Privacy

[...]The first and most significant change is that in the near future, anyone posting or replying to a post on official Blizzard forums will be doing so using their Real ID -- that is, their real-life first and last name -- with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character alongside it. These changes will go into effect on all StarCraft II forums with the launch of the new community site prior to the July 27 release of the game, with the World of Warcraft site and forums following suit near the launch of Cataclysm. Certain classic forums, including the classic Battle.net forums, will remain unchanged. 
[...]


I strongly suggest that anyone who isn't down with the syndrome voice their objection to this change. I'm totally cool with being Facebook friends with guildmates and teammates I've known for a while, but I, me, I, me, would like the power to control who has access to my personal information. There are hard to predict repercussions from giving away information like this -- (If I can find your name and addy on spokeo, and I see you went offline or stopped posting, can I infer your current location to rob/rape you? Can I blackmail you if I know your employer and see you're playing games instead of working? Can I engage you in various confidence scams through WoW?)

This move does almost nothing to stop "malicious" posting whatever that means. It's not too terribly hard to have a John Doe account. (Which seems like a decent option going forward)

Honestly, I'm one of the least affected players by this -- outside of alpha/beta, I never post on the Blizzard forums and I arena with the same dozen or so players always, so I'm not terribly exposed to the change. I will certainly never post on the official forums or ever use RealID in game. (Despite the fact that I'm IRL friends with many of the people I arena with...because why do I need to, they're on skype/axon/vent with me) I fail to see any upside in this nonsense -- I have no idea what Blizzard's intentions are, and I'm really not a privacy nut, but is it so much to ask to just PLAY A GAME and not engage in some pointless and potentially dangerous social network clusterfuck?

So the NDA Is Lifted

More to follow ^^


New talent trees on war tools. 


Wowhead now updated.


Blue follow up on Shatter:


Shatter has been a lot of things. At the moment it is double crit chance vs. frozen targets for 1 point and triple crit chance vs. frozen for 2 points. 

I'll try to update some of the other concerns and make corrections when I get some time. - GC


So, I meant to type up some thoughts on how things are progressing for mage (and rogue) so far, but after fucking up my hand playing bball, it'll have to wait. Sorry!


Okay, firstovh:


It's still super premature to really comment on much. Every recent build has a ton of random undocumented changes for mages, sadly none for rouges >.<, and it's pretty arrogant/stupid to really critique the "direction" their taking for the class in cata -- not that that will stop me. (An example being that Fireball and Frostbolt cast times were sekretly reduced by .5 seconds this build)


For those of you on alpha, it looks like we were right concerning AM, at least at this point in the design process -- the spell has been relegated to leveling and deep Arcane. I had thought it would be nearly impossible to balance across specs and that Frostfire Bolt made more sense as the flavor nuke for deep Fire and Frost PvE. This seems to be case for both. For fire, there is need to maintain DoTs, for Frost, there is need for a nuke when your procs are down that capitalizes on Frostburn. (Or is it called Deathfrost...whatever)


The recent build has attempted to bring about, some might say force, the inclusion of Ice Lance in Frost raiding through the FoF change. (Beyond ghost charges) I think that this will prove a very difficult balancing act because of the "need" for FoF burst in PvP. Double Frostbolt into Frostfire Bolt is HUGE damage, generally 50-65% of a WotLK target's total health. It's how Mage wizards global kids. It's pretty hated as there's not a lot you can do about it, whereas at least DF procs stun damage reduction talents, can be trinketed, dispelled, etc. It's hard to imagine the current Cata FoF being terribly potent or exciting in PvP, which is perhaps a good thing -- I could be very wrong and perhaps the hard hitting Ice Lances are more dangerous than I currently envision. Additionally, this iteration of FoF removes the Ghost charge, and while a lot of the PvE community loves this, I can't agree. Rewarding good timing at the expense of marginally penalizing the DPS of those with high latency is a trade I'm willing to make. (I really don't want to see the game "balanced" for 300 ping)


Some questions concerns with the existing talents, in no particular order:

• Arcane Instability -- a 60% multiplier is crazy high and I don't understand the goal of this talent. Why should opponents be penalized for interrupting the mage? It would almost make more sense if you did more damage when they MISSED an interrupt, or perhaps it grants you additional Arcane damage when they interrupt a non-Arcane spell. This talent also has anti synergy with the Tier 1 Arcane Stability which grants you pushback immunity. (Yes I can imagine starting a scorch cast, letting the pet hit you, and swapping back to your stacked AB and melting someone's face)
• Arcane Focus -- this talent is completely useless and should be avoided like syhpollis
• Arcane Repulsion -- this has gotten a fair amount of discussion on the Alpha boards, but ultimately it comes back to, is this really necessary?
• Improved Fire Blast -- cooldown ain't the problem hoss
• Burning Determination -- another mana regen talent in Fire? zzz
• Blazing Speed -- I think the best "idea" I've seen concerning BSpeed is to simply grant the buff after using Blastwave, thereby removing the RNG, and eliminates the need for the new Playing with Fire, which to be honest, I don't feel makes much sense. In general, I feel the Fire PvP talents have really gone a pretty stupid direction where attackers are simply RNG penalized for playing the game. (Sup Fiery Payback, and well the same is true of Frostbite)
• Burnout -- what?
• Piercing Chill, aka Chillcleave -- currently this does not requite the Frostbolts to be criticals, I assume that noncrits should proc this.
• Arctic Winds -- pointless RNG defensive talent where neither you nor your adversary has much control over the outcome. The no cooldown CoC and FNs are amusing but not terribly useful.