One of my firsts posts talked about how Blizzard wanted to expand the use of all the talent trees of all the classes. Make Frost Mages and Affliction Locks viable in PvP. Bring back daggers as useful weapons for Rogues. Stuff like that.
And in my mind, this was never going to reach the Protection trees. Why would Blizz ever want Prot Warriors/Paladins PvPing? But hey, I guess they do. Ghostcrawler's words:
"It would be awesome if some day Arms was the 2H tree, Fury was the DW tree, and Prot was the sword and board tree." (source)
In the same post, GC talks about how Prot PvP is an opportunity to use your shield as a weapon:
"One of the designers mentioned the movie Gladiator the other day. Watch how Maximus uses his shield -- he isn't cowering behind it -- he's bashing people in the face with it. Shields should be a viable form of combat, not the option to avoid combat."
We know based off reports from beta Warriors that Prot definetly has gotten a damage boost in Wrath, and we all have seen first-hand the absurdity of Prot Paladins AoE grinding their Hemet Nessingwary quests and SSO dailies.
So, Prot in PvP. There's a potential problem in having the tanking classes doing the PvP, and it's a problem that Blizzard is definetly aware of and is taking care of to make the Prot trees more viable in Arenas and such. Now, if in Burning Crusade, you were to drag a Prot Warrior into your 5s games, he would serve you no purpose. When the other team knows you're just this guy with a shield that soaks up damage but poses no real threat, suddenly you're the last one to die, because nobody cares.
While Protection players may be doing more damage, they're never going to let them do as much damage as a proper DPS class; we all know that. So how does one go about making a talent spec like this work in PvP?
Simple: make Prot Warriors/Paladins super annoying. Give them tools that protect their allies. Give enemy players a reason to kill them other than the fact that they're doing wicked burst damage or they're a Resto Druid. And we know that the devs are thinking about this. From the same post GC made on Prot Warriors:
"Prot has a long way to go before it's more PvP viable, but maybe, just maybe there could be a tree where control and survivability were an alternative to just bigger damage. It may not happen this expansion, but it's a step in that direction."
In Wrath, the Prot tree for Warriors saw a lot of new talents that give it a PvP side. I don't know a lot about Warriors, but I can pretty clearly pick out talents that look like they're strictly for PvP rather than PvE. Let's go through some of those right now:
Improved Spell Reflection: this is an interesting one, because to me it implies that if in a group, you may have to give up using SR on yourself, which can be a good or a bad thing. Depends on the situation. It sounds great though; imagine SRing a Shatter Frostbolt headed for a teammate. That could add an interesting dynamic for casters who like to do the wicked burst crits and such, when they know that their target has a Prot Warrior buddy nearby.
Concussion Blow: this ability has always been in the game, but to me it looks like it never would have had use in raids anyway. And now it has a damage component to make it better. *coughDeepFreezecough*
Gag Order: Heroic Throw is the Warrior's Level 80 ability; a free weapon throw based on AP on a one-minute cooldown. So provided the cooldown is up (and it's not too long), that's a free spell interrupt when stuck at range, or any time you want.
Vigilance: I've decided this gets its own post, because I have many much thoughts about it.
Safeguard: sounds good in both a PvP and PvE context.
Warbringer: I've dueled Warriors with this on the PTR, and its insane. It's exactly what Warriors have always needed; a way out of roots. Fury is getting a similar skill in the form of Heroic Fury, which breaks roots and allows you to immedietly Intercept.
Shockwave: Shockwave is an AoE tanking solution for Warriors in Wrath, but to me it sounds like a wicked PvP stun as well.
--------------------
Like I said before, I don't know a lot about Warriors; I know how a lot of their skills work but I don't have firsthand experience with the class. Well, I do up to level 11 or so. Maybe 12. I'm not really into melee classes, although I do have the Enhancement Shaman at 45.
That being said, I think Protection Warriors could be wicked in Arenas. Oh, and Protection Paladins? Man, who knows. Let's take a gander at their tree for a sec.
Divine Guardian: that's pretty cool, considering it comes at no cost to the Paladin.
Hmmm.... what else....
HMMMMM......
Improved Hammer of Justice? Touched by the Light?! Dude, I don't know. I once dueled my brother, who is a really good Tankadin, on my Boomkin, and I kicked his butt. Obviously it wasn't really a fair fight, since he's tank spec and all. I don't actually see much here compared to the Warrior side of things. Call me unfit to write a blog about classes I haven't played.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Friday, October 10, 2008
Blizzcon '08: WoW Class Panel impressions
I just finished listening to the World of Warcraft Class Panel, and I didn't really hear anything interesting. To start, they talked about the design of the Death Knight, and the progression of Runes and Runic Power, and stuff like that. Then they moved on to go over each class one-by-one, and what problems they're trying to fix with each class. I didn't hear anything new at all. Granted, maybe if you didn't read the beta forums and blue posts all day like I did, this would be more interesting, but I'd like to think the kind of people who would make the investment to attend Blizzcon are like me.
Granted, what was I expecting? Announcements of new abilities? They've already got the level 75/80 skills plotted for every class, and the 51-point talents are pretty much in place; the talent trees themselves have slowly been fitting into the niches Blizz wants them to (ie making "PvE" specs work in PvP and vice versa)... maybe they're isn't actually much new to talk about.
The one thing everyone was waiting for was an update on dual talent specs, especially after Ghostcrawler (who is a dude!) semi-teased it on the beta forums:
"The dual-spec feature will shine more light on talent design (more on that at Blizzcon) and we'll have a better idea of what we want to do with trees when that goes live. Some talent trees are nice and lean, and some probably have some points we could trim here and there." (source)
Pretty much they said "we're still doing it." Chilton did note that you would be able to spec-swap in, say, a raid dungeon, so it won't require a trip to the class trainer. But so much for extensive info, or shedding light on talent design. They've been doing that all alpha/beta, and that's all been interesting to read and learn about, but if there's anything on their minds that we haven't heard, we didn't get to hear about it.
But, with the new patch less than a week away, and the whole game out in a month, there's no time to make sweeping announcements concerning gameplay mechanics at Blizzcon.
Some bits from the Q&A sessions:
- A lot of questions like "is x going to be viable in y?" I like the especially obvious ones, like "WILL MAGES DO LOLDPS WUT" as if they're not going to make sure every class works in some capacity. Ghostcrawler! You're not a girl, but will Warriors be good tanks?
- Also, a lot of answers like "yeah, we're working on/thinking about/planning on that." In some cases maybe there's no other answers, but it's funny to hear super specific questions about using Windfury vs. using Flametongue in your Off Hand and the answer is "pretty much."
- I was surprised to hear a name (character name, of course) I recognized: Lisana off the Druid beta forums. Hey, a girl who plays World of Warcraft! There were actually two girls who got to ask questions on-stage. I expected to hear from Jayde, since he said he's going to Blizzcon. Maybe he'll show up somewhere later today or tomorrow.
- A lot of Balance Druids complain that the Moonkin "style" of PvP is nuking a fool and then running and healing. Someone came up and asked if Boomkins may get better survivability, lessening the need for healing (and leaving MKF). The answer given was "your spells do more damage now. Also, Typhoon." Woo!
- Lastly, tons of Warlocks. Three 'Lock questions in a row.
--------------------
Next post: revisiting Eclipse, because in all my babbling and nonsense I had forgoten about the talent's 30 second cooldown. Spamming Wrath for half a boss fight? Not really. I'm going to actually "test" this best I can with my Druid on the PTRs.
Granted, what was I expecting? Announcements of new abilities? They've already got the level 75/80 skills plotted for every class, and the 51-point talents are pretty much in place; the talent trees themselves have slowly been fitting into the niches Blizz wants them to (ie making "PvE" specs work in PvP and vice versa)... maybe they're isn't actually much new to talk about.
The one thing everyone was waiting for was an update on dual talent specs, especially after Ghostcrawler (who is a dude!) semi-teased it on the beta forums:
"The dual-spec feature will shine more light on talent design (more on that at Blizzcon) and we'll have a better idea of what we want to do with trees when that goes live. Some talent trees are nice and lean, and some probably have some points we could trim here and there." (source)
Pretty much they said "we're still doing it." Chilton did note that you would be able to spec-swap in, say, a raid dungeon, so it won't require a trip to the class trainer. But so much for extensive info, or shedding light on talent design. They've been doing that all alpha/beta, and that's all been interesting to read and learn about, but if there's anything on their minds that we haven't heard, we didn't get to hear about it.
But, with the new patch less than a week away, and the whole game out in a month, there's no time to make sweeping announcements concerning gameplay mechanics at Blizzcon.
Some bits from the Q&A sessions:
- A lot of questions like "is x going to be viable in y?" I like the especially obvious ones, like "WILL MAGES DO LOLDPS WUT" as if they're not going to make sure every class works in some capacity. Ghostcrawler! You're not a girl, but will Warriors be good tanks?
- Also, a lot of answers like "yeah, we're working on/thinking about/planning on that." In some cases maybe there's no other answers, but it's funny to hear super specific questions about using Windfury vs. using Flametongue in your Off Hand and the answer is "pretty much."
- I was surprised to hear a name (character name, of course) I recognized: Lisana off the Druid beta forums. Hey, a girl who plays World of Warcraft! There were actually two girls who got to ask questions on-stage. I expected to hear from Jayde, since he said he's going to Blizzcon. Maybe he'll show up somewhere later today or tomorrow.
- A lot of Balance Druids complain that the Moonkin "style" of PvP is nuking a fool and then running and healing. Someone came up and asked if Boomkins may get better survivability, lessening the need for healing (and leaving MKF). The answer given was "your spells do more damage now. Also, Typhoon." Woo!
- Lastly, tons of Warlocks. Three 'Lock questions in a row.
--------------------
Next post: revisiting Eclipse, because in all my babbling and nonsense I had forgoten about the talent's 30 second cooldown. Spamming Wrath for half a boss fight? Not really. I'm going to actually "test" this best I can with my Druid on the PTRs.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Wild, sweeping changes
Sort of. Ghostcrawler on trimming Balance:
"Moonfury and Earth and Moon down to 3 ranks from 5, but keeping the same overall benefit. That buys you 4 extra talent points to get more utility or fun talents.
We are also going to buff Eclipse's damage a little so that you feel you're paid back for the extra proc-watching (and so I won't feel so lonely when I tell you I think it's fun)." (source)
LOLWUT. It's not that watching procs is hard (that's why we have Power Auras).
But hey, that four points off is awesome. We have a good number of 5-point talents, and in all trees it's always the chunky, 5pt talents that get you the passive damage buff. More damage to this. More crit with that. A lot of trimming down has been done in other trees, and now Balance gets its turn. I'm interested to try this out.
I might as well start talking about my fake tree sometime. If you want to see it, you can find it here. It's gone through five or six iterations with plenty of changes, some of which have actually found their way into the beta game. I swear they stole 'em.
"Moonfury and Earth and Moon down to 3 ranks from 5, but keeping the same overall benefit. That buys you 4 extra talent points to get more utility or fun talents.
We are also going to buff Eclipse's damage a little so that you feel you're paid back for the extra proc-watching (and so I won't feel so lonely when I tell you I think it's fun)." (source)
LOLWUT. It's not that watching procs is hard (that's why we have Power Auras).
But hey, that four points off is awesome. We have a good number of 5-point talents, and in all trees it's always the chunky, 5pt talents that get you the passive damage buff. More damage to this. More crit with that. A lot of trimming down has been done in other trees, and now Balance gets its turn. I'm interested to try this out.
I might as well start talking about my fake tree sometime. If you want to see it, you can find it here. It's gone through five or six iterations with plenty of changes, some of which have actually found their way into the beta game. I swear they stole 'em.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Why Eclipse sucks and how to make it better
Quick update: got me my Fiery Enchant recipe, after the 8th kill. And so far, buisness ain't booming. Did a little bit of /2 spam, but there may not be a market for the 19/29 enchants, or at least not now and not on my server.
So let's talk talents, because that's what I intended to write about when I started this blog and named it "Talented." Note the banner. I made that in ten minutes, and I think I already hate it. What I'ma try to do is find that demon magic (PHP) that lets you queue up a different image every time the page loads. That way I can make a bunch of banners with different icons and color schemes to go with 'em. I just really like the Arcane Flows icon for some reason, so I used it.
Why Eclipse sucks
NOW let's talk talents. Specifically, let's talk Eclipse. It's a new deep Balance talent for Wrath. Also, it's apparently supposed to make our spell rotation slightly more interesting. I've done a bit of saying "Eclipse sucks" around these parts, and I still think it does. The numbers have changed slightly since it was first seen in the earliest stages of Wrath, but the concept of the talent remains the same. So what does Eclipse do?
Eclipse
3 ranks
Requires 40 points in Balance talents
When you critically hit with Starfire, you have a 100% chance of increasing damage done by Wrath by 10%. When you critically hit with Wrath, you have a 60% chance of increasing your critical strike chance with Starfire by 15%. Effect lasts 15 sec and has a 30 sec cooldown.
The idea is, you spam one nuke until you get a proc, and then you switch to your other nuke. Some parts of it sound alright, but there's a fundamental problem with this spell, and it's that it isn't useful at all. And here's why.
In PvE, you spam Starfire and keep Moonfire up. At least, that's how you do it in Burning Crusade. I think you can slip in Insect Swarm if you want to, and Blizz even wants us slipping in Faerie Fire (specifically, Improved Faerie Fire) for that wicked 3% to crit. But what some have already found IIRC is that the DPS loss from refreshing FF isn't worth the debuff.
Now, theoretically, the Starfire-to-Wrath proc is for PvE. You're spamming Starfire, you crit with Starfire, you get wicked 10% buff to Wrath for 15 seconds. Sounds great right? Naw. Why do Balance Druids spam Starfire and not Wrath? Wrath does more damage in 3 seconds than Starfire, but you're just killing your mana pool by keeping up the Wrath spam, and all your Nature's Grace procs stand to make you burn mana even faster.
Now, I don't know the numbers. A lot has happened with mana regen over the course of the Wrath beta; lots of casters saying they need more manas, Spirit has came back in a big way, on gear and in odd Spirit-to-something-more-useful talents and abilities. Maybe launching the light-blue balls will actually be OK; maybe it will be OK for the 15 seconds this buff lasts. But, you'll be able to keep it up for half of a boss fight. The effect lasts 15 seconds, and then you've got another 15 seconds before it procs. And the proc rate is 100% when you crit, so that's almost half a boss fight worth of Wrath spam, which I'd imagine is not good for your mana pool.
Bottom line: temporary Wrath damage does not incentivize casting it during a boss fight. If we could afford more damage, we would spam Wrath anyway.
----------
Now let's move on to the other proc, that goes from Wrath to Starfire, and increases the crit chance of Starfire by 15%, which is a lot. Now, at first this seems like the PvP side of the talent; like all 1.5 second spells, it's the favored spell in PvP for it's short cast time. This buff could also have PvE uses, but the changes to downranking have lessened its potential use.
By spamming Rank 1 Wrath until it crits, you could get the Starfire buff and then continue on as usual, but with a huge crit bonus for 15 seconds. Along with this idea goes the usual disclaimer that the numbers would have to be crunched. By even spamming a Rank 1 spell for a proc you're cutting into your DPS, and the proc only happens on 60% of spell crits. But, that's its potential use in PvE. These two abilities seem partially designed to work in tandem.
Now we go back to the PvP use of this side of Eclipse. With Wrath being the PvP spell, you're most likely to see this pop up when fighting other dudes. When I was discussing the SF2W proc, I said I think it's useless because PvE Druids mostly spam SF and mostly only spam SF. The same logic applies here, but in reverse: I wouldn't wind up a SF unless the enemy wasn't focused on me, and if they are only if they're rooted in place by me or someone else. And Frost Mage I ain't.
How to make Eclipse better
So what would I do? I would design the talent to better incentivize the casting of "the other nuke," be it Wrath of SF. An example tooltip:
Eclipse
x ranks
Requires x points in Balance talents
When you critically hit with Wrath, you have a x% chance to gain Lunar Eclipse, reducing the cast time of your next Starfire spell by 1.5 sec.
When you critically hit with Starfire, you have a x% chance to gain Solar Eclipse, causing your next Wrath spell to become instant cast and cost no mana. Each effect lasts 10 sec and both effects share a 30 sec cooldown.
Yes, I know I pretty much stole both ideas. Lunar Eclipse is like the 4-piece set bonus, Wrath of Elune, from the Balance Druid PvP gear. Solar Eclipse is like Brain Freeze in the Frost Mage trees. But, those are both fantastic bonuses and talents and give you an idea of how to make Eclipse better in concept.
While spamming Wrath in PvP, you suddenly get a SF with the same cast time; I've used it tons of times in PvP and it rocks. It's awesome. Then, while spamming SF in PvE, you get a chance to throw a free Wrath, incurring only a global cooldown for your trouble.
I have that goofy Balance tree I keep talking about, and this talent is on there. I really think its a good idea; I'd take it over the current Eclipse any day. I meant to do the blog series on that, and yet I've iterated on the tree several times now. Eclipse is currently in the 10th tier, sitting next to a 3-point Earth and Moon as a 2-point talent. I have it set as a 25/50% proc rate for both.
I'm all for making spell rotation more interesting through talents. We haven't seen much of it, but what there is is promising. A lot of Mage examples come to mind, including Missile Barrage, Fiery Payback, Firestarter, and Brain Freeze. Blizz has said on the beta forums that this is an issue they've been thinking about, but one that they don't feel they want to pull off this expansion. So when we're all level 90... man, that'll be the day.
So let's talk talents, because that's what I intended to write about when I started this blog and named it "Talented." Note the banner. I made that in ten minutes, and I think I already hate it. What I'ma try to do is find that demon magic (PHP) that lets you queue up a different image every time the page loads. That way I can make a bunch of banners with different icons and color schemes to go with 'em. I just really like the Arcane Flows icon for some reason, so I used it.
Why Eclipse sucks
NOW let's talk talents. Specifically, let's talk Eclipse. It's a new deep Balance talent for Wrath. Also, it's apparently supposed to make our spell rotation slightly more interesting. I've done a bit of saying "Eclipse sucks" around these parts, and I still think it does. The numbers have changed slightly since it was first seen in the earliest stages of Wrath, but the concept of the talent remains the same. So what does Eclipse do?
Eclipse
3 ranks
Requires 40 points in Balance talents
When you critically hit with Starfire, you have a 100% chance of increasing damage done by Wrath by 10%. When you critically hit with Wrath, you have a 60% chance of increasing your critical strike chance with Starfire by 15%. Effect lasts 15 sec and has a 30 sec cooldown.
The idea is, you spam one nuke until you get a proc, and then you switch to your other nuke. Some parts of it sound alright, but there's a fundamental problem with this spell, and it's that it isn't useful at all. And here's why.
In PvE, you spam Starfire and keep Moonfire up. At least, that's how you do it in Burning Crusade. I think you can slip in Insect Swarm if you want to, and Blizz even wants us slipping in Faerie Fire (specifically, Improved Faerie Fire) for that wicked 3% to crit. But what some have already found IIRC is that the DPS loss from refreshing FF isn't worth the debuff.
Now, theoretically, the Starfire-to-Wrath proc is for PvE. You're spamming Starfire, you crit with Starfire, you get wicked 10% buff to Wrath for 15 seconds. Sounds great right? Naw. Why do Balance Druids spam Starfire and not Wrath? Wrath does more damage in 3 seconds than Starfire, but you're just killing your mana pool by keeping up the Wrath spam, and all your Nature's Grace procs stand to make you burn mana even faster.
Now, I don't know the numbers. A lot has happened with mana regen over the course of the Wrath beta; lots of casters saying they need more manas, Spirit has came back in a big way, on gear and in odd Spirit-to-something-more-useful talents and abilities. Maybe launching the light-blue balls will actually be OK; maybe it will be OK for the 15 seconds this buff lasts. But, you'll be able to keep it up for half of a boss fight. The effect lasts 15 seconds, and then you've got another 15 seconds before it procs. And the proc rate is 100% when you crit, so that's almost half a boss fight worth of Wrath spam, which I'd imagine is not good for your mana pool.
Bottom line: temporary Wrath damage does not incentivize casting it during a boss fight. If we could afford more damage, we would spam Wrath anyway.
----------
Now let's move on to the other proc, that goes from Wrath to Starfire, and increases the crit chance of Starfire by 15%, which is a lot. Now, at first this seems like the PvP side of the talent; like all 1.5 second spells, it's the favored spell in PvP for it's short cast time. This buff could also have PvE uses, but the changes to downranking have lessened its potential use.
By spamming Rank 1 Wrath until it crits, you could get the Starfire buff and then continue on as usual, but with a huge crit bonus for 15 seconds. Along with this idea goes the usual disclaimer that the numbers would have to be crunched. By even spamming a Rank 1 spell for a proc you're cutting into your DPS, and the proc only happens on 60% of spell crits. But, that's its potential use in PvE. These two abilities seem partially designed to work in tandem.
Now we go back to the PvP use of this side of Eclipse. With Wrath being the PvP spell, you're most likely to see this pop up when fighting other dudes. When I was discussing the SF2W proc, I said I think it's useless because PvE Druids mostly spam SF and mostly only spam SF. The same logic applies here, but in reverse: I wouldn't wind up a SF unless the enemy wasn't focused on me, and if they are only if they're rooted in place by me or someone else. And Frost Mage I ain't.
How to make Eclipse better
So what would I do? I would design the talent to better incentivize the casting of "the other nuke," be it Wrath of SF. An example tooltip:
Eclipse
x ranks
Requires x points in Balance talents
When you critically hit with Wrath, you have a x% chance to gain Lunar Eclipse, reducing the cast time of your next Starfire spell by 1.5 sec.
When you critically hit with Starfire, you have a x% chance to gain Solar Eclipse, causing your next Wrath spell to become instant cast and cost no mana. Each effect lasts 10 sec and both effects share a 30 sec cooldown.
Yes, I know I pretty much stole both ideas. Lunar Eclipse is like the 4-piece set bonus, Wrath of Elune, from the Balance Druid PvP gear. Solar Eclipse is like Brain Freeze in the Frost Mage trees. But, those are both fantastic bonuses and talents and give you an idea of how to make Eclipse better in concept.
While spamming Wrath in PvP, you suddenly get a SF with the same cast time; I've used it tons of times in PvP and it rocks. It's awesome. Then, while spamming SF in PvE, you get a chance to throw a free Wrath, incurring only a global cooldown for your trouble.
I have that goofy Balance tree I keep talking about, and this talent is on there. I really think its a good idea; I'd take it over the current Eclipse any day. I meant to do the blog series on that, and yet I've iterated on the tree several times now. Eclipse is currently in the 10th tier, sitting next to a 3-point Earth and Moon as a 2-point talent. I have it set as a 25/50% proc rate for both.
I'm all for making spell rotation more interesting through talents. We haven't seen much of it, but what there is is promising. A lot of Mage examples come to mind, including Missile Barrage, Fiery Payback, Firestarter, and Brain Freeze. Blizz has said on the beta forums that this is an issue they've been thinking about, but one that they don't feel they want to pull off this expansion. So when we're all level 90... man, that'll be the day.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Blackrock Depths farming: a travelogue
Lemme tell you something: leveling professions sucks. My Mage, who is now level 57 and fast approaching Outland, is attempting to level Enchanting and Tailoring, the classic clothie profession combo. We're at something like 250 for each; Enchanting is a little higher. My goal was to get my professions to 300 before I was in Outland, so there would be less of me leveling my professions at 70 and more of me attempting to make money off of them.
On the Druid this happened really fast. Gathering professions are really easy to level, and with Alchemy, the amount of materials you need to advance in skill is much less, and all the stuff you're making you can probably use - compare making a stack of healing potions to making a stack of green robes. Hey, I can disenchant them, but they d/e into a type of dust I don't need anymore.
So, I've been doing 20-mintute runs through Zul'Farak to amass Mageweave, and just today I started farming Mr. Tauren Pyromancer Man for his fancy Fiery Weapon enchant, a.k.a. the bane of our exsistance while PvPing from 19-29. Got the key and everything, which took longer than I would have liked; I was pushing my luck a little by pulling five dudes at once that all have spell locks.
The recipe itself was selling for 50g IIRC today, which I guess isn't too bad. Chances are I won't try and get more than one; after five attempts I didn't get a single drop, so I'll just take one, thank you.
Granted, with Wrath less than two months away, endgame crafting... make that endgame anything won't do much for me. The Spellthread recipes require Exalted with the Shattrath City faction of your choice, and chances are I'm not willing to get myself to that point. It's probably best just to get to 375 so I'll be ready to tackle Grand Master Alchemy, Herbalism, Tailoring, and Enchanting... oh, and maybe, just maybe, Grand Master Fishing and Cooking.
I've seen some of the neat Fishing-related stuff in Wrath, but the act of fishing still just sucks. They need to like, double the skill-up potential on the high end. I'm sure it won't break the economy or anything if more people are making sweet food buffs.
On the Druid this happened really fast. Gathering professions are really easy to level, and with Alchemy, the amount of materials you need to advance in skill is much less, and all the stuff you're making you can probably use - compare making a stack of healing potions to making a stack of green robes. Hey, I can disenchant them, but they d/e into a type of dust I don't need anymore.
So, I've been doing 20-mintute runs through Zul'Farak to amass Mageweave, and just today I started farming Mr. Tauren Pyromancer Man for his fancy Fiery Weapon enchant, a.k.a. the bane of our exsistance while PvPing from 19-29. Got the key and everything, which took longer than I would have liked; I was pushing my luck a little by pulling five dudes at once that all have spell locks.
The recipe itself was selling for 50g IIRC today, which I guess isn't too bad. Chances are I won't try and get more than one; after five attempts I didn't get a single drop, so I'll just take one, thank you.
Granted, with Wrath less than two months away, endgame crafting... make that endgame anything won't do much for me. The Spellthread recipes require Exalted with the Shattrath City faction of your choice, and chances are I'm not willing to get myself to that point. It's probably best just to get to 375 so I'll be ready to tackle Grand Master Alchemy, Herbalism, Tailoring, and Enchanting... oh, and maybe, just maybe, Grand Master Fishing and Cooking.
I've seen some of the neat Fishing-related stuff in Wrath, but the act of fishing still just sucks. They need to like, double the skill-up potential on the high end. I'm sure it won't break the economy or anything if more people are making sweet food buffs.
Monday, September 29, 2008
ALL-OUT WAR
This is the buffer post. All "me" of you who are reading this will have to wait one more day for a real post.
So in the mean time, let's talk beta message boards. There's a nerd rage a brewin'. Need proof? Hit up the Mage board. Mages are upset, lemme tell ya. I think every class is upset about something. The number of protest threads or otherwise all-encompassing "PLEASE POST HERE" threads is ramping up.
But really, this game is so close to release, and 3.0.2 is even closer; where are the classes going to be when this patch is out? We already know some things won't be ready; besides the raid dungeons they leave out for 3.x patches, we know there are several long-term plans for certain aspects of the game. Examples:
- Making class mechanics more interesting in PvE
- Designing Protection trees to be viable in PvP
- The "uber looking visual and sound" for Shaman Resto talent Riptide
While Blizz expects all of the classes to be "balanced" by the time the patch hits, big, sweeping changes to game mechanics are not something they're interested in performing over the course of one expansion. In the words of Ghostcrawler:
"We think that is a totally valid concern. It's also not one unique to mages. We have been trying to address it for all of the classes who seem to have that problem, and you can probably identify most of the specific talents and abilities that we introduced for that purpose. But it's going to take time. With rare exceptions, we don't want to use an expansion to completely tear down a class and rebuild it back up again.
Throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak, risks losing a lot of established design work. That sounds like I am being lazy about our jobs, but what I actually mean is that all of the classes have evolved a lot over time. We have introduced various solutions to problems, players have figured out certain ways that the class works and what they should be paying attention to, the classes have a certain amount of depth, etc. We don't want to lose much of that when we add to an existing class, which is why the changes may feel like they come at a slower pace than you might actually prefer. Make sense?" (source)
It makes sense to me, but would it really hurt to push back the game a few months? They did it with Burning Crusade and I'm sure Blizzard handled it fine. Also, it'll give me some more time to level my Mage to 70 and attempt to Arena PvP before the honor reset.
The Mage is level 54 now, which is neato. Can't wait to get to Outland and start doing slightly more interesting quests. I really don't know if I'll be able to handle the 1-70 grind again after I get this character to 70. But I'd really like a new character to level Inscription and Herbalism. Grinding out professions everyone else is trying to grind out will not be any fun. But, can I capitalize on it by buying cheap herbs in bulk now and reselling them when the time is right? Or am I too late for that?
To the auction house!
So in the mean time, let's talk beta message boards. There's a nerd rage a brewin'. Need proof? Hit up the Mage board. Mages are upset, lemme tell ya. I think every class is upset about something. The number of protest threads or otherwise all-encompassing "PLEASE POST HERE" threads is ramping up.
But really, this game is so close to release, and 3.0.2 is even closer; where are the classes going to be when this patch is out? We already know some things won't be ready; besides the raid dungeons they leave out for 3.x patches, we know there are several long-term plans for certain aspects of the game. Examples:
- Making class mechanics more interesting in PvE
- Designing Protection trees to be viable in PvP
- The "uber looking visual and sound" for Shaman Resto talent Riptide
While Blizz expects all of the classes to be "balanced" by the time the patch hits, big, sweeping changes to game mechanics are not something they're interested in performing over the course of one expansion. In the words of Ghostcrawler:
"We think that is a totally valid concern. It's also not one unique to mages. We have been trying to address it for all of the classes who seem to have that problem, and you can probably identify most of the specific talents and abilities that we introduced for that purpose. But it's going to take time. With rare exceptions, we don't want to use an expansion to completely tear down a class and rebuild it back up again.
Throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak, risks losing a lot of established design work. That sounds like I am being lazy about our jobs, but what I actually mean is that all of the classes have evolved a lot over time. We have introduced various solutions to problems, players have figured out certain ways that the class works and what they should be paying attention to, the classes have a certain amount of depth, etc. We don't want to lose much of that when we add to an existing class, which is why the changes may feel like they come at a slower pace than you might actually prefer. Make sense?" (source)
It makes sense to me, but would it really hurt to push back the game a few months? They did it with Burning Crusade and I'm sure Blizzard handled it fine. Also, it'll give me some more time to level my Mage to 70 and attempt to Arena PvP before the honor reset.
The Mage is level 54 now, which is neato. Can't wait to get to Outland and start doing slightly more interesting quests. I really don't know if I'll be able to handle the 1-70 grind again after I get this character to 70. But I'd really like a new character to level Inscription and Herbalism. Grinding out professions everyone else is trying to grind out will not be any fun. But, can I capitalize on it by buying cheap herbs in bulk now and reselling them when the time is right? Or am I too late for that?
To the auction house!
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
You won't like these changes
Says Mr. Jeffrey Kaplan on the beta boards. I guess they pulled down the servers without the fifteen-minute warning. Whoops! From part of his post on what's in this build (and what will be in future builds):
"You won't like the ones [class changes] made to your own class but you'll think the changes made to the 9 other classes are all overpowered."
Luckily I don't see much in the way of wild sweeping changes. Here's what I found.
Druids
Typhoon range has been extended from 20 to 30 yards.
Insect Swarm hit chance reduction lowered from 5% to 3%. Damage increased. (1050 to 1290 for Rank 7, 792 to 1032 for Rank 6, etc ...)
Wrath damage has been increased. (489-551 to 553-623 for Rank 12, 414-466 to 504-568 for Rank 11, etc ...)
Stafire damage has been increased. (670-790 to 1028-1212 for Rank 10, 562-662 to 854-1006 for Rank 9, etc ...)
Great, great, great, and great. I'm fine with the tradeoff on Insect Swarm, especially when we get what looks like roughly a 20% damage increase.
Eclipse now increase your critical strike chance with Starfire by 15%. (up from 10%)
Oh, wait, Eclipse still sucks!
You can now cast Innervate while in Tree of Life Form
Good for Drooood healers. I didn't know it wasn't castable in Tree form, but it's something Tree Druids use, so that's great.
Mages
Arcane Blast cost is now increased by 200% for each cast. (Down from 300%)
As it turns out this ain't no typo. They don't want people spamming Arcane Blast. Here's the thing though: if they're going to make the principle mechanic of the spell useless, why don't they just remove it? Give the spell a 3 second cooldown.
Paladins
Hammer of Justice now also interrupts the spellcasting for 3 seconds on all ranks.
Hmmm.... this seems.... useless? The only scenario where I can think of this being useful is if you were to HoJ a Mage out of his Arcane tree, preventing him from Blinking out of the stun. But because the stun is longer than the lockout, unless you're going to trinket/EMFH/etc out of the stun, what good is it going to do? Even if you were to escape the stun early, it's a super-short lockout.
Rogues
Opportunity now works all the time. (Old - Only increased the damage of attacks from behind)
That's a pretty wicked boost for Assassination builds now that Mutilate doesn't require you to be behind your target.
Shaman
Stoneclaw totem also protects your other totems, causing them to absorb damage.
The highest-rank Stoneclaw Totem has over 1600 health on it, and coupled with the stun chance that makes for a longer-lasting totem. Only problem: using it in PvP locks out the use of SoE+GoA and the new talent-able Earthbind. But hey, at least it prevents stuff from being one-shot, and the more time someone's pet spends hitting your Stoneclaw Totem and getting stunned, the less time they spend on you. And you can drop it every 30 seconds!
I wonder if all this goes up on the PTRs. Last I checked it did, sans the Northrend content obviously. Still haven't renewed my subscription. I'll get to it eventually...
"You won't like the ones [class changes] made to your own class but you'll think the changes made to the 9 other classes are all overpowered."
Luckily I don't see much in the way of wild sweeping changes. Here's what I found.
Druids
Typhoon range has been extended from 20 to 30 yards.
Insect Swarm hit chance reduction lowered from 5% to 3%. Damage increased. (1050 to 1290 for Rank 7, 792 to 1032 for Rank 6, etc ...)
Wrath damage has been increased. (489-551 to 553-623 for Rank 12, 414-466 to 504-568 for Rank 11, etc ...)
Stafire damage has been increased. (670-790 to 1028-1212 for Rank 10, 562-662 to 854-1006 for Rank 9, etc ...)
Great, great, great, and great. I'm fine with the tradeoff on Insect Swarm, especially when we get what looks like roughly a 20% damage increase.
Eclipse now increase your critical strike chance with Starfire by 15%. (up from 10%)
Oh, wait, Eclipse still sucks!
You can now cast Innervate while in Tree of Life Form
Good for Drooood healers. I didn't know it wasn't castable in Tree form, but it's something Tree Druids use, so that's great.
Mages
Arcane Blast cost is now increased by 200% for each cast. (Down from 300%)
As it turns out this ain't no typo. They don't want people spamming Arcane Blast. Here's the thing though: if they're going to make the principle mechanic of the spell useless, why don't they just remove it? Give the spell a 3 second cooldown.
Paladins
Hammer of Justice now also interrupts the spellcasting for 3 seconds on all ranks.
Hmmm.... this seems.... useless? The only scenario where I can think of this being useful is if you were to HoJ a Mage out of his Arcane tree, preventing him from Blinking out of the stun. But because the stun is longer than the lockout, unless you're going to trinket/EMFH/etc out of the stun, what good is it going to do? Even if you were to escape the stun early, it's a super-short lockout.
Rogues
Opportunity now works all the time. (Old - Only increased the damage of attacks from behind)
That's a pretty wicked boost for Assassination builds now that Mutilate doesn't require you to be behind your target.
Shaman
Stoneclaw totem also protects your other totems, causing them to absorb damage.
The highest-rank Stoneclaw Totem has over 1600 health on it, and coupled with the stun chance that makes for a longer-lasting totem. Only problem: using it in PvP locks out the use of SoE+GoA and the new talent-able Earthbind. But hey, at least it prevents stuff from being one-shot, and the more time someone's pet spends hitting your Stoneclaw Totem and getting stunned, the less time they spend on you. And you can drop it every 30 seconds!
I wonder if all this goes up on the PTRs. Last I checked it did, sans the Northrend content obviously. Still haven't renewed my subscription. I'll get to it eventually...
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Pushback talents suffer
There's a widespread change happening to the way pushback talents work. We already know about the change to continued spell pushback; while casting a regular spell (Frostbolt, Arcane Blast), the first two hits against you will increase the spell's cast time by 0.5 seconds. However, after the second hit, every other hit after that will be pushback-free for the remainder of the cast.
While channeling a spell (Blizzard, Arcane Missiles), damaging attacks will cut the total time channeled by 25% (that would be 2 seconds per hit while channeling Blizzard, and 1.25 seconds off your Arcane Missiles, effectively removing one missile from your spell). Like regular spellcasting, you will only suffer pushback twice while channeling a spell.
Now, another change has been made to talents that offer[ed] pushback resistance. Pretty much every caster class has talents that increase your chance to resist spell pushback; many of these spells give you a 70% resist chance. Obviously these talents are very useful, especially in PvP. However, all of these talents have been changed; instead of giving you x% chance to fully resist pushback, instead they reduce the amount of pushback suffered by x%. I suppose that means if normally an attack would increase a spell's duration by 0.5 sec (for a total of 1 extra second of cast time), 70% less pushback would mean only 0.15 sec added to the cast time (for a total of 0.3 sec).
Talents affected by this change include:
Nature's Focus for Balance/Resto Druids
Improved Barrage for Marks Hunters
Arcane Stability for Arcane Mages and Burning Soul for Fire Mages; note that because Arcane Stability is 100% anyway, there's no real change to how the talent works when maxed out.
Spiritual Focus for Holy Paladins
Healing Focus for Holy Priests and Improved Shadowform for Shadow Priests
Eye of the Storm for Ele Shaman and Healing Focus for Resto Shaman; note that EotS didn't offer pushback resistance in Burning Crusade.
Fel Concentration for Affliction Locks and Intensity for Destro Locks
When I first heard about the changes to spell/channeling pushback, my intial thoughts were this: if you're casting a fast spell, it won't matter because you won't get to three hits anyway, and if you're casting a slightly slower spell, it won't matter because by the time you reach pushback immunity at three hits, whatever melee class is beating on you is going to find a way to interrupt your spell or otherwise screw you.
I'm sure the changes to pushback talents exsist because Blizzard is hesitant to grant casters nearly complete pushback immunity: with a 70% chance to fully resist pushback, and only two chances to be pushed back per cast, that's a really good chance to experience no pushback on most of your spells. So instead, with talents you only get 0.15 seconds per hit on your spells, which really doesn't sound bad.
I have a caster Druid with Nature's Focus, and I have a Mage I could spec back into the Fire tree and Burning Soul. I need to get on the PTR and do some random soloing and try this out. Theoretically I'm against the change to pushback talents, but maybe I'll find it doesn't actually mean much anyway.
But before I can do that, I need a new card. Account expired on Friday. Gotta see that Brewfest! I let my account expire during Children's Week, which made me sad :( No mini Elekk for me.
While channeling a spell (Blizzard, Arcane Missiles), damaging attacks will cut the total time channeled by 25% (that would be 2 seconds per hit while channeling Blizzard, and 1.25 seconds off your Arcane Missiles, effectively removing one missile from your spell). Like regular spellcasting, you will only suffer pushback twice while channeling a spell.
Now, another change has been made to talents that offer[ed] pushback resistance. Pretty much every caster class has talents that increase your chance to resist spell pushback; many of these spells give you a 70% resist chance. Obviously these talents are very useful, especially in PvP. However, all of these talents have been changed; instead of giving you x% chance to fully resist pushback, instead they reduce the amount of pushback suffered by x%. I suppose that means if normally an attack would increase a spell's duration by 0.5 sec (for a total of 1 extra second of cast time), 70% less pushback would mean only 0.15 sec added to the cast time (for a total of 0.3 sec).
Talents affected by this change include:
Nature's Focus for Balance/Resto Druids
Improved Barrage for Marks Hunters
Arcane Stability for Arcane Mages and Burning Soul for Fire Mages; note that because Arcane Stability is 100% anyway, there's no real change to how the talent works when maxed out.
Spiritual Focus for Holy Paladins
Healing Focus for Holy Priests and Improved Shadowform for Shadow Priests
Eye of the Storm for Ele Shaman and Healing Focus for Resto Shaman; note that EotS didn't offer pushback resistance in Burning Crusade.
Fel Concentration for Affliction Locks and Intensity for Destro Locks
When I first heard about the changes to spell/channeling pushback, my intial thoughts were this: if you're casting a fast spell, it won't matter because you won't get to three hits anyway, and if you're casting a slightly slower spell, it won't matter because by the time you reach pushback immunity at three hits, whatever melee class is beating on you is going to find a way to interrupt your spell or otherwise screw you.
I'm sure the changes to pushback talents exsist because Blizzard is hesitant to grant casters nearly complete pushback immunity: with a 70% chance to fully resist pushback, and only two chances to be pushed back per cast, that's a really good chance to experience no pushback on most of your spells. So instead, with talents you only get 0.15 seconds per hit on your spells, which really doesn't sound bad.
I have a caster Druid with Nature's Focus, and I have a Mage I could spec back into the Fire tree and Burning Soul. I need to get on the PTR and do some random soloing and try this out. Theoretically I'm against the change to pushback talents, but maybe I'll find it doesn't actually mean much anyway.
But before I can do that, I need a new card. Account expired on Friday. Gotta see that Brewfest! I let my account expire during Children's Week, which made me sad :( No mini Elekk for me.
Friday, September 19, 2008
EMERGENCY BETA PATCH POST
*queue news-ish theme*
This just in, there's a beta build and such. Wasn't there just one a few days ago? Oh well... what news does this patch bring for us Droods?
Earth and Moon Rank 1 damage increase changed from "1 to 6%" to 3%.
I don't get this; I thought all ranks just gave you the full 13% damage buff. Now you have to dump five points into it to get the full effect. Darn. It really does seem like they wanted people to max out this talent. At first it was a 20% chance per rank to apply the full effect; next they tacked on 1-5% extra spell damage to try and incentivize maxing out the talent. But even that's not really worth it, so instead they force us in a sense to go 5/5. Maybe if I raided I could just get a Warlock to throw up the dang base Curse of Elements?
Improved Moonkin Form now causes affected targets to gain 1/2% haste (down from 3/3%)
This confuses me, sort of. Last I checked, Balance Druids don't benefit from haste like other classes do. Somehow we've ended up with +6% to haste through talents, and they're just lopping off 1% because whatever? Those minute adjustments just seem odd to me. Plus, while I do find 1% less spell haste on a talent strange, I can't say I really care.
Nature's Grace changed from 1 to 3 points and now has a 33/66/100% proc rate. (Old - 100%)
Nature's Splendor changed from 3 to 1 point. Now Increases the duration of your Moonfire, Insect Swarm, and Rejuvenation spells by 3 sec, your Regrowth spell by 6 sec, and your Lifebloom spell by 3 sec.
This is just really weird. They haven't acually changed how you spend your points. I'm sure most people would be taking Nature's Splendor anyway (Balance and Restoration), so why swap the point values of these two talents? It turns our actual 11-point talent into even more of a passive one than Nature's Grace. Change it back! This change was not needed as it does nothing!
Other random stuff:
Mages
New spell - Polymorph - Black Cat
New spell - Polymorph - Serpent
Will this lessen the QQ over Polymorph: Penguin?
Arcane Potency now Increases the critical strike chance of your next damaging spell by 15/30% after gaining Clearcasting or Presence of Mind.
I'm pretty sure the ability to keep up PoM forever as long as you chained instant-cast spells is still out, which is too bad. That looked like it would have been a lot of fun.
Priests
Dispersion doesn't increase your spell damage anymore if it runs its full duration without you taking damage.
And thus its hope of ever being more than a grinding tool or a PVP toy goes out the window?
Lastly, as an Alchemist, this ability sounds great to me:
Northrend Alchemy Research: Experiment with Northrend herbs to discover a new Alchemy recipe. Can only be done every 7 days.
The cooldown is wicked long, but the proc rate on new, fat loots is supposed to be very good; sounds better than sitting around hoping for new transmutes. After two months of xmutes almost every day I got maybe two recipes?
Wait... how do you discover how to transmute metal by throwing a bunch of herbs in a pile and "experimenting" with them?
I really feel sorry for Ghostcrawler and Koraa; while they're not the only ones who work on class balancing, they have to face all the crap of the QQers. They may be swimming in money considering they work for Blizzard, but you probably slowly lose your mind the longer you spend on internet message boards as part of your job.
From what I've heard, Blizzard doesn't care about Balance Druids one bit. Also, they don't care about Priests, Death Knights, Hunters, Rogues, or Shaman. Maybe they want us all to go play Warhammer; that must be it.
This just in, there's a beta build and such. Wasn't there just one a few days ago? Oh well... what news does this patch bring for us Droods?
Earth and Moon Rank 1 damage increase changed from "1 to 6%" to 3%.
I don't get this; I thought all ranks just gave you the full 13% damage buff. Now you have to dump five points into it to get the full effect. Darn. It really does seem like they wanted people to max out this talent. At first it was a 20% chance per rank to apply the full effect; next they tacked on 1-5% extra spell damage to try and incentivize maxing out the talent. But even that's not really worth it, so instead they force us in a sense to go 5/5. Maybe if I raided I could just get a Warlock to throw up the dang base Curse of Elements?
Improved Moonkin Form now causes affected targets to gain 1/2% haste (down from 3/3%)
This confuses me, sort of. Last I checked, Balance Druids don't benefit from haste like other classes do. Somehow we've ended up with +6% to haste through talents, and they're just lopping off 1% because whatever? Those minute adjustments just seem odd to me. Plus, while I do find 1% less spell haste on a talent strange, I can't say I really care.
Nature's Grace changed from 1 to 3 points and now has a 33/66/100% proc rate. (Old - 100%)
Nature's Splendor changed from 3 to 1 point. Now Increases the duration of your Moonfire, Insect Swarm, and Rejuvenation spells by 3 sec, your Regrowth spell by 6 sec, and your Lifebloom spell by 3 sec.
This is just really weird. They haven't acually changed how you spend your points. I'm sure most people would be taking Nature's Splendor anyway (Balance and Restoration), so why swap the point values of these two talents? It turns our actual 11-point talent into even more of a passive one than Nature's Grace. Change it back! This change was not needed as it does nothing!
Other random stuff:
Mages
New spell - Polymorph - Black Cat
New spell - Polymorph - Serpent
Will this lessen the QQ over Polymorph: Penguin?
Arcane Potency now Increases the critical strike chance of your next damaging spell by 15/30% after gaining Clearcasting or Presence of Mind.
I'm pretty sure the ability to keep up PoM forever as long as you chained instant-cast spells is still out, which is too bad. That looked like it would have been a lot of fun.
Priests
Dispersion doesn't increase your spell damage anymore if it runs its full duration without you taking damage.
And thus its hope of ever being more than a grinding tool or a PVP toy goes out the window?
Lastly, as an Alchemist, this ability sounds great to me:
Northrend Alchemy Research: Experiment with Northrend herbs to discover a new Alchemy recipe. Can only be done every 7 days.
The cooldown is wicked long, but the proc rate on new, fat loots is supposed to be very good; sounds better than sitting around hoping for new transmutes. After two months of xmutes almost every day I got maybe two recipes?
Wait... how do you discover how to transmute metal by throwing a bunch of herbs in a pile and "experimenting" with them?
I really feel sorry for Ghostcrawler and Koraa; while they're not the only ones who work on class balancing, they have to face all the crap of the QQers. They may be swimming in money considering they work for Blizzard, but you probably slowly lose your mind the longer you spend on internet message boards as part of your job.
From what I've heard, Blizzard doesn't care about Balance Druids one bit. Also, they don't care about Priests, Death Knights, Hunters, Rogues, or Shaman. Maybe they want us all to go play Warhammer; that must be it.
Build 8962 notes
Problem: I have the first article in a series of articles about my Balance Druid talent tree, but there's been probably 4 or 5 builds worth of changes to that tree, many things I'd like to stick in mine. So I might as well just throw out that post, update my tree (with my new ideas and what Blizz has done), and start over. THAT will sure be fun.
Let's talk Boomkins, and then anything else that catches my interest. All of this comes from MMO-Champion.
Druid: Balance
Earth and Moon (Tier 10) changed so your Wrath and Starfire spells have a 100% chance to apply the Earth and Moon effect. It now also increases your spell damage by 1/2/3/4/5%. (Previously had a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to apply the Earth and Moon Effect)
We like more spell damage, but the spell damage was probably added to incentivize going 5/5 in the talent; previously most people probably would have saved 2 talent points by going 3/5 for a 60% proc rate.
Eclipse (Tier 9) changed so when you critically hit with Starfire, you have a 33/66/100% chance of increasing damage done by Wrath by 10%. (Previously 20/40/60% chance)
Eclipse still sucks, and that's all. I might give this talent its own post, because I have ideas for how to make it better.
Improved Moonkin Aura (Tier 7) gives 3% spell haste for all ranks and now you gain 5/10/15% of your spirit as additional spell damage.
I was hoping for Spirit to Spell Crit, but a blue post on the Druid boards says that they think that's too much crit, dangit. But only fifteen percent? If Druids have 400 Spirit, that's only 60 spell damage. Maybe they'll have more than that, but give them 100 more Spirit and the damage increase still isn't much.
Improved Faerie Fire (Tier 7) increases your critical strike chance against targets afflicted with Faerie Fire by 1/2/3%.
We like crit, but I'll leave it to the theorycrafters to determine if the mana and global cooldown lost on keeping FF up will justify the additional crit. And is it your personal crit chance or is it the crit chance for the whole raid? They should clarify the tooltip.
Nature's Splendor (Tier 3) changed to - When you cast Moonfire, Insect Swarm, Rejuvenation, Regrowth or Lifebloom you have a 33/66/100% chance to increase it's duration by 3 sec.
Makes more sense than the old way, considering most periodic spells tick every 3 seconds, except Lifebloom.
Druid: Restoration
Gift of the Wild now affects the whole raid.
We like this; less reagents when buffing the raid. Not that uh, I've ever been in a group larger than five people.
Lifebloom healing reduced. Mana cost increased. (Check Skill list for details)
Oh noes! More nerfs to Lifebloom. Yet Another Blue Post I may need to talk about is the one about the shift Blizz wants to make in Druid healing. They want it to be less reliant on Lifebloom; they want to get Druids out of the "roll LB + place HoTs in between" thing. Also, apparently the healing coefficients on Lifebloom when BC launched were too high. So it's a total accident that Druids are good healers, basically.
Flourish renamed Wild Growth.
Whhhaaat? That's my sweet Herbalism heal. That I can use in Moonkin Form.
Wild Growth renamed Lifeblood. Lame! That's a name that is dumb I think.
Druid: Feral
Glyph of Swipe has been removed.
IIRC (and hey, who checks facts these days?), Glyph of Swipe upped the number of targets hit by a Swipe from 3 to 4, which sounds really good. Instead, we get this...
Glyph of Maul has been added - Your Maul ability now hits 1 additional target.
I don't get it. I haven't Bear tanked on my Druid since Zul'Farak, but I'm pretty sure I spammed Swipe most of the time. Which, you know, may or may not be how you "AoE tank," but it worked good enough for me. So why are they giving the Bear tanks two methods of hitting more than one dude? Like I said, maybe I'm out of my mind, but I would think most Ferals would rather have a 4-target swipe than a 2-target Maul.
Mage: Arcane
Arcane Blast changed. Each time you cast Arcane Blast, the damage is increased by 15% and mana cost is increased by 300%. (Previously 25% damage increase and 75% mana increase, but the 300% is most likely a typo and should be 30%)
Ha ha. I wonder if that typo reflects in-game? Probably not, but I would like to see the numbers for that.
Mage: Fire
Flamestrike mana cost reduced and is now a 2 sec cast. (Previously 3 sec cast)
This might make the Firestarter talent more attractive.
Mage: Frost
Frozen Core (Tier 5) now reduces damage taken by all spells. (Previously only affected fire and frost)
This seemed like a useless talent before, when it only mitigated Fire and Frost damage.
Shatter (Tier 4) is now 3 ranks. It increases the critical strike chance of all your spells against frozen targets by 17/34/50%. (Previously 5 ranks and increased by 10/20/30/40/50%)
Ice Shards (Tier 2) is now 3 ranks. It increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Frost spells by 33/66/100%. (Previously 5 ranks and increased by 20/40/60/80/100%)
We like the condensing of talents, especially the "necessary" talents that Blizzard is trying to cut down on. Simply cutting down on the point cost works great.
Paladin: Glyphs
Glyph of Turn Evil now Reduces the casting time of your Turn Evil spell by 100%. (Old - Reduces the cooldown on Turn Evil by 5 sec.)
Chain-fear those dang Metamorphisizeded Warlocks!
Priest: Shadow
Dispersion (Tier 11) changed to - You disperse into pure Shadow energy, reducing all damage taken by 90%. You are unable to attack or cast spells, but you regenerate 6% mana every 1 sec for 6 sec. Dispersion can be cast while stunned, feared or silenced. If Dispersion runs its full duration, and you are not the victim of any damage or harmful effects during its duration, your spells gain 25% damage for 1 min.
So it's like Barkskin now, but way better in terms of damage reduction. And the spell damage will make it better for grouping, since 6 sec. without damage is probably 6 sec. too much for a lot of people.
Rogue: Assassination
Ambush damage increased. (Check skill list for details)
Rogues rejoice!
Focused Attacks (Tier 8) gives your melee critical strikes 100% chance to generate 1/2/3 Energy. (Previously 30% chance)
Still doesn't sound good; it should be at least 10 energy. Rather, 10 energy with a low proc rate.
Rogue: Combat
Backstab damage increased. (Check skill list for details)
Rogues continue to rejoice...
Shaman: Enhancement
*New Talent* Earthen Power (Tier 9) - Your Earthbind Totem has a 50/100% chance to also remove all snare effects from you and nearby friendly targets when it pulses.
That's pretty neat.
Warlock: Glyphs
Glyph of Unending Breath - Increases the swim speed of targets affected by your Unending Breath spell by 20%.
Why do Shaman still have to spend a reagent for the same effect?
Warrior: Fury
*New Talent* Heroic Fury (Tier 9) - Removes any Immobilization effects and refreshes the cooldown of your Intercept ability. (45 Sec Cooldown)
This makes casters sad, but it's something PVP Warriors have really needed.
Warrior: Protection
Tactical Mastery has been moved to Tier 2 Arms.
Makes more sense there.
Well, that's all I see that's interesting. Because, you know, I just kinda skimmed it.
WHAT'S THIS?!
*New Skill* Freezing Arrow (Level 80) - Fire a freezing arrow that places a Freezing Trap at the target location, freezing the first enemy that approaches, preventing all action for up to 20 sec. Any damage caused will break the ice. Trap will exist for . Only one trap can be active at a time. (3% of base mana, 40 yd range, Instant cast, 30 sec cooldown)
That's pretty neat. That's really neat. Based on some forum browsin', the only problem is you have to use the target cirlce. And as we all know, aiming a targeting circle in PVP is usually coupled with fail, as you're either standing still while you aim it or your running backwards useless or something like that. I'm sure they won't make it a direct target; that would be too easy.
Let's talk Boomkins, and then anything else that catches my interest. All of this comes from MMO-Champion.
Druid: Balance
Earth and Moon (Tier 10) changed so your Wrath and Starfire spells have a 100% chance to apply the Earth and Moon effect. It now also increases your spell damage by 1/2/3/4/5%. (Previously had a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to apply the Earth and Moon Effect)
We like more spell damage, but the spell damage was probably added to incentivize going 5/5 in the talent; previously most people probably would have saved 2 talent points by going 3/5 for a 60% proc rate.
Eclipse (Tier 9) changed so when you critically hit with Starfire, you have a 33/66/100% chance of increasing damage done by Wrath by 10%. (Previously 20/40/60% chance)
Eclipse still sucks, and that's all. I might give this talent its own post, because I have ideas for how to make it better.
Improved Moonkin Aura (Tier 7) gives 3% spell haste for all ranks and now you gain 5/10/15% of your spirit as additional spell damage.
I was hoping for Spirit to Spell Crit, but a blue post on the Druid boards says that they think that's too much crit, dangit. But only fifteen percent? If Druids have 400 Spirit, that's only 60 spell damage. Maybe they'll have more than that, but give them 100 more Spirit and the damage increase still isn't much.
Improved Faerie Fire (Tier 7) increases your critical strike chance against targets afflicted with Faerie Fire by 1/2/3%.
We like crit, but I'll leave it to the theorycrafters to determine if the mana and global cooldown lost on keeping FF up will justify the additional crit. And is it your personal crit chance or is it the crit chance for the whole raid? They should clarify the tooltip.
Nature's Splendor (Tier 3) changed to - When you cast Moonfire, Insect Swarm, Rejuvenation, Regrowth or Lifebloom you have a 33/66/100% chance to increase it's duration by 3 sec.
Makes more sense than the old way, considering most periodic spells tick every 3 seconds, except Lifebloom.
Druid: Restoration
Gift of the Wild now affects the whole raid.
We like this; less reagents when buffing the raid. Not that uh, I've ever been in a group larger than five people.
Lifebloom healing reduced. Mana cost increased. (Check Skill list for details)
Oh noes! More nerfs to Lifebloom. Yet Another Blue Post I may need to talk about is the one about the shift Blizz wants to make in Druid healing. They want it to be less reliant on Lifebloom; they want to get Druids out of the "roll LB + place HoTs in between" thing. Also, apparently the healing coefficients on Lifebloom when BC launched were too high. So it's a total accident that Druids are good healers, basically.
Flourish renamed Wild Growth.
Whhhaaat? That's my sweet Herbalism heal. That I can use in Moonkin Form.
Wild Growth renamed Lifeblood. Lame! That's a name that is dumb I think.
Druid: Feral
Glyph of Swipe has been removed.
IIRC (and hey, who checks facts these days?), Glyph of Swipe upped the number of targets hit by a Swipe from 3 to 4, which sounds really good. Instead, we get this...
Glyph of Maul has been added - Your Maul ability now hits 1 additional target.
I don't get it. I haven't Bear tanked on my Druid since Zul'Farak, but I'm pretty sure I spammed Swipe most of the time. Which, you know, may or may not be how you "AoE tank," but it worked good enough for me. So why are they giving the Bear tanks two methods of hitting more than one dude? Like I said, maybe I'm out of my mind, but I would think most Ferals would rather have a 4-target swipe than a 2-target Maul.
Mage: Arcane
Arcane Blast changed. Each time you cast Arcane Blast, the damage is increased by 15% and mana cost is increased by 300%. (Previously 25% damage increase and 75% mana increase, but the 300% is most likely a typo and should be 30%)
Ha ha. I wonder if that typo reflects in-game? Probably not, but I would like to see the numbers for that.
Mage: Fire
Flamestrike mana cost reduced and is now a 2 sec cast. (Previously 3 sec cast)
This might make the Firestarter talent more attractive.
Mage: Frost
Frozen Core (Tier 5) now reduces damage taken by all spells. (Previously only affected fire and frost)
This seemed like a useless talent before, when it only mitigated Fire and Frost damage.
Shatter (Tier 4) is now 3 ranks. It increases the critical strike chance of all your spells against frozen targets by 17/34/50%. (Previously 5 ranks and increased by 10/20/30/40/50%)
Ice Shards (Tier 2) is now 3 ranks. It increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Frost spells by 33/66/100%. (Previously 5 ranks and increased by 20/40/60/80/100%)
We like the condensing of talents, especially the "necessary" talents that Blizzard is trying to cut down on. Simply cutting down on the point cost works great.
Paladin: Glyphs
Glyph of Turn Evil now Reduces the casting time of your Turn Evil spell by 100%. (Old - Reduces the cooldown on Turn Evil by 5 sec.)
Chain-fear those dang Metamorphisizeded Warlocks!
Priest: Shadow
Dispersion (Tier 11) changed to - You disperse into pure Shadow energy, reducing all damage taken by 90%. You are unable to attack or cast spells, but you regenerate 6% mana every 1 sec for 6 sec. Dispersion can be cast while stunned, feared or silenced. If Dispersion runs its full duration, and you are not the victim of any damage or harmful effects during its duration, your spells gain 25% damage for 1 min.
So it's like Barkskin now, but way better in terms of damage reduction. And the spell damage will make it better for grouping, since 6 sec. without damage is probably 6 sec. too much for a lot of people.
Rogue: Assassination
Ambush damage increased. (Check skill list for details)
Rogues rejoice!
Focused Attacks (Tier 8) gives your melee critical strikes 100% chance to generate 1/2/3 Energy. (Previously 30% chance)
Still doesn't sound good; it should be at least 10 energy. Rather, 10 energy with a low proc rate.
Rogue: Combat
Backstab damage increased. (Check skill list for details)
Rogues continue to rejoice...
Shaman: Enhancement
*New Talent* Earthen Power (Tier 9) - Your Earthbind Totem has a 50/100% chance to also remove all snare effects from you and nearby friendly targets when it pulses.
That's pretty neat.
Warlock: Glyphs
Glyph of Unending Breath - Increases the swim speed of targets affected by your Unending Breath spell by 20%.
Why do Shaman still have to spend a reagent for the same effect?
Warrior: Fury
*New Talent* Heroic Fury (Tier 9) - Removes any Immobilization effects and refreshes the cooldown of your Intercept ability. (45 Sec Cooldown)
This makes casters sad, but it's something PVP Warriors have really needed.
Warrior: Protection
Tactical Mastery has been moved to Tier 2 Arms.
Makes more sense there.
Well, that's all I see that's interesting. Because, you know, I just kinda skimmed it.
WHAT'S THIS?!
*New Skill* Freezing Arrow (Level 80) - Fire a freezing arrow that places a Freezing Trap at the target location, freezing the first enemy that approaches, preventing all action for up to 20 sec. Any damage caused will break the ice. Trap will exist for . Only one trap can be active at a time. (3% of base mana, 40 yd range, Instant cast, 30 sec cooldown)
That's pretty neat. That's really neat. Based on some forum browsin', the only problem is you have to use the target cirlce. And as we all know, aiming a targeting circle in PVP is usually coupled with fail, as you're either standing still while you aim it or your running backwards useless or something like that. I'm sure they won't make it a direct target; that would be too easy.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Notes from the PTR
My character copied in like one day. It's probably a good thing I got in as soon as I could, because copies are taking even longer now. Result: tons of level 1 people trolling the starting area chat.
Observations so far, as seen from my Druid:
- I had to change my character's name from "Rawfle" to "Notrawfle."
- When I copied old [Not]Rawfle, I was logged out in a Shattered Sun building. Because this is a new server, there's no progression yet on the Isle; it's just that one building with a handful of quests. I didn't die, but I was a bit confused at first why dudes were hitting me as soon as I zoned in.
- Not having mods is way wierd.
- Orgrimmar is way laggy, because people really have nothing to do but duel to try the new stuff.
- Those last two make for a deadly combination for me. My build is 51/0/10, so I got Starfall and Typhoon, but I had to skip on the new and improved Omen of Clarity, along with Intensity. The problem is, my gear is crap, and I suck at PVP. AND, I don't have any of my mods, and I use a lot of mods. Pitbull, Dominos, Power Auras, etc... all these things that help me do better. Thus, I lose a lot of duels. I've mostly been beating Warriors and stupid Paladins. Maybe I'm a noob because I depend on mods, but who doesn't?
- It'd be nice if we could get 1c respecs. :(
- Speaking of talents, I've got an interesting bug on my talent window. I spent all my points, but when I went to look at it later it said I was 48/0/10, and I had three talent points left. But, while my 3/5 Earth and Moon and 1/1 Starfall were still filled in, Starfall was greyed out, because you need 50 points in a tree to get to its last tier. Just an peculiar bug. I didn't try spending the 3 bugged points; I thought the world might end or something.
- I got my Tauren some wicked horns that shoot straight up. The total cost of sawing (?) my character's bovine features and coloring them white cost a grand total of 14 gold! Wow! I stuck with the braided beard, although I may change that at some point, bringing my total cost up even more.
- Who's actually going to "test" Inscription? You're only option, really, is to already be an Herbalist so you can either grind out the mats yourself or be lucky enough to have some Peacebloom lying around your bank. You can't just buy herbs off the auction house, because these are new servers. What you can do, however, is buy a metric ton of herbs off the AH on the live servers, then copy your character and go to town. However people find ways to level Inscription, it would be filled with pain and misery I'm guessing.
- The treants have a pet bar! We like that. I didn't check what behavior they set to, but they do attack as soon as I summon them. Obviously they still die fast and have no real use other than annoyance.
- I miss OPie; it helps me condense a lot of crap into a few keystrokes. Like, I normally have all my CC (ER, NG, WS, Cyc) on the 4 key,and all my forms and mount on `. Can't do that now, unless I can get that mod running on the PTR client. Maybe I can.
--------------------
Not a lot to do on the PTR really. I probably will just stay Balance and continue dueling people. But what about the new skills? I can't seem to get Typhoon to work, or at least the knockback, so we'll call that a bug. I did keep standing still to cast it, because I kept thinking it had a 1.5 sec cast time (it had that in beta).
Starfall seems best when paired with Celestial Focus, giving every single star hit on your target a 15% stun chance. I was dueling a Warlock and I had her chain-stunned for maybe 6 sec. So that was fun. The cooldown seems a bit long. I think one minute would be better, or two minutes. Also, the act of summoning stars is a buff on you, meaning someone can dispel it and stop the spell. That sucks, but probably a coding limitation. If it was a targeted AOE or a point-blank AOE, you could move out of its range, making it useless. It probably has to be a buff so the game can use your current position to determine what targets are in range. So can they make it an invisible buff or something?
--------------------
It's only been a week, dangit! Why am I taking five days to make new posts?! Got two almost ready. So don't you loyal readers fret (all one of you). More delicious content is on the way.
Observations so far, as seen from my Druid:
- I had to change my character's name from "Rawfle" to "Notrawfle."
- When I copied old [Not]Rawfle, I was logged out in a Shattered Sun building. Because this is a new server, there's no progression yet on the Isle; it's just that one building with a handful of quests. I didn't die, but I was a bit confused at first why dudes were hitting me as soon as I zoned in.
- Not having mods is way wierd.
- Orgrimmar is way laggy, because people really have nothing to do but duel to try the new stuff.
- Those last two make for a deadly combination for me. My build is 51/0/10, so I got Starfall and Typhoon, but I had to skip on the new and improved Omen of Clarity, along with Intensity. The problem is, my gear is crap, and I suck at PVP. AND, I don't have any of my mods, and I use a lot of mods. Pitbull, Dominos, Power Auras, etc... all these things that help me do better. Thus, I lose a lot of duels. I've mostly been beating Warriors and stupid Paladins. Maybe I'm a noob because I depend on mods, but who doesn't?
- It'd be nice if we could get 1c respecs. :(
- Speaking of talents, I've got an interesting bug on my talent window. I spent all my points, but when I went to look at it later it said I was 48/0/10, and I had three talent points left. But, while my 3/5 Earth and Moon and 1/1 Starfall were still filled in, Starfall was greyed out, because you need 50 points in a tree to get to its last tier. Just an peculiar bug. I didn't try spending the 3 bugged points; I thought the world might end or something.
- I got my Tauren some wicked horns that shoot straight up. The total cost of sawing (?) my character's bovine features and coloring them white cost a grand total of 14 gold! Wow! I stuck with the braided beard, although I may change that at some point, bringing my total cost up even more.
- Who's actually going to "test" Inscription? You're only option, really, is to already be an Herbalist so you can either grind out the mats yourself or be lucky enough to have some Peacebloom lying around your bank. You can't just buy herbs off the auction house, because these are new servers. What you can do, however, is buy a metric ton of herbs off the AH on the live servers, then copy your character and go to town. However people find ways to level Inscription, it would be filled with pain and misery I'm guessing.
- The treants have a pet bar! We like that. I didn't check what behavior they set to, but they do attack as soon as I summon them. Obviously they still die fast and have no real use other than annoyance.
- I miss OPie; it helps me condense a lot of crap into a few keystrokes. Like, I normally have all my CC (ER, NG, WS, Cyc) on the 4 key,and all my forms and mount on `. Can't do that now, unless I can get that mod running on the PTR client. Maybe I can.
--------------------
Not a lot to do on the PTR really. I probably will just stay Balance and continue dueling people. But what about the new skills? I can't seem to get Typhoon to work, or at least the knockback, so we'll call that a bug. I did keep standing still to cast it, because I kept thinking it had a 1.5 sec cast time (it had that in beta).
Starfall seems best when paired with Celestial Focus, giving every single star hit on your target a 15% stun chance. I was dueling a Warlock and I had her chain-stunned for maybe 6 sec. So that was fun. The cooldown seems a bit long. I think one minute would be better, or two minutes. Also, the act of summoning stars is a buff on you, meaning someone can dispel it and stop the spell. That sucks, but probably a coding limitation. If it was a targeted AOE or a point-blank AOE, you could move out of its range, making it useless. It probably has to be a buff so the game can use your current position to determine what targets are in range. So can they make it an invisible buff or something?
--------------------
It's only been a week, dangit! Why am I taking five days to make new posts?! Got two almost ready. So don't you loyal readers fret (all one of you). More delicious content is on the way.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Establishing Goals
News flash: I had a really, really, long post going, and then it vanished. See, I didn't have the foresight to periodically save my Notepad, especially while writing it on a frequently unstable laptop that wasn't plugged in. Usually it warns me the battery is about to run dry, but its day came to screw me over... sort of. I guess I screwed myself over. I'll get back to that topic later.
But, before I write anything more about talent philosiphy, I might as well take it back to square one. Eventually I'll be getting into the what, but I'd best start with the why. Why ever would Blizzard be rethinking the way they change the way they think about talent design?Let's look at some of their primary goals with Wrath and beyond in terms of talent trees. A lot of these points work together in some way. Blizzard wants to...
1. Try and make talent specs less cookie-cutter, and thus
2. Make talents more about customization and less about
3. Necessity. So they want to cut down on the amount of talents popularly deemed "necessary."
4. Make more talents that are "active" rather than "passive."
5. Make all trees viable in PVE and PVP.
I'll talk about these one by one, with blue posts that discuss the same topic. Provided I can find them...
--------------------
I think in many ways, all emerging talent tree design changes go back to the first point. Blizzard really wants players to do interesting things with talent specs. Is that going to stop min/maxing? No. And min/maxing isn't really a bad thing by any means.
Blue poster Koraa on "talent bloat:"
"Bloat: Bloat is another word for "I can't have everything I want!". We want every class to feel their tree is "bloated" to a degree. We want classes to have to make choices and sacrifices over good talents, because that is ultimately what makes talents interesting. If it weren't that way, we would just make it a linear progression without any choices. That said, if you feel the flow of the talents makes you spend points in something that doesn't necessarily benefit you what that build is for (i.e. spending too many "PvE" talents for a PvP build), then that can be addressed." (source)
--------------------
In wanting to make talent trees more about customization, the devs feel they need to cut down on the number of "necessary" talents. In a PVE setting, you'd call a necessary talent generally one that boosts whatever it is you do: damage, tank, or heal. Every tree has these talents; a lot of them come in 10%s. It's those chunky five-point talents that everyone needs for their build.
On the Paladin boards, Ghostcrawler has set up dedicated threads for all three of the Paladin trees, asking for feedback on all talents in that tree. Which talents do people feel are necessary? Which talents do people skip every time in any scenario?
A tanking tree obviously helps you tank better; we all know that. What Blizzard doesn't want is a tree full of different talents that all basically amount to "mo' mitigation." More healing. More damage. Whatever. All them passive talents that just give you number-ey benefits, if such a term exsists. They want more interesting, more "active" abilities in trees that make whatever it is your doing, indeed, more interesting.
Emphasis could be placed on PVE, where in many cases you're pressing a lot of the same buttons.
From the first part of the Prot tree feedback thread:
"We are about ready to do our next major pass on the Paladin trees.
We think Prot does have too many mandatory talents, and too many talents that offer passive mitigation without other interesting mechanics or even dps. This thread is a great opportunity to discuss the tree and offer your feedback.
For purposes of this thread, the kinds of feedback that are useful:
-- Which talents are fun vs. which ones aren't
-- Areas in the tree that tie up too many talent points vs. areas that feel barren
-- Talents that feel mandatory vs. talents that feel fun but optional vs. talents you'd never get" (source)
For a later post, I'm going to get into active vs. passive talents, and what the difference is in PVE and PVP. Like, in PVE you can guess pretty easy what "essential" talents might be, but is it as quantifiable in the PVP environment?
--------------------
There's a few problems with my writing "style." One is I tend to start paragraphs with words like "also" a lot. Also, I tend to not know how to organise my thoughts when writing a post. And as I just did, I tend to not know how to conclude a post, and just end it abruptly. So... bye.
But, before I write anything more about talent philosiphy, I might as well take it back to square one. Eventually I'll be getting into the what, but I'd best start with the why. Why ever would Blizzard be rethinking the way they change the way they think about talent design?Let's look at some of their primary goals with Wrath and beyond in terms of talent trees. A lot of these points work together in some way. Blizzard wants to...
1. Try and make talent specs less cookie-cutter, and thus
2. Make talents more about customization and less about
3. Necessity. So they want to cut down on the amount of talents popularly deemed "necessary."
4. Make more talents that are "active" rather than "passive."
5. Make all trees viable in PVE and PVP.
I'll talk about these one by one, with blue posts that discuss the same topic. Provided I can find them...
--------------------
I think in many ways, all emerging talent tree design changes go back to the first point. Blizzard really wants players to do interesting things with talent specs. Is that going to stop min/maxing? No. And min/maxing isn't really a bad thing by any means.
Blue poster Koraa on "talent bloat:"
"Bloat: Bloat is another word for "I can't have everything I want!". We want every class to feel their tree is "bloated" to a degree. We want classes to have to make choices and sacrifices over good talents, because that is ultimately what makes talents interesting. If it weren't that way, we would just make it a linear progression without any choices. That said, if you feel the flow of the talents makes you spend points in something that doesn't necessarily benefit you what that build is for (i.e. spending too many "PvE" talents for a PvP build), then that can be addressed." (source)
--------------------
In wanting to make talent trees more about customization, the devs feel they need to cut down on the number of "necessary" talents. In a PVE setting, you'd call a necessary talent generally one that boosts whatever it is you do: damage, tank, or heal. Every tree has these talents; a lot of them come in 10%s. It's those chunky five-point talents that everyone needs for their build.
On the Paladin boards, Ghostcrawler has set up dedicated threads for all three of the Paladin trees, asking for feedback on all talents in that tree. Which talents do people feel are necessary? Which talents do people skip every time in any scenario?
A tanking tree obviously helps you tank better; we all know that. What Blizzard doesn't want is a tree full of different talents that all basically amount to "mo' mitigation." More healing. More damage. Whatever. All them passive talents that just give you number-ey benefits, if such a term exsists. They want more interesting, more "active" abilities in trees that make whatever it is your doing, indeed, more interesting.
Emphasis could be placed on PVE, where in many cases you're pressing a lot of the same buttons.
From the first part of the Prot tree feedback thread:
"We are about ready to do our next major pass on the Paladin trees.
We think Prot does have too many mandatory talents, and too many talents that offer passive mitigation without other interesting mechanics or even dps. This thread is a great opportunity to discuss the tree and offer your feedback.
For purposes of this thread, the kinds of feedback that are useful:
-- Which talents are fun vs. which ones aren't
-- Areas in the tree that tie up too many talent points vs. areas that feel barren
-- Talents that feel mandatory vs. talents that feel fun but optional vs. talents you'd never get" (source)
For a later post, I'm going to get into active vs. passive talents, and what the difference is in PVE and PVP. Like, in PVE you can guess pretty easy what "essential" talents might be, but is it as quantifiable in the PVP environment?
--------------------
There's a few problems with my writing "style." One is I tend to start paragraphs with words like "also" a lot. Also, I tend to not know how to organise my thoughts when writing a post. And as I just did, I tend to not know how to conclude a post, and just end it abruptly. So... bye.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
On Expanding Opportunity
For my first series of posts, I'll be looking into how Blizzard is attempting to expand the use of all talent trees.
Take any given tree (there's thirty of 'em), and you can pick out two things: how it's useful in a group environment, and if it's more useful for PVE or PVP. For hybrid classes, you have your melee DPS tree, your ranged DPS tree, your healing tree, and your tanking tree. For straight damage classes, the question is which tree is best for PVE and which tree is best for PVP.
For example, in general, the Mage Fire tree is considered the best tree for PVE DPS, and the Frost tree is best for PVP. Yes, I know you can do either as any spec you want and still potentially be good, but in general there's always a best tree for everything.
--------------------
First let's talk trees in terms of group utility. With the new Death Knight hero class, Blizzard is trying something new with talent trees: they want to make them all-encompassing. When we first heard about Death Knights back at Blizzcon, it was said that Blood would be the PVE DPS tree (and also the leveling tree), Forst would be for tanking, and Unholy would be for PVP. When Blizz showed more of Wrath back in April or so, the Death Knight prescenses were shown, which work a lot like Warrior stances. They all also fall in line with the initial intent of each tree: Blood Presence increases damage and helps with solo grinding by healing you as you do damage; Frost Presence increases your armor value and threat, and Unholy Presence increases your attack and movement speed. So there you have it: a talent tree for each job and a stance for each tree.
But what people found as they played the beta more and more was that Frost wasn't really shaping up to be much of a tanking tree. The post "Talent Coherency and Death Knight Tanking" was started on the beta forums by Death Knight Necromancy. From the first part of the post:
"Despite what has been said before, I am not enjoying this scattered approach to tanking talents. This game is populated by theorycrafters and min/maxers. A scattered talent approach is just asking to disappoint.
Talent trees should be on the whole coherent and have a focus. Death Knight Talents really seem to lack focus."
None other than Ghostcrawler made the first response to the thread, explaining why the Death Knight trees don't each seem to each fit some niche:
"...So we thought maybe it's time to try a different approach: Let a tank choose what kind of abilities they want access to, while still giving them access to enough tanking talents to do their job. While every tanking warrior worth her salt has Shield Slam, Imp Shield Block and Last Stand, none of them has Mortal Strike (at least not since MC and BWL), or Imp Execute or Flurry.
A death knight can be a tank, yet some death knight tanks will have Howling Blast and some will have Heart Strike. A death knight tank that gets a little bored with his spec can try a completely different one and still tank. A warrior tank trying a different spec gets very limited options, like whether he wants Improved Revenge or how many points to put into Imp Defensive Stance."
Basically, the idea that any Death Knight could tank as any spec; they all just do it differently. It also solves the problem of finding tanks for your 5-mans, especially while leveling. Everyone knows you don't spec to tank or heal as you level (unless your a dang AOE-grinding Paladin), so your pickup group ends up "lf2m tank/healz pst!"
I actually really like the idea. I plan on playing a Death Knight (whether I play one before Wrath actually comes out remains to be seen :P), and if they can make three styles of tanking that are all different, I think that's really cool.
It remains to be seen if they can apply this hybrid philosiphy to other classes. Blizz is making sure they tune the leveling 5-mans assuming your tank isn't specced to do so. However, are they going to make Retadins or Arms Warriors viable raid tanks? Probably not. With the Death Knight they had a chance to make three trees that can be slightly ambiguous in design; when you have talent trees called "Protection" or "Restoration" there's not a lot of room to branch out. So while Death Knights could potentially have three tanking trees, Paladins and Warriors will probably stay in the Protection tree when it comes to tanking.
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The second way Blizzard is trying to "hybridize" talent trees is in terms of PVE and PVP. Basically, they want any tree to be good for either, even the Protection trees for Warriors and Paladins (that's something I'll talk about in a later post). Let's go back to the Mage. If the great prophet Alamo had rolled a Mage, he would have said something along the lines of "Frie is 4 PVE, Froaust is 4 PVP LOL."
...possibly. So how is Blizzard making Frost viable in PVE? For starters, with all the changes to raid stacking, Fire's Improved Scorch and Frost's Winter's Chill are being condensed into the same type of debuff, so you can bring a Fire Mage or a Frost Mage to your raid and they'll both be able to bring the same group utility.
Frost Mages rely on Shatter above all else for damage; that's easy in PVP, not so much in PVE. You can't Frost Nova or Frostbite a dang boss. Thus, the talent Fingers of Frost was added to the Frost tree; this talent allows you to proc an artificial "Frozen" effect on your target (they aren't actually stuck in place, but treated as if they're Frozen), thus giving the Frost Mage the ability to "Shatter combo" and such.
Also, the Water Elemental is being given use as a mana battery, serving a similar function to Shadow Priests with Vampiric Touch. Actually, Survival Hunters are being given a similar skill as well, in the form of Hunting Party. I thought there was one other class getting mana battery features, but I can't remember which it was.
Thus, Frost Mages could turn out pretty good in PVE content. But what about Fire in PVP? On my Mage, I PVP'd in the 29 and 39 brackets as full Fire (I'm currently full Frost, but I'll spec back into Fire again before I hit 70). I'm not sure which I like more for PVP. With skills like Blast Wave and Dragon's Breath, Fire seems to be a lot more in-your-face kinda fighting, while Frost is obviously all about snares. When I hit 70 and get into Arenas, I'll definetly try all three trees out, and whatever weird specs you can devise that aren't 41 in one tree (ie the Elementalist builds).
Some talents that will make Fire better in PVP: Impact has been revised to work on all your spells, which probably more means that all PVP builds are going to want it. The cast time of Pyroblast has been lowered to 5 seconds from 6, and the talent Fiery Payback will reduce the cast time of Pyroblast to 1.5 seconds while you're under 35% health. Blast Wave now has a knockback effect, giving them Fire Mages an easy way to get range, and quickly disrupt a group of enemies. Finally, the disorient duration on Dragon's Breath has been upped to 5 seconds from 3, giving you time to throw in a Fireball spell while your opponent is temporarily out of commission, or gain some more distance.
--------------------
Well, that wasn't a long post at all. Something else about me: when I have something I want to ramble about, you had better believe I'm rambling about it.
For future posts about Blizzard's new design philosiphy, I'll be talking about:
1. Protection Warriors and Paladins being viable in PVP
2. Reducing the amount of neccessity in talent trees
3. Making talents more "fun"
4. Talent bloat
5. How I would change the Balance tree
6. Raid stackin'
Take any given tree (there's thirty of 'em), and you can pick out two things: how it's useful in a group environment, and if it's more useful for PVE or PVP. For hybrid classes, you have your melee DPS tree, your ranged DPS tree, your healing tree, and your tanking tree. For straight damage classes, the question is which tree is best for PVE and which tree is best for PVP.
For example, in general, the Mage Fire tree is considered the best tree for PVE DPS, and the Frost tree is best for PVP. Yes, I know you can do either as any spec you want and still potentially be good, but in general there's always a best tree for everything.
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First let's talk trees in terms of group utility. With the new Death Knight hero class, Blizzard is trying something new with talent trees: they want to make them all-encompassing. When we first heard about Death Knights back at Blizzcon, it was said that Blood would be the PVE DPS tree (and also the leveling tree), Forst would be for tanking, and Unholy would be for PVP. When Blizz showed more of Wrath back in April or so, the Death Knight prescenses were shown, which work a lot like Warrior stances. They all also fall in line with the initial intent of each tree: Blood Presence increases damage and helps with solo grinding by healing you as you do damage; Frost Presence increases your armor value and threat, and Unholy Presence increases your attack and movement speed. So there you have it: a talent tree for each job and a stance for each tree.
But what people found as they played the beta more and more was that Frost wasn't really shaping up to be much of a tanking tree. The post "Talent Coherency and Death Knight Tanking" was started on the beta forums by Death Knight Necromancy. From the first part of the post:
"Despite what has been said before, I am not enjoying this scattered approach to tanking talents. This game is populated by theorycrafters and min/maxers. A scattered talent approach is just asking to disappoint.
Talent trees should be on the whole coherent and have a focus. Death Knight Talents really seem to lack focus."
None other than Ghostcrawler made the first response to the thread, explaining why the Death Knight trees don't each seem to each fit some niche:
"...So we thought maybe it's time to try a different approach: Let a tank choose what kind of abilities they want access to, while still giving them access to enough tanking talents to do their job. While every tanking warrior worth her salt has Shield Slam, Imp Shield Block and Last Stand, none of them has Mortal Strike (at least not since MC and BWL), or Imp Execute or Flurry.
A death knight can be a tank, yet some death knight tanks will have Howling Blast and some will have Heart Strike. A death knight tank that gets a little bored with his spec can try a completely different one and still tank. A warrior tank trying a different spec gets very limited options, like whether he wants Improved Revenge or how many points to put into Imp Defensive Stance."
Basically, the idea that any Death Knight could tank as any spec; they all just do it differently. It also solves the problem of finding tanks for your 5-mans, especially while leveling. Everyone knows you don't spec to tank or heal as you level (unless your a dang AOE-grinding Paladin), so your pickup group ends up "lf2m tank/healz pst!"
I actually really like the idea. I plan on playing a Death Knight (whether I play one before Wrath actually comes out remains to be seen :P), and if they can make three styles of tanking that are all different, I think that's really cool.
It remains to be seen if they can apply this hybrid philosiphy to other classes. Blizz is making sure they tune the leveling 5-mans assuming your tank isn't specced to do so. However, are they going to make Retadins or Arms Warriors viable raid tanks? Probably not. With the Death Knight they had a chance to make three trees that can be slightly ambiguous in design; when you have talent trees called "Protection" or "Restoration" there's not a lot of room to branch out. So while Death Knights could potentially have three tanking trees, Paladins and Warriors will probably stay in the Protection tree when it comes to tanking.
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The second way Blizzard is trying to "hybridize" talent trees is in terms of PVE and PVP. Basically, they want any tree to be good for either, even the Protection trees for Warriors and Paladins (that's something I'll talk about in a later post). Let's go back to the Mage. If the great prophet Alamo had rolled a Mage, he would have said something along the lines of "Frie is 4 PVE, Froaust is 4 PVP LOL."
...possibly. So how is Blizzard making Frost viable in PVE? For starters, with all the changes to raid stacking, Fire's Improved Scorch and Frost's Winter's Chill are being condensed into the same type of debuff, so you can bring a Fire Mage or a Frost Mage to your raid and they'll both be able to bring the same group utility.
Frost Mages rely on Shatter above all else for damage; that's easy in PVP, not so much in PVE. You can't Frost Nova or Frostbite a dang boss. Thus, the talent Fingers of Frost was added to the Frost tree; this talent allows you to proc an artificial "Frozen" effect on your target (they aren't actually stuck in place, but treated as if they're Frozen), thus giving the Frost Mage the ability to "Shatter combo" and such.
Also, the Water Elemental is being given use as a mana battery, serving a similar function to Shadow Priests with Vampiric Touch. Actually, Survival Hunters are being given a similar skill as well, in the form of Hunting Party. I thought there was one other class getting mana battery features, but I can't remember which it was.
Thus, Frost Mages could turn out pretty good in PVE content. But what about Fire in PVP? On my Mage, I PVP'd in the 29 and 39 brackets as full Fire (I'm currently full Frost, but I'll spec back into Fire again before I hit 70). I'm not sure which I like more for PVP. With skills like Blast Wave and Dragon's Breath, Fire seems to be a lot more in-your-face kinda fighting, while Frost is obviously all about snares. When I hit 70 and get into Arenas, I'll definetly try all three trees out, and whatever weird specs you can devise that aren't 41 in one tree (ie the Elementalist builds).
Some talents that will make Fire better in PVP: Impact has been revised to work on all your spells, which probably more means that all PVP builds are going to want it. The cast time of Pyroblast has been lowered to 5 seconds from 6, and the talent Fiery Payback will reduce the cast time of Pyroblast to 1.5 seconds while you're under 35% health. Blast Wave now has a knockback effect, giving them Fire Mages an easy way to get range, and quickly disrupt a group of enemies. Finally, the disorient duration on Dragon's Breath has been upped to 5 seconds from 3, giving you time to throw in a Fireball spell while your opponent is temporarily out of commission, or gain some more distance.
--------------------
Well, that wasn't a long post at all. Something else about me: when I have something I want to ramble about, you had better believe I'm rambling about it.
For future posts about Blizzard's new design philosiphy, I'll be talking about:
1. Protection Warriors and Paladins being viable in PVP
2. Reducing the amount of neccessity in talent trees
3. Making talents more "fun"
4. Talent bloat
5. How I would change the Balance tree
6. Raid stackin'
Introductions
Here's the problem with blogs; blogs in general, not just World of Warcraft ones: it seems like you can write about anything, but somebody else has done it better. This space is just so large, you can write a blog about Resto Droods, or Warlocks, or Role-Playing, but someone has beat you to it, and they're getting like 30-40 comments per post.
Now this isn't me QQing for your attention; that doesn't work anyway. It's just me saying, or thinking out loud, that I have a lot to prove to potential readers. And maybe I can deliver on that, maybe I can't.
A bit about me, at least in terms of WoW. My main is a 70 Tauren Druid, Balance spec named Rawfle, on Onyxia US. He's kind of on hold right now until the expansion; in the mean time I'm leveling a Mage, Kharnos, who is level 47 and on the same server. I also have a Draenei Shaman, Gakon, on Drenden US. The Onyxia characters are in the guild, which sports a total of 8 members if I recall correctly. Gakon the Shaman is in the guild . Also, I wish he was Horde and on my main server :(
So what will the focus of my blog be? Talents. We like talents. They make us better. I like talking gameplay mechanics; I've always been a dork about game design in general. With the Wrath beta in full swing there's a lot to be said about talents, especially with Blizzard talking a lot about their new design philosiphies behind talent trees.
The classes I've played most extensively are the Druid, Mage, Shaman, and Rogue (and "extensive" = above level 30), so may be the classes I can speak most intelligently about, since I've actually played them to some extent, and not just read the theorycraft or happen to know what all their spells are.
Really, this isn't a case where if I get no comments after like two months I'll stop. I'll probably keep going, just because when I want to talk about something I'd like a platform on which to talk about it. Even if no one is listening, haha.
So here's to being smart enough to maybe write a blog people are interested in reading.
Now this isn't me QQing for your attention; that doesn't work anyway. It's just me saying, or thinking out loud, that I have a lot to prove to potential readers. And maybe I can deliver on that, maybe I can't.
A bit about me, at least in terms of WoW. My main is a 70 Tauren Druid, Balance spec named Rawfle, on Onyxia US. He's kind of on hold right now until the expansion; in the mean time I'm leveling a Mage, Kharnos, who is level 47 and on the same server. I also have a Draenei Shaman, Gakon, on Drenden US. The Onyxia characters are in the guild
So what will the focus of my blog be? Talents. We like talents. They make us better. I like talking gameplay mechanics; I've always been a dork about game design in general. With the Wrath beta in full swing there's a lot to be said about talents, especially with Blizzard talking a lot about their new design philosiphies behind talent trees.
The classes I've played most extensively are the Druid, Mage, Shaman, and Rogue (and "extensive" = above level 30), so may be the classes I can speak most intelligently about, since I've actually played them to some extent, and not just read the theorycraft or happen to know what all their spells are.
Really, this isn't a case where if I get no comments after like two months I'll stop. I'll probably keep going, just because when I want to talk about something I'd like a platform on which to talk about it. Even if no one is listening, haha.
So here's to being smart enough to maybe write a blog people are interested in reading.
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