Warrior ability list changes.

I’ve just been having a look over the class ability list on MMO-Champion, and there are some interesting points of note for those of us who still play warriors; amazingly, a couple of the most interesting things are actually positive for a change.

Obviously, don’t forget, this is beta and things may change etc. Also, my reading of the ability list could be flawed because I wasn’t responsible for compiling it and there are some contradictions with the glyphs I spoke about yesterday. As a result, these points are not promises in any way, shape or form.

Pinky swear.

MoP beta: Warrior glyphs.

Something I've been looking forward to reading is the list of glyphs for Protection warriors in PvE, as much of the furore about the loss of certain talents was always going to be sidelined by glyphs. In particular, the loss of our talented critical strike rating for abilities like Devastate, Shield Slam and Heroic Strike was one that puzzled me originally, given the fact that they formed a significant part of our damage output.

Now we have sight of the glyphs, however, and I must say I'm strongly disappointed by the options offered for Protection PvE. In fact, I'm literally shaking my head in disbelief that they're so poor; there's close to nothing for those of the tanking dungeoneer persuasion, and that just makes me sad.

Let's take a look.

Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War.

Just as a quick aside, we’ve recently been hit with the cover for the latest Azerothian novel; this one entitled Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War.

While we don’t know the story explicitly, we are aware that the Horde gets involved in an attack on Theramore, an attack that pretty much becomes the annihilation of the crib. As this is Jaina’s main haunt, she becomes understandably put out by the whole thing and goes bat-shit crazy to the point of netting herself some white hair. Personal opinion? You go, girl.

But while I feel the story of Jaina’s reaction to the ass kicking dished out in Theramore has the potential for a great book (and could tie in with the “war crimes” connected with Garrosh), I am absolutely disgusted that one of Cataclysm’s biggest mistakes is set to be repeated – namely that major lore points are again going to be dealt with outside of the game. We’ve already been told that Theramore is the lead up world event to Mists of Pandaria, and the novel is most likely going to act the same way The Shattering did.

I’m very, VERY disappointed with this. The game and the community could do without yet more of this grubby, money-grabbing cynicism.

What a let down.

Support Affliction: WoW's best DPS spec.

I think Affliction, from a pure game design standpoint, is one of World of Warcraft’s strongest talent specializations. It’s one of the few that I would be genuinely sad about if it were ditched wholesale, and it’s actually got a significant amount of value when judging how different specializations can actually be “different”. In fact, I often catch myself wondering just how much fun I might have had if I’d gone down the warlock route as a whole rather than the warrior route.

But that’s water under the bridge, now.

Needless to say, I think warlocks are a well-designed class and each specialization feels different to the others. The blunt force magical trauma of Destruction really plays well against the minion-orientated dastardly deeding of Demonology. But I’ve never really played Destruction because it feels too similar to the Fire mage, and I’ve never really played Demonology because it doesn’t really capture the control of demonic entities; your minions remain relatively fire and forget.

Garrosh Hellscream; the latest victim of bad writers.

It’ll take me a while to get through all of the MoP information from the latest press tour but, for me, the biggest announcement was that Garrosh, current Warchief of the Horde, is going to be the enemy of the final patch. This decision, while ultimately predictable, is probably the biggest show stopper of the entire expansion as far as concerns me. Clearly the popular view of Garrosh takes precedent again, not the considered view, and because he’s widely reviled he’s the next to die.

It’s unimaginative, and stupid.

Some readers will recall what I said prior to Cataclysm in my “Ode to the Warchief” (posted on WoW Insider), a post that saw some excellent commentary both for and against my view of the subject. Garrosh was exactly what the Horde needed at the time and he’s what the Horde needs right now. Most of the criticism levelled at him in the past is ignorant of the facts, and his behaviour exonerates itself a lot of the time. Naturally, it was compared to the behaviour of the Third Reich by the asinine, but it’s worth remembering what Garrosh is and what he strived to achieve.

Patch 1.2, Legacy (SW:TOR) Update.

As we march ever nearer patch 1.2 for The Old Republic, what we’re actually getting nearer to is a proper assessment of the game. I’m not the only one who feels like he’s been playing a beta for the first few months, and patch 1.2 certainly seems to herald a lot of additions that strike me as being obvious launch features.

Of course, that doesn’t imply Star Wars has been no fun to this point – that would be silly. But it does lend weight to the players who essentially unsubscribed until the game was in a state that they considered “finished” (as subjective as that term is in MMO-land).

So, what’s on the horizon?

On a lighter note...

Just to break through the cloud of negativity, here's something completely different.

Get Your Monster Name

So, for anyone who ever wondered where the name came from, now you know. :)

Masterfully mastering the changing face of mastery.

As the Cataclysm post-mortem continues (the latest one from Scott Mercer is a real laugh), I find myself having a lot to write about and not having the time to write it. Who’d have thought? But for today, I really need to revisit Ghostcrawler’s recent blog about stat changes in Mists of Pandaria and the almighty changes they’re looking at for block.

Because warriors are one of two shield-tanks, and our mastery is directly tied into block, these changes have the potential to be game changing.

And they are.

Despite Ghostcrawler recently stating that sweeping changes are to be avoided in a game this old, he goes ahead and does it again (hai, Mr. Feral) by completely altering the way block works.

Changes to Pandarian stats...

Upon reading the "changes" to things like resilience, spell resistance and spell penetration, I couldn't help but remember this little beauty.

More in depth commentary on this nonsense soon.

Cataclysm Postmortem: Questing.

I have to admit that reading Blizzard development blogs generally makes me sad. They’re invariably authored by Greg Street, and typically bring nothing innovative or new to the table; they’re almost explicitly designed to excuse decisions that were widely unpopular or, in retrospect, just plain ol’ bad decisions.

As I had something of an axe to grind regarding questing throughout this last year, I was sceptical when approaching Dave Kosak’s recent blog about quests in Cataclysm and whether or not they were a success. Expecting the worst, I’m happy to say I got the best; a lucid and honest blog that commented on what he (“they”) felt worked, and what they felt didn’t. All this was wrapped up in a nice, unambiguous, series of questions that actually got me thinking differently to how I thought prior to reading it.

This is what Blizzard development blogs should be.