This week we break down all the info from Blizzcon and tell you what’s changing, and what to expect with the launch of Cataclysm. One of us also fails to beat the drunken enrage timer (Sorry!). Listen in on some of the latest around the new races, professions, zones, raids, tactics, bosses, and some massive gameplay changes. Grab a beer and have at it!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
This week’s sponsors: GameFly, Blockbuster Total Access and Skype
(All sponsorship money goes to the beer and bandwidth fund!)
Show Notes:
Cataclysm Rundown
giant rebuild of the current version of azeroth, Deathwing (leader of the Black Dragonflight) a dragon rocks the world. Will completely overhaul and override the original version of vanilla WoW. Those who were begging to keep just the plain version alive are screwed
- Two New Playable Races:
- Goblins and Worgen (No Hero Class)
- Worgens
- Racial – Visciousness – +1% damage.
- Racial – Dark Flight – +70% run speed for 10 seconds.
- Racial – Abberation – Duration of Curses and Diseases reduced by 15%
- Racial – Flayer – Skinning skill increased by 15.
- Goblins
- As a goblin you start as a neutral cartel and eventually join the horde as you progress through the questlines.
- Racial – Best Deals Anywhere – Always receive the best discount regardless of faction.
- Racial – Pack Hobgoblin – Calls your personal servant allowing you bank access for 1 minute. 30 mins cooldown.
- Racial – Better Living Through Chemistry – Alchemy skill increased by 15.
- Racial – Rocket Barrage – Launches your belt rockets an an enemy, dealing fire damage. 2 min cooldown.
- Racial – Rocket Jump – Activates your rocket belt to jump forward. 2 min cooldown.
- Racial – Time is Money – 1% increased attack and casting speed.
- Worgens
- Still not decided on whether or not you’ll be able to immediately transfer toons to make an instant 80/85 with race/faction changes
- New starting zones for lvls 1-15, set up like Death Knight area.
- Goblins: Isle of Kezan (lost isles, south sea)
- Worgen: Gilneas (greymane wall)
- Goblins and Worgen (No Hero Class)
- Level Cap Increased to 85:
- wanted to focus more on new players, alts, and storyline by bringing players back to Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor
- ghostcrawler: Cleaner leveling system, altering current quests so you’re not running around as much
- wanted to focus more on new players, alts, and storyline by bringing players back to Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor
- Path System
- players will earn points to assign by completing quests, defeating certain raid encounters, and completing other objectives in the game.
- Paths are themed around the Titans, creators of Azeroth, such as Aman’Thul, Aggramar, or Khaz’goroth (among others).
- Heavily tied into archaeology as you unearth new artifacts, which are used to buy glyphs
- as you go along you unlock glyph sockets which new archaeolgy glyphs can be used (imagine a second ring of glyphs around the current glyph panel
-
- New Paths:
- - Path of Aman’Thul, the High Father
- Path of Eonar, the Lifebinder
- Path of Norgannon, the Dreamweaver
- Path of Khaz’Goroth, the Shaper
- Path of Aggramar, the Avenger
- Path of Golganneth, the Thunderer
-
- Classic Zones Remade:
- Darkshore is flooded
- The Barrens have been split in two; one half is for low-level players and the other is for higher-level players.
- Azshara is now a low-level zone for Horde players and connects directly to Orgrimmar
- Redone blackwing lair, blackrock spire, deadmines, shadowfang keep
- Phasing
- Phasing can now add and remove terrain based on your progress. Coasts will be progressively more flooded depending on how far you are in a storyline for example.
- New High-Level Zones:
- 7 new zones will be added : Twilight Highlands, Mount Hyjal, Deepholm, Uldum, Gilneas, The Lost Isles, Sunken City of Vash’jir.
- eight new 5-player dungeons,
- abyssal maw:
- located in the sunken city
- elemental plane of water
- non linear
- lvls 78-82
- new water effects, can see the ocean through windows and such
- Halls of Origination:
- located in the deserts of Uldum
- non linear
- 7 bosses
- multiple floors and uses elevators
- features tons of lore about the titans
- Lost City of Tol’vir
- likely nearby Tol Barad Island
- exterior 5 man
- Blackrock Caverns
- located in blackrock mountains
- now an offsite base for Deathwing occupied by the Twilight Hammer
- Grim Batol
- a level up dungeon and raid
- Uldum
- will have 2 dungeons
- heavily inspired by egypt
- Deepholm
- new hub of the expansion
- portal city to hyjal, uldum
- Skywall
- a level up dungeon and raid
- abyssal maw:
- 4 Raids :
- Blackwing Descent
- assuming its located in blackrock mountains
- Nefarian will return
- entirely new, Blackwing Lair inspired
- The Firelands
- elemental plane of fire
- visit sulfuron’s keep
- fight Ragnaros again
- Grim Batol
- Skywall
- air elemental plane
- Blackwing Descent
- level-85 Heroic versions of two of the game’s popular original 5-player dungeons, Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep.
- The Sunken City of Vashj’ir — home city of Lady Vashj, This great lost city lies on the ocean floor (will be changing underwater mechanics of the game as well).
- Deepholm — Subterranean dangers await within the twisted caverns of Deathwing’s domain, the elemental plane of earth.
- Mount Hyjal — is home to the regrowing World Tree, Nordrassil, and contains the gateway to the Firelands.
- Twilight Highlands — The dangerous Twilight’s Hammer clan dwells
- Grim Batol – Stronghold in Twilight Highlands
- Tol Barad Island will also double as a daily quest hub, similar to the Isle of Quel’danas
- New Race and Class Combinations:
- gnome priest,
- blood elf warrior
- human hunter
- undead hunter
- troll druid
- tauren paladin
- dwarf shaman
- dwarf mage
- orc mage
- night elf mage
- Nothing for Draenei
- Guild Advancement:
- More higher end raiding content at launch than in previous expansions
- Progress as a guild to earn guild levels and guild achievements
- some of the old achievements might be converted over
- example achievements: building a legendary item, maxing out every profession
- some of the old achievements might be converted over
- Guild experience gained through multiple ways (top 20 earners from the day add to it)
- players lvling
- killing bosses
- lvling professions
- pvp victories
- maxing out reputations
- Guild lvls grant points which buy talents
- remove reagentcosts
- increase gold dropped
- summon whole raid
- rez entire raid
- transfer % of gold directly to guild bank
- guild talents can be reset
- at lvl 20 guild exp becomes a currency, and you can buy
- mounts
- plans
- banners
- potions
- reagents
- guild talent respecs
- guild heirlooms
- if a person leaves the guild, the guild bound items are returned to the guild bank
- New PvP Zone & Rated Battlegrounds:
- Battle for Gilneas City
- objective is to conrol the city by controlling districts
- Tol Barad Island, a new Wintergrasp-like zone
- comes up hourly for a fight to control towers/etc
- winning team gets access to better daily quests and with more gold/better items
- also rated battlegrounds allowing for arena points to be earned
- Battle for Gilneas City
- New Professions:
- archaeology allow players to collect and use artifacts from some of the ancient races of Azeroth. Archaeology also plays a prominent role in the path system.
- reforging: allows players to alter stats on items (ex: convert 50% of STAM to STR)
- ghostcrawler: good for making less desirable drops more worthwhile, but not to compete against drops designed for your class
- Each profession get to reforge a type of items
- Flying Mounts in Azeroth:
- Explore Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, still may be restrictions on areas
- Stat Changes
- Spellpower goes away, and is replaced by Intellect
- Spirit the definitive mana-regeneration statistic, replacing MP5
- defense gone: talents will provide anti-crit
- armor penetration will likely go away, replaced with mastery
- adding a new stat called Mastery, ties into a talents and will grant a unique function for each class. A rogue, for example, might gain an extra combo point through the Mastery stat the goal is to make talents more fun and useful
- Attack power being removed. Agility for leather/mail and Strength for plate wearers
- Block Value is going away. Blocking becomes a percentage mitigation of damage
- Stamina on items will likely increase across the board
- Official Trailer and Screenshots
- Water rendered differently
- much more gothic in theme
- Tattoos?
- Icecrown Citadel
- 4 floors
- 10-25 raids with 12 bosses (not 31)
- uses teleporters
- You will fight Sindragosa, the ultimate Frost Wyrm. You will also fight Arthas.
- At the 2nd floor, you will have to board an airship with your faction leader and race against the other faction to reach the 3rd floor. You will eventually board their ship with rocket packs and catapults to fight them.
- The 3rd floor seems to be the biggest one and will feature 3 wings
- The 4th floor is where you will fight Arthas
- Shadowmourne will be available for DKs as a Legendary item
- Onyxia 5th Anniversary
- udated mechanics
- updated loot based on original items
- Other Stuff from Panels
- cross server LFG = HOT!
- comes with a reward for pug leaders
- should be out in patch 3.3
- Can invite other guilds to guild events through the in-game calendar
- More character slots or reorder your character list? Maybe.
- Downleveling as a “mentor” maybe
- xp in battlegrounds will be changed around. too much leeching
- no plan to prevent ganking in pvp zones with cataclysm
- possible limit to pallies and shamans being able to use cloth
- in 3.3 pets wont be hit by boss AOE
- Druids: no plans for a legendary, sorry
- Rogue: may get an assassination talent increasing dagger dmg
- Rogue: lots of the Subtlety tree may become passives with cataclysm
- Shaman: Enhancement shamans wont use int, will be given talents like Ret Pallies
- Shaman: Enhancement shamans may get a new utility for totems, so they dont have to run out and replace
- Priests: Shadow priests will likely get a nuke without a cooldown in Cataclysm
- Hunters: Mana is gone, now use focus which regens continuously 6/sec or 12/sec with steady shot (shots cost about 30-60 focus), will also have less cooldowns
- Hunters: ammo will now be an item and not a consumable
- Warlock: soul shards go bye bye, they go to a rune like system like DKs, get 3 per fight, but you can get more with drain soul in long fights. Summons/demons wont use them
- Warlock: lots of spells now become instants
- cross server LFG = HOT!
Special Thanks:
Stephan Carroll at www.stephancarroll.com
Beer of the Week:
Left Hand Brewing Company’s Milk Stout http://www.lefthandbrewing.com
Follow Raid Warning on Twitter: RaidWarning
Feel free to send comments, suggestions, news articles or hate mail to RaidWarningPodcast@Gmail.com
CONTEST INFO!
Check out www.raidwarning.net and www.worldofmatticus.com for contest info, remember, just throw the key phrases from both the podcast and on World of Matticus into an email to raidwarningpodcast@gmail.com for your chance to win a Razer Carcharias gaming headset, a Steel Series World of Warcraft mouse, and a 60 day time card. The winner will be announced September 1st!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
