The Daily Blues

by Adam Holisky Sep 4th 2010 at 12:00PM

Each day, WoW.com takes you through all the blue posts and other Blizzard news from around the internet. From the latest posts from Ghostcrawler (lead systems designer) to the lowdown on StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3, we'll keep you informed.

In which a weekend post of The Daily Blues is put forth.

Table of contents

Ghostcrawler

Ghostcrawler -- Retribution paladin mastery

We have actually changed Retribution's mastery. Having both it and Inquisition boost Holy damage was giving too much power to things like Exorcism (over which you have very little control) and not enough to things like Templar's Verdict (which is supposed to be the centerpiece of your rotation). The new mastery will emphasize Templar's Verdict more.

source

Ghostcrawler -- Death knight AoE

We're starting to think that the ship has just sailed on Pestilence. As I said, our original intent was that Blood Boil be the main AE attack, but now we're considering making Blood Boil more for tanking, letting Frost use Howling Blast and letting Unholy use Pestilence, because, you know, diseases.

source

Other

Nethaera -- BlizzCon Costume & Dance Signup Now Open

Signups are now open for the BlizzCon 2010 Costume ( http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/community/contests/blizzcon10-costume/index.html ) and Dance ( http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/community/contests/blizzcon10-dance/index.html ) contests! Eligible entrants are invited to strut their stuff live on stage, with the festivities being hosted by our master of ceremonies, comedian Jay Mohr. You have until October 4 to sign up for the live contests, and you must sign up online if you want to participate. With over $25,000 in prizes for our Friday night contests, this is one you don't want to miss.

Speaking of which, submissions for the Fan Art, ( http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/community/contests/blizzcon10-fanart/index.html ) Original Song, ( http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/community/contests/blizzcon10-song/index.html ) and Movie ( http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/community/contests/blizzcon10-movie/index.html ) contests close in less than a month on September 27, so if you haven't entered yet, you'd better get cracking!

If you aren't attending BlizzCon you can still check out these contests, all panels and tournaments, and even receive extra goodies including the "Deathy" World of Warcraft in-game pet by purchasing a BlizzCon 2010 Virtual Ticket.

source

Vaneras -- Community news

Community News
Vaneras, Slorkuz & Wryxian 03/09/2010

Fansites:

Wow.herniweb.cz continues their short story about Vindicator Nobundovi in the third chapter of Unbroken.
http://wow.herniweb.cz/novinky/unbroken-chapter-3-cast-prva/1/
Another story found on this site is the tale known as Fragments of Memories.
http://wow.herniweb.cz/novinky/dalsi-pribeh/1/
Wow.herniweb.cz also has a lot of Cataclysm beta updates this week, and amongst them you can find an article about the Worgen and Gilneas.
http://wow.herniweb.cz/novinky/worgeni-z-gilneasu-necekane-shledani/1/
Their beta coverage also features screenshots, some from the Bastion of Twilight
http://wow.herniweb.cz/novinky/bastion-of-twilight-beta-build-12803/1/
And some showing the Goblin mounts.
http://wow.herniweb.cz/novinky/mounti-goblinu/1/

WoW-Serbia has been very busy creating a lot of awesome reviews of the many Zones in the Cataclysm beta, which includes footage from:
Stonetalon Mountains - http://www.wow-serbia.com/cataclysm/zones/cataclysm-stonetalon-mountains-201009022323/
Northern Stranglethorn - http://www.wow-serbia.com/cataclysm/zones/cataclysm-northern-stranglethorn-201009022324/
Cape of Stranglethorn - http://www.wow-serbia.com/cataclysm/zones/cataclysm-cape-of-stranglethorn-201009022325/
Elwynn Forest - http://www.wow-serbia.com/cataclysm/zones/cataclysm-elwynn-forest-201009022326/
Loch Modan - http://www.wow-serbia.com/cataclysm/zones/cataclysm-loch-modan-201009022327/
Eastern Plaguelands - http://www.wow-serbia.com/cataclysm/zones/cataclysm-eastern-plaguelands-201009022328/
Badlands - http://www.wow-serbia.com/cataclysm/zones/cataclysm-badlands-201009022329/
Wetlands - http://www.wow-serbia.com/cataclysm/zones/cataclysm-wetlands-201009022330/
You can also find an update about the new mounts that people can get in Cataclysm
http://www.wow-serbia.com/cataclysm/npc-model/cataclysm-mounts-201008292312/
And don't miss out on the preview of the new Cataclysm Glyph Interface.
http://www.wow-serbia.com/cataclysm/interfaces/cataclysm-glyph-interface-preview-201009022331/

Battlecraft also has a lot of new beta footage this week. Check out their preview on the Vortex Pinnacle dungeon located in the Skywall complex
http://www.battlecraft.it/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1343
And don't miss out on the new screenshots from Stormwind.
http://www.battlecraft.it/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1342
Of other news on this site is their weekly column, AddOnZ, which speak about inventory addons this week
http://www.battlecraft.it/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1335
And they also have an interesting update about Role-playing in WoW.
http://www.battlecraft.it/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1292
Last, but not least, they have a cool little piece on Death Knights in the Arenas.
http://www.battlecraft.it/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1310

Wow.battlenet.pl has updated their extensive Cataclysm Preview Summary, which now contains even more information from the beta.
http://wow.battlenet.pl/portal/wow/1/696/Podsumowanie_zapowiedzi_zwiazanych_z_Cataclysm.html
Speaking of the beta, they're hosting a big Cataclysm beta key giveaway event for their Facebook fans.
http://wow.battlenet.pl/portal/wow/1/799/Wygraj_klucz_do_zamknietej_bety_Cataclysm.html

Be sure to check out our other official fansites for their latest news and information.
http://www.wow-europe.com/en/links/fansites.html

World of ComicCraft:

Self-stabbing for safety!
http://www.lfgcomic.com/page/388

This is why they call it the Wailing Caverns!
http://www.tehgladiators.com/?p=163

If you do not want your packages to be damaged in the mail, they must be wrapped properly!
http://www.darklegacycomics.com/253.html

That doesn't sound good...
http://beyondthetree.wordpress.com/2010/09/02/222-shield-shocked/

It looks like all her efforts have been for naught.
http://woweh.com/?p=852

Is it a drake, a dragon or a half-drakonid?
http://www.arena-inside.com/?p=664

Other Stuff:

Tylee of Eonar has created a neat little video where you can see a great gathering of players riding rare and hard to get mounts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvSvxbfqhek

Melodée of nagrand has posted a new WoW machinima, which is a Parody of "Love the Way You Lie" By Eminem ft. Rihanna.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTkdzVyfFGI

Cheshin of Spinebreaker has posted some more images of her awesome homemade Doomguard sculpture. She also made a mean looking Felhound.
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=14469477984&postId=144679492659&sid=1#2

What would it look like if World of Warcraft and StarCraft II was merged into a single game? Perhaps it would look something like this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfoU_EC9Ul8

Community Events:

Event: Farewell to old world event – September 6th - 18:00 realm time
[u]Description: Cataclysm is coming soon, so this is a chance to gather up with friends and see the old world for the last time before the expansion changes it forever.
Realm: Thunderhorn
Organized by: Akcope
More Information: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?sid=1&topicId=14332788011

Event: The Ironforge Bank Job! – September 11th - 15:00 realm time
Description: The Horde has decided to take a look at what's inside the Alliance safety deposit boxes of Ironforge. The Alliance better prepare to defend their bank if they don't want to lose their savings.
Realm: Agamaggan
Organized by: Uroo
More Information: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=14469499930&sid=1

Event: Defias Brotherhood Anniversary War no. 5 – September 13th & 14th - 20:00 realm time
Description: The Defias Brotherhood realm has been around for five years, which will be celebrated with some epic World PvP for all to enjoy.
Realm: Defias Brotherhood
Organized by: Orcs of the Red Blade
More Information: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=14469529208&sid=1

Have a glorious weekend everybody! :-)

source

Blizzard

Filed under: The Daily Blues

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

jishdefish Sep 4th 2010 12:34PM

So is Robin on sick leave? She didn't do her reschedualed stream last night.

http://www.wow.com/2010/09/01/choose-my-adventure-death-dust-dwarves-and-distractions/

Samutz Sep 4th 2010 1:33PM

http://twitter.com/cosmiclaurel/status/22932796991

jishdefish Sep 4th 2010 7:14PM

I thought that might be the case. Give her my best wishes. Hope she's feeling better soon.

Straz Sep 4th 2010 12:45PM

The Death Knight changes seem interesting. Pestilence did contribute to huge dps numbers across the board. It'll be nice for each tree to have a more distinct flavor.

It would be interesting to see Unholy ending up using "spell power" plate for disease damage increases, almost in a Necromancer-like fashion. Of course it probably would never happen, but could be a fun mechanic if designed correctly.

Drakkenfyre Sep 4th 2010 1:44PM

Except, Death Knights don't get any benefit from +Spell Power. All spells are tied to Attack Power.

Unless you mean not literally, and they implement a new type of Plate for them, which I don't see happening.

Zaros Sep 4th 2010 1:50PM

All spell-power plate currently goes to holy paladins so most of it is going to have spirit and intellect on it, neither of which Unholy needs. Spell-power affects your SPELLS and all spell-casters use MANA which comes from INTELLECT. See where I'm going with this? All items with spell-power usually also have intellect on them (as of now). While it is true that unholy is a spell/melee hybrid I don't think blizzard will want to create a whole new category of spellpower-no intellect-DPS plate that only one class/spec will wear. Right now holy paladins have it easy on gear.

Straz Sep 4th 2010 1:56PM

Well of course it doesn't work now. But there are already talents for other classes that increase attack power by percentage of intellect, and spellpower by percentages of strength and attack power. Elemental shamans will get hit from spirit. It's not a far-fetched idea, if you really think about it.

The main reason I don't see a Death Knight tree ever working this way is that they would be sharing gear with holy Paladins. It would be a rough time trying to get gear as DPS when you would wear the same gear as a healer.

Prances in Underpantss Sep 4th 2010 2:29PM

I'm interested to see how the diseases work out with Pestilence [possibly] going only to Unholy. Will they make Blood Boil and Howling Blast a little bit more powerful to make up for the DPS loss? Or will it even matter because we won't be doing large pulls any more? With mobs having larger health pools and only pulling a couple at a time, would we have time to apply diseases to another mob? And would it be beneficial?

As for the idea of making spell power plate viable for Unholy DK's - It's a good concept, but there's not nearly enough time to change everything around and test it to get it right.

SINisterWyvern Sep 4th 2010 3:05PM

"It would be a rough time trying to get gear as DPS when you would wear the same gear as a healer."

Ever hear of Cloth?

Eregos ftw! Sep 4th 2010 3:35PM

Wow guys. We all know that Dk's don't benifit from SP NOW, but he's suggesting it for later...

If it happened (and I think it would be nice to have happen) then of course Int would be made into something else, and spirit would too, and mp5, ect.

Straz Sep 4th 2010 4:28PM

Yes I've heard of cloth. I've also heard of cloth that doesn't have +hit on it. People are missing the point of my original post. It's not me saying that it would work now, or even in the near future. I don't expect them to pop up and say "Okay, we completely revamped the Unholy DK tree. Diseases are now based off of spellpower, and you will be sharing gear with Holy Paladins."

The point of my post was sharing an idea about how the Death Knight class could benefit from a little more distinction between the trees. On live (and beta, for that matter) every class' talent trees have their own feel. A pure DPS class, such as Hunter or Warlock, has three separate trees that play differently and has their own individual flavor. If I'm not mistaken, that's the way the trees are supposed to work. This uniqueness exists even more noticeably in your hybrid classes that can fulfill multiple roles.

Death Knight DPS feels just about the same, regardless of which tree you're using. Sure, one tree gets a ghoul and another dual-wields, but they play so much alike that there's really not much of a flavor to each tree. My idea of Unholy being a "spellpower plate" tree was merely a "hey what if..." that could really solidify the dichotomy of Unholy and Frost DPS. And taking into consideration Reforging and Mastery, itemization for gear could really have some interesting effects on the class.

I have no real expectations of being taken (nor should I be) taken seriously.

thebitterfig Sep 4th 2010 5:00PM

i was thinking previously about how another plate spec could be tweaked to work with spellpower. my first thoughts were that retribution should be changed, mainly since that would give each plate class two kinds of gear to seek (tank and int for paladins, tank and dps for dk and warriors), and being able to share gear between specs is just a nice thing. means you won't have quite as much of a problem switching between specs, and right now, everyone but paladins can share gear between specs. i think ret would be a better spec to change around than UH, if only because of between-spec gear sharing.

first, weapons would need to be addressed. Best way would probably be to have a "retribution-spell-power" function like Feral Attack Power, where it converts automatically from the weapon based on DPS. other than that, you'd potentially either have to go SP weapon and shield, which could work, but just seems sub-optimal. UH would be in similar shape (perhaps better), since you could just bake that into UH presence, like FAP for cat/bear forms.

second, and this is the major one, is expertise. a spirit-to-hit conversion talent could easily be in there, and that'd work fine, and allow nothing but tier set pieces to have baseline hit proper, and just convert offset spirit to hit as needed. however, expertise mucks that up. if you're going to melee, you'll need expertise. there could be some sort of complicated spirit-to-both-hit-and-expertise talent, where if you get spirit equal to the total rating needed to cap hit and expertise, you'd be capped, but it just seems awkward. talents and glyphs and such which provide huge amounts of expertise or dodge-reduction would probably be be overly potent, in that it removes a major gearing concern for those involved.

still, i wouldn't mind if someone else used int plate, so long as it was well implemented.

Desmentia Sep 5th 2010 8:03AM

"It would be a rough time trying to get gear as DPS when you would wear the same gear as a healer."

The shadow priests of the world can only wonder what that's like.

SamLowry Sep 5th 2010 2:23PM

"It would be interesting to see Unholy ending up using "spell power" plate for disease damage increases"

Dudes, he even used quotes to indicate he didn't really mean "spell power" as such, but something equivalent, probably because it seems like Unholy DKs are meant to cast a lot of "spells", kinda like hunters, who ended up grabbing a lot of gear with Int and Spirit on them, but we saw how well that worked out.

ravyncat Sep 4th 2010 12:56PM

I don't want to have to have spell plate for when I dps in unholy and regular plate for when I dps in frost. O_o;

Think of the poor dual-dps spec dk's.

I like the changes too. It sounds like it will be a lot different depending on what spec you are playing.

feniks9174 Sep 4th 2010 1:08PM

As opposed to dual-dps specced Druids and shamans who have to carry around 2 sets of gear?

Holy/Ret paladins, Prot/Fury Warriors . . . Lots of people carry around 2 sets of gear as it is.

Zaros Sep 4th 2010 1:42PM

Not a single class with 2 DPS specs. If rolled an arcane mage, then a fire mage there would be little to no change in my gear. Yous shouldn't have two totally different ways of gearing for 2 DPS trees of the same class. Unless it's range DPS and melee DPS which are 2 different types of DPS.

If your playing a class you should only get another set of gear if your changing your ROLE, not your SPEC. (I can't think of an exception to this so please correct me if I'm wrong)

Drakkenfyre Sep 4th 2010 1:45PM

Death Knights get zero benefit from +Spell Power plate.

Try it now. Equip something, anything, with +Spell Power. Go test it. Then take it off. Everything is tied to Attack Power.

Zaros Sep 4th 2010 1:53PM

I believe they were conversing about how it would be if they re-designed unholy DK's to revolve around spell-power instead of attack power

Stop trolling and read before posting, you illiterate jerk.

Stephen Sep 4th 2010 1:56PM

@Zaros:

Itemizations are different for many different specs that have 2 DPS classes. For instance, the focus for an Afflic Warlock is different than for a Destro Warlock. They are close, but it genearlly is a difference between haste and crit focus. A Shaman and a Druid have 2 very different DSP styles that require a different set of armor for each. Hunters focus on ArmP (Marks) or AP (Survival). Nitpicky, I know, but there it is. For optimal DPS, you do need to carry different armor sets for each spec.

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