With Mists of Pandaria inbound (and, of course, 4.3 prior to that), much of the focus with WoW will be shifting from the "past" of Cataclysm to the future of the next expansion. New tanking models, new talent revamps, new forms of content... It's likely most of this will dominate discussion for the next six months while we wait on 5.0.
Therefore, earlier than expected, it's time to go over Cataclysm with a critical eye and try to pick the bones out of how it went. I know 4.3 is on the horizon, bringing with it the raid finder and Darkmoon Faire, but most of what Cataclysm wrought is done and dusted so we're okay to have a look at it.
As you can guess, this could be a MASSIVE post. My penchant for using 2,000 words when one is enough would extend an entire post long beyond a 30 minute sitting. As such, I'm going to split these entries up into individual topics so that they're easier to digest. Let's start with the flagship feature of Cataclysm; the revamped zones on Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms.
The Premise
Essentially, the game was starting to look aged. People were having a blast questing in Northrend, but the old world was looking... Old. Quest mechanics that saw you spanning continents for very little benefit were slowing people up more than the developers would like, and the ever-increasing level cap would start to get very daunting if this wasn't changed. Many things could alleviate this such as heirlooms, recruit-a-friend or the dungeon finder, but the world really needed a facelift to make it more in tune with the graphical and gameplay quality of later expansions, particularly Wrath of the Lich King.
It's also worth nothing that, from a lore perspective, the world literally did change; Deathwing shattered parts of it when he smashed through from Deepholm, and this was the perfect opportunity to show exactly how that happened by (in some cases, particularly Kalimdor) drastically changing how a zone looked and played.
The Positives
There is no doubt that the new questing experience sped up those levels dramatically. The flow was significantly better, and the introduction of command boards meant it was never hard to figure out where you were headed next, while the need to cross continents was also removed. The quality of the quests also dramatically improved - where you were previously stuck with a collection of kill/collect quests, many more options made their way into the low level zones. Quest rewards also got some love, both by being more varied and with hugely improved itemization. The fact that they were aesthetically designed to complement one another throughout was also a nice touch.
The Negatives
Put simply; questing became far. Too. Easy. Character power was inflated hugely at level 10 (another topic) thanks to the new choices regarding talent specialization, and the content itself was designed to be done quickly without any real challenge. Another problem was that the questing was much too linear, with no real choice given in how you went about doing your quests - you simply picked up the breadcrumb and did everything as you went. This also caused immersion problems, as you'd invariably out level an entire zone within two to three easily obtained dings, thus you'd be looking at moving on without having completed the zone you were questing in. And just to be clear, this was not the fault of heirlooms, guild perks and the dungeon finder. While interspersing those three with your questing certainly compounded the problem, it existed independent of them. The entire removal of group quests also meant that players were simply not encouraged to group up and help one another for strong rewards.
It's understood entirely that many people view my negatives as good points, and that's okay. But for me, the reason they're a problem is because they work against the immersion that should be a hallmark of any MMO. The world should be a breathing and living place, something that encourages players to get involved in the story and be part of it. The heavy phasing in some zones actually work to the detriment of "massive multiplayer" by secluding players from one another and that can't help that immersion.
Another fundamental problem is that the questing is hurting player skill development by being so easy. You have to actively TRY and die before anything becomes even remotely dangerous, meaning there are effectively no mistakes to learn from as you go through. This clearly becomes a problem at the level cap when, suddenly, heroic dungeons start wiping the floor with new, unskilled or inexperienced players.
Recommendations
There can be no doubt that the aesthetic facelift was a huge success. The problems lie purely in the mechanical make-up of these zones and how they play. First of all, I'd break some of the breadcrumbs (not from the notice boards) and make level appropriate hubs throughout each zone. One overarching theme for the zone is a good idea, but having an entire zone dependent on that theme isn't. It gives players no choice. I'd also buff the power of mobs throughout, and lower the amount of experience gained via both quest completion and the dungeon finder. With regard to the dungeon finder, I'd also look to remove the ability to queue for dungeons you haven't found because being able to do so is both bad for immersion and synthetically inflates experience gained.
Lastly, the loss of group quests can be addressed by making zone-specific PvE scenarios, similar to the ones we're going to see in Pandaria. A scenario unlocked at the conclusion of each hub provides more content, encourages grouping up and skill development, while still remaining optional for those not interested in them.
That concludes my first Cataclysm review, and I hope to get each new one typed up at roughly a few days interval each. Topics I've still to cover include:
- Level-cap and heroic dungeons.
- Raids and heroic raids.
- Professions.
- Added features.
- The talent system revamp.
- Performance and class balance.
Stay tuned. :)
Running wild through Azeroth from the perspective of a Protection warrior.
Search the Ramblings
Monday, October 31, 2011
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Review of 5.0 warrior talents.
Okay, it’s now a few days after day zero and much of the hubbub over BlizzCon has subsided enough for a few things to sink in. One of the biggest announcements was the talent revamp, so I suppose it’s worth going over what these talents mean for tanks and which ones will be the best choices in PvE content that matters; namely, boss encounters.
Please remember this is all subject to change, and in any number of ways, so what is posted here might not remain relevant all that long.
To whit then, let’s start with tier 1:
Double Time: You can use Charge twice before incurring its cooldown.
The way this is touted to work is just so awkward that it’s not worth it. After the first Charge, you get eight seconds to Charge again before the net result is a longer Charge cooldown than if you pick Juggernaut. Even if you do, it’s another interminable 20 second wait before you can use it again. Very poor.
Warbringer: Your Charge also roots a target for 5 sec.
Very unlikely to go live in this state as it would be overpowered when coupled with other talents such as Throwdown and Shockwave in PvP, and it’s next to useless in PvE as it won’t work on bosses and you rarely want to stun trash for long when you’re trying to position it. Skip it.
Juggernaut: You can Charge every 12 sec instead of every 20 sec.
It’s painful having to use a talent point for something we already have at baseline. That said, due to the inherent weaknesses in the other two talents, this would be your tier one choice for PvE and it’s a no-brainer. I daresay PvP warriors will view this similarly, and across all three specs.
Tier 2:
Enraged Regeneration: You regenerate 30% of your total health over 10 sec. Can only be used while Enraged.
Like Juggernaut, having to spend a talent point to get something we already have at baseline is galling. This talent has another two snags, though; it’s weaker than Impending Victory and STILL retains the ugly requirement to be enraged before you can use it. To be viable, the cooldown would need to change.
Second Wind: Whenever you are struck by a Stun or Immobilize effect you generate 20 Rage and 5% of your total health over 10 sec. Whenever you take direct damage, you have a 10% chance to regenerate 3% of your total health over 5 sec.
A PvP talent only, really, as you won’t spend a lot of time stunned or immobilized while playing PvE content. Further, a 10% chance to proc a weak self-heal means one in 10 swings from the average boss and goodness knows what uptime it would have if you play a DPS spec. Ignore it.
Impending Victory: You can use a Victory Rush at any time, but with a 30 sec cooldown and at a 20 rage cost.
Here’s your easy winner. It’s statistically returning more health than Enraged Regeneration, while also not requiring an Enrage or being a Heal over Time (HoT) effect. It also fills the painful self-healing gap warriors have had in their arsenal for so long. All told, a very strong talent for everyone.
Tier 3:
Cripple: Your autoattack hits and Rend ticks main your target, reducing movement speed by 50% for 15 sec.
PvP warriors have wanted to see this for a considerable amount of time now, making it a great choice to help them dish out damage without wasting GCD’s by spamming Hamstring. For PvE? Pretty close to useless as there’s no way it’ll work on bosses.
Throwdown: Knocks the target to the ground and stuns it for 5 sec.
Again, part of your PvP repertoire but of limited use to those of us doing raid content as it doesn’t work on bosses. I would also expect to see some “rebalancing” if flag carriers attempt to take this, Warbringer and Shockwave considering Pummel and Concussion Blow will be baseline for tanks.
Piercing Howl: Causes all enemies within 10 yards to be Dazed, reducing movement speed by 50% for 6 sec.
Yet again, almost solely for PvP; very little practical use for any warriors in PvE. The problem is that the other talents are so weak in meaningful raid content, that this is probably the best choice for the potentially interesting implications it could have on the odd encounter. Probably the best from a bad bunch.
Tier 4:
Disrupting Shout: Interrupts all spellcasting within 10 yards and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 4 sec.
This talent will be pretty good when grouping trash packs with multiple casters, but there won’t be many of those, as the other tanks don’t have equivalent options. Clearly of benefit in PvP (particularly BG’s with casters grouped) but, yet again, of absolutely no use if you’re working on a boss.
Gag Order: Your Pummel and Heroic Throw have a 100% chance to silence the target for 3 sec.
Won’t work on bosses, which is making me sound like a broken record. 2’s arena, which is not actively balanced properly, might see this talent do well and it’ll be good on trash packs with one or two casters… But otherwise pretty weak.
Rude Interruption: Successfully interrupting a spell with Pummel increases your damage by 5% for 30 sec.
This is the only talent in the tier that will work on bosses, so it’s the winner by default. Good luck wrestling for interrupt-rights with the other warriors in your raid, though, and it’s still very situational. How many bosses needed interrupting in the Firelands?
Tier 5:
Bull Rush: Your Charge and Intervene Enrage you for 6 sec.
I’m not really sure what to say about this – it’s awful. Fury warriors will have other ways to get enraged, and they’re the ones who stand to benefit the most from this talent. Coupled with Warbringer and Throwdown it will lead to some extra burst in PvP but for those of us who like raids, ignore this.
Death Wish: You attack with reckless abandon for the next 10 sec, which Enrages you and causes you to generate additional rage from damage received. While under the effects of Death Wish, you take 5% additional damage.
Maybe there’s something missing and it’s hard to objectively judge what “Enrage” will actually do for warriors or how high an uptime it’ll passively have, but this looks like a rage cooldown for tanks and not much else. The problem is, tanks won’t take it either if the Minor glyph doesn’t make the cut.
Deadly Calm: You enter a battle stance, causing your next 3 Heroic Strike or Cleave attacks to cost no rage. Lasts 15 sec.
I honestly hoped this cooldown would be removed for MoP, yet here it is as the best choice for warriors taking on bosses despite it being weaker than its current incarnation. This is purely by virtue of the other two talents being so poor, not because this is any good. In PvP… Sure, it’s got use. But not much.
Tier 6:
Bladestorm: You become a whirling storm of destructive force, instantly striking all nearby targets for 150% weapon damage and continuing to strike all nearby targets every 1 sec for 6 sec. During a Bladestorm, you are immune to movement impairing and loss of control effects, but can be Disarmed, and you can only perform shout abilities.
Relegated to a pure trash-burst talent for DPS warriors. The fact is that, in this form, Shockwave beats it for sustained AoE damage and Avatar beats it hands-down for absolutely everything else. Once you’ve outgrown the novelty of Titan’s Grip or Protection warriors looking good, this becomes the wrong choice.
Avatar: You transform into an unstoppable colossus for 10 sec, which increases your damage dealt by 20% and causes your attacks to generate extra rage. While transformed you are immune to movement impairing effects.
This is a lovely cooldown that will have an undoubtedly lovely graphical effect to accompany it. DPS warriors in PvE and PvP will be picking this up, as will boss tanks. This talent, along with probably Impending Victory, are the beacons of light in an otherwise abnormally poor set of choices. As a tank, however, it’s probably not going to be what you pick up.
Shockwave: Sends a wave of force in front of you, causing 497 damage and stunning all enemy targets within 10 yards in a frontal cone for 4 sec.
Tanks will be taking Shockwave. It’s very likely that it will remain a strong part of our single-target rotation, but it’s a necessity if we’re ever tanking anything else because our AoE repertoire is just too weak otherwise if we skip it. If you solely tank bosses, you can take Avatar – for everything else, it’s Shockwave.
So there you have it. If you are a raiding warrior, your choices will look like this and any deviation will require an awful lot of explaining:
Tier 1: Juggernaut.
Tier 2: Impending Victory.
Tier 3: Piercing Howl (possibly Throwdown).
Tier 4: Rude Interruption.
Tier 5: Deadly Calm.
Tier 6: Shockwave/Avatar (Protection/DPS).
Now of course, some people will disagree with me and that’s fine. I know these talents are only a first pass, I know you can switch talents out of combat, I know PvP has to be considered too, and I know they want rid of cookie cutter specs. The problem is that a cookie cutter is exactly what we’ve got with regards to PvE content because too many talents are either hopelessly situational on boss encounters, or completely and utterly useless.
In fact, we’ve ended up taking those bad talents because the alternatives are so poor.
The idea for the talent revamp is good. The implementation for warriors is dreadful.
Please remember this is all subject to change, and in any number of ways, so what is posted here might not remain relevant all that long.
To whit then, let’s start with tier 1:
Double Time: You can use Charge twice before incurring its cooldown.
The way this is touted to work is just so awkward that it’s not worth it. After the first Charge, you get eight seconds to Charge again before the net result is a longer Charge cooldown than if you pick Juggernaut. Even if you do, it’s another interminable 20 second wait before you can use it again. Very poor.
Warbringer: Your Charge also roots a target for 5 sec.
Very unlikely to go live in this state as it would be overpowered when coupled with other talents such as Throwdown and Shockwave in PvP, and it’s next to useless in PvE as it won’t work on bosses and you rarely want to stun trash for long when you’re trying to position it. Skip it.
Juggernaut: You can Charge every 12 sec instead of every 20 sec.
It’s painful having to use a talent point for something we already have at baseline. That said, due to the inherent weaknesses in the other two talents, this would be your tier one choice for PvE and it’s a no-brainer. I daresay PvP warriors will view this similarly, and across all three specs.
Tier 2:
Enraged Regeneration: You regenerate 30% of your total health over 10 sec. Can only be used while Enraged.
Like Juggernaut, having to spend a talent point to get something we already have at baseline is galling. This talent has another two snags, though; it’s weaker than Impending Victory and STILL retains the ugly requirement to be enraged before you can use it. To be viable, the cooldown would need to change.
Second Wind: Whenever you are struck by a Stun or Immobilize effect you generate 20 Rage and 5% of your total health over 10 sec. Whenever you take direct damage, you have a 10% chance to regenerate 3% of your total health over 5 sec.
A PvP talent only, really, as you won’t spend a lot of time stunned or immobilized while playing PvE content. Further, a 10% chance to proc a weak self-heal means one in 10 swings from the average boss and goodness knows what uptime it would have if you play a DPS spec. Ignore it.
Impending Victory: You can use a Victory Rush at any time, but with a 30 sec cooldown and at a 20 rage cost.
Here’s your easy winner. It’s statistically returning more health than Enraged Regeneration, while also not requiring an Enrage or being a Heal over Time (HoT) effect. It also fills the painful self-healing gap warriors have had in their arsenal for so long. All told, a very strong talent for everyone.
Tier 3:
Cripple: Your autoattack hits and Rend ticks main your target, reducing movement speed by 50% for 15 sec.
PvP warriors have wanted to see this for a considerable amount of time now, making it a great choice to help them dish out damage without wasting GCD’s by spamming Hamstring. For PvE? Pretty close to useless as there’s no way it’ll work on bosses.
Throwdown: Knocks the target to the ground and stuns it for 5 sec.
Again, part of your PvP repertoire but of limited use to those of us doing raid content as it doesn’t work on bosses. I would also expect to see some “rebalancing” if flag carriers attempt to take this, Warbringer and Shockwave considering Pummel and Concussion Blow will be baseline for tanks.
Piercing Howl: Causes all enemies within 10 yards to be Dazed, reducing movement speed by 50% for 6 sec.
Yet again, almost solely for PvP; very little practical use for any warriors in PvE. The problem is that the other talents are so weak in meaningful raid content, that this is probably the best choice for the potentially interesting implications it could have on the odd encounter. Probably the best from a bad bunch.
Tier 4:
Disrupting Shout: Interrupts all spellcasting within 10 yards and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 4 sec.
This talent will be pretty good when grouping trash packs with multiple casters, but there won’t be many of those, as the other tanks don’t have equivalent options. Clearly of benefit in PvP (particularly BG’s with casters grouped) but, yet again, of absolutely no use if you’re working on a boss.
Gag Order: Your Pummel and Heroic Throw have a 100% chance to silence the target for 3 sec.
Won’t work on bosses, which is making me sound like a broken record. 2’s arena, which is not actively balanced properly, might see this talent do well and it’ll be good on trash packs with one or two casters… But otherwise pretty weak.
Rude Interruption: Successfully interrupting a spell with Pummel increases your damage by 5% for 30 sec.
This is the only talent in the tier that will work on bosses, so it’s the winner by default. Good luck wrestling for interrupt-rights with the other warriors in your raid, though, and it’s still very situational. How many bosses needed interrupting in the Firelands?
Tier 5:
Bull Rush: Your Charge and Intervene Enrage you for 6 sec.
I’m not really sure what to say about this – it’s awful. Fury warriors will have other ways to get enraged, and they’re the ones who stand to benefit the most from this talent. Coupled with Warbringer and Throwdown it will lead to some extra burst in PvP but for those of us who like raids, ignore this.
Death Wish: You attack with reckless abandon for the next 10 sec, which Enrages you and causes you to generate additional rage from damage received. While under the effects of Death Wish, you take 5% additional damage.
Maybe there’s something missing and it’s hard to objectively judge what “Enrage” will actually do for warriors or how high an uptime it’ll passively have, but this looks like a rage cooldown for tanks and not much else. The problem is, tanks won’t take it either if the Minor glyph doesn’t make the cut.
Deadly Calm: You enter a battle stance, causing your next 3 Heroic Strike or Cleave attacks to cost no rage. Lasts 15 sec.
I honestly hoped this cooldown would be removed for MoP, yet here it is as the best choice for warriors taking on bosses despite it being weaker than its current incarnation. This is purely by virtue of the other two talents being so poor, not because this is any good. In PvP… Sure, it’s got use. But not much.
Tier 6:
Bladestorm: You become a whirling storm of destructive force, instantly striking all nearby targets for 150% weapon damage and continuing to strike all nearby targets every 1 sec for 6 sec. During a Bladestorm, you are immune to movement impairing and loss of control effects, but can be Disarmed, and you can only perform shout abilities.
Relegated to a pure trash-burst talent for DPS warriors. The fact is that, in this form, Shockwave beats it for sustained AoE damage and Avatar beats it hands-down for absolutely everything else. Once you’ve outgrown the novelty of Titan’s Grip or Protection warriors looking good, this becomes the wrong choice.
Avatar: You transform into an unstoppable colossus for 10 sec, which increases your damage dealt by 20% and causes your attacks to generate extra rage. While transformed you are immune to movement impairing effects.
This is a lovely cooldown that will have an undoubtedly lovely graphical effect to accompany it. DPS warriors in PvE and PvP will be picking this up, as will boss tanks. This talent, along with probably Impending Victory, are the beacons of light in an otherwise abnormally poor set of choices. As a tank, however, it’s probably not going to be what you pick up.
Shockwave: Sends a wave of force in front of you, causing 497 damage and stunning all enemy targets within 10 yards in a frontal cone for 4 sec.
Tanks will be taking Shockwave. It’s very likely that it will remain a strong part of our single-target rotation, but it’s a necessity if we’re ever tanking anything else because our AoE repertoire is just too weak otherwise if we skip it. If you solely tank bosses, you can take Avatar – for everything else, it’s Shockwave.
So there you have it. If you are a raiding warrior, your choices will look like this and any deviation will require an awful lot of explaining:
Tier 1: Juggernaut.
Tier 2: Impending Victory.
Tier 3: Piercing Howl (possibly Throwdown).
Tier 4: Rude Interruption.
Tier 5: Deadly Calm.
Tier 6: Shockwave/Avatar (Protection/DPS).
Now of course, some people will disagree with me and that’s fine. I know these talents are only a first pass, I know you can switch talents out of combat, I know PvP has to be considered too, and I know they want rid of cookie cutter specs. The problem is that a cookie cutter is exactly what we’ve got with regards to PvE content because too many talents are either hopelessly situational on boss encounters, or completely and utterly useless.
In fact, we’ve ended up taking those bad talents because the alternatives are so poor.
The idea for the talent revamp is good. The implementation for warriors is dreadful.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
OMG PANDAS!
So I am the new kid on the block here at Piercing Howl. And I wanted to talk about Pandas.
Even though it is more important to digest the actual information we have, like the awesome ideas for the new talent system, I want to address an issue with the WoW community. The freakout over things they know nothing about yet.
Even if you are not that excited about MoP as an expansion, to dismiss it because there is a movie that kind of resembles the idea of an expansion is just ridiculous. It is like saying that Cataclysm is just another big bad dragon killing things. That is what some of the community seems to be doing, and I am personally tired of it.
Everyone longed for the days where it took months to kill a dragon because it was challenging. The cries of, the game went to the casuals resonated all over the internet. So Firelands was made a lot more difficult and now you have raiders questioning if 400+ pulls on H-Ragnaros is simply bad design. I mean seriously? You asked for it, and now you are blaming the design because what you asked for is, well, exactly what you asked for?
Everyone thought making things difficult again was going to make them feel elite and privileged, but all it did was make you hate Zandalari dungeons. People can never be happy with anything.
I say enough! let the Pandas BE! They will be awesome, I am going to love them and cannot wait to see how they hold a shield with no opposable thumb.
Stop the madness, consume the content, have fun with it and don't make the call the Waaambulance anymore.
Even though it is more important to digest the actual information we have, like the awesome ideas for the new talent system, I want to address an issue with the WoW community. The freakout over things they know nothing about yet.
Even if you are not that excited about MoP as an expansion, to dismiss it because there is a movie that kind of resembles the idea of an expansion is just ridiculous. It is like saying that Cataclysm is just another big bad dragon killing things. That is what some of the community seems to be doing, and I am personally tired of it.
Everyone longed for the days where it took months to kill a dragon because it was challenging. The cries of, the game went to the casuals resonated all over the internet. So Firelands was made a lot more difficult and now you have raiders questioning if 400+ pulls on H-Ragnaros is simply bad design. I mean seriously? You asked for it, and now you are blaming the design because what you asked for is, well, exactly what you asked for?
Everyone thought making things difficult again was going to make them feel elite and privileged, but all it did was make you hate Zandalari dungeons. People can never be happy with anything.
I say enough! let the Pandas BE! They will be awesome, I am going to love them and cannot wait to see how they hold a shield with no opposable thumb.
Stop the madness, consume the content, have fun with it and don't make the call the Waaambulance anymore.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Ideas for the new talent system.
Despite the excitement about the new talent system, and how positive I am about it, it's only a first step - albeit in the right direction. Looking through the system as a whole, however, it has a truckload of (in my opinion) unrealised potential as far as warriors are concerned. As I see it at the moment, there are three problems with the system:
1) Six talents feels a bit... Small. This could easily be increased.
2) Many talents, particularly for tanks, are simply too weak or situational to be of interest.
3) The overwhelming miasma of PvP is all over these talents.
To start the ball of discussion rolling, I've gone through the talents themselves and presented what I think would be more interesting for the warrior levelling experience. I've gone for ten talents in total; one picked up at level 10, two at level 90, and one for every 10 levels in between. I've tried to capture what I reckon is more interesting for every warrior, not just those who play PvP, while also taking certain liberties with what's already presented.
I started by removing Enraged Regeneration, Shockwave, Bladestorm and Avatar. Enraged Regeneration should be a cross-spec trainable ability rather than a talent, while Shockwave and Bladestorm should be in the Protection and Arms trees respectively (similar to Titan's Grip/Single-Minded Fury). Avatar is too cool to rob warriors of at all, so I'd make it the level 87 "new" ability for Mists of Pandaria.
I also chose to rename Double Time to Warbringer, while taking the Warbringer effect out altogether as the talent "Cripple" and a fix to jump-charging should already deal with that problem. Finally, I took out Bull Rush altogether because I think it's crap.
So without further ado, this is what I came up with:
Level 10
Blitz: Your Charge generates 5 extra rage and stuns up to 2 additional nearby targets.
Juggernaut: You can Charge every 12 sec instead of every 20 sec.
Warbringer: You can use Charge twice before incurring its cooldown.
Level 20
Impending Victory: You can use Victory Rush at any time, but with a 30 sec cooldown and a 20 rage cost.
Second Wind: Whenever you are struck by a Stun or Immobilize effect, you generate 20 Rage and 5% of your total health over 10 sec.
Blood Craze: After taking any damage, you have a 15% chance to regenerate 5% of your total health over 5 sec.
Level 30
Heroic Fury: Removes any Immobilization effects and refreshes the cooldown of your Charge ability.
Relentless: Snare effects placed on you cannot slow for more than 25% at any time.
Defensive Impact: Your Intervene ability can now be used to target enemies and it increases your parry chance by 75% for 3 sec after it is used.
Level 40
Gag Order: Your Pummel and Heroic Throw have a 100% chance to silence the target for 3 sec.
Throwdown: Knocks the target to the ground and stuns it for 5 sec.
Rude Interruption: Successfully interrupting a spell with Pummel increases your damage by 5% for 30 sec.
Level 50
Cripple: Your autoattack hits and Rend ticks maim your target, reducing movement speed by 50% for 15 sec.
Vigilance: Focus your protective gaze on a party or raid member. Each time they are hit by an attack, your Taunt cooldown is refreshed and you deal an additional 5% damage for 12 sec.
Safeguard: Reduces damage taken by the target of your Intervene ability by 30% for 6 sec.
Level 60
Blood Frenzy: Your bleed effects cause targets to take an extra 4% physical damage and applying a bleed effect increases all bleed damage taken by the target by 30% for 1 min.
Rampage: Increases the critical strike chance of all party and raid members within 100 yds by 5%.
Terrifying Demeanour: All enemies within 30 yards of the warrior have their physical damage reduced by 5%.
Level 70
War Cry: Your Intimidating Shout now causes a single targeted enemy to be terrified in place for 30 sec. During this time he will be unable to move or attack, but damage caused other than Rend will break the effect.
Piercing Howl: Causes all enemies within 10 yards to be Dazed, reducing movement speed by 50% for 6 sec.
Disrupting Shout: Interrupts all spellcasting within 10 yards and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 4 sec.
Level 80
Deadly Calm: You enter a calm state, causing your next 3 Heroic Strike of Cleave attacks to cost no rage. Lasts 15 sec.
Death Wish: You attack with reckless abandon for the next 10 sec, which Enrages you and causes you to generate additional rage from damage received. While under the effects of Death Wish, you take 5% additional damage.
Taste for Cruelty: Increases your Overpower, Wild Strike and Revenge critical strike chance by 15%. In addition, whenever your Rend ability causes damage, you have a 100% chance of allowing the use of Overpower, Wild Strike or Revenge for 9 sec. This effect will not occur more than once every 5 sec.
Level 90
Blade Reflection: Your Spell Reflect has its cooldown reduced by 10 sec and no longer requires a shield.
Magical Paragon: Your Spell Reflect will now reflect spells cast at up to two party or raid members within 8 yards.
Spell Breaker: You passively take 5% less magical damage.
And:
Lambs to the Slaughter: Your Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst and Shield Slam abilities cause the Slaughter effect, refreshing the duration of Rend on the target and increasing the damage of all three abilities by 1%. Stacks up to 3 times.
Sweep and Clear: Your Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst and Shield Slam abilities strike their main target for 80% normal damage, but hit up to an additional two targets in front of the warrior for 60% normal damage.
Brutal Lashing: Your Slam, Raging Blow and Devastate abilities now strike an additional nearby target for 100% damage.
A couple of quick notes to all this could be in order.
I know the talents are not finished and we only got a first look; please don't remind me. I just happen to think some are pretty poor and this is hopefully the start of a discussion that gets some good feedback on the go. Secondly, this is entirely subjective and opinionated. As such, please understand that it's what I personally think would be cool and I'm totally comfortable with any disagreement to my list. Lastly, I know certain talents might not "fit" where they currently are, but we're trying to find strong choices that aren't obvious while ensuring we don't end up overpowered or just picking something that's the best of a bad bunch.
That said, have a look through and share what you think.
What would you like to see as an option for warriors in Mists of Pandaria?
1) Six talents feels a bit... Small. This could easily be increased.
2) Many talents, particularly for tanks, are simply too weak or situational to be of interest.
3) The overwhelming miasma of PvP is all over these talents.
To start the ball of discussion rolling, I've gone through the talents themselves and presented what I think would be more interesting for the warrior levelling experience. I've gone for ten talents in total; one picked up at level 10, two at level 90, and one for every 10 levels in between. I've tried to capture what I reckon is more interesting for every warrior, not just those who play PvP, while also taking certain liberties with what's already presented.
I started by removing Enraged Regeneration, Shockwave, Bladestorm and Avatar. Enraged Regeneration should be a cross-spec trainable ability rather than a talent, while Shockwave and Bladestorm should be in the Protection and Arms trees respectively (similar to Titan's Grip/Single-Minded Fury). Avatar is too cool to rob warriors of at all, so I'd make it the level 87 "new" ability for Mists of Pandaria.
I also chose to rename Double Time to Warbringer, while taking the Warbringer effect out altogether as the talent "Cripple" and a fix to jump-charging should already deal with that problem. Finally, I took out Bull Rush altogether because I think it's crap.
So without further ado, this is what I came up with:
Level 10
Blitz: Your Charge generates 5 extra rage and stuns up to 2 additional nearby targets.
Juggernaut: You can Charge every 12 sec instead of every 20 sec.
Warbringer: You can use Charge twice before incurring its cooldown.
Level 20
Impending Victory: You can use Victory Rush at any time, but with a 30 sec cooldown and a 20 rage cost.
Second Wind: Whenever you are struck by a Stun or Immobilize effect, you generate 20 Rage and 5% of your total health over 10 sec.
Blood Craze: After taking any damage, you have a 15% chance to regenerate 5% of your total health over 5 sec.
Level 30
Heroic Fury: Removes any Immobilization effects and refreshes the cooldown of your Charge ability.
Relentless: Snare effects placed on you cannot slow for more than 25% at any time.
Defensive Impact: Your Intervene ability can now be used to target enemies and it increases your parry chance by 75% for 3 sec after it is used.
Level 40
Gag Order: Your Pummel and Heroic Throw have a 100% chance to silence the target for 3 sec.
Throwdown: Knocks the target to the ground and stuns it for 5 sec.
Rude Interruption: Successfully interrupting a spell with Pummel increases your damage by 5% for 30 sec.
Level 50
Cripple: Your autoattack hits and Rend ticks maim your target, reducing movement speed by 50% for 15 sec.
Vigilance: Focus your protective gaze on a party or raid member. Each time they are hit by an attack, your Taunt cooldown is refreshed and you deal an additional 5% damage for 12 sec.
Safeguard: Reduces damage taken by the target of your Intervene ability by 30% for 6 sec.
Level 60
Blood Frenzy: Your bleed effects cause targets to take an extra 4% physical damage and applying a bleed effect increases all bleed damage taken by the target by 30% for 1 min.
Rampage: Increases the critical strike chance of all party and raid members within 100 yds by 5%.
Terrifying Demeanour: All enemies within 30 yards of the warrior have their physical damage reduced by 5%.
Level 70
War Cry: Your Intimidating Shout now causes a single targeted enemy to be terrified in place for 30 sec. During this time he will be unable to move or attack, but damage caused other than Rend will break the effect.
Piercing Howl: Causes all enemies within 10 yards to be Dazed, reducing movement speed by 50% for 6 sec.
Disrupting Shout: Interrupts all spellcasting within 10 yards and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 4 sec.
Level 80
Deadly Calm: You enter a calm state, causing your next 3 Heroic Strike of Cleave attacks to cost no rage. Lasts 15 sec.
Death Wish: You attack with reckless abandon for the next 10 sec, which Enrages you and causes you to generate additional rage from damage received. While under the effects of Death Wish, you take 5% additional damage.
Taste for Cruelty: Increases your Overpower, Wild Strike and Revenge critical strike chance by 15%. In addition, whenever your Rend ability causes damage, you have a 100% chance of allowing the use of Overpower, Wild Strike or Revenge for 9 sec. This effect will not occur more than once every 5 sec.
Level 90
Blade Reflection: Your Spell Reflect has its cooldown reduced by 10 sec and no longer requires a shield.
Magical Paragon: Your Spell Reflect will now reflect spells cast at up to two party or raid members within 8 yards.
Spell Breaker: You passively take 5% less magical damage.
And:
Lambs to the Slaughter: Your Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst and Shield Slam abilities cause the Slaughter effect, refreshing the duration of Rend on the target and increasing the damage of all three abilities by 1%. Stacks up to 3 times.
Sweep and Clear: Your Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst and Shield Slam abilities strike their main target for 80% normal damage, but hit up to an additional two targets in front of the warrior for 60% normal damage.
Brutal Lashing: Your Slam, Raging Blow and Devastate abilities now strike an additional nearby target for 100% damage.
A couple of quick notes to all this could be in order.
I know the talents are not finished and we only got a first look; please don't remind me. I just happen to think some are pretty poor and this is hopefully the start of a discussion that gets some good feedback on the go. Secondly, this is entirely subjective and opinionated. As such, please understand that it's what I personally think would be cool and I'm totally comfortable with any disagreement to my list. Lastly, I know certain talents might not "fit" where they currently are, but we're trying to find strong choices that aren't obvious while ensuring we don't end up overpowered or just picking something that's the best of a bad bunch.
That said, have a look through and share what you think.
What would you like to see as an option for warriors in Mists of Pandaria?
Monday, October 24, 2011
Where are my Lambs?
One of the things I've yet to see any real coverage on is how certain existing talents are going to make the jump into Mists of Pandaria outside of the six talent selections. While I'm very excited about the new talent revamp and how it's going to play out, I do worry that certain game-changing talents are going to go the way of the dodo. Additionally, I totally accept that I may have misread, misunderstood or misinterpreted something that answers this question, but I'll get it out there.
What about the active talents that make specs work?
It's long been a desire of mine to see the back of two things:
1) Passive increase talents.
2) Multi-point talents.
Passive increases to critical strike rating, raw output or other stats are as dull as dishwater and I don't think anyone will miss them. A few were baked into the level 10 choice but, honestly, nowhere near enough. Almost as bad are those two to three point investments just to get a talent to DO something and, again, I shan't mourn their passing. What concerns me is that some of the most compelling talents in the game have seen little or no mention for Mists of Pandaria, and I'd be shocked if this was merely an oversight.
We know that many of the talents you pick up now are going to be baseline abilities in their appropriate spec. So if you're wondering where Devastate or Raging Blow have gone, you'll get them as you level and no choice need be made. But there are still many talents that, while often passive, alter how the game is played; almost universally for the better.
Ignore crap like War Academy, Toughness or Cruelty.
What about Lambs to the Slaughter, Rampage or Sword and Board?
Are Arms warriors going to see Taste for Blood and Sudden Death? What about those Fury warriors who love Executioner and Heroic Fury? As a tank, the loss of Blood and Thunder and Safeguard would be really upsetting. I'm comfortable with the removal of talents that don't really do anything other than add bland passive increases, but there are several talents in there that make the game fun and provide quality of life.
Essentially, full ability lists for each spec as well as a good look at the tooltips are going to provide some answers. It's doubtless that this is going to impact every class, too, as I can't believe that warriors are the only class with meaningful talents that change the way we play.
However, the Fury list I saw at BlizzCon just gave me a bit of a shiver when I didn't see Rampage in it. Sure, they could make it part of the specialization at level 10, but that would just make levelling even more laughably trivial than it already is. And are we really to expect Rampage, Executioner, Furious Attacks, or Die by the Sword to appear in there too?
Further clarification is going to be very interesting as the unravelling of the new talent system picks up in pace following the bright lights in Anaheim.
What about the active talents that make specs work?
It's long been a desire of mine to see the back of two things:
1) Passive increase talents.
2) Multi-point talents.
Passive increases to critical strike rating, raw output or other stats are as dull as dishwater and I don't think anyone will miss them. A few were baked into the level 10 choice but, honestly, nowhere near enough. Almost as bad are those two to three point investments just to get a talent to DO something and, again, I shan't mourn their passing. What concerns me is that some of the most compelling talents in the game have seen little or no mention for Mists of Pandaria, and I'd be shocked if this was merely an oversight.
We know that many of the talents you pick up now are going to be baseline abilities in their appropriate spec. So if you're wondering where Devastate or Raging Blow have gone, you'll get them as you level and no choice need be made. But there are still many talents that, while often passive, alter how the game is played; almost universally for the better.
Ignore crap like War Academy, Toughness or Cruelty.
What about Lambs to the Slaughter, Rampage or Sword and Board?
Are Arms warriors going to see Taste for Blood and Sudden Death? What about those Fury warriors who love Executioner and Heroic Fury? As a tank, the loss of Blood and Thunder and Safeguard would be really upsetting. I'm comfortable with the removal of talents that don't really do anything other than add bland passive increases, but there are several talents in there that make the game fun and provide quality of life.
Essentially, full ability lists for each spec as well as a good look at the tooltips are going to provide some answers. It's doubtless that this is going to impact every class, too, as I can't believe that warriors are the only class with meaningful talents that change the way we play.
However, the Fury list I saw at BlizzCon just gave me a bit of a shiver when I didn't see Rampage in it. Sure, they could make it part of the specialization at level 10, but that would just make levelling even more laughably trivial than it already is. And are we really to expect Rampage, Executioner, Furious Attacks, or Die by the Sword to appear in there too?
Further clarification is going to be very interesting as the unravelling of the new talent system picks up in pace following the bright lights in Anaheim.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Class Talent System overview.
[Edited post.]
Last night's look at the class talent system was, frankly, a revelation. It was as if the constraints of the current talent system finally hit the developers like a brick and they chose to do something they should have done years ago. Don't get me wrong, I believe the tree revamp for warriors was successful in the main and particularly so for Protection - lots of choice and lots of cool game changers.
But the fact remained that there were still some junk talents, cookie cutter specs didn't go away (ostracism being rife for certain skips) and many talents just weren't a choice - thinks like Warbringer, Bastion of Defence and Devastate were more levelling "rites of passage" than they were compelling decisions.
Essentially, the new system looks like this:
- Choose a spec at level 10 as now, get some abilities as now.
- Depending on spec, you'll get an ability every couple of levels.
- You will ONLY have access to that spec's abilities and not the other specs (there are some "core abilities" such as Heroic Strike that are commonly available).
- Most of the abilities that took a talent point like Raging Blow or Devastate are now levelling up abilities for their respective spec.
- Every 15 levels, you get to choose one talent from three options.
What this actually does for the game is pretty revolutionary for World of Warcraft, and somewhat reminiscent of how Diablo 3 is going to handle talents. The choices you get to make are now almost entirely optional and, roughly speaking, provide different ways of doing the same thing. Everything you NEED to play your spec will be part of the levelling abilities, so they don't need to be chosen at all; your talents are literally up to you.
This does have some implications that many players won't like.
It's a spurious complaint, but I did see a forum whine about the end of hybridization. Such a complaint seems bizarre considering the access to every single talent in the game regardless of spec, but you won't be able use Fury abilities if you play Arms. Sheer volume of choice outweighs this, though.
The streamlining I've prayed for is about to happen with many of the situational abilities that seldom see use about to bite the dust. Those abilities, however, are flavour for many people who'd hate to see 'em go. This is a considerably bigger problem in PvP than it is for PvE.
Stance-dancing may well be a thing of the past. It's already close to being there as it is, but tree-specific abilities lead me to think that there will be next to no point in swapping. Abilities that were available in other stances will probably not be available at all in MoP.
Game balance across specs should end up at an all time high. There is now literally no reason for certain specs to be able to find clever workarounds for mechanics that make them overpowered in certain situations.
All that said, it's impossible to downplay the significant changes this is going to make to long term players. It's equally difficult to predict how it's all going to shake out in the short, medium and longer term.
But I, for one, think the changes are overwhelmingly positive and can't wait to (HOPEFULLY) get hold of a beta pass and start testing some things out.
Last night's look at the class talent system was, frankly, a revelation. It was as if the constraints of the current talent system finally hit the developers like a brick and they chose to do something they should have done years ago. Don't get me wrong, I believe the tree revamp for warriors was successful in the main and particularly so for Protection - lots of choice and lots of cool game changers.
But the fact remained that there were still some junk talents, cookie cutter specs didn't go away (ostracism being rife for certain skips) and many talents just weren't a choice - thinks like Warbringer, Bastion of Defence and Devastate were more levelling "rites of passage" than they were compelling decisions.
Essentially, the new system looks like this:
- Choose a spec at level 10 as now, get some abilities as now.
- Depending on spec, you'll get an ability every couple of levels.
- You will ONLY have access to that spec's abilities and not the other specs (there are some "core abilities" such as Heroic Strike that are commonly available).
- Most of the abilities that took a talent point like Raging Blow or Devastate are now levelling up abilities for their respective spec.
- Every 15 levels, you get to choose one talent from three options.
What this actually does for the game is pretty revolutionary for World of Warcraft, and somewhat reminiscent of how Diablo 3 is going to handle talents. The choices you get to make are now almost entirely optional and, roughly speaking, provide different ways of doing the same thing. Everything you NEED to play your spec will be part of the levelling abilities, so they don't need to be chosen at all; your talents are literally up to you.
This does have some implications that many players won't like.
It's a spurious complaint, but I did see a forum whine about the end of hybridization. Such a complaint seems bizarre considering the access to every single talent in the game regardless of spec, but you won't be able use Fury abilities if you play Arms. Sheer volume of choice outweighs this, though.
The streamlining I've prayed for is about to happen with many of the situational abilities that seldom see use about to bite the dust. Those abilities, however, are flavour for many people who'd hate to see 'em go. This is a considerably bigger problem in PvP than it is for PvE.
Stance-dancing may well be a thing of the past. It's already close to being there as it is, but tree-specific abilities lead me to think that there will be next to no point in swapping. Abilities that were available in other stances will probably not be available at all in MoP.
Game balance across specs should end up at an all time high. There is now literally no reason for certain specs to be able to find clever workarounds for mechanics that make them overpowered in certain situations.
All that said, it's impossible to downplay the significant changes this is going to make to long term players. It's equally difficult to predict how it's all going to shake out in the short, medium and longer term.
But I, for one, think the changes are overwhelmingly positive and can't wait to (HOPEFULLY) get hold of a beta pass and start testing some things out.
MoP preview.
Bear with me, this is going to be a little disjointed and put out for speed.
- If you want to play a Pandaren DK, druid, paladin or warlock... Sorry, you can't. Anything else is fine.
- If you want to play a monk, you will be able to tank (Brewmaster), heal (Mistweaver) or melee (Windwalker). Worgen and goblins are unavailable to be monks.
- Pandaren racials include a 100% food buff increase, +15 cooking skill, rested benefits are twice as strong, 50% less fall damage is taken and there is an active 3 second sleep.
- As a Pandaren, you'll choose your faction at level 10 and it sticks.
- The resource is "Chi" and appears a mix between the rogue combo-point and Balance Eclipse system. There will be NO AUTO ATTACK FUNCTION.
Moving onto the talent trees for 5.0, there is a HUGE change - namely talent trees are gone.
- At level 10, you choose your spec (Protection, Arms, Fury). From there, every few levels you'll get a spec-specific skill and it'll auto-teach; no more trainers!
- Every 15 levels, you'll be given a choice of 3 talents and you can only choose one. So... At levels 15, 30, 45, 60, 75 and 90 you can pick one talent for a final total of 6 with the spec abilities.
Next up quickly, challenge dungeons.
- Essentially, these are timed runs with leaderboards and bragging rights.
- You CAN NOT OUTGEAR THESE. Gear will be normalized throughout.
Not a huge amount of information on the next section, but it's PvE Scenarios.
- Considered "PvE BG's"; several stages with mini-objectives, all feeding into the final objective.
- There are no roles, meaning queues (which will exist) should be shorter.
- They're being considered something of a replacement for group quests, aimed at small numbers of players (2/3).
Dungeons and raids are a large part of this.
- There's going to be nine new dungeons - six of which based in Pandaria.
- Two more old dungeons revamped; the Scholomance and Scarlet Monastery.
- There will be 3 launch raids and a return of world raid bosses.
Next up, quests are being improved.
- There are five new zones, all of which significantly bigger than their Cataclysm counterparts.
- Quest hugs will be more plentiful at max level.
- Faction grinding will be streamlined so that different quests can contribute to the same faction and vice versa.
Struggling to cover all this now, so I'll finish with...
Account wide achievements on the way!
- If you want to play a Pandaren DK, druid, paladin or warlock... Sorry, you can't. Anything else is fine.
- If you want to play a monk, you will be able to tank (Brewmaster), heal (Mistweaver) or melee (Windwalker). Worgen and goblins are unavailable to be monks.
- Pandaren racials include a 100% food buff increase, +15 cooking skill, rested benefits are twice as strong, 50% less fall damage is taken and there is an active 3 second sleep.
- As a Pandaren, you'll choose your faction at level 10 and it sticks.
- The resource is "Chi" and appears a mix between the rogue combo-point and Balance Eclipse system. There will be NO AUTO ATTACK FUNCTION.
Moving onto the talent trees for 5.0, there is a HUGE change - namely talent trees are gone.
- At level 10, you choose your spec (Protection, Arms, Fury). From there, every few levels you'll get a spec-specific skill and it'll auto-teach; no more trainers!
- Every 15 levels, you'll be given a choice of 3 talents and you can only choose one. So... At levels 15, 30, 45, 60, 75 and 90 you can pick one talent for a final total of 6 with the spec abilities.
Next up quickly, challenge dungeons.
- Essentially, these are timed runs with leaderboards and bragging rights.
- You CAN NOT OUTGEAR THESE. Gear will be normalized throughout.
Not a huge amount of information on the next section, but it's PvE Scenarios.
- Considered "PvE BG's"; several stages with mini-objectives, all feeding into the final objective.
- There are no roles, meaning queues (which will exist) should be shorter.
- They're being considered something of a replacement for group quests, aimed at small numbers of players (2/3).
Dungeons and raids are a large part of this.
- There's going to be nine new dungeons - six of which based in Pandaria.
- Two more old dungeons revamped; the Scholomance and Scarlet Monastery.
- There will be 3 launch raids and a return of world raid bosses.
Next up, quests are being improved.
- There are five new zones, all of which significantly bigger than their Cataclysm counterparts.
- Quest hugs will be more plentiful at max level.
- Faction grinding will be streamlined so that different quests can contribute to the same faction and vice versa.
Struggling to cover all this now, so I'll finish with...
Account wide achievements on the way!
Mists of Pandaria confirmed.
Nothing much more to say, other than I'll be providing updates throughout the evening thanks to my virtual ticket.
- Leveling to 90.
- New class, "monk".
- New playable race, "pandaren" (Alliance or Horde, you choose at a certain level).
- New continent, "Pandaria".
I'll talk about the talents, "pet battling", "new talent system", "Challenge mode Dungeons" and "PvE scenarios" when I know more about them.
Frankly, I'm psyched - I look forward to drinking all the delicious tears of those WHO WILL QUIT BECAUSE OF DAMN PANDAS.
- Leveling to 90.
- New class, "monk".
- New playable race, "pandaren" (Alliance or Horde, you choose at a certain level).
- New continent, "Pandaria".
I'll talk about the talents, "pet battling", "new talent system", "Challenge mode Dungeons" and "PvE scenarios" when I know more about them.
Frankly, I'm psyched - I look forward to drinking all the delicious tears of those WHO WILL QUIT BECAUSE OF DAMN PANDAS.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Tiny update.
Recently, as I'm sure you've noticed, Blizzard CM's decided to close down our little warrior community. It's depressing, I enjoyed those threads in my daily life. And I encourage everyone to send an email to CMfeedback-EN@blizzard.com and join Gasoline's great warrior community forums at http://warhub.forumer.com/index.php as Xintic linked. :)
Oh well. I haven't written many posts here yet, as things have been going really slow ingame. This is mainly because of my silly internet (Which I swear I'm going to update soon!!) Basically haven't raided actively for a month.. Lame. My guild even got our first Sulfuras last night. (Sadface, here I am stuck with Ashcandy.) And it went to our Blood DK. :( They also did Glory of the Cataclysm Raider. I need achievement points! :(
Lately though I have been playing a lot on my undead warrior Meladia and gearing her. Of course I'm arms there aswell! Found out just how much I love playing and gearing warriors, I might want to level another one. (Leveled 4 up to 60 now, two of them are 85) Not quite sure though, will maybe level an orc or a blood elf on Moonglade. I really miss being an orc sometimes (was female orc for a year on Vel, then blood elf for a couple of weeks before I went alliance). The racials are pretty nice, even though I notice how often I look for human racial when I play my undead.
Anyway, Hallow's End today, finally! 40 more achievement points for me! Almost reached 13k now, quite happy with that. :) 'dem nerdpoints. It's really my fave World Event. Kind of happy that they changed A Mask for All Occassions. Been working on that achievement for ages. However guys, pointing at last years Hallow's End, I wouldn't have too big expectations about bugless-events yet. Maybe smart to wait a couple of days.. ;)
Oh, and good luck on the ban appeal Kai!
Monday, October 17, 2011
PSA: Thank you Gasoline!
There is a new hangout for all the cool people, namely Warriors.
http://warhub.forumer.com/index.php
A forum where we can freely discuss and post Warrior related thingies, without risking to get banned doing it! Hopefully it'll get up and running in notime, it's cool that Warriors are finally getting the attention they deserve.
As for Gasoline; http://i.imgur.com/BfwQu.gif
http://warhub.forumer.com/index.php
A forum where we can freely discuss and post Warrior related thingies, without risking to get banned doing it! Hopefully it'll get up and running in notime, it's cool that Warriors are finally getting the attention they deserve.
As for Gasoline; http://i.imgur.com/BfwQu.gif
The end of @threads.
Apperantly Blizzard grew tired of us trying to create a more closely knit community on their forums, so they decided to swing the banhammer and delete a majority of the @day threads. Both myself and Kaikuri got a free seven day, all expenses paid, vacation from the forums. And my best guess is, anyone who tries to make @day threads will as well.
It's kind of sad to see really, the threads originated on the US forums, they even date back to the old official forums, and there hasn't been much problems with them there, they're contiously posted on the new battle.net forums, but I guess the people that mod the EU forums has a stick to far up their ass. Apperantly creating these threads are considered spammming/trolling.
On top of that, Kai's protection guide got deleted, which was very helpful to new players that wanted to take up tanking.
All this is the result of trying to create a community. That being said, see you in seven days.
\o
It's kind of sad to see really, the threads originated on the US forums, they even date back to the old official forums, and there hasn't been much problems with them there, they're contiously posted on the new battle.net forums, but I guess the people that mod the EU forums has a stick to far up their ass. Apperantly creating these threads are considered spammming/trolling.
Origination: Forums / Comments
Ban Type: Spamming / Trolling
Expires: Monday, 24 October 2011 17:54:45 o'clock UTC (in 6 days, 23 hours)
Ban Reason: Posting annoying messages in the forums, in this case posting a nonsense, irrelevant or off-topic thread. I.e. spamming: http://eu.battle.net/en/community/conduct
On top of that, Kai's protection guide got deleted, which was very helpful to new players that wanted to take up tanking.
All this is the result of trying to create a community. That being said, see you in seven days.
\o
-9001 (Banhammer)(Critical Hit!)
Those that still read the Official Warrior Forums have already seen this, but. I got slapped with a 1 week ban. The reason I was given? Creating the last @Saturday and linking a video ("What is Love?" in G Major for those who did not see). And apparently, that one thread was bad enough to get every. Single. Thread. I have ever made deleted, and also posts.
Now, this is definitely not something that I am fine with. The ban I was expecting due to the nature of my posts lately, but the reason I was banned for is completely insane. Apparently the CMs aren't fine with the fact that the community is trying to be, you know, a community. Also, it feels especially harsh considering even posts I made on my old Warrior that doesn't even exist anymore got removed. A couple is still found if you search for them, but everything else is gone. This isn't the case with Xintic, for instance, who got banned right after me for creating a new @Monday.
Kind of makes me feel like I was the worst thing to happen there since the Holocaust.
In any case, I am quite happy with the fact that people are trying to work around this, and keeps the @day threads going (or Battle Trance in case of Venetica!). Also, I was surprised people actually started immediately to get me unbanned. Thanks folks!
Now, if you excuse me, I have an E-mail or two to write (and I urge you guys to write one too, to CMfeedback-EN@blizzard.com, if you ain't happy with their moderating). Hopefully I get this ban appealed, although we might want to look into getting another forum for our little community.
NP: Amon Amarth - Free Will Sacrifice
Now, this is definitely not something that I am fine with. The ban I was expecting due to the nature of my posts lately, but the reason I was banned for is completely insane. Apparently the CMs aren't fine with the fact that the community is trying to be, you know, a community. Also, it feels especially harsh considering even posts I made on my old Warrior that doesn't even exist anymore got removed. A couple is still found if you search for them, but everything else is gone. This isn't the case with Xintic, for instance, who got banned right after me for creating a new @Monday.
Kind of makes me feel like I was the worst thing to happen there since the Holocaust.
In any case, I am quite happy with the fact that people are trying to work around this, and keeps the @day threads going (or Battle Trance in case of Venetica!). Also, I was surprised people actually started immediately to get me unbanned. Thanks folks!
Now, if you excuse me, I have an E-mail or two to write (and I urge you guys to write one too, to CMfeedback-EN@blizzard.com, if you ain't happy with their moderating). Hopefully I get this ban appealed, although we might want to look into getting another forum for our little community.
NP: Amon Amarth - Free Will Sacrifice
Bloodied Vengeance.
Vengeance, at time of writing, really is bloodied. It's lying on the floor, the snot kicked out of it, wondering if Caesar Street is going to give it the big thumb-down or find some digital physicians to kickstart its heart monitor and breathe new life into it. It was introduced roughly 10 months ago as a solution to a very specific problem, a problem which has since found a solution elsewhere. I suppose the obvious question at this point is whether or not Vengeance did its job, but you can't really answer that until you know exactly what job it was designed to do.
At its most basic, Vengeance was designed to make tank damage scale with gear so that threat didn't become unmanageable in later raid tiers.
The argument for doing this was fairly simple. As tanks gear up, they look for more mitigation and avoidance; they pay no attention to building more threat. Damage dealers, on the other hand, do everything they can do increase their output which puts a line where their threat generated will be more than tanks can handle. As stamina will increase across the board no matter what you do, it was used as the baseline statistic for Vengeance to scale from. From here, it was simply a case of giving tanks a percentage of attack power depending on how much damage they were taking. Some points to note:
Vengeance was NOT designed to pad tank damage; Vengeance was NOT designed to help on the pull; Vengeance was NOT designed to trivialise threat.
So we went live with a threat bandage that was apparently "more fun" than simply buffing threat modifiers, because tanks wanted to see a real contribution on those all-important meters. Generating lots of threat isn't enjoyable, it was cited; generating lots of threat by doing lots of damage had to be inherently more fun. Unfortunately, and as is so often the case, the playerbase arrived at a number of conclusions very quickly about the implications of Vengeance, magnifying the flaws in the system far beyond the theoretical problem the mechanic was designed to solve.
We know what Vengeance was meant to do, then - but what did it actually do?
- It inflated tank damage to needless levels in progression content.
- It unbalanced output to actually make it punitive in farm content.
- It made it impossible to relatively predict the damage a tank did.
- It utterly devalued hit and expertise ratings for tanks gearing up.
- It caused gear itemized with those stats to be viewed with toxicity.
- It made certain mechanics, like tank swapping, far more awkward.
- It stacked unevenly and inconsistently, again causing awkwardness.
- It provided no help with burst threat, the biggest traditional problem.
- It made up for sloppy play and badly performed tanking rotations.
Unfortunately, the biggest and most serious indictment has a place on its own - it didn't actually do what it was designed to. So much so, that on certain encounters, damage dealers were still finding they were catching up on geared and skilled tanks who had chosen to go the route of maximum avoidance. This, of course, led to the Vengeance death knell of Threat Level Midnight, where Ghostcrawler basically threw in the towel and relegated threat to the "not compelling" pile. Of course, the biggest casualty of all this, is the mechanic designed to help tanks make it manageable.
Vengeance.
Now, I'm not one to kick someone when they're down. I'm really not. Unfortunately, though, I cannot see where Vengeance is supposed to go from here. If it was to pick itself up from the floor, it would be doing so in a world where the developers have decided that threat should no longer matter significantly to a tank. At this point, it's probably reasonable to make a couple of assumptions which may well be discussed this week at Blizzcon:
1) Blizzard want hit and expertise to matter, and the only viable way to do that is to make only attacks that hit contribute to mitigation.
2) If tank threat is low, Blizzard are now comfortable (where they weren't before) simply buffing all tank threat generated to compensate.
If we take these assumptions and call them logical conclusions, there is simply no place for Vengeance in the game any more. Personally, I still don't buy into the belief that there ever was such a place. But ignoring that view for a second, Blizzard have used other methods of addressing the issue reserved for Vengeance, and there's simply no need for a mechanic that does nothing other than give tanks a little more damage. Our output can easily be balanced without it and, I daresay, with far less of the inherent hassles that come with using something as inconsistent and unpredictable as a buff that stacks and falls depending on damage taken. I find it deeply ironic that it actually punishes tanks who gear defensively, as predicted, by seeing them stack up less of the buff they supposedly needed for threat generation.
I'm aware of some of the changes being made to Vengeance in 4.3, particularly with the percentage you get immediately and how much easier it is to keep it stacked reasonably. But the fact of the matter is that it simply doesn't have a viable role moving forward when you assume attacks are going to land; and for that reason, it's going to either have to change dramatically to keep it relevant or it will be removed from the game entirely.
For my part, I look forward to the back of something I always disliked and I won't shed a single tear as it's consigned to the Cataclysm dustbin. My sincerest hope is that it goes the way of many an idea in Cataclysm; gratefully forgotten in a more positive future.
At its most basic, Vengeance was designed to make tank damage scale with gear so that threat didn't become unmanageable in later raid tiers.
The argument for doing this was fairly simple. As tanks gear up, they look for more mitigation and avoidance; they pay no attention to building more threat. Damage dealers, on the other hand, do everything they can do increase their output which puts a line where their threat generated will be more than tanks can handle. As stamina will increase across the board no matter what you do, it was used as the baseline statistic for Vengeance to scale from. From here, it was simply a case of giving tanks a percentage of attack power depending on how much damage they were taking. Some points to note:
Vengeance was NOT designed to pad tank damage; Vengeance was NOT designed to help on the pull; Vengeance was NOT designed to trivialise threat.
So we went live with a threat bandage that was apparently "more fun" than simply buffing threat modifiers, because tanks wanted to see a real contribution on those all-important meters. Generating lots of threat isn't enjoyable, it was cited; generating lots of threat by doing lots of damage had to be inherently more fun. Unfortunately, and as is so often the case, the playerbase arrived at a number of conclusions very quickly about the implications of Vengeance, magnifying the flaws in the system far beyond the theoretical problem the mechanic was designed to solve.
We know what Vengeance was meant to do, then - but what did it actually do?
- It inflated tank damage to needless levels in progression content.
- It unbalanced output to actually make it punitive in farm content.
- It made it impossible to relatively predict the damage a tank did.
- It utterly devalued hit and expertise ratings for tanks gearing up.
- It caused gear itemized with those stats to be viewed with toxicity.
- It made certain mechanics, like tank swapping, far more awkward.
- It stacked unevenly and inconsistently, again causing awkwardness.
- It provided no help with burst threat, the biggest traditional problem.
- It made up for sloppy play and badly performed tanking rotations.
Unfortunately, the biggest and most serious indictment has a place on its own - it didn't actually do what it was designed to. So much so, that on certain encounters, damage dealers were still finding they were catching up on geared and skilled tanks who had chosen to go the route of maximum avoidance. This, of course, led to the Vengeance death knell of Threat Level Midnight, where Ghostcrawler basically threw in the towel and relegated threat to the "not compelling" pile. Of course, the biggest casualty of all this, is the mechanic designed to help tanks make it manageable.
Vengeance.
Now, I'm not one to kick someone when they're down. I'm really not. Unfortunately, though, I cannot see where Vengeance is supposed to go from here. If it was to pick itself up from the floor, it would be doing so in a world where the developers have decided that threat should no longer matter significantly to a tank. At this point, it's probably reasonable to make a couple of assumptions which may well be discussed this week at Blizzcon:
1) Blizzard want hit and expertise to matter, and the only viable way to do that is to make only attacks that hit contribute to mitigation.
2) If tank threat is low, Blizzard are now comfortable (where they weren't before) simply buffing all tank threat generated to compensate.
If we take these assumptions and call them logical conclusions, there is simply no place for Vengeance in the game any more. Personally, I still don't buy into the belief that there ever was such a place. But ignoring that view for a second, Blizzard have used other methods of addressing the issue reserved for Vengeance, and there's simply no need for a mechanic that does nothing other than give tanks a little more damage. Our output can easily be balanced without it and, I daresay, with far less of the inherent hassles that come with using something as inconsistent and unpredictable as a buff that stacks and falls depending on damage taken. I find it deeply ironic that it actually punishes tanks who gear defensively, as predicted, by seeing them stack up less of the buff they supposedly needed for threat generation.
I'm aware of some of the changes being made to Vengeance in 4.3, particularly with the percentage you get immediately and how much easier it is to keep it stacked reasonably. But the fact of the matter is that it simply doesn't have a viable role moving forward when you assume attacks are going to land; and for that reason, it's going to either have to change dramatically to keep it relevant or it will be removed from the game entirely.
For my part, I look forward to the back of something I always disliked and I won't shed a single tear as it's consigned to the Cataclysm dustbin. My sincerest hope is that it goes the way of many an idea in Cataclysm; gratefully forgotten in a more positive future.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
4.3 PTR Build 14849
Taking a quick glance at the latest PTR notes, the first Warrior notes just showed up, and they're affecting Fury only so far.
That means that if the datamining is correct, the base Mastery would be back up to 8 for Fury, like it was before the last Mastery nerf, which brought us down to 2 base Mastery.
As of now I don't know how much this will weigh up the nerf to Dual Wield Specialization. But I have somewhat mixed feelings about it, many of you probably remember the Fury debacle in T11 content with the roller coaster of nerfs and buffs. As it stands now, the mastery is back to where it was in the start of the expansion, but for how long? Will this make Fury viable in PvP again, or will it make it OP? I have some anecdotes of doing arena (1k in 2v2 playing solo, fuckyeah.jpg) as Fury back in the start of Cataclysm when you had 100% C. Smash and full gain from Unshackled Fury, it was a lot of fun to put it shortly, but with C. Smash giving 50% now, I can't see it becoming too OP. Taking in to consideration we're getting a 10% AP buff, maybe the nerf won't be too bad and will bring us in line with the other melee.
On another note, Slam and C. Smash is getting new animations!
This is probably the best part of the whole expansion though.
Finally, after 7 long years, it's been fixed. Maybe PvP will be even more enjoyable now!
Also, just noticed eu.battle.net/wow/en is down, who will make the @Friday thread now?! Race you to it Kai!
Fury
Unshackled Fury now increases the benefit of abilities that cause or require you to be enraged by 44.8%, up from 11,2%.
(Datamining issue, not confirmed in blue post)
Dual Wield Specialization no longer increases all Physical damage by 5%.
That means that if the datamining is correct, the base Mastery would be back up to 8 for Fury, like it was before the last Mastery nerf, which brought us down to 2 base Mastery.
As of now I don't know how much this will weigh up the nerf to Dual Wield Specialization. But I have somewhat mixed feelings about it, many of you probably remember the Fury debacle in T11 content with the roller coaster of nerfs and buffs. As it stands now, the mastery is back to where it was in the start of the expansion, but for how long? Will this make Fury viable in PvP again, or will it make it OP? I have some anecdotes of doing arena (1k in 2v2 playing solo, fuckyeah.jpg) as Fury back in the start of Cataclysm when you had 100% C. Smash and full gain from Unshackled Fury, it was a lot of fun to put it shortly, but with C. Smash giving 50% now, I can't see it becoming too OP. Taking in to consideration we're getting a 10% AP buff, maybe the nerf won't be too bad and will bring us in line with the other melee.
On another note, Slam and C. Smash is getting new animations!
This is probably the best part of the whole expansion though.
Charge (and related abilities) should now correctly path to a target even if the target moves during the Charge. This change should decrease the likelihood of the warrior Charging to a different location than the target.
Finally, after 7 long years, it's been fixed. Maybe PvP will be even more enjoyable now!
Also, just noticed eu.battle.net/wow/en is down, who will make the @Friday thread now?! Race you to it Kai!
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Sulfuras, Hand of Wilpo
Sweet! After "intensive" reputation farming in Molten Core I suddenly saw something orange in the loot bag of Ragnaros. Only one day after looting Eye of Sulfuras I was already swirling fireballs to defenseless target dummies in Orgrimmar! Wanted to share my happiness with other warriors around and there is a picture of me and my new mate below.
Hopefully I will cover the lost twin of Sulfuras aka Shadowmourne one day and be able to proc it like maniac in Orgrimmar to dummies and critters. Although it would've been a lot funnier to get it in WotLK and to do some PvP Klinda-style!
By the way, Klinda's movie is one of my three favorite warrior-movies which I like to share with you now. The other ones are Gforce 4 which include almost magical tricks with warrior and Laintime's Final Movie, which is sweet piece of old-school PvP.
These movies are pretty much the reason I "mained" my warrior and I'm honestly thankful to these three warriors because haven't enjoyed this game before as much as I have enjoyed playing it with my warrior. One of the best gaming experiences I've gone through.
Hopefully I will cover the lost twin of Sulfuras aka Shadowmourne one day and be able to proc it like maniac in Orgrimmar to dummies and critters. Although it would've been a lot funnier to get it in WotLK and to do some PvP Klinda-style!
By the way, Klinda's movie is one of my three favorite warrior-movies which I like to share with you now. The other ones are Gforce 4 which include almost magical tricks with warrior and Laintime's Final Movie, which is sweet piece of old-school PvP.
These movies are pretty much the reason I "mained" my warrior and I'm honestly thankful to these three warriors because haven't enjoyed this game before as much as I have enjoyed playing it with my warrior. One of the best gaming experiences I've gone through.
The Wednesday update.
It's amazing how wrongly you can read a situation. In my case, as most of you are aware, I moved to Darksorrow to trial with a guild that I was of the impression was close to killing Ragnaros on heroic (6/7 pre-nerf). Alas, the truth turned out to be quite different. As of this reset, has ceased raiding - another tragic victim of the Firelord himself. It turns out that the guild were desperately trying to replace four or five high quality raiders who called time on 4.2 once the nerfs went in, and predictably failed to manage it.
Too many guilds are after too few players with the gear and capability to take on Ragnaros. It's a shame, but I'd like to thank Jawbreaker and the rest of the guys for giving me a chance and for being good humoured eggs throughout.
With that done and dusted, your intrepid author has to find a new home once more. Funnily enough, finding said home has turned out to be a more obvious decision than even I anticipated. A very good friend of mine is an officer in a 6/7 guild back on my very first realm and it appears they can use a man of my talents in their build up to 4.3. As I said in this column previously, what I prize is a living, breathing guild that has members who actually enjoy logging on outside of raid times. I couldn't quite manage that on Argent Dawn, struggled for my short stay on Darksorrow, but am buoyed by the fact that I know a good few members in the guild I'm aiming for and returning to Kilrogg will give me a lot of happiness as I can reconnect with old friends outside of my Battle.net account.
Naturally, a trial will have to be undergone (assuming I'm given one) but I'm confident I can make a good impression considering what I achieved in my short time on Darksorrow. Wish me luck!
In other news, my time posting on the WoW Europe forums has now come to an end. I was hit with a one-month ban last week, and it's the worst piece of forum moderation I've ever witnessed. I enjoy the forums, amazingly, but I'm afraid I cannot continue to contribute to something that can have the rug pulled from underneath it for the most innocuous of reasons.
Frankly, a ludicrously heavy-handed punishment when no rules were broken on my part (except under the most subjective of assessments) is wholly unacceptable, especially when extremely hateful and disruptive people are continually allowed to spam, troll and bully other posters without any fear of reprisal.
I've better things to do with my time.
And that's pretty much it for this weekly update. I'm still on the PTR, but there remains very little to actually get into from the warrior point of view. If you're looking for a general rundown of the features coming in the next couple of months, Wilpo's rundown is pretty comprehensive. Otherwise, I'll wait until there's something to actually test before giving you the lowdown.
Stay tuned. o/
Too many guilds are after too few players with the gear and capability to take on Ragnaros. It's a shame, but I'd like to thank Jawbreaker and the rest of the guys for giving me a chance and for being good humoured eggs throughout.
With that done and dusted, your intrepid author has to find a new home once more. Funnily enough, finding said home has turned out to be a more obvious decision than even I anticipated. A very good friend of mine is an officer in a 6/7 guild back on my very first realm and it appears they can use a man of my talents in their build up to 4.3. As I said in this column previously, what I prize is a living, breathing guild that has members who actually enjoy logging on outside of raid times. I couldn't quite manage that on Argent Dawn, struggled for my short stay on Darksorrow, but am buoyed by the fact that I know a good few members in the guild I'm aiming for and returning to Kilrogg will give me a lot of happiness as I can reconnect with old friends outside of my Battle.net account.
Naturally, a trial will have to be undergone (assuming I'm given one) but I'm confident I can make a good impression considering what I achieved in my short time on Darksorrow. Wish me luck!
In other news, my time posting on the WoW Europe forums has now come to an end. I was hit with a one-month ban last week, and it's the worst piece of forum moderation I've ever witnessed. I enjoy the forums, amazingly, but I'm afraid I cannot continue to contribute to something that can have the rug pulled from underneath it for the most innocuous of reasons.
Frankly, a ludicrously heavy-handed punishment when no rules were broken on my part (except under the most subjective of assessments) is wholly unacceptable, especially when extremely hateful and disruptive people are continually allowed to spam, troll and bully other posters without any fear of reprisal.
I've better things to do with my time.
And that's pretty much it for this weekly update. I'm still on the PTR, but there remains very little to actually get into from the warrior point of view. If you're looking for a general rundown of the features coming in the next couple of months, Wilpo's rundown is pretty comprehensive. Otherwise, I'll wait until there's something to actually test before giving you the lowdown.
Stay tuned. o/
Streamlining warriors as a class.
Following on from my previous offering, I got to thinking exactly how the process of streamlining a class would work and how it would be best gone about. First of all, you'd have to be clear as to why you'd do it and what the end state would be. If it was to improve quality of life, free up action bar space and make room for niche talents that are purely based around utility then it would be worthwhile. If it was also to clean spell books of clutter, cut confusing or contradictory abilities and allow more freedom of playstyle choice then you're onto the Holy Grail.
For my part, I had a good ol' think about what I'd do to warriors in order to streamline them. My considerations were the following:
a. Review unnecessary abilities that provide utility that's too situational.
b. Consider amalgamating abilities that fulfill similar functions to others.
c. Take care not to shovel away abilities that add "flavour".
Ultimately, the Cataclysm removal of Shield Bash was a good example of streamlining. The loss of the silence was technically a nerf, but there was no compelling reason to keep Shield Bash when Pummel was doing exactly the same thing. The next expansion isn't far away, and I reckon it's the ideal chance to look at the value of our action bars.
With all that in mind, then, here's where I was thinking we could start streamlining the warrior experience. Naturally, feel free to point out where I'm being stupid or where you think I've not thought of something. This is in no particular order. I should also quickly note (though it's a discussion for another day) that I would support lowering the level cap for the next expansion.
1) Make Concussion Blow trainable and nerf the AP coefficient. Remove Throwdown.
2) Buff Death Wish with critical strike chance and make it trainable. Remove Deadly Calm and Recklessness.
3) Make Thunderclap apply both attack speed and attack power debuffs. Remove Demoralizing Shout.
4) Make Rallying Cry buff strength, agility, intellect or mastery for four minutes (whichever stat is highest) throughout the raid, provide 10 rage, give it a one-minute cooldown and put it on the GCD. Remove Commanding Shout and Battle Shout.
5) Put Heroic Strike on the GCD and make it a rotational attack. Remove Slam (Improved Slam and Bloodsurge).
6) Make Charge available in all stances and continually available in combat. Remove Intercept.
7) Give Colossus Smash a three minute cooldown to remove invulnerabilities. Remove Shattering Throw.
8) Make Colossus Smash a short-duration cooldown, lessening armour by 10% for 20 seconds. Increase cooldown to 50 seconds.
9) Make Sudden Death proc Execute swings instead of Colossus Smash.
10) Make Pummel and Heroic Throw silence as baseline. Remove Gag Order.
11) Make Vigilance also provide 6% damage reduction for eight seconds on an Intervene target. Remove Safeguard.
12) Make the Arms mastery also potentially proc from melee damage taken, while also capable of cleaving. Remove Retaliation and Sweeping Strikes.
13) Make stance-dancing free of rage cost. Remove Tactical Mastery.
14) When killing an enemy that yields experience or honour, a HoT worth 10% of maximum health is applied (stacks). Remove Victory Rush and Impending Victory.
15) Make Piercing Howl baseline, with a Major glyph that changes the snare to a 10 second fear that suffers from diminishing returns. Remove Intimidating Shout.
16) Remove Strike.
17) Remove Inner Rage.
That's about all that immediately springs to mind and without applying any serious thought to it - in the end, this list ships twelve abilities entirely as well as nine talents. Now I know what some people will be thinking, particularly those who play PvP competitively ([insert useful ability] GONE?!). But what I'm trying to do is point out where there is duplication of effort, or where certain abilities have lost that niche that they once had and just aren't the stick-ons that they used to be. Obviously, this type of thing would also have to be done across all of the classes which would allow the developers to rebalance almost from the start and stop this arms race dead in its tracks.
Of course, will any of this happen? Most likely not. Most likely, much of this would be considered pointless or detrimental to what it means to be a warrior. But what's going to happen during the next levelling curve when we have new abilities to play with? Warriors, more than many other classes, already have more than enough to think about when it comes to their action bars.
Personally, I don't want more skills I don't know what to do with or skills that merely act as rotational replacements.
What do you guys think?
For my part, I had a good ol' think about what I'd do to warriors in order to streamline them. My considerations were the following:
a. Review unnecessary abilities that provide utility that's too situational.
b. Consider amalgamating abilities that fulfill similar functions to others.
c. Take care not to shovel away abilities that add "flavour".
Ultimately, the Cataclysm removal of Shield Bash was a good example of streamlining. The loss of the silence was technically a nerf, but there was no compelling reason to keep Shield Bash when Pummel was doing exactly the same thing. The next expansion isn't far away, and I reckon it's the ideal chance to look at the value of our action bars.
With all that in mind, then, here's where I was thinking we could start streamlining the warrior experience. Naturally, feel free to point out where I'm being stupid or where you think I've not thought of something. This is in no particular order. I should also quickly note (though it's a discussion for another day) that I would support lowering the level cap for the next expansion.
1) Make Concussion Blow trainable and nerf the AP coefficient. Remove Throwdown.
2) Buff Death Wish with critical strike chance and make it trainable. Remove Deadly Calm and Recklessness.
3) Make Thunderclap apply both attack speed and attack power debuffs. Remove Demoralizing Shout.
4) Make Rallying Cry buff strength, agility, intellect or mastery for four minutes (whichever stat is highest) throughout the raid, provide 10 rage, give it a one-minute cooldown and put it on the GCD. Remove Commanding Shout and Battle Shout.
5) Put Heroic Strike on the GCD and make it a rotational attack. Remove Slam (Improved Slam and Bloodsurge).
6) Make Charge available in all stances and continually available in combat. Remove Intercept.
7) Give Colossus Smash a three minute cooldown to remove invulnerabilities. Remove Shattering Throw.
8) Make Colossus Smash a short-duration cooldown, lessening armour by 10% for 20 seconds. Increase cooldown to 50 seconds.
9) Make Sudden Death proc Execute swings instead of Colossus Smash.
10) Make Pummel and Heroic Throw silence as baseline. Remove Gag Order.
11) Make Vigilance also provide 6% damage reduction for eight seconds on an Intervene target. Remove Safeguard.
12) Make the Arms mastery also potentially proc from melee damage taken, while also capable of cleaving. Remove Retaliation and Sweeping Strikes.
13) Make stance-dancing free of rage cost. Remove Tactical Mastery.
14) When killing an enemy that yields experience or honour, a HoT worth 10% of maximum health is applied (stacks). Remove Victory Rush and Impending Victory.
15) Make Piercing Howl baseline, with a Major glyph that changes the snare to a 10 second fear that suffers from diminishing returns. Remove Intimidating Shout.
16) Remove Strike.
17) Remove Inner Rage.
That's about all that immediately springs to mind and without applying any serious thought to it - in the end, this list ships twelve abilities entirely as well as nine talents. Now I know what some people will be thinking, particularly those who play PvP competitively ([insert useful ability] GONE?!). But what I'm trying to do is point out where there is duplication of effort, or where certain abilities have lost that niche that they once had and just aren't the stick-ons that they used to be. Obviously, this type of thing would also have to be done across all of the classes which would allow the developers to rebalance almost from the start and stop this arms race dead in its tracks.
Of course, will any of this happen? Most likely not. Most likely, much of this would be considered pointless or detrimental to what it means to be a warrior. But what's going to happen during the next levelling curve when we have new abilities to play with? Warriors, more than many other classes, already have more than enough to think about when it comes to their action bars.
Personally, I don't want more skills I don't know what to do with or skills that merely act as rotational replacements.
What do you guys think?
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Wilpo's quick preview to 4.3 features
After following MMO-champion news and discussions about the incoming patch I decided to write some of my thoughts about the incoming changes and features. Overall the patch looks quite promising - for PvE-players and casual gamers. In terms of PvP it has nothing new to offer. There has been datamined a name of new arena but so far there hasn't been any official announcement about it so I leave it alone in this text.
1. Looking for Raid -tool
The first feature I want to comment is the incoming Looking for Raid -tool. Basicly it will be similar to LFD-tool, it will gather up random people from queue and form up a 25 man raid to new Dragon Soul raid with tuned difficulty. It will be easier than normal modes because lack of communication.
I have to admit I was hoping this kind of feature when I didn't raid with a guild in WotLK and I was relying on pick-up-groups. I bet this feature will be quite popular amongst not-so-dedicated players who aren't scheduling time for raiding at the moment but are willing to see them. If this feature is going to work properly I think many PvP-orientated players will leave their PvE-guilds because they would have a chance to see encounters via Looking for Raid-tool and still be a part of PvP-guild and it's activities.
The only thing what worries me about the tool is that the fact the tier dropping from them can be used with normal and heroic mode tier-sets to gain bonuses. Basicly this will force progressing raiders to do random raids via this tool to obtain the 4-sets to help their "real" progression. Especially when the tank bonuses are so strong it will make difference if the tank has the new 4-set bonus or not. Thylacine wrote a preview about tanking and set-bonuses - what kind of tools they offer to tanks and it's clear that the new raid-wide cooldowns will have an important role in the future.
2. Transmogrification
I'm quite excited about this feature as I was collecting good looking sets already before I have no idea that some day I would actually be able to use them. I had tier 9, 10 and various PvP-sets in my bank already and I was happy when I read about Transmogrification for the first time.
It's been a bit dull in WotLK and Cataclysm that everyone have looked like everyone else who represents the same class. Everyone was in the current tier-set or the current PvP-set and it "killed" the diversity amongst players somehow. In 4.3 you'll be able to use your favorite armors and look like you've always wanted to look. Although there might be for example a Tier 6 -flood in the beginning of patch 4.3 I'm quite sure people will look for different armors quite quickly.
It's time to clean up my tier 10 and make it shine once more! For PvP I'm going to use either Wrathful-gear or Relentless-gear, they're my favorites of the all sets.
3. Dragon Soul -raid and the new instances
There are incoming a new raid (who would have guessed?!) in the new patch and also new 5-mans like in 3.3 when ICC was released. So far I've only read about them but there has been lot of hype about the new raid. Blizzard has stated that it will be the most story-based raid ever with few cinematics - that can't be bad if they keep their promises! Maybe Ulduar gets a challenger to compete about "the best raid ever" -title finally.
The new 5-mans are quite lore-based too and they are all new instances, no revamped troll-instances this time which is quite nice. I doubt I personally will do them often after gained the gear from them but I bet they will be quite nice.
So that's my quick preview about 4.3 patch, it's biggest features and my thoughts about them. Overall the 4.3 patch looks very promising, I just hope there will be content for PvP-players too.
P.S. Finally reached 2k rating in 3v3! /happyface
1. Looking for Raid -tool
The first feature I want to comment is the incoming Looking for Raid -tool. Basicly it will be similar to LFD-tool, it will gather up random people from queue and form up a 25 man raid to new Dragon Soul raid with tuned difficulty. It will be easier than normal modes because lack of communication.
I have to admit I was hoping this kind of feature when I didn't raid with a guild in WotLK and I was relying on pick-up-groups. I bet this feature will be quite popular amongst not-so-dedicated players who aren't scheduling time for raiding at the moment but are willing to see them. If this feature is going to work properly I think many PvP-orientated players will leave their PvE-guilds because they would have a chance to see encounters via Looking for Raid-tool and still be a part of PvP-guild and it's activities.
The only thing what worries me about the tool is that the fact the tier dropping from them can be used with normal and heroic mode tier-sets to gain bonuses. Basicly this will force progressing raiders to do random raids via this tool to obtain the 4-sets to help their "real" progression. Especially when the tank bonuses are so strong it will make difference if the tank has the new 4-set bonus or not. Thylacine wrote a preview about tanking and set-bonuses - what kind of tools they offer to tanks and it's clear that the new raid-wide cooldowns will have an important role in the future.
2. Transmogrification
I'm quite excited about this feature as I was collecting good looking sets already before I have no idea that some day I would actually be able to use them. I had tier 9, 10 and various PvP-sets in my bank already and I was happy when I read about Transmogrification for the first time.
It's been a bit dull in WotLK and Cataclysm that everyone have looked like everyone else who represents the same class. Everyone was in the current tier-set or the current PvP-set and it "killed" the diversity amongst players somehow. In 4.3 you'll be able to use your favorite armors and look like you've always wanted to look. Although there might be for example a Tier 6 -flood in the beginning of patch 4.3 I'm quite sure people will look for different armors quite quickly.
It's time to clean up my tier 10 and make it shine once more! For PvP I'm going to use either Wrathful-gear or Relentless-gear, they're my favorites of the all sets.
3. Dragon Soul -raid and the new instances
There are incoming a new raid (who would have guessed?!) in the new patch and also new 5-mans like in 3.3 when ICC was released. So far I've only read about them but there has been lot of hype about the new raid. Blizzard has stated that it will be the most story-based raid ever with few cinematics - that can't be bad if they keep their promises! Maybe Ulduar gets a challenger to compete about "the best raid ever" -title finally.
The new 5-mans are quite lore-based too and they are all new instances, no revamped troll-instances this time which is quite nice. I doubt I personally will do them often after gained the gear from them but I bet they will be quite nice.
So that's my quick preview about 4.3 patch, it's biggest features and my thoughts about them. Overall the 4.3 patch looks very promising, I just hope there will be content for PvP-players too.
P.S. Finally reached 2k rating in 3v3! /happyface
Monday, October 10, 2011
So you want to be a slaughter machine - Part 1: LFD spam as Protection
So you chose to pick up a Warrior, maybe to see what all the fuzz is about, nonetheless, good choice! This will be a somewhat short introduction on how to level your new Warrior, specifically aimed at those who has yet to play the class or maybe doesn't have so much experience of the other classes in the game except their main, or if you're starting your first character.
The first thing you'll want to do is pick up the BoA items (IF you can), that includes the cloak, helmet, shoulders, chest and of course the weapon!
At lower levels it doesn't really matter which ones you pick up, be it the dps or the tank BoAs, they both get the job done. If you're not that much in to questing, or just want to level up as fast as possible, doing the random dungeons is a great way to level. You'll get some gear and some fast xp as most dungeons have had their size reduced significantly. If you're rocking BoAs, you will most likely be rocking the meters as well, given that you know what to do. This is where I come in.
[10-29]
The first two talent points you get, you will want to put in to Blood and Thunder for the obvious fact that it is the best talent points you can get at this level. Next 3 points you get will go in to Toughness, there is not really much point in taking Incite as you will be spamming dat Cleave in the dungeons. When you hit Level 29, you'll want your talents to look somewhat like this.
I chose to get Hold the Line and Shield Spec, you could also pick up Gag Order instead of Hold the Line if you feel like you want a ranged interrupt to pull those pesky casters closer to you. At this level Shield Spec is a really solid talent, I was having some issues with not getting that much rage in instances, but taking this talent, it solved all my problem, that along with Warbringer which was my obvious choice due to its awesomeness.
[31-39]
When I hit 31 I went ahead and picked up Last Stand, which even at lower levels is a good talent for when shit hits the fan, as you don't get Shield Wall until Level 48. Then get Bastion of Defense for the crit immunity and enrage, and then I took Concussion Blow as a "filler" to get down to Devastate. This is where it starts getting more fun! Now you have all your "major" abilites bar Revenge. When you've hit 39 this is how it should look.
[41-49]
When you hit 40, you will get Revenge, as you might have guessed by now when you hit 41 & 43, you'll want to put both those points in to Improved Revenge and as you will also be getting Shield Wall in this lovely 'bracket' you can go ahead and put those other three points in to Shield Mastery, which is a REALLY good talent, even at this level. This is how I spent my talents so far.
[51-57]
Two of the four talent points you get can be spent optionally. A must have talent is Heavy Repercussions, when you're 2/2 it boosts your Shield Slam damage by 100% when your Shield Block is up, and as you've by now put points in to Shield Mastery, your Shield Block will be on a 30s Cooldown. The talent that is optional here is wether or not you want to take Thunderstruck or Gag Order. If you took Gag Order earlier in your build, now would be the time to put those two points in Hold the Line.
As I was leveling with friends that had ranged interrupts, I didn't feel it was necessary to take Gag Order at any point while I was leveling.
So far your build should look like this, bear in mind you can have either two points in Gag Order, or two in Thunderstruck at this point, it's entirely optional.
[59-63]
This is just a no-brainer, stick this three points in to Sword and Board, no questions.
[65-69]
Put the first two points you get from Level 65 and 67 in to either Gag Order or Thunderstruck, the one you didn't specc in to yet, and at Level 69 get Shockwave. Now your Protection talents are filled up and you can start putting points in to the two other trees! This is the full specc
There is also an alternative 31-point specc that you can use if you like, which includes Incite and Vigilance instead of Gag Order and Thunderstruck, the link to that is here.
That's all I have for now, rest assured there's more to come. In the meantime, enjoy your Warrior!
The first thing you'll want to do is pick up the BoA items (IF you can), that includes the cloak, helmet, shoulders, chest and of course the weapon!
At lower levels it doesn't really matter which ones you pick up, be it the dps or the tank BoAs, they both get the job done. If you're not that much in to questing, or just want to level up as fast as possible, doing the random dungeons is a great way to level. You'll get some gear and some fast xp as most dungeons have had their size reduced significantly. If you're rocking BoAs, you will most likely be rocking the meters as well, given that you know what to do. This is where I come in.
[10-29]
The first two talent points you get, you will want to put in to Blood and Thunder for the obvious fact that it is the best talent points you can get at this level. Next 3 points you get will go in to Toughness, there is not really much point in taking Incite as you will be spamming dat Cleave in the dungeons. When you hit Level 29, you'll want your talents to look somewhat like this.
I chose to get Hold the Line and Shield Spec, you could also pick up Gag Order instead of Hold the Line if you feel like you want a ranged interrupt to pull those pesky casters closer to you. At this level Shield Spec is a really solid talent, I was having some issues with not getting that much rage in instances, but taking this talent, it solved all my problem, that along with Warbringer which was my obvious choice due to its awesomeness.
[31-39]
When I hit 31 I went ahead and picked up Last Stand, which even at lower levels is a good talent for when shit hits the fan, as you don't get Shield Wall until Level 48. Then get Bastion of Defense for the crit immunity and enrage, and then I took Concussion Blow as a "filler" to get down to Devastate. This is where it starts getting more fun! Now you have all your "major" abilites bar Revenge. When you've hit 39 this is how it should look.
[41-49]
When you hit 40, you will get Revenge, as you might have guessed by now when you hit 41 & 43, you'll want to put both those points in to Improved Revenge and as you will also be getting Shield Wall in this lovely 'bracket' you can go ahead and put those other three points in to Shield Mastery, which is a REALLY good talent, even at this level. This is how I spent my talents so far.
[51-57]
Two of the four talent points you get can be spent optionally. A must have talent is Heavy Repercussions, when you're 2/2 it boosts your Shield Slam damage by 100% when your Shield Block is up, and as you've by now put points in to Shield Mastery, your Shield Block will be on a 30s Cooldown. The talent that is optional here is wether or not you want to take Thunderstruck or Gag Order. If you took Gag Order earlier in your build, now would be the time to put those two points in Hold the Line.
As I was leveling with friends that had ranged interrupts, I didn't feel it was necessary to take Gag Order at any point while I was leveling.
So far your build should look like this, bear in mind you can have either two points in Gag Order, or two in Thunderstruck at this point, it's entirely optional.
[59-63]
This is just a no-brainer, stick this three points in to Sword and Board, no questions.
[65-69]
Put the first two points you get from Level 65 and 67 in to either Gag Order or Thunderstruck, the one you didn't specc in to yet, and at Level 69 get Shockwave. Now your Protection talents are filled up and you can start putting points in to the two other trees! This is the full specc
There is also an alternative 31-point specc that you can use if you like, which includes Incite and Vigilance instead of Gag Order and Thunderstruck, the link to that is here.
That's all I have for now, rest assured there's more to come. In the meantime, enjoy your Warrior!
The PvE "arms race".
I distinctly recall Ghostcrawler's commentary prior to Cataclysm, particularly when discussing what he termed "the PvP arms race".
It interested me at the time, because it was something that I felt had a profound impact on PvE and wasn't just reserved for those duking it out in arenas and battlegrounds. The basic premise is that each class needed to have a counter to something that was happening to them, roughly giving them a chance for survival. Stuns, roots, CC and high damage were all things that had to be countered in some way, so classes were given utility to allow this while attempts were also made to ensure each class had both offensive and defensive options.
That's a terrible opening paragraph; but simply put, Ghostcrawler was worried that so many counter-counter-counter-counters were being used among classes in PvP, and it wasn't making for decent or enjoyable gameplay.
What struck me was that this concept of the arms race first reared its head for me during the transition from Outland to Northrend, and it was in PvE. I know many readers will recall the difference between the Protection warrior and the Protection paladin in The Burning Crusade; while the warrior had the cooldowns, mitigation and single-target threat to be the most effective boss tanks, the paladin was far and away the better option for any trash duties and/or heroic instances. A healer could literally spam a paladin, safe in the knowledge that they wouldn't get aggro by doing so.
When our adventures started in Northrend, it was decided that each tank should be capable of boss tanking. This meant that the traditional tools required for boss tanking (cooldowns, mitigation, threat generation etc) were given to all of the tanks in order to allow them to fulfil the role. What was NOT rebalanced, however, was the significant advantage the paladin still had in AoE situations, both with regard to threat generation and an unusually high chance to block. What essentially happened was that the erstwhile reason for using a warrior to tank bosses was gone, and he was still the inferior choice for trash/heroic dungeon tanking.
This probably reeks of QQ.
It should not be argued that warriors weren't viable tanks during Wrath of the Lich King. For the vast majority of the playerbase, success was not dependent upon the class of your tank; it was dependent upon his ability as a player. This gave rise to the oft-repeated mantra of "warriors are fine", and we've been hearing similar repeats of this cry ever since. If something is viable for the content, and your raid isn't being held back, then the spec is "fine" and you shouldn't complain.
The problem is that "fine" does not mean "strong".
Last night was a first for me. Something happened that had never happened before and, honestly, I didn't know how to react to it. During a night of heroic Ragnaros attempts, my coveted tanking spot was given to a player deemed to be a "better" class. He wasn't a better player, nor was he a more loyal member of the guild, and he certainly wasn't a chosen elite of the guild's hierarchy. No, he was simply considered the better class choice due to how they guild intended to do the encounter.
Whether or not you can justify this isn't really important. The fact is that it happened, and it happened for a perfectly viable reason beyond favouritism or anything so petty. If each tank has the mitigation, threat and cooldowns to do the job then a raid leader has to look at what ELSE that class is bringing to the table and make a judgement on what they want the most. And at time of writing, warriors and death knights have fallen behind in this "arms race" I mentioned above.
All four tanks have the basic tools with which to do their job. Unfortunately, paladins simply have far too much utility and druids can contribute far more damage when not actually tanking anything by switching form. The fact that both also have powerful raid cooldowns, which warriors and death knights lack, is a further nail in the coffin. This is not an argument about whether or not death knights or warriors are viable tanks - I've no trepidation in saying that, to date, the best tank I've played with happens to be a death knight on an RP realm. The point I'm making is that the arms race is causing discrepancies at the highest levels of content because certain tanks have capabilities that cannot be made up for by skill.
The reason this is a problem should be obvious to anyone who's looked at the set-bonuses of the four tanking classes.
They're raid cooldowns.
Put bluntly, Divine Guardian is so strong that the developers have decided the other tanks need something similar to it in order to be competitive. Rather than simply putting Divine Guardian into the Holy tree, where it should have been from the start, other tanks are being propped up via an ugly fix that is gear dependent rather than anything to do with skill or sound judgement. The problems here are absolutely manifold when you think of the implications. If Blizzard are giving raid cooldowns to all the tanks, it's a safe assumption to say the tanks are going to need them. And if the tanks are going to need them, it's going to have a pretty horrid impact on the three classes that must net four tier pieces.
All I can say is ouch.
The arms race which the developers want to move away from, is being continued in a fashion that will STILL be painful on three out of the four tanks. Not only that, even when those tier pieces are gained you're looking at tanks giving up their personal cooldowns in order to provide raid cooldowns when the one at the head of the arms race, the paladin, is calmly deciding which piece of gear he likes the itemization of the most.
Rounding out, this has got to stop - it's not good for the game. The indication here is that raid cooldowns are going to be part of the tanking arsenal in the future, and this is another step in beefing up the tank role beyond its function. It's time to streamline class abilities in order to provide the levels of required utility, not keep strapping on more weapons. For paladins, the simplest and most elegant fix is to completely replace Aura Mastery for the Holy paladin and put Divine Guardian in its place. Other classes could also use the removal of some abilities that, quite frankly, do not add anything compelling to their gameplay at all.
If you think about it, removing abilities that don't readily have a clear niche opens up the opportunity for better abilities to be added in the next levelling jump. If we keep going down this route, we're going to end up with another UI addition in the near future.
More friggin' action bars.
It interested me at the time, because it was something that I felt had a profound impact on PvE and wasn't just reserved for those duking it out in arenas and battlegrounds. The basic premise is that each class needed to have a counter to something that was happening to them, roughly giving them a chance for survival. Stuns, roots, CC and high damage were all things that had to be countered in some way, so classes were given utility to allow this while attempts were also made to ensure each class had both offensive and defensive options.
That's a terrible opening paragraph; but simply put, Ghostcrawler was worried that so many counter-counter-counter-counters were being used among classes in PvP, and it wasn't making for decent or enjoyable gameplay.
What struck me was that this concept of the arms race first reared its head for me during the transition from Outland to Northrend, and it was in PvE. I know many readers will recall the difference between the Protection warrior and the Protection paladin in The Burning Crusade; while the warrior had the cooldowns, mitigation and single-target threat to be the most effective boss tanks, the paladin was far and away the better option for any trash duties and/or heroic instances. A healer could literally spam a paladin, safe in the knowledge that they wouldn't get aggro by doing so.
When our adventures started in Northrend, it was decided that each tank should be capable of boss tanking. This meant that the traditional tools required for boss tanking (cooldowns, mitigation, threat generation etc) were given to all of the tanks in order to allow them to fulfil the role. What was NOT rebalanced, however, was the significant advantage the paladin still had in AoE situations, both with regard to threat generation and an unusually high chance to block. What essentially happened was that the erstwhile reason for using a warrior to tank bosses was gone, and he was still the inferior choice for trash/heroic dungeon tanking.
This probably reeks of QQ.
It should not be argued that warriors weren't viable tanks during Wrath of the Lich King. For the vast majority of the playerbase, success was not dependent upon the class of your tank; it was dependent upon his ability as a player. This gave rise to the oft-repeated mantra of "warriors are fine", and we've been hearing similar repeats of this cry ever since. If something is viable for the content, and your raid isn't being held back, then the spec is "fine" and you shouldn't complain.
The problem is that "fine" does not mean "strong".
Last night was a first for me. Something happened that had never happened before and, honestly, I didn't know how to react to it. During a night of heroic Ragnaros attempts, my coveted tanking spot was given to a player deemed to be a "better" class. He wasn't a better player, nor was he a more loyal member of the guild, and he certainly wasn't a chosen elite of the guild's hierarchy. No, he was simply considered the better class choice due to how they guild intended to do the encounter.
Whether or not you can justify this isn't really important. The fact is that it happened, and it happened for a perfectly viable reason beyond favouritism or anything so petty. If each tank has the mitigation, threat and cooldowns to do the job then a raid leader has to look at what ELSE that class is bringing to the table and make a judgement on what they want the most. And at time of writing, warriors and death knights have fallen behind in this "arms race" I mentioned above.
All four tanks have the basic tools with which to do their job. Unfortunately, paladins simply have far too much utility and druids can contribute far more damage when not actually tanking anything by switching form. The fact that both also have powerful raid cooldowns, which warriors and death knights lack, is a further nail in the coffin. This is not an argument about whether or not death knights or warriors are viable tanks - I've no trepidation in saying that, to date, the best tank I've played with happens to be a death knight on an RP realm. The point I'm making is that the arms race is causing discrepancies at the highest levels of content because certain tanks have capabilities that cannot be made up for by skill.
The reason this is a problem should be obvious to anyone who's looked at the set-bonuses of the four tanking classes.
They're raid cooldowns.
Put bluntly, Divine Guardian is so strong that the developers have decided the other tanks need something similar to it in order to be competitive. Rather than simply putting Divine Guardian into the Holy tree, where it should have been from the start, other tanks are being propped up via an ugly fix that is gear dependent rather than anything to do with skill or sound judgement. The problems here are absolutely manifold when you think of the implications. If Blizzard are giving raid cooldowns to all the tanks, it's a safe assumption to say the tanks are going to need them. And if the tanks are going to need them, it's going to have a pretty horrid impact on the three classes that must net four tier pieces.
All I can say is ouch.
The arms race which the developers want to move away from, is being continued in a fashion that will STILL be painful on three out of the four tanks. Not only that, even when those tier pieces are gained you're looking at tanks giving up their personal cooldowns in order to provide raid cooldowns when the one at the head of the arms race, the paladin, is calmly deciding which piece of gear he likes the itemization of the most.
Rounding out, this has got to stop - it's not good for the game. The indication here is that raid cooldowns are going to be part of the tanking arsenal in the future, and this is another step in beefing up the tank role beyond its function. It's time to streamline class abilities in order to provide the levels of required utility, not keep strapping on more weapons. For paladins, the simplest and most elegant fix is to completely replace Aura Mastery for the Holy paladin and put Divine Guardian in its place. Other classes could also use the removal of some abilities that, quite frankly, do not add anything compelling to their gameplay at all.
If you think about it, removing abilities that don't readily have a clear niche opens up the opportunity for better abilities to be added in the next levelling jump. If we keep going down this route, we're going to end up with another UI addition in the near future.
More friggin' action bars.
Saturday, October 08, 2011
Hello There!
So everybody's made their introduction, and I feel compelled to do so for my own. So here goes!
Hi, I'm Kaljurei. I've played the Warrior class for nearly two years now. I started playing Warrior in the near end of WOTLK as Fury for the guild The BlackHand. Sadly, I don't remember much of those days and most of my actual experience as Warrior has been in Cataclysm. I've been raiding mostly as Arms, and a bit as Fury, and my experience is mostly much more in Arms than Fury, although I'd daresay I know how to play both specs equally well, probably Arms more than Fury, but I'm re-learning Fury fast.
I've also played Protection, but not that much, quite limited to T11 Raids, and the normal 5 man heroics.
However, being the research nerd that I am, I have a lot of theoretical knowledge, as well as practical knowledge of all specs, and my posts in this blog will reflect that, to an extent.
As for my Real Life, I'm 23 years old, and I work in IBM as an SAP Security Analyst. Due to current circumstances my raiding is somewhat limited, but suffice to say that I have quite a lot of raiding experience under my belt in the current tier, and sufficient knowledge of Arms to talk about the spec as such, and even Fury. I like listening to most kinds of music, but limited to Rock and occasionally Rap. I like watching Japanese Anime, and reading Manga, mostly shojo stuff. My dream is to write lines for a Tsundere character, if you know what that means.
You may find me switching between Arms and Fury quite a bit, this is mostly because I prefer playing Arms, and my guild prefers me playing Arms for the most bit, but I know how the spec is like, and I know how the next tier is going to look like for Arms, and it is better to be prepared to play both specs. However it is too early to speculate as to which is the best spec to play, so it's just a matter of preparation.
If you wish to contact me, please do so in game, as well as through this blog. I'm also pretty active on the EU WoW Forums, mostly in the @day threads, and of course in threads where it's worthwhile to actually post something, unlike 90% of the threads that are in the forum these days, if you know what I mean :|
In any case, look forward to in depth posts from myself regarding the Warrior class, mostly regarding Arms and Fury.
Hi, I'm Kaljurei. I've played the Warrior class for nearly two years now. I started playing Warrior in the near end of WOTLK as Fury for the guild The BlackHand. Sadly, I don't remember much of those days and most of my actual experience as Warrior has been in Cataclysm. I've been raiding mostly as Arms, and a bit as Fury, and my experience is mostly much more in Arms than Fury, although I'd daresay I know how to play both specs equally well, probably Arms more than Fury, but I'm re-learning Fury fast.
I've also played Protection, but not that much, quite limited to T11 Raids, and the normal 5 man heroics.
However, being the research nerd that I am, I have a lot of theoretical knowledge, as well as practical knowledge of all specs, and my posts in this blog will reflect that, to an extent.
As for my Real Life, I'm 23 years old, and I work in IBM as an SAP Security Analyst. Due to current circumstances my raiding is somewhat limited, but suffice to say that I have quite a lot of raiding experience under my belt in the current tier, and sufficient knowledge of Arms to talk about the spec as such, and even Fury. I like listening to most kinds of music, but limited to Rock and occasionally Rap. I like watching Japanese Anime, and reading Manga, mostly shojo stuff. My dream is to write lines for a Tsundere character, if you know what that means.
You may find me switching between Arms and Fury quite a bit, this is mostly because I prefer playing Arms, and my guild prefers me playing Arms for the most bit, but I know how the spec is like, and I know how the next tier is going to look like for Arms, and it is better to be prepared to play both specs. However it is too early to speculate as to which is the best spec to play, so it's just a matter of preparation.
If you wish to contact me, please do so in game, as well as through this blog. I'm also pretty active on the EU WoW Forums, mostly in the @day threads, and of course in threads where it's worthwhile to actually post something, unlike 90% of the threads that are in the forum these days, if you know what I mean :|
In any case, look forward to in depth posts from myself regarding the Warrior class, mostly regarding Arms and Fury.
Good da see you mon!
So, I thought it would be appropriate to introduce myself. I'm Kaikuri, the resident Troll of the EU Warrior forums, and in-game I can be found on the Shadowsong server, wasting my time AFK, fooling around or leveling alts. As Zell mentioned already, I am also the author of the "How To Survive After A Taunt" Protection Warrior guide, found on the Warrior forums and waiting for the blues to wake up or find the gluestick.
I have been playing a Warrior pretty much since I seriously started to play the game towards the end of the Wrath, but I have been following the game all the way from Vanilla, often watching as my friends played it, and sometimes tried if they let me. My original Warrior does not exist anymore, which also means that my current Troll is my second one, started at the beginning of Summer '11. I have always been a Prot Warrior at heart, and even though I am currently mainly Fury because I'm rocking the meters too hard, I still keep my Prot spec up-to-date, follow theory-crafting (mainly on EJerks) and keep a respectable Prot gear available, should the need ever arise. I am currently 6/7 normal modes (3/7 pre-nerfs), and pushing on Raggy with my guild, hopefully downing him soon(ish).
Outside the game, I'm an 18 years old Male originating from Finland. Most of my time is used for World of Warcraft or the internets, but I also have a passion for music, and one of my dreams is to be able to get my living through that. In that vein, I also listen to a lot of music of many different genres, and also constantly search for more. I also enjoy going out drinking with people, but I don't do it nearly as often as Velean, since I don't have the cash for that.
And I suppose that's it. I'll try to add some content at least semi-frequently, and if you really want to get in contact with me, the @Day threads is the best place on the Warrior Forums. Now, if you excuse me, I have a keyboard to get used to.
Np: Fort Minor - Remember the Name
I have been playing a Warrior pretty much since I seriously started to play the game towards the end of the Wrath, but I have been following the game all the way from Vanilla, often watching as my friends played it, and sometimes tried if they let me. My original Warrior does not exist anymore, which also means that my current Troll is my second one, started at the beginning of Summer '11. I have always been a Prot Warrior at heart, and even though I am currently mainly Fury because I'm rocking the meters too hard, I still keep my Prot spec up-to-date, follow theory-crafting (mainly on EJerks) and keep a respectable Prot gear available, should the need ever arise. I am currently 6/7 normal modes (3/7 pre-nerfs), and pushing on Raggy with my guild, hopefully downing him soon(ish).
Outside the game, I'm an 18 years old Male originating from Finland. Most of my time is used for World of Warcraft or the internets, but I also have a passion for music, and one of my dreams is to be able to get my living through that. In that vein, I also listen to a lot of music of many different genres, and also constantly search for more. I also enjoy going out drinking with people, but I don't do it nearly as often as Velean, since I don't have the cash for that.
And I suppose that's it. I'll try to add some content at least semi-frequently, and if you really want to get in contact with me, the @Day threads is the best place on the Warrior Forums. Now, if you excuse me, I have a keyboard to get used to.
Np: Fort Minor - Remember the Name
Friday, October 07, 2011
DPS warrior four-piece updated.
Following on from the tweaking of many a set bonus, DPS warriors got another change to their tier 13 four-piece. It's been a rollercoaster jumping between "bad" and "terribad" until now, so what's the change?
"Item - Warrior T13 Arms and Fury 4P Bonus (Colossus Smash) now has a 6% chance to proc from Bloodthirst and 13% from Mortal Strike. No longer procs from Raging Blow."
Roughly translated, Fury gets a 6% chance to reset the cooldown on Colossus Smash every time you use Bloodthirst (which will be every 3 seconds). I was originally sceptical of how this would play, but Landsoul has already worked it out to be an increase of 2.7% on your GCD attacks and 3.0% from white attacks at worst, with 2.8% to 3.4% at best. This takes into account the "clipping" of previous procs in the worst case scenario, meaning that the difference is actually very small and we're looking at a pretty strong and unambiguous DPS buff that favours neither Titan's Grip nor Single Minded Fury.
Job done for the 'zerkers.
The problem, of course, is Arms. In a spec already underperforming, this four-piece affects it very little because Sudden Death works in exactly the same way. Not only is the potential for clipping a lot higher as a result, Fury gets the added benefit of being able to fill a dead GCD with a significantly better option, significantly more often. I've no doubt this will still result in a boost to Arms, but it's a heck of a lot weaker than it is for Fury and will only exasperate the inherent difference between the two specs in top end gear.
I assume Blizzard must know this.
And if I assume Blizzard must know this, can I logically advise career Fury warriors to batten down the hatches? The calamitous crab has already passed his chilling verdict to Fury directly. This set bonus, quite possibly, heralds the arrival of even more savage nerfs than currently feared. A strong set-bonus, tied to a melee-wide attack power buff, and accompanied by a spec already considered to be overperforming, is as big a warning as you can get.
The whispers from my tinfoil hat warn me that warrior changes on the PTR have been delayed so long because they're going to be VERY painful.
I wouldn't plan on playing Fury when freshly dinged, if I were you.
"Item - Warrior T13 Arms and Fury 4P Bonus (Colossus Smash) now has a 6% chance to proc from Bloodthirst and 13% from Mortal Strike. No longer procs from Raging Blow."
Roughly translated, Fury gets a 6% chance to reset the cooldown on Colossus Smash every time you use Bloodthirst (which will be every 3 seconds). I was originally sceptical of how this would play, but Landsoul has already worked it out to be an increase of 2.7% on your GCD attacks and 3.0% from white attacks at worst, with 2.8% to 3.4% at best. This takes into account the "clipping" of previous procs in the worst case scenario, meaning that the difference is actually very small and we're looking at a pretty strong and unambiguous DPS buff that favours neither Titan's Grip nor Single Minded Fury.
Job done for the 'zerkers.
The problem, of course, is Arms. In a spec already underperforming, this four-piece affects it very little because Sudden Death works in exactly the same way. Not only is the potential for clipping a lot higher as a result, Fury gets the added benefit of being able to fill a dead GCD with a significantly better option, significantly more often. I've no doubt this will still result in a boost to Arms, but it's a heck of a lot weaker than it is for Fury and will only exasperate the inherent difference between the two specs in top end gear.
I assume Blizzard must know this.
And if I assume Blizzard must know this, can I logically advise career Fury warriors to batten down the hatches? The calamitous crab has already passed his chilling verdict to Fury directly. This set bonus, quite possibly, heralds the arrival of even more savage nerfs than currently feared. A strong set-bonus, tied to a melee-wide attack power buff, and accompanied by a spec already considered to be overperforming, is as big a warning as you can get.
The whispers from my tinfoil hat warn me that warrior changes on the PTR have been delayed so long because they're going to be VERY painful.
I wouldn't plan on playing Fury when freshly dinged, if I were you.
Thursday, October 06, 2011
Grabbing a shield for Dragon Soul.
Back in January last year, I compiled a list of shields that Protection warriors should be considering as they got themselves prepared for Icecrown. As a shield collector, especially one who values its aesthetic as more important than your weapon, it was the type of post that was generally missing from the community, and something I vowed to do again. With 4.3 on the PTR, we're about to get ourselves into Deathwing's abode and put paid to Cataclysm's biggest baddie. As a result, this particular entry has been on the shelf awaiting its release into the wild of the international blogosphere.
And it's far from what the last one was.
Unfortunately, the options for your dragon-beating bulwark are horrendously limited this time around in comparison to times past. Where there was once choice in abundance, both in ease of access and itemization, this time we're looking at an absolute dearth of shields that are viable for the final raid of the expansion. To put things into perspective, Wrath of the Lich king offered 15 choices of at least epic quality prior to the assault on Icecrown Citadel; in Cataclysm, we're looking at an absolutely miserable SIX (jumping to eight when considering heroic versions).
The pros? One of them is available via blacksmithing, and is relatively cheap.
The cons? One is from archaeology, and therefore impossible to reliably farm.
In any event, let's get to it and have a quick rundown of the options. I'll start with the bare minimum required, and work toward the gold-plated option for that first foot into the Dragon Soul raid.
1) Shield of the Blood God (Jin'do the Godbreaker).
Available from Jin'do in Zul'Gurub, this is the absolute minimum you want to be tanking with. What it lacks in item level, however, it makes up for in perfect itemization. All told, however, this is only if you're penniless and can't afford the next item on our list.
2) Elementium Earthguard (Blacksmithing).
This is the bottom rung of the ladder for T11, but still a solid enough shield. It carries the same base mastery as Jin'do's drop which is positive, but carries more armour and stamina due to the higher level. The hit isn't perfect, but that can be reforged and the gem socket goes a good way to cushioning this blow. For me, you should not tank in the Dragon Soul with anything less than this.
3) Akmin-Kurai, Dominion's Shield (Nefarian's End).
Though lacking the gem socket of the Earthguard, Akmin-Kurai is a winner due to it holding better stats. The problem with this shield is, predictably, its low drop rate from Nefarian and the difficulty in convincing your guild mates to go back to something they've already farmed to death.
4) Blockade's Lost Shield (World Drop).
Despite being very similar to Akmin-Kurai, this shield just wins thanks to the higher base mastery to be found on it; otherwise, there's no real difference. The biggest hurdle to getting your hands on this is the fact that it's a world drop - you're far more likely to find it on the auction house than you are an enemy, and prices vary.
5) Extinct Turtle Shell (Archaeology).
This is the best of the 359 options, and comfortably the most frustrating. Higher base mastery than anything else save the Blockade's Lost Shield, and dodge is preferable to parry thanks to diminishing returns. The fact that it's from archaeology, however, is an absolute shocker and makes it agonising to try and farm.
6) [Heroic] Akmin-Kurai, Dominion's Shield (Nefarian's End).
Identical itemization to the normal version, just obviously with higher values. If your guild is good enough to kill Nefarian on heroic that's positive, but the two hours wasted to get there may be too much to ask when you can easily PuG the raid on normal difficulty.
7) Shard of Torment (Baleroc).
The bane of your humble author's life. Between my shield-toting tank partner and I, we've downed Baleroc in excess of 30 times and still haven't seen this appear. There's no mastery on it, but a trip to the reforger and a whisper to a friendly jewelcrafter will solve that. The higher stamina and armour, along with two sockets, make it beat out Akmin-Kurai's heroic version.
8) [Heroic] Shard of Torment (Baleroc).
As above, this is identical to its normal counterpart just with those higher numbers making it unequivocally better. This is the gold-plated entry shield for tier 13 but, frankly, too small a percentage of the playerbase has Baleroc on farm for it to be very common despite its superiority.
And that's your whack.
I'm not going to discuss the datamined Corrupted Carapace because I don't know where it drops from, or even if it's relevant in a discussion about hitting the Dragon Soul on the first night of 4.3. So, what to go for?
With the recent Firelands nerfs, there is no reason for a reasonably competent raid group to not be killing Baleroc on a weekly basis. That means that everyone should really be aiming for the 378 version of the Shard of Torment and only pull those tier 13 bosses without it if your luck is horrible. If that is the case, or you're me, it's a sliding scale of consolation prizes only really divided by ease of access. Your chances of farming heroic Nefarian are probably very small indeed, world drops are both rare and pricy, and I could never recommend a horrid archaeology grind to anyone in good conscience. Fortunately, PuG raids to Blackwing Descent are common which puts Akmin-Kurai, Dominion's Shield well within reach, and the fall back of the Elementium Earthguard is always available if things just won't drop.
Therefore, if you're going to be tanking the Dragon Soul (and in consideration of what you already own) here are my recommendations of what you should chase:
1) Shard of Torment (378).
2) Akmin-Kurai, Dominion's Shield (359).
3) Elementium Earthguard (359).
Happy hunting.
And it's far from what the last one was.
Unfortunately, the options for your dragon-beating bulwark are horrendously limited this time around in comparison to times past. Where there was once choice in abundance, both in ease of access and itemization, this time we're looking at an absolute dearth of shields that are viable for the final raid of the expansion. To put things into perspective, Wrath of the Lich king offered 15 choices of at least epic quality prior to the assault on Icecrown Citadel; in Cataclysm, we're looking at an absolutely miserable SIX (jumping to eight when considering heroic versions).
The pros? One of them is available via blacksmithing, and is relatively cheap.
The cons? One is from archaeology, and therefore impossible to reliably farm.
In any event, let's get to it and have a quick rundown of the options. I'll start with the bare minimum required, and work toward the gold-plated option for that first foot into the Dragon Soul raid.
1) Shield of the Blood God (Jin'do the Godbreaker).
Available from Jin'do in Zul'Gurub, this is the absolute minimum you want to be tanking with. What it lacks in item level, however, it makes up for in perfect itemization. All told, however, this is only if you're penniless and can't afford the next item on our list.
2) Elementium Earthguard (Blacksmithing).
This is the bottom rung of the ladder for T11, but still a solid enough shield. It carries the same base mastery as Jin'do's drop which is positive, but carries more armour and stamina due to the higher level. The hit isn't perfect, but that can be reforged and the gem socket goes a good way to cushioning this blow. For me, you should not tank in the Dragon Soul with anything less than this.
3) Akmin-Kurai, Dominion's Shield (Nefarian's End).
Though lacking the gem socket of the Earthguard, Akmin-Kurai is a winner due to it holding better stats. The problem with this shield is, predictably, its low drop rate from Nefarian and the difficulty in convincing your guild mates to go back to something they've already farmed to death.
4) Blockade's Lost Shield (World Drop).
Despite being very similar to Akmin-Kurai, this shield just wins thanks to the higher base mastery to be found on it; otherwise, there's no real difference. The biggest hurdle to getting your hands on this is the fact that it's a world drop - you're far more likely to find it on the auction house than you are an enemy, and prices vary.
5) Extinct Turtle Shell (Archaeology).
This is the best of the 359 options, and comfortably the most frustrating. Higher base mastery than anything else save the Blockade's Lost Shield, and dodge is preferable to parry thanks to diminishing returns. The fact that it's from archaeology, however, is an absolute shocker and makes it agonising to try and farm.
6) [Heroic] Akmin-Kurai, Dominion's Shield (Nefarian's End).
Identical itemization to the normal version, just obviously with higher values. If your guild is good enough to kill Nefarian on heroic that's positive, but the two hours wasted to get there may be too much to ask when you can easily PuG the raid on normal difficulty.
7) Shard of Torment (Baleroc).
The bane of your humble author's life. Between my shield-toting tank partner and I, we've downed Baleroc in excess of 30 times and still haven't seen this appear. There's no mastery on it, but a trip to the reforger and a whisper to a friendly jewelcrafter will solve that. The higher stamina and armour, along with two sockets, make it beat out Akmin-Kurai's heroic version.
8) [Heroic] Shard of Torment (Baleroc).
As above, this is identical to its normal counterpart just with those higher numbers making it unequivocally better. This is the gold-plated entry shield for tier 13 but, frankly, too small a percentage of the playerbase has Baleroc on farm for it to be very common despite its superiority.
And that's your whack.
I'm not going to discuss the datamined Corrupted Carapace because I don't know where it drops from, or even if it's relevant in a discussion about hitting the Dragon Soul on the first night of 4.3. So, what to go for?
With the recent Firelands nerfs, there is no reason for a reasonably competent raid group to not be killing Baleroc on a weekly basis. That means that everyone should really be aiming for the 378 version of the Shard of Torment and only pull those tier 13 bosses without it if your luck is horrible. If that is the case, or you're me, it's a sliding scale of consolation prizes only really divided by ease of access. Your chances of farming heroic Nefarian are probably very small indeed, world drops are both rare and pricy, and I could never recommend a horrid archaeology grind to anyone in good conscience. Fortunately, PuG raids to Blackwing Descent are common which puts Akmin-Kurai, Dominion's Shield well within reach, and the fall back of the Elementium Earthguard is always available if things just won't drop.
Therefore, if you're going to be tanking the Dragon Soul (and in consideration of what you already own) here are my recommendations of what you should chase:
1) Shard of Torment (378).
2) Akmin-Kurai, Dominion's Shield (359).
3) Elementium Earthguard (359).
Happy hunting.
Protection set bonus update.
First of all, I'd like to welcome both Xintic and Kaikuri to Piercing Howl, the latest additions to the authorship of the blog. Xintic has already introduced himself so no more need be said really; Kaikuri, however, has done more for the warrior community on the official forums than most. He's the author of the excellent "Taunt Survival" Protection guide (mysteriously still lacking a sticky) and is the instigator of the @ Series that many of us enjoy so much. He seems to have dived headling into Fury recently, but I suspect his heart still lies (quite rightly) with protecting his allies with sword and board.
Welcome to both, it's great to have you on board!
The main crux of today's post, however, is another short one - namely that the tier 13 set bonuses for Protection have seen something of an update. Here's the exact text:
"Protection, 2P -- Your Revenge ability now also grants a physical absorption shield equal to 20% of the damage done by Revenge to its primary target."
This, of course, is less a change and more of a clarification. It's ironic actually, as Tekstep from SOD (also on Darksorrow) was asking me last night if I thought the cleave part of Revenge would add to the absorb shield. I posited at the time that I didn't think it would, due to the paladin version being activated by their Judgements, and that assessment seems to have been meted out.
I'll leave a more focussed assessment of the set bonuses to a slightly later date, purely because I don't think they're finalised yet. It remains my firm belief that Revenge has to be in for some kind of buff, probably through its critical strike chance being increased by Sword and Board. At the moment, it's not a part of our main rotation save when we're rage-starved, and that can't be the design intent for such an iconic attack. The potential double-dip on the set bonus would have made Improved Revenge a whole lot more interesting from a mitigation point of view (a TankSpot discussion revolved around this), but that duck is now dead in the water.
Hopefully more warrior changes on the way throughout the week.
Welcome to both, it's great to have you on board!
The main crux of today's post, however, is another short one - namely that the tier 13 set bonuses for Protection have seen something of an update. Here's the exact text:
"Protection, 2P -- Your Revenge ability now also grants a physical absorption shield equal to 20% of the damage done by Revenge to its primary target."
This, of course, is less a change and more of a clarification. It's ironic actually, as Tekstep from SOD (also on Darksorrow) was asking me last night if I thought the cleave part of Revenge would add to the absorb shield. I posited at the time that I didn't think it would, due to the paladin version being activated by their Judgements, and that assessment seems to have been meted out.
I'll leave a more focussed assessment of the set bonuses to a slightly later date, purely because I don't think they're finalised yet. It remains my firm belief that Revenge has to be in for some kind of buff, probably through its critical strike chance being increased by Sword and Board. At the moment, it's not a part of our main rotation save when we're rage-starved, and that can't be the design intent for such an iconic attack. The potential double-dip on the set bonus would have made Improved Revenge a whole lot more interesting from a mitigation point of view (a TankSpot discussion revolved around this), but that duck is now dead in the water.
Hopefully more warrior changes on the way throughout the week.
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
Please allow me to introduce myself,
I'm a man of wealth and taste! My name is Xintic, I play a Human Warrior on the server Ragnaros (EU), playing in a guild called R O N I N. We're currently 6/7 HC FL (3/7 pre-nerf) and are slowly progressing on Ragnaros HC.
I played Hunter in Vanilla, with my Warrior as an alt for ZG/AQ20/MC runs. Towards the end of Vanilla I started to get bored with my hunter, and I started playing my Warrior more and more, and in TBC I rerolled, orginally I played Prot up until late WotLK where I changed to Fury (arp arp, need I say more?) and have been DPS since. Currently I am playing Fury, after playing Arms for a period of time in the T11 content, with Protection as my offspecc (I actually find myself tanking quite a lot recently).
During my spare time I often go achievement hunting or just level alts. Currently I am, together with my brother, leveling a vicious Goblin that goes by the name "Raykou", a Warrior of course! I am really enjoying stomping random dungeons as Protection atm, keeping Arms as an offspecc for the future. I also enjoy the occasional BG/Arena game with some of my friends.
What I hope to contribute to Piercing Howl is an insight to the everyday life of playing a Warrior, as well as a mix between a leveling guide for Warriors and a 'guide' for people picking up their first Warrior.
To sum it up, I am excited to be a part of this project, and hope to help some people along the way, and maybe put a smile on their faces.
Looking at the other authors introductions, I realize mine's a bit shorter, but it'll have to suffice for now as I hope to be pumping out some new content asap!
I played Hunter in Vanilla, with my Warrior as an alt for ZG/AQ20/MC runs. Towards the end of Vanilla I started to get bored with my hunter, and I started playing my Warrior more and more, and in TBC I rerolled, orginally I played Prot up until late WotLK where I changed to Fury (arp arp, need I say more?) and have been DPS since. Currently I am playing Fury, after playing Arms for a period of time in the T11 content, with Protection as my offspecc (I actually find myself tanking quite a lot recently).
During my spare time I often go achievement hunting or just level alts. Currently I am, together with my brother, leveling a vicious Goblin that goes by the name "Raykou", a Warrior of course! I am really enjoying stomping random dungeons as Protection atm, keeping Arms as an offspecc for the future. I also enjoy the occasional BG/Arena game with some of my friends.
What I hope to contribute to Piercing Howl is an insight to the everyday life of playing a Warrior, as well as a mix between a leveling guide for Warriors and a 'guide' for people picking up their first Warrior.
To sum it up, I am excited to be a part of this project, and hope to help some people along the way, and maybe put a smile on their faces.
Looking at the other authors introductions, I realize mine's a bit shorter, but it'll have to suffice for now as I hope to be pumping out some new content asap!
Charging in!
Hello!
As you've probably seen, I've been honored with author-status and I was thinking that maybe it's good to introduce myself a bit.
So basicly I'm Wilpo and I play a Forsaken Fury Warrior on European realm called Khadgar. Although we raid quite casually (1-2 times per week) it doesn't mean we don't make any progress. Actually we've cleared both Tier 11 and 12 before any significant nerfs and even one hardmode (Halfus) before Tier 11 was obsolete.
Although I'm currently running with PvP-Arms and PvE-Fury it doesn't mean I've abandoned my old friend from WotLK-times - the Protection-tree. I'm still tanking time to time as I'm "the third tank" in our guild who's stepping in when needed (when main tanks are absent or encounter needs 3rd tank, for example Halfus HC). Tanking time to time gives me an opportunity to keep my tank-gear in shape if I ever want to be "main-spec tank" again.
Apart from raiding I do PvP and hunt some achievement (so long Thylacine, I've finally got more points than you ;)). I'm doing battlegrounds and 3v3-arena currently but I'd like to do RBG's also. After my mates are geared up, I'll be playing WRHpala in the near future, maybe I'll break that 2000 barrier finally!
If you managed to read all the text so far, congratulations! But there is still one thing to tell - my dirty little secret. I haven't always played warrior as main character although it's my oldest character apart from few low level characters in the beginning of my WoW journey. My main used to be a mage until last year when I realised that Charge is something that I can't live without. After that warrior has been my "main" and I've never looked back. Actually I didn't have any alts until I started leveling an alternative arena character for laughs last week.
Well, that's all for now. I'm glad I'm a part of Piercing Howl crew and you can expect me to post things from casual point of view in the near future.
P.S. I have an YouTube-channel too which can be found from my profile. There are currently only few boss kill videos but maybe some PvP-footage in the future, at least I hope so.
As you've probably seen, I've been honored with author-status and I was thinking that maybe it's good to introduce myself a bit.
So basicly I'm Wilpo and I play a Forsaken Fury Warrior on European realm called Khadgar. Although we raid quite casually (1-2 times per week) it doesn't mean we don't make any progress. Actually we've cleared both Tier 11 and 12 before any significant nerfs and even one hardmode (Halfus) before Tier 11 was obsolete.
Although I'm currently running with PvP-Arms and PvE-Fury it doesn't mean I've abandoned my old friend from WotLK-times - the Protection-tree. I'm still tanking time to time as I'm "the third tank" in our guild who's stepping in when needed (when main tanks are absent or encounter needs 3rd tank, for example Halfus HC). Tanking time to time gives me an opportunity to keep my tank-gear in shape if I ever want to be "main-spec tank" again.
Apart from raiding I do PvP and hunt some achievement (so long Thylacine, I've finally got more points than you ;)). I'm doing battlegrounds and 3v3-arena currently but I'd like to do RBG's also. After my mates are geared up, I'll be playing WRHpala in the near future, maybe I'll break that 2000 barrier finally!
If you managed to read all the text so far, congratulations! But there is still one thing to tell - my dirty little secret. I haven't always played warrior as main character although it's my oldest character apart from few low level characters in the beginning of my WoW journey. My main used to be a mage until last year when I realised that Charge is something that I can't live without. After that warrior has been my "main" and I've never looked back. Actually I didn't have any alts until I started leveling an alternative arena character for laughs last week.
Well, that's all for now. I'm glad I'm a part of Piercing Howl crew and you can expect me to post things from casual point of view in the near future.
P.S. I have an YouTube-channel too which can be found from my profile. There are currently only few boss kill videos but maybe some PvP-footage in the future, at least I hope so.
@Wednesday.
Okay, a couple of quick parish notices to let you know what's going on.
First of all, welcome to Wilpo!
Wil's another avid contributor to the WoW Europe warrior forums, continually keeping us abreast of his achievement hunting activity in the @ Series. He enjoys Fury main spec, playing in a far more casual raiding guild than Velean or I but one that managed to douse Ragnaros on normal prior to "the great nerf". If you want to see a shiny video of that kill, I'm sure he'll link it at some point.
Welcome aboard!
Secondly, I posted my thoughts on fixing rage to the aforementioned forums and gotten a great response from Kaljurei which I hope will see more involvement from others and gain some blue attention for forwarding on. We're not developers, just thoughtful warriors who want the best for our class.
And finally:
Still nothing for warriors on the PTR's latest patch. I'll be doing a bit of testing for the Hour of Twilight instance I expect, but I'm really hoping for some actual warrior-orientated things to test. A good section of the European warrior community is getting involved, though, so I hope to hang out with those guys for a bit in the next couple of days.
Oh, yeah - I almost forgot. My trial on Darksorrow is going well to this point, with my new GM thinking I'm doing just fine. Back to Ragnaros this week, and I'm confident we can do better work on it than we did last week.
I'll keep you updated. o/
First of all, welcome to Wilpo!
Wil's another avid contributor to the WoW Europe warrior forums, continually keeping us abreast of his achievement hunting activity in the @ Series. He enjoys Fury main spec, playing in a far more casual raiding guild than Velean or I but one that managed to douse Ragnaros on normal prior to "the great nerf". If you want to see a shiny video of that kill, I'm sure he'll link it at some point.
Welcome aboard!
Secondly, I posted my thoughts on fixing rage to the aforementioned forums and gotten a great response from Kaljurei which I hope will see more involvement from others and gain some blue attention for forwarding on. We're not developers, just thoughtful warriors who want the best for our class.
And finally:
Still nothing for warriors on the PTR's latest patch. I'll be doing a bit of testing for the Hour of Twilight instance I expect, but I'm really hoping for some actual warrior-orientated things to test. A good section of the European warrior community is getting involved, though, so I hope to hang out with those guys for a bit in the next couple of days.
Oh, yeah - I almost forgot. My trial on Darksorrow is going well to this point, with my new GM thinking I'm doing just fine. Back to Ragnaros this week, and I'm confident we can do better work on it than we did last week.
I'll keep you updated. o/
Monday, October 03, 2011
Greetings!
Hai there!
I figured I'd write an introduction post as I am one of (hopefully) more new authors here. ;)
My name would be Velean, I'd prefer to be called Vel though. I play a Human Arms Warrior on the EU realm of Moonglade. My main perspective in this game is PvE, and I'm currently in a 10 man heroic raiding guild, our progress is 6/7 at the moment. I'm sadly just 1/7 though, haha. But that would mainly be because my internet is horrible. (Working on it ..) I mostly spend my time online doing various achievements (I'm currently at 12870 points, check out my Armory page!), AFKing in Stormwind for more played time or gathering nice looking gear. I might show what I mean by nice looking gear later .. :D
As mentioned earlier, I'm mainly an Arms warrior. I've only played it for about 5-6 months as my mainspec, but I have already fallen in love with it. Before I was Arms, I played Fury for almost two years. From Ulduar days until halfway into tier 11 content. So I do understand quite a bit about how Fury works aswell. But unless they do some drastic changes to the spec or I happen to get x2 heroic Sulfuras', I will most likely stay Arms. ;)
But yes, for this introduction, I admit I giggled a bit when I saw Zell's GC-quote about me: "The Arms warrior has pet names for all his weapons, but Velean shows up for battle drunk and half clothed" It might be true ... sometimes.
As for my real life, my name is Eirin and I'm from Norway, currently studying Media and Communication. My days are usually spent by the computer or drinking alcohol, which happens fairly often ...
Ohwell, I'm not planning on writing a wall of text here, as you'll probably get to know me more over time, and if anyone needs to contact me or have any questions, I can be found at Eirinmk@hotmail.com :)
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