New Race/Class Combinations

Check-urle verzi sunt combinatii deja existente pre cataclysm

	Death Knight	Druid	Hunter	Mage	Paladin	Priest	Rogue	Shaman	Warlock	Warrior
Alianta
Draenei
Dwarf
Gnome
Human
Night Elf
Worgen
Hoarda
Blood Elf
Undead
Goblin
Orc
Tauren
Troll

Realistic Water

The water has been drastically improved in Cataclysm, thanks to some impressive new shader effects. Water can now be configured to display reflections on its surface, and movement within will even cause ripples! This impressive change has helped to redefine many zones.



Below is a short clip of the new water effects in action!

Terrain Phasing

Cataclysm introduces a new technology, terrain phasing, which changes the terrain over time as you complete quests or other requirements. Terrain phasing differs from regular phasing in that it affects the world environment.

Other Changes

• Blizzard has stated that they want to make changes to the existing racial abilities, but no details have yet been revealed.

  Blizzard said: We're going to do something similar to what we did in Wrath of the Lich King, where we just refresh them to make sure they’re balanced and feel cool. Something you could see is dwarves getting a bonus to Archeology, or undead getting a new activated racial ability that will be more useful in PvE.
• Mana is important again, but goodbye five second rule!

  Blizzard said: Mana will be a bigger consideration for all healers. We aren’t trying to make healing more painful; we’re trying to make it more fun. When the cost of a spell isn’t an issue, then casting the right spell for the job is less of an issue because you might as well just use your most powerful spell all of the time. We are, however, getting rid of the five-second rule, because we don’t want to encourage standing around doing nothing. We’re also going to cut back on the benefits of buffs such as Replenishment so priests (and all healers) don’t feel as penalized when those buffs aren’t available.
• Relics and idols are going to become class agnostic, which means any class with the correct slot will be able to equip them.

  Blizzard said: Druid, shaman, paladin and death knight. It’s possible we will still keep some that are very specific to certain classes and specs. Overall though we’re not happy with the current design where an ability procs a buff on you. If it’s an ability you don’t use often, then the item is terrible, so they end up feeling really passive already. At the same time, the fact that we have to offer so many prevents us from ever giving you the choice of which one to use. So we make the Resto druid or Enhance shaman version every new tier. It would be a more interesting decision if there was a crit + Intellect relic and a haste + Intellect relic, and you can choose which one to use.
• Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms (Alliance) and Loremaster of Kalimdor (Alliance) are being changed so they match the Outland and Northrend model. Every zone in the old world will have its own "Complete X quests" achievement tied to it, and completing all those will award the Loremaster for that specific continent.

Other Possible Changes

Below are some important pieces of information that have been mentioned in Blizzard's developer chats on Twitter, also known as BlizzChat.

Transcripts of most recent BlizzChats can be found on the Wowhead Blog under the #BlizzChat tag!

• Blizzard designers are discussing the possibility of increasing the storage space available to players and providing a more convenient storage method for tabards.
• Several realm first achievements will most likely be changed to say "without XP bonuses".
• Worgen/Goblin race change will most likely be locked for a few weeks or months when Cataclysm is released.