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)
i cant wait till this expansion comes out. i am going to reroll my toons. except for my 80 dk. worgens sound like they will be cool to play. and lets not forget, worgans could be like the dk's. you know how the dk's had to fight the lich kings control and everything else like that. well maybe they will do something like that for the worgans. you will have to do a couple of quest ofr arugal. sorry for the spelling and then betray him. and you are then part of the alliance. who knows what they do.
so don't get worked up on something that is years to come. just wait on what info they give us. cause bliz might change somethings and what you see now wont be there. cause nothing is permanent. and with all the new lore, we can only hope that they learn from there mistakes and make this expansion really good.
bah i see no intresting mage changes :< or any alch uber flying mounts (potion that make your char. able to fly anyone?) but i want to watch the world burn and break so it should be interesting :D. anyhow the expansion does look good but the changes to gear are just wierd, basicly all SP gems in my sockets are useless, most of my gear is enchanted with SP, what will happens :<
All complaints aside, I know Blizzard knows how to make good games, so they have probably learned from their mistakes, and overall, I'm gonna enjoy the next expansion more than I enjoyed WotLK.
@ Wonocva
All I'm saying is that so far it seems pointless to have a race with a racial that only changes appearance with no bonusus at all. The racials should be more balanced between Horde and Alliance.
I also dont think theyre dumbing down the game too much, theyre just making it easier and more fun to play, and not have to number-crunch for hours every time you loot a new piece of gear.
Oh and btw, I bet you play horde.
I think its really dumb to try to make it really easy to play.... The internet is all about applying to one type of people. When you apply to the masses you will lose all originality. Personally for me the game has never been that i wanted it simpler to enjoy. The thing that made the game fun was the challenge. If it didnt id be playing the same lvl of halo over and over.
Plus lowbies should be able to experience the old world as we know it then when they hit 80 they go through a event....
I Think it begins a regens 12 focus with steady shot, just an FYI
@mike1972
One, it's for lore reasons. People actually, oh I don't know, roleplay on this game you know. I nearly shat myself when shamans were allows as a dwarf race. My wildhammer character can FINALLY make lorewise sense.
Secondly, whether or not I made it seem so, that was not directed towards you. Your comment just blew me over the top, what with all the crap I mentioned being spewed everywhere I go to look at the new expansion.
And by the way, I play both Horde and Alliance. So...whatever insult or reasoning that was supposed to be no longer works. Sorry 'bout that *Thumbs up*
@Cnblackout
No offense, but tell that to a videogame developer. They won't get a huge audience if they only supply to a slim amount of people. Not to say the game wasn't challenging everywhere, but end game content was only obtainable by the people that I described, and I for one really wanted to see it all at level, not when I could breeze through it without ANY challenge at level 80.
As for being able to experience the old world, isn't changing the world permenantly from an explosion...originality? <_<;
Ouch, my apologies. That last @mike should be dwarf CLASS.
"U HAV NO RASON TO TAK NAO. U MAD MISTAK"
See, its not that hunters aren't smart, its just we're to smart for Mana, kinda like that guy was to sexy for his shirt.
From MMO-champ
Worgen Form
The Worgen Form is cosmetic only
out of combat you can pick between Human or Worgen.
In combat you will be a worgen.
Now quit bitching about the fucking worgen forms.
I dont know... i dont like what they're doing to make stats much simplier. I dont like change, its merely a human nature, But ill wait and see how blizzard makes this work..
By the way, there's an open Q&A today. If one of the PL people at Blizzcon could ask about heirloom items in Cataclysm, that would be much appreciated. Will they be re-itemized to match the new setup? Will they scale beyond level 80?
Well IMO i say get rid of the mana on hunters and druids and such as long as they also do away with GCD's on abilities. but i forsee hunters turning into a rogue that can have a pet. they'll probably make all ranged attacks a cast like throw or shoot is on the rogue and warrior classes which would really suc. I hope this doesn't appen and hope shots don't use much focus to perform because that would really make the class useless.. 2 shots using as stated like 60 focus per would make it to where hunters would be dead in the water till their focus could regen an at 6 per second that's like 10 seconds the hunter couldn't do nothing but run up and swing their axe sword or dagger or whatever type of wep they had equipted. atleast with being mana they could slap up viper for 3 to 5 shots and be back at full mana and still be doing damage at the same time they regen. sure they suffered a 60% loss in DPS for the 3 to 5 shots it took to regen but overall it wasn't a big deal now they will have no purpose in the game if focus plays out the way i forsee it working. but enough on my rant overall i like what's happening in the distant future with the new xpac hopefully they thoughly ithink it through before going live i sure know i'll be first to sign up for the beta to test it all out for myself and give them all the feedback they need to know to make it known to them of all the problems with it before they go live I just hope everyone else does the same.
if blizzard wants to keep the game alive they need to give the players a run for their money thats not to say that we should be running marathons to achieve our goals but the game is leaning to the easy side i think blizz should finda middle ground between the game being insanenly hard and freakishly easy
I really dont like the changes to SP/AP/MP5. Seriousyl, its not hard to get a good balance of stats through gear. For rogues, hunters and druids, this doesnt really change much. But for casters, this makes things WAY too simple. Everyone will just be able to stack as much int as they want and never have to worry about anything ever again. And if i read correctly, they seem to be removing any mana regen from warlocks and mages?
God, GC is such a retarded fuck.
As far as i can remember Every1 thought that WotLK would ruin the game franshice. But as I see it every1 liked it, and now when Catalysm (im exited about warlocks) all say it will ruin the game, wich means that every1 will like it XD
I WANT PALLIES TO DW AGAIN!
first of all what idiot ever thought that about WOTLK all of the XPEC up till this one i new were going to be awsome this is one is questinable i happen to agree with everyone who says that removing spell power, spirit and changing haste is stupid and obsolete most cloth gear has spellpower and allot of it has spirit being arcane mage i like to stack haste which isnt so hard to find either so why whats the point of it
yes, they're making it so everyone can play. not.. A completely new player would have to pay $110 to get the regular game, and the 3 expansion packs. And don't forget the $15 a month added on top of that. Like I said, nobody new is ever going to play if it's going to cost THAT much just for the game itself..
AHHH too much hunter change :(((( oh well its al for the better i hope. mana realy sucks
i hope wargen can be hunters cuz the skinning thing plus i would like to make one
this is interesting, but cool. Ammo is no longer a consumable, we use focus, ap is no longer importaint, and out talants are getting revamped. this is exciting at the same time a little nerve racking. All hunters will have to relearn how to play. It great to me because this is like getting a new toon with out all the lvling! Hopeing for the best, and i may have to roll a tauring pally!
yea i think new players should be able to experience the old world as it was. flooding the shimmering flats? it was so epic when i stumbled across that place way back when. and the barrens is one of may favourite zones is now going to be split in two :(