Opinion: October 2008 Archives

I thought I would post a medley of thoughts on this, an All Hallow's Eve, seeing as you get a mix of the interesting and the odd in your goodie bags on this day, and I may as well keep the tradition alive.

I am a long time lover of weapon buffs like oils and stones that increase the stats of a weapon. My Druid keeps a healthy stock of Superior Wizard Oil, and Medros and Telaan both stock heavily in the sharpening stoned, since both use axes now. According to Verimonde on the forums these temporary enchant items will no longer be made, since they take some of the unique aspects of certain classes away. I will say I hope to see them buff the weapons we get by those often useful and critical stats.

I am one of the many people who, even though I do not play Feral, is eager to get new feral form art. I may not be in those forms, like cat, travel, and bear, much, but I do like to go into then often enough that I would welcome new forms for the feral side of the shapeshifters. Blizzard has always, and remains cagey about when this might come, but it seems to be coming more assuredly now, eventually at least.

Blizzard long ago gave up the notion of handing out game time credits whenever there was a hiccup in a realm, but they have continued to be fair when major disruptions happen in game time, and the 3.0.2 patch, along with it's related server instability and 18 hour down time, is one such case. Therfore, says Nethaera, all accounts in North America and Europe will receive a 3 day game credit.

In the wake of the news we will get credit for the extreme state of the servers after the 3.0.2 patch hit, I have begun to ponder a bit what we might expect on the 13th, since this will not only have new old world content, but Northrend and Acherus content as well,which might well kill off the realms. I am thinking I might get a toon or two to Northrend and roll my Death Knight, Connroe, and then stick to Outlands for a bit. Wait, ok, I can't even say that sincerely. Of COURSE I will go to Northrend and venture amongst the hordes of players on the continent!

Blizzard did a waffle manuever yesterday, first announcing they were scrapping the class forum arrangement, and instead going with a role based forum arrangement. Then, because they got untold flack for bringing the worst trolls of the game into their flame filled heaven, they waffled and announced they will keep the class forums and merely add the role forums, organized as Damage, Tank, and Healing classifications, in order to enable the most productive forum discussions. While Blizzard did say why they made the original change, the biggest outcry, and the most reasonable, was that forcing people into role based forums would give all the the 'stfu, you don't know shit' type trolls an easy to find location for their many targets. Ret nerf incoming? Better hit the damage forums so we can mock the reasonable and valid complaints for no reason other than shits and giggles!' Thank you Blizzard, for keeping the sanity and the signal to noise of the forums to a tolerable level.

Lastly, and the biggest news, is that World of Warcraft has now reached 11 million(11,000,000) players worldwide. I have predicted, in the past, both that WoW could reach 15 million by the end of 2009, and that they might lose a lot of players due to mistakes surrounding this patch. Both could potentially come true, but congrats Blizz for reaching this momentous milestone. I look forward to your 12 and 13 million announcements in the coming months!

I want to preface this with the disclaimer that what I am about to mention is beta info, and may not actually go live. It also may not reflect the state of Ret when the 3.0.3 patch goes live. That said, these are my opinions, and I stand by them.

So a new beta build was pushed up to the beta realms tonight, 9138, and the expected nerfs to Paladins have come in, and they are hurting. Let me point out that the changes that Blizzard said were coming for Retribution Paladins was intended to impact on their performance in PvP, as everything was said to be fine in PvE. Right. Divine Storm is now physical. Yup, PvP. Armor now takes some of the oomph of the spell when used in PvP. Seals and Judgements are down, in fact there is almost all 'down from' numbers on the MMO Champion site when going through the ret spells.

Judgement of the Wise now grants the paladin 15% of his base mana. (Down from 33%)

Wait! What?!? This isn't a strictly PvP thing. This is almost more a PvE thing, cause you generally won't last long enough, if you are going to run out of mana, if you don't have time to drink. This is almost entirely a PvE nerf, and one I can't say I like too much. This hits both my Paladins right in the mana bar, something that Ret has always had issues with before. Based on my math, Med has a mana pool right now of 5658, and the JotW gives back 975. In the current iteration, that same proc would give me less than 500. 443-444 mana, to be exact at a 15% broken down from 33%. Blizz, my friends, I understood the PvP, but this? This is a snuck in ninja to what was supposed to be the solution to the mana problem.

So a lot has been said lately in the blog world about the Wrath lead up events surrounding the plague and the zombies found all around the world. There seem to be two sides in this debate, the Infected and the Defending. The defenders are annoyed with the infected cause they keep turning the NPCs needed for training, quests, and bartering into Zombies. They recruit the classes who can cure the plague to their side, begging them to eliminate the threat to their game play. Some on RP servers like my own Argent dawn use the reason/excuse 'I am RPing, don't break my RP'. I think that like, while normally acceptable, is being abused and by some who don't use it sincerely.

The Infected are out to convert. Some convert everyone they see, some convert those interested, and some just convert NPCs. The plague can overwhelm any single player or NPC easily, and enough converts to the undead in your group, you can quite quickly overtake a small town, then a bigger town, and perhaps eventually the cities. These players alledge that many of the so called 'defenders' are griefing their attempts to RP the spread of the plague and can often get very vocal in their anger when cleansed or killed mid campaign.

So we have two sides, both angry and hostile toward one another. Some say this world event is poorly timed, a distruption to their game, and claim the right to seek penalties for their goals being hindered by Zombies, plague, and players. So many opinions, so many aggravations, and add to that the fact that we still have Hallow's End going on for a full week, and you have a really volatile mix of opinions, aggravations, and stress. So who is right? Well, All and none. To those who say Blizzard should not have World Events, I say 'there's the door'. Players love world events like Hallow's End, Winter Veil, and more. They also love the lead up events.

The Burning Crusade lead up event was.. a little boring. There was a big boss, but he rarely spawned. There was stuff at the portal, but it got so bad it killed most servers and made the quest from there nearly impossible to complete. The Defenders and the Infected should both get along, with neither playing God Mode. Even the Paladins of the Silver Hand could not cure all of those plague ridden, or Lordaeron would not have fallen. Not all of the Cult of the Damned got their way, got their wish, and died to be risen as undead. A well played out RP would have a win some, lose some basis, and I think that anyone looking to play either role needs to see that, and accept that in their story. What do you think?

While many of watch the crawling progress bar of our installs for patch 3.0.2, I thought I would let you know what talents I recommend for a couple of my classes. These will be for the specs I choose to play, and are not necessarily going to reflect what you will, or may choose to select for your characters. Next up, I am going to shift to my roaring Doomkin Druid, and their Ret build. This will be a 61/0/0 build.

Let me start off by saying that, while I thought Ret was hard to choose, this tree is so full of the awesome talents I have always wanted, there is too many for a mere level 70. Hell, there are not even points at 80 to get everything, though I suppose that's the point. I would have loved to take Improved Paw, but I think it will be a struggle at 80 to scrounge 2 points to fill that one out, so at 70 I had to ditch it. In tier 1 I chose Starlight Wrath over Genesis because I don't often find myself using moonfire spam to bring something down. If I have that much mana, especially now that pushback is better, I will just Wrath or Starfire something to an early grave.

There were a total of 4 empty talents and 1 partially full talent left in my Balance tree when I was hitting on 70; Genesis, Improved Faerie Fire, Wrath of Cenarius, and Eclipse. Earth and Moon was the one talent only partially filled up in my level 70 tree. At 80 I will only have the first 2  empty, as I will fill out Earth and Moon, and pop the rest of my points into Wrath of Cenarius and Eclipse. I may scrounge a point here or there in the tree, like I said to improve my paw, but at this point I am not sure I really need to do that, especially with the diversity the trees get and the ability of a Resto Druid to actually stay Resto through the leveling process.

Some of the key talents I hit on were Brambles, Dreamstate, Owlkin Frenzy, Typhoon, Gale Winds, Earth and Moon, and of course, Starfall. All of these abilities either boost my DPS or lower my threat, which will only help me as I level through Northrend, and in the pre Wrath month it will help me a lot in raids. Typhoon has a nice knock back which, while it won't give me time to do a HoT or two before going back into Moonkin, might just keep those mobs off me that one or two seconds I need to use a Fel Blossom and Wrath them down.

I will point out that in beta I have done almost no work on my Druid, choosing instead to focus my early beta days on Medros, since I have two characters who use his leveling spec, but from the stats alone this spec should rock the house. It boosts just enough for other classes to make a Balance druid worthwhile in raid, and much nicer in soloing. We will see what happens in the coming hours, days, and weeks as we learn the new way of things in the Wrath era of Warcraft. Patch progress: Complete. 

While many of watch the crawling progress bar of our installs for patch 3.0.2, I thought I would let you know what talents I recommend for a couple of my classes. These will be for the specs I choose to play, and are not necessarily going to reflect what you will, or may choose to select for your characters. First up, I am going to start with my beloved Paladin class, and their Ret build. This will be a 0/3/58 build.

I feel this build maximizes crit rating while still giving some points into the new lower tier and more accessible Blessing of Kings in Protection tree. Admittedly this does not have the full 5 points in Kings, but it gives us some, and can always be changed if the majority of players you group with have the full one, or just wait five weeks and hit 72 so you can go full in. As with before, I have chosen to ignore Pursuit of Justice and Eye for an Eye, as I do not feel they are worth those essential points for the next month before Wrath goes live.

I also left Divine Purpose out in order to get those 2 extra points in Improved Blessing of Kings, and these points can be added back in later if you feel the need. Crusade, while potentially nice, will not, I think, improve the damage output enough to go 3 in for this talent. Maybe at 80. Essential talents from my time on beta are Repentance, Improved Ret Aura, Art of War, Judgment of the Wise, and Divine Storm. That last one, of course, is why we limit the diversity of our talents. Sheath of Light is a good one, giving your heals a much nice kick to them. Flash of Light can heal for enough to keep you alive in a pinch, and with the new push back changes even a Holy Light can be hit for almost a full to top heal.

The big thing about the new Ret tree is that it seems to focus in two areas. First it boosts crit rating. With a crit rating of 205 before, I had a chance of 23.5%. I will be sure to add in my new crit rating here ____% when the servers go live, and with all the bonuses to crit, I am sure that percentage will get a bump. The second focus is on mana. Ret gear is well known for it's lack of int and mp5 points, and as we of the Light use mana for a lot of put spells, we have long been those of the oom. This tree will fix that. Judgment of Light being used alongside the Judgment of the Wise talent and Divine Storm triggers, a ret Paladin should have little to now trouble staying healthy and mana filled for a long, long time.

While this isn't the idea spec, it is what we can do with the points we have and the month that spans between this patch and Wrath. Remember, we heard at Blizzcon that there will be a 3.0.3 patch coming in a week or two, and that might in itself bring us more changes still to the live game. I would love your thoughts on this spec, and even your thoughts on other Paladin specs. For now, I am off to look into the Druid trees, and get a refill of my drink. 32% done installing...

Today is Thanksgiving up here in Canada, so I thought that, while I could give you pre patch overload, the fan sites are filling that role quite nicely. Instead I will be giving you my top 5 things I am thankful for in WoW, with maybe some dessert. This one will be a countdown, cause I wanna save the best for last, like any treat should.

5. Game time - I am overjoyed that, through hard work and good friends, I have been able to play WoW almost uninterrupted for over four years now. I am happy that I can continue playing, exploring, experiencing, and marveling at the wonder that is...
4. The Art - WoW has, honestly, some of the best art in the many games I have played. It has a perfect mix of the cartoonish and the amazing. There are vistas and landscapes in the game, live and beta, that to this day keep me in awe of the awesome talent in the Blizzard art department. The art, in fact, is only second to...
3. The Lore - For all the flaws that became clear in the lead up to Burning Crusade, Chris Metzen and his department at Blizzard have continued to put out the most amazing lore, stories that capture the imagination, and help make the came infinitely more captivating than any non Blizzard story in my long history in computers.
2. The Fans - Between this blog, and my podcast, I think I am one of the luckiest guys in WoW new media. Of course I am likely the only one to think this, but let me just run with this. I know a lot of my fans by name. I hear their thoughts on the blog, get their insights in email, and their idea shape the podcast and blog in ways I could have never imagined. If my fans weren't here, if they didn't keep my spirits high in times of stress and apathy, I wouldn't still be blogging, and the podcast would have faded into a 404 page months ago.
1. Friends & Family - While my Real Life family are great, the family I talk about are those who carry the tag of <Shadow Walkers> proudly. As recruitment officer, I have had the privilege of helping many people work their way through the process from application to full membership, and every time I have the honor of promoting an Initiate to Member, I am overjoyed to do so. I cannot think of a better group of people with who I would like to have spent the last 3 years and then some gaming, joking, traveling, questing, raiding, and enjoying the company of. /tar Shadow Walkers /salute
   

There you have it, folks, the 5 things I am most thankful for. Oh, sure, there's bosses and badges, gold and gear, but in the end, these are the things I am thankful for. Some of the other things I am thankful for are:

• Health - So far, other than a few problems, I am overall fairly healthy.
• Love - I have an amazing woman who I love more deeply than words can explain
• Photography - My photography is one of my most treasured expressions of my creativity
  

Happy Thanksgiving to Canadians, and in the future Americans, and may the rest of the year treat you well. Cheers!

So we now have Blizzcon finished for another year. You may have heard my reactions to the opening ceremony on All Things Azeroth #56, there is a lot more yet to come. Graece and I will be recording the post Blizzcon episode of the podcast on Monday(Watch her and myself on Twitter for the announcement) in which we talk about the news that came out of Blizzcon. First we had the Wizard class coming to Diablo 3, which will make it the third class in the game. That sums up the opening ceremony. We had some good panels, talking about classes, the UI, and art behind WoW, but little to no new information.

Day 2 brought us a bit of the promised info about the dual specs, but there was not the level of goodies like we had at the Worldwide Invitational. Overall out of the weekend, the juiciest info came out of the Community Summit that Blizzard held for several European sites, were they discussed the dance studio, future patches, the expected end of the Ashbringer story line, long gn epic story that made everyone excited, and many guild based features like guild ratings, and guild based achievements.

In all honesty, this is not a con that has made me feel like I missed something. I mean I missed the community atmosphere, the camraderie, and the sites and experience of being at Blizzcon, but I didn't miss the 5 hour line at the Jinx store, I didn't miss the feeling of not really knowing anyone, and didn't miss the feeling of disappointement I feel would have happened if I had gone all that way to witness what is essentially a web site new blurb instead
of a real ceremony that was worthy of a live podcast to gauge reaction. At this point I am happy I didn't fo, but man, that swag bag looks awesome.

I was looking over my gear on the different 70s I have, after a productive set of Kara runs, one of which saw my Druid get Staff of Infinite Mysteries, and the other saw my Draenei Paladin, Telaan, get Gorehowl. Before these drops, I already knew I would have a fair bit of my current gear on all but my Hunter when I hit 75, since Medros has only replaced a few pieces of gear by his current level of 76 on the beta. The one thing which has always perplexed me is comparing raw stats to proc stats. For instance, a trinket that gives me XX stamina, XX strength, and XX to crit, versus something like my Skyguard Silver Cross and Darkmoon Card: Crusade. Which would be better? At what point is the new hotness good enough to replace the old and busted?

Another thing that has been throwing me for a loop as I leveled Medros through beta, id the seeming change in 'Ret' gear. Oh, and yes, he is the only one I have actually leveled, as I do not see a need to spend all my time leveling all my 70s to 80 in a world that will be gone in 40 days. I have noticed a lot of gear I am told is 'Ret' gear(or melee DPS plate gear) has Armor Penetration, and while I am told this was scattered on items from Burning Crusade, I cannot recall it being this prevalent on gear, and I also do not know how to equate it to my Burning Crusade gear, which all have what I call the TBC standards, strength, stamina, attack, crit, and hit. How do I account for this new stat when I am choosing gear, and by sticking to the old stats, am I losing out on awesome gear?

I guess what I am asking is whether there is a site that ranks or explains these stats and how the equate to TBC thinking? I have been playing in the TBC world for 2 years, and I just don't know how to make the switch. Anyone have thoughts? Are there conversions that have you stuck? Let me know in the comments and maybe we can all get some help and clarification for our playtime!