World of Warcraft panel sees Cataclysmic changes

By Tor Thorsen, GameSpotPosted Aug 22, 2009 10:13 pm PT

BlizzCon 2009: Blizzard devs discuss the class, item, and profession updates that will be implemented in the new expansion pack.

Who Was There: Lead game designer Greg Street, item designer Travis Day, and profession designer Jon Lecraft

What Did They Talk About: The trio ran through an overview of the various changes in store for World of Warcraft when the Cataclysm expansion hits. The news was met with cheers and with some cries of dismay. The panel kicked off with a run through the racial traits of the two new races being introduced: goblins and Worgen. The new alliance race, the Worgen, will have four: aberration, flayer, dark flight, and viciousness. Aberration will reduce the duration of curses and diseases on Worgen by 15 percent. Flayer increases skinning by 15 percent and allows Worgen to skin faster without needing a knife. Dark flight is an instant-cast 70 percent boost in movement for 10 seconds with a 3-minute cooldown. Finally, viciousness increases all damage by 1 percent.

The Worgen get four racial traits: aberration, flayer, dark flight, and viciousness.

It was noted that Worgen form would essentially be cosmetic and offer no bonuses. Players will automatically shift to Worgen form only during combat and will have the freedom to decide if they appear as human or Worgen out of combat. In terms of classes, Worgen can be all but paladins and shamans.

The new goblin horde race will have five traits: vpack hobgoblin, personal servant, best deals anywhere, rocket barrage, rocket jump, and better living through chemistry. The pack hobgoblin trait will let you call in a personal servant who will give you bank access for one minute. Best deals anywhere lets goblins receive the best gold discount regardless of faction. Rocket barrage fires a goblin’s belt rockets at an enemy to deal fire damage. Rocket jump uses the rocket belt to jump forward. Finally better living through chemistry increases your alchemy skill by 15. Goblins can be any class except paladins and druids.

Besides the introduction of the new playable races and the classes they can be, new class and character combinations were revealed. Horde players can look forward to orc mages, Tauren priests and paladins, troll druids, undead hunters, and blood elf warriors. Alliance players can anticipate dwarf shamans and mages, gnome priests, night elf mages, and human hunters.

The panel then shifted to warlocks, which kicked off the start of the highs and lows for attendees who responded with cheers, boos, and a mix of both as they absorbed the information. The unique casting class is being revamped so that soul shards, which are crystals needed for a good chunk of their spells and summoning, will work totally differently. The shards will now be used only in combat and, most importantly, will not take up precious space in your bags.

While the revamp is still being refined, it appears the shards will work somewhat like runes do for deathknights. The shards will be used only in combat and won’t be needed for summoning. Warlocks will have three shards per fight, although the team is considering giving demonlogy specialized warlocks a fourth. The shards will be displayed in the user interface, like deathknight runes, and regen quickly when the warlock is out of combat. It will be possible to get more shards during long fights or when they make mistakes.

The team is also considering an “evocation”-style action to help shards regenerate more quickly. Warlocks will also gain a new spell--soul burn--which will cost one shard and feature a 30-second cooldown. The spell will empower the next spell you cast and will act as a modifier. Some examples given as to how the spell would enhance spells included fear becoming instant, soulfire becoming instant, summoning a demon becoming instant, death coil causing longer horror and offering more healing, and the next three searing pains cast causing critical hits.

The next class getting an overhaul in cataclysm is hunters, who will lose mana and rely on focus for their attacks. Focus will continuously regenerate, although steady shot will improve the amount of focus you regenerate. The example shown was that passive regeneration would replenish six focus per second, while using steady shot hunters will earn 12 focus per second. To give context, the plan is for hunters to have a max of roughly 100 focus, with shots costing somewhere between 30 and 60 focus. Hunters can expect fewer cooldowns on abilities as well as the possible removal of their various aspects. Ammo will also become an item as opposed to a consumable.

The focus then shifted to itemization, which elicited a range of reactions from the assembled masses. The underlying motivation for the big changes revolves around removing unnecessary stats and making all core stats appealing. Mana per 5 is now replaced with spirit. Spirit is changing to essentially be mana regen. Mage and warlock gear will also no longer have spirit on them. Healers will get a meditation like skill to help as well. Spell power is gone. Intellect will now serve double duty, as both mana and spell power. Attack power is gone. Agility will now provide 2 attack power for rogues, hunters, shamans, and druids. Defense tanks will receive the needed anticritical talents from survival of the fittest. Armor penetration is gone and replaced by the new mastery mechanic, which enhances the talent tree you have the most points in.

The block value is being done away with and will simply mitigate a percentage of damage. A tweak to haste will increase the rate at which players gain energy, runes, rage, and focus. Finally, stamina will be increased to compensate for the loss of the above features to balance things out. In addition, a new legendary weapon was shown--an axe called Shadowmourne--which players hoping for Frostmourne will need to be satisfied with because Frostmourne isn’t slated to be appearing anytime soon.

The last bit of the panel focused on professions, many of which were still taking shape. Archaeology is a new secondary profession that will let players collect artifacts throughout the world. As players find them, they’ll unlock paths in the newly announced path of the titans system. Players will earn unique rewards, vanity pets, instant travel to dungeons, titles, and recipes for other professions. Players will track all of the above in a journal that will hold the artifacts (ensuring they don’t take up bag space). The specifics of the profession are still being figured out and may include some kind of minigame.

Reforging is a new ability that will let players customize their gear by reducing the stat on one item and increasing another. The ability will offer specific reforging options to leatherworkers, tailors, jewelcrafters, and engineers. The only trick to the ability is that players will be limited to what they can do with the points--players won’t be able to increase existing stats on the weapon, only new ones.

As far as existing talents go, there will be a number of tweaks. Multi-gains will allow players to craft different types of items that yield more points. The example given was players having the option of creating five bracers for a single gain each or one belt that would yield a five gain. Gathering is being looked at in the hopes of offering more flexibility and yielding different bonuses. Engineering is being tweaked to focus more on convenience items, such as the wormhole generator, toys, and pets. It also appears that engineers will have a belt to hold profession-specific items.

The Takeaway: The changes to the game created by the Cataclysm expansion will run deep and will bring fundamental changes to how even veteran WOW players approach the game.

76 Comments

  • Wojcha

    Posted Sep 18, 2009 1:39 pm PT

    If they keep up with this, we'll be playing a raid with a Murloc Power Ranger level 115, that is specialized for two-handed lightsabers, made with the new Energy Weapon profession.

  • DaveOxo

    Posted Sep 7, 2009 3:24 pm PT

    Agreed. I do know that lore is a big part of the game for some people, But ultimately WoW is just a game, and it is a great game. I personally thougt WotLK was great just because it was different and it was a change so to speak when you finished the rest of the game, i think its a great idea with the two new races because theres a lot of people who would like to 'start again' in the game and how better to do it than with a new story and new races? Im sure if you really like WoW that much you will be able to adjust to cataclysm and it will be a quality experience for most of us.

  • UltraBlue21

    Posted Sep 1, 2009 4:20 pm PT

    Also as far as the books go, you need to realize that, they are someone elses rendition of what they believe the world of warcraft lore to be. It is just them selling rights for someone to write a book about it, and to be quite honest there is a lot of the books that don't truly follow the actual lore

  • UltraBlue21

    Posted Sep 1, 2009 4:17 pm PT

    actually that's not altogether true, while they don't have a huge history, you should go look into the information on arugal and how they were created notorious98

  • notorious98

    Posted Aug 30, 2009 12:51 pm PT

    Draken10, perhaps you should pay attention when you're playing the game. The Timbermaws are Furbolgs. The tribe that you help as a Draenei on Azuremyst are Furbolgs. How many worgens did anyone see before WotLK? At least when Blizz added Blood Elves and the Draenei, they had rich histories. They had alot of lore behind them. The Worgen? Not much. Once again, I'm not thrilled with the choice. And when has a pally had any problems? The last time I checked, DKs were top on OP and pallies were second. Trust me, I know this. My main is a pally.

  • Ninja_Tin

    Posted Aug 30, 2009 12:26 pm PT

    Imo... i think this is gonna be fail. Worgens are stupid for ali, however the goblins i like for the horde. Troll Druid? cmon... and tauren pallys? tahts stupid. I always said blizz should start fresh and make WoW 2... there is to much stuff going on with WoW atm.. I love wow...but when it was classic, you can't beat it. However i likek the fact that im gonna be in old azeroth again, but how are the flying mount going to work out? i dont think my computer can take another expansion either... Hopefully everythign will work out

    P.S WotLK was the worst xpack...ever

  • caffienedeath

    Posted Aug 29, 2009 1:43 am PT

    @all WoW haters

    cmon guys you cant hate WoW for moving on with the stroyline. maybe the humans wanted to be hunters like there good friend the dwarves. maybe gnomes found a god or godess to believe in you dont know until you find out for real.BE were warriors in WC3 as well and taurens never really shined so stfu bout them.this expansion is the best one in my point of view and anyone who hates because of the lores needs to get on with the story and people who hate it for other reasons shouldnt be looking at stuff they hate thats like if i looked at recent news reports of micheal jackson. so dont hate something and post negatively on this website

  • goatboy0088

    Posted Aug 28, 2009 11:17 pm PT

    Im so glad i dont play this game anymore. I predict that cataclsm will be wows last heroa. I mean you can only put so mutch lipstick on a pig. Honey moods over WoW pack your bags and GTFO and P.S. blizz MOVE ON , like the rest of us.

  • Draken10

    Posted Aug 28, 2009 6:05 pm PT

    and all of you complaining about wow ripping off warhammer or something, rust relax and take the game as it is, complaining wont fix it, it will only make subconsciously dislike the game more.

  • Draken10

    Posted Aug 28, 2009 5:52 pm PT

    pallys have always had problems but still can be good allies in combat
    and what is a furbolg

  • notorious98

    Posted Aug 27, 2009 12:33 pm PT

    I've played WoW since early '07. I've started reading the books and I gotta say that I'm not that excited about this expansion pack. Personally, I think the Furbolgs would have made for a better race then Worgens. Even Blizz admits that Worgens don't have a rich history and not much is known about them. At least Furbolgs have existed since the War of the Ancients. As far as the classes go, I was pretty confused about the Night Elf mages (and yes, Darkbeyond, Blizz has already confirmed them). Human hunters aren't that far out of the realm of possibility. Undead hunters? Very strange. Worgen druids? Even weirder. Personally, I think it's a matter of trying to give people the most out of their choices. If you wanna be an ally druid, you GOTTA be a NE. If you wanna be an ally shaman, you GOTTA be a Dranei. Horde pally, you gotta be BE. It's just a little limited in scope. All in all, the only things I'm excited about are the archaeology and, of course, the dreaded Deathwing.

  • tehfireballer

    Posted Aug 26, 2009 3:23 pm PT

    If they dont fix paladins by the time this comes out, im not buying it.

  • tovey87

    Posted Aug 26, 2009 4:38 am PT

    @Highwind4:

    I noticed bizzare combos too. I think the whole theme of this game is, "Desparate Times call for desparate measures" which gives an excuse for the races opening their minds to new forces.

  • DiscGuru101

    Posted Aug 25, 2009 8:13 am PT

    This is the first WoW news I actually clicked on. This expansion looks tempting. The Worgen look very cool and the game changes sound smart. -Now if they increase travel speed, I'm re-sold.

  • Darkbeyond

    Posted Aug 24, 2009 11:37 pm PT

    Okay so i am so excited ive played WoW ever since the beta in and think its time for some tweaking in old world 04. And for all the WoW haters plz stop spamming the fourms and go play Silkroad Online or Runescape plz and thx. But anyhow shapeing to be the best WoW expansion yet cant wait to hear more. =)

  • Darkbeyond

    Posted Aug 24, 2009 11:34 pm PT

    Okay highwind if your gonna kill or excitment go to a WoW hate site and secondly they never said there was going to be NIGHT ELF mages. And the worgan formily humans WHERE HUGE ON HUNTING so the humans could take hunting up again and Blizzard can change the lore btw in case you didn't know. And i agree with you on the undead hunters and Tauren looks gay but the rest looks sweet.

  • Pete5506

    Posted Aug 24, 2009 4:20 pm PT

    I dont see the point

  • Highwind4

    Posted Aug 24, 2009 3:43 pm PT

    There are many holes in in this new expansion about class and race relations.

    Starting with Alliance.

    Human Hunters: how many human hunters can you count in lore? humans are more likely to domesticate their animals than to tame them as pets.

    Dwarf Shamans: with the big uldum dungeon, has anyone come across a earthen shaman? gnome priests: again in lore, there are barely any priests there, and i have read in articles that majority of gnomes have no faith and rely on other things, but with the inclusion of the priest, why weren't they given the option of paladin as a well?

    night elf mage: NIGHT ELVES FORBID ARCANE MAGIC, that is why they split off from the High elves.

    Now the Horde/

    Undead hunters: they're living counterpart never was able to tame beasts, why should the dead be able to, they're more likely to frighten the pet than tame it.

    Tauren Priest and Paladin: how is it that the Mighty Tauren is given 2 new classes that do not really add up, if any of the other classes that are given the priest class, shouldn't they be given the paladin class as well?

    it's best not to give any of the original races any new classes, because it takes away from that uniqueness that each race has. but these are just my thoughts.

  • Icehearted

    Posted Aug 24, 2009 3:24 pm PT

    So so so so glad I kicked that addiction. Between expansions and achievements, it's a miracle any players out there can find the time for those unnecessary things in life like sunlight and food.

    I kid of course, but I'm way glad I moved on to other games.

  • DaSlyOne

    Posted Aug 24, 2009 1:41 pm PT

    Wait a minute...there's other MMO's out there besides WoW?

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