BlizzCon 2009: Items, Classes, and Professions Panel
Posted by 
Heartbourne on Friday, August 21, 2009 - 48 Comments Tags: archaeology, path of the titans
Heartbourne on Friday, August 21, 2009 - 48 Comments Tags: archaeology, path of the titans 
The panel is onstage.
5:02: Goblin racials: Rocket Belt, Rocket Turret creator (on a shared cooldown), bank anywhere, 1% haste, +15 alchemy and increased effect from potions. Best discounts regardless of reputation.
5:03: Worgen Racials: +15 Skinning, no knife required, 15% less time on curses and disease. Worgen form is cosmetic only, can shift at will. Can stay as human if you want.
5:05: Announcing the class changes we already knew from the leak. Ghostcrawler comments the NE mages are the "return of the Highbourne", and the dwarves learned shamanism from Draeni.
5:06: Warlocks: Soul shard are no longer placed in bags. They are only used in combat and are integrated into the UI like DK runes. You now get 3 per fight and regenerate after combat, maybe automatically or maybe after using a spell. You can get more on long fights, perhaps with an Evocation like spell
5:08: The only spell that costs chards is Soul Burn, which is not on the GCD and gives you a buff that changes your spells. Eg, might make Searing Pain crit 3 times in a row, instant summon a demon, instant Soulfire (OMG), instant fear (OMG), longer horror on Death Coil.
5:09: Hunters: NO LONGER USE MANA. Use Focus, no longer care about intellect (GC said hunters are dumb). Regens automatically like energy. Steady Shot regens focus as well. Cap of 100 focus, regens at like 6 focus/sec and 15 with steady shot. Ammo will be an item, cooldowns on abilities will largely be removed to play more like rogues.
5:11: Itemization: Make stats easier to understand and more unified. MP5 is now gone, replaced with spirit. Spirit is now precisely mana regen. Mages and Warlocks will not use spirit.
Spell Power is gone. Intellect is essientally spell power now, Hunters and Enhancement shaman don't care about it anymore.
Attack Power is gone. For Rogues and Hunters, its agility, saving our gear from plate wearers.
Defense is gone. Anti-crit for tanks is from talents
Armor Penetration is gone. Too confusing and replaced with Mastery. Whatever you like to do, Mastery makes you better at it.
5:15 Haste = "Push more buttons". Increases the rate you get rage, runes, focus, energy.
Block value goes away, block now mitigates all incoming damage.
Stamina is GONE. Just kidding. There is lots more stamina on more things. Now stop complaining about dying on Thorum.
5:17 Next legendary: Shadowmourne: 2H axe!
5:18: Professions: Archaeology collects artifacts out of the world. Makes you more powerful somehow using Path of the Titans. Unique rewards, like titles, teleports to dungeons because you explored it so much, etc. Goes into a journal, quest log type thing.
Reforging: Customize your gear for cheap. Done by Blackmsiths, leatherworkers, tailors, jewelcrafters, engineers. Reduces one stat for another.
5:23: Professions: Multigains: Rare and hard to make items can give you multiple skill levels. Want Gathering perks to be more compelling, useful to everyone.
5:24: Engineering: At some times its awesome, sometimes it sucks. They want it to be like what they did in patch 3.2 like teleporters, convenience like repair bots, etc.
Big changes coming to Fishing, make it more fun.
5:25: Q&A starting. No Ret Pally questions allowed.
Question: "Redone racials?" Yes. Want them to be cool.
Tradeskills are going up by another 75 points. New title like Grand Master is "Illustrious".
Q: Why Goblin and Worgen DKs? A: It sounded fun, might change.
Q: Legendaries. Why no caster ones since Atiesh A: Sorry.
Q: Talent builds are specific, eg Frost mages are PvP/leveling. Is this going to change?
A: They are getting rid of ability ranks. It now scales with character level.
Q: ?? A: Talent trees are getting redone, especially Hunter to support the new Focus model.
Q: Elemental Shamans. Whats happening? A: Long term, totems are more cool, something happens when you put them down. Don't want all PvP casts instant cast to increase mobility.
Q: Reforging. A: There will be some limits on how much you can change stats, probably. Works on anyone's gear (BoE essentially)
8:32: Q: Professions. Only two? A: Yes. They want it to be a hard choice. Multi-tracking will happen for gathering, gathering will be cooling
Q: I'm a druid, dual specs are cool. Tri-spec? Statement: make backpacks bigger. A: Dual-spec is staying as two specs only. Backpacks may change, hush hush.
Q: Corrupted Ashbringer changing? A: No.
Q: Warriors and Attack power? A: Trying to consolidate gear. Attack power might still show up on like rings or necks.
Q: Do mages get more raid utility? Just table-makers. A: Probably. Frost will be better in PvE later, has replenishment. Ghostcrawler wants a pony.
5:36 Q: What's up with ammo? A: Maybe you get it from vendor badges, or there are different types you carry like fire, armor penetration, etc.
Q: Something weird is happening with a guy in a mask.
Q: Resto shaman. You want them to be more raid or tank healers. A: They want Shamans to be one of the best AE healers, but also tank heal.
Q: Spell Power Plate in leveling Blacksmithing? A: Do you level as a Holy Paladin, n00b?
Q: Homogenized stat format didn't work with classes like holy pallies and elemental shamans. Are they going to get more homogenized. A: No. No solution. Do you want pallies to heal with strength and hit?
Q: MP5, spirit, resto shaman, is this going to be strange? A: No, spirit will be the unified mana regeneration stat.
Q: Profession mounts, any 310% ones, and any multipassenger flying mounts? A: Maybe multipassenger, probably not on professions unless you already have some sort of achievement that gave you a 310% mount.
Q: Lots of classes get hit from talents, some don't. /cry A: Hit through talents sucks, it screws up itemization and isn't cool or fun. Probably will go away.
5:44 Q: Professions: Blacksmiths can't repair, Tailor's can't repair their own gear, etc. Whats going on with durability? A: Durability is a good mechanic, for the economy. Repairing own armor is covered by repair bots; reforging gives the other professions an extra thing to do.
Q: Resto Shamans/Resto Druids: Why do they not have a magic dispel? A: Probably give all healers dispel magic. Poison, curse, disease will be more class specific.
Q: Dwarves and treasure finding. Where is the treasure in the world? A: They found it all. Archaeology. LOOK OVER THERE! To be honest, it just wasn't cool and were farmer bait. Is going to be reworked and cooler, like chest giving you XP or other things. It will be significant to find a chest, like a rare spawn.
Q: Can you scale 280% mounts to 310% if we have a 310% mount already? A: Maybe. They understand the problem.
5:49 Q: Shadow Priests and haste. Its useless. A: They want it to be better for everyone. Something might happen with their spells.
5 minutes left for Q&A.
Q: Staves, bows, crossbows. Are there going to be craftable? A: Maybe woodcrafting in the future. Not enough for a whole tradeskill, may go to engineering for bows/crossbows, but probably not. Maybe found in Archaeology relics.
Q: Feral Druid rotation is nuts. Change in system? A: No. People like it. Might change UI to make it easier to play, relies too heavily on mods. Or you can get a mangle-bot.
Q: Dead characters spelling out spam websites. Fix coming? A: They don't condone it, don't know how to stop it yet.
5:53: Q: When are you giving mortal strike to everyone? A: Good defense and healing should not get mortal strike effects. Its up in the air, not everyone will get it.
Q: With gear and stat changes, what happens with pally blessings? A: They will change accordingly. Talents that improve buffs are going to be gone.
End of panels day 1! Whew!
Reader Comments (48)
new hunter things are awsome! SCREW MANA!
this sounds pretty sweet actually
So, basically, the horde get a new race with 7 racials, and Alliance get a human with 2 slightly different racials and a trinket-like 'cosmetic' effect that does nothing useful?
What can i say? you may as well call them humans who can get free haircuts at will. totally pointless in my opinion. Why change form if it doesnt affect any gameplay, like the druid forms do
You may as well just give the humans a worgen trinket....
Iron Boot Flask anyone?
=)
I'm a little dissappointed, it looks like everything is getting simplified, or, dare I say, dumbed down. As a hunter I don't like the fact that we're becoming Rogues with a ranged weapon. Maybe it's because I'm just used to using Mana, but thats how i feel about it
no kidding...the Hunter changes are gonna stink for a while till we get used to it anyway....what i don't get is why they're doing away with all the 'tirtiary' stats like ap, def, sp etc....there's no challange if i'm automatically gonna be def capped just because i specced for it or constantly searching for more crit/ap because i want more dps....jeesh! I'm all for simplifying things but holy moly this is going WAY too far!
And the whole 'fly anywhere, anytime' deal....do you REALIZE...does Blizz realize just how hard that's gonna make getting out of Northshire when you have horde dropping in and ganking the hell out of everything in sight?
are warlocks finally going to get a new demon in this xpac?
Sounds to me like hunters are getting even MORE overpowered!
And allance are getting a bad deal cuz wht happens if you dont take skinning then all you can do is turn into a wolf and not get cursed as much. But tbh a worgen rouge would look quite cool.
MMO-Champion says worgen get:
+1% damage
-15% curse/disease duration
Darkflight: +70% run speed for 6 sec, CD 3 min
+15% skinning, skin faster, no knife needed
All classes except Paladin and Shaman.
So it's not quite as dire for the worgen as Harry is making it out to be, though it does seem that the goblins are coming out ahead (1% racial haste is approximately equal to 1% damage, given that they're changing haste so it affects energy/focus/mana/rage/rune regeneration as well)
But all things considered... given the major changes they're making to Kalimdor/Eastern Kingdoms and the major mechanics revamp they are doing, this feels more like World of Warcraft II than an expansion, except you get to keep your old character. That's not a bad thing IMO - it lets them upgrade the game to adapt to the competition while still (hopefully) keeping the fanbase.
I.. am quitting WoW. That's it. Fuck all that. It looked interesting, but when they said Hunters are using focus.. FUCK THAT. WE'RE NOT ROGUES GOD DAMN IT. Defense is gone? So now wtf? This is TOO simple.. brings NO customization. One person figures out a spec and everyone copies it. No more needing gear to go along with it. I'm totally for making things simple.. but this is WAY overboard.
Fucking gay. Way to go and ruin a perfectly good franchise Blizzard with making everything fucking simpler and shit.
God damn.
@ Laeltis: You're welcome? Can I haz your stuff?
Now. In regards to Ap, SP, etc being removed, some of your are implying that the stat in general is deleted. Not really.
The stat is still there....just not avaliable on gear. INT, SPI, AGI become that stat now
i think what they mean with the flying is it will be two different worlds, like u lvl 1-80 in waht we have now then you carry on at 80 after a cutscene of the sundering maybe they will run it on a diff server (not realm) so they dont have to phase it causing huge amounts of lag/FPS going down the toilet
hmmm so this is in the new xpack or next patch? i'm guessing xpack anyways hmm def gone? might work out as a tank i dunno about it unless the anti-crit talents own, i want my def and the gear for me moar stam
PALLYS FTW
SHAMMYS FTW
LOCKS FTW
thats all i like atm
@mcloud
No, sir. There is no old world. It is 100% confirmed, the old version of Azeroth is gone.
@Mike1972
Give humans a racial trinket?
Please don't tell me you were like this when the undead were announced as a Horde race. "Lolz, just dead humans, gip on horde, only have three new races".
Even if it was released in classic, your reasoning just seems to want to put down an awesome race addition. Worgen is a curse, it is a seemingly permanent curse that has affected the humans of Gilneas, who, might I add, have not been part of the alliance in a VERY long time and acted on their own accord until now.
I'm getting sick and tired of people saying "This sucks, wow is getting blown up and shiz". You know what? I know you have an opinion but it makes no sense. They're making it so everyone can play. I'd like to not know every little detail about every little class to PvP thank you, not to mention ungodly reflexes. I don't want to raid 6 hours a night every night of the week and number crunch my arse off. And I'd also like to enjoy the lore, however broken it is, but still. It's becoming casual so people like me can enjoy all aspects of the game and still have a life, that's all.
Now that my two cents has been inputted, please, feel free to point at me and say "U JUS WOW FANBOI NUBZ".
Have a nice day. *Bows out*
2 things im not to happy about the hunter changes and the worgen/human thing
@Wonocva
Thank you!
5:06: Warlocks: Soul shard are no longer placed in bags. They are only used in combat and are integrated into the UI like DK runes. You now get 3 per fight and regenerate after combat, maybe automatically or maybe after using a spell. You can get more on long fights, perhaps with an Evocation like spell
5:08: The only spell that costs chards is Soul Burn, which is not on the GCD and gives you a buff that changes your spells. Eg, might make Searing Pain crit 3 times in a row, instant summon a demon, instant Soulfire (OMG), instant fear (OMG), longer horror on Death Coil.
I cried a little
@wonocova
thank you very much
ppl who says this game is dumbed down can go blow a dick, when a game requires SPREADSHEETS to calculate stuff is just stupid.
no hunters are NOT ROGUES, i welcome the change because now we are not useless when we run out of mana.
hows staying in viper for an extra 5min when you can keep pumping out shots? my god ppl are extremely aroggant.
if you wanna "OMFG I QUIT CAUSE STUFF TO EASY BYE"
nobody misses you and CAN I HAZ YO STUFF???
The idea of making it simpler to play is easy this is a game they want anyone not just hard core gamers to beable to sit down and play it and understand it.
This is not that hard to understand the $15 subscriptions a month they can sell the better. Who wants to pay $15 a month for a game they can't understand or find too hard to play?
@ Harry
Hunters overpowered?
There is no say in it on the amount of Focus/energy abilities and attacks will cost and no word about the regeneration rate of it. Rogues have to learn to master/manage their energy too if they are to be fully effective in combat. for Hunters it will be no different.
what happens with the ppl that hasn't buy any xpac?
I think these changes look sweet. Almost... juicy.
Ok, hunters are a very badly played race.
Hey i know how i played when i started and i believe im getting better...
DEfinetely get rid of mana. Intelligence didnt made sense. We are not stupid for sure since we attack from far but having mana was a redundancy. We didn't get nothing from spell power so why the mana???
Focus was the greates thing i heard from this expansion.
Please don't make us worse at least...
And improve our pvp ablities. Arena for us is like going to our graveyards in advance...not fair...
LOL another step towards "World of Warcraft - The Clone campaigns removing more stats equals one thing and that is we our gear will eventually say something like "+10 to stats"
Whats next console versions of Warcraft!!!