Cataclysm rumours/info now in PC Gamer UK VERY BIG Spoilers
In the latest issue of PC Gamer (UK) is a 6 page article named '50 reasons to play Catalysm'. The vast majority of what is covered is already known/confirmed, however, there appears to be verifcation of certain rumours first made here on MMO-champion in the days before Blizzcon but that were never confirmed nor denied.

Just a note on the source before everyone starts screaming for links for scans. I don't have any, nor would I post them if I had them. The proof however can be found in the highstreet shops of the UK in issue 212 of PC Gamer UK (April edition).

  • Note #1 Important - The guys from PC Gamer were kind enough to give me a few more information on that. The article is NOT officially endorsed by Blizzard and is mostly the result of their own work, that means that a small part of speculation is involved. Just keep in mind that we're talking about people who interviewed developers in the past and who sell thousands of magazines each month.
  • Note #2 - If you missed it (... really?) you can still read the original World of Warcraft Cataclysm post. And you might want to check the Cairne Bloodhoof Quest Changes from the 3.3.3 PTRs.
  • Note #3 - Yep, I totally stole the introduction of the post from Donbar's original post on the forums. And I'll probably steal the rest below.

Warchief of the Horde
  • Thrall will become the next Guardian of Tirisfal. However, Thrall will merely 'leave Garrosh in charge' though this does not stop Garrosh from declaring war on the Alliance and fortifying Horde outposts and cities.

Inner-Horde relations
  • After assuming command of the Horde, Garrosh labels Cairne a traitor and executes the Tauren Leader. However, this does not seem to be the end of his involvement in Cataclysm and his seeming demise is linked to the greener, lusher Desolace.
  • Garrosh will throw out most of the Blood Elves and Forsaken from Orgrimmar.

Deepholme
  • It is possible that the Alliance and Horde will be involved in a major battle within Deepholm.
  • Airships will battle in the gigantic caverns al a Icecrown style.
  • The area will also cater for flying mounts.

Raids and Dungeons
  • Cataclysm will ship with 8 Heroic Dungeons (not including Deadmines and Shadowfang) and 4 Raid encounters.
  • The Skywall will contain a raid with Al'Akir as the end boss.
  • Grim Batol and Uldum raid will patched in post-launch.

Other
  • Harrison Jones has returned with his friends and is linked to the Archaeology proffesion.
  • One of the new features included in the guild interface/mechanics system is a Looking For Guild function.


Frozen Orbs Greed/Need rolls in 3.3
Quote from: Wryxian (Source)
Yeah it just takes one person to press Need after everyone's pressed Greed on the Frozen Orbs and you miss out. But the good news is that in patch 3.3.3 this won't be the case anymore -- the roll for Frozen Orbs will be an automatic Greed roll. Rejoice!




Trading Card Game Forum Live!
Quote from: Eyonix (Source)
A forum has been made available for those who wish to discuss the World of Warcraft Trading Game. To begin discussing the TCG with others please follow the link below.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/bo...rumId=26146637




Blue posts
Quote from Blizzard staff
Low level talents in Cataclysm
Yes, low level talents will be looked at extensively. The talent tier just above the 51-point talent was just a good example. (Source)

Tanking stats and Stamina

I'm not sure I buy that logic. If tanking gear had thousands and thousands of Stam, tanks would still socket Stamina because it's reliable. If your health is low, then even if your avoidance is 99% that means sometimes you're just going to die and no healer can save you. Now, if healers can generally heal you through damage but then eventually gas out, then avoidance becomes more attractive because it lets healers heal you longer. Does that mean you gem it? Not sure, but at least a trinket with all avoidance might be pretty exciting.

We also think we figured out a budgeting scheme to let tank gear have the same basic Stamina as dps gear. It's not a huge balance concern either way, but it does look weird when dps plate has more.

As for parry vs. dodge, there are just going to be a lot of debates both within our office and on all of the boards about how it should ideally work and the relative value of each. Those conversations are going to go on a long time and not the kind of thing that can easily be summed up in a pithy GC post. (Source)

1v1 Balance and Healer vs. DPS
To reiterate:

1) I said at some point "All things being equal, a dps should be able to kill a healer."

2) OP wondered what the context was for that statement.

3) I said the context was probably (because I don't remember) mana: meaning that all things being equal, a healer should eventually run out of mana. In other words, the way to counter a healer is to run them out of mana. It can't just be "I explode the healer with my awesome damage" because if that was true, it would mean a healer couldn't heal themselves through one attacker and would have little chance keeping themselves or a team member alive vs. 2 attackers.

4) The real take home message is that we don't put a lot of time balancing 1 v 1. The reasons are A) that there is nothing in the game that showcases 1v 1 encounters (you don't get Arena points from duels), and B) 1 v 1 balance doesn't scale well to team balance, which is showcased in Arena and BGs.

Players like to argue "If it's balanced 1 v 1 then it will be balanced for any number of participants." But that math doesn't actually work because of team synergy. The definition of synergy is that the total effect is greater than the sum of the component parts, or in other words, 1 + 1 > 2. The second you buff someone you are making both of you more powerful -- the buff is not divided by the number of recipients. Your team is more powerful than just the sum of what each of you can do individually. A 3 v 3 Arena match is fundamentally *not* a trio of 1 v 1 duels happening simultaneously.

Another way to consider it is to look at the damage done by a 10 player raid. Is a 25 player raid roughly 2.5 times that of the 10 player? No, it's probably closer to 3.5 times. It's not a linear scale. Now to be fair some of that is from fewer healers and tanks, but even that helps to support my point that you can't extrapolate upwards from 1 player and expect to have a meaningful encounter.

[...] If healers were overpowered relative to dps then you would see more two healer teams. Most of the time, that's just not worth the sacrifice you make in giving up that second dps player. I wish we saw more 2 healer teams in 5s, but that's a slight tangent.

I do think mana for healers is too easy to come by and I've said that several times. Even if healers ran dry more often though, I don't think that should let a dps guy just beat a healer in every duel because "Hey, I'm dps -- I should win." (Source)




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