Wow. It seems every time I open my mouth about Blizzard’s tight-lipped policies, it’s just before they decide to give us some new information. With each expansion comes considerable changes to class dynamics, prompting us to change the way we play them. Sometimes it’s in the form of new abilities, sometimes it’s due to completely revamped mechanics. Cataclysm is surely no different.

Now, if you remember at BlizzCon, we already learned a thing or two about Warlocks and Hunters (namely, the former would be using Soul Shards in a new way, the latter would no longer be tethered to mana), but surely they can’t have all the fun, right? Well, good news! Everyone‘s getting a pony this week!

Blizzard has set up a tentative schedule for doling out the preliminary changes for each class, which will show up in small batches over the next few days. As Paladins are currently “deeper” into development right now, they’ll have to wait until April 16th for their details. For the rest of the dates, and what you can expect to see in these previews, hit the jump. Continue Reading

So, the Icecrown Citadel raid buff has been raised to 5 to 10%. Old news at this point, I realize, but I want to know how this mechanic has affected your progress in the dungeon so far, and whether or not it’s a good idea in the long run.

Of course, the most straightforward argument that can, and vehemently has, been made against the buff is that it’s eventually going to make what is the toughest, and most grueling, dungeon in the game look like a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. OK, that’s actually pretty chaotic, but you get the idea. “Kid’s stuff.”  But that’s assuming that all raids are created equal, and as we all know, that’s simply not the case.

Take my guild, Severance Pay, for instance. Before any dungeon-wide raid buffs became active, we were able to get through just about everything but Valithria Dreamwalker and the wing-end bosses with relatively few problems. Some wipes were inevitable, but we’d usually finish off everything we were comfortable with before the week was out.

What surprised me is that the 5% buff, when it became active almost a month ago, didn’t seem to have much effect at all. In fact, despite finally finishing Valithria, we started backsliding down the hill a little bit. Progression completely halted. Festergut’s a good measure of these things since he’s more or less a damage sponge, and we were tighter on the timer than we had been when we had no buff at all. In general, even our improvements proved too subtle to even matter.

I think the problem can be traced back to two issues. The first is fundamental raid dynamics and there’s not a whole lot we could do about it. People simply weren’t showing up for raids. Whether they were on Spring Break or otherwise, we always seemed to be down a few players. We progressed farther in the two weeks preceding the introduction of the Icecrown Citadel raid buff than we did in the three or so following it, and perhaps we had hoped that even with flagging attendance, that extra 5% would carry us through.

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Start booking your flights to Anaheim and mark your calendars for October 22nd, ladies and germs, because that is the official date for this year’s BlizzCon. Quite a bit later than last year, but if you’ve followed the development of the event since its inception in 2005, you might note that it has alternated dates every time. The first, third (and now, fifth) BlizzCons have taken place in mid-late October, while the second and fourth played out towards the end of August. I don’t know if there’s some conscious trend here, but it does have at least one interesting implication for the company’s 2010 releases. Namely, World of Warcraft’s next expansion, Cataclysm.

The only hint of a release date we’ve ever gotten was that it would hit retail shelves by the time the next ‘Con rolled around, which means that it will likely hit late in the year at this point. Heck, let’s be honest. Knowing Blizzard’s track record with pushing back release dates, I wouldn’t be surprised if they gave Deathwing and pals one last hurrah at the convention before launching the game sometime in November. If that ends up being the case, then I’m not sure if 3.3.5′s Ruby Sanctum raid is going to be enough to hold people over, even if recreating Azeroth is an awful lot of work. But I’m tip-toeing into a completely different post here, let’s get back on topic!

Though they’re staying hush-hush about what games we might see this year (and what would surprise announcements be if they weren’t, you know, surprises?), Blizzard has put up a helpful FAQ with all known details of the event. It’ll likely be a few months before the ticket lines open, but you will only be able to order them online through the Blizzard Store. The queue system is reported to work similar to the way it did in 2009, meaning that you better start training your link-clicking finger for what is basically the equivalent of a nerd-friendly Olympic event. Come early, or don’t come at all. Might I suggest that you keep your skills sharp by perusing LoreHound on a regular basis (wink, wink)? Here, go ahead, click it. The burn feels good, doesn’t it?

On that note, hopefully we can look forward to a bevy of “Packing For BlizzCon 2010″ posts once October 22nd rolls around. And, should we all fail to be so lucky, paid event streaming through the television or online likely proved popular enough last time to warrant a second round.