Wrath of Lich King information

I was just listening to a PODcast that is pretty good and they were talking about an interview that
was conducted about Wrath of the Lich King at Blizzcon '08. I'm not sure how many people here read
or listen to such stuffs so I thought I'd relay the Highlights they were talking about.

Druids

1. Entangling Roots castable indoors
   
2. Dire Cat Form (No Details)
   
3. Dire Bear and Dire Cat visually looking different than the non-dire versions
   
4. Nourish (New Spell)- Short cast time heal 1.5 Sec and will heal more for each HoT effect on target.
   

EDIT: Just got word that there is no Dire Cat form. This was a rumor

Hunter

1. Pets will have their own talent trees
   
   1. Pet training points and the way they accumulate is going away
      
   2. Each pet family will have different talents
      
   3. There will be three basic tree types: DPS, Utility, Tanking
      
   4. Each tree will be different based on the family type
      
   
   
2. Hints at new pet families
   
3. Fixing Steady shot so it doesn't over take auto shot
   

Mages

1. Frostfire Bolt Spell (Mix of fire and ice in 1 spell)
   
2. Mages will be buffed in damage
   

Paladin

1. Ret Pally sharing gear with warriors for more DPS
   
2. Healing pallys getting a new spell like heal of mending (works like a heal bomb)
   
3. Blessings Freedom and Protection will not be exclusive. They will no long overwrite other blessings.
   

Priest

1. New Holy talent = Divine Hymn - Protects party - attackers hitting a party member will be affected by sleep.
   Sleep will last for the duration of the song
   
2. New Shadow Talent = Dispersion - Dispersing them into pure shadow energy reducing damage taken by 90%.
   You are unable to attack or cast spells but you regen health and mana by 6% every second for 6 seconds
   
3. Guardian Spirit = Calls upon a guardian spirit to heal and watch over the friendly target. The spirit
   heals the target for 642 every 2 seconds and also prevents the target from dying by sacrificing itself
   instead. Lasts 10 seconds
   

Rogues

1. AOE ability = Fan of knives hits all targets in short range with long cooldown (1 min)
   
2. SAP will be able to work against more targets (pretty much anything with a head will be SAPable)
   

Shaman

1. Totems will be condesed into fewer totems (ex. Strength of Earth and Grace of Air totem may be combined into
   one totem)
   
2. Shaman totems will effect raid and not just local group in a raid
   
3. New polymorph spell totem - HEX just like MOB Troll Shamans
   
4. New weapon enchants
   
   1. Rockbiter being replaced by Earth Living (+healing buff to weapon)
      
   2. Flametonge will give +spell damage
      
   3. Frostbrand will more effectively snare your target
      
   
   
5. Windfury will no longer be a weapon enchant and has been changed to a buff and you will be able to use
   it in bear form. (meaning it's a buff you can cast on other people and will affect druid forms and
   poisons (ie rogues))
   

Warlock

1. Demonic Circle - Allow a warlock to enscribe a circle on the ground and teleport to it later with a different
   spell. Range 50 yds. Plus you will gain a benefit whenever you summon your demon from within the circle.
   
2. 51 point Demonology talent skill is Demon Form. Allow you to cast AoE shadow bolts as one ability but you will
   have different skills/spells in Demon Form. (Nickname around the Blizz office is Illidarian Form)
   Lose your pet while in this form.
   

Warrior

1. New Fury talent = Titans Grip - 2h weapon in 1h allowing a warrior to duel wield 2h weapons
   
2. Protection talent = Shockwave - Damage and stun all enemies in front of you
   
3. Arms Talent = Blade Storm - Whirlwinding all enemies in range every few seconds for limited time.
   

Other Information

• Removing attunments for Heroic Dungeons
  
• Possibly making heroic dungeons easier
  
• Ability to gain reputation with a certain faction by becoming that faction's Champion
  By wearing a tabard by that faction you will gain reputation from the faction of the instance as well
  as the faction of who's tabard you are wearing.
  
• More PvP gear through PvE drops and quests rewards
  
• Trying to make regular dungeons full run = 1 hour (so you aren't stuck for hours in an instance)
  
• Defined differences between 10-man and 25-man raid instances. They will be seperated by 1 full tier worth of gear.
  
• Looking at ways to add things to facilitate Role Playing. One thing that was mentioned was in game Marriage
  

Quote :

Looking at ways to add things to facilitate Role Playing. One thing that was mentioned was in game Marriage

Great, not only do they shaft the Dwarven Priests, but now they give us all a new job! It better be in the list o' professions: Justice of the Peace. Better be gettin' some good abilities like:

Chastity - no marital activities may take place unless blessing given, else penalty of guilt upon yer soul (all stats, damage & healing received are reduced by 65% for 10 mins)

Soulmate - two characters are linked by their souls; effects placed on one character are "felt" by the other for 1/2 effect but full duration.

Divorce - This is a Shadow Priest spell. Two characters can be separated from their binding ties, but at the cost of splitting all their possessions equally between them.

I don't think this would be too restrictive. And hey, what better way to add in role-play than to do an in--game marriage? HAH!

Sincerely,

is there a link for the pod cast

tatzar wrote:

is there a link for the pod cast

I listen to several. I'll get the links and post them.

Silvenori wrote:

tatzar wrote:

is there a link for the pod cast

I listen to several. I'll get the links and post them.

Sorry, I took so long I've been slacking.

here is the main Podcast I listen too. Epic Dolls

The only downside is they are Horde. But the info is usually good.

WOW......HOLY Bajeebezz

Lots of stuff has been exploding on the web now that the NDA has officially been lifted on all WotLK information.

Here is just a few of the things I've found that will have people excited (I know I am):
(Information provided by wowhead)


First off what class are you? Check out your NEW and Improved Talent Tree.

Are you a Hunter? Check out the new Pet Talent Trees

Are you a Title Junk/Badge Whore then check out just some of the new Achievements

Now a bit of stuff for the hunters. Speculation is that Devilsaurs will be falling into a special category. Along with the NEW pet type you can have Chimera (yes, in deed those ugly two-headed, flying, rat-looking, venom spitters will soon be yours to command. However, both of these pet types look like they may be categorized as Exotic pets. What does this mean? Well it means that you will need 51 points in the Beast Mastery Hunter Tree in order to tame one. What does this mean for all of the Raptors currently tamed? Donno. Lets hope they stay BEAST and you get to keep them.

Oh while we are on hunters what has been confirmed is that you will have a TOTAL rework of how pets work, tamed, trained, skilled, and all around played. This means a learning curve for hunters. They get to learn how to hunt with their pets again all over again.
The Good: No more buying pet skills from a Pet Trainer. You pet will automatically skill up thier skills when they level up.
The Bad: You no longer get to CHOOSE what attack skills your pet gets to know. (No more cats with both Claw AND Bite). For more information Look HERE for a break down of pet types and what role they would be good for. (psst check out the BEAR (WOOT tanker baby)) (Also the Nether Ray to piss off the casters and a Sporebat (yes a sporebat) to help chew thru a tank)
But Silvenori....um what does this abilities header mean on that page? Well, I've heard that you will no longer have to "Fish" for pet skills. By fish I mean catch and release to learn skills to train your pets. Each pet class, and this is my opinion given what information I've heard and that data I'm seeing on THIS page, each pet class will come pre-sorted with the attack skills known for that class. Yes, no more uber PvP all attack powers. Yes, Cower (useless except in a raid) is part of every pet out there. The breakdown I've seen for all pet classes goes as follows:
Cower - Great for Raiding and useless most of the time (especially if you solo like me)
Growl - Great for Soloing but useless (except in some situations) in a raid.

Now the next pet skills vary (depending on the pet type):

Bite, Claw, Smack - All of these are exactly the same. Same Focus, same cast time, same damage. The difference is the type of pet. Obvious a Moth (yes you can tame a moth) cannot claw or bite so it gets smack.

The second pet skill (last one that is) is a pet type specific Attack:

It totally depends on the class of pet see the chart for pets and 4th attack type.

Ok enough about hunters

Death Knights.......Get their own flying mount. I've heard talk about it being an undead skeletal mount but I ahven't verified that.

Oh speaking of death knights ROFL ...hmm well let me jsut say for those who don't know a Death Knight will have the ability to Rez you....um....kinda. You will com back at the Death Knights GHOUL. As such you will lose all of your normal skills while you are a Ghoul. You will Gain special Ghoul Powers and OMG they are Uber (or can be especially in PvP) Interested? Take a lookie HERE. (Can you say Leap->Thrash->Explode!!)

Lets see flying mounts at 77 after a short, said to be, easy quest (This will grant you "Cold-Weather Flying"). And possibly a flying carpet mount?(Rumor? Maybe?)

Ok, I lied. just saw a shot that Hunters will be getting 2 more pet slots in WotLK.

50g and 150g for 3 and 4. for a total of 5 pets. and without having to catch and release that means 5 usable pets no holding slots for temporary tames.

hmm...looks like Group Calendar is being added to the Blizzard UI. What a wonderful idea. Steal ideas from Modders and make them your own ....


* New Calendar feature: Players will be able to access the new Calendar feature by clicking on the new icon located in the top right corner of their mini map. The calendar will track in game events, allow raid scheduling, and more.
* New Vanity Pet and Mount changes: Players will now be able to access their non-combat pets and mounts by clicking on the pets tab in the Character Info panel. These pets and mounts will be now learnable much like spells or abilities. Once a vanity pet or mount is learned, the icon will disappear from within a player's inventory and reappear in the appropriate tab under the pet tab under Character Info. Say goodbye to your vanity pets and mounts taking up bag and bank slots!

Aye, Blizzard be watchin the mod scene pretty close to see what innovations players are makin and they be puttin in their own versions. No one person has all the ideas or inspirations, so looking at what others be doin is good as long as they not take it line of code per line.

Really, by taking leads from the add-ons/mods and incorporating them into the game itself, means it's optimized to run smoothly, fully supported by the dev team, and is one less add-on you have to install that takes up precious memory. But, if ye don' like how Blizzard done it, ye can always load the add-on anyhow

Sincerely,

Precious memory? oh oh yea right right right. um.... People would drool at what I'm runnin at the moment .

Also why I like playing fer'home better then on me work-top. Not that I play on mywork-top no no no that is wrong to play on a top not me own.

And just cuz they do it instead of a 3rd party doesn't mean it doesn't take memory. Look in your addons directory. See all of the BLIZZARD blah blah directories? They just add their own stuff as a mod same as modders.

Aye, that they do be takin up memory. But unlike the add-ons, the Blizzard stuff is integrated into the whole workings of the game and therefore can be managed more efficiently. Plus, if crap happens, there is a dedicated dev team to see about updates and enhancements. 'Course I could just be talkin out me butt (ooooooh, couldn't I make a small mound of gold doin THAT inna sideshow ) but I would assume it's of better efficiency than as a 3rd partisan job. Especially fer the folk like me that run systems that can tackle the system requirements hurdle... but only just. One day I'll have me an Epic, Purple rig to run these games, but for now, I'll just stare at me feet for a couple more frames per second

Sincerely,

Aye, I'd admit it took me a bit of savin' and a bit of spousal beggin to get me my purple epic rig but definitely worth it.

I have a purple rig... still has some blues in it.. maybe one or two greens...

Blizz has always done that.. taken mods most widely used and put them into the game.
Like the crappy VOiP they have, dressing room, ect.
Putting a guild event calender in tho... that's awesome. But it still depends if it is a basic cheep knock off or something useful... people may still just use the independent mod anyways. It is treated like a badge of honor tho when they do this.... usally.

- Atherial

Aye, I'd agree with the badge on justice on stealin the mod and putting it in. The only thing that I wish is that the modder that it's taken from alters their stance and takes what Blizz added and build on it. Instead what i've seen is them switching Blizzard's off and putting theirs in it's place hence using more memory.....of which Fodder has very little of.

*Watches the Dwarf raise his head from the beer covered table across the bar*

I'm sorry, what were we discussin' again?...

OMG I WANT A PUPPY!!!!

New pet family: Core Hound (Exotic - Ferocity - Lava Breath) omg!