Cataclysm Release Date + Beta - Build 13117

[Adam-Savage]

Cataclysm Release Date - December 7th
Season 9 starts on December 14th, a blue post stated that Cataclysm would be released one week earlier.

The next Arena Season will begin for level-85 players approximately one week after the official launch of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.

Alchemy

* Vial of the Sands is now confirmed as an Alchemy recipe - Creates Vial of the Sands. / Reagents: Pyrium-Laced Crystalline Vial, Pyrium-Laced Crystalline Vial x 8, Krovalian Gold x 12, Flask of the Winds x 8, Flask of Titanic Strength x 8, Deepstone Oil x 8


Enchanting

* Enchant Weapon - Landslide now increases attack power by 1000 for 12 sec, up from 120 for 10 sec.
* Enchant Weapon - Power Torrent now increases spell power by 500 for 12 sec, up from 40 for 15 sec.
* Enchant Weapon - Windwalk now increases dodge rating by 600 and movement speed by 15% for 10 sec. (Old - 60 dodge rating for 15 sec)
* Enchant Weapon - Heartsong no longer procs from melee hits, now increases Spirit by 200 for 15 sec, up from 40 for 10 sec.
* Enchant Weapon - Hurricane now increases haste rating by 450 for 12 sec, up from 350 for 15 sec.
* Enchant Weapon - Avalanche now enchants a weapon to "often deal 463 to 537 Nature damage".


Engineering

* Mind Amplification Dish no longer increases Stamina by 45.


Tailoring

* Unravel Embersilk Cloth is gone.

Hunter (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Beast Mastery

* Kill Command now scales from 35% of RAP, down from 63% of RAP.
* Bestial Wrath now causes 20% additional damage, down from 50%.
* Focus Fire now has a 30 sec cooldown, up from 15 sec.
* Mastery: Master of Beasts now increases damage done by your pets by 13.6%, down from 20%. Each point of Mastery increases pet damage by 1.7%, down from 2.5%.


Marksmanship

* Aimed Shot base damage increased by 14%
* Mastery: Wild Quiver now grants a 14.4% (down from 16%) chance for your ranged attacks to also instantly fire an additional ranged shot for 100% normal damage (up from 50%). Each point of Mastery increases the chance by 1.8%, down from 2%.


Survival

* Mastery: Essence of the Viper now increases all elemental damage you deal by 8% (down from 20%). Each point of Mastery increases elemental damage by 1%, down from 2.5%.


Pet Skills

* Tailspin now lasts 30 sec, up from 8 sec. Cooldown changed to 25 sec, down from 40 sec.
* Lock Jaw (Dog) *New* - Dog locks its jaws on the target, holding it in place for 4 sec. / 5 yd range, Instant, 40 sec cooldown

Link

[Saturo]

Splendid. They're bringing BM in line with the other specs, and buffing up MM a bit. Couldn't be better!

[Kalliope]

The worm AoE stun on a 30s cd is pretty hilarious. I can't wait to test it.

And wow, a ferocity pet with a root. We'll see plenty of doggies in PvP methinks.

[Palladiamorsdeus]

That is an OVER NERF for BM. Plain and simple. It'll put BM right back where it was during the 3.08 days.

[Rikaku]

Splendid. They're bringing BM in line with the other specs, and buffing up MM a bit. Couldn't be better!

No offense, but way off. BM wasn't even in the lead on the beta. MM did need buffing

At the moment, Survival actually has the highest dps in raid gear, though the other specs are within 2K or so.

Really? 2k dps difference is ok? No, not ok. BM was already behind, we weren't put "in line", we were kicked off the team. MM as at least now on par, but I dunno where anyone got BM was grossly in the lead.

[Adam-Savage]

That is an OVER NERF for BM. Plain and simple. It'll put BM right back where it was during the 3.08 days.

oh come on.. You knew this was coming. At lvl 80 the pet alone should NEVER crit for 40k. That was overpowered and I knew it. It would be quite fun in pvp as nobody could touch you. The pet would kill them off them quickly. With my spirit beast out I was able to take one 2 elite npc's in WG. They hit alot harder in PTR then they do on live. I don't call this a nerf. It's more to bring the pet and hunter in line with the others classes.

[Palladiamorsdeus]

You haven't been on the beta. The beta numbers JUST started to even out. I am not talking about the 'broken' numbers, I am talking about the actual numbers we were starting to see. Kill Command needed a nerf, but the nerfs to pet damage were to much, and they just chopped off more then HALF of Beastial Wraths damage, with no compesnation. BW. One of BM's defining abilities.

[Rikaku]

That is an OVER NERF for BM. Plain and simple. It'll put BM right back where it was during the 3.08 days.

oh come on.. You knew this was coming. At lvl 80 the pet alone should NEVER crit for 40k. That was overpowered and I knew it. It would be quite fun in pvp as nobody could touch you. The pet would kill them off them quickly. With my spirit beast out I was able to take one 2 elite npc's in WG. They hit alot harder in PTR then they do on live. I don't call this a nerf. It's more to bring the pet and hunter in line with the others classes.

No one isn't saying BM didn't need some balancing. But what people are saying is that this is an overnerf. The classes were already close in line, look at Ghostcrawlers own post *made today*.

Not only did BM's main mechanic get nerfed, but its "shot" (KC) got hit hard as well. Tie that in with mastery nerf for all three specs... it's 3.0.8 all over again and people know it.

[Adam-Savage]

Splendid. They're bringing BM in line with the other specs, and buffing up MM a bit. Couldn't be better!

No offense, but way off. BM wasn't even in the lead on the beta. MM did need buffing

At the moment, Survival actually has the highest dps in raid gear, though the other specs are within 2K or so.

Really? 2k dps difference is ok? No, not ok. BM was already behind, we weren't put "in line", we were kicked off the team. MM as at least now on par, but I dunno where anyone got BM was grossly in the lead.

Because the pets where hitting like trucks. With some pets having some pretty sweet raid buff then this makes BM raid able again. Example being where your in a fight that's hard on the healers, you can always bring your spirit beast out as it helps with healing. It doesn't sound like much but I've compared it with the Devilsaur and my Spirit beast was alot easier to keep alive and keep myself alive then the Devilsaur.

[Adam-Savage]

That is an OVER NERF for BM. Plain and simple. It'll put BM right back where it was during the 3.08 days.

oh come on.. You knew this was coming. At lvl 80 the pet alone should NEVER crit for 40k. That was overpowered and I knew it. It would be quite fun in pvp as nobody could touch you. The pet would kill them off them quickly. With my spirit beast out I was able to take one 2 elite npc's in WG. They hit alot harder in PTR then they do on live. I don't call this a nerf. It's more to bring the pet and hunter in line with the others classes.

No one isn't saying BM didn't need some balancing. But what people are saying is that this is an overnerf. The classes were already close in line, look at Ghostcrawlers own post *made today*.

Not only did BM's main mechanic get nerfed, but its "shot" (KC) got hit hard as well. Tie that in with mastery nerf for all three specs... it's 3.0.8 all over again and people know it.

Well tell you what then. When this patch hits the PTR I will go test it out and report back the numbers. If it's better then what BM does now with in reason of course. If your only doing 500 dps more then that's not enough. Ghostcrawler is abit of idiot when it comes to hunters. There shouldn't be a 2k dps difference between the specs for hunters. It's supposed to be based on preference and not what spec does the most DPS.

[Kalliope]

That is an OVER NERF for BM. Plain and simple. It'll put BM right back where it was during the 3.08 days.

It does look a bit extreme on paper. Still, it can get kicked back up again. Cause if we're looking at LK proportions for BM again, you can be SURE Blizzard is gonna catch hell from the BM community.

If numbers are funky on the beta, then that'll make more of a difference, since that's level 85 balancing.

[Palladiamorsdeus]

Not on the recent beta build. Not on the current beta build, before this goes through. Pet's are doing much more reasonable damage at the moment, not anything outrageous. Kill Command is hitting to hard, but pets in general are actually hitting for unimpressive damage on their autoattacks. The basic attacks are hitting harder then they do on live, but not by a ton. They also have a three second cooldown now, they don't act as focus dumps anymore.

[Rikaku]

No offense, but way off. BM wasn't even in the lead on the beta. MM did need buffing

At the moment, Survival actually has the highest dps in raid gear, though the other specs are within 2K or so.

Really? 2k dps difference is ok? No, not ok. BM was already behind, we weren't put "in line", we were kicked off the team. MM as at least now on par, but I dunno where anyone got BM was grossly in the lead.

Because the pets where hitting like trucks. With some pets having some pretty sweet raid buff then this makes BM raid able again. Example being where your in a fight that's hard on the healers, you can always bring your spirit beast out as it helps with healing. It doesn't sound like much but I've compared it with the Devilsaur and my Spirit beast was alot easier to keep alive and keep myself alive then the Devilsaur.

Pets are not hitting like trucks, not on beta. KC is, criticals are, and like I said, balancing them is fine. But taking over half of BW time out, taking down the mastery scales and taking down over half as well adds up to a HUGE amount of overall DPS shot. That's over HALF of our BW time gone.

To be honest, it won't matter what pet you have, what gear you have, what buffs you bring...
If you're doing 2k dps less just because of a spec, something's wrong. In 3.0.8 the average difference between SV and BM over about 700 DPS. Most people won't play a spec that does 1k dps less then another spec even if they're in the best gear.

Now take MM and BM being somewhere around 2k less then SV and tell me that they'll still be competitive with SV =/ It's not gonna happen.

There shouldn't be a 2k dps difference between the specs for hunters. It's supposed to be based on preference and not what spec does the most DPS.

That's exactly what we're saying about this the entire time.

[Lisaara]

I'll play BM regardless.

This does look extremely BUT again guys....it's still a long ways away from being completed and ready for live servers so lets not flip out and go "I'm not gonna play BM ever again" just cause of the recent post. If you haven't noticed by now, things have been changing A LOT within a matter of weeks. Think of how it'll change in 2 MONTHS.

So all in all, I just wanna say relax, take a deep breath. Cata isn't finished yet. These aren't set in stone.

[Kalliope]

Not on the recent beta build. Not on the current beta build, before this goes through. Pet's are doing much more reasonable damage at the moment, not anything outrageous. Kill Command is hitting to hard, but pets in general are actually hitting for unimpressive damage on their autoattacks. The basic attacks are hitting harder then they do on live, but not by a ton. They also have a three second cooldown now, they don't act as focus dumps anymore.

Well, I can't imagine that Blizzard's going to stick anything on the beta and then releasing it without any sort of feedback. So once this goes live on beta, we'll see what happens. I can't figure what they're thinking if BM seemed to be on par with surv on beta (we know marks had been behind, but that's a different issue). Maybe something else is in the works that we don't know about yet...but then why do the nerf without adding it?

[Palladiamorsdeus]

Look, I'm normally one of the first people to say "Don't panic" about these things. But those numbers are a massive nerf. It nerfs BM's pets, it nerfs BM's only 'shot' type ability, it nerfs BM's focus regen ((Which in turn nerfs pet numbers MORE because of Wild Hunt)) and it nerfs BM's signature ability BW. The nerfs range from bad to horrendous. This was not a balancing patch, this was a "Knock it to the floor." patch. I am sure they'll build it back up ((PRay it doesn't take them another year)) but unfortunately for BM, that's probably not going to happen before 4.01 goes live.

[Gelannerai]

I'll play BM regardless.

This does look extremely BUT again guys....it's still a long ways away from being completed and ready for live servers so lets not flip out and go "I'm not gonna play BM ever again" just cause of the recent post. If you haven't noticed by now, things have been changing A LOT within a matter of weeks. Think of how it'll change in 2 MONTHS.

So all in all, I just wanna say relax, take a deep breath. Cata isn't finished yet. These aren't set in stone.

The issue is, we don't have a month. Unless I'm mistaken, these changes will go into effect in a week or two when the pre-xpac patch hits. Good stuff Blizzard.

[Rikaku]

I'll play BM regardless.

This does look extremely BUT again guys....it's still a long ways away from being completed and ready for live servers so lets not flip out and go "I'm not gonna play BM ever again" just cause of the recent post. If you haven't noticed by now, things have been changing A LOT within a matter of weeks. Think of how it'll change in 2 MONTHS.

So all in all, I just wanna say relax, take a deep breath. Cata isn't finished yet. These aren't set in stone.

I don't think anyone's said they're not playing BM again rofl.

But seriously, I don't think I can relax. The last time BM's reported something was an overnerf with numbers we were ignored for an entire expansion. I don't blame any BM or MM for that matter to be concerned with any build after that hell of a patch.

Look, I'm normally one of the first people to say "Don't panic" about these things. But those numbers are a massive nerf. It nerfs BM's pets, it nerfs BM's only 'shot' type ability, it nerfs BM's focus regen ((Which in turn nerfs pet numbers MORE because of Wild Hunt)) and it nerfs BM's signature ability BW. The nerfs range from bad to horrendous. This was not a balancing patch, this was a "Knock it to the floor." patch. I am sure they'll build it back up ((PRay it doesn't take them another year)) but unfortunately for BM, that's probably not going to happen before 4.01 goes live.

Exactly

[Slickrock]

Splendid. They're bringing BM in line with the other specs, and buffing up MM a bit. Couldn't be better!

Don't get me started... /rage

[Lisaara]

I doubt they'll let this go live if most of the feedback is so negative. Blizzard isn't stupid. They have listened to us quite a bit.

For the record, I am a BM AND MM. I'm still calm about this and trust Blizzard to fix it before it goes live.