Cataclysm: Skill ranks explained
by Gregg Reece 
May 5th 2010 at 6:00PM
Ghostcrawler1. The gain is every level. You don't have to reach certain milestones for your Shadow Bolt damage to increase. One of the scaling problems we have currently is that any spell without a level 80 rank starts to fall behind. Imagine Shadow Bolt just has 85 (free and automatic) ranks.
2. We changed the level at which you get abilities, in some cases dramatically. Currently, you get showered with abilities at low level, many of which aren't even useful when soloing. By sliding these around we have every class to where you get an ability about every odd level. There are still some dry spells for some classes, but then you have talents and other things that fill in some blanks.
3. Related, the spell book tells you at what level you will get future abilities so you can plan accordingly. In addition, when you ding, the UI tells you not only about newly available spells, but also systems and mechanics not tied to your class trainer, such as the ability to train riding, dual spec or use Dungeon Finder. It's pretty sweet. Our UI team is kicking some major booty for Cataclysm.
2. We changed the level at which you get abilities, in some cases dramatically. Currently, you get showered with abilities at low level, many of which aren't even useful when soloing. By sliding these around we have every class to where you get an ability about every odd level. There are still some dry spells for some classes, but then you have talents and other things that fill in some blanks.
3. Related, the spell book tells you at what level you will get future abilities so you can plan accordingly. In addition, when you ding, the UI tells you not only about newly available spells, but also systems and mechanics not tied to your class trainer, such as the ability to train riding, dual spec or use Dungeon Finder. It's pretty sweet. Our UI team is kicking some major booty for Cataclysm.
This should be a little bit more informative and much more immediate than the mails that you occasionally receive from NPCs about new features. Hitting a new level while in the middle of questing and being able to at a quick glance find out what skills you'll be receiving if you head over to the class trainers will let you decide if you want to keep going or wait until later in the event of a skill you don't use that often.
While some will argue that this is yet another change for casuals, it's honestly a change for modern game design and keeping up with the curve. When your game is over 5 years old, there are often some basic things that need updating and the leveling process really is one of them.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it. Nothing will be the same. In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion. From Goblins and Worgens to Mastery and Guild changes, it's all there for your cataclysmic enjoyment.Filed under: Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Alanid May 5th 2010 6:02PM
Awesome changes are awesome. Can't wait to play through them!
jukebokx352 May 5th 2010 8:16PM
No it's terrible! All the hard earned gold I spent training 15,000,000 ranks of spell instantly turned to waste! I demand a refund, for this and for all the money i spent on a mount at lvl 40!
Sarcasm aside, this is great. One of the biggest hurtles starting new characters is the amount of money it cost to train up new skill. My Ally druid is perpetually stuck at lvl 15 because I can't afford new spell and he's on a different server from my main. This will mean that essentially you start scaling with your wallet at low levels.
James May 5th 2010 11:25PM
I just tlaked to someone today who is an avid FPS'er that has WoW installed on their desktop but has never done anything with it because they didn't realize you could hotkey spells, so they were clicking abilities out of their spellbook. They thought it was lame that you had so few abilities as well. If the new tutorial segment of the starting zones and the ability to see upcoming spells in you spell book improve the early gameplay experience for people like this we could see a huge influx of new players. It should also help leveling through those times where your spells and abilities are underpowered for your level.
Bloomindraal May 6th 2010 2:23AM
@ jukebokx352 - What the hell is a hurtle ?
Kakistocracy May 6th 2010 11:13AM
It's a cross between a hurdle and a turtle.
I'd steer clear of them if I were you...
Tremelizzer May 5th 2010 6:03PM
Sounds nice :)
TinyLittleRobot May 5th 2010 6:04PM
Sweet
shatto.a May 5th 2010 6:05PM
And it only took 2 years to learn from Warhammer Online!
Josin May 5th 2010 8:00PM
Learn from what? Oh, was that one of those "WoW-killer" games?
shatto.a May 5th 2010 8:29PM
WAR had some great ideas, including the ability to queue for battlegrounds from anywhere, and a rank-less skill system. I was surprised when Blizzard adapted the former first, because they both worked extremely well.
cartmensfoe May 5th 2010 6:06PM
"Our UI team is kicking some major booty for Cataclysm." does this mean we will be getting an updated UI. nothing wrong with the current one, but after 3+ years and the inability to get a grasp of any add-on UI changers, this is welcome to me with open arms
Noah May 5th 2010 7:13PM
Ghostcrawler mentioned a UI overhaul, but mostly for talent screens, profession screens, and things like that (he also says they were working on better raid frames). I would expect those panels to look better, but I think the basic screen UI of the portraits, actionbars, etc. would remain the same.
Paul May 5th 2010 6:11PM
How long before people complain about not get in-game mail from NPCs telling them about newly available features?
Ametrine May 5th 2010 6:14PM
You get mail for ride training, but that's about it.
Eregos ftw! May 5th 2010 6:36PM
There's also druid quests
kingoomieiii May 6th 2010 9:35AM
You also get a mail when you get your first badge, telling you where the vendors are.
V Magius May 5th 2010 6:13PM
Well, there's an addon I can drop now. Goodbye TrainerSkills. I'll probably keep that one for the professions unless there's a change for that too.
PictoKong May 5th 2010 9:46PM
Rankwatch have a function to show you the new spells you get (very useful to know my prot warrior can wait one more level because i dont use Slam anymore)
CaryEverett May 5th 2010 6:21PM
Yay for the UI telling you about new things you can get.
I can't be the only person who got a mount level 35 before I remembered that they nerfed the level for mounts. In fact, I didn't even figure it out myself. It was some random person who asked me why I was still running around everywhere on foot.
Doh.
Andostre May 5th 2010 6:35PM
People may complain that this is another change for casuals, but it's really a change for levellers, which is a pretty significant difference.