So the 8926 beta build came out last night, with the 3.0.1 background downloader starting up today, so of course there is news and data mining and opinions aplenty. I figured I may as well give you my highlights from the new beta build. There are a few low lights too, sadly, but this is beta and things are always changing.
The first thing I need to mention is Heirlooms. I believe it was at the Invitational in Paris when we first heard of the possibility of an account bound object, instead of character bound, and now we have them. In the new build Blizzard has introduced Heirlooms, items that will be bound within your account, currently bought with the Naxx tokens, that can be sent within your account. The other good thing is that these items scale with the toon, so you can send your new level 1 Warrior an item, and it will continue to improve in stats as the character gets higher in the ranks.
I assume there will be heirlooms for each type, like a Melee DPS for each of leather, mail, and plate in end game, caster for all levels, and so on, and this way you ensure that the various classes still get proper gear for their needs. So far we have weapons, trinkets, and shoulders, though I would assume more will come in time. Also, while MMO Champion has model viewer made shots of many Heirloom items, there is no word yet on whether those items will look as awesome on a level 1 as they will on a level 80 character.
You may have heard of the changes promised to racials, and those changes did hit this build, though some have already been altered from the promised looks. Fall of Humanity, a feign death like ability, was remove before the build went live, and I can imagine the Night Elf Shadowmeld, which now works in combat, is also in live, or will in the next build. Humanity will be getting a new racial, "Every Man for Himself": Removes all movement impairing effects and all effects which cause loss of control of your character. This effect shares a cooldown with other similar effects.(I have confirmed that Fall of Humanity is not on the live beta realms)
And not we have Paladins. Ret and Prot Paladins got lots of love this build, though since I know Ret best, I will fill you in. Many of our talents got redone, from Art of War to Diving Storm, Judgment of the Wise to Crusade. Overall I think our changes were an improvement, with the added benefit of a full power Blessing of Kings coming with only 5 points spent in the Protection tree. From my playing I am so far loving the build, and might actually document this one if it lasts past the next build.
Oh, and one more thing...(since Steve didn't do one) we are getting some peaks at the coming build that will be next, and one of the things that Blizzard is clear on is that Riding Crops and all the other mount speed boosters will be gone at the least by 70. They were going to make them enchantements, but then they made all mounts learned spells and the boosters just became a pain to fix. I am not sure I feel they are less of a pain pre 70, but Blizz seems to be working out other speed boosting abilities so we will have to see what will come to pass. Take care!
The first thing I need to mention is Heirlooms. I believe it was at the Invitational in Paris when we first heard of the possibility of an account bound object, instead of character bound, and now we have them. In the new build Blizzard has introduced Heirlooms, items that will be bound within your account, currently bought with the Naxx tokens, that can be sent within your account. The other good thing is that these items scale with the toon, so you can send your new level 1 Warrior an item, and it will continue to improve in stats as the character gets higher in the ranks.
I assume there will be heirlooms for each type, like a Melee DPS for each of leather, mail, and plate in end game, caster for all levels, and so on, and this way you ensure that the various classes still get proper gear for their needs. So far we have weapons, trinkets, and shoulders, though I would assume more will come in time. Also, while MMO Champion has model viewer made shots of many Heirloom items, there is no word yet on whether those items will look as awesome on a level 1 as they will on a level 80 character.
You may have heard of the changes promised to racials, and those changes did hit this build, though some have already been altered from the promised looks. Fall of Humanity, a feign death like ability, was remove before the build went live, and I can imagine the Night Elf Shadowmeld, which now works in combat, is also in live, or will in the next build. Humanity will be getting a new racial, "Every Man for Himself": Removes all movement impairing effects and all effects which cause loss of control of your character. This effect shares a cooldown with other similar effects.(I have confirmed that Fall of Humanity is not on the live beta realms)
And not we have Paladins. Ret and Prot Paladins got lots of love this build, though since I know Ret best, I will fill you in. Many of our talents got redone, from Art of War to Diving Storm, Judgment of the Wise to Crusade. Overall I think our changes were an improvement, with the added benefit of a full power Blessing of Kings coming with only 5 points spent in the Protection tree. From my playing I am so far loving the build, and might actually document this one if it lasts past the next build.
Oh, and one more thing...(since Steve didn't do one) we are getting some peaks at the coming build that will be next, and one of the things that Blizzard is clear on is that Riding Crops and all the other mount speed boosters will be gone at the least by 70. They were going to make them enchantements, but then they made all mounts learned spells and the boosters just became a pain to fix. I am not sure I feel they are less of a pain pre 70, but Blizz seems to be working out other speed boosting abilities so we will have to see what will come to pass. Take care!
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