Blue Notes: Cleaves and Soulbound Gems
by Eliah Hecht 
Mar 20th 2007 at 1:52PM
This isn't exactly news per se, since we knew that some cleaves were in for a change, but now we know more about the precise implementation, thanks to Tigole:The following changes to cleave have been made for the 2.1.0 patch.
--Cleaves will only hit people in front of the creature.
--Cleaves will have a chain length equal to the combat reach of the creature.
We still don't have an exact estimate on when this patch will be ready but development is wrapping up and the test phase should begin relatively soon. As a reminder, the patch undergoes internal testing before public, PTR testing.
I'm not really sure what "chain length" means. Does it mean radius, i.e. only people within combat reach of the creature will get hit? If so, I thought that was going on already. At any rate, my Rogue is now somewhat happier in dungeons, although it wouldn't have saved me in Blood Furnace last night (who knew "come here" means "go away or you're going to die in a fire?").
And from the "questions that you never thought of but which are still valid" department, we get an answer to what happens when you put a BoP gem (like the epic ones you can get off Heroic dungeons) in a BoE item, from Aeus:
I just asked a friendly GM to test this: Socketing a BoP gem into a BoE item should not make it soulbound, just VERY expensive ;)
Epic gems are the new designer labels. (<Made by Prada>, anyone? It happened on my realm, anyway.)
Filed under: Odds and ends, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Zuuler Mar 20th 2007 2:12PM
I'm not sure if this has an effect or not, but can jewelcrafters make BoP gems?
If so, wouldn't this make it so that they would still be able to "sell" soulbound items, though indirectly?
I don't think it would be fair for one profession to be able to side-step the rules to sell on the AH when none of the other professions can do this.
shawnzie Mar 20th 2007 2:24PM
We can't create BoP gems yet, they only drop in Heroic Dungeons. Though, I've heard that BoP recepies for bangin' purple gems are making their way into the game in an upcoming patch (or 2, or 3) so I'm sure we'll see a 'no socketing BoP items into non-BoP armor' nerf before then.
J-bob Mar 20th 2007 2:32PM
Jewelcrafters cannot make BOP/soulbound gems. Those only come from PVP rewards, vendors, and heroic dungeon drops.
Socketing these into BOEs and selling them at higher price is a neat, but not that practical, idea. However, since it's profession independent it does not 'sidestep' the rules, any more than selling old arcanum enchants on BOEs or through the 'do not trade' window was.
On the other hand it's not a bad use for heroic gem drops that no one in the party wants. Espcially since those epic gems cannot be DE'd, only vendored (for a whopping 3g).
Robert Mar 20th 2007 3:08PM
I got a 4 resilience / 6 parry epic gem last night in heroic underbogs. Anyone know a good BoE to put it in?
Argent Mar 20th 2007 3:16PM
the cleave thing just seems to be a minor clarification of the whole cleave mechanic. it more or less sets cleave range at whatever the mobs weapon reach is, which should fix some fights where rogues or hunters would stand well back, but still manage to chain a cleave onto the casters or healers.
Argent Mar 20th 2007 3:18PM
ech. i should clarify:
if the mobs range is 5 yards, he can cleave anyone in a 5 yard radius in a 180 degree arc in front of him.
if another player is standing within 5 yards of one of the players getting cleaved (say, 8 yards from the mob) then the cleave can be chained from player A to B and so on and so forth.
the change should make safe distances a bit more predictable.