Things you will need to know for Cataclysm

[Kamiken]

For those of you who aren't in the beta currently I wanted to give you a heads up of what to expect when the changes come down and you log in on expansion day and get excited to run your first new dungeon or when you step out to do your questing. The obvious thing is mobs have more health and hit harder. Other then that in your normal questing there isn't much difference in how you mow down things to get exp from quests.

When you go into the dungeon system is when this mentality falls away. In dungeons trash packs are a threat to your 50k unbuffed hp tank. Tank threat is an issue because they scaled it down dramatically. Mobs have nasty abilities that if you stand in or don't interrupt you will wipe from. Dungeons are no longer an ae spam fest, they are now a focus down 1 mob while ccing 1-2 others. Tank ae threat holds enough threat to keep agro off of the healers and is currently not capable of holding agro off people ae spamming. Also anything that can be interrupted you should be interrupting. There are plenty of abilities that just do massive damage to either the tank or the group. Healers will not be able to keep up with constantly trying to heal through people standing in the fires or not interrupting things because their mana pool will not be able to handle it. Many heal spells have had their mana costs increased and healing toned down.

Basically they are moving back to the old philosophy of things where tanks have to fight for threat, trash mobs are a real threat, bosses are even more of a threat and take a little while to kill. For example in the normal mode starter dungeons the bosses can have 1.5 million hit points for a 5 man group. This is in contrast to Heroic Halls of Reflection where the bosses there have around 500k hp.

So what does this mean exactly? For those of us who remember BC dungeons its going to be a lot like that. It means you have to put all your crowd control back onto your bars. It also means you have to put your interrupts back on your bars and use them on a regular basis. For newer players you may want to start getting into the habit of just interrupting things in dungeons when you see a mob casting anything. DPS is not going to be the deciding factor for many of these fights. Surviving is going to be much much more important.

[Steffron]

yay! Kick, sap, kidney shot, distract, blind, gouge will all be needed again. so will polymorph and other abilities. This should be interesting.

[Grreg]

Yay! WotLK dungeons are so nerfed... I look forward to this.

[Holywind]

Yay! WotLK dungeons are so nerfed... I look forward to this.

[dragonsong73]

*Dusts off the trap dance on Stratgal.*

[Xia]

I look forward to the days of needing strats and crowd controlling again, rather than just raking my forearm over the keyboard and watching my soap operas during runs.

[Blodie]

As much as I like AEing with my whirlwind/cleave fury action, I'm pleased to see the return of the warrior in the role of 'single target tank' (as opposed to the pallies who can keep threat on 6 at once) and interrupts are something we'll come in handy for! I like WOTLK raiding, and obviously I've enjoyed being a dps rock star lately but a change to Old Skool WoW certainly won't make me cry.

Random question about tradeskills---they aren't redoing the entire system are they? I mean, it will still take copper/peacebloom/linen to level up and then there will be new recipes right? Or are they changing formulas all the way down the tree?

[Kamiken]

As much as I like AEing with my whirlwind/cleave fury action, I'm pleased to see the return of the warrior in the role of 'single target tank' (as opposed to the pallies who can keep threat on 6 at once) and interrupts are something we'll come in handy for! I like WOTLK raiding, and obviously I've enjoyed being a dps rock star lately but a change to Old Skool WoW certainly won't make me cry.

Random question about tradeskills---they aren't redoing the entire system are they? I mean, it will still take copper/peacebloom/linen to level up and then there will be new recipes right? Or are they changing formulas all the way down the tree?

In response to the first part is all tanks are getting a major nerf to their ae components. Each tank seems to have at least 2 forms of ae but they are all very very weak.

I haven't played around with tradeskills yet since they had them locked for a long time on Alpha/Beta. As far as I can tell though it should all be the same for leveling them up. The talk is that just harder to make recipes will give multiple skill ups, but I haven't seen that in action yet, so I can't comment on if that will be happening or not.

[dragonsong73]

I do have a question: is the new solar/lunar mechanic for moonkin in play yet? If so your thoughts.

[Traylon]

As much as I like AEing with my whirlwind/cleave fury action, I'm pleased to see the return of the warrior in the role of 'single target tank' (as opposed to the pallies who can keep threat on 6 at once) and interrupts are something we'll come in handy for! I like WOTLK raiding, and obviously I've enjoyed being a dps rock star lately but a change to Old Skool WoW certainly won't make me cry.

I don't think the intent is for DPS specs to Off Tank though Blodie. The intent is to CC adds with sheep, traps, stun, etc. Unless you're speccing protection, I wouldn't expect you'd be tanking even in 5 mans (as a Fury or Arms spec), expect for special circumstances.

[Dragoness]

I think the point is just that warriors won't feel like substandard tanks due to poor aggro control versus AE. The 3 tanks types will be more equal now. I do wonder if there will be any place for AE at all.

Still, there's a certain amount of symmetry to the game play going retro along with the content. I'll have to get better at MC duty!

[Grreg]

I look forward to kiting mobs all the way across the dungeon and back!

[Asteroid]

I look forward to kiting mobs all the way across the dungeon and back!

You mean kiting a mob to the entrance, dying, and hoping we have the first dead before it gets back.

[eGryphon]

I look forward to kiting mobs all the way across the dungeon and back!

that brings back memories of marudon........or more likely flashbacks, the bad kind.......

[Rinna]

I look forward to kiting mobs all the way across the dungeon and back!

that brings back memories of marudon........or more likely flashbacks, the bad kind.......

I was reminded more of hunters kiting the General in Upper Spire back in the day...

(stupid boss never did drop my Magister's Robes )

[Kamiken]

I do have a question: is the new solar/lunar mechanic for moonkin in play yet? If so your thoughts.

Yes its in...but our spells are really messed up right now doing damage of a level 70 so I am unable to properly test our damage capabilities. They will be making it last longer soon too so there is still a lot of work left to be done.

[Dragoness]

I look forward to kiting mobs all the way across the dungeon and back!

that brings back memories of marudon........or more likely flashbacks, the bad kind.......

I was reminded more of hunters kiting the General in Upper Spire back in the day...

(stupid boss never did drop my Magister's Robes )

Ahh yes... Oh to have Vent back then... "Are they dead yet? Are they dead yet?" Not to mention the fun misstep off the bridge for a quick visit to LBRS.

[Drakar]

I look forward to kiting mobs all the way across the dungeon and back!

You mean kiting a mob to the entrance, dying, and hoping we have the first dead before it gets back.

Woo Hoo!! EQ all over again...

[Ashlion]

Seems to be a return to old school WoW to me (sub 50 days). I look forward to it as a lot of classes dumped some basic abilities and just focused on the dps. This will make folks think again

Although I think I will say a prayer for the LFG pugs. This will hurt a lot hehe.

[Kzay]

I am pretty excited about these changes too. I was not as big of a fan of the WotLK spam fest.