WoW Junkie

After giving us a rundown of the new Mastery system planned for Cataclysm, World of Warcraft developers answered a few burning questions that players had asked. Naturally, most people seem to be worried about what this means for hybrid classes.

"1. 28/28/20 spec. Does mastery on gear affect both highest trees or give no benefit at all?
Mastery on gear gives you one bonus. That bonus is the third passive (the unique one) in the tree in which you’ve spent the most points. In the examples we gave, those are Absorption, Radiance and Runic Power generation."

As they've said before, Mastery bonuses on gear won't be retroactive on current level 80 gear, except type bonuses. So, we'll assume this is for level 80+ gear.

"2. How are ferals and Dks as tanks working with mastery system in place? Are they to care about it for threat or do they have separate bonuses.
Ferals will have passive bonuses that say Cat: melee damage done, Bear: damage reduction. For death knights we have a different plan in mind that we’re not quite ready to discuss. DKs are undergoing some slight changes so they aren’t so GCD constrained and are less limited by rune cooldowns."

It has been noted that the details of Mastery so far seem to neglect Death Knights somewhat; or at least, it doesn't seem to mesh quite properly with their intricate tanking structure. Cataclysm Death Knights are going to be "less limited by rune cooldowns"? Interesting.

"3. How are the non-pure classes going to be balanced against those with a full 76 point passive benefit? Balance, enhancement(not so much), shadow, feral, ele, resto, holy and Ret all have this issue.
Assume you only get the passive bonuses for the tree in which you’ve spent the most points, and there is a ceiling per tree (which could be something like 51-55 talent points). If you spend more points than that in a tree you still get the benefits of the talent. If you spend points in another tree, you are benefiting from those talents instead. Unless you try to make say a 40 / 36 / 0 build, you shouldn’t be losing passive bonuses. If you turn level 10 and spend 1 point in Discipline, you are now a Disc priest. You receive the Disc talent tree passive bonuses and mastery rating on gear benefits your Disc passive bonus (Absorption). If you reach level 85 and have 70 points in Disc and 6 in Holy, you are still a Disc priest and the same rules apply. If you change your build to 51 Disc / 20 Holy / 5 Shadow, you are still a Disc priest."

"4. Hybrids who use spells not improved by their spec on occasion such as heals or the extra lava burst are feeling that their non-specced spells are going to be extremely weak as compared to now.
They are weak now and the intent is to keep them that way. We aren’t trying to nerf them any more than they are today. If we want to make sure Resto shaman can do big Lava Bursts, we’ll give them a talent or something to make that happen. We don’t want Resto shaman to Lava Burst anywhere on the scale of an Elemental shaman. Again, how they perform today is pretty much the target for where we want to end up."

Ah, the big questions. Since Mastery grants bonuses for staying within your class's natural abilities, many are worried that it will suck the diversity out of the game. Blizzard's response seems to indicate that varied classes are still going to be useful, but ultimately, they WILL be weaker - but, in their view, it's not that big of a change. The last part, however, makes it seem like they're willing to tinker with the balance a little. We'll keep you up to date on the rest of Cataclysm's changes as they come!

While the patch itself probably won't go live just yet, the initial download for 3.3.3 is now showing up on the Blizzard launcher. We're one step closer to 3.3.3, folks!

Cataclysm's new statistic, Mastery, got a bit of a reveal today. After teasing the new gameplay mechanic a few days ago, Blizzard has outlined some of the changes Cataclysm will bring to the game in greater detail.

"Here’s how the system works: As you spend points in a given talent tree, you’ll receive three different passive bonuses specific to that tree. The first bonus will increase your damage, healing, or survivability, depending on the intended role of the tree. The second bonus will be related to a stat commonly found on gear desirable to you, such as Haste or Crit. The third bonus will be the most interesting, as it will provide an effect completely unique to that tree -- meaning there will be 30 different bonuses of this nature in the game. This third bonus is the one that will benefit from the Mastery rating found on high-level (level 80 to 85) gear." Source

Blizzard had mentioned before that the goal of Mastery was to reward players for performing their class roles. Basically, this system means that the talent tree is now even more important as far as developing your character goes - staying on a certain path will net better bonuses, and going for a jack-of-all-trades build will hinder players as far as extra stats go.

The question is, will this promote diversity, or will it suck the fun out of character building? Hopefully the former. The trees are already wide enough that bonuses shouldn't end up too rigid - this isn't Borderlands, after all. Naturally, though, some are worried that this change will end up shoehorning players into the "best" tree for their class.

Another interesting tidbit - the Mastery bonus for gear that Blizzard mentioned last time? As in, promoting the use of your specific class gear? Currently, there are no plans to go back and work it into current level 80 gear. You'll gain a bonus for wearing the right type of armor, but for now, it looks like the more advanced perks will be reserved for Cataclysm's 80+ gear.

 Are you excited for 3.3.5's Ruby Sanctum? Or perhaps just anxious to give 3.3.3's UI and move updates a whirl? It'll have to wait, sadly, because so far the PTR servers for 3.3.3 have been less than successful.

Well, alright, that's a little harsh - better things go wonky on PTR servers than actual realms - but it definitely looks like we'll be waiting a little bit longer for the next patch. So far, 3.3.3 has been undergoing numerous problems and changes on the test realms, with moves being added and removed, and UI tweaks causing issues for testers. 

All should be sorted out soon; and hopefully these changes will make the transition to Cataclysm that much smoother. We'll let you know when 3.3.3 is planned to go live - and if it's sometime this week, we'll be just as surprised as you.

Patch 3.3.5 might be a little ways away, but that doesn't mean Blizzard isn't ready to talk Ruby Sanctum, the new raid that will become available when the update drops.

Be advised: if it matters to you, this post will contain spoilers.

The Story

Assault on Ruby Sanctum chronicles the Black Dragonflight's attack on the Red Dragonflight's Wyrmrest Temple. Led by a fearsome new foe, Twilight dragon Halion, the Black Dragonflight forces will be a formidable set of opponents as they fight to free their master.

While not part of Blizzard's official details from today, intrepid WoW users have discovered the dialog for Ruby Sanctum in the patch data. Keep in mind, this dialog is thus far without context, but for people interested enought to spoil the raid's plot entirely, the voices can be found here.

The Gameplay

While Ruby Sanctum is being pitched as difficult, Blizzard has said that they want The Lich King to remain the toughest boss fight as far as Northrend's content goes. That means Ruby Sanctum won't be quite as hard as 3.3.2's Icecrown update, although Blizzard still promises a good deal of challenge. 

All these details were dropped in a thread dedicated to the raid on Blizzard's official forum. When asked about the kind of loot players could expect,  Zahrym had this to say:

"You're likely to find some random pieces of armor on par with Lich King loot, similar to the items Onyxia dropped while Trial of the Crusader was the top-tier raid. You can also expect to see some more trinkets and things of that nature."

Seems about right, considering the raid's difficulty seems to be shaping up to "on par" as well. According to the same Blizzard poster, the dungeon's lieutenants will drop Emblems of Frost, and leader Halion will be the only real "boss" of the encounter, per se. There will be four mini-boss fights beforehand.

The Point

Considering that Cataclysm is - hopefully - on its way relatively soon, Ruby Sanctum is a boon of extra content for Wrath of the Lich King. While a few players are up in arms about Blizzard releasing new raids instead of focusing all efforts on the expansion, Zahrym and other Blizzard workers are quick to point out that Ruby Sanctum's story - as well as any other content between now and Cataclysm - are important transition pieces between WotLK and Cataclysm.

We'll keep you updated with 3.3.5 info as it comes, as well as strategies for Ruby Sanctum once it goes live. 

Another day, another tweak. A month after the raid became available, the Icecrown dungeon has received a few more minor updates to fix things up a bit. While there's nothing major, there are a few changes to the Lord Marrowgar and Sindragosa raids that will make things a little easier on tanks. We'll make sure to update our guide to reflect these fixes.

The full list of changes can be found here.

World of Warcraft has been out for almost six years now, and graphics technology has improved vastly since release. That's why many users were shocked the other day when, after installing the latest drivers for Nvidia graphics cards, WoW suddenly slowed to a crawl.

While it may have been a minor annoyance that could have been fixed easily, it turns out the problem is a little bigger than a simple mis-optimization. Apparently, in both WoW and many other PC games, the latest Nvidia drivers aren't just causing framerate issues, but also overheating and other damage, thanks to a botched fan control. Oops.

Luckily, Nvidia is aware of the issue, and has posted instructions on how to roll back to working drivers. For WoW players who use Nvidia cards - and, quite possibly other MMO players! - this should be a top priority.

As well as the technical changes we've been seeing on the PTR servers recently, patch 3.3.3 looks to contain some slightly bigger additions to World of Warcraft. As well as a few drastic changes to moves, it appears to contain a couple of new mounts - one of which, dare we say it, looks quite... explosive.

Devoted players have combed over 3.3.3's files and discovered the two mount models - one called Celestial Steed, a horse that appears to be made out of stars. The other model is a rocket, which is apparently a flying mount. The interesting thing about this model is that it has two seats - a flying mount built for two, perhaps? We'll see how it works for sure once 3.3.3 hits. For now, keep up to date with 3.3.2 in our forums!

  The test version of patch 3.3.3 has been updated again today, tweaking a few of the changes the patch makes to a few under-the-hood areas of the game.

"Update: 03.02.2010


PvP

• Honorable Kills: Note on the 100% Honor increase clarified

• Druids: Mangle
  
• Mages: Empowered Fire, Torment of the Weak
  
• Rogues: Serrated Blades
  
• Warriors: Trauma, Improved Revenge

• Glyphs: Glyph of Mangle
  
• Tier-10 Sets: priest healing 4-piece set bonus, shaman Elemental 4-piece set bonus

• Maximum frame rate capacity added"

Nothing major, although the added clarification to the way Honorable Kills work in game is certainly welcome. The move and glyph updates will definitely be interesting come the actual release, however; and if you're wondering about the new "maximum framerate"? It's 200fps. So, if you're running World of Warcraft on a computer that's just too damn good for the game... there's your limit! 

Just when it seemed like things were looking to be settling down in China's surprisingly convoluted World of Warcraft experience, everything grinds to a halt.

Shortly after the announcement that The Burning Crusade would once again be playable after new publisher Netease's struggle to get it approved by China's strict media screening board, the president of the company has stepped down. No reason has actually been given, and to make matters worse, no successor has been appointed yet, throwing a spanner in the whole works.

Hrmm. Well, here's hoping that China's 4 million WoW players will get their due soon enough.