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.
Showing posts with label pvp. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pvp. Show all posts
Monday, October 13, 2008
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.
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.
--------------------
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.
--------------------
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.
--------------------
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'
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