. I’ve seen this for a while now, and I was actually a bit confused. Are they getting rid certain racials in order to replace them (say bow specialization with Voodoo Shuffle, and gun specialization with mace specialization), or are we seeing an explosion of racial abilities.

   And I like the changes to perception.

6. I can’t find anything saying it’s a range nerf.
   Mana Tap was just a annoyance anyways…..didnt drain enough to be worth using…ever.

   It restores like no mana at all atm, if they nerf it? I don’t care tbh, it’s not worth using now for gettin mana back, you just use it for the silence.

7. Wait, I’m a little confused. Is Gift of the Naaru still useful for Hunters?

8. Hey my dranei hunters going to kick some butt with that new improvement to his racial abilitie, the sad part is my prot warrior Undeads going to get that 1% shadow resistance ability which i find unfair because humans get this crap loud of ablilities and Undead get nothing if you think about it.

9. @Iloon yes gift of the naaru is still useful but it all depends on whether your attack power is high or not as for spell power im pretty sure that falls under the line of the damage you dell with your arcane shot and what not, but i think it’ll have to do with your attack power so if you have high attack you heal high.

10. Actually I think the 1% shadow thingie is a buff compared to the current one.. I might be wrong though, math’s not my best subject.

    The nerf to wotf? totaly justified, I got a UD warlock and Im happy with the change, it was just way to op, and it’s still an awesome skill.

11. @Teika- happy with what the fact that Undeads shadow resistance use to be 2% or the fact that will of the forsaken use to be atomatic haha (sarcasim), but anyway i’m not disagreeing with what you say my prot warriors practicly the same so guess theres really almost no difference

12. Any racials not noted in Kalgan’s post are left unchanged. That means that those which are not mentioned, such as the Dwarf Gun Specialization racial, remain as they are on live.

    The only reason I can think of for why Dwarven Hunters would be disappointed with Mace Specialization would be that they can’t use Maces, in which case nothing is gained, nor is anything lost.

13. AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW mana tap was removed /sob

14. What I’m disgruntled over is the change to the Tauren’s endurance; mostly in fear on how much or how little it’s going to give my poor little warrior. blah.

    For Pet health, if I really wanted to bother with posting I’d have to say I’d like pets to have nearly as much health as my hunters; I mean a hunter having 4k more health than the pet? It’s like a healer with more health, than the tank, crazy. But I haven’t been on the WotlK beta so I don’t know how extreme the differences are :s

    And er I have to agree Mana tap was really just mostly an annoyance- unless you were near oom and bam three belves converge on you and mana tap you; it could be resisted as I’ve found out painfully when trying to recharge it with 3 seconds left before the duration is over. But I’m not sad about it being changed; now my belf pally and hunter can stave off their arcane hunger with ease.. or atleast until I can drink.

    What humors me the most though, is the Human racial of Feign Death, mostly because now I’m wondering if human npcs will have this to them when you fight them. Because seriously, it’s hilarious to think of the Lich King spamming this racial on you, every time you think he’s really dead, he pops right back up again!

    This will probably also be annoying as Shadowmeld on Night Elves.. you know save for the idiots that stealth right by their pet.

    Which isn’t stealthed.

    Yet is usually a cat.

    /cough

    I just hope the human’s new racial doesn’t cause FD to bug on me even more.

15. I have a question… has Ghostcrawler ever referenced (it)self as a girl before? I’ve just noticed that you frequently refer to (it) as a “she”, when gender isn’t referenced in (its) name or avatar.

16. it was figured out aventually and she admitst to being a girl so iv herd

17. Fall of Humanity (hilarious name btw) isn’t a true feign, it doesn’t shed aggro nor does it end combat as far as I know. If the human becomes untargetable then that by itself may cause combat to end since the mobs targeting them will enter evade mode and home out.

    Arthas is no longer human, so he wouldn’t have Fall of Humanity.

18. Teika, mana tap on live damages an oppents mana bar from, twenty yards, I think? A distance. Arcane TORRENT restores mana and energy, while silencing all nearby targets. Mana tap is being removed completely, and arcane torrent is being made to restore a percentage of mana. No more having a twenty yard half a mana burn.

19. Gryphonheart: *nod* I should have been more clear. The reason Kaet is disappointed with Mace Specialization is that she would dearly love to use a mace. :>

    Rasta: Apparently Ghostcrawler’s gender was referenced during alpha.

20. whats up with the OP feign death all humans get?
    >.<
    /twitch
    please don’t give the allies all the good stuff and let the hordies hanging this time bliz :(

21. Hiro: I addressed the ‘OP feign death all humans get’ 3 responses above yours.

22. [quote]Arthas is no longer human, so he wouldn’t have Fall of Humanity.[/quote]

    <>

    ok he already used it then, because he’s fallen from gra- er humanity. /hit

    But what I’m getting at is hopefully it doesn’t bug the real FD more; mean I’ve been having it resist and never getting error messages, and you know how much it hurts when one mob unaggros, and it doesn’t tell you the five others eating your pet a few yards away resisted the spell? >.<

    I’m just caught in the middle as to call it op at anyrate, as it has a 5min cd, so they can’t drop dead every 30 seconds like a true hunter; Though it is an odd talent for a racial imo, as while it wouldn’t really be the driving factor for me to roll human.. but then again the more I think about it the more it does seem a bit overpowered; I mean Warstomp isn’t even that epic.

    But still I don’t think it’ll truly be overpowered, just one more annoying thing when you’re in battlegrounds/arena, and a useful item when Johnny the brainless class of whatever, pulls aggro from the tank.

    That and I can’t wait to see half of an alterac valley run; atleast below level 70, drop dead at the sight of the horde 8D

    For the horde~

23. OP…. *LAUGHS* Its a five minute cooldown that temporarily makes things not attack you. Threat does not reset, and if you stand back up before some ones grabs threat or before the thing is dead, then threat reverts to you. This will also, most likely, have close to zero application in PvP, aside from maybe acting like feign death and untargetting you. Once every five minutes. Hiro, the alliances PvP racials have amounted to….. escape artist and shadow meld. Some people argue stone form, some people argue perception, I say….. what? Stone for makes you immune to poisons, or a rogues ability to slow down casting or run speed, or their DoTs, and perception used to be great, but now you can see buffs, so all a rogue has to do is chill for fifteen seconds. Utter crap. The horde have had damage increasing racials from day one, what nearly amounts to a second trinket for undead. Tauren have an AoE stun for gods sake, and blood elves can damage mana ((For the moment)) And AOE SILENCE. I’ve made this argument many, many times now, but for the love of god, its not hard to see who got shafted on useful in combat racials.

24. Know what bugs me? Everyone thinking that Arthas, and death knights in general! Are dead. Arthas. Never. Died. Arthas took up the Frostmourne in and effort to death the demon Mal’Ghenas ((Mind the spelling, probably wrong)) but lost his soul to the blade, and the burning legion. That’s his soul, not his life. Later he aquired the rather possessed set of armor he currently frequents, and got himself RE-poed by the spirit of a long dead shaman who was a bit pissed with his lot in un-life. That was when he broke away from the buring legion, and became the lich king. Now all of thats the rough of it, and I probably got some bits a bit off, but in none of it has he kicked off. Death knights ((Sans undead)) Are the same. They are individuals who turned their back on their race, and decided to join up with Arthas. I won’t ruin anything, but suffice to say they find a reason to come back. *Laughs*

    Death knights do not equal undead knights. In Warcraft 2 lore they did, they were the bodies of knights who had the souls of the Shadow Council, I believe, put into them. Warcraft 3, however, went to the ‘minions of the scourge’ format that they’ll be using for Wrath.

    Er, end rant/history lesson.

    Oh, and double. *sighs*

25. Triple. KILL the demon Mal’Ghenas, not death him.

26. Oooh cue theological discussing, is losing your soul the equivalent of dying?

27. Nope, and technically speaking since Arthas is now inhabited by the long-trapped soul of a bloodlust crazed orc shaman from the good old days called ner ‘zhul, well, he was at one point but that’s a different story. He is actually now closer to being an orc or a demon than human, but is definately NOT undead.

28. Kalgan actually posted in interesting fact about their arena stats in relation to racial abilities: only Perception had a statistically significant impact on arena rankings.

    And yeah, way back on the alpha forums, someone corrected a “he” to a “she” in relation to GC, and GC posted confirming that the latter was the right pronoun to use. So as far as we know, GC is a ‘she’ :)

29. Er Palladiamors could you take a chill pill? O_o I said I was taking my time in deciding how I should stand about Fall from Humanity, for humans, because it’s not so much about the whole human race getting a racial that is for an ‘oh crap I screwed up button’. And that they get a spirit boost and a racial for +rep and all.

    And that with something like this it seems a little unfair that UD got their racial, nerfed, like they did. No one complains about Orcs and Trolls getting a racial that is like an extra trinket; and it may be damaging but good grief man, look at what they are. Orcs and Trolls are NOT going to take sunday strolls smelling the daisies, but it is also bad for orcs because if they are war and mt, they can’t pop it safely probably [wouldn't know don't have an orc war] because it DOES cut down on healing. Sure it’s powerful in pvp.

    But it’s no different then having a free trinket.

    And I know Arthas isn’t dead o_O you can fall from grace and not be dead..

    And also; that AOE stun can be resisted, I’ve seen people bug over it when moving, and it is a TWO SECOND STUN if I remember right [been awhile since I've played my tauren main] and it does NOT save you when there’s a warrior that spamstringed you- O_o and the AoE silence is for only 2 seconds! Sure it’s annoying in pvp, I’ve had it used, funnily enough on my only ally alt, a hunter, and I’ve spammed it on my belf trio like mad, but it’s just two seconds mate, it’s not enough to be game breaking, it’s not like a priest[?] or MM hunter’s silence, like Warstomp isn’t like a decent stun attack, even if in general they can silence/stun multiple targets, there is a limit to range and duration. That and all I’ve found it really doing is helping me prevent a Warlock from casting fear on the Flag Carrier for ‘epic fighting’.

    Also the ‘damage mana’ can only be done once every 30 seconds, pulls less than Viper Sting, can be resisted, and again pulls a pitiful ammount of mana. If you’re really worried a blood elf is gonna snatch like 90 mana from you and you have a pool with a couple of k..

    I think this’ll be my last post cause really, Palla, you just need to take a chill pill o.O

30. Edit: Also the Belf silence can be resisted too, in pvp as much as pve.

31. Fall of humanity works like fade.
    Doesn’t do much, it just sets your threat to 0 for the duration. in theory it should make mobs reset if you’re the only target.

32. Pallad -

    Calling it a mana burn is being to nice to a worthless skill, it hardly drains ANYTHING, unless you got a raid off belfs firing it of at the same time.
    Im happy to get rid of the piece of crap.

33. I want to know when they are going to give Night Elves a **REAL** racial ability and get rid of that crappy, “Look at me, I move faster than you when I’m dead.” so-called ability. Whoever came up with that one at blizzard should be sliced with razor blades and dipped in a vat of salty lemon juice.

    … Do I sound bitter? LOL

34. Whoever is complaining about the NELF racial needs to realize just how awesome the buff they’re getting. a free 2% chance to not get hit is *amazing*. Nelf tanks will have a severe advantage over the other ally tanks now, and the benefit in pvp is quite clear. I expect this to get nerfed to 1% before it goes live, but it’s still significantly better than the old 1% dodge they used to have.

    And all horde knew the tauren 5% buff to health needed to be nerfed. It made tauren warriors by FAR the best end-game tanks due to the massive bonus to health they gained over anyone else.

35. Hey all I was just wondering about two things ever since mania has been posting this blog about wotlk which I must say is coming out very nicely, so as I was saying…what’s this about the tauren’s racial being nerfed?? I like my health (which is just under 14k by the way) and my second question is, can you spec to the 51 point nm talent and tame an “exotic” pet and then switch back and keep your pet is it something like right after you mount your pet “dissappears” as I’d put it. thanks in advance to all that reply

36. Dmok – Lay off the drugs man. LOL Just kidding, of course.

    That 2% chance to not be hit by melee is still not comparable to the massive benefits the other tanks get from having a shield. Have you ever run a heroic with a well-geard prot warrior? The healers get bored. Run that same heroic with an equally well-geared Druid and guess what, the druid takes damage, sometimes lots of it. I’m not sticking my nose up at the racial talent change, but it certainly can’t be considered OP or comparable to 99% of the Horde racial abilities.

37. I hope 3.0.2 is at the end of the month, like most/alot of people think!

38. Messyah -

    I’d say its the other way around usually.

    Sure, a warrior can avoid alot of damage, but when he takes a hit..it hurts.

    A Druid on the other hand….he can get a CRUSHING blow in his face, and would hardly notice.

    I find it ALOT easier to heal Druid tanks….thats why we used Druid tanks over Warrior ones for every boss exept Hydross and Vasjh. (cleared SSC and everything exept Kael in TK)

39. 6% mana gain with new arcane torrent is still next to useless, except in pvp.
    should be somewhere from 15-20% (basically free mana pot)

40. 15-20% would be a total overkill for a racial :x
    The silence is enough, we get the best resistance racial in the game.

41. Teika – My druid tank is in T5/T6 gear, and when raid-buffed has 38k armor, 20k Health, 420 Defense and 42% dodge and I still get hit like a Mack truck. Now, there have been situational bosses where I have been the better choice for tanking, but generally our warriors handle their business. Oh, and lets not forget a Warrior has Shield Wall and Last Stand for those crucial moments. As far as paladins, they are a different entity entirely.

    Oh, and on a side note… Hey, Blizzard? Where the F**K is our resistance sets? We want to tank Hydross too! LOL

42. You guys have missed the nerf to Mana Tap – to a prot paladin this was an important tool to overcome the lack of a ranged pulling ability. At higher levels you have Avenger’s Shield but at low levels you have nothing without Mana Tap. It was always a big part of playing my pally and I found it no problem to keep the 3 charges up.

43. Palla: In Arthas’ case, he’s currently indwelt by the Lich King, hasn’t eaten a meal or slept or allowed his body to return to 98.6 degrees in (I think) two years. He may be more ‘alive’ than the Forsaken, but he’s not exactly a fountain of life. The energy flowing through him is wholly necromantic in nature.

    Additionally that which was human in him has been truly dead since arguably the day he slaughtered innocents in that one stage in WAR3 when it was him vs the dread lord.

    And I actually like the word ‘death’. ‘Don’t mess with my shit, I will DEATH you!’

44. Secondly, I don’t think Arthas would stay ‘alive’ if somehow the lich king’s influence and Frostmourne’s were removed from him. He’d revert to being a human being that hasn’t eaten or slept or been 98.6 degrees in two years. :p

    He’s more powerful than a normal death knight but he’s also dependent on a lot of factors.

    He also looks a little less, er, lively than the death knight pictures I’ve seen that just resemble normal members of their race but aren’t in any way altered from the exposure to necromantic power, as Arthas obviously was. (You know, his flesh taking on a tone reminiscent of settled blood and frost bite? Yeah that.)

45. To reiterate, that’s a 2% to melee AND ranged attacks (not including spells). In higher end content, 2% free avoidance is absolute win. My paladin is gearing up in t6 atm and every “upgrade” comes with regemming and reenchanting stuff to make up for that extra 0.5% overall avoidance I lost to pick up some more health and threat. Having a 2% avoidance buffer is definately significantly better than having the 5% more health that tauren’s currently have for progression fights. especially with the lower expected avoidance levels in LK (as stated by blizzard)

46. dammit, forgot something

    re: mana tap “nerf” for paladins.
    welcome to how alliance paladins have been pulling since … well, forever.

47. these really need an edit button (sigh)

    in a heroic, an equally geared druid should take less overall damage than a warrior. the superior armour on a druid gives them a larger %damage reduction (even with a shield), and overall have something like 40-45% dodge in t6, plus what they get from miss. A warrior/paladin sits at around that in dodge/parry/miss. the only advantage warrior/paladins have in damage midgitation is when you start looking at bosses that crush (raid bosses only) since block% helps prevent crushes.

    In LK, there will be no more crushing blows. However the block value of warriors and paladins are being greatly improved to the point that the extra midgitation from blocks are expected to be close to the extra %dmg reduction druids get from armour.

48. Dmok – Warriors get the following abilities:

    1. Shield Block – Allows the warrior to block one melee attack ever 5 seconds.

    2. Parry (passive) – Allows the warrior to parry melee attacks (no cooldown).

    3. Last Stand (Talent) – Grants the warrior 30% more health for 20 sec.

    4. Shield Wall – Reduces melee, ranged and spell damage by 75% for 10 sec (16 sec w/talents)

    In addition to avoidance, they also get a spell interrupt and a stun (yes, bears get a stun too.) Aside from the stun, if you take all of those abilities into account, you can understand why Warriors are noteably the best end-game Boss tanks in the game.

49. Yes, belf paladins. Welcome to what Alliance paladins have had to do forever to pull pre-Avenger’s Shield–charge in to ten yards and Judge righteousness.

    Take up engineering if you miss the ranged pull pre-50. XD

    Also, re> death knights not being undead, or maybe they are–I’ve always considered them a form of undead, and so does the game. Baron Rivendare is one of the new-style DKs, and he’s classed as undead. There’s a DK talent that will let them turn into an undead by game classifications for a short period of time–and remember, a “humanoid” classification all the rest of the time doesn’t mean they aren’t, well, undead. Forsaken are only Humanoid in game terms because it avoids gross exploitation by paladins and priests in PvP situations. As long as Forsaken were classified Undead, they were subject to two more forms of crowd control that didn’t apply to anyone else in the game, not to mention the ugly burst damage a geared prot/holy paladin can cause with Exorcism.

50. “Wait, I’m a little confused. Is Gift of the Naaru still useful for Hunters?”

    I would say it’s even more useful now that it’s based on attack power. I have to say that my warrior is tickled by the change too, but overall I think racials are still going to cause complaining and no amount of tinkering will fix them.