Opinion: July 2008 Archives

I am pretty sure, if you listen back, I ranted pretty hard when the 2.1 Alchemy changes came into the game. As an alchemist, the changes to elixirs meant that the profit of a large part of the profession was pretty much gone. Yes, we still had potions, but the resistance potions were nerfed to the point that almost no one needs them, not when you now have 5-10 minute fights and 2 minute long cooldown resistance potions.

Well, guess what. The current beta build shows that I will even more adamantly refuse to do any alchemy for money, and alchemy for toons will be pretty much non existant. My Alchemist, unless they nerf that too, will be a transmute bot. Oh, wait. He already is. The only times I log my Alchy is to do his daily transmute, and that too will be a lot less important as Wrath gets close and the demand for those primals becomes a thing of the past.

As it is right now I am slowly liquidating my gem stocks on Telaan, not gathering herbs unless I need it, and preparing to sell off any but the most high end mats that can be used for those first few late 300s skill points. Now, in Wrath, I will pretty much farm only what I need for my toons, and that's about it. I do, though, have a couple related points to make. First, what happens when you get 2-3 mobs on you? You get that debuff on you after the first potion, and can't use another until you are out of combat. This is a player killer in the wild.

The other point I wanted to make was in response to Alex Ziebart, who wrote the post about this new beta 'feature'. I think Alex is right about one thing. Much like the elixir and Resistance Pot changes, this change screams 'raiders' louder than a Kazzak kill message. I wonder, honestly, how much further Blizzard will kill Alchemy in the name of the raiding game. Also, maybe Alex's realm has a rich AH for flasks, but I know my own Argent Dawn doesn't have anything near 100g flasks, or I would have made them all the way to a 4th epic mounted alt.

What do you think about these changes to Alchemy? Is this profession the new Engineering of the current and future versions of WoW? Do things like Alchemist stones make the profession more worthwhile to train up in? 

We have seen a lot of reactions to the impending release of the second expansion to our favorite addiction, World of Warcraft, Wrath of the Lich King. I wanted to go into the two 'extremes' when it comes to the end game pre Wrath. The two extremes I am seeing pretty nicely equate to feast or famine.

Feast - Let's get as much done as we can before Wrath comes and we move onto the new content. These are typically those not at, or not satisfied with their place in the conclusion of the Burning Crusade end game. Maybe they just started 25 mans, or maybe they are hammering their heads on BT, Hyjal, or a fight in Sunwell. Either way these people are ramping up to get as far progressed into the end game as they possibly can before Wrath hits. These people are the ones likely to be raiding even the week before Wrath if it will get them one more kill under their belts.

Famine - There's nothing to do. I'm bored. I'm going to play something else while I wait. These are those who either feel they have 'been there, done that, got the tabard', or they are giving up with the thought that all their gear will be sharded a few days or hours into Northrend and it is utterly useless to even try to go any further in the present end game. These people have usually gone off to play other games or another faction. They, and their raid groups, often suffer from this in huge ways, especially if a majority are in the Feast category.

The differences could also be the half empty/half full comparison. Is the glass half full(more to do) or half empty(no use wasting time)? Personally, I am a half full when it comes to the game, though I would love to be about 1/4 full, like if, say, I got into the beta. That would give me a chance to report on and test out the Wrath content and get a better feel for the specs of the Death Knight in the expansion, which no video can do well enough to make me decide which spec I want to play.

So far the info I am seeing, from Lume and from DeathKnight.info, has me really excited. I am, as some of you know, a huge Tirion Fordring fan, and lore fanatic, so added Ashbringer and Tirion story is just...amazing! I am not pushing for more raiding than those I play with are up for as a group, but we would like to see more, to see some progression, so that it is not such a big jump in activity once the expansion hits. What is your end game like? Are you striving to do better, to do more? Have you left WoW for the mistress of AoC? What are your goals before Wrath hits?

First they brought us Dailies. Then they increased the number from 10 to 25. Now Blizzard is showing us a strong desire to take money out of the game before the next expansion hits. Blizzard promised previously that they would be bringing in ways to drain money from the economy, and we recently got some good examples of these types of money sinks.

The big money sinks before have been in the form of mounts and crafting items. We have seen titles, expensive items, and other vanity items. Now we see the ultimate waste of pixels in the game, Haris Pilton, will begin selling items that only she and Grifftah could sell, except hers are as over priced as one would expect of an NPC who is a play on Paris Hilton. With some players in the game reportedly hitting the gold cap, it is not in the least bit surprising to see Blizzard near desperate to siphon gold out of the server economies in order to bring them into more reasonable levels.

So, my fellow player, my fellow 70s, what are you planning to spend your riches on? Do you have any riches? Have you spent all you had down to the last copper on an alt or your professions? Does raiding or PvP take all of your money for consumables? I am personally saving my gold at this point. We have no idea what the costs will be for the Death Knight epic mount quest, but if it is anything close to the Paladin one, 500-750g is about the amount that I need to save up.

Add to this the need for a slow mount at 70, and hopefully an epic bird for both my Hunter and Death Knight, and you begin to see that I have no need for money sinks or useless junk to waste my money on. I don't need or want, nor have any desire to buy a 22 slot bag for 1200g, slippers, jewelery, or other crap for thousands of my hard earned gold. I am willing to work a day or two to get a title for my untitled alts. I am willing to work hard to get my crafting up to the ranks they deserve to be at. I am not willing to work hard to waste it on crap from a hussy like Haris Pilton!

I was listening to a fellow WoW podcast, and I heard an interesting working of words most of us in WoW use a fair bit. The person was stating that theirs is a Guild that raids, not a raiding guild. I found this a very interesting perspective to apply to the big questions of end game. My guild, the Shadow Walkers, is much like this, but we do much, much more than raid. We RP, PvP, and just play together in the game. We are at minimum a guild that raids.

I guess the best thing to do in this conversation would be to define the two forms of the guilds that have a raid component. The first, and far more popular term is Raiding Guild. the way I see a raiding guild is a guild with a mandatory raiding requirement. An example of this could be 'you must raid 4 nights a week. Another could be 'You must raid at least 1 raid a week'. You will note I have put both of these, minimal requirements and mid to hardcore requirements, in the same category. I feel strongly that if your guild had a raid requirement, it is not a guild that raids, but a Raiding Guild.

Another characteristic found commonly in Raiding Guild is that they define themselves by a series of letters and numbers. 'SSC 4/6, TK 3/4, BT 3/9'. While a PvP guild might rank themselves by a different set of numbers, such as '4 x 5v5 2100+', the numbers that the Raiding Guild use are more widely acknowledged as the marker for end game content. My guild? 0/6, 0/4, 0/9. I will not say I am happy that we haven't progressed to that, but I am happy we haven't pushed ourselves into the realm of a Raiding Guild where those numbers make or break us.

while I will not attribute this to *every* Raiding guild, the lack of recruiting morals definitely seems to pervade the raiding structure on my realm. Raiding Guilds do not hesitate to poach, bribe, trick and even swindle players into joining them, even if the player will likely not see beyond farm content for weeks. My guild, with myself as the recruitment lead, has very strict rules on how and under what circumstances we will accept a player. for instance, a player needs to be leaving their guild for decent reasons, and be gone from it for at least 24 hours before we will accept them.

Now to the guild that raids. The guild that raids schedules raids for a few nights a week, and encourages sign up. They will do their best to help those who want to raid with gear, be it in gear selection, questing, or in dungeon crawls for gearing up. unlike a raiding guild, who will often demand their players spend hours on a boss until it is mastered, the guild that raids will devour a place like Karazhan where, once you pass Curator, you can go one of 3 or 4 directions. Wipe a couple times on Shade? Try your hand at Illhoof, or Nightbane, or Chess. Chess is always a good, easy round of loot.

Now that I have defined for you how I see these two different combination's of guilds and raids, I am curious of a few things. First, do you agree? Do you have stuff to add or detract from my points? Where would your guild fall in these categories, or would they be something completely different? Do you aspire to those letters and numbers? Different ones? Would you accept the invitation of a raid guild to leave your guild to join their raid team? Let me know what you think!

Take note that these are alpha talents and changes. These may and likely will change in some way between now and the live release of Wrath of the Lich King, release date unknown. Today we will look at Druids, a class I play. We will look at my other two classes, Paladins and Hunters, when they are alpha released.

Druids. Bear Butt. Boom Turkey. These are two of the common nicknames we have received in the community. Well, soon, that bear butt will look different, though we know not how. Also, we will also get a new Dire Cat, which will also look different from the non Dire appearance. We don't know what either of these will look like, nor what will make the new form so 'Dire', but I am sure most druids are excited about cross spec forms coming. This does not, though, affect the discussion I will make here. Perhaps Aly over at Bitter Roots will blog other trees(pun intended) but I will be talking balance in this post.

There are some really interesting changes coming to the Balance tree, and some even more interesting new talents coming. While there are no small number of things to mention on each side, I will go into the changes to see what points should be used on day 1 of patch 3.0, even before the expansion is launched. Before that, though, here is a link to my planned talent usage. Oh, and here is the talent build I currently use on my Druid, Arita.

Old Becomes New
Brambles - Currently: Increases damage caused by your Thorns and Entangling Roots spells by 25/50/75%. Alpha: Damage from your Thorns, Entangling Roots and attacks from your Treants increased by 25/50/75%, and damage from your Thorns and Treants have a 15% chance to daze the target for 3 sec. Thoughts: The addition of treants and the stun make this a great talent to spec in to, and with the drop of 3 trees, and 30 seconds per cast, you are nearly guaranteed to have that proc at least once.

Nature's Reach - Currently: Increases the range of your balance spells and Faerie Fire(Feral) ability by 10/20%. Alpha: Increases the range of your balance spells and Faerie Fire(Feral) ability by 10/20%, and reduces the threat generated by your Balance spells by 30%. Thoughts: Long overdue threat reduction for Moonkin druids, though for those who are used to being the aggro magnet that stands between a wayward mob and the healers, this could be a problem.

Lunar Guidance - Currently: Increases your spell damage and healing by 8/16/25% of your total Intellect. Alpha: Increases your spell damage and healing by 4/8/12% of your total Intellect. Thoughts: Unnecessary nerf to damage, though hopefully we will see some other stuff or changes coming to make up for this.

Dreamstate - Currently: Placed next to Moonkin Form on tier 7. Alpha: Placed next to Moonfury on Tier 6. Thoughts: Good spell, available earlier in the tree and allowing for earlier mana regen boost. Good change for leveling turkeys.

New Hotness
Improved Moonkin Form - Your Moonkin Aura also causes affected targets to have a 33/66/100% chance to gain 20% spell haste when they critically hit with spells for 10 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every few seconds. Tier 7. Thoughts: This will officially make Moonkins the must-have-in-my-group part of a raid set up when working out the casters, both healers and dps.

Owlkin Frenzy - Attacks done to you while in Moonkin form have a 5/10/15% chance to cause you to go into a Frenzy, increasing your damage by 10%  and causes you to be immune to pushback while casting balance spells. Lasts 10 seconds. Tier 8. Thoughts: This will make for a very interesting time soloing on my turkey, that's for sure-

Eclipse - When you critically hit with Starfire, you have a 20/40/60% chance of increasing the damage done by Wrath by 10%. When you critically hit with Wrath, you have a 20/40/60% chance of increasing the damage done by Starfire by 10%. Effect lasts 30 seconds and has a 2 min cooldown. Tier 9. Thoughts: Might be a good spell if you opened with Starfire until this procced, then switched to Wrath once the mob was coming at you, or used Wrath on a boss to minimize threat and then near death you used Starfire for the big numbers. Should be fun!

Typhoon - You summon a violent Typhoon that does 530 Nature damage when in contact with hostile targets, knocking them back 5 yards. 20 second cooldown. Tier 9. Thoughts: I assume this is an AoE, though unsure if it will be above the turkey by nature or if it will give a location choice like Hurricane. As it has a range, I assume it is like Hurricane, but that could, incredibly, mean it would be a 20 yard from the caster circle effect, which would be.... wow!

Gale Winds - Increases damage done by your Hurricane and Typhoon spells by 25/50%, and increases the range of Cyclone by 10/20%. Tier 9. Thoughts: Many folks were already angry in PvP about the current yardage of Cyclone, and this will only make that worse. The first part will be nice, especially if there are fights like the worms in Kara or Magister's Terrace in the expansion. 50% more damage on lightning bolts that, by the end, already leave the targets within a moonfire of death? Hell yes I'll take it!

Nature's Fury - Your Wrath and Starfire spells have a 20/40/60/80/100% chance of applying the Nature's Fury debuff on the target. The Nature's Fury debuff increases Nature and Arcane damage done to the target by 2%. Lasts 12 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times. Tier 10. Thoughts: I like the 100%. All I would need to do is keep casting Wrath throughout the fight and the debuff would never die. Arcane Missiles, and I suspect some Shammy spells, would benefit from this.

Starfall - You summon a flurry of stars from the sky on all targets within 30 yard of the caster, each doing 500 to 580 Arcane damage, and an additional 170 arcane to all nearby targets within 5 years. Maximum 20 stars. Lasts 10 seconds. Tier 11(Final point). Thoughts: Whoa. We saw this in Warcraft 3 from Tyrande(interestingly a priestess) and it looked awesome. It sounds like this would not be a Volley like AoE, but more like the stars will fall on hostile targets only, not just randomly. Also, the nearby targets bit is a little confusing. It is like if you have like 5 or so targets all grouped within 5 yards, coming at you, it will not only do initial damage to each, but proximity to each other damage? I want to see this!

As you can tell, I have a... few opinions on this specific tree. As you will also notice, there is some changes over in the Resto tree. I have currently 13 points, and that will be lowered to 2. Not only because Improved Mark is changing to 2 points from 5, but I also don't think that the other spells will be that big of a deal in this current tree. I'll spend 2 over there, and save the other 11 for some of the changed, and more of the awesome new stuff coming in Wrath of the Lich King. Stay tuned, eventually, for the Paladin and Hunter tree reviews.  

I have noticed a high occurrence of flash ads on sites lately. These are not unusual, in their essence. The problem with flash ads is that either by limitations of code or intentional omission, they often do not display a URL. When these appear on game sites, especially ones which are a haven for WoW players like DeathKnight.info, I grow incredibly concerned about my security. Until I have an Authenticator in my hands, I will remain very cautious of my security.

Right now I surf on my laptop and game on my desktop, still being incredibly careful what I download and where I surf to. You never know if a trojan will know to look for zip files or other known packaging used in the Mod community. I do not know if the URL issue is a coded one or a Flash based flaw, but I refuse to risk myself and my account on the chance of a cool product or game that is marketed to people like me.

Add to this the chance of so far unknown holes in Flash or other multimedia ad methods, the prevalence of gold farming, leveling guide, and power leveling ads on any site that has Warcraft or MMO in it's keywords, and you really become concerned about clicking much of any link on the sites you visit online.

I wonder, though, a I paranoid? I know a lot of folks thing that all these big security measures that even the less secure take are too much, and I go much further in my own technology. Would you go so far as to refuse to click any Flash based links? Would you take security measures like weekly trojan searches, multi PC use, and other such measures? Or are you one of the many that thinks a decent browser and some addons for it is enough?

No, it is not Starcraft 2. Not Diablo 3 either, though both would be very worthy of pre order if they were able to be. No, in this I refer to Wrath of the Lich King. I was planning, originally, to wait until the CE was announced, but I decided, since I was near EB and had $5, I would pop in and get my name in for the next expansion. I also talked game with a fellow WoW fan, a woman no less, and we exchanged theories on the expansion, Blizzcon, and more.

While I was there I also clarified the process and speed I would need to use to get my name in for a CE of the Wrath of the Lich King when it is announced, though I will be checking every couple of weeks for any updates. I didn't catch the name of the attractive young lady behind the counter, but I think we could have possibly come up with what might be the utter pinnacle of WoW content progression.

First, they need to get a beta out. Soon. No, not Soon™ as per the forums. Second, they need to sell tickets soon for Blizzcon. At the same time, they would announce that Wrath went gold, somewhere in the time frame of late August. They would then announce that the release date for Wrath would be October 10, 2008. Yes, the first day of Blizzcon, or even the 11th, so it could be a perfect midnight launch. Then, either at the opening ceremony, or at the closing, Mike Morhaim would announce the next expansion. Well, what do ya think?