Cataclysm beta

[Spiritraiser]

3G :O thats some serious updateage.

They probably changed grass from dark green to light green or something?!

[Kharadras]

They are changing loads of stuff with the lastest build, all classes get new talents and stuff.. its really interesting

[Tranquil]

Clearly somethings wrong with Blizzards beta selection criteria, but they gave me Cataclysm beta access today - a whole 2 weeks after the account was reopened. (Account from release that was closed for years - reopened in November, expired in May & reopened recently ...)

Long ass patch process underway ...

Smokee if you want vids of the cities (or almost anything else for that matter) have a look through some of this guys. Fairly well done, or maybe its just my broken sense of humour that finds his amusing ...

I can feel the rage in my warrior heart bubbling. :p

My account has been active ever since retail launch and has never been cancelled. And I've never received a beta invite for any blizzard game through that account in these..what.. 5 years? :p

[Draylor]

I did apologise in advance for just that reason

[Spiritraiser]

I get mails about joining Cataclysm beta a few times daily. Good thing I know they are all fake cause I ain't playing wow!

[Kharadras]

I have at no point gotten a mail about my beta acces. The icon of Deathwings face just showed up beside the other wow icon in my battlenet account. So all in all.. ignore all mails and when you hear about a wave of beta invites going out, check the battlenet account.

[Kharadras]

Mroe screenshots inc!

I have been slacking abit with the screenshots, but here is a bunch of screenshots of Uldum. Heavily egyptian inspired and pretty damn nice, alot of the mobs are missing, but im sure they will come when the zone progress more. there is also a couple of pictures of the kind of buildings we will see on the plane of air.. great stuff really.

All in all I really like this zone.

ohh and the first picture is of Hogger, he is boss in stockades now

http://yfrog.com/mswowscrnshot080610162620jx

[Smokee]

Hey Khara.

What char are you playing in the beta? I know you got a warrior, but did you transfer that?
If so, could you enlighten me a abit about the changes?

My main is a prot war, and I'm to damn lazy to look up all the changes for now. So if you could share a few lines about the biggest changes and how you see them, It would make me a very happy cow

[Kharadras]

I am playing my main, http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet ... cn=Moradin and testing the new zones with a worgen druid.

Concerning warrior changes, So far I like them. I miss damage shield alot, but they have changed victory rush so it heals you for 20 % of your max hp. Along with the new blood craze and Enraged regeneration, you heal alot when soloing.

This is the build I use as lvl 83 prot warrior http://www.wowtal.com/#k=I-A712i.9uf.warrior

As you can see, my gear its quite good, some of the best you can get pre cataclysm, and as a result I have not replaced that much stuff. I am all the way trough Mount Hyjal, done the first 1/3 of Vash`ir and 2/3 trough deepholm (stopped due to a bug).

So far I have replaced my weapon and one other item, so you get use of any epics you have atm.

How it is to play atm.. well as you might be aware they have doubled the hp of all mobs lvl 80+ and just for fun.. raised damage of mobs lvl 65+.. this have the result that mobs lvl 80-81 does 2x normal damage, lvl 82 does 3x damage and lvl 83 does 4x normal damage.

An example of mob damage:

phys mob hit me for 1500-ish a hit, specials up around 5-6 k, spell casters have nice cozy phys hits of around the same as the melee mobs.. and spells that hit for 8-12 K.. dots like shadow word pain, ticks for 1700 when in def stance..

One very funny caster, twilight "something" cast fireball, fireblast, shockwave and flame strike.. I kid you not.. if you let a fireball come trough its 10-12 K, imidiatly followed by a 12-14 K flame blast.. and if you, lets say missed an interupt (possible since your rating have been nerfed badly by leveling), it follow up with a up to 16 k shockwave/flame strike.. If you dont interupt any of these 2 casts (flame bast ofc instant), you will have taken around 40 K damage in around 3-4 sec.

The above figures make it really hard to judge concerning rage gain and such.. because you are constant at max.. so we are in a limitless energy situation, which is kinda nice to try, but very bad on your nervers.

Another situation I can mention is that I at a point logged directly from live to beta.. and without thinking pulled a pack of 5 phys damage troggs.. no problem what so ever on live.. I had to use every cooldown I had, along with all heals, potions and a good bit of kiting.. just to survive.. I killed them, and had 5 % hp left at the end...

Mind you, with these damage amounts, im sure that prot warrior have it the best of all melee classes atm, we have a large amount of stuns, and interupts.. so we are actually able to keep on questing without eating every 2nd mob.

But still.. pull a phys mob and a caster mob and you can, even in my gear with 62 K hp, with 2-3 sec of distraction, be royally boned.
dps melee classes like DKs, fury/arms warriors, kitty droods and rogues, are completely fucked atm.. I hear repports about them having to pop major cooldowns on 1 mob, if pulling 2 or getting an add.-. there is a 50/50 chance of dying...

But back to warriors.. we are fun and still able to tank, agro is a tad shaky atm, but I imagine that will fall into line as we get further on. The new selfhealing is great and give us some better survivability, I think... The hp/damage of mobs atm make it really hard to judge a "normal" situation.

I will say this though, and its really for all classes.. if they keep the hp/damage ratio as it is now, I think that every one not a hardcore raider will stop playing, or at least cut down so they have one main and thats it.

Leveling alts in crappy gear is just out of the question in this situation.. I love alts and the professions I can use with them.. but I am not gonna take my alts trough this hell atm.

People with leveling greens from wotlk in hyjal/vash`ir (the 2 new starting zones) tell about not being able to kill more than max 1 at a time. The second a add join the fight, and thats quite possible with patrolls and the fast respawns atm, they are dead.. not "ohh that was a close fight" dead.. but "1-2-3-4 Slam" dead...

Atm the messages from blizz is that they are satisfied with the dmage from phys mobs, but that they might need to tune some spell casters down a little.. If this holds true every char not in ICC 10-25 gear is just out of luck.. because atm the damage bonus have as mentioned affected all mobs from lvl 65 and up.. so heroics in WotLK should also be horribly.

But, we will see what happens.. blizzard usualy listen to their customers to a lesser degree.. but I will say this.. if this aint changed.. you can forget about playing it casually, or even relaxing.. soloplay is atm around as stressfull as a new hardmode encounter in ICC25 :p

Leveling a low lvl warrior is really great on the other hand, the new skill trees that make you able to pick up a key ability at lvl 10 make all 3 specs great to play.. even from the start. My worgen warrior is just great fun

The new zones are also great fun and make you wanna keep on going, "just one more level....." and then its 4 hours past bedtime... Phasing is just great, alot of the quests you do, you actually see the change and what you have done, and the feeling is just great.

I will say that with heirloom items the leveling experience is a tad to easy, and its really a shame when the contend is so great. And this will be even worse now you will be able to buy heirloom helm and cloak, when your guild have the rank for it.

I hope this was a good start, if you have more questions, feel free to ask them and I will try to the best of my abilities to answer them