Cataclysm so far
Now between being busy IRL and taking the time to finish up the SC2 campaign I haven't spent a lot of time playing the Cataclysm beta thus far, but here are my impressions so far:
Warrior: So far I've only had time to play as Fury. I was going to go Prot right away and bang out some instances, but the dungeon finder on the test realms does not work. Bummer, but not surprising.
Anyhow, I went into beta thinking I was going to really be disappointed in the new warrior changes, but oh how wrong I was. Fury is a hell of a lot more fun now than it's ever been. I'm not sure there's ever a time you're not pushing buttons, unlike the current 3 button rotation. The introduction of Raging Blow (I think that's what it's called) and changing Cleave and HS to no longer be on-next-hit attacks makes fury a much more active spec to play.
However, the devs are still holding rage nerfs over the warriors head. Maybe it's deserved, as there have been very few times I haven't been able to HS the shit out of every mob in my way. But it's certainly making me shy away from playing a warrior come release.
Paladin: Paladin is just broken as it stands right now. Half of the spells and abilities I'm supposed to have are nowhere to be found in my spellbook. Even abilities gotten through talents are missing, so it makes it really hard to judge where the paladin is so far. I will say that the holy power mechanic is interesting.
Death Knight: Another instance of missing key abilities, but for another reason. I can see them on the class trainer, but due to a bug I'd have to drop my professions to be able to train them. So I'll just be waiting for the next build to really test out my DK.
Mage: I haven't played a mage since vanilla, so I wasn't really sure what to expect with this class, but I'm really loving the fire spec so far (only one I've tried). The mobility the class has is just incredible. Having scortch cost no mana, and being able to cast it while moving is just insane. Combine that with dragons breath, a targetable blast wave, and insta-cast pyroblasts and you've got some serious kiting ability and firepower.
I'm enjoying playing this character so much that as of right now, I've decided I'm going to roll a mage at cata release to experience all the new zone content.
Shaman: It's really hard to tell where enhancement shaman is without recount. There are just too many numbers flying everywhere to get a good idea. But the synergy between searing totem and lava lash really has potential for some serious numbers. There were 2 things I really didn't like however, fire nova not working with searing totem, and primal strike being on the same cooldown as storm strike.
New starting areas: I won't go into a whole lot of detail, there are videos available for that, but I will say this: While the Goblin area is pretty cool, the Worgen area blows it out of the water. I really want to like the Goblin starting zone, but it's all just a little too silly, and the story just isn't interesting at all compared to the Worgen's.
I'll post more as I play.
StarCraft 2 Initial Impression
So last night as I was pooping I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. As I wasn't going anywhere any time soon, I checked it out, and turns out, it was my acceptance email to the SC2 beta. Cool.
Now let me start by saying I was never really a fan of SC multiplayer games. I could never stand the rush mentality, it just was never fun for me. I want to build an army, not build 4 zerglings and slowly scratch away at my helpless opponents base. Boring. I did enjoy the single player campaigns though. They were all very deep, and kept me wanting to get to the next mission.
That said, SC2 so far just seems like more of the same as far as multiplayer games go. The rush mentality is still there, and I still hate it. After playing a couple games against other people, I decided to do a couple private games against the AI just so I could build more than a couple marines before taking out my opponent.
There are a good number of new units. I've always been a Terran guy, and giant robots are awesome, so I was very happy to see the Thor. The new battle battlecruisers are much cooler than the ones in the original, firing multiple lasers at once. And the units that can transform from air to ground are awesome.
But beyond the new units and graphical updates, the game seems to be almost identical to the original. Which really is fine, because the first one was as close to balanced as it could be. But for someone looking for anything really ground breaking, I don't see it here.
Unfortunately the single player campaigns are not included in the beta, which is what I really wanted to see. So I'll probably be putting this on the side until it's released.