Im in ur beta, testing ur Cataclysm

Our merciful Blizzard overlords have granted me access to the divine realm known as the Cataclysm Beta. I've not had much time to look around yet, but so far it looks good.

After installing the beta, I had to go through a very lengthy patching process. There was over 3 GB of patches to download and install, but I guess that's the consequence of dramatically altering the world. As an added bonus, the EU patching server was down for the last 2 patches, so it took me some time to find manual downloads of the patch-download-executable.

But after an evening full of patching, I managed to start up the beta and log in. At that point my wife said what any sane wife would say: "Ooh, Cataclysm beta. Can I try the Worgen starting zone?" Since resistance is futile, I relinquished control of my computer and pulled up another chair for my new spectator position.

Worgen Starting Zone (Spoiler alert!)
The Worgen start out as ordinary humans, inhabitants of Gilneas. There is no narrative yet for the introduction sequence. I assume that will be added at a later stage, possibly even after the beta. You start in Gilneas City, which is under attack by Worgen. Your first quest-giver is Prince Greymane (the son of the King). As you slowly retreat through various parts of the city, you'll notice very heavy use of phasing. Three main quest-givers (Greymane Jr and Sr as well as a local mayor) move with you through the use of phasing.

Eventually, you're cornered in a cathedral and an NPC yells something about a cutscene about your transformation to a Worgen that's supposed to show, but is not yet implemented. After this non-existent cutscene, you find yourself, as a Worgen, on the brink of being executed when there's a debate between NPCs whether or not your humanity can be saved. Obviously, you're given the benefit of the doubt and you continue to quest on, with familiar quest-givers recognizing you and saying things like "Oh, it really is you, $name". At this point the Forsaken are attacking Gilneas from the sea to the south and you're tasked with stopping them.

One thing I noticed is that Blizzard really polished up the new-player-tips. They now include graphics such as a part of the UI that is being explained or a mouse with the correct button highlighted for some new action. It takes you through the basic concepts of the game, such as combat, trainers, looting, vendors, etc... in a nice way. For veterans it's useless of course, but I can see new players gaining much more from this than from the old tip-system.

Back to the L80 Druid
This morning I had a chance to actually log my Druid. I've seen very little yet, so there's not much to say. The newly announced talent system has not yet been implemented, so saying anything about talents is somewhat pointless. There was a new skill on the trainer though, Skull Bash. It's available both in Cat (25 energy) and in Bear (1 rage, probably not final) forms. It has an 18 yd range and when used causes you to charge the target and interrupt any spell being cast with a 5 second school-lockout. The base cooldown is 1 minute, but it can be talented (Brutal Impact, though that may change with the upcoming overhaul) down to 10 seconds, making it equal in power to Kick from Rogues, but with the charge effect added. What will happen with Feral Charge is not known yet. It seems to be a bit too much to have this charge effect as well as Feral Charge, both on short cooldowns. Not that I would mind though...

More spoilers follow
In other news, Orgrimmar looks great. Much more city-like. But there are no mailboxes yet, so I had to fly (yup, flying in Azeroth is long overdue) down to Razor Hill (which is pretty much unchanged) to fetch my mail (nothing interesting in there). Then I went to Vashj'ir to check out some of the new areas. One thing I noticed is that there isn't really anything that directs you to the new areas. I would've expected an ingame mail and/or plenty of pointer-quests in popular places, but other than one quest to travel to Vashj'ir, there wasn't really anything. Maybe that's still on the todo list.

Going to Vashj'ir is a little event on its own: You board a boat together with some Orc Warriors that are chatting about a new island having emerged close to Stormwind, which is going to be claimed by the Horde so they have a staging area for an assault on Stormwind. Originally, this is the goal of your journey. Once in the area, you see a capsized boat with some survivors standing on it, asking for help, but large tentacles come from below and pull them down. The tentacles then attack your boat and you're pulled away and thrown into the sea. As you sink, a naga approaches you and tries to pull you away, when a Draenei Shaman from the Earthen Ring rescues you. You wake up in a sunken boat, where a bubble of air remains, the Shaman is there to give you your first quest. The reward for this is a spell that allows you to breathe under water and move 60% faster while in the Vashj'ir area. You're then tasked with rescuing the others from your ship and then gathering supplies for the Orc troops.

And that's as far as I've come. There will be more :-)

Feral Cataclysm talent preview

Along with Shamans, Priests and Rogues, Blizzard has released a talent preview for Druids. I'll go over the Feral talents. Note that some talents are marked "TBR" which stands for "To Be Redesigned" or "To Be Removed". In either case, the talent is not expected to make it through unchanged.

Tier 1
Ferocity and Feral Aggression remain unchanged. The Tier 3 talent Sharpened Claws is moved to Tier 1, but its effect is changed to the effect of Savage Fury in Tier 2, which was removed completely. A bit confusing. But what it really means is that Savage Fury (+20% damage on Claw/Rake/Mangle/Maul) moves down a tier and is renamed and Sharpened Claws (+4% crit) is removed.

Tier 2
As mentioned above, Savage Fury was moved down from Tier 2 to Tier 1. Shredding Attacks was moved from Tier 4 down to Tier 2, but the energy-reduction on Shred was reduced from -9/-18 to -5/-10. The Lacerate component (-1/-2 rage) remains unchanged. Thick Hide and Feral Instinct remain unchanged, but Feral Instinct is marked as "TBR".

Tier 3
Feral Swiftness remains unchanged. Predatory Instincts was moved down from Tier 8 to Tier 3, its AoE-damage-reduction in Cat form component was removed and the +3%/+6%/+10% critical strike damage bonus is no longer restricted to Cat form only, changing the talent from pure Cat to all-round. Feral Charge is moved down from Tier 5 to Tier 3 and a new talent, Improved Feral Charge, is added to Tier 3. Imp. FC causes the damage done by your next 3 attacks to be increased by 5%/10% after using Feral Charge (Bear) and it causes Ravage to no longer require stealth for 3/6 seconds after using Feral Charge (Cat).

Tier 4
Nurturing Instincts has come down from Tier 5 and Primal Fury remains unchanged. A new talent, Fury Strikes, was added: Fury Strikes gives a 4%/8%/12% chance when auto-attacking in Cat or Bear to generate a second auto-attack against that target, with a 6 second cooldown. Think pre-WotLK Windfury/Sword-spec here. Note that Maul will no longer be an on-next-attack in Cataclysm, so all your auto-swings in Bear form will actually be auto-attacks dealing white damage that can proc this.

Tier 5
Improved Bash remains unchanged. Heart of the Wild moves down from Tier 6. Survival Instincts moves up from Tier 3. Predatory Strikes moves up from Tier 4, loses the AP-benefit (50%/100%/150% of level + 7%/14%/20% of AP on weapon), but gains: Ravage has a 25%/50% higher crit chance against targets above 90% health. The instant-cast proc after using a finishing move remains the same. This talent has become a PvP talent.

Tier 6
Natural Reaction and Survival of the Fittest remain the same. A new talent, Endless Carnage, was added that increases the duration of Rake, Savage Roar and Pulverize (see below) by 3/6 seconds.

Tier 7
King of the Jungle moves down 2 tiers from Tier 9, but loses the mana-reduction of the Feral form shapeshifts. Leader of the Pack and Improved LotP remain unchanged. Primal Tenacity has had the damage-reduction while stunned in Cat form halved to 5%/10%/15%.

Tier 8
Protector of the Pack remains the same. Infected Wounds was reduced from 3 talentpoints to 2, for the same total effect and now includes Ravage as well as the original Maul, Mangle and Shred.

Tier 9
Mangle and Improved Mangle remain unchanged. A new talent, Primal Madness, was added, which requires King of the Jungle and causes your Tigers Fury and Berserk to increase your maximum energy by 6/12 for the duration of the effect and cause Enrage and Berserk to instantly grant you 6/12 rage.

Tier 10
Rend and Tear remains unchanged, but now has a followup talent called Pulverize. This teaches you the Pulverize ability which consumes all Lacerate stacks on the target, dealing weapon damage plus 786 per stack of Lacerate (unknown if this scales or has additional ranks). In addition, it will give you 2% crit for 10 seconds for each stack of Lacerate consumed. 20 rage, no cooldown. Another talent was added, currently called "Nom Nom Nom", but it's flagged to be renamed, sadly. Nom Nom Nom gives you a 50%/100% chance for a Ferocious Bite on a target with less than 25% health to refresh the Rip on that target. This should give Cats a bit of added "Execute"-style DPS as they can bring out the big FB burst without Rip dropping.

Tier 11
Berserk remains unchanged.

Resto talents that affect Feral
Blessing of the Grove replaces Imp MotW in Tier 1. BotG increases damage done by Claw and Shred by 2%/4%. Furor remains unchanged, as do Omen of Clarity, Natural Shapeshifter and Master Shapeshifter. Naturalist moves up from Tier 2 to Tier 3. A new Tier 2 talent is added, Perseverance, reducing spell damage taken by 2%/4%/6%/8%/10%.

Conclusions and summary
The changes are not world-changing. The largest changes are in the position of talents, alot of them were moved down and some were moved up. Moving down talents has made room for some new talents to be added. Of the new talents, I think Pulverize is the most interesting. Together with Maul no longer being an on-next-swing attack, we will have 2 new buttons to choose from for our global cooldowns. Pulverize will interact in interesting ways with Lacerate, as you have to rebuild your stack after Pulverizing, but you do quite a bit of damage and gain 10% crit if you consume a full stack.

In Resto, Perseverance looks pretty strong for some tanking purposes. I'd kill for such a talent on fights like Sindragosa hardmode. But on other fights it may be practically useless. Next up is trying to work out something of an ideal spec using this new information. But it may be a bit too early for that as we're still missing info on glyph changes and possible scaling changes (especially Maul!) and all this is not final.

Rage changes in Cataclysm

Blizzard posters have shown us what's in store for Warriors and Druids when it comes to rage in Cataclysm. The full story is on the WoW forums.

The changes and how I feel about them:

1) Rage is no longer generated based on damage done by auto-attacks. Instead, each auto-attack provides a set amount of Rage, and off-hand weapons will generate 50% of the Rage main hands do. This amount is based on a constant formula which factors in the base swing speed of the weapon. This means the Rage gained should be averaged out between fast and slow weapons. The constant formula also gives us the ability to easily increase the rage gained if it feels too low (or reduce it if is too high). We are also implementing the following mechanics, which will still allow rage to improve to some extent as you improve gear:

• If the attack is a critical strike, it will generate 200% Rage.
• Haste will accelerate swing times to generate Rage faster.

Rage gains will no longer depend on the damage you deal with your attacks. This is nice. This mechanic was one of the main sources of the exceptional gear-scaling that Warriors had: Getting more gear means you hit harder which allows you to use your specials, which also hit harder, more often. In Cataclysm, the scaling will be far more linear, which makes it easier to predict and to plan for.

2) Rage from damage taken will no longer be based on a standard creature of the character’s level, but instead will based on the health of the warrior or druid. Again, there is a constant that is multiplied by the rage generated in order to allow for fine-tuning. This calculation ignores all damage reduction from armor, absorption, avoidance, block, or similar mechanics, so improving your gear will not reduce Rage gained.

This one confused me at first, but followup posts by Blizzard employees cleared it up: The amount of rage you get from a boss hitting you depends on two things: Damage done by the boss and player health. The more damage, the more rage, as it is now. But more health means less rage per damage. So in theory, the Cataclysm equivalents of Patchwerk and Festergut would give the same amount of rage to tanks geared for the individual bosses. But a T10 tank going back for the Naxx weekly would gain alot less rage from Patchwerk then he did before (due to the increased health). This mechanic seems a bit clunky, depending on how strong the inverse-health-scaling is.

On the other hand, rage-gains being the same regardless whether you got hit, blocked, parried, got missed or dodged is an excellent change. No more rage starvation due to avoidance-streaks.

3) We will provide warriors and druids with more instant sources of rage. For example, the warrior shouts are changing to work more like the death knight ability Horn of Winter. Instead of Battle Shout consuming Rage, it will generate Rage but have a short cooldown. Both classes will have additional methods to generate Rage in an emergency or bleed off Rage when they have too much.

That sounds nice. I'm not sure which ability would make sense here for a Druid (Demo Roar?), but more on-demand rage and rage being an actual resource to manage should make things more interesting.

4) All “on next swing” attacks in Cataclysm are being removed. Heroic Strike and Maul will be instant swings that cost a variable amount of Rage. For example, imagine Heroic Strike costs between 10 and 30 Rage. You must have at least 10 Rage to use the attack, but it will consume all available Rage up to a maximum of 30. Any Rage consumed above the minimum will cause the ability to hit harder, and in some cases much harder. We will tune the ability so that it’s generally not a good idea to hit it when you have low Rage (unless everything else is somehow on cooldown) but becomes a more attractive button the higher your Rage.

I like this as well. Maul (and Heroic Strike) have become things that you don't even think about using anymore, you just spam it every auto-attack (or macro it to all your instant abilities) and forget about it. Other than RSI, these abilities don't give you anything, yet they're essential if you want to generate enough threat. Together with the rage-generating shouts, this change should help make rage more of a resource to be managed, like energy is for Cat Druids and Rogues and not like mana is for most DPS casters.

Conclusion
I like most of the changes, they should make Warrior and Druid gameplay more interesting. All this obviously assumes that the new mechanics and scaling factors will be balanced properly. The rage from damage taken mechanic I'm not entirely happy with. Depending on how harsh the inverse-health-scaling will be, it might make revisiting older content an unpleasant experience.

In related news, the coming week will feature previews of Cataclysm changes for all classes (except Paladins, they have to wait one week longer because they're special). Druids are scheduled for friday.