World of Warcraft → Re: The Death of the Cat

Also keep in mind that everything is designed towards what abilities you'll have when you're 85, as well as the extra talent points. 4.0 patch is basically what you'll be like at the beginning of Cataclysm, when you have 5 levels left to go. Same thing happened for 2.0 and 3.0 patch, simply to a lesser extent. Although pallies have gotten broadsided almost every time, previous pre-expansion patches were simply wandering into traffic, while 4.0 is more dancing naked on the freeway in front of a couple of semis.

Uhm, wrong. They are going to "break" the kitty spec and will eventually fix it. It's still okay for those that are MS kitties to complain that their damage is getting raped. The devs attempt to balance the game at all levels. It will get sorted out, eventually but it has nothing to do with "Balancing the game at 85".

This isn't completely true. They will not tune damage levels prior to 85 like they would level cap, but they will still tune them. The problem is that at level cap 85 on beta in mostly 333 gear, my kitty puts out less dps than my current kitty, which is significantly less than other dps classes. Again, Blizz is still making passes on all classes, and first thing is to get all the new mechanics put into place and working correctly.

The only thing that I am seeing that makes a difference now, is (last I looked) that there aren't any talents to reduce the energy cost of shred. (going verify current energy costs). Everything else is just a coefficient adjustment. Plus the Blood in the Water talent (formerly Nom Nom Nom) will be absolutely amazing once the numbers are fixed.

Quick note: the 264 idol of the crying moon turns into a craptastic stat stick as soon as the new stat changes take effect.