WotLK beta infos. Options

[Oddies da Nerfed]

Not only am I in WAR beta, but I managed to end up in the WotLK beta as well. With WAR servers down in preparation for 4.1 goodies I have had more time to play with lich king. Most my experiences sofar are with my now 61 death knight. Sofar the DK has been quite fun with each tree being useful and varied from eachother. Hard to pick just one to roll with. I will throw some mroe info in there about DK and northrend as I get time to write stuff up, because play time > write time.

[Oddies da Nerfed]

Blizz is trying out some radical changes with Lich King. Seems WAR did get them motivated a bit finally. Inscriptions isn't bad but its not badass either. Pretty much a 1 per guild kinda deal. The glyphs are nice for some classes, pure ass for others, but more on this later later. They are trying to make all specs useful in all areas of the game, ie arms fury and prot wars all useful in 5 mans, 10 mans, 25 mans, and pvp/arenas. I view this as admirable, but doomed to failure. Its progress can be seen the most with DK who were more or less destroyed over the last 2 patches when they tuned damage downward of up to 50% on basically every ability but boil blood.

Northrend is well done, with some decent story and good quests to drag you about. The final two zones are just going in however so no clue on icecrown and what not. Item scaling looks to be putting tanks at the 35k hp mark high end. They removed crushing blows but the def scale for crits is nuts almost requiring non druids to gem for def. Druids can use talents giving them a massive edge there. DK tanking style is, despite the rather close release date, almost going to need some heavy reworking. lower hp/mitigation than other tanks with higher avoidance is a healers nightmare, on top of that DK is looking to need the most hit and expertise rating of all tanks leading to some massive stat allocation issues.

Class Balance is trash right now. Several classes got nerf bats similar to the DK one, while others got boosts that really didn't need them. Till they finish the number passes and rework (or finally finish talents that aren't even in game yet) figuring out balance is pointless.

Trades. Usual goodies added to each, really haven't paid much attention. Inscriptions is for letting enchanters finally sell their enchants on the ah, as well as glyphs. Rest got some nice toys with engineering getting a motorcycle. Gathering skills are now providing bonus skills, mining offers a + to max health, while herb is a self heal.

Wintergrasp. Got bored pretty fast. This is Blizzards attempt at WAR, and while it is a vast improvement for pvp in wow WAR is better in this regard. No other real changes to any existing pvp aspects sans pve to pvp server transfers.

Glyps n shit.
Glyph of Swiftmend
Major Glyph
Classes: Druid
Requires Level 40
Use: Your Swiftmend ability no longer consumes a Rejuvenation or Regrowth effect from the target.

Glyph of Avenger's Shield
Major Glyph
Classes: Paladin
Requires Level 50
Use: Your Avenger's Shield hits 2 fewer targets, but for 100% more damage.

Glyph of Felguard
Major Glyph
Classes: Warlock
Requires Level 50
Use: Increases your Felguard's physical damage by 20%.

Glyph of Healing Wave
Major Glyph
Classes: Shaman
Use: Your Healing Wave also heals you for 20% of the healing effect when you heal someone else.

vs shit like.

Glyph of Blood Boil
Major Glyph
Classes: Death Knight
Requires Level 55
Use: Lowers the damage of your Blood Boil by 20% but causes it to slow affected targets for 5 sec.
(this is a tanking ability, dont need a fucking snare)

Glyph of Dark Command
Major Glyph
Classes: Death Knight
Requires Level 55
Use: Increases the chance for your Dark Command ability to work successfully by 8%.
(woot 8% better chance to taunt the target)

Glyph of Death and Decay
Major Glyph
Classes: Death Knight
Requires Level 55
Use: Your Death and Decay spell deals 10% additional damage but the cooldown is increased by 10 sec.
(instead of 14 dps itll do 15 dps (at lvl 80) with a 30s cooldown, NICE!)


Overall, its not a bad expansion. Blizz is finally realizing they cant just sit on their ass anymore and make little change to evolve the game. However in the end, this expansion is more of the same.