Posts with tag Ghostcrawler

Lichborne: Rune cooldowns, tank mastery, and Cataclysm

by Daniel Whitcomb Mar 16th 2010 at 9:00PM

The devs have been speaking a little a bit about the new mastery system coming with Cataclysm, and while they've kept most of the specific numbers vague, there's been a surprising amount of information one can read between the lines about death knights. Of course, it started with the frost death knight stats. The stats were solidly DPS oriented, providing damage, haste, and runic power generation. This lead to two major concerns: What would frost tanks do for mastery? And for that matter, even DPS don't need runic power generation that much, considering we can only use so many frost strikes (or death coils for other specs) before we need to spend our runes anyway.

The Blues actually gave answers to these questions, answers that managed to both answer the question and provide a whole new level of speculation and questioning. On the question of the new runic power bonus, Ghostcrawler and Eyonix revealed that death knights would find their rotation less constrained by the global cool down and rune cool downs, and that changes such as that would make the runic power generation more desirable. On the tank front, they're actually being deliberately coy about what they have planned for death knight tanks, but they at least seem to know the issue's on the table.

This week, I figure it might fun to take a look at these statements and mull over some possible ways they might implement them.

Filed under: Death Knight, (Death Knight) Lichborne

Will WoW ever have a 'DPS to heal' model?

by Matthew Rossi Mar 10th 2010 at 8:00PM

We were just talking about it on today's podcast (thrill to the sound of three people barely awake trying to coherently discuss World of Warcraft) and hey, look, Ghostcrawler reads my mind from across the interwebs. Well, okay, no, he responded to a forum thread, but it's still interesting. Yes, interesting enough that I'm going to replicate the post here before discussing it. I am out of control, a renegade, I should hand in my posting badge and keyboard.

Ghostcrawler - Re: What's wrong with an Active Mana Regen Model?

I'm not sure we'd ever do a "deal damage to heal" model. It might work for new classes, but feels like a big change to existing classes that players know and love.

Having choices to get mana back is good. Standing around to regen mana is bad.

However, we still ultimately need a way that healers who are playing badly, trying to keep alive an undergeared / underskilled tank, or just tackling content that they're not yet ready for, can run out of mana to the extent that the encounter is over.

source

Personally, I hope that 'it might work for new classes' statement means we'll finally get something like a Warhammer Warrior Priest. I'm still jazzed from seeing Diablo III's version of the Monk and I'd be thrilled if they created a cloth wearing, staff wielding, spirit and intellect utilizing melee healer. I'm sad that they've ruled it out for any current classes (man, it would rock for paladins in my opinion and would single handedly make me like that class) but I'm very hopeful we'll be monking it up in an expansion or two.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, News items

Breakfast Topic: If you could redo features in Wrath, what would they be?

by Zach Yonzon Mar 3rd 2010 at 8:00AM

With Cataclysm looming on the horizon, as Wrath of the Lich King winds down, it's a good time to reflect on the expansion and see how things could've gone better. In the recently concluded developer chat over Twitter, one person asked what features in Wrath Blizzard would redo or remove if they could turn back the clock. Their answer is something close to my heart, personally, and I agree wholeheartedly. "I would have really liked to see more Battlegrounds in Northrend," one of the tweets noted, "that is an area that I feel we fell short on."

Another area that the developers felt lacked a little more polish was the emblem system, which they described as "clunky". Of course, they admit that in hindsight there happens to be quite a number of things that they'd like to redo, pointing out that they are their own worst critics. I'm sure we've got our own ideas about what could have gone better, so let's have at it. Personally, I'm quite happy about their plans to improve Battlegrounds play in Cataclysm, so I guess I'll kick it off with that. What about you guys? If you could ask a favor of Chromie and her Bronze Dragonflight cohorts, what things would you have done differently about Wrath?

Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Wrath of the Lich King

Cross-realm raids and mail are a work in progress

by Zach Yonzon Mar 1st 2010 at 8:00PM

Blizzard's recent developer chat over Twitter revealed a few interesting tidbits, and this one might have gotten lost in the shuffle of good things. Several of the questions throughout the chat pertained to cross-realm issues, and Cory Stockton and Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street were more than game to answer each one, starting with a question about cross-realm mail (e.g. for BoA items) to which the answer was, "we have cross-faction mail for BoA items now; cross-realm is a work in progress, but we hope to have it done "soon."" This means that it should be possible to send your alts in other realms your heirloom items in the future, which should help along leveling through multiple realms.

That said, it might take a while longer before Blizzard implements cross-realm raiding although they said that they were looking into it. Aside from considerable technical issues, the developers were also concerned about group dynamics, such as how to get groups back together through those long raids that require more than one session. Another concern was keeping the sense of community alive in native realms. On the other hand, the growing culture of PUGs that has bloomed through easier content and the new Dungeon Finder has already diluted the sense of community in individual realms, so we should probably expect Blizzard to allow cross-realm cooperation sooner rather than later.

Filed under: Blizzard, Cataclysm

Spiritual Guidance: Ghostcrawler on priests

by Dawn Moore Feb 28th 2010 at 9:00PM

Every Sunday (and the occasional weekday) Spiritual Guidance offers holy and discipline priests advice on how to wield the holy light and groove to the disco night. Your hostess Dawn Moore will provide the music.

There was a great priest thread on the official World of Warcraft healing forums late last week. The thread caps at 30 pages, then spills into another thread for further discussion. The original post is from a priest who also heals as a druid, and is currently unhappy with the state of priests in Icecrown Citadel. The poster asks for in-depth feedback from other priests with healing alts who are happy with the priest class in ICC.

The thread remains on topic and doesn't get too trolly before Ghostcrawler steps in on page 7 and gives a simple breakdown of how he plays priest. He remains in the thread for quite some time and provides readers with a good insight on how he and Blizzard feel about various aspects of priests at this time. If you missed this thread, I will be summarizing the highlights of what Ghostcrawler said and providing some of my own thoughts and analysis.

Filed under: Priest, (Priest) Spiritual Guidance

Arcane Brilliance: Patch 3.3.3 PTR changes for mages

by Christian Belt Feb 27th 2010 at 3:00PM

It's time again for Arcane Brilliance, the weekly mage column that wants to point out that while gnomes often come up...er...short...when compared to the other races, they do have one special feature that always looks larger by comparison. Their spells are huge! Wait...what did you think I was talking about?

So anyway. It's always an exciting time around here when a new patch hits the PTR. We all wake up, head down to the living room and gather beneath the tree to open our presents. Sometimes the bounty is rich, and we reap a choice harvest of new content and features. Other times the crop is more meager. And while patch 3.3.3 doesn't seem to have brought with it the largest pile of new stuff we've ever seen, it's turning out to be a bit more generous than I'd have previously suspected.

Yes, for those of us who play this game, a new patch is just like Christmas. You just never know what you're going to get. Will that gaily wrapped parcel contain an N64? Or a hideous sweater? A huge buff? Or a soul-crushing nerf? Let's all head over to the PTR together and start unwrapping, shall we?

Filed under: Mage, Analysis / Opinion, (Mage) Arcane Brilliance

Winter Olympics 2010: Ghostcrawler promised me a moose

by Adam Holisky Feb 26th 2010 at 1:00PM

Last night on the Colbert Report there was an interview with olympian Seth Wescott. Seen in passing footage is the image above. Yes, fans of WoW and members of the Colbert Nation, Ghostcrawler promise of a moose has gone to the Olympics.

We have no idea who the creator of the sign is, and we don't have any idea if he actually was given a moose -- however I'm sure Ghostcrawler will want to hand deliver him one after reaching international fame and stardom from this brief moment on the Colbert Report.

A larger image, full of more truthiness, can be viewed here. You can also view the entire Colbert Report episode over at Hulu. The moose sign comes in around 20:43.

Many thanks to Sean for the tip!

Filed under: Humor, Arts and Crafts

Twitter developer chat tomorrow

by Adam Holisky Feb 25th 2010 at 12:22PM

There will be another twitter developer chat tomorrow, with Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street and Lead Content Designer Cory Stockton. The chat will take place at 5:00 p.m. PST, and if previous chats are any indication, it'll last around an hour or so.

WoW.com will be keeping a liveblog of the chat for the record, and we'll be sure to point out all the major news from the chat, if it happens. Hopefully this chat will be a lot like the last one where useful information came out. I would expect Greg and Cory to cover a lot of the patch 3.3.3 changes and perhaps some information on the Ruby Sanctum coming out in patch 3.3.5. You can check out the transcripts of the previous two chats here:

Official Wracraft Twitter

Join us for #BlizzChat on Twitter Friday, Feb.26, at 5 PM PST with World of Warcraft's lead content designer & lead systems designer.

source

Bornakk

We will be holding our next Developer Chat on Twitter on Friday, February 26, at 5:00 p.m. PST with World of Warcraft's lead content designer and lead systems designer. This chat session will focus on Icecrown Citadel and other Fall of the Lich King content.

Questions will be taken live through Twitter, so be sure to sign up for a Twitter account at https://twitter.com/signup and follow account @Warcraft in order to participate!

To submit a question for the Developer Chat, please tweet using the #BlizzChat hashtag between 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. PST on February 26. Due to the character limitation on responses within Twitter, all answers will be posted on the World of Warcraft forums in a dedicated thread.

source

Filed under: News items

Ghostcrawler says no buff to Beast Mastery hunter pet damage

by Brian Wood Feb 19th 2010 at 6:00PM

Beast Mastery is the least viable raid spec for hunters, falling about 20% - 30% behind the top DPS specs. BM hunters have long been calling for some kind of a buff, and a favorite preference is a buff to their pets. Ghostcrawler responded today saying that while they want to buff BM, they do not want to buff BM pets. He highlighted some of the problems with balancing the BM spec -- including that it's easy to play.

"We don't want to buff the pet damage for BM any more for a couple of reasons. One is that it puts too much dependence on the pet... Secondly, the pet doesn't require that much babysitting. Few players are clicking their pet abilities on and off. As such, it just acts like a dot with cool art. When we talk about the risk of BM being too easy to play, we don't want to over-reward players for just doing Steady and having the pet attack."

Blizzard has acknowledged before that BM isn't a raid viable spec (though we've seen that in the right circumstances they can pull their weight, though still be far behind) and they've stated that they would like to get to a point where all three hunter specs can raid. Ghostcrawler gave us one idea at what a BM buff could look like, saying, "The damage would have to be more of the slowly stacking / sustained variety..." and also gave us a peek into where they think pet damage should be -- at about 30% of hunter damage in high end gear.

However, today's comments make it sound like they aren't likely to just let BM do MM-level damage with their current play style. If BM wants more damage, they'll probably have to work harder for it.

Filed under: Hunter

More tanking changes for warriors

by Matthew Rossi Feb 16th 2010 at 2:00PM

After the changes to Devastate made in an attempt to 'buff warrior tank DPS' (I'm sure you all remember our coverage of said change) many warriors reported that one of the side effects of this change was to make Revenge, a long time warrior tanking ability, less than useful. With Devastate threat up (especially when glyphed) there's just less reason to use Revenge when it lights up. Now, Ghostcrawler interjects into a post that yes, Revenge will likely see some changes.

This is interesting to me for two reasons. First, because it's a fairly rapid statement of intent compared to past issues, where months could pass before anyone would address an issue (Thunder Clap only hitting four targets, for example, which was a huge problem for warriors for most of BC) and secondly because it highlights the domino effect that changing class abilities can have and showcases just how difficult class balance really can be. They knew even when they were making the change to Devastate that this might be necessary, but they understandably wanted to roll out any changes in an incremental way.

My expectation is either a threat buff for Revenge (which, frankly, isn't really all that interesting a change), a DPS increase (which isn't likely) or perhaps a small bit of AoE viability like a cleave effect. That last bit would be a good way of adding some AoE bite without replicating the paladin model which we've already been told is a touch over the top.

Filed under: Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, News items

Tanking hotfixes being implemented

by Matthew Rossi Feb 5th 2010 at 12:08AM

A recent hotfix has reduced the health on tanking paladins. Meanwhile, devastate is being hotfixed as well to do 20% more total damage rather than 20% more weapon damage (from 100% to 120% total weapon damage presently). There are also some scattered reports that DK tanks have gotten buffs to their Frost Presence as well, but no confirmation from Blizzard on that yet. Ghostcrawler posted that the change to Paladin health was intentional and that an announcement will be soon, and in the warrior thread said that they can't confirm when the hotfix for devastate will drop.

The culprit for the paladin health reduction seems to be the paladin talent Sacred Duty, although this has, at this time, not been confirmed by Blizzard so far as I can find. As soon as there's an announcement we at WoW.com will of course bring it to you.

Edited to include this link to the official forum post explaining the change. Thanks to ummeiko for the fast catch.

Filed under: Paladin, Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, News items, Death Knight

Daelo and Ghostcrawler discuss the Lich King

by Eliah Hecht Feb 3rd 2010 at 8:00PM

The latest edition of Blizzard Insider, Blizzard's very sporadic email newsletter (and no relation to our old name, WoW Insider) has been released. Issue 32 features a note that the Starcraft II: WIngs of Liberty site has been revamped, blurbs about the mobile Authenticator and the Armory app, and some calls to buy their merchandise.

More interesting for WoW fans, though, is an interview with Scott Mercer (Daelo), WoW's lead encounter designer, and Greg Street (Ghostcrawler), a crab who needs no introduction. They discussed the arc of Arthas and the Lich King from Warcraft II through World of Warcraft (congratulations again to Blood Legion on their 10-man world-first).

Please note that here there be spoilers for some details about the Arthas fight, so stay away if you want it all to be a surprise.

Filed under: Interviews, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm

Ghostcrawler on DKs: "It is a melee class"

by Matthew Rossi Jan 29th 2010 at 6:00PM

No, it's not just a case of the obvious being stated. In a discussion of DK design in arenas, Dr. Street comments to clarify the intended role of death knights in arena and other factors. He also makes a good point about the forums in general that bears repeating for emphasis.

"We don't intend for these forums to be the primary way the team communicates our vision for the game and upcoming changes to the community. You'll get a little of that on a few select subjects through the forums and sadly that's all you're ever going to get. It's not that we don't care. It's that forums are not a great medium for that kind of mass communication. I wish sometimes you guys could be satisfied with the fact that we used to not communicate at all and now are able to communicate a little."

Moving on to the specific issue at hand in this thread, the discussion is the old shadow/frost spec that turned the death knight into a much more ranged caster, generating runic power quickly and then converting that runic power into Death Coils at range. It wasn't intended for the class. They have no problem with Death Coil itself being a popular attack, as long as the death knight has to put an effort into staying in melee with its attendant disadvantages to do so.

"The DK that runs around and does nothing but Icy Touch or Howling Blast or Death Coil feels like a rogue who forgoes combo points and openers and everything just to spam Fan of Knives and nothing else."

It's interesting to see players managing to find ways to bend the class out of the original design intent and how Blizzard responds to that: specs like shadow/frost or diseaseless blood DPS were adjusted quickly to put the class back to where Blizzard intended it.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, News items, PvP, Death Knight

Ghostcrawler on Cataclysm's talent tree philosophy, abilities, and Ragnaros

by Adam Holisky Jan 28th 2010 at 8:30PM

Ghostcrawler posted a bit this evening on the philosophical direction Blizzard is taking in Cataclysm in three important areas:

Talent trees
New spells and abilities
Recycled raid content

The discussion originated from a mild QQ post about what the poster felt were the flaws in Cataclysm, and Ghostcrawler took that opportunity to clarify a few things that the community has been talking about since the initial announcement at BlizzCon 2009. Chief amongst those is that they are specifically designing talent trees now with an intention for there to be 5 to 10 talent points that can be spent where the player wants -- and that talent guides like you find in WoW.com's class columns will only go so far in the selection of the idea talent tree; the rest of the talent selection will be left up to the individual user.

Of course, this information isn't exactly new per se, but it's interesting to hear some of the refinements of it all as Cataclysm's development progresses.

Ghostcrawler's full statement after the break.

Filed under: News items, Cataclysm

Second Twitter developer chat on January 15th

by Alex Ziebart Jan 13th 2010 at 8:00PM

Bornakk hit the forums this evening to announce the second Twitter Developer Chat. It will take place Friday, January 15th at 5:00 PM PST. Like last time, questions will be taken via Twitter and answered on the forums. Senior game producer J. Allen Brack and lead systems designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street will be the ones answering your questions. Instructions on how to submit questions and all of that sort of thing can be found over in the forum thread.

The focus of this Q&A will be patch 3.3, Fall of the Lich King, so don't expect to hear any grand Cataclysm news in this chat. I'm actually very curious if we'll learn anything at all, considering the focus on current content rather than future content. It might be a good chance to get some insight into the development process, rather than trying to squeeze strategy tips out of the devs.

Filed under: Events, Blizzard, Wrath of the Lich King

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