Class idea: Chronomancer

It's what it sounds like, a caster that works primarily through the manipulation of time.

Spells would be mostly arcane or shadow tree, but talents would be Past, Present, and Future.

Past would focus mostly on altering the past or moving enemies back to the past. Moving enemies back would result in stat losses since they are going back to a lesser-geared, less powerful existence. This wouldn't actually reverse gearing, just a % change to stats. The ultimate Past ability would be Save-Undo, allowing the player to save a situation and then revert all allies back to that state if desired. A common PvE use would be rather boring, saving your place before a phase change in order to not have to redo it after each learning wipe in the next.

Future would mostly be self-buffs or damage boosts, moving ahead in time for either predictive value or to hasten a desired outcome. A simple spell would be a future bubble, moving the caster into a later time and allowing them to avoid any attacks. They could also attack future enemies, allowing for an interesting source of burst damage by attacking in the future, then unloading a second burst when that time is reached in the present. The ultimate ability would be Fast Forward. It would take the average events of the past 10 seconds and then move ahead 60 seconds, acting as if the past 10 seconds were repeated over that 60. This would be a huge raid DPS boost, allowing players to pop all trinkets and cooldowns for the 10 seconds in order to get a vastly magnified effect. There is great risk though. If the tank does not get enough healing during the ten seconds, he may die during the minute forward. DPS may pull aggro at the end. Mana, rage, and energy would not be changed except maybe in the positive due to regen over the ten seconds.

Present would manipulate the current time and unfortunately I cannot think of anything cool to do right now. Haste is the future, slow is the past. The present seems more like the realm of everyone else. Maybe there could be an alternate timeline, allowing one to duplicate oneself or allies.

Is this it?

Is this it, nothing but a gear grind to get more gear to get the next set of gear? Are we nothing more than the steady increase of our combined ilevel values?

It suddenly sounds pitiful, doesn’t it? Oh sure, people can bash virtual accomplishments as being that: virtual. Still, it does take coordination, planning, dedication, some amount of knowledge or skill, and time, to down a raid boss or be on a very highly ranked arena team. There are no cheat codes, even if you recognize the class imbalance.

I remember complaints by hardcore raiders when BC PvP gear was added and it was equal in ilevel to raiding gear. That was as actual complaint. It wasn’t better for raiding; it was equal in some magical rating system that most people probably don’t know exists. Apparently it cheapened their accomplishments. A little number was enough to entirely ruin their raiding accomplishments.

I complained about the badge gear, as did many others. It was a trick, a false nod to casuals. It was nothing more than high ilevels thrown at us with no accomplishment, no inner feeling of reward. Last time you made up gear for casuals you created dungeon two and an associated quest chain. It was very expensive and took a long time, but it was a lot of fun. The story was a little strange, not directly related to the lore we normally see, but it was told so well and brought with a powerful experience. It showed the world to us, a less heroic world without the great figures we know today, but it was our world. The gear was neat, but the stories were better.

What happened to the world in world of warcraft? It’s all just gear grinds and e-peen flexing now. There is no exploration. The stories are badly told, if at all. The actual world even feels smaller. Oh sure, portals from everywhere to everywhere and flying mounts make playing more convenient. The tightly-packed quest areas with demons 300 yards away from the Illidari they are supposed to be at war with are convenient, but they make no sense. It’s not believable.

There must be something more Blizzard can do. They made Azeroth, they told amazing stories, why can’t they do it again? I realize it is a lot more work to make a world filled with stories rather than efficient, convenient gear grinds, but what do we pay them for?

Blizzard, throw away the e-peen lovers. Throw away the grinds and ilevels and anything else that is not fun and does not tell a story. Get a million writers and a million zone designers, pair them up. If that is too expensive, get a million monkeys, throw out the Shakespeare, and pair them with kids with MS Paint.

Remember the stories you wrote and how you told them? That’s what zones should do. Have story zones. When I go to the Plaguelands, I know that it is corrupted, that something terrible has clearly happened, and I want to discover more and do something. Where are the story zones in BC? Netherstorm is pretty good, makes you wonder why it is blasted to pieces. SMV is a little better, especially once you get Spectrecles. But then there are the blasted lands, scorched, barren, subject to constant lightning, inhabited by invincible servants of evil being, and all pointing towards that ominous portal. Oh yea, and there’s the orc ghost who warns you on your way in and eventually sends you all over the world on inconvenient quest chain. That is one of the most amazing chains ever.

Holy finally fixed?

The healing isn't wonderful, but that's fine, paladins shouldn't ever be healbots. Instead it looks like they're turning into offensive caster hybrids. At the worst they'll be judging and shocking from 20 yards back. At best, they might be in melee and still able to throw out heals.

Who knows, I might give holy another try in the expansion.

[edit] Here's a post I made on the paladin forums. I liked it but it kept falling down, so I'm putting it here so I don't lose it.


Healing talents not in holy? Here's why.

Paladins are a healing class, or more accurately, healing is one of their roles.

Currently healing gear is designed for holy paladins. It has a lot of crit and less mana/5 (or the spirit equivalent) than other classes would have. This is terrible for non-holy paladins since currently they get very little benefit from spell crit. Adding spell crit benefits to the other specs helps to make the gear more useful.

There are times when fewer tanks are needed. In that situation, should all the prot paladins be kicked out and replaced with priests? I'd rather the paladins be able to heal reasonably well and stay in the raid. Is it fair that they should miss encounters which may drop the gear they need while others get to jump in for 15 minutes for a single fight?

Ret is less likely to be switching to healing in raids. In 5-mans though, it can come in handy. The real benefit is in PvP. But in neither of these situations is the paladin likely to switch into holy gear with high spell crit. They are in ret gear though, and that has a lot of melee crit, which will be spell crit too once it is merged. I predict we'll see a lot of ret paladins throw a holy light now and then to keep the HoT going. It lets them put out some healing without seriously reducing their DPS or burning through their mana.

Epics and Blues, also ZA

For some reason epics no longer feel epic. They seem perfectly normal, the standard, meaningless. Blues now feel more meaningful, maybe because they are not the rare thing. Epics are cheap; handed out in PvP just for showing up, Kara is filled with them, badges give high quality gear, but possibly for something as easy as heroic mechanar. Blues seem less common and more connected to the stories, they're quest rewards fairly often.

I hope WotLK doesn't jump on the epic train so quickly.

Tonight I was persuaded to do a 3-chest ZA run. We got one. I didn't like the run very much. For no apparent reason I was put on the back of the gauntlet, resultiung in birds all over the place and a bunch of dead DPS. It felt silly, like the warrior needed to be superior. I suppose he didn't like only having a couple hundred more health even while flasked. We wiped a few times, which annoyed me greatly.

I did come out with 5 badges and the Amani Punisher. That was nice.

Welcome home, to Hell

There's something about taking my paladin to Stratholme that just feels right. I suppose it is perfectly designed for us: huge groups of undead and plenty of corners to LoS casters. There's a high from pulling 6 groups at once and killing them all.

The force reactive disks help. Yea, that was plural. I carry three of them plus a sporeggar shield and my normal tanking shield. A single pull can wipe out half a disk. But hey, they cost almost nothing to repair (I forgot exactly, but it's less than 2g at zero durability). Bag space is an issue. I can easily [make 30 slots no longer empty by picking up drops off mobs. Learn to read in context].

Engineering: Better crusading through advanced technology.

Blizzard listens, and reads minds!

A while back I suggested that judgements return mana. BAM!
I also thought of seals and judgements interacting. BAM! Actually I thought of it a bit too recently, it's not likely that I said it before it was already being considered, maybe even already in the alpha.
And I didn't say it, but I was thinking it, ret paladins are weak in 5-mans not because of no CC, but because they have terrible AoE. Now there's divine storm.

I wonder what is next...
*passive regen passive regen passive regen*

A brief description of every spec

Sometimes people ask, "what should I spec?" or "what class should I make?" I tended to say something like "make whichever is the most fun." That wasn't much help though, how do they know what is most fun? I've decided to fill that gap by giving simple explanations for every single spec and class.

Warrior:
Arms: My PvP gear makes me good at DPS.
Fury: Please stop breaking my whirlwind with your sheep.
Protection: Follow the damn kill order before I kick you.

Paladin:
Holy: If I wave my hands, sparkles appear and you don't die.
Protection: I'm glue and you're rubber, whatever aggros you sticks to me.
Retribution: I get it, I have a small damage meter, but I use it well and it makes everyone else's bigger.

Druid:
Balance: Stop with the chicken jokes.
Feral: Turning into a bear does not make me a furry, it just makes it easier to cyber with them.
Restoration: I could either be a slow tree or I could run really fast and heal everyone and there's not a damn thing anyone can do to stop me.

Rogue:
Assassination: I used to be good at PvP!
Combat: I'm going to stand here in the open and pretend to be a fury warrior.
Subtlety: Please don't see me, please don't see me, please don't see me.

Shaman:
Elemental: Sometimes people ask me, Shatner, how do I hurl bolts of lightning?
Enhancement: I'm going to pretend to be a fury warrior, but I'll ruin the disguise by dropping these sticks everywhere.
Restoration: If I didn't have chain heal I'd be selling sex to the holy paladins sitting outside the raid.

Priest:
Discipline: No one knows we have a third tree beside shadow and holy, so I just tell people I am holy.
Holy: I make people less dead and complain that my stamina buff is weaker than blessing of kings.
Shadow: Melts faces.

Hunter:
Beast Mastery: Loyalty level 6.
Markmanship: legolas would have approved.
Survival: Of course I'm supposed to melee, why else would Raptor Strike crit more?

Warlock:
Affliction: On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Demonology: And you thought Loyalty Level 6 was disturbing.
Destruction: Explode.

Mage:
Arcane: I would kick your ass if I could afford the spell costs.
Fire: I'd tell MC to burn in hell if it wasn't already hell.
Frost: Catch me if you can!

Suneater

It drops ALL THE TIME! When I play my paladin.
It still has not dropped when I go on my warrior that could actually use it. On the plus side the parry/stam gem finally dropped. Even more importantly, the hunter was only joking when he asked if he could roll on it. I got very scared when I asked why he wanted a parry gem and he said that hunters can parry. Now I need sockets.

In unrelated news, I've now had two people hire me to make Titanic Leggings. It seems people want to get gear ready for their death knights and they're looking to old-school epics for it. Perhaps I should change the focus of my advertising a bit, show off more of my old stuff. Arcanite Reaper HOOOOOO!

It's a shame there are no BoE T1 drops for them in MC, it would make it much easier to get raids going if I could appeal to greed.