We made them Feats of Strength before (no points). We will likely do the same for 85. They are kind of fun.

Right, my point though was that you do have a good tank healing rotation. In a world in which druids were the only healer, you could put druids on the MT and druids on the raid and do fine... probably a lot better than trying to do the same thing with a Disc priest or Holy paladin.

In Cataclysm, we'd ideally like for you to put a druid on the tank and a paladin on the raid if that works better for your group. I agree that would be raid malpractice (usually) trying to do that today. :)

We're changing the 5 second rule to just be an out of combat rule, so you can regen your mana pretty quickly in between pulls. You'll likely want to still drink before boss attempts (even in a 5-player dungeon), but that's typical even today.

Rogue leveling is getting some pretty significant changes for Cataclysm. The original intent seemed to be that you would constantly be in stealth using openers on targets. That's fine for particularly powerful foes, but it gets pretty tedious when you have to approach every single kill quest that way.

A related problem is things dying so quickly that you don't ever really get a chance to use finishing moves.

Well, it likely won't be "massive" and more importantly, it will be controlled. We can decide exactly how much armor pen you can get out of your talent tree and you won't be able to go over that by getting more powerful gear or skewing your stat choices so heavily in one direction.

Some gems will change. Armor pen gems will be going away. Some gems are changing color. At the moment we think we'll probably keep current attack power and spellpower gems, though if you are a min-maxer it's possible you'd be better off changing to Agility or Intellect.

Because some gems are changing color, you may gain or lose some socket bonuses you have now. In general, not many players take those very seriously so hopefully it won't be a big issue. It's possible you might have to do something to keep a meta gem bonus.

We'll try and announce all of the changes (though you'll probably get all of the info out of the public beta too) in plenty of time that not too many folks will be surprised when the changes go live.

It's not ideal to change existing gear on players obviously, but given the scope of the Cataclysm changes (including changing so many stats and talent trees), there is going to have to be a little bit of relearning. In this case it's really only an issue for the short window in between when the new rules go into effect and the Cataclysm itself (opening up new zones, level cap, etc.) actually occurs.

Tanking. I enjoy being the meat shield.

Today we feature some of Strigoi's artwork with a piece entitled: Warlock! This Forsaken warlock roars defiance against her enemies!
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It's been awhile, but I believe this is the plan, yes. So for the most part, if you have heirlooms right now they will work fine for most new characters, then when you get to Cataclysm zones you will start using the quest rewards for 81-85. At 85 you can get new heirlooms that will probably fit the 81-85 experience better. Yes, all of this could change too.

It certainly is happening, but it will only be purchasable by characters who are level 85. Players who already own a 310% mount will be 'gifted' the training, and it goes without saying that once the skill is learned all flying mounts will become 310% mounts. That's the current plan at least, and we don't plan on offering any further speed increases to these mounts.