Cata not so MB friendly

[offive]

Here's an update

They have added a number of things to beta on Friday.

• Flying in old world now costs 250g per toon.
• Upgrading all your flying mounts to 310% costs 4k gold (discount included)
• You can buy and learn all the glyphs on each toon, than all you need is dust to overwrite the glyph when you want to change it.
• It seemed like I blew about 500g on each toon upon logging them in the first time
• Profession mats are going to be a bit insane at the higher levels, just massive quantities.
• Guild perks look like they are going to be a nice bonus, even if the GM doesn't really get to choose what perk you get.

They finally got character copies working again (last night actually)... so I moved a bunch of classes over. Pretty early crafted greens (for toon lvl 81) are way better than the early quest rewards (ilvl 300+). Again don't bother grinding for gear too much... it's all gonna change dramatically. My ret pally gear average ilvl is 305 and he has 75k HP.

So far the only instances I have not done are Throne of Tides (80-82), Vortex Pinnacle(83-85), and Lost city of the Kolvir (85). I have dps'd in Halls of Origination (85) and Grim Batol (85). I have tanked Blackrock Caverns (80-82) and Stonecore (83-85). Grim has a huge amount of trash, but I heard some of it got nerfd in the latest build. The packs can be as many as 6... so CC is a nice to have.

So far on beta I have a pally (85), hunter (83), shaman, priest, druid, mage (all freshly copied 80s). I have played a bit of the worgen and goblin starting areas, I think the goblin area is the best in game to date. The underwater zone is fun. Archeology is a huge time sink... and until you get it higher it probably wont bring much benefit. One toon has arch lvl 100... but seems a bit stuck.

Bliz has opened up 4.0 code on the PTR, so I suggest if you want to see how the new mechanics work on a particular class you install the ptr client and copy you toon over. Some of the classes change alot as far as play style... it seems a lot more interactive.

So far it looks like my pally tank, shaman dps team will be pretty easy to play. The all pally team might be a bit more micro management intensive as Bliz has removed some key macro functionality. My original mixed group might make a comeback with some tweaks, but I need to see how the warrior tank plays. A pack of hunters will be insanely nasty burst , but I am sure hunters will get the nerf bat as usual.

I was able to setup a decent /castsequence rotation on my Elemental Shaman really quickly. Pallys now are much more interactive with holy power, I suppose you can rely on the base skills that generate holy power in your sequence and the inject a dump like Templar's Verdict for ret and SoR for prot. Hunters should be able to be sequenced pretty easily, just inject steadyshot or cobrashot in the sequence.

Yes castsequence commas are gone. /click still works but not really usefull for me. Fall through /cast doesnt seem to work anymore.

Oh and my favorite hunter pet spell is now the one Gorilla's get... fling something at the enemy!

[Fursphere]

Yes castsequence commas are gone. /click still works but not really usefull for me. Fall through /cast doesnt seem to work anymore.

Wait, can you expand on this? They changed the macro system so this method doesn't work anymore?!

O U C H.

Say goodbye to multi-class boxing at the higher end of things.

[Bigfish]

Wait, can you expand on this? They changed the macro system so this method doesn't work anymore?!

O U C H.

Say goodbye to multi-class boxing at the higher end of things.

Nah, its just going to make macro writing a pain in the ass. Probably even necesitate an add-on

Edit: Yeah, you can substitute opening a trade skill for a blank. That's going to make for some long ass macros though.

[offive]

Here is a sample of my shaman rotation

/castsequence reset=combat Flame Shock,Lava Burst,Chain Lightning, Lightning Bolt, Earth Shock, Lightning Bolt, Lava Burst, Chain Lightning,Earth Shock, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning

Seems to work fine, by no means will it be max dps as Lava Burst cooldown has a chance to reset now with each lightning cast. But its a stable cast sequence.

The fall through removal means things like tacking on a /cast killshot on the end of the hunter rotation is gone. I need to play with my mage to see which spec is the easiest to box, but from what I see Fire is not it. Boomkins now have the eclipse bar, no idea how to deal with that yet. Pallies have holy power... but that just means you will have dump buttons when you build up power. Shadow priests seem to have a nice basic rotation that is not micro intensive. Add in that a pack of shadow gnomes would just be plain fun... and there you have one of my teams I will level to 85. I don't have a high level lock so I am not much help there.

As for tanking classes, I need to move a warrior and DK over to see. Pally tanking is a bit more complicated now but manageable.

I need to play with Jamba to see if I can get it to track holy power.

Hope this helps, and by all means go check out the PTR. The more people looking at this stuff the better.

[Shodokan]

Here is a sample of my shaman rotation

/castsequence reset=combat Flame Shock,Lava Burst,Chain Lightning, Lightning Bolt, Earth Shock, Lightning Bolt, Lava Burst, Chain Lightning,Earth Shock, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning

Seems to work fine, by no means will it be max dps as Lava Burst cooldown has a chance to reset now with each lightning cast. But its a stable cast sequence.

The fall through removal means things like tacking on a /cast killshot on the end of the hunter rotation is gone. I need to play with my mage to see which spec is the easiest to box, but from what I see Fire is not it. Boomkins now have the eclipse bar, no idea how to deal with that yet. Pallies have holy power... but that just means you will have dump buttons when you build up power. Shadow priests seem to have a nice basic rotation that is not micro intensive. Add in that a pack of shadow gnomes would just be plain fun... and there you have one of my teams I will level to 85. I don't have a high level lock so I am not much help there.

As for tanking classes, I need to move a warrior and DK over to see. Pally tanking is a bit more complicated now but manageable.

I need to play with Jamba to see if I can get it to track holy power.

Hope this helps, and by all means go check out the PTR. The more people looking at this stuff the better.

Your earth shock won't be dealing enough damage to be worth using at the points you are using them at.

Why on earth do you use earth shock in your rotation?

9 earth shield charges = 22k+ crit from the talent.