Overall, we think rogues do too much passive damage -- autoattacks + poison. We want to shift more of that towards their specials, which will let both the finishers and the generators hit harder while keeping sustained damage about the same. It might mean less-skilled rogues do less damage by comparison, but that's not really a bad thing.

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If you are going to make rogues do more damage with specials, won't that make them more "bursty"?

That's the risk, but from a broader perspective you're identifying the problem: more damage on specials is more fun and generally requires more skill than lots of damage from auto attacking, but can lead to more burst. That doesn't mean that tons of damage from auto attacking is a desired goal though. Neither extreme is fun.

In Cataclysm, when health pools are much higher, then burst as a PvP strategy just isn't going to have the same strength it does now. In LK you can get someone close to death in a few globals, and in fact you need to, because if you don't the healer is going to have them back to full again. In Cataclysm, sustained damage even in PvP will be more meaningful, because you're trying to shift someone's health towards an endpoint instead of flipping them from 100% to 0%. It should feel more like a tug of war over health. In that environment, burst can still be good for when you need to actually get that killing blow, but it won't be the only strategy.

Rogue burst is also scary today because they can deliver it while a target is chain stunned. We've also said that's not a particularly fun place to be (for attacker or defender) and we need to shift rogue defenses away from short-duration immunities (which includes the stuns) and more towards being able to stand toe to toe with other classes a little better.

As a point of clarification, it isn't really a goal to push as many players as possible into Arena. We think the Arena experience probably works better when the players who are participating are the ones who really enjoy it. This is in contrast to say our raiding model where we are actively trying to encourage a lot of players to raid. The goal for Arena is for it to be really fun for the players who do enjoy Arena.

We think emphasizing Battlegrounds in Cataclysm will do a lot for the players who like PvP but don't like Arenas, and to be honest, the players still doing Arenas then might very well have more fun as a result.

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So when you say keep arena for arena players, I say, keep battlegrounds for battleground players, and reward them fairly

The model for rated BGs lets players choose whether they prefer Arena or BG (or a mix of both) and progress that way.

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Considering how much time you spend rebalancing the entire game because of Arena, this is surprising.

We spent a lot of time designing hard mode Arthas and for that matter Yogg 0 and Algalon too. If we targeted all of our content at the parts of the game the largest percentage of players are doing, then we would release almost all of our content for level 1-10 players. Obviously that logic doesn't make sense, but I'd argue neither does the logic that a minority of players participate in Arena, therefore the experience doesn't have to be a good one.

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The reality is that Arena is a balancing point for the entire game. Even if you opt to not Arena you can't avoid your PVP encounters being shaped by what happens in arenas. In a very real sense, you can't avoid the arena unless you avoid PVP altogether.

I think it's a fair claim that we spend most of our PvP balance effort on Arena (and most of than on 3 vs. 3). We do spend some effort on BG balance, and we're going to have to spend a lot more once you can earn the best rewards from BGs as well.

We don't spend a lot of effort balancing world ganking, because to be honest, those encounters are rarely fair to begin with.

Lawful Evil

A good question, but a hard one to answer :-)

There are so many different WoW related fansites out there covering pretty much any aspect of the game, so it is tough to think of anything new that hasn't been seen before. We always appreciate a good fansite though, so it does not necessarily matter if the concept isn't new as long as it delivers :-)

A good idea could perhaps be to look into the various gameplay niches of the game and see if you can make a new resource site that could be useful for the players enganged in those gameplay niches... an example could be a resource site for Twinking or alternative levelling. I am also sure that Roleplayers wouldn't mind getting a nice resource site if they don't already have one. Making a resource site for niche gameplay players most likely won't result in massive popularity with thousands of daily visitors though, so if that is what you are going for, then other ideas may be needed...

Perhaps somebody else can think of something more interesting :-)

As with the start of the new Dungeon System's introduction, we will be keeping a close eye on the changes that will be implemented with the patch. While we've been watching the PTR, we're also aware that the live results may be different and will decide if any further changes are warranted or not.

There aren't any immediate plans to add new outdoor raid bosses, but plans do change from time to time. We like the idea of them, the fear of walking into one (Doomwalker comes to mind!) is always good for keeping players on their toes!

We want to make sure that we put an outdoor raid boss in place for the right reasons though, not just because we can. There are also many factors to consider when putting in place such an encounter, since people like to spoil things for others. Those people know who they are and know what I mean (Doom Lord Kazzak, anyone?).

For me, it's the shaman. I like the distinct playstyle of both dps specs, though I do heavily favor elemental. Additionally, I really like healing as restoration.

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The hunter is looking pretty good for Cataclysm so far. In fact, we'll have information on specific classes available soon.