Ghostcrawler to substantially change talent trees in Cataclysm
Ghostcrawler, one of the Blizzard employees responsible for the current design as well as upcoming changes in World of Warcraft, had this to say recently on the forums: 1) We are changing talent trees, in some cases substantially. The major focus is pruning out boring but valuable talents that passively increase say damage or healing. 2) A secondary focus is to fix the clunky areas (e.g. warlocks having two conflicting range increasing talents). We’re not going to remove old favorites or radically change the focus of the trees. You will definitely have to rethink your builds however. 3) Because you earn passive bonuses just for spending points in the tree, those fun, niche or utility talents won’t seem as expensive as they do today.
Blizzard developer Q+A via Twitter!
Today the Blizzard team consisting of Bornakk, Ghostcrawler, Aratil,  had a Q+A session via Twitter and the results are some really great insight onto things coming in the game.  Check this out! Q. If damage and healing is too much per health ratio, then why don’t you have battlegrounds/arenas give a -30% damage/healing debuff? A. We have been talking about solutions like that. It might feel a bit awkward, but it might also solve the problem and maybe it’s okay in the last season before an expansion to experiment a little bit. Q. Is there talk of a fire shield spell for elemental shaman to use like water shield for restoration shaman? A. Not at this time. Q. Do you still have plans to implement guild housing? A. Guild housing isn’t a priority. Aside from the huge development involved it gets people out of cities and into these private areas other players can’t see. We like cities to feel populated. But I’m not sure anyone expected WoW to be going as strong as it is after five years, so who knows in the future.
Blizzard Healer Discussion for Cataclysm
Ghostcrawler has been busy in a rather length thread about healing in World of Warcraft now and into Cataclysm.  Sure a lot of it has been mostly rehashing on concepts that have been gone over time and again, but its always nice to be able to take a look into their heads.  Some of the things that have been discussed are mana management, downranking, and health vs healing vs inc damage.  The thread has been going for over a week so there is definitely a lot of reading to catch up on, so let me start you off here. The general theory behind healing in Cataclysm is that you’ll no longer (see also less often) be spamming heals like a mad-man.  To accomplish this, Blizzard is making it so tanks won’t be one or even two-shotted.  At the same time, healers will not be able to one or even two-heal a tank from low to full health.  This will, of course, lessen the stress of healers to heal or die.  And at the same time, the efficiency of healing compared to mana pools will be significantly reduced, making not healing an important aspect of the healer’s job.  Sort of a pick the time and place of your heals.
Ghostcrawler on Rogues
Since Tim fired up a brand new duo of rogues, I thought it’d be interesting to take a look at what he’ll be walking into in the future.  Ghostcrawler recent made a lengthy post about what goes on in the minds of the design team when it comes to everyone’s favorite stunlocker.  Of course, you have to remember Cataclysm is far from final and what Blizzard “plans” and what they “do” sometimes can be quite different.  Enjoy the look into the state of the rogues. Ghostcrawler: Ultimately, we’d like for more talent trees to look like Subtlety. Trading utility A for utility B is an interesting decision. Trading utility A for more dps is not an interesting decision; the latter is always going to win.