pwnwear

Beta 12644, nothing for DK

Gravity — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 05:45:11 +0000

At the moment, there’s nothing for DKs in this patch. I suspect and hope it means Blizzard are still rejigging our rune mechanics, about which beta testers have given plenty of constructive (albeit negative) feedback.

Masteries are not implemented in this beta version. See my embedded video for Gravity in mastery-stat gear, which uses ugly placeholder material, and a few death strikes that do nothing special at 0:56 onward.

In case something turns up, we’ll report on it in the patch thread.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GcL6OsOzBQ

Also, if you’ve not seen it, look at this lovely ring from an early Vashj’ir quest in Kelp Forest.

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Blood parasite testing: beta

Gravity — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 22:16:46 +0000

Zao has done some testing on the blood parasites on beta. My impression is they’re very good, giving a group to nearby allies (ie. not party or raid, proximity-based like a Druid’s wild growth). He’s got some figures on their mechanics. Extract of Zao’s post, the rest is in his forum post.

Since I was able to finally log on to the EU realms again, I could do some testing on the Blood Parasite on the heroic testing dummy in Acherus.

What I can say definetly are these things: Bloodworms healing and Health is based on your own health pool.
with

33850 Health they had 8164 HP and healed me for 408 per stack of Blood Gorged.

58400 Health they had 14192 HP and healed me for 709 per stack of Blood Gorged.

They always spawn inside the Mob and then move behind it...continue reading.

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Stonecore instance, tanked

Gravity — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 04:45:09 +0000

I completed the Stonecore a few days ago in beta 16404. I did all four bosses, but accidentally only recorded FRAPS of the first three. This shows that I’ve improved my Beta tanking skills, helped along by the 16404 patch which made Morbidity accessible.

Whilst we hear that Blizzard will be reducing the need for AOE tanking, I’m not seeing it. There are spawn waves on the first and fourth bosses of this instance. There is a gauntlet in Throne of Tides. There are large pulls regulalry. I’ve used cc on one mob on nearly every pull of three or more. I’m not seeing an implementation of the “less AOE” from a tanking perspective.

However, from a DPS perspective, you can’t AOE these mobs. Their HP is too high. Some trash pulls in the current tuning take a minute or more to clear. They really take a while to kill. Whilst this is happening, the tank needs to hold AOE threat.

The current beta for DKs lets us pick up Morbidity, which is required, but it’s still tough to hold threat on them all.

That said, here is the video of DK tanking in Stonecore. I’ve edited them a bit more than usual, but haven’t shorted the boss fights even if they get a bit long.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4938CD890003539C

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Vashj’ir is huge in Cataclysm Beta, and on questing

Gravity — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 04:29:16 +0000

Here’s some perspective on how large the Vashj’ir zone is. I have completed all the quests in the first sub-zone, Kelp Forest. I’ve previously written about my first impressions and how you get over there initially.

The zone, like Mt Hyjal, is storylined in the new way that quests unfold in Cataclysm. You have breadcrumb quests which lead you to the next quest hub, who may have been phased-out before. You only have a few quests in your log at any time. Sometimes you’ll get four at once.

The player experience is guided, much like an RPG standalone game. Lore-nerds will love it. You truly feel part of an epic and unfolding story. In Vashj’ir you move through the zone as a survivor of your boat being attacked by a giant squid, and then need to save and feed your fellow survivors. That’s all in the first quest hub which I’ve shown in a large circle on the Kelp Forest map shown.

You run quests to strengthen them, then find other survivors and get to uncover pieces of the puzzle about who are these Naga, who do they serve and why did this massive island suddenly appear off the coast of Stormwind? This leads to finding another survivor who’s floating above a clam’s air bubble, who you escort into a cave. That’s the next hub in the smuggler’s cove.

This process continues down to the south of the map, including Harrison Jones making his (awesome) appearance. He’s phased out initially, so you can’t skip to him. Same with the other quest hubs. This is the controlled and guided storytelling I’ve mentioned. You get two nice blues along the way.

Vashj’ir is huge. I’ve done Kelp Forest, and it took a while. Check it out compared to the whole zone. There are other hubs currently unavailable because of a bug with the cookie-crumb quest, which would unlock your epic swimming mount: a seahorse. However by swimming off with no direction I did find another hub in Shimmering Expanse which is working really well, some amazing quests there too.

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Death Knight goblin ding L56

Gravity — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 03:48:56 +0000

Images of what happens when you ding, with the new 31-point talent system, on a new DK.

The new DK still feels pretty powerful, and the spells you gain at L56 are sensible.

Currently I cannot complete the DK starter zone because the quest where you kill a fellow of the same race doesn’t have a goblin, so no quest giver lights up.

I also uploaded some more footage a little while ago.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qdxa1sn9JM

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Ghostcrawler on talent tree design and playstyles

Gravity — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 01:51:23 +0000

GC has made a long post describing their design intent and current status of talent trees over here. He made a few follow-up posts too, so it’s worth looking over the whole thread with a bluetracker.

In another thread, he posted that their is a design intent for Frost to be more proc-based and Unholy more predictable. I point out there’s no such preference in the general tank population and describe the rune-lockout we currently see on beta as a problem because it limits the tanks sense of control.

I hope he posts some more on the DK tank status through the day.

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Thoughts on beta tanking, bugs and feedback

Gravity — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 07:50:42 +0000

Some thoughts on Beta tanking, which I originally posted in the official forums.

Morkarion makes a good post earlier. I too am well aware it’s beta. No need for anyone to remind me that means there will be bugs and changes. I too am just stating the awkwardness of giving useful feedback, or performing focused tests, when it’s complicated by both bugs and AOE.

That said… some recent thoughts on tanking as DK.

BUGS

I have trouble providing effective feedback because of the layering of bugs on top of the system I’m trying to test: UI inaccuracy, Runic Empowerment bug, display inconsistency between Rune UI and action bars being lit up (I had blood boil lit up but when trying to cast it got a ‘you dont have runes’ error) and I’ve got a perma-ghoul in all specs (including tank). There’s a official forum thread listing the known bugs.

AOE

Also adding to confusion is AOE.

I had thought we’d have less AOE in general. When matching the gear to level, you’d need CC, then you could AOE when you revisit when overgearing it.

I’m finding the three instances I’ve tested have gauntlets, biggish pulls, large spawns (a few bosses spawn many adds you need to control) and so on.

So I spec into Morbidity for DnD cooldown and can tank it reasonably well, but should I have to?

I’m handling AOE reasonably well now, ONLY IF I have a 15s DnD through morbidity. It’s really hard otherwise (ie. fails, mostly) and not much fun.

I have mentioned earlier that Blood tanks could bias to Unholy sub-spec, for Morbidity, but the Tier 1 talents aren’t all that desirable. The epidemic talent for example extends our diseases but is disconnected to our scarlet fever’s 30 seconds.

RUNES FOR TANK COOLDOWNS

Having vampiric blood, bone shield and rune tap require runes is a real problem.

My runes are always on cooldown.

If I want to use a tank cooldown, I need to wait for them to be ready, then hit them. Sure when I know encounters I can do this more predictably, and tank proactively, but it’s possible I could be waiting too long for a rune. I might not die but I do not feel like I’m in control.

I feel like the game is in control, and I wait for it to allow me to cast my tank cooldown. I cast tank cooldowns to be in control of my damage intake, or to mitigate risk of being low on HP, but that control is being distanced from me because I have no runes available.

Since the talents have internal cooldowns already, why not move them to runic power usage and give tanks a higher limit like 120 RP, so we can keep a reserve of RP for tanking whilst still safely spending RP on rune strikes.

I don’t think the additional wait for blood/unholy rune cooldown is a useful limit.

SO CONSEQUENTLY

I am testing AOE threat, but not sure if it’s relevant, I’m trying to test tanking, but get error messages which might invalidate conclusions I’d draw or my own performance in the job, etc.

I’m still very grateful for being in beta, and look forward to some bug fixes.

FESTERING STRIKE

The thing that I don’t like about it is that it’s design appears to be adding another spell to allow a single-rune unholy Scourge Strike to have some meaning. I would in general prefer a few less spells, through consolidation of their effects for example, rather than more. My action bar runneths over, and I worry about new players hitting a learning curve of so many buttons to remember.

That kind of design reminds of me Scarlet Fever (damage reduction), which you get through blood boil, which you talent into so that it’s ‘free’ if you cast a plague strike when it’s up, if you have talented into that…. so many conditions!

It’s not elegant compared to many of blizzard’s other design efforts.

Reference: Morkarion’s post which I mentioned.

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Video tutorial on how the Cataclysm rune system works

Gravity — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:27:37 +0000

Two very short videos showing you how the runes recharge, are embedded below.

You can see the lockouts. Runic Empowerment would help give you some randomly recharged runes if you get a rune strike and it procs the RE random chance. Beta 12604. Note in the video, at the beginning, I should say ‘outbreak’ but say something else.

I’m not so comfortable with how it plays out for tanking. I regularly have rune blackouts, where I need to do an attack (usually an AOE situation) and simply have nothing I can do (other than blood tap or ERW).

Next, here’s a video showing the 10s gap between rune recharges and how blood tap works. Basic stuff, but might be helpful to get your head around it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLDDVbmPL_A

Discuss

Here or this forum post.

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Beta Build Patch 12604 unofficial DK Patch Notes

Gravity — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 00:29:50 +0000

Insolence has documented the incoming changes, many for us DKs.

General

Frozen Plate Specialization *New* – Increases your Strength by 5% while wearing only Plate armor.

Blood

Crimson Scourge is now a 2 rank talent. Increases damage dealt by Blood Boil by 20/40% (Down from 15/30/45%) and 50%/100% chance to proc. (Up from 33/67/100%)
Improved Blood Presence is now a Tier 4 talent, down from Tier 5.
Blood Parasite is now a 2 rank talent with a 5/10% chance to proc. (Up from 3/6/9%)
Toughness is now a Tier 3 talent. Down from Tier 4.
Sanguine Fortitude is now a Tier 4 talent, down from Tier 3. 2 ranks instead of 3.
Hand of Doom *New* – Reduces the cooldown of your Strangulate ability by 60 sec.

Frost

Festering Strike *New* – An instant attack that deals 150% weapon damage plus 840.54 and increases the duration of your Blood Plague, Frost Fever, and Chains of Ice effects on the target by up to 6 sec. / 5 yd range, Instant
Runic Empowerment *New* is now baseline – When you use your Death Coil, Frost Strike, or Rune Strike ability, you have a 45% chance to activate a random fully depleted rune.
Chains of Ice now reduces movement speed by 60% for 8 sec. (Down from 95% + 10% movement each sec over 10 seconds)
Chill of the Grave now has a chance to generate 5/10 Runic Power. (Up from 2.5/5)
Nerves of Cold Steel is now a Tier 1 talent, down from Tier 2.
Improved Icy Touch now increases the damage of Icy Touch by 10/20/30%. (Up from 5/10/15%)
On a Pale Horse is back as a Tier 2 talent.

Unholy

Anti-Magic Shell no longer costs Runic Power.
Ebon Plaguebringer is now a 2 ranks talent (Down from 3) and now increases damage taken from Disease by 15/30%. (Old – 10/20/30%)
Dirge now has a chance to generate 5/10 Runic Power. (Up from 2.5/5)
Virulence now increases your chance to hit with spells by 2/4/6%. (Up from 1/2/3%)

Insolence’s comments:

DK CHANGES, I SAY W00T!
Nice changes to Crimson Scourge, Imp. BP still sucks. A lot of stuff got moved around and Ranks reduced, this is nice, we’ll be able to get Morbidity and DRW now
Runic Empowerment went baseline as expected, and Festering Strike seems to be the “filler” Talent for RE procs for Unholy DKs, looks interesting. Very interesting. Chains of Ice got…. Er well it got something. Chill of the Grave got buffed, more RP Regen for Frosts? Wow. Imp. IT is looking pretty sweet for Frost DKs too!
AMS no longer costs RP, sweet <3. Well hey Dirge got buffed too…. Interesting. And Ebon Plaguebringer got a nice change, awesome. And Virulence got a sweet buff, guess I can see our Sub-Spec Unholy Tier 1 already!
Frozen Plate Specialization looks like we’ll be seeing the end of Leather in BiS Lists, GOOD. Pity it doesn’t have 5% Stamina D:

Discuss

Patch note thread in our forums. Discuss there, rather than this blog entry.

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Cataclysm mob health to be changed

Gravity — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:04:36 +0000

Thankfully, Blizzard are tuning up the mobs in Mt Hyjal.

I commented on an earlier video that I “was cutting through these guys like butter, not even caring about health”. It was too easy. We also had a chat in the forums about how, worse, the named and elite mobs could be solo’d. You are supposed to use some kind of mechanism to kill them. Forgemaster Pyrendius, for example, is meant to be kited over ‘portal runes’ which I could never find so I just solo’d him. That shouldn’t be so easy.

It made it a bit unfair to assess the relative damage output of a spec, when they die with just three GCDs.

Hopefully next patch with these HP changes will make it more challenging… and hopefully will include some DK changes.