Tankspot's Blizzcon 2011 Info feed - DAY ONE

Am I reading this right? For the example of an elemental shaman, you could spec elemental (chuck bolts, LBs, thunderstorm, etc), but talent resto and enhance? Sure, that would probably suck for raiders by lowering their potential output, especially the Paragon types that min/max everything to death. But it sounds awesome... in theory. It's interesting enough that I'll definitely wanna see the next xpac, but so vastly limited (1 point per 15 levels?) that it's a little unsettling. Also, the builds are likely to be even more cookie-cutter than in the past if my understanding is correct.

Re: Pandaren racials. Bouncy and Inner Peace (50% damage reduction BETTER be on a CD! Double-duration rested XP) seem a little OP, ESPECIALLY the double-duration rested XP. Why create a lush new environment then allow players to smash through it double-fast without caring?

Monks Armor: I presume they'll be cloth wearing types? MAYBE leather at the heaviest? Has there been any mention?

Leather wearers. Must have gone too fast without me picking up on it. Mah bad!

I suppose that fits from a gearing standpoint. Other than mail, that has three classes fighting over drops at every armor level which leads me to believe the next class introduced will be a mail user.

You'll prolly see them be an agility class most likely. Agi/Int not out of the question.

Actually...gods, it has a tank spec. I have no idea anymore. It'll prolly be like...druid style.

We are now officially DONE Day 1. I would like to thank people to have come visit the site hope that you will come tomorrow for a whole bunch more information!

And this time without me disappearing for one panel and making the info NOT come in on time. Apologies!

Hope you enjoyed!

I'm watching via live virtual ticket too!

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Originally Posted by Krenian

Top men are working on this!

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Top Men.

Druid style makes sense if they're wearing leather. Otherwise there's itemization issues out the ass, and creating a new "purple shirt of the ___" type thing for just one class sounds utterly ridiculous. Should be an interesting tank class with no auto-attack. I'm VERY interested in seeing their AoE abilities. How does their Chi bar work? Like rage/rp, or more like CP?

The class wasn't really spoken about 'that' much so we have no idea what the info will come out. might be Day 2. Who knows.

Might just be a mystery until beta. HOWEVER.. I do like that Blizzard has been listening to player suggestions about the next class added! I've seen many, many posts about people wanting a monk class. I'll definitely be testing it out myself once it goes live. Not even gonna try for the beta.

They already stated exactly what Pandas will wear: Agility leather for Tank/Melee DPS, and Int Leather for healing. They will basically gear up exactly like Druids do now.

They also stated Pandas will use Staves (i.e. Agility ones for tanking/DPS just like Bears/Cats do now) and 1h Swords/Maces/Fist Weaps (i.e. Caster gear for Healing, and potentially Rogue/Enh Shaman weapons if dual-wielding is in, which I bet it will be) as being usable.

pandas? really? what next hello kitty? how about seseme strees and make it educational for tots, pathetic bliz, whats the panda racial? bonus to gold-farming? summon tanks to take out mob crowds? bliz should not be glorifying this part of the world, that stupid pet for tsunami was bad enough... think they sold anything to help katrina vics? wish i liked star wars but i do not, but this is pathetic!

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Originally Posted by Charon

Might just be a mystery until beta. HOWEVER.. I do like that Blizzard has been listening to player suggestions about the next class added! I've seen many, many posts about people wanting a monk class. I'll definitely be testing it out myself once it goes live. Not even gonna try for the beta.

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http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/annualpass gives guaranteed beta access. And its able to be paid for in installments.

1) it's not the d3 beta, it's the frigging full release game (get facts straight please)

2) the beta is for Mist of Pandaria

3) it's added benefit for people who planned on playing anyways who are willing to accept the fact that they'll still be subbed for a year.


The way I see it, those who know they'll still be subbed, get bonuses now for just subbing 1 year early and committing. Any of you who are "quitting soon, or burnt out" this isn't your option, don't buy the annual pass. Buy D3 for your 60 bucks, and it'll be cheaper for you. I fail to see how this is "downhill" or "a cheap shot". Seriously people are finding reasons to hate on blizzard when they're doing something that in my opinion is a great alternative to choosing between the two games. But hey, that's your perogative, but don't state shit incorrectly, and then try to blame blizzard for doing something that makes sense.

Zomg, a company wants to make profits!


@people hating on Pandarens, did any of you =play warcraft 3: TFT? Pandarens existed in the Lore. Whether you like it or not, they did, and this should've come as no surprise. "blood elves on horde? Really" who remembers those comments, now no one gives a shit. grow up. Making allusions to hello kitty. seriously? You're playing a GAME WITH ORCS, ELVES, DWARVES, GOBLINS, and GNOMES. Chinese Panda-men, that's too far, space goats? TOTALLY ACCEPTABLE. get off your high horse. At least Pandarens were part of the former warcraft lore with Pandaren brewmasters, Space goats were out of left field, more so than the werewolves.

one word: pokemon

Kren, you can add this to your post if you want in the bottom:



Starcraft 2 Changes

For the full list, please check out Teamliquid's thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=277762

Terran:
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...rran_units.jpg

-Thor is now a final tier unit (only have 1, similar to mothership), has aoe stun/damage spell now, and requires fusion core to build from a tech lab'd factory
-NEW UNIT: Warhound - basically thor anti-air of past + goliath like ground attacks that have bonus damage to mech I think (will confirm at day 2)
-NEW UNIT: Shredder - Stationary runby protection unit. in "defense mode" it locks down an area about the side of your average choke in a circle around it, dealing damage and slowing any enemy units that enter it. Disables when any friendly units enter in it's matrix.
-NEW'ish UNIT: Battle Hellion - Transforms the Hellion into a walker mode, changes fire aoe into conal with shorter range but wider radius, same damage, same attack speed, but gains hp in this form (135). -- NOTE, i tested this against 2 marines just to see in cost efficiency, even with blue flame, at 3/3 the battle hellion form lost to just 2 marines with stim and 3/3, AND only dealt splash damage to 1 of the marines despite them being next to each other, the splash will mostly be effective against melee units only.

Protoss:
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...toss_units.jpg

- Carrier is removed from game.
- Nexus now has 3 abilities: Chronoboost (old), The ability to turn any building into an auto turret temporarily, recall (yeah, recall)
- NEW UNIT: Tempest - Replaces Carrier, AoE splashy damage to air, attacks at moderate pace, bonus damage to light. Ground damage is a lazer beam similar to the mothership attack spliced with void ray attack.
- NEW UNIT: Replicant - Built from Robo, cheaper than a colossus, but more expensive than a stalker (don't remember the exact numbers). Has 1 ability, and no attack, can become any non-massive ground unit (takes 4-5 seconds to transform), including enemy units (even builders!). Seems to have limited use due to cost and non-massive, but can potentially change tides of battle with tanks/ghosts/infestor mimicry
- NEW UNIT: Oracle - Air Caster unit, no attack, can target a building to stop it from attacking/building, can target a building and see what it is manufacturing for 2 minutes, can freeze in a HUGE AOE (size of an entire mineral patch + CC) any mineral lines preventing them from mining, for X amount of time. first 2 abilities are seemingly poorly tuned or not useful. However, 3rd ability, in practice, when getting 4-5 of these and banking them while building up death ball, can completely shut down mining in multiple bases for extend times, or chain freeze 1 base for long periods of time. Seems overpowered, even InControl thinks so, but holding judgment due to being in alpha/beta.

Zerg:
--Didn't get a chance to play, will give a report tomorrow, for now here's the img
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...Zerg_units.jpg

- NEW UNIT - Viper - Air Defiler basically, with a Mortal Kombat/Scorpion style CMERE move that pulls units towards itself (including enemy units). Range seems to be around 8-9 in demos, and can be used even on massive units.
- NEW UNIT - Swarmer - Burrows to spawn waves of units to attack enemy lines. Modern day lurker, but instead of spines, it spawns little broodling type units instead. interesting, not sure how powerful yet.

Campaign:
Zerg Campaign for HOTS was pretty fun, storyline is compelling, upgrades seem cool, and Kerrigan upgrade paths are unique and like promised she is very much so involved in the campaign missions in actual combat.



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Reminder, these are first iterations, there will be a full beta for HOTS, and any and all units/spells/stats/numbers can be altered before release, so try not to get too crazy with the unit announcements.

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Originally Posted by Krenian

You'll prolly see them be an agility class most likely. Agi/Int not out of the question.

Actually...gods, it has a tank spec. I have no idea anymore. It'll prolly be like...druid style.

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Don't forget the healing spec, odds are they might use plate since currently only 1 class can wear tanking gear, DPS gear and healing gear all with different stats and that's Paladin's. I wish Blizzard would get away from this class homogenization thing and go for independent class gear choices, that would be really cool. I hate seeing items that I can't use at all that are plate, and then having to pickup undervalued gear because it has a stat that is effectively useless for a certain class (DK's and crit for instance).

Derp I misread. I guess then that Pandaren Monks will use Agility Fist weapons, Polearms or an agility Staff? Staff might be optimal for healing, polearm for tanking and fist weapons for DPS, makes the most sense anyway.

I think I'll get MoP and play for the first month getting my main to 90 and level a monk.

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Originally Posted by Kazeyonoma

1)

@people hating on Pandarens, did any of you fucking play warcraft 3: TFT? Pandarens existed in the Lore. Whether you like it or not, they did, and this should've come as no surprise. "blood elves on horde? Really" who remembers those ******* comments, now no one gives a shit. grow up. Making allusions to hello kitty. seriously? You're playing a GAME WITH ORCS, ELVES, DWARVES, GOBLINS, and GNOMES. Chinese Panda-men, that's too far, space goats? TOTALLY ACCEPTABLE. get off your high horse. At least Pandarens were part of the former warcraft lore with Pandaren brewmasters, Space goats were out of left field, more so than the werewolves.

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Please chill out and refrain from language you actually mod out in peoples posts (like mine). I think you are getting too wound up (emotive) by peoples opinions (which they are allowed to have) then again you are the banhammer so who am I to say what is appropriate.

Firstly this expansion has some good points; the talent system now looks a lot nicer for many classes very different the kind of change that would have been apreciated for cataclysm and it's always nice to have a mini game to keep players occupied. Raid finder is a mixed blessing but it will mean you aren't bored everytime your guild disbands or you leave a guild or just cant play as often. So in terms of changes to the game this is a pretty ok bargain in that it is refinement of everything they have changed in the previous expansions.

Now i'm afraid thats where this post ends being on a good note so please ignore the rest of this if you think pandas are great and an expansion that sounds like it is going to be the equivallent of the phantom menance (no real protagonist or antagonist).

WoW expansion announcement started out with Metzen saying this expansion is about WAR but pandaren are peaceful and will help us discover who we are. Ok big contradiction here, is this an expansion about the alliance and horde finally being able to fight it out without someone trying to 'take over the world' or is this just like the Sha'tar teaching us to work together and put asside old conflicts. Obviously new battlegrounds suggest its not but it doesn't make much sense in my mind. I'd also like to say you are right about the draenei they were a surprise and a big lore upset I don't think anyone really liked that idea but eventually it did pan out as the story behind them was ok. Worgen made sense much more so, also why aren't we getting a hero class per second expansion? It seems they decided the DK was a bad idea and didn't want to live through that instead opting for a 1-90 class, sadly my mind has wondered and remembered a melee class without an auto attack, cool but how annoying must it be to do dailies and mindless stuff when you have to be pressing buttons to do damage? It just doesn't fit a game where auto attacks are bread and butter.

The bad-guys we fight in raids and dungeons have been living on the same island as the peaceful pandaren but only now are causing problems? Where do these bad guys come from what the hell is happening? There were so many well known avenues that could have been pursued better: Aszhara, Emerald Dream, Old gods, the burning legion and titans. While not the most exciting prospects for these lore pieces these are what made Warcraft interesting. Pandaren may have been in Warcraft 3 but then it was more comic relief (HECK there was an april fools about panderans!).

The only reason we are taking all the information at blizzcon seriously is because it is blizzcon otherwise and legendary pretty much wore tin-foil hats until blue posts tried to hint away that MoP might be something else. Bouncy, pet battles and repackaged grind quests all suit april fools more than blizzcon.

Pandaren should have entered WoW I am not saying they are a bad addition but they are more suitable as a content patch (even as a peaceful mediator/trainer of both sides) instead of the theme of an expansion. Oh and yet another tank, dps and healer. Yes the healer would have been a good addition but another tank is hardly necessary. That is all I have to say, I feel like i've been rickrolled and I don't actually play the game anymore.

PS someone should shout at them for planning to rehash more old content, no just no. Your old content was good for its time reusing it is just going to get you called lazy even if you aren't bad enough I had to do some troll heroics when i tried to pick up WoW again and I didn't ever get tired of ZG and ZA :\