Monday night my guild needed another for Malygos and I got in, partially due to having no paladins. I went ret for it. That gave me my first kill and the title Champion of the Frozen Wastes. Woo.
Last night we started Naxx 25 and again I went as ret. It was fun in a useless sort of way. By that I mean, as prot I had to be on top of things all the time, leading the pack, knowing everything. As ret, as DPS, I pretty much follow the assist, killing as I go. It's relaxing to have lower pressure.
Loot-wise I made off pretty well. I won a holy neck which I'll use as a FoL neck: comparison with badge neck. Though I wonder if it's just a straight upgrade even for HL. I got some blocking gloves which I plan to use mostly instead of T7: comparison. Then there was a tanking neck which was just a straight upgrade from the badge neck: comparison.
Then there are the 7.5 legs. These are a source of difficulty for me. I won them uncontested and with an offspec 'bid'. At the time I'd planned to use them for ret. However after the fact I realized I only had T7 for prot, so really they could be an upgrade for prot as well. So now I'm split. Do I do main (prot) or secondary (ret)? If I'd said they were for main it would be obvious: they go to prot. But I got them for ret. I also have the T7 glove token from a PUG, so I could get two pieces of the ret set instantly. Is that a big enough upgrade to balance the main spec upgrade?
Ret gloves
Ret pants
Prot pants
Maybe if I'm lucky VoA will give me ret pants so I don't need to decide.
In related news I finally saw, and won, the axe from H HoL.
I applied the lessons I learned from all my druid's macros to my paladin. The result is a much cleared UI. I took out 2-3 bars: around 30 buttons. My hotkeys are now move convenient. I changed some to consider the ease of use of modifiers with different button positions. Many are now macros. The only problem I have now is that 1 is mouseover cleanse and crusader strike, so I have to either place my cursor over a spell or hold down right click, otherwise people tend to wander across my cursor and 1 switched to cleanse and I can't CS anymore. I consider this a small loss compared to the huge overall improvements. Now I just need to figure out a good way to do BoF and BoP. Oh yea, and in the fail department, e used to be CS and ctrl-e was HoW. Now those are taunt and AoE taunt. This has caused some confusion.
Druid alt and macros
|
Monday, March 23, 2009
I've noticed a trend with alts: the more I have, the more I learn about macros. In general I just get better at setting up my UI. Each new alt is a fresh start, a chance to not repeat mistakes, an "I'll get it right this time."
UI: The Learning Process
On my paladin I realized my layout made no sense. Reorganizing it accomplished two goals: (1) Not wasting hotkeys on heals when tanking and (2) moving common/immediate spells towards the left end. This resulted in a much easier layout to use, for example, cleanse is now 1, making it very easy to alt self-cast.
It was on my rogue that I learned to shift my action bars towards the middle, near my character. Why? It makes it easier to see cooldowns and to see when I have enough energy for an ability. Before this shift I'd have to glance all the way down to the left, meaning I wasn't watching the action closely.
My death knight made me start using macros in a useful fashion. I created a few useful ones, particularly for death coil. I eventually figured out how to add a mouseover function in order to use it as a pull even while targeting another mob. This was in addition to shift-casting which would automatically hit my ghoul, though that one needs work since it breaks if my ghoul gets a new name. Mouseover targeting for my ghoul's attack helped with solo pulling.
Now my druid has taken it further. I've created a set of macros which allow me to easily heal from forms, without taking up any bar space for separate healing buttons. They took a while to write and ended up teaching me a lot about how macros work. I'll show one since might help. Yes, a rare helpful post. :P
Macro: It's like programming, but not
This one follows the same pattern as two others. There's another that I use for faerie fire which uses a slightly different form, but the rules are the same.
/cast [modifier:alt, target=Elmu] Healing Touch(); [form:1, harm] Maul; [form:3, harm] Claw(); [noform][form:1/2/3, help] Healing Touch()
/cast is the standard way of saying "cast whatever is after this." In a simple macro the spell would come right after.
Brackets [ ] are where you add modifiers such as conditions for casting. In the case of the first one, it checks if I am using the modifier alt (pressing the alt key). If I am, it will then cast with the target being Elmu (my druid).
After the brackets is the spell, healing touch. The parentheses are where you can put a spell rank, this was very useful back in the days of downranking. You can instead put nothing and it will automatically cast the highest rank.
Finally there is the semi-colon which means "stop checking the condition in the previous brackets." If I just put a spell after the semi-colon then it would cast without checking any conditions, except if the previous spell did cast. To cast both spells I'd need to press the macro multiple times and meet both conditions, or more accurately meet the condition and fail to meet it.
After the semi-colon there is a new set of conditions. Form:1 means "are you in form 1?" For druids this means bear form." Harm means "is this something you can attack?" Note that this includes neutral mobs.
Blah blah maul claw blah...
Here's a useful one again: [noform]. This checks if you are in caster form, or for other classes with would mean not in ghost wolf or shadow form.
Then there's a second condition, but in separate brackets. This basically acts as an OR condition. If the brackets are met, it casts. If the second brackets are met, it casts.
Finally there's the form: 1/2/3. This checks "are you in 1 (bear) 2 (seal) 3 (cat)" and could continue on if I had more forms, with 4 being moonkin or tree, or maybe flight. You could get it by trial and error or by looking on WoWWiki. Help means "is this something you can heal?"
Finally note that conditions are checked one at a time. This is why the alt is first. I hold alt and it casts on me. I originally had it at the end and needed a bunch of added conditions to say "if I am NOT holding alt..."
The general function of the macro works out as this: If I hold down alt it will cast a heal on myself. If I am targeting an ally it shows a heal and pressing the hotkey will cast a heal. If I am targeting an enemy it will show a cat attack in cat form, a bear attack in bear form, and heals in caster form. I might change that to instead do offensive spells (this would bring it to four different abilities per macro).
The only complaint I have is that if I target no one the icon is a question mark. I'd like to figure out a way to make it the ability I'd be using, so claw in cat form and healing touch if I target an ally or press alt.
Druid
It's not as bad as I remember. Early on it always seemed like wrath, wrath, OOM, hit mob ineffectually with staff, drink. Maybe Blizzard buffed them. The heirloom shoulders probably helped, along with the four 18 slot bags from my priest leveling tailoring.
Roots is unbalanced for solo PvE. I was soloing rare elites constantly with little difficulty, except for one which had a ranged incapacitate and stealthed harpies kept flying on top of me, but she still died.
In groups I've had a lot of fun tanking. It's probably easier than intended since I have the maul glyph (hits a second target, it's my high-aggro move at this level). Though recently I got yelled at for tanking, apparently they preferred the prot paladin without any tanking talents and no shield that didn't use consecrate.
I've been leveling inscription and herbalism as well. They're pretty fun. I've been handing them out to lowbies that I run into. One gave me 5g so I gave her a stack of armor vellum as well since she was an enchanter.
UI: The Learning Process
On my paladin I realized my layout made no sense. Reorganizing it accomplished two goals: (1) Not wasting hotkeys on heals when tanking and (2) moving common/immediate spells towards the left end. This resulted in a much easier layout to use, for example, cleanse is now 1, making it very easy to alt self-cast.
It was on my rogue that I learned to shift my action bars towards the middle, near my character. Why? It makes it easier to see cooldowns and to see when I have enough energy for an ability. Before this shift I'd have to glance all the way down to the left, meaning I wasn't watching the action closely.
My death knight made me start using macros in a useful fashion. I created a few useful ones, particularly for death coil. I eventually figured out how to add a mouseover function in order to use it as a pull even while targeting another mob. This was in addition to shift-casting which would automatically hit my ghoul, though that one needs work since it breaks if my ghoul gets a new name. Mouseover targeting for my ghoul's attack helped with solo pulling.
Now my druid has taken it further. I've created a set of macros which allow me to easily heal from forms, without taking up any bar space for separate healing buttons. They took a while to write and ended up teaching me a lot about how macros work. I'll show one since might help. Yes, a rare helpful post. :P
Macro: It's like programming, but not
This one follows the same pattern as two others. There's another that I use for faerie fire which uses a slightly different form, but the rules are the same.
/cast [modifier:alt, target=Elmu] Healing Touch(); [form:1, harm] Maul; [form:3, harm] Claw(); [noform][form:1/2/3, help] Healing Touch()
/cast is the standard way of saying "cast whatever is after this." In a simple macro the spell would come right after.
Brackets [ ] are where you add modifiers such as conditions for casting. In the case of the first one, it checks if I am using the modifier alt (pressing the alt key). If I am, it will then cast with the target being Elmu (my druid).
After the brackets is the spell, healing touch. The parentheses are where you can put a spell rank, this was very useful back in the days of downranking. You can instead put nothing and it will automatically cast the highest rank.
Finally there is the semi-colon which means "stop checking the condition in the previous brackets." If I just put a spell after the semi-colon then it would cast without checking any conditions, except if the previous spell did cast. To cast both spells I'd need to press the macro multiple times and meet both conditions, or more accurately meet the condition and fail to meet it.
After the semi-colon there is a new set of conditions. Form:1 means "are you in form 1?" For druids this means bear form." Harm means "is this something you can attack?" Note that this includes neutral mobs.
Blah blah maul claw blah...
Here's a useful one again: [noform]. This checks if you are in caster form, or for other classes with would mean not in ghost wolf or shadow form.
Then there's a second condition, but in separate brackets. This basically acts as an OR condition. If the brackets are met, it casts. If the second brackets are met, it casts.
Finally there's the form: 1/2/3. This checks "are you in 1 (bear) 2 (seal) 3 (cat)" and could continue on if I had more forms, with 4 being moonkin or tree, or maybe flight. You could get it by trial and error or by looking on WoWWiki. Help means "is this something you can heal?"
Finally note that conditions are checked one at a time. This is why the alt is first. I hold alt and it casts on me. I originally had it at the end and needed a bunch of added conditions to say "if I am NOT holding alt..."
The general function of the macro works out as this: If I hold down alt it will cast a heal on myself. If I am targeting an ally it shows a heal and pressing the hotkey will cast a heal. If I am targeting an enemy it will show a cat attack in cat form, a bear attack in bear form, and heals in caster form. I might change that to instead do offensive spells (this would bring it to four different abilities per macro).
The only complaint I have is that if I target no one the icon is a question mark. I'd like to figure out a way to make it the ability I'd be using, so claw in cat form and healing touch if I target an ally or press alt.
Druid
It's not as bad as I remember. Early on it always seemed like wrath, wrath, OOM, hit mob ineffectually with staff, drink. Maybe Blizzard buffed them. The heirloom shoulders probably helped, along with the four 18 slot bags from my priest leveling tailoring.
Roots is unbalanced for solo PvE. I was soloing rare elites constantly with little difficulty, except for one which had a ranged incapacitate and stealthed harpies kept flying on top of me, but she still died.
In groups I've had a lot of fun tanking. It's probably easier than intended since I have the maul glyph (hits a second target, it's my high-aggro move at this level). Though recently I got yelled at for tanking, apparently they preferred the prot paladin without any tanking talents and no shield that didn't use consecrate.
I've been leveling inscription and herbalism as well. They're pretty fun. I've been handing them out to lowbies that I run into. One gave me 5g so I gave her a stack of armor vellum as well since she was an enchanter.
Homogenization or Freedom?
|
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Bring the player not the class is intended to give greater flexibility when forming groups. Has it also led to destructive homogenization?
Certainly classes are more similar. Well, at least we say they are. Is a frost bolt all that different from a shadow bolt? Was it ever? Those who complain about homogenization need to confront a troubling fact: it happened long before WotLK, before BC, before WoW even existed. When have there not been ranged physical, melee, and casters? Ultimately people are throwing around similar spells except for graphics and secondary effects. Or, I hate to use it, but let's look at real life. Look at how homogeneous bullets are: explosive in the back propels little piece of shaped metal into person. Why ever use different bullets?
A lot of everything is a lot like everything else.
Pardon the wording in this paragraph, but it's going to sound strange. Let's take warriors and paladins in vanilla (and ignore unpleasant details such as dresses). They're generally melee damage with plate and can also use shields and tank. There are only two major differences: heals and playstyle. Let's fast forward a few years to now. What's different? Well, they're a lot more similar now. They have strikes and AP buffs and a whole lot of damage and tanking and in many aspects are interchangeable. And yet, they're as different as they ever were. They still have a different feel. Despite JotW, mana is not rage. Play them both and you are lying or delusional if you think they feel the same. They have the same two-handed weapons as always, but they are still different, as they always were.
In other words: Classes always had overlap and that overlap hasn't changed much.
Now let's look at freedom. You are more free than you ever were in WoW. Why? Because we no longer need any given class (except priests on Raz). So how does that make us free? Here's how: play whatever class you want and it can do what you want to do (well, obviously priests won't be doing much tanking, but you get the idea). Or reverse that, pick a role and then pick your class. Want to tank? Great news, you're not stuck with only a warrior.
On the subject of warriors: why play one anymore now that three other classes can tank? Because you want to. Let's look at that again. You previously might play a warrior because you wanted to tank, and so you didn't actually want to play a warrior. Now though, you will play a warrior because you want to play a warrior. How is that not an improvement?
Call it homogenization, I call it nothing changing except greater freedom.
[edit] This isn't to say that homogenization isn't a concern. It is. But the homogenization argument is usually used too hastily, probably by those who are afraid of being players rather than classes.
[edit a day later...] This is an interesting and relevant post by GC.
Certainly classes are more similar. Well, at least we say they are. Is a frost bolt all that different from a shadow bolt? Was it ever? Those who complain about homogenization need to confront a troubling fact: it happened long before WotLK, before BC, before WoW even existed. When have there not been ranged physical, melee, and casters? Ultimately people are throwing around similar spells except for graphics and secondary effects. Or, I hate to use it, but let's look at real life. Look at how homogeneous bullets are: explosive in the back propels little piece of shaped metal into person. Why ever use different bullets?
A lot of everything is a lot like everything else.
Pardon the wording in this paragraph, but it's going to sound strange. Let's take warriors and paladins in vanilla (and ignore unpleasant details such as dresses). They're generally melee damage with plate and can also use shields and tank. There are only two major differences: heals and playstyle. Let's fast forward a few years to now. What's different? Well, they're a lot more similar now. They have strikes and AP buffs and a whole lot of damage and tanking and in many aspects are interchangeable. And yet, they're as different as they ever were. They still have a different feel. Despite JotW, mana is not rage. Play them both and you are lying or delusional if you think they feel the same. They have the same two-handed weapons as always, but they are still different, as they always were.
In other words: Classes always had overlap and that overlap hasn't changed much.
Now let's look at freedom. You are more free than you ever were in WoW. Why? Because we no longer need any given class (except priests on Raz). So how does that make us free? Here's how: play whatever class you want and it can do what you want to do (well, obviously priests won't be doing much tanking, but you get the idea). Or reverse that, pick a role and then pick your class. Want to tank? Great news, you're not stuck with only a warrior.
On the subject of warriors: why play one anymore now that three other classes can tank? Because you want to. Let's look at that again. You previously might play a warrior because you wanted to tank, and so you didn't actually want to play a warrior. Now though, you will play a warrior because you want to play a warrior. How is that not an improvement?
Call it homogenization, I call it nothing changing except greater freedom.
[edit] This isn't to say that homogenization isn't a concern. It is. But the homogenization argument is usually used too hastily, probably by those who are afraid of being players rather than classes.
[edit a day later...] This is an interesting and relevant post by GC.
We want you to get a spot because you know what the blank you're doing, not because your class is programmed to always do top dps or inflate raid dps through a miraculous spell that you impart by clicking a button every 30 min.
"Why don't you just buff everyone else?"
|
Friday, March 20, 2009
I sometimes see this is response to nerfs. Say, hunters get nerfed because their DPS is too high and it's driving other people out of raids. Why not buff everyone else? Well there's a certain expected raid DPS for the expected gear level. Increase everyone's DPS and then the raid is too easy. Also PvP becomes a burst-fest and healers become useless, except possibly the bubble-tossing disc priests.
After reading a post about mage nerfs I started thinking, maybe the current idea is to nerf everyone. Mages get nerfed, ret gets nerfed, fury gets nerfed. Arms warriors are the only ones I hear getting buffed, though I must admit that I haven't read many patch notes and I avoid the DPS forum (it combines hunters, rogues, and moonkin in one place, how can that result in anything good?).
Maybe Blizzard caved to the elitist QQers who said that Naxx is too easy and with every scrub guild clearing it they no longer felt special. Well now they've fixed that and nerfed everyone. No longer will scrub guilds clear Naxx. Instead, they will die over and over, wondering what happened. Meanwhile the elitists will wipe their eyes and say how great they are, forgetting that the nerfs happened only after they had cleared. That's right, the people that burn through content as fast as possible got easy mode.
Or maybe it's just the usual roller-coaster of balance. On that subject, why does it seem so hard for Blizzard to balance the game? Surely by now they have a program which can simulate DPS, allowing inputs of variables such as gear, required movement, and non-damage related jobs such as interrupts or CC (or maybe that's the problem: Blizzard assumes people are using CC). This would obviously be an incredibly complex program to write and would take a lot of computing power to run, but surely it would be eventually be better than the constant roller-coaster. I suppose even with their financial resources there are only so many hamsters to go around.
On the subject of balance, I've come to understand City of Heroes/Villains and why my friend likes it so much: everyone is overpowered. There doesn't seem to be much need for teamwork when half the hard stuff can be soloed and the other half, you just aren't playing the right class to solo it. I think it's actually a great example of how easy and casual are not at all the same. They have no positioning, there doesn't seem to be any difficulty at all to the tanking, and even healing looks pretty easy. But their 'AH' is terrible. It has a limited display of auctions, so it's a lot harder to figure out a market norm, bidding and posting are done weirdly with a lot of potential for buyers overpaying by huge amounts, and prices are horribly inflated. I suppose that is somewhat inevitable since nothing is BoP, so the game seems to involve a lot of grinding and then blowing it all on the AH. It looks a lot like the terrible farming for old Naxx, but without even having the raid. So yea, it looks easy and very flashy and not much fun. I'm not sure why a post about nerfs turned into CoX bashing. Oops?
Getting back to WoW, we'd never see on the forums "rather than buff X class, why not just nerf everyone else?" And yet, we do see that. One class gets nerfed and immediately they go crazy wanting every other class nerfed. Mage nerf? Well nerf warlocks too. But if they go down, shadow too! If priests get nerfed, nerf ret too. And if ret gets nerfed then obviously DKs and warriors need a nerf too. Why should druids get a free ride? On that note, rogues need a nerf too. But why nerf rogues and not hunters? Obvious ranged bias is obvious, nerf hunters too. And there we go, by a simple chain of lack of logic we can nerf everyone.
I still want to see my dynamic nerfing system implemented: nerf everyone that I am not playing at the time, except for healers in PvE,but especially healers in PvP.
After reading a post about mage nerfs I started thinking, maybe the current idea is to nerf everyone. Mages get nerfed, ret gets nerfed, fury gets nerfed. Arms warriors are the only ones I hear getting buffed, though I must admit that I haven't read many patch notes and I avoid the DPS forum (it combines hunters, rogues, and moonkin in one place, how can that result in anything good?).
Maybe Blizzard caved to the elitist QQers who said that Naxx is too easy and with every scrub guild clearing it they no longer felt special. Well now they've fixed that and nerfed everyone. No longer will scrub guilds clear Naxx. Instead, they will die over and over, wondering what happened. Meanwhile the elitists will wipe their eyes and say how great they are, forgetting that the nerfs happened only after they had cleared. That's right, the people that burn through content as fast as possible got easy mode.
Or maybe it's just the usual roller-coaster of balance. On that subject, why does it seem so hard for Blizzard to balance the game? Surely by now they have a program which can simulate DPS, allowing inputs of variables such as gear, required movement, and non-damage related jobs such as interrupts or CC (or maybe that's the problem: Blizzard assumes people are using CC). This would obviously be an incredibly complex program to write and would take a lot of computing power to run, but surely it would be eventually be better than the constant roller-coaster. I suppose even with their financial resources there are only so many hamsters to go around.
On the subject of balance, I've come to understand City of Heroes/Villains and why my friend likes it so much: everyone is overpowered. There doesn't seem to be much need for teamwork when half the hard stuff can be soloed and the other half, you just aren't playing the right class to solo it. I think it's actually a great example of how easy and casual are not at all the same. They have no positioning, there doesn't seem to be any difficulty at all to the tanking, and even healing looks pretty easy. But their 'AH' is terrible. It has a limited display of auctions, so it's a lot harder to figure out a market norm, bidding and posting are done weirdly with a lot of potential for buyers overpaying by huge amounts, and prices are horribly inflated. I suppose that is somewhat inevitable since nothing is BoP, so the game seems to involve a lot of grinding and then blowing it all on the AH. It looks a lot like the terrible farming for old Naxx, but without even having the raid. So yea, it looks easy and very flashy and not much fun. I'm not sure why a post about nerfs turned into CoX bashing. Oops?
Getting back to WoW, we'd never see on the forums "rather than buff X class, why not just nerf everyone else?" And yet, we do see that. One class gets nerfed and immediately they go crazy wanting every other class nerfed. Mage nerf? Well nerf warlocks too. But if they go down, shadow too! If priests get nerfed, nerf ret too. And if ret gets nerfed then obviously DKs and warriors need a nerf too. Why should druids get a free ride? On that note, rogues need a nerf too. But why nerf rogues and not hunters? Obvious ranged bias is obvious, nerf hunters too. And there we go, by a simple chain of lack of logic we can nerf everyone.
I still want to see my dynamic nerfing system implemented: nerf everyone that I am not playing at the time, except for healers in PvE,but especially healers in PvP.
I don't think I'm doing it right
|
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
For whatever reason I just can't seem to play correctly.
Good players would be farming or running heroics or something productive, I'm flying around Kalimdor with a new sombrero. When good guilds were in BT I was trying to PUG MC. Good players bring flasks to raids, the closest I can remember bringing are empty bottles and a character too drunk to see. Actually I can't remember doing that, but with drunkenness lack of proof is a form of proof.
Other people spend thousands of gold on the best enchants and surge needle rings while I buy elementium ore. While others ran around freely grinding Loremaster of Kalimdor I used a cloaking device to sneak past guards because I saw a neutral quest giver inside. Other people get epic crafted hats while I have a pirate hat stuffed in the bank.
My bags contain two level 60 weapons, both entirely useless now, except I sometimes use one. There are also three level 70 trinkets, plus a boomerang and an Onyxia scale cloak, just in case.
Other people post useful information about paladins with cool names that reference the class. My blog speculates on unlikely future lore and the most useful information I have is that with the right trinkets you can tank without pants and still hit the defense cap. The name apparently confuses people.
I must interrupt this post to express my anger that Firefox thinks pantless isn't a word.
I'm still an engineer. I was a shockadin before the spec even existed. When all the shamans were tauren, I was a troll.
Now I must go figure out how to improve my goblin rep. Somehow I am honored with Ratchet and hated with all the rest. Apparently good reputations don't travel as far as I'd hope.
Good players would be farming or running heroics or something productive, I'm flying around Kalimdor with a new sombrero. When good guilds were in BT I was trying to PUG MC. Good players bring flasks to raids, the closest I can remember bringing are empty bottles and a character too drunk to see. Actually I can't remember doing that, but with drunkenness lack of proof is a form of proof.
Other people spend thousands of gold on the best enchants and surge needle rings while I buy elementium ore. While others ran around freely grinding Loremaster of Kalimdor I used a cloaking device to sneak past guards because I saw a neutral quest giver inside. Other people get epic crafted hats while I have a pirate hat stuffed in the bank.
My bags contain two level 60 weapons, both entirely useless now, except I sometimes use one. There are also three level 70 trinkets, plus a boomerang and an Onyxia scale cloak, just in case.
Other people post useful information about paladins with cool names that reference the class. My blog speculates on unlikely future lore and the most useful information I have is that with the right trinkets you can tank without pants and still hit the defense cap. The name apparently confuses people.
I must interrupt this post to express my anger that Firefox thinks pantless isn't a word.
I'm still an engineer. I was a shockadin before the spec even existed. When all the shamans were tauren, I was a troll.
Now I must go figure out how to improve my goblin rep. Somehow I am honored with Ratchet and hated with all the rest. Apparently good reputations don't travel as far as I'd hope.
Azeroth is on the verge of unimaginable chaos
|
Look around; there are powerful beings and forces all around. They are also in conflict. If you've seen Tales of the Past, the big danger was Arthas vs. Kil'jaeden destroying Azeroth. We're ready for something even bigger. Let's see who we can get into this apocalyptic battle.
Arthas and the Scourge: The undead are pretty obviously opposed to everyone else. While they were once the tool of the Burning Legion, Ner'zhul broke free and is definitely not letting himself be recaptured.
Burning Legion: They want to kill everything. This isn't complex.
Old Gods: I honestly am not sure what they ultimately desire. In the short term they seem to like chaos and corrupting lesser beings. Over the longer term they clearly want to get free of their prisons. It was indicated in War of the Ancients that they have some interest in taking over the Burning Legion, though I got the impression that it was for conquest rather than destruction.
Titans: They like order and will beat the crap out of anyone disorderly.
Dragons: They're supposed to be guarding Azeroth in the absence of the Titans, but lately they seem to have developed an interest in killing all of us.
Mortals: We're not interesting in dying and will beat the crap out of anyone that gets in our way. Internal divisions would seem to make us weak, but they also keep us ready and as we've seen from the various alliances we can unite when something bad enough comes along. Recently we're busy fighting each other, but I imagine the Garrosh and Varian might get the same treatment as Proudmoore.
So how is this all going to go down, who is going to hate who, and who could possibly form an alliance?
Scourge: Not the Legion. Not the dragons. I doubt the Titans would look favorably on the Plague. But what about the Old Gods? Having surrounded himself with Saronite (old god blood), Arthas may be feeling their influence and might be a bit more accepting of help against an outside enemy. Also call me crazy, but working with the mortal races does not strike me as entirely out of him imagination. In some strange way I think the Lich King may be simply trying to build up an army to be ready for the Legion.
Burning Legion: They want the Scourge back under their control. The dragons and Titans are their biggest enemies though, with even Deathwing ready to fight them, though for his own reasons. They might attempt to work with the Old Gods. The mortal races? I already stated our opposition to dying.
Titans: I'm afraid of them. How will they react to Azeroth being filled with beings who have been pretty severely infected with the Curse of Flesh?
Dragons: They keep deciding to kill mortals with the exception of Alexstrasza and maybe Ysera. But... I predict that Ysera is being corrupted even now and before long will be trying to kill us. Alexstrasza will take longer, but how long before she decides that the only counter to death is undeath?
Mortals: We like to fight, but once someone takes care of Varian I'm sure we'll be able to work together long enough to not all die. Then we'll go back to fighting. But there are always those who hunger for power at the expense of others...
Arthas and the Scourge: The undead are pretty obviously opposed to everyone else. While they were once the tool of the Burning Legion, Ner'zhul broke free and is definitely not letting himself be recaptured.
Burning Legion: They want to kill everything. This isn't complex.
Old Gods: I honestly am not sure what they ultimately desire. In the short term they seem to like chaos and corrupting lesser beings. Over the longer term they clearly want to get free of their prisons. It was indicated in War of the Ancients that they have some interest in taking over the Burning Legion, though I got the impression that it was for conquest rather than destruction.
Titans: They like order and will beat the crap out of anyone disorderly.
Dragons: They're supposed to be guarding Azeroth in the absence of the Titans, but lately they seem to have developed an interest in killing all of us.
Mortals: We're not interesting in dying and will beat the crap out of anyone that gets in our way. Internal divisions would seem to make us weak, but they also keep us ready and as we've seen from the various alliances we can unite when something bad enough comes along. Recently we're busy fighting each other, but I imagine the Garrosh and Varian might get the same treatment as Proudmoore.
So how is this all going to go down, who is going to hate who, and who could possibly form an alliance?
Scourge: Not the Legion. Not the dragons. I doubt the Titans would look favorably on the Plague. But what about the Old Gods? Having surrounded himself with Saronite (old god blood), Arthas may be feeling their influence and might be a bit more accepting of help against an outside enemy. Also call me crazy, but working with the mortal races does not strike me as entirely out of him imagination. In some strange way I think the Lich King may be simply trying to build up an army to be ready for the Legion.
Burning Legion: They want the Scourge back under their control. The dragons and Titans are their biggest enemies though, with even Deathwing ready to fight them, though for his own reasons. They might attempt to work with the Old Gods. The mortal races? I already stated our opposition to dying.
Titans: I'm afraid of them. How will they react to Azeroth being filled with beings who have been pretty severely infected with the Curse of Flesh?
Dragons: They keep deciding to kill mortals with the exception of Alexstrasza and maybe Ysera. But... I predict that Ysera is being corrupted even now and before long will be trying to kill us. Alexstrasza will take longer, but how long before she decides that the only counter to death is undeath?
Mortals: We like to fight, but once someone takes care of Varian I'm sure we'll be able to work together long enough to not all die. Then we'll go back to fighting. But there are always those who hunger for power at the expense of others...
How much can classes change anymore?
|
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Try to think of a totally new resource system for your class. Maybe it's shamans using a mojo system* or paladins using something like DKs. Think it's likely? I doubt it. The problem isn't with Blizzard having no new ideas (DKs have a pretty new system) or with refusal to improve (they've radically changed a lot, but still within bounds). Ultimately the problem is with existing players.
How would you react if one day your class functioned differently? Imagine warriors using mana-type mechanics or mages with energy. Many people would be delighted. But I imagine many more would be angry at their class being changed so much without any reference points for conversion (such as now I think of str as the new SP for prot). The majority would probably just be confused. What happens to rotations? Do we use the same stats? What is this oddly colored bar?
A few times I've suggested converting holy paladins to using ret gear: strength and crit for the most part with haste, hit, and ArP as secondary stats. This is actually what triggered this post, my attempt to respond to Rohan's latest post about sheathe of light. In response to responses some ideas bounced around my head: hit increasing intellect, ArP increasing the effectiveness of healing, varying with armor: the idea being that paladin heals can somehow use not just your own gear to gain power, but also use the target's armor like a giant antennae, and somehow ArP would help with this.
Then it got me thinking, what if intellect wasn't an issue? What if paladins didn't use mana, but instead something else? Imagine a system like rogues with attacks using energy and generating combo points which are then spent on special abilities, in this case heals, like the Ace's High drakes. There would be a lot of trouble. People haven't just learned the mana system for paladins, it may be part of the mechanic of why they play and enjoy them. For example, my inability to manage energy is why I barely play rogues, so converting paladins to that system might make me reroll. Could an innovative new system, intended to bring new life to an old class, actually destroy it?
We've seen a lot of changes over the years, but I don't think any changed how a class works. Stat values vary, but ultimately we're using about the same stats. Even in the case of paladins, everyone is still using SP, they just don't directly stack it on gear. Bringing this back to my suggestions to move holy to ret gear, they seem plausible, but anything more, any true mechanics changes, would likely never happen.
The current classes are already defined and to change them would potentially be very unpopular. This means that we're going to see more ideas come from Blizzard, new ways to attack and heal and defend with new ways to manage resources, whether they are cooldowns, mana, energy, rage, runes, or something entirely new; but unless we reroll, we're not likely to directly benefit. If that sounds pessimistic, look at the bright side: any new class is going to be filled with amazingness, just as DKs are, except hopefully with better balance.
* The mojo system, or something of a similar trollish name, was suggested years ago on the shaman forums. The general idea was a spectrum of mojo: good and bad, with heals moving your mojo towards good and damage towards bad. If you get too far, you can no longer cast spells of that type, so you are forced to mix damage and healing. I thought it was a pretty cool hybrid idea. RIP hybrids.
How would you react if one day your class functioned differently? Imagine warriors using mana-type mechanics or mages with energy. Many people would be delighted. But I imagine many more would be angry at their class being changed so much without any reference points for conversion (such as now I think of str as the new SP for prot). The majority would probably just be confused. What happens to rotations? Do we use the same stats? What is this oddly colored bar?
A few times I've suggested converting holy paladins to using ret gear: strength and crit for the most part with haste, hit, and ArP as secondary stats. This is actually what triggered this post, my attempt to respond to Rohan's latest post about sheathe of light. In response to responses some ideas bounced around my head: hit increasing intellect, ArP increasing the effectiveness of healing, varying with armor: the idea being that paladin heals can somehow use not just your own gear to gain power, but also use the target's armor like a giant antennae, and somehow ArP would help with this.
Then it got me thinking, what if intellect wasn't an issue? What if paladins didn't use mana, but instead something else? Imagine a system like rogues with attacks using energy and generating combo points which are then spent on special abilities, in this case heals, like the Ace's High drakes. There would be a lot of trouble. People haven't just learned the mana system for paladins, it may be part of the mechanic of why they play and enjoy them. For example, my inability to manage energy is why I barely play rogues, so converting paladins to that system might make me reroll. Could an innovative new system, intended to bring new life to an old class, actually destroy it?
We've seen a lot of changes over the years, but I don't think any changed how a class works. Stat values vary, but ultimately we're using about the same stats. Even in the case of paladins, everyone is still using SP, they just don't directly stack it on gear. Bringing this back to my suggestions to move holy to ret gear, they seem plausible, but anything more, any true mechanics changes, would likely never happen.
The current classes are already defined and to change them would potentially be very unpopular. This means that we're going to see more ideas come from Blizzard, new ways to attack and heal and defend with new ways to manage resources, whether they are cooldowns, mana, energy, rage, runes, or something entirely new; but unless we reroll, we're not likely to directly benefit. If that sounds pessimistic, look at the bright side: any new class is going to be filled with amazingness, just as DKs are, except hopefully with better balance.
* The mojo system, or something of a similar trollish name, was suggested years ago on the shaman forums. The general idea was a spectrum of mojo: good and bad, with heals moving your mojo towards good and damage towards bad. If you get too far, you can no longer cast spells of that type, so you are forced to mix damage and healing. I thought it was a pretty cool hybrid idea. RIP hybrids.
Why do I need naxx gear for heroics?
|
Sunday, March 15, 2009
I did a slow, but steady Naxx 10 PUG this afternoon and managed to win Repelling Charge. This is perfect for my heroic set. Why do I need it? Well...
Now I can hit the raid defense cap while not wearing pants. I can also hit the heroic cap while using TF and also not wearing pants.
So next time you see someone indirectly claim that you need raid gear for heroics, accept that they are right and they're just trying to do it with style.
Now I can hit the raid defense cap while not wearing pants. I can also hit the heroic cap while using TF and also not wearing pants.
So next time you see someone indirectly claim that you need raid gear for heroics, accept that they are right and they're just trying to do it with style.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)