1:34 PM: This pre-panel music is awesome. It makes me think of Dune...
1:40 PM: Tom Chilton and Greg Street (Ghostcrawler) introduced. Ghostcrawler is a guy!
1:41 PM: "Who thinks their class is overpowered? (Some applause.) Who thinks there are overpowered classes in the game? (Lots of applause.) OK now, who thinks their class is the worst? (Even more applause.) You've just learned all there is to know about class design... (Laughter.)"
1:42 PM: They are going to talk Death Knights, general game changes, the questions.
1:43 PM: One thing they wanted for Death Knights was to fill another tank roll, since there was a shortage. But they didn't want to have a Tank/DPS/Utility tree. They wanted all three trees to be able to tank with the use of Presences. Death Knights start at a higher level with a great starting zone and some of the coolest quests in the game. They wanted Death Knights to share itemization with existing plate classes.
1:44 PM: They wanted a different style of play for Death Knights. They came up with Runes as a resource as a new type of mechanic and a way to tie into the iconic Rune Weapon. You have the keep track of their cooldowns. They originally tried to bring the rune weapon into the UI, and they went through a lot of Rune setup iterations. Originally they wanted to have customizable amounts of each rune, but that ended up just sucking. It made gameplay imbalanced and made players ignore certain abilities. They added in Death Runes (which count as all types) to allow some variability in rotations. Runic Power also allows variability as you can unleash it to do cool things.
1:46 PM: They wanted diseases to be a big deal. Originally there were about 25 different diseases, but it was way too complex. Now the system is a bit more like combo points. You pout all your diseases on and then use abilities that play upon them to heal or do extra damage. There is a bit of a learning curve to the class but not too much.
1:47 PM: They wanted all the trees to have options for any playstyle, melee or tanking. This is something they are actually trying to do for all classes.
1:48 PM: Hunter: The pet systems is completely overhauled. This class attracts new players, so they didn't want the clunky old pet system to chase them away. The system of taming temporary pets to gain abilities was too confusing, so they did away with it. (Crowd applauds.) Hunters had a very complex DPS rotation, and people tended to use mods to make them all work togetehr. They tried to clean it up and make it more about player choice than timing. Hunters complained that they got shewed up by melee, so they changed Disengage to counter that. Freezing shot adds remote trap deployment to give Hunters a bit better long-distance CC, especially in 5-man groups.
1:50 PM: Priests. Overhauled the buff/debuff system. Shadow priests utility as a mana battery has been removed (audience boos), but in exchange they get to DPS! (Audience cheers.) They want Discipline to be a viable raid healer. They want Priests to have another viable DPS ability, so they gave them Mind Sear. Priest racial abilities were a cool thing, but it was a dated idea, so they revamped racials.
1:52 PM: Mage. Frostfire bolt is a new signature ability that matches Frost and Fire into an "Elementalist" build. Mirror Image is a cool new move as well. Devs feel pretty good about Mage DPS right now.
1:53 PM: Druids. Needed a lot of work. They are underrepresented in arenas, for example. Balance Druids had lowered DPS because they had so much utility (like running out of mana!). Druids were given indoor Entangling Roots for more 5-man CC ability. No more Oomkin. Their DPS is looking pretty good now. For Resto, the HoT healing niche was too limiting. Great for PvP but hard for 5-mans and raids. Nourish is a good new Flash Heal kind of spell. Wild Growth gives some AoE healing. Druids finally get an OOC rez. Feral druids were a hybrid tank/DPS spec, jack of all trades and master of none. They focused on making a tree that could be specced into tanking or melee DPS. Take all the Bear talents and you become a good main tank. Take Cat talents and you have higher, better DPS. You can also still hybridize.
1:55 PM: Shaman. Totems are such a great, unique gimmick. The functionality has never been quite were they want it to be. They are physical now, harder to dispel. They have a bit more life and last longer. They filled in wholes in the Shaman repetoire with Hex as CC, Riptide healing, and Lava Burst spell DPS.
1:56 PM: Rogue. Filled in certain tools they needed. AoE DPS was sorely needed. When you think Rogues you think Daggers and Poisons, but no one seemed to be using those things as often. Purchasable poisons and buffed dagger specs will help to fix that.
1:58 PM: Warrior. Warriors were the big main tanks. Without crushing blows, Port Warriors could have become less popular,l so a lot of talents were revamped. Mitigation talents were condensed to allow more points for other, cooler talents. Traditionally Arms was PvP and Fury was PvE. They want to vary that up. Battle Stance will be more desirable, as will Overpower and Rend. Bladestorm and Sudden Death are big, fun abilities. Fury Warriors have Titan's Grip (audience cheering). The Devs really love and are pushing this ability.
2:00 PM: Warlock. (Audience boos.) Warlock has a lot of pets that were considered useless in many situations. They want all pets to be useful. They want a more fun rotation than Shadowbolt spam. Chaos Bolt was added. Affliction may still be too complicated. Demonic Circle and Metamorphosis are the big new abilities.
2:02 PM: Paladins. (Big cheers.) Pallies are delicate snowflakes that can solo Onyxia! (Laughter.) Protection Pallies were great off-tanks but not great main tanks. They want to fix that. They want Paladins to focus on protection gear instead of spell power. Holy Paladins were great, but too many encounters required them to move around a lot. New heals should help that, though they do not want them to be a HoT class. Retribution needs to do good DPS without running out of mana. They were great with a ton of buffs, but without them they did not shine.
2:04 PM: Group flexibility. There are 30 specs, but only 25 spots now! Who gets to come? This should be very flexible. The buff/debuff system was too complex and had a lot of stacking issues. Bloodlust, for example, got a bit out a hand with moving Shamans around. Canceling raids because a certain buff was unavailable was not desirable. Most buffs now affect the whole raid, and you can get them multiple ways, but now none of them stack. You can get all the buffs with a pretty small number of players. Now you can make up raids by "bringing the player, not the class." Player skill should have more to do with the amount of damage a class does, not some inherent flaw of class design.
2:07 PM: Consumables were out of control. Potions are cool, but farming for them is not. So are drums. Drum rotations and consumable preparations were way to burdensome. Skill should always win out over buffs.
2:08 PM: A ton of itemization has been changed to allow flexibility. Spell power consolidated a lot of gear. It also allows healers to do more damage when needed.
2:09 PM: Tank classes overlap a lot more now, so you can bring whoever you want for most fights. Tank threat is alos much higher, making it easier and less worrisome to tank. Fights should be more about skills than wiping due to random lost agro.
2:10 PM: They are working on a dual spec system! It's going to be awesome. They want you to be able to switch specs in the middle or raids in a simple way. You will not be able to switch specs in the middle or an arena, per se, but it will make things much easier on the whole.
2:11 PM: The Class Q&A session is starting:
Q: Dual spec system: Will there be a fast way to switch gear without taking up a lot of bag space. A: There has been discussion of a gear changing UI, like Wardrobe or similar mods. They want to make those improvements.
Q: Warlocks: Affliction is great in T4/T5, but in T6 is was lackluster DPS. Fix for that? A: Yes, we definitely are trying to get Affliction back into a raiding spec.
Q: Warlocks: Will Infernals and Doomguards ever be more useful? Maybe Infernals as a Destruction pet? A: Getting rid of the ability of those pets to break free and such is a big step in that direction. Also they have made Infernals usable indoors.
Q: Warlock pets: A lot of talents are geared to one pet or another. Pets are hard to switch. Fixes for this issue? A: They do want to make pets easier to summon and use.
Q: Druids: Please respond to the forms forum thread! Feral mana and shifting is an issue. Fixes for that? A: Feral mana is on the list to look at. They don't want intellect on feral gear. They are looking into it.
Q: Rogue poisons: Endgame bosses are mostly immune to poisons. Will this change? A: They would like more bosses with less poison immunities. They would like to have rogues less reliant on Windfury.
Q: Mages: They are a food table and a teleport. Now cooks can make food tables, and Mage DPS isn't so amazing right now. Will Mages really be viable in Lich King? A: Mages making food tables really should be a "niche" since it kind of sucks. Frost and fire DPS is actually pretty reasonable right now. They want to "massage" arcane a bit more. Running out of mana is their big issue, but recently mana costs for Mages were revamped and they still want to do more of that.
Q: Mages: 51-Point talents seem lackluster. Should be baseline. A: They want to increase Living Bomb damage and maybe play with the mechanics a little bit. Any spell that does a lot of damage is fun! With Arcane Barrage they wanted to mix up the Arcane Mage's damage rotations. They also want Arcane to be more mobile and more about speed. They thing with 51-point talents is that most classes have a lot of buttons to push. They wanted the new major talents to be more situational.
Q: Druids: Are feral druids going to get abilities to differentiate them from Rogues in Arenas and PvP? A: Ferals have been kind of a "B" PvP spec. They identified a few issues with them: The lack of a healing debuff, raw damage output, a few other things. They have given them some new tools, but they want to watch it. They have not seen a lot of Feral Arena play in the Beta, so they want to keep an eye on it in live.
Q: Mages: They are the only clothies that can't heal themselves. Maybe a new shield or some other function? A: They want to keep classes unique. Mages are the "get out of jail" class. Very mobile. "Slippery glass cannons." For instance, a mana shield that doesn't expire, could be too good or horrible. it's a delicate balance.
Q: Shamans: Will Windfury and its cooldown be revisited to resolve the issues that have come up with Flametongue and slow weapons? A: The new cooldown on Windfury has encouraged the use of Flametongue. They want to see how it plays out.
Q: Druids: As a Balance Druid it's hard to play in Moonkin form. Will there ever be a way to kill someone in Moonkin without running away so much? A: Typhoon gives some knockback to counter melee. Balance Druid DPS has been increased. Devs feel really good about their DPS but they want to keep an eye on survivability.
Q: Paladins: Retribution burst DPS is pretty crazy on Beta. What do the devs have in mind to balance their burst damage to make it less massive in PvP and still good in PvE? A: In Beta Paladins were really bugged. Things got ridiculous. Now devs have to figure out if their DPS is good or not, now that that bugs are fixed. ("Don't nerf me bro!") They want Ret Paladins to have more control of their damage. They don't want them to have to rely on lucky crits.
Q: Tanking: Tank homogenization is rampant with the changes recently, especially to AoE tanking abilities. Will there be more uniqueness added back in later? A: A lot of classes feel they need all the same abilities to be similarly viable. Devs have to be very careful to give them all the abilities
Q: Dual spec system: Did you actually say you want people to be able to switch spec mid-raid? A: Yes, that's the idea.
See the WCRadio.com Schedule Page for upcoming broadcast information! Check the Blizzcon page for a link to the WoW Class Panel audio broadcast as soon as it is available.