Cataclysm class previews, part 2
More awesome news from Blizzard’s development team came out this Friday with previews of next few classes. This leaves only the poor Paladins for the next week for some reason.
Druid
Mushrooms! It’s weird though, but as I only play Resto, I don’t really mind. Getting Dispel Magic will be good – finally all of the healing classes will have it, which they should in the beginning.
The biggest change here is the changing of the Tree of Life. It will be a cooldown (similar to Metamorphosis they say, which told me nothing at all and I had to check Wowhead to see that it has 30 sec duration and 3 min cooldown) instead of a passive ability. It’s kind of disturbing, but on the other hand, I’ve been looking at my tree looking exactly the same for one and a half of expansion now. I just hope that the gear will be worth it, or I’m afraid I’ll have to pay for Sheven’s operation and his transformation into a female night elf. ;)
On a more serious note though, I don’t really mind. It’s not the tree form I like in the class (though it’s cool and all that), it’s the healing style, and that doesn’t seem to be changing that much – only for the better with bits and pieces like Regrowth leaving an AoE healing patch on the ground if it crits. I just hope that with removing of the boring talents they’ve talked earlier, they will be adding some fun ones instead.
Hunter
Some time ago I’ve tried to level up my hunter when I was bored, but the ongoing mana problems weren’t really making it any less boring, so he’s still sitting somewhere around Borean Tundra, waiting for the Cataclysm to happen. Changing mana to focus needed, but I’m a bit disappointed here about losing ammo. It will just feel weird, and I would prefer to have an infinite item in the ammo slot instead, maybe with different damage types or something.
Second thing that I like is Camouflage, which just sounds fun. The rest – stables changes, finally getting a pet from level 1, losing some melee abilities, launching all traps at range and others – are for me just icings on a cake that is focus. Awesome icings nonetheless, especially the level 1 change.
Mage
I haven’t really played a mage before, so I might not be the best person to talk about this, but as I’m planning to make one in the future, here goes.
The big one – Time Warp. Basically it’s a Bloodlust/Heroism finally given to another class. So long, Deathwing-EU Alliance shamans, finally I won’t have to put up with your crap when I can have a mage with a brain instead. It’s about time some other class got this kind of ability and from a raid leader perspective I don’t really care about all the poor shamans that are afraid of losing their raid spots. If you won’t suck, you won’t lose the spot, rather than the rest of the raid having to endure you for your unique buff we need. They should have done it much earlier, when they gave shamans to the Alliance.
Wall of Fog sounds nice as well – with the addition of rated battlegrounds this will be a nice defensive tool in some of the places, if used right of course. Would be more fun if it was a wall of ice making a new wall and breaking line of sight, though.
Cataclysm class previews, part 1
Lately Blizzard is publishing a lot of information about the classes in the next expansion. It’s a good thing, but if they happen to drop some of these new and awesome features, I’d be really disappointed. So, here’s a quick preview of some I’m most interested in. I won’t write about all of them, as you can read them by yourself and I have no doubt you’ve already done so. ;)
Warrior
The warrior changes are so awesome I’m starting to think it’s a late April Fools joke. They looked at everything that is annoying in playing a warrior right now, and changed it for the better. The few highlights below doesn’t really show that, but I’ve read the preview and I’m really excited about tanking on my warrior in Cataclysm.
- Heroic Strike will no longer be an “on next swing” attack, as we are removing this mechanic in Cataclysm. And all the Protection warriors around the world rejoiced at a thought that their wrists will be (somewhat) saved from the RSI, and their mousewheels saved from dying an early death from overuse. Seriously.
- Talents and abilities – Heroic Leap sounds awesome, and I really hope it will stay in the final version – even if the healers already hate me for charging into the mobs, now I will be able to do it with style. The Furious Sundering will be a nice thing to have for dps warriors when there’s no warrior tank around, and I really hope it won’t be buried deep in the tree so Arms will be able to get it as well.
Rogue
The rogue class was pretty much fine in Wrath, except for the Subtlety tree (which I don’t really care about anyway). The changes we’ve seen so far make it from being just fine to cool.
- Changes to the combo points system. This includes such things as an ability to transfer unused points to a new target when you change targets – something that was quite annoying in any fight with more than one mob. Making passive abilities like Slice and Dice use points on a recently killed target (rather than wasting the ones on the current one, which could be used for dealing damage) is the big thing here. We’ll see how it plays, but it looks like it will be not as annoying to play a rogue.
- The rogue drops a Smoke Bomb, creating a cloud that interferes with enemy targeting. Enemies who are outside the cloud will find themselves unable to target units inside the cloud with single-target abilities. Enemies can move inside the cloud to attack, or they can use area-of-effect (AoE) abilities at any time to attack opponents in a cloud. This new ability is something absolutely new and awesome, even more than the warrior’s Heroic Leap, which is just a more awesome Charge.
Others
While I still haven’t leveled my little Priest above level 28 or so, these new things in the preview make me want to do it before the expansion. The highlight here is the Leap of Faith, which is basically a Death Grip used on a friendly target. Sounds very fun. ;) Changes to healing and a group Power Word: Barrier are also cool.
The Shaman changes were a bit disappointing, as there isn’t much awesome things there. A new AoE heal is nice I guess, some fixes with Elemental as well, but it seemed like they were focused on Enhancement the most, which I don’t play at all, so meh.
Warlocks and Death Knights – no real comments here. It will be nice for DK’s to finally get a single tanking tree, at least from my raid leading point of view. Warlocks are all about the soul shards, just like in the Blizzcon preview – I’m not really interested in them right now, but after the expansion hits I might as well roll one if it’s not as annoying as I hear it is now.
All in all, it’s a lot of cool and exciting things in one. I will be really disappointed if they decide to not do some of these, and I really hope to see all of this in the game.