Blizzard introduces it's own threat meter for WotLK!

[Stealthy]

Hi guys,

Summary of the latest beta patches below...some interesting stuff in there!

WotLK -- New Build 8714

Changes in this build
Mages

Arcane Fortitude moved to tier 2, increased to 3 ranks, now increases armor equal to 50/100/150% of Intellect.
Arcane Subtlety now reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by 15/35%, and no longer reduces the resistance of targets.
Arctic Reach now also affects Deep Freeze.
Blast Wave now knocks all affected targets back.
Elemental Precision moved to tier 2.
Empowered Fireball reduced to 3 ranks, now increases damage by 5/10/15% of spell power.
Empowered Frostbolt reduced to 2 ranks, increases damage by 5/10% of spell power and increases critical hit chance by 2/4%.
Flame Throwing moved to tier 3.
Frost Channeling now reduces mana cost of all spells by 4/7/10%.
Frost Warding now increases armor and resistances of Frost/Ice Armor by 25/50%, now gives Frost Ward and Fire Ward a 15/30/5 chance to negate damage caused and restore mana equal to damage caused by the warded spell.
Ice Floes renamed Cold as Ice, now reduces cooldown of Cold Snap, Ice Barrier, Summon Water Elemental, and Deep Freeze by 10/20%.
Improved Counterspell now always silences the target for 2/4 seconds.
Improved Fire Blast moved to tier 1, reduced to 2 ranks, reduces the cooldown by 1/2 seconds.
Improved Flamestrike moved to tier 2, renamed World in Flames, now increases the critical hit chance of Flamestrike, Blast Wave, Dragon’s Breath, Living Bomb, Blizzard, and Arcane Explosion by 2/4/6%.
Improved Frost Nova renamed Ice Floes, moved to tier 1, increased to 3 ranks, now reduces cooldown of Frost Nova, Cone of Cold, Ice Block, and Icy Veins by 7/14/20%.
Magic Absorption reduced to 2 ranks, increases resistances by .5/1 point per level, and restores 1/3% of total mana on a resist.
Master of Elements now affects all spell criticals.
Mind Mastery reduced to 3/6/9/12/15%.
Molten Shields now gives Fire Ward and Frost Ward spells a 15/30% chance to reflect the warded spell.
Prismatic Cloak (Arcane) increased to 3 ranks for 1/2/3% and now also reduces the fade time of Invisibility by 1/2 seconds.
Pyroblast cast time has been reduced to 5 seconds.
Shatter no longer has a prerequisite.

Shamans

Flametongue Weapon: Now has a passive spell damage.
Nature’s Blessing no longer increases spell damage from Intellect, and the effect has been reduced to 5/10/15% from 10/20/30%. This is in result of the new spell power system. Players should notice little to no change in the power of the spell relevant to healing spells.
New Talent: Tidal Force- Increases the critical effect chance of your Healing Wave, Lesser Healing Wave and Chain Heal by 60%. Each critical heal reduces the chance by 20% and lasts 20 seconds.
Stoneclaw Totem: Health of the Stoneclaw totem is increased by 5% of the Shaman’s total health.
The range of all “friendly totems” has been increased to 30 yards, up from 20.
Totemic Mastery talent removed and replaced with “Tidal Force”.
PvP

Arenas
Buffs that have 30 seconds or less remaining will be removed once the game starts. However, the mage spell “Invisibility” is not affected by this change.

The Dalaran battleground room for both factions has been graphically updated

Other

Alchemical Blood renamed to Mixology, the tooltip description also changed to only affect elixirs and flasks now (was potions, elixirs & flasks)
Hunter: 2 new stable slots for 50 and 150 gold.
You can now compare achievements with other players. See more at World of Raids here, here and here.
Threat Meter
There is no menu to configure it.
Your % of threat is an event displayed in your floating combat text messages.
The mouseover tooltips are displaying your current % of threat.

Cheers,
S.

[Skuggomann]

Yea i saw this, its dam nice!

btw pics:

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2008/july/threatmeter1.jpg

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2008/july/threatmeter2.jpg

[Caspian]

% of threat compared to what? Total on the Mob? Compared to the #1 in threat? How is that going to work in a 25 man, or even a 10 man, raid? I need to see this in action before I get too excited.

Off to do some research.

[Otlecs]

And more importantly, for people who have / are considering Hunter groups, official confirmation on this:


Hunter: 2 new stable slots for 50 and 150 gold.

:love:

[Stealthy]

""
% of threat compared to what? Total on the Mob? Compared to the #1 in threat? How is that going to work in a 25 man, or even a 10 man, raid? I need to see this in action before I get too excited.

Off to do some research.

According to MMO Champion:

Your % of threat (based on the member of the party with the highest threat on the monster) is now displayed in the scrolling combat text.
Your % of threat is now displayed in the tooltips of monsters.
According to the first reports, the threat is just sent to the client without any encoding now, it will be very easy to build mods to display the exact threat of each member of the raid in the future.

Cheers,
S.

[Saithe]

It'll take some explaining to new people about threat (110% for melee, 130% for ranged and what not), but this should be a great way to make 5 mans go a lot smoother without Salvation. Since I'm assuming it's based off of KTM/Omen style readouts, the % is the % of threat you have compared to the Tank (or #1). So at 100% you have the same threat as him/her, at 110-130% you gain aggro, wipe the group, and get QQ'd at. It'll make raids better because that will be one less needed AddOn, though Omen and other such Threat Meters will still be superior, with TPS and a breakdown of abilities, but since they'll easily work with the Blizzard Threat Meter, you won't HAVE to have a meter to get into raids.

And the stable slots? That's pure win right there.

[Tonuss]

It displays your threat relative to the character who is on top of the mob's threat list. The way it's designed seems to allow Blizzard to provide the data necessary for mod creators while not giving out exact values. Frankly, the data they give is sufficient, now threat meters like Omen will be able to keep a perfectly accurate tally of threat while using fewer resources, since they'll just be formatting data instead of generating it. I know that some months back Blizzard had hinted at adding a threat meter of their own in the expansion, and I'm glad to see that they followed through on it.

And yes, the extra stable slots are great. Especially now that when you tame a low-level beast it will automatically level up to within 5 levels of you, and the loyalty mechanic is either being re-worked or removed. So it will probably be a lot less work to tame a pet and have it in "fighting condition." I may finish leveling up my hunter and turn him into my main in time for the expac.

[iztehzha]

Actually.. Everything gives an exact amount of threat with their new system.. So its alot easier to make addons to show who is number 1, 2, 3 and so on.

[Drizzit]

It seems like blizzard is actually looking at what people are using for mods. The threat meter and calendar are the newest, but other stuff like the talent bars being able to see more then one on your screen (there where mods for this before it come out), bag space, target of target, voice (even though it sucks and no one uses it, they tried), etc... Hopefully they will put in outfitter though it is great for druids, other people use it too.

[Gaffy]

And more importantly, for people who have / are considering Hunter groups, official confirmation on this:


Hunter: 2 new stable slots for 50 and 150 gold.

:love:
8o OK, gaffy is now a happy camper, my hunter can now collect away 8o

[Jaws5]

Wooot , about time more stable slots. Now I will not have to dump a long held pet to train a new skill.

thank you thank you

:)

[Meeo]

Has anyone confirmed yet if the mechanics of threat are changing and what there changing to, or if they even are changing? with the change of salvation and i notice in a lot of the beta notes they adjusted how threat is done on certain classes.

[Talamarr]

I'm going to echo some of the other speculations here; I think this is a way to provide better data for mod makers (KTM/Omen) and not a replacement for them. Which, imo, is the right thing to do.

[Drizzit]

with the change of salvation

what did they do to salvation?

[Talamarr]

what did they do to salvation?

Bascially...

/target Blessing of Salvation
/cast EM NS CL

[Meeo]

Salvation is no longer Salvation in the expansion as we know it, its been redone to be a target debuff.

Blessing of Salvation renamed Hand of Salvation, now reduces total threat on the target by 2% per second for 10 seconds. 2 Minute Cooldown. Only one Hand spell can be on the target per paladin at any one time. Now costs 6% of base mana.
Greater Blessing of Salvation Removed.

[Drizzit]

that really sucks

[Depherios]

Salvation and Tranquil Air are both 'gone' in the expac

[succulent]

On a related note, the new mage talent trees are drastically revamped. Very sexy imo!

Deep frost gives you a mana-free insta-cast fireball -- that's just crazy, but also fun.