World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will bring with it several changes to class talents and abilities. Here you will get a glimpse into some of the changes we have in store for the warrior. The information you're about to read is not complete, and is only meant to act as a preview for some of the exciting new things to come.

New Warrior Abilities

Inner Rage (Level 81): Whenever the character reaches a full 100 Rage, he or she will gain a buff that causes attacks to consume 50% more Rage and do 15% more damage for a short amount of time. This is a passive ability so it won't need to be activated by the player. The goal for this ability is to provide a benefit for hitting max Rage instead of it feeling like a penalty. However, we also don't want warriors to feel like they're supposed to pool Rage and do nothing until they hit 100, so we'll be closely monitoring how this plays out during the beta testing, and making adjustments as needed.

Gushing Wound (Level 83): This ability will apply a bleed effect to the target. If the target moves, the bleed gains an extra stack and refreshes its duration, up to a maximum of three stacks. The ability is currently planned to have no cooldown, cost 10 Rage, and have a 9-second duration. Gushing Wound is designed to be weaker than Rend with one stack, but better with three stacks, which will be reached when fighting a moving target.

Heroic Leap (Level 85): This ability makes the character leap at their target and apply the Thunder Clap ability to all enemies in the area when they land. Heroic Leap will be usable in Battle Stance and shares a cooldown with Charge, but the Juggernaut and Warbringer talents will allow Heroic Leap to be used in any stance and possibly while in combat. The cooldown for this ability might be longer than the Charge ability, but it will also apply a stun effect so you can make sure the target will still be there when you land.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

In addition to learning new abilities, you'll see changes to other abilities and mechanics with which you're already familiar. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we intend for each spec.

Heroic Strike will no longer be an "on next swing" attack, as we are removing this mechanic in Cataclysm. To keep the niche of Heroic Strike as a Rage dump, it will become an instant attack, but will cost between 10 and 30 Rage. This ability will not be usable until you have 10 Rage, but if you have more than 10, it will consume up to 30, adding additional damage for each point of Rage consumed above the base 10. Other abilities, such as Cleave, Execute, and Maul (for druids) will work similarly. The goal is to provide players with an option where if you can't afford the Rage, you don't push the button, but if you have excess Rage, you can push it a lot.
Battle Shout, Commanding Shout, and possibly Demoralizing Shout will work more like the death knight's Horn of Winter ability. Specifically, these shouts will cost no resources, generate rage in addition to their current effects, and be on a short cooldown.
Whirlwind will hit an unlimited number of targets, but only for 50% of weapon damage. The intent is for this ability to be used in multi-target scenarios and not on single targets.
Overall, heals cast by players in Cataclysm will be a lower number relative to players' health than the current game. So to make the Mortal Strike debuff less mandatory but still useful in PvP, Mortal Strike will reduce healing by only 20%. All equivalent debuffs, including the Shadow priest and Frost mage debuffs, will be for 20% less healing. At the moment we aren't considering giving this debuff to anyone else, though we will certainly consider PvP utility for historically under-represented specs that use other mechanics.
Sunder Armor will be reduced to three stacks instead of five, and still provide only a 4% reduction in armor per stack. We want to make this debuff easier to apply and less of a damage swing when it falls off.


New Talents and Talent Changes

The Furious Sundering talent in the Fury tree will make the Sunder Armor ability cause 25/50% weapon damage and reduce the threat generated by 50/100%.
The Mace and Poleaxe Specialization talents in the Arms tree will be removed. These provided just passive stats, which are not the kinds of talents we want to design in the future. We will keep the Sword Specialization talent, but it will be changed to a talent that applies to all types of weapons.
As a Fury talent, Booming Voice will increase the Rage generated by shouts.
While we like how Titan's Grip plays, we recognize some warriors liked the Fury tree because of the really fast swings that dual-wielding one-handed weapons could provide. Therefore, we're planning to try out a talent called Single-Minded Fury that is parallel to Titan's Grip and will provide a large boost to the damage of a pair of one-handed weapons.
Several talents that reduce the Rage cost of abilities will be changed to focus on increased damage for those abilities instead.
The new Arms talent called Disarming Nature will make successful disarms cause the target to cower in fear for 5/10 seconds.
Another new Arms talent called Blitz will make the Charge ability hit for extra damage. The amount will possibly vary depending on the distance travelled.
Improved Pummel, a Fury talent, will cause a successful interrupt to generate 10/20 Rage.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Arms
Melee Damage
Armor Penetration
Bonus Swing

Bonus Swing: This is similar to the Sword Specialization talent that is currently in the game, but Bonus Swing will work on all attacks and with all weapons. You have a chance to proc a free, instant weapon swing that hits for 50% damage.

Fury
Melee Damage
Melee Haste
Enrage Intensity

Enrage Intensity: Every benefit of being enraged is increased. This includes doing more damage/healing/ etc. from abilities like Bloodrage, Death Wish, Enrage, Berserker Rage, and Enraged Regeneration.

Protection
Damage Reduction
Vengeance
Critical Block Chance

Critical Block Chance: As we mentioned in the stat changes preview, block rating is changing to a chance to block 30% of a melee swing's damage. Protection warriors have a chance that the block will be a critical block and block for 60% of a melee swing's damage instead. There will likely be talents available to push the amount blocked even higher.

Vengeance: This is a mechanic to ensure that tank damage (and therefore threat) doesn't fall behind as damage-dealing classes improve their gear during the course of the expansion. All tanking specs will have Vengeance as their second talent tree passive bonus. Whenever a tank gets hit, Vengeance will give them a stacking attack power buff equal to 5% of the damage done, up to a maximum of 10% of the character's un-buffed health. For boss encounters, we expect that tanks will always have the attack power bonus equal to 10% of their health. The 5% and 10% bonuses assume 51 talent points have been put into the Protection tree. These values will be smaller at lower levels. Remember, you only get this bonus if you have spent the most talent points in the Protection tree, so you won't see Arms or Fury warriors running around with it. Vengeance will let us continue to make tank gear more or less the way we do today – there will be some damage-dealing stats, but mostly survival-oriented stats. Druids typically have more damage-dealing stats even on their tanking gear, so their Vengeance benefit may be smaller, but overall the goal is for all four tanks do about the same damage when tanking.

We hope you enjoyed this preview, and we're looking forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on Cataclysm continues.

Here are some follow ups based on what is being discussed.

Q: Will the rotation for a Fury Warrior just be Bloodthirst and Slam with Heroic Strike to burn off rage?
A: We think Fury is going to end up needing another attack in there for single-target fights. Furious Sundering was intended more as having to Sunder being less of a penalty, but at only 3 stacks, it may not end up being a big deal and we don’t want Fury to feel like they have to purchase a talent that they may not always use. We don’t want Whirlwind to be a good button against single targets however. It essentially gets “free” damage against groups of targets when it’s effective at using against single targets. It’s okay if warriors still do more damage in fights where they can use Cleave and similar attacks often, but right now it’s too extreme.

Q: Are one-handed Fury warriors going to be competing with rogues for one-handed weapons?
A: This is unlikely. Rogues and shaman will want one-handers with Agility, while warriors and death knights will want them with Strength. I won’t be surprised when one of these classes picks up the other’s weapon as it could be an upgrade simply based on the damage, but it won’t be optimal.

Q: Why are warriors not getting some kind of AoE tanking tool?
A: We think the newly buffed Thunder Clap plus Shockwave are sufficient abilities for AoE tanking. The design of Vengeance should make sure that threat generation doesn’t start to slip behind as the dps characters gear up. It’s not our intention that tanks face a constant struggle to generate enough threat, even in group situations, but we also don’t want threat to be totally irrelevant either. The danger for tanking too many creatures should also be tank death not threat management.

Q: Is only Sunder Armor being changed?
A: Rogue Expose Armor and other abilities that apply a similar debuff are being changed accordingly. They will all provide the same debuff at 12% armor reduction.

Q: What about rage loss when changing stances?
A: We still want the act of changing stances to require more consideration than just clicking two buttons to use the ability you want. One idea we are going to explore is that you don’t lose rage when you change stances, but you won’t gain additional rage for a short period of time after changing. This lets you say swap to do an Execute without losing your rage bar, but still keeps the idea that shifting constantly comes with inherent efficiency risks.

Q: Is the intent of Gushing Wound that warriors constantly ask for targets to be kited around?
A: No, it’s intended to be a bonus when you’re in an encounter where the target either moves around a lot (Ex. BONNNNE STORMMMM-ing Marrowgar) or just has to be moved around a lot (say Lich King). Warriors shouldn’t have the expectation of forcing every PvE opponent to move but it would be entertaining to watch this (from a third party perspective).

Gushing Wound sounds awesome, its a clone of a DotA spell

also epic that they are bringing heroic leap back after it was scrapped in wotlk beta

bleeds should be more universal, not just arms
i mean, i am swinging a big fucking axe at you, when it hits you it will cut you and you will bleed

they are universal for warriors, since every spec gets deep wounds

donno about cata, it doesnt say the new skill will be a talent

right, i was thinking of rend ofc, how its specifically an arms skill, but with ww ofc who knows how its gonna play now
typing a better reply in a different tab

i understand that wow i time consuming game and etc, but how do you guys hold so much useless info about maps, items, quests and so on?
by judging by only volume of this info, it could be easily compared with anatomy or physiology

inner rage = depending on cd do not let this happen and then 30 sec later the smart shamen pops BL
this could be really awesome when timed with cds etc, but they will have to change the fact that a double crit from fury could fill the rage bar. so rage would have to be more of a steady process otherwise this will just be a random proc that you watch for and hit your personal cds if/when bl is on cd etc. and with hs being instant it will be interesting how rage management works, especially if inner rage is something you try to save and not just use it whenever. now add that skills will bonus to dmg instead of decreasing rage may make you do less bigger hits, thus being more calculated, though i still say what i liked most of fury was the speed at which you had to do things to keep the rhythm. i like where this is going though

gushing = sounds nice, proal great, but i hope it actually leads to a proc, that was the best part of arms were the procs based off of rend.

wow, ww is only for multi-target (aka bout fucking time). maybe this will lead to a more "arms" style approach on attacks and procs but with less reliance aka keeping the speed of a fury builds rotation
1-handed fury is nn imo, though it will be nice to take a weapon from a rogue instead of them having shit to themselves

shouts should not be shorter cds and more often cast, i dont get why our buffs are like a fucking chore to keep up, while palalolidens press a button then forget about it until someone mentions it to them at the next boss
nice that sunder and arp will be a little less important, though when min/maxing a boss its still ofc
furious sundering sounds interesting
weapon specs is ofc, was dumb before, axe or bust when crits are so important

disarming nature sounds awesome for leveling ofc, and for pvp i guess it means a pally cant bubble for 5 seconds, or a rogue may actually just stand there and die
i hope pvp is not going to be who gets to use their supercool special move first though

vengeance sounds nice, i like the concept and hope it balances things out

i typed this out over a 2 hour span, hope it makes sense

there is more to wow than most games, its true
and since things are always changing there is always something new to know

they say somewhere in there that inner rage isnt like a cooldown, its more of a mechanic that lets you put less emphasis on using your rage immediately when you create it so you dont accidentally hit 100 rage and waste possible extra rage.

playing a looser, more "floating" rotation where you might vary time in between swings instead of trying to be using a yellow on every GCD is both more dynamic, plus allows you to have a base of rage if you do need to do something like pummel or use some boss fight item or something

as it is now, you need to try to burn rage as soon as you get it if you know theres going to be a high-rage moment upcoming, such as the TOC yeti knocking everyone to the wall, etc, otherwise you may hit 100 rage and gain nothing from it



like is mentioned, its more about giving warriors more of an edge compared to other classes / ranged dips for high mobility fights

dont know if you did the first boss in icecrown citadel at all, but he goes through a phase a few times during the fight that he moves around rapidly whilst whirlwinding. if you try to go in and dips him, you are taking whirlwind damage and its hard to keep up with him anyway, so warriors and most melee sit with dicks in their hands whilst the range dps continue to hit the boss the whole time



they definitely had changing opinions on their view of whirlwind, between balancing it for boss fights and trash. i like the niche warriors have/had when the situation was dealing with 3-5 monsters at the same time such as anub'arak, there just has to be some tradeoff so you dont do X damage to a boss plus Y damage to the other Z(up to 3) additional mobs. there has to be some part of the rotation you leave out to lower your boss damage if you want to be putting out high damage to other mobs at the same time.
they mention that, with the reworking of stats, there will be 1 handed strength itemized weapons for death knights/warriors, while enhancement shamans/rogues/(hunters?) share the agility ones



they say in there that it wont be a chore because applying the buff (analogy to dks horn of winter) will generate rage, so its another instant rage button that also refreshes the raid buff at the same time (on a cooldown)




arp on gear is being removed so they dont need to worry about tailoring to soft/hard caps, which gets rid of a scaling damage factor that can get out of hand based on transitioning from 1 tier of gear to the next. some classes can get X% amount of passive arp from mastery i believe. 




i think certain weapon specializations was an integral part of the warrior class, i will miss it in cata, even if it wasnt ever perfectly balanced

This post has been edited by randomtask on Thu - Apr 8 2010 - 19:12:56

ty for going against everything i said

OK IM JUST GONNA STOP TALKING NOW

same

Camouflage (level 85): The hunter enters an obscured state that prevents him or her from taking ranged damage. The character would still be subject to melee or area-of-effect attacks, and dealing or taking damage will break the Camouflage effect. The hunter can move and set traps when under Camouflage, and will receive a damage bonus when attacking while under Camouflage (which will then break the effect).


KEK

Smoke Bomb (level 85): The rogue drops a Smoke Bomb, creating a cloud that interferes with enemy targeting. Enemies who are outside the cloud will find themselves unable to target units inside the cloud with single-target abilities. Enemies can move inside the cloud to attack, or they can use area-of-effect (AoE) abilities at any time to attack opponents in a cloud. In PvP, this will open up new dimensions of tactical positional gameplay, as the ability offers a variety of offensive and defensive uses. In PvE, Smoke Cloud can serve to shield your group from hostile ranged attacks, while also drawing enemies closer without the need to rely on conventional line-of-sight obstructions. Smoke Cloud lasts 10 seconds and has a 3-minute cooldown.

portable LOS, pretty interesting

cool, huntards get to cloak. exactly what we need is more nonsense at the beginning of an arena match where everyone is invisible and basically only limited classes can do a low dmg skill to expose them

not invisible, just immune to ranged damage, effectively a gargoyle until the hunter attacks something, or something hits the hunter with melee

i misread it. by camo i think if hidden. still sounds dumb

i know, but if it is at all controllable you will be expected to control it to min/max yourself.



i think thats what i was saying, a fury build would have more variety involved. i may or may not like that. actually, as long as they kept he speed that inherently goes into fury ill be pleased. the whack a mole that is arms is ok, but for raiding i could never do it and enjoy it. as for the rage dumps once you were geared (even half-geared) rage was constant for fury, you never didnt have rage. ever. unless it was a vezex gimmick fight, or an extreme stop and start fight and fury would be gimmped as debuffs needed to be restack. I know thats the point of the bleed, but its just another passive dmg dealer that you will still have to keep applied during non-movement fights (unless the single stack is so nn or rage costly that you do not do it on patchwork-type fights



nothing new with that, any fight with movement was a struggle for fury, but also made it very fun as a single extra gcd could be that extra ww used etc. yes, we were gimped on straight single target fights, or on heavy movement fights. kologarn was our perfect fight ofc. it will certainly be nice to add something for when we cant stand and hit things. sounds too gimmicky though.

and all i said was i hope it leads to a proc because i did like that aspect with arms, but a class that is nothing but would be too slow paced i think for my own personal liking. as to your "niche" comment, yes, its cool, but if the fight didnt have 2-4+ mobs in a close area we couldnt compete. and even then we cant touch a dk in that scenario. i dont see how a 1-handed fury will be any different and i think 2 1h weapons is dumb, though if its fast enough id like it by playstyle and not concept. like i said though, best part would be so faggot rogues have to share more weapons. it also seems like they now have twice the shit to balance, GG.


if it only lasts 3 min, and 6 if you spec into it (which is laughable anyway) its a chore. who cares if rage is gained. unless its the beginning of a fight or a stap and start/movement fight an instant rage really does not come into play much for a fury. no other class has a raid buff that is needing to be reapplied so often.



are you agreeing or disagreeing with me that arp will be less important?



they would have been integral if they were all viable. instead fury never worries about it, tank either, and arms wants an axe cuz 5% crit is just too ofc in comparison. sure, over a 10 hour sample sword spec may have had equal dmg. you know as well as i do though that in the end you wanted an axe.

maybe its my complete lack of desire to even play a hunter let alone consider its weaknesses and fix them

arp wont be less or more important, it wont even be a mechanic you can itemize into, you will either have some of it, or you wont

so they can control exactly how much it does/doesnt do



about the shout thing, you say getting instant rage would never be used, thats assuming you are playing with the way rage currently works instead of the new rage system

it will definitely be something you will use, whether or not you use it every CD on CD is the question though

its retarded to have to use a raid buff during a gcd.
if the war is allowed to have a skill that is arp, then it will still have a value. i know it wont be on gear, never said it would be. but allow me to reword so its said correctly. i am glad arp will not have any bearing in char set-up. thats what i was aiming at and im sure you knew it.

yes, i know rage will be different. that does not change the fact a raid buff will be used mid-fight to gain rage. want a skill that gens rage? make it in addition to might. stupid that a raid buff is used in the manner that it is. kinda hard to refute that our shouts are horrible raid buffs in implementation. but im interested in hearing how they are not horrible, infact im interested in hearing how they are good raid buffs and its fun the way we have to refresh them mid-fight.

still not going to come back

regardless of hunter cloaking

For years, Mount Hyjal and the wounded World Tree, Nordrassil, have remained cut off from the rest of Azeroth. Sealed away within a protective field of dense foliage by Malfurion Stormrage, Nordrassil has been slowly recovering from the devastation of the Third War, when Malfurion called upon the tree's power to destroy the archdemon Archimonde and repel the forces of the Burning Legion and Scourge. Now, with the impending cataclysm, the World Tree's well-being is threatened once more. From the Firelands within the Elemental Plane, Ragnaros and his minions prepare to burst into Hyjal and set Nordrassil ablaze -- and the conflagration would endanger all life on Azeroth.

In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, players will have the opportunity to explore the newly reopened Mount Hyjal as Azeroth's heroes, with the help of Ysera, Malfurion Stormrage and Hamuul Runetotem, are called upon to push back the armies of the Firelord, banish Ragnaros to the Elemental Plane and lay waste to the twilight dragon stronghold in nearby Darkwhisper Gorge. This all-new level 78-82 zone will feature multiple quest hubs, phased terrain and quest lines, portals to micro-zones within the Firelands, an all-new raid dungeon, and much more.

The World Tree
Players will be able to enter Hyjal by way of Moonglade, to take on a series of high-stakes quests in a historic location alongside some of Azeroth's most renowned heroes. With a longstanding rivalry among the night elf leadership threatening to undermine the campaign against Deathwing, players will quickly discover the task of defending Nordrassil is more daunting than they had anticipated. In order to succeed, they must seek out the help of extremely powerful allies: the Ancients.

The Ancients
To protect Nordrassil and heal the devastation the invading fire elementals are causing across Mount Hyjal, players must first recapture the shrine of the wolf god Goldrinn. The ogres surrounding the shrine will not leave peacefully, but seizing the shrine will allow players their first opportunity to infiltrate the Firelands and shut down a key Twilight portal, slowing the advance of the nearby Twilight's Hammer in Hyjal.

With the first portal dismantled, players will soon be sought by the wilderness spirit Aessina to assist in cleansing and healing the nearby forest, ultimately returning the land to its former splendor. This small victory, however, isn't enough to deter the Twilight Remnants from attempting to scorch the forest once more. As you struggle to keep these foes at bay, you'll also need to help the Guardians of Hyjal -- a new neutral faction of druids and worshippers of the Ancients -- repopulate the forest with animal life. It's even rumored that Malorne has been spotted in the wilderness. Perhaps further investigation is necessary....

Amid the chaos, the Druids of the Talon will need players' assistance to resurrect the goddess of winged creatures. Players begin the process by helping to slay a group of black dragons and closing a second Firelands portal from within. Just when you think things might be heating up, you'll need to fight through a burning night elf town to shut down the third and final portal with the assistance of the turtle god Tortollus.

Darkwhisper Gorge
Your successes in Hyjal will ultimately lead you to the assembly of the Ancients, who have set a plan in motion to bring a powerful ally and demigod back into this realm. Before that can happen, however, you will need to infiltrate Darkwhisper Gorge disguised as a follower of the Twilight's Hammer, acting quickly to sow discord within the entrenched faction, weakening it for the coming struggle. Only time will tell if the Ancients' plan is a success -- but you'll need to do your part if there's any hope of saving Mount Hyjal from the twilight dragons, Ragnaros, and his minions of the Elemental Plane.

Once a great Highborne city housing some of the most revered night elves of Kalimdor, Vashj'ir was swallowed by the Great Sea in the Sundering and thought to be lost forever. Queen Azshara, formerly a beloved leader of the Highborne, escaped death in the depths of the sea when the Well of Eternity imploded. Such salvation came at a great cost, as the queen and many of her fellow Highborne were forever transformed into the monstrous naga, doomed to wander the seas for thousands of years. Their existence mostly remains a mystery to the peoples of modern Azeroth, though the Earthen Ring has learned of Azshara's naga seizing Vashj'ir for an unknown purpose as the cries of the elements echo across Azeroth from the Abyss.

The Sunken City
Vashj'ir is a level 78-82 zone in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm where players will be called to explore the depths of the Great Sea and stop the naga from seizing immeasurable power from the realm of Neptulon the Tidehunter. This expansive underwater zone will feature an unprecedented fight for survival against the naga overwhelming the area, several new quest hubs -- including Alliance and Horde naval ships and submarines -- all-new underwater travel and combat mechanics, several pocketed undersea caves free from water's grip, two new five-player dungeons (Throne of the Tides and Abyssal Maw), and the first-ever opportunity to explore the remains of the once-majestic city of Vashj'ir!

Bottled Distress Message Found Adrift at Sea
Need your help. Time is short. I'm held captive in what I hope to be a nightmare.

Enjoying the ocean air just days ago. We were determined to control key trade routes through victory at sea over the Horde. Their fleet came into our scopes. Our world became the deafening sound of battle, the smell of gunpowder, and the feeling of fear. Looking back now, though, that wasn't real fear.

We weren't alone in those waters. Our naval warfare attracted attention and rendered us prey. With our vessel already torn apart and taking on water, we saw a tremendous creature rise from the depths and shatter the hull, sucking us down to the sea floor. It all happened so fast. I was quick to tread the waters, hoping to regroup with any survivors I could find through a dense garden of kelp, constantly gasping for a chance breath. That's when the onslaught began. From all directions swarms of brutal naga swept through and captured a great many of us. Beaten near to death, I awoke in agony, bound in chains.

And here I still sit. I can only describe our prison as very big and somehow very much alive. We're in the hands of the naga now. Surviving crewmates in better condition than me are driven into slave labor.

One escaped. Thomas. He didn't make it far before I saw him dragged back. Before being forced into labor, he spoke in a panic about some large shell protecting this living prison, expansive night elf ruins in the distance, strange naga rituals underway, and sea vrykul battling our captors. He made little sense. Could be mad. Or I could be mad to hope vrykul are fighting to free us.

Prison patrols out again. Send word to Stormwind. Sunken city far from extinct. Naga plotting something horrific. Please help.

this is the $25 mount

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KvDDFi0Fuo...player_embedded

its awesome they're finally getting around to the empty/useless zones from classic but still not coming back

so they are touching on multiple areas that could have had entire expansions based around, interesting

Honor weapons coming back, instead of 2 seasons back, you can buy the current season
so, with no rating requirement, with points you get from rated battlegrounds/arena trash games, you get a current ilvl weapon (10/25 man are the same ilvl) with resilience

After years in exile, the Darkspear trolls are preparing to invade the Echo Isles and reclaim the land once bestowed to them by Thrall. Led by Vol'jin, a wise and highly regarded Darkspear, the tribe's bravest warriors will set out from Orgrimmar and Sen'jin Village, seeking to bring about Zalazane's fall and begin the process of rebuilding their homes and villages on the Echo Isles. In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, new troll adventurers will begin their journey on these tiny islands off the coast of Durotar, where they'll be able to experience this time of trial and transition firsthand.

Though the Darkspears may once again have their land, the tribe's turmoil is far from over. The impending cataclysm will spark rivalry among the Horde leadership, and after years of running from a seemingly endless string of conflicts to preserve the Darkspear nation, Vol'jin is done fleeing. The Darkspears have reclaimed their islands and have no intention of settling elsewhere. Of course, as an untested member of the tribe, you'll have some training to do before tackling the Darkspears' larger matters.

Every great hero starts somewhere. As a troll of the Echo Isles, the journey begins with safeguarding your people's well-being. Early in your adventures, you'll be charged with protecting the local Bloodtalon raptors and hatchlings from the sorcery of a nearby sea witch, slaying the beasts that feast upon the Darkspears' primary food sources, and assaulting the naga who've overrun the northern isle. But it won't be long before Vol'jin trusts you with vital -- and potentially dangerous -- information about the political struggles plaguing the Horde and, ultimately, the fellow members of your tribe.

In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, you'll face these trials and more in the trolls' new and enhanced introductory questing experience (level 1 to 5). Be steadfast and honorable, and your actions will help usher in a new era of Darkspear perseverance in a time of ultimate peril.

We really don't want the buffs and debuffs you bring to be the reason you get a spot in the raid. We hate the thought of kicking a good player for a bad player because the latter provides so much of a dps increase to everyone else. We hate the thought of not being able to raid with your friends because playing raid buff Tetris is more important to your success.

Raid buffs and debuffs exist for two main reasons:

1) They encourage you to bring a diversity of classes and specs rather than stacking whatever is highest dps at the moment.
2) They make you feel more powerful in a group than when you're solo. For an MMO, WoW is pretty soloable, so we like for it to feel really awesome when you're in a group.

Whenever we read "Without my buff, there is no reason for a group to take me," our typical response is: awesome. You'll have to figure out another reason why they should take you. Whenever we read that a particular buff is the driving decisions behind why you took one player over another, then we know we still have some work to do.

There will be more buff / debuff consolidation in Cataclysm. I look forward to the day when the raid buff everyone brings dominates less of the forum discussion.

ARP IS BEING REMOVED

Population Balancing
Keep in mind Tol Barad is still deep in development, but we do have plans to implement more stringent faction balancing measures than those which exist for Wintergrasp today. We want to have the queue system try to create a battle with as close to a 1:1 team ratio as possible. In other words, if 40 Horde and 150 Alliance players are in the queue, it's going to make the battle somewhere close to 40 vs. 40. There will be a maximum cap of players allowed on each side as there is with Wintergrasp, but there will also be a minimum cap as well. Since the system will be looking for a 1:1 team ratio, the minimum cap will be designed to ensure a battle can't be thrown by a faction if no one shows up. So, say if the minimum cap is 25, there is a chance the battle could be 25 vs. 5.

Because of this new design, it'll be much more beneficial to play on a realm where the faction balance is roughly equivalent rather than seeking a realm where your faction dominates. For this reason we'll continue to monitor faction balance on all realms and work to ensure players enjoy the best gaming experience possible.

[...] Right now the issue with Wintergrasp is it actually encourages the behavior of selecting a realm where your faction dominates. If the reverse becomes true for Tol Barad, that only serves to help improve faction balance rather than further impact it. In Cataclysm it will be more beneficial to be on a realm where your faction is underpopulated (which will lead to a natural trend of balancing out the population), or be on a high-population realm where the maximum Tol Barad cap is reached, or close to reached for each battle.

I hate to ask, but would you explain again how the maximum and minimum caps work, or shall I say how you think they are going to work? I'm a bit confused. :x
The maximum cap will essentially work the same as it does in Wintergrasp. If there are hundreds of players in the queue for Tol Barad on both sides, the system is not going to overcrowd the zone and make it unplayable. It will create an even match with up to a certain number of players on each side.

The minimum cap is intended to prevent griefing from factions which are extremely underpopulated. For example, if it's 3 in the morning and the Alliance have a very low population on a realm, a single Alliance guild could decide to boycott Tol Barad. If there were no minimum cap with the 1:1 ratio queuing system, this could lead to a situation where Tol Barad ends up being a, say, 3 vs. 3 battle leaving many Horde players locked out. So if we set the minimum cap to 25, it means in this scenario that it would be 3 Alliance vs. 25 Horde. In other words, the underpopulated faction on an imbalanced realm can't fully dictate the battle size of Tol Barad all the way down to 0 participants on either side.

Does this apply to Wintergrasp too?

I just got word that we are planning on implementing this new balancing mechanism for Wintergrasp sometimes shortly after the next Wrath of the Lich King minor content patch. So you'll get a chance to see it in action and provide us with feedback prior to the launch of Cataclysm!

So in cliff note form: With the minimum cap is 25, if 25 Horde que and 150 alliance que, the battle will be 25 vs 25.
And if 25 Horde que, and 10 alliance que, will it then just 10 v 10 or 25 v 10?

Your first example is correct. For your second example, the battle would be 25 Horde vs. 10 Alliance.

1) Will Tol'Barad flag players between battles on PvE servers? Please say yes!
2) Will flying mounts be disabled in the zone when the battle isn't taking place?

The current plan is for Tol Barad to function like Wintergrasp with regard to your questions. So it will be a PvP zone at all times and flight will be disabled once the battle begins.

wintergrasp/ new wintergrasp will always be an even battle

not enough of the enemy queue? then you cant play

Cataclym F/F alpha will be starting within days

Heroic Strike
The design intent for Heroic Strike has pretty much always been that you use it to bleed off excess rage and convert that into damage. We haven’t been happy for some time that warriors can hit a near-infinite rage plateau, but we knew changing that would be a major overhaul (one best saved until now, for instance). In the meantime, we have to balance around damage actually being done by warriors. We can’t say “Well, we didn’t want them to convert nearly every white swing into a Heroic Strike, so we’ll just pretend they don’t when we do the numbers.” We have to balance around actual performance, not design intent, up until the point where something violates the design intent enough for us to want to change it.

The Cataclysm design for Heroic Strike gets the ability back into the role where we want it. There is no reason to conclude warrior dps is hopeless without it. We have dozens of knobs to turn, from the damage done by Devastate and Shield Slam to stats on gear to the new passive talent tree bonuses. Imagine that we are changing every number in the game – some will get lower and some will get higher. That makes it fairly meaningless to try and do any kind of mathematical analysis on the way mechanics will work. I understand that the temptation is there though. Discussing the role of abilities or how they might functions is perfectly appropriate. Concocting equations that look something like X + [a bunch of stuff I can’t measure yet] > Y is a little premature. (Source)

Inner Rage

It could be 10% rage and 300% damage if those are the appropriate numbers to use. We provided numbers for some abilities in the preview so that players would get a vague sense of the intent of the ability. We tried to caveat that a lot so that players wouldn't freak out about the math. Numbers are trivial for us to change -- that's not the challenging part of adding an ability. (Now figure out the right number can be quite challenging).

If the numbers scare you, imagine that we just said the goal of the ability is that when you hit max rage instead of wasting it (like you'd do today), you enter into a state where you do increased damage for increased rage cost so that the rage bar drops, but you aren't penalized for it. The trick to that design is we also don't want warriors just doing nothing until they hit 100 rage before they can start having fun. We don't want you to constantly be worried about trying to get Inner Rage to proc. But we also don't want you to worry if a string of crits or big incoming damage or something suddenly floods you with rage faster than Heroic Strike / Cleave / Execute can drain it again. It's a safety valve, but hopefully a fun one, and not something that rarely comes into play. If somehow we nail rage management so tightly that you're just never near 100 rage, then we'd have to come up with a different ability. I'm not optimistic that will happen given warrior history, but the Cataclysm rage model is pretty radical too. (Source)

[...] It's not supposed to be a double-edged sword. It's supposed to let you convert rage into damage at a faster rate when you have too much rage. In your example, you're going to be doing more damage (and therefore more threat) while its active. In other words, you are going to be doing the exact same thing (rage -> damage) you would be doing if you weren't at 100 rage. There isn't a currently a warrior strategy that encourages doing nothing and just building rage, and I don't see why there would be one in Cataclysm. Maybe if Shield Wall cost 50 rage and you always needed to save some for emergencies, but we're not going to do that. At most you might need 10 rage for Pummel or Shield Bash, and even in that case Inner Rage doesn't drain your rage. It would be different if the mechanic was "all your abilities hit harder, but your rage goes to zero for the next 30 sec." Normally, you should *want* to spend rage. (Source)