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So cataclysm is around the corner and if there is on consistent message from beta testers it is this: dungeons and especially heroics are about to get much more difficult. Not being a beta tester I haven’t tried these things myself but I’ve tried to keep up with the news on how fight mechanics are changing – and I’m going to try and sum up the basics here – in a quick and “be ready for it” kind of way.
Wrath made dungeons tactically simple. Tank pulls everything he can, DPS nukes AoE, Healers keep everyone at full health – none of this will apply in future. Cata is reviving the pre-wrath dungeon focus on tactics and skilled cooperation. Crowd-control is much more important than AoE and the rules are going back in many ways to where it once was. For starters – I am not planning to use the dungeon finder at all for pugs ever again – because frankly it will be a nightmare until most people have figured out that you simply cannot do what you did in Cata or expect what you got from it.
So how is this really changing – like I said- I will go over the general changes in design so I’ll go by roles.
Healers: The days of keeping everybody at full health are over. No healing class has nearly enough mana to do that. All healing specs however are getting talents that allow them to mana-free DPS (essentially talents where damage done lets you regain the mana spent to do it). Why give healers the ability to do damage without spending mana ? Well firstly it should make levelling a healer a much easier thing. In dungeons this is probably meant to allow healers to do their share of crowd control and occasionally provide a damage boost when there is a gap. There will be gaps – because keeping everybody at full health is no longer a priority, or in fact a possibility. Of course being out of spec abilities their efficacy is reduced but if a healer can do 40% of the damage a specialist does with an out-of-spec DPS attack – then suddenly raids have a lot more reason to consider perhaps a third healer who can DPS when raid-heal or OT-heal isn’t needed. Fundamentally though – as a healer you will get frustrated until DPS players learn to actually avoid damage again. One healer’s advice from beta-testing was “never heal anybody with more than 50% health”.
Tactical healing, with well-chosen spells and spell-levels will be crucial to success in cata.
Tanks: damage avoidance is becoming much bigger of an issue in Cata. You will have to spec for dodge rating. More importantly – the size of pulls even the best tank can handle is simply smaller. Tactical pulls, corner-pulls, selective pulls – they are all going to come back. The message from beta testers is “no tank can keep aggro on more than three mobs” – pull a fourth = wipe. I can tell you this. When I do start tanking again in Cataclysm – I am starting my dungeons by announcing in party chat: “Any player who says ‘pull more’ gets kicked on the grounds that you don’t know how to play cataclysm tactics. No exceptions’.
DPS: The days of mindless AoE is over – it’s sooo very over. Tactical DPS is going to be a major concern. Damage avoidance is going to be crucial. The days when “the guy who stands in the fire” died is over- now that guy will wipe the group. Avoid all damage you can – make life easier on your healers because it’s going to be hell for them. Talking of damage avoidance- we said tanks can’t handle four mobs at once- well it used to be that the rule was “if a DPS pulls aggro – everybody shouted at the DPS”. Aggro management is not the tanks job – it wasn’t in all of WoW until wrath and it won’t be after Cata. As DPS – it’s YOUR job to keep your aggro below the tank’s. That means sometimes holding back on damage, it means switching targets and sticking to the kill order -it means thinking and learning tactics – even on trash mobs.
In short Blizzard wants to encourage groups of friends and guildies to stick together and learn to play very well as a group before you can succeed. PUGS will be for stuff you are already overgreared for. I expect absolute havoc and a lot of QQ-ing when Cata comes out, some of which will be adjusted over time as numbers are tweaked (every expansion has that) to keep things challenging yet fair. But the old 15-minute HC runs are gone – this is going to be a time when dungeons are tough, taking skill, effort, time (we got lazy – remember how dead-mines used to take about 3 hours to run ?) and teamwork.
It’s going to be a hell of a lot of fun.
GuildRuns FTW
Wrath made dungeons tactically simple. Tank pulls everything he can, DPS nukes AoE, Healers keep everyone at full health – none of this will apply in future. Cata is reviving the pre-wrath dungeon focus on tactics and skilled cooperation. Crowd-control is much more important than AoE and the rules are going back in many ways to where it once was. For starters – I am not planning to use the dungeon finder at all for pugs ever again – because frankly it will be a nightmare until most people have figured out that you simply cannot do what you did in Cata or expect what you got from it.
So how is this really changing – like I said- I will go over the general changes in design so I’ll go by roles.
Healers: The days of keeping everybody at full health are over. No healing class has nearly enough mana to do that. All healing specs however are getting talents that allow them to mana-free DPS (essentially talents where damage done lets you regain the mana spent to do it). Why give healers the ability to do damage without spending mana ? Well firstly it should make levelling a healer a much easier thing. In dungeons this is probably meant to allow healers to do their share of crowd control and occasionally provide a damage boost when there is a gap. There will be gaps – because keeping everybody at full health is no longer a priority, or in fact a possibility. Of course being out of spec abilities their efficacy is reduced but if a healer can do 40% of the damage a specialist does with an out-of-spec DPS attack – then suddenly raids have a lot more reason to consider perhaps a third healer who can DPS when raid-heal or OT-heal isn’t needed. Fundamentally though – as a healer you will get frustrated until DPS players learn to actually avoid damage again. One healer’s advice from beta-testing was “never heal anybody with more than 50% health”.
Tactical healing, with well-chosen spells and spell-levels will be crucial to success in cata.
Tanks: damage avoidance is becoming much bigger of an issue in Cata. You will have to spec for dodge rating. More importantly – the size of pulls even the best tank can handle is simply smaller. Tactical pulls, corner-pulls, selective pulls – they are all going to come back. The message from beta testers is “no tank can keep aggro on more than three mobs” – pull a fourth = wipe. I can tell you this. When I do start tanking again in Cataclysm – I am starting my dungeons by announcing in party chat: “Any player who says ‘pull more’ gets kicked on the grounds that you don’t know how to play cataclysm tactics. No exceptions’.
DPS: The days of mindless AoE is over – it’s sooo very over. Tactical DPS is going to be a major concern. Damage avoidance is going to be crucial. The days when “the guy who stands in the fire” died is over- now that guy will wipe the group. Avoid all damage you can – make life easier on your healers because it’s going to be hell for them. Talking of damage avoidance- we said tanks can’t handle four mobs at once- well it used to be that the rule was “if a DPS pulls aggro – everybody shouted at the DPS”. Aggro management is not the tanks job – it wasn’t in all of WoW until wrath and it won’t be after Cata. As DPS – it’s YOUR job to keep your aggro below the tank’s. That means sometimes holding back on damage, it means switching targets and sticking to the kill order -it means thinking and learning tactics – even on trash mobs.
In short Blizzard wants to encourage groups of friends and guildies to stick together and learn to play very well as a group before you can succeed. PUGS will be for stuff you are already overgreared for. I expect absolute havoc and a lot of QQ-ing when Cata comes out, some of which will be adjusted over time as numbers are tweaked (every expansion has that) to keep things challenging yet fair. But the old 15-minute HC runs are gone – this is going to be a time when dungeons are tough, taking skill, effort, time (we got lazy – remember how dead-mines used to take about 3 hours to run ?) and teamwork.
It’s going to be a hell of a lot of fun.
GuildRuns FTW
