No matter what you do in the World of Warcraft, you risk stepping into a sludge pool of drama. From arguments about class mechanics to heated discussions with trolls, to distribution of loot, it is impossible to avoid conflict.
In my personal gaming experience, I would have to say that most of the time I become upset, angry, annoyed or feel the need to take a time out, it is because I chose to run a dungeon with a pick-up group. Whether I'm tanking or healing, I inevitably run into people who seem to have no regard for other players.
As an example, I have a strong policy about my resurrection ability. I feel that if you die, whether from a stupid mistake of your own or a legitimate reason, you deserve to be resurrected.
On the other hand, if the entire party wipes, and no one had a soulstone or self-resurrection available, I believe everyone should run.
Sure, if you have to hit the washroom or someone comes to the door, I'll run with everyone else and pick you up after, and that's no problem.
My one pet peeve is that I did not become a healer because I have a passion for long and annoying corpse runs, while everyone else plays Bejeweled, makes a snack, browses the Internet, and generally entertains themselves.
As a healer, I'm willing to pay for elixirs, flasks, buff food, mana oils, potions, reagents, and anything else I need to keep the group alive and working, no matter how much the runs end up costing in the end, even for people I do not know. It gets expensive, but it is my job.
Most people I know, including friends, guildmates and the members of my sister guild, intuitively will run if there is no resurrection from a surviving party or raid member to be had.
Some players, however, will automatically assume that I'll run after each wipe to resurrect them come off as self-absorbed. It is almost as though they simply can't see the situation from my point of view. At that point, I'll usually mention that my rule is a wipe equals a corpse run for everyone. It's only fair, and I think running is the respectful and polite course of action.
Of course, sometimes I run into people who will sincerely refuse to run, become irate, and eventually drop group because I'm too 'selfish' to resurrect them.
How do you feel about resurrection etiquette?
Should the healer, who already spends more on the run than anyone aside from the tank, has a more stressful job than any DPS, and makes sacrifices for people they do not even know, be forced to make all the corpse runs? Does the ability to resurrect automatically dictate this in the job description? If so, would you still choose to heal, or to run PuGs?
Friday, September 26, 2008
Resurrection etiquette
Warlock changes in Beta build 8982
Mostly good things for Warlocks today. Well, since yesterday, I mean. In the latest Beta build, Haunt has been thankfully buffed to heal you for 200% of the damage it did, up from a measly 20%. This is massive. Did I say massive? I mean gargantuan. Godzilla-like. This is the pure awesome that you can only ask for in Beta. Except... it actually doesn't heal for 200%. In fact, I think it still heals for 20%. Koraa has popped over to the Warlock Beta forums to say a couple of things about this: one, that "it should be more than 20%" and two, that they'll fix it. That should be comforting. Although it's Koraa talking, so... light your Doomsday Candles now and start chanting.
Metamorphosis cooldown has been reduced to 3 minutes instead of 5, which feels a little more useful. Although to balance this out, it lasts 30 seconds (down from 45) and increases damage by 20% instead of 40%. It's a nerf to total DPS, but still not a bad change, as a shorter cooldown allows more flexibility in the use of the ability. The real problem with Metamorphosis right now is that the demon abilities are just... all wrong. Demon form actually merits it's own post, so I'll write about that some other time, but I'll leave you with this one to chew on: Challenging Howl. Yeah, just in case you're one of those cuckoohead Warlocks who've always dreamed of tanking, you've got your wish. You weirdo.
Improved Corruption now increases the damage of the now *ahem* instant-cast Corruption by 10% and increases the crit chance of Seed of Corruption by 5%. Not too shabby for a talent that used to just reduce the cast time of a spell that should've been instant cast to begin with. Backdraft was fixed to the proper 10/20/30% haste bonus per rank of the talent. Beta was always really wonky that way, anyway, but Improved Shadow Bolt was nerfed even more to a mere 10% bonus, which is about half of what it is on live. I'm not too thrilled about that, but overall, I think Warlocks got away mostly unscathed this build. Keep that candle burning, brothers, keep it burning...
Paladin changes in Beta build 8982
The nerf bat swung and we got grazed a little bit. I didn't cover the last build's changes because they were somewhat minor, and most of them were reverted in this latest build anyway except for the change to Beacon of Light's duration to one minute (and all ranks work now). That's a buff, just in case you were wondering. On the other hand, the rest of the news is not so good.
Seals were nerfed again. The coefficients for Seal of Vengeance / Corruption, Seal of Blood / of the Martyr, and Seal of Command were lowered. I don't really have much to say about this other than that I'm disappointed but confident that it's all balanced. I haven't done as extensive a test of the Beta as I probably should, so if these damage nerfs were based on hard numbers that Blizzard has gathered, then they're probably right. I have to believe that.
Melee hits no longer refresh Judgements, which means that in order for the debuff to stay on opponents, Paladins will actually have to continuously Judge them. With the change to Crusader Strike some time back removing its Judgement refresh feature, this means Judgements will be every Paladin's responsibility. This also means Blizzard is forcing Holy or healing Paladins to insert Judgements into their rotation. With Judgements eating up the GCD now, I'm not so keen on the idea.
Shield of Righteousness was rebalanced to deal 100% of block value plus 300, although this might not be its final form as Blizzard tries to get the right amount of damage for the spell. As it turns out, a pure multiplier of Block Value -- as high as over 300% in older builds -- made Shield of Righteousness deal insane damage. This change mostly affects Protection Paladins who will have the spell firmly in their rotation.
The last interesting change is that Hammer of Justice now interrupts spellcasting for 3 seconds. The long asked for spell interrupt is finally here and it's bundled with the one spell we've always used to try and interrupt. A spell that stuns. A spell that's on a one minute cooldown. A spell that has what feels like a ridiculously high resist rate. It works as a spell interrupt against mobs that are immune to stuns, so... yay, I guess? I can't make heads or tails of this change, and I'm wary of criticizing it right now because there might be something that I'm missing.
We have yet to see a real second pass for the Holy tree, although Protection and Retribution are shaping up rather nicely. Retribution can still be kited like silly little hedgehogs (don't ask me where that metaphor simile came from), but other than that, it's pretty exciting. As I've maintained throughout all my posts, I really think Blizzard is moving in the right direction. They may take little detours along the way, but I'm fairly confident that Paladins will be great to play when Wrath finally comes out.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
The Doomguard
I have a confession to make. I don't know the Ritual of Doom. I guess I'm just not hardcore that way. I wish I did the quest chain, although after this post, I might actually make my way to the Blasted Lands and start it. I've actually died to the Ritual of Doom, so I know what fun I'm missing.
Anyway, here we go. The Doomguard is the last demon we'll discuss on Demonology 101. Lazy Warlocks such as myself can luck out on a Doomguard with Curse of Doom, our favorite spell on Netherspite. It's a fairly low percentage to spawn one, and Curse of Doom needs to deliver the killing blow on the mob... which can be a long wait considering the curse only deals damage at the end of one minute.
As you can see, it's not a particularly reliable or even sensible spell to begin with. On the other hand, Ritual of Doom is guaranteed to spawn a Doomguard, but it requires a Demonic Figurine and five people to complete. Oh, and one of the five people will die. It can even be you, the Warlock, so be sure to have Soulstone up. It's not an easy spell to cast, by any means, but the good news is that the Doomguard is a way better pet than the terribad Infernal. Just remember that if you do spawn one, it will be hostile towards you and will need to be enslaved.
It has great abilities like Rain of Fire, War Stomp, Cripple, and Dispel Magic. All of these abilities are fantastic for PvP except that it's complicated to bring a Doomguard into play, specially since Curse of Doom won't work on players. And even if it did, good luck on getting a one minute dispellable time bomb to deliver the killing blow. The Doomguard is easily the Warlock's most powerful pet, despite the fact that it doesn't benefit directly from any talents (similar to the Infernal) except for Improved Enslave Demon. In Wrath of the Lich King or Patch 3.0, the Doomguard will get more health, more mana, and... that's it. Eyonix is supposed to have mentioned that Blizzard would do something to make the Doomguard more useful but right now all we get is more health and mana.
The Doomguard is a great pet. It's fun to use -- the AoE stun on a 20 second timer should be well worth the price of admission (the AoE stun is the best thing about the Infernal, too). Unfortunately, it's simply too difficult to bring into play. You can curse gray mobs (it can still spawn a Doomguard) and wait for it to proc. But since it takes a full minute to work -- the spell's one minute cooldown prevents cursing multiple mobs -- that might take a while. So until Warlocks get a more reliable way to summon a Doomguard, Ritual of Doom only works best as the Azerothian version of Russian Roulette.
Are you ready for WAR?
Warhammer Online comes out today. For many players, this is an exciting time, as the game looks fantastic and there have been many favorable reviews of the game. As a huge fan of PvP, I was greatly attracted to Warhammer's RvR concept and how PvP actually shaped the game world. I was really all ready to sign up and even purchase the Collector's Edition but when EA-Mythic released the specs for the game, I was sorely disappointed. Unlike Blizzard games, which are made for Macs and PCs, WAR is only coming to Windows.
So I'll be sitting on the sidelines and watching my friends try out Warhammer. I think I'll be alright, though. Blizzard recently announced that Wrath of the Lich King will be released on November 13, and to be frank it's more than enough for me. While I would've loved to try out Warhammer Online, I think I'm pretty content with the game I'm playing now. In fact, I don't think I've ever been more excited to play the game. With less than two months to go before Wrath, I think it's a great time for the MMO genre in general. How about you guys? Are you ready for WAR?
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Ghostcrawler announces upcoming DK changes
For those of us who either are playing one in the beta or intend to play one when Wrath of the Lich King goes live, here's the list of upcoming changes to the Death Knight straight from Ghostcrawler.
The list is divided into DPS changes, tanking changes, DK buff changes and changes to the Runeforging system. Among the highlights, in Ghostcrawler's own particular idiom:
Ravenous Dead no longer affects Ghoul duration, but grants your rotting little buddy 60% more of your Str and Sta. (Stam goes from 30% of yours to ~50% of yours. Strength goes from 100% to 160%.)
Veteran of the Third War increased to 6/6/6 Str / Sta / Exp to match warriors.
Strikes that scale with diseases changed so that the weapon damage, not just the flat damage, scales with the disease.
No doubt many awesome small tweaks I am forgetting.
Patch 3.1 and beyond, a look at what's after Wrath
We've got the hot pre-Wrath patch 3.0.2 coming soon, with the much-anticipated Wrath of the Lich King storming along in mid-November. But the game doesn't stop there. Blizzard's already planning for the time after Arthas stomps his kicky, icy little boots into Northrend. The big-MVP-on-campus Schwick has already started building his "what we know" thread for 3.1 and beyond.
I'll grant that what we know right now is a little slim, and doesn't include the myriad of buffs and nerfs we should expect after the expansion. Schwick -- and WoW Insider -- will keep you updated as more information becomes available.
For now, after Wrath releases, we're already expecting:
Of course, there's a lot of stuff on the "to-do" list that isn't necessarily going to be put in 3.1. Dance studios, cross-server chat functions, and account-based achievements, to name a few.
Cast of The Guild to be at BlizzCon
Both by way of the World of Warcraft official website and Felicia Day herself, the news is out that the cast of The Guild will be at BlizzCon. The cast of the web-based sitcom will be sitting on on a discussion panel and giving a preview of the upcoming second season of The Guild.
If you have absolutely no idea what The Guild is, you're really missing out and I recommend giving it a watch. The first episode is embedded above to get you started. If you want to know a little more about Felicia Day (who you may know from the more recent internet phenomenon Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog), WoW Insider interviewed her back in August of last year. What do you say, Felicia. Up for round two? You can bring the whole crew this time! We won't try to groom you, I promise.
Wrath's Obsidian Sanctum brings new mounts and new challenges
The other night I was able to test out another of the new raid dungeons in Wrath of the Lich King: The Obsidian Sanctum. To give a little background on the zone, the Obsidian Sanctum is the Black Dragonflight's wing of the Chamber of the Aspects, beneath Wyrmrest Keep. There's a portal for each of the Dragonflights, but only the Black one is active right now. The portals take you to a dimension/chamber tailored to the aspects of the Flight.
With that out of the way, the Obsidian Sanctum is home to Sartharion the Onyx Guardian and a trio of black drakes. They look more purple, perhaps lavendar, but we'll stick with black. The Drakes are mini-bosses, only with a few minor mechanics to learn and understand. Killing each one of them removes an ability from Sartharion himself, who you attack last. There is some trash between mini-bosses, but it's minimal.
The bosses are currently somewhat undertuned, but they're not going to be particularly difficult for a reason. Downing them one by one is not the challenge of this raid zone. Like Zul'Aman, it has an additional challenge for you to tackle after you've killed everything on "easy mode." You can pull Sartharion before all of the Drakes are dead for bonus loot. That bonus loot includes a Black Drake Mount
Beating Sartharion and the mini-bosses individually is pretty easy. All of them have one or two gimmicks, but they're just that. Gimmicks. However, you can pull Sartharion with as many drakes up as you'd like. One, two, three, or none of them if it's your first few jaunts into the raid. With each drake you add, there's another mechanic or two to keep track of. We're talking portals to different dimensions, damage shields, continuously spawning adds, things like that. With the more drakes you bring into the mix, the more complicated and dangerous the encounter becomes. Yes, they all need to be tanked in some way, too.
Each added drake in the mix equals one bonus epic amongst your loot. When you bring in the third drake? Your reward is the Black Drake Mount, an epic flying mount. Very cool. Very, very cool. It seems the 25-man version may give a different drake, too. A Twilight Drake. A white dragonflight? Seems so!
I really like the design of this dungeon, and building upon that aspect of Zul'Aman. The dungeon isn't just a straightforward jaunt where you beat it once, you can beat it forever. If you beat it once, you can challenge yourselves further for greater reward next time you go in. That rush of, "Hell yeah, we won!" is not just a one time thing in this dungeon. That rush is renewed with each step of the challenge you defeat. When this raid is tuned properly, it's going to be a great, great place for raids to experience. Best part is? The place only takes about 30 minutes once you've gotten the whole thing down.
Blizzard has a lot of one or two boss raid dungeons, so that'll be a fun little thing to occupy a night of raiding. Instead of spending an entire night in one dungeon, you can dedicate a night to traveling around the world taking these guys out. There's still stuff like Naxxramas of course, but this is a fun change of pace. Here's hoping it continues well into endgame, and aren't only entry level dungeons like Gruul and Magtheridon.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
The Felguard
Meet the bad boy of Warlock pets, the Felguard. This 41-point Demonology talent is the favorite pet of many Warlocks -- and I have to confess, after speccing Demonology in the Wrath Beta -- I kind of like him a lot, too. He's tough, he dishes out some hurt, and he can stun opponents every thirty seconds. It was also originally the only demon with Avoidance, but the passive ability was buffed and handed out to all demons in Wrath or Patch 3.0.
When solo, the Felguard makes a great tank, although it loses out to the Voidwalker in terms of armor and health. However, Anguish and a higher DPS makes it generate more threat, allowing it to hold aggro better. Having Demonic Frenzy means that the Felguard gets stronger and stronger (up to 50%) with each damaging attack, and Cleave is a basic attack that can hit multiple opponents -- although care needs to be taken when used in PvE as Cleave can break crowd control. You should key bind Intercept as it can interrupt spellcasting, although it has a minimum 8 yard range so stunning its current target can sometimes be tricky. Think of a Felguard as Warrior lite.
There's the basic Fel Vitality, a mandatory talent for deep Demonology. Then there's Unholy Power for that 20% DPS boost, and of course Master Demonologist which I think benefits Felguard Warlocks the most. This was buffed in Wrath to reduce all damage taken by 5% instead of higher resistances. A Felguard has a pitiful mana pool, so leaving Cleave on auto, specially with Anguish, will deplete the demon's mana pool quickly, making it pretty useless for a while. This makes it imperative to take Mana Feed. It's a great talent to begin with, but with a Felguard it's mandatory.
In Wrath, we get a few talents that should help the Felguard, such as Fel Synergy, greatly reducing the downtime that usually happens when we use the Felguard to grind. So you can save those bandages for yourself now. There's the DPS increasing, Bestial Wrath-like Demonic Empowerment, although the haste would've been better as a crit bonus considering Demonic Pact and Demonic Empathy.
Overall, the Felguard gains very little in Wrath of the Lich King, other than the fact that it plays a more vital role in DPS synergy with the Warlock. Perhaps the most glaring absence in Wrath is an Improved Felguard talent. All the other pets have them, why not the Demonology pet?
Blizzard tosses Priest racials out the window
In an effort to further balance the game, Koraa levitated over to the Priest Beta forums to drop the bomb that Blizzard was canning all Priest racial abilities in an upcoming Beta build. This comes long after Fear Ward, formerly a Dwarf racial ability for Priests, was made baseline and trainable at Level 20. However, Koraa makes a few important points, the most notable being that Desperate Prayer, the Human and Dwarf Priest racial ability, will become the 11-point talent for Holy. Holy Nova, on the other hand, will become baseline. Desperate Prayer will likely be retuned to better fit an 11-point talent (it currently has a 10 minute cooldown).
Koraa adds that the formerly Undead Priest racial Devouring Plague will also become a baseline spell, with a reduced cooldown of 30 seconds (down from 3 minutes) and "greatly reduced" mana cost. The Draenei racial ability Symbol of Hope will be renamed Hymn of Hope and also become a baseline ability, now restoring 5% of total mana every 2 seconds for 8 seconds to the priest's party members. All other racial abilities, from Starshards to Shadowguard, will be removed from the game. Enjoy them now before Patch 3.0 hits!
Tips for using the new Shadowmeld wisely
One of the topics we talked about indepth on last Saturday's WoW Insider Show was the racial ability revamp that Blizzard did in the latest beta patch -- I said that I wasn't even under the impression that racial tweaks were on the table, but apparently Blizzard still doesn't think they're done, and it looks like they're using those abilities to build in a lot of baseline things like threat reduction and resilience against movement-impairing effects.
After all the dust settled (there was one more revision in the works, and there may be more so far before the patch goes live), it looks like Shadowmeld is going to be getting one of the aforementioned threat reduction tweaks: Night Elves will be able to kick in Shadowmeld instantly and even while in combat every three minutes, and it will drop (though not wipe) threat, cancelled on moving. This adds, as Phaelia notes, a few new wrinkles to Night Elf gameplay -- not only will NE Priests have a new aggro "pause" (since the aggro doesn't actually disappear, all that will happen is that they'll have to wait for the tank to grab enough aggro to get focus back), but soloing Night Elves will have a new way to dodge a pull gone bad, and Druids who happen to be pulling in raids will be able to end a bad pull early, hopefully without wiping the entire group.
Pretty slick for just a racial ability. As always, this may change before the beta ends (originally, this was a Human ability called The Fall of Humanity, though Blizzard wisely decided it didn't work too well as that), but this extra functionality might give NEs an extra panic button when they need to switch threat around fast.
Demonology in Wrath Beta
The most notable thing about Demonologists is their high survivability. Many of the talents in the tree is centered around a synergistic relationship between the Warlock and the demon that keeps both alive and makes them more powerful. In fact, the most hardy of all Warlock specs -- the SL/SL -- relies on Soul Link and Demonic Resilience, deep in Demonology, along with Affliction's Siphon Life. In Wrath, survivability continues with the added bonus of getting pets to scale up the Warlock's DPS. And we all love DPS.
One of my apprehensions about Wrath is the homogenized itemization. Because of statistical consolidation, it's possible we may see less cloth with massive Stamina. For most Warlocks, but specially Demonologists, this is a huge concern. It's too early to tell, but if we'll be picking up Spirit gear, too, it seems as though Fel Armor will be mandatory. Although Demonic Embrace was rebalanced to remove the Spirit penalty (likely because of the change to Fel Armor), it also grants less Stamina in the expansion. Anyway, let's move on to the talents in Wrath...
Fel Vitality
Requires 5 points in Demonology
Increases the Stamina and Intellect of your Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus, Felhunter and Felguard by 15% and increases your maximum health and mana by 3%.
A truly excellent talent that's accessible to virtually any spec, particularly since many Warlocks will pick up Demonic Embrace. This takes the place of the weak Fel Intellect and rolls in the effects of the higher tier Fel Stamina. If you're going up the Demonology tree, 3 points here is completely worth it.
Demonic Empowerment
Requires 30 points in Demonology
Grants the Warlock's summoned demon Empowerment.
Succubus - Instantly vanishes, causing the Succubus to go into an improved Invisibility state. The vanish effect removes all stuns, snares and movement impairing effects from the Succubus.
Voidwalker - Increases the Voidwalker's health by 20%, and it's threat generated from spells and attacks by 20% for 20 sec.
Imp - Increases the Imp's spell critical strike chance by 20% for 30 sec.
Felhunter - Dispels all magical effects from the Felhunter.
Fel Guard - Increases the Fel Guard's attack speed by 20% and breaks all stun, snare and movement impairing effects and makes your Fel Guard immune to them. Lasts 15 sec.
I have to say that this is one of my favorite talents in Demonology right now, even more than the currently loathsome Metamorphosis. It takes the place of the moved Soul Link, but has stringent prerequisites of three talents worth a total of 11 points. Fortunately, none of the talents are garbage and you'll most likely pick them up when going deep into Demonology, anyway. You have to key bind this, it's simply that awesome. It's an uh-oh button for your pet that can be used every minute. It's absolutely critical in PvP and extremely handy in PvE, both for survivability and DPS. It's one talent point for an ability you will, without question, always use. Even though it has different effects, you'll quickly learn to use it depending on the demon you have out.
Fel Synergy
Requires 35 points in Demonology
Your Summoned Demons share an additional 10% of your Armor, Intellect and Stamina, and you have a 100% chance to heal your pet for 15% of the amount of damage done by you.
A tougher demon means a tougher Warlock, and a passively healing demon is even better. This pushes the raid survivability of demons even higher with the addition of Avoidance, and helps demons have fewer, almost negligible downtime. This is also an awesome talent for Felguard Warlocks who often use the demon to tank mobs, although downtime occurs when the Felguard's health dips and needs to be healed with Health Funnel.
Improved Demonic Tactics
Requires 40 points in Demonology
Increases your summoned demons critical strike chance equal to 30% of your critical strike chance.
This builds upon the filler-type Demonic Tactics, which is a 5 point talent that grants a 5% critical strike bonus to the Warlock and her demon. My problem with Demonic Tactics is that it gives too little effect for something too deep into the tree. Other classes get a 5% critical strike chance bonus with 15 talent points, so I don't know why Warlocks needs to spend 40. So it includes the demon, too, but come on. 40 talent points for a flat 5% crit. Anyway, Improved Demonic Tactics is what we're talking about here. Three words: useful, not fun. The crit bonus is synergistic with other talents in the tree that confer special effects when your pet crits -- making this spell mandatory -- but I've just never been a fan of deep talents with purely passive effects. Ok, fine, I'm still just whining about Demonic Tactics. If you're going deep Demonology, three points here is mandatory, anyway.
Demonic Empathy
Requires 40 points in Demonology
When you or your pet critically hits with a spell or ability, the other's damage done by their next 3 spells or abilities is increased by 3%. Lasts 15 sec.
Now this is cool. If you're looking for fun talents, here it is. Your pet crits, you get stronger. You crit, your pet gets stronger. You both crit... well, all hell breaks loose. Come on! This talent was nerfed in the last build, but hopefully it'll be tuned upwards before Wrath is released because you really barely feel 3%, specially with pet damage. Demonology isn't particularly crit-heavy, either, although it looks as though Blizzard is pushing critical strike rating for Warlocks in Wrath. With enough crit, you can keep this buff up indefinitely, although a 3% damage increase is still a bit low for 43 talent points. Yes, it's the Demonic Tactics argument again, but at least this talent is fun.
Demonic Pact
Requires 45 points in Demonology
Your pet's criticals apply the Demonic Pact effect to your party or raid members. Demonic Pact increases spell power by 10% of your Spell Damage for 12 sec.
I told you we'd need Improved Demonic Tactics. This spell gives Demonologists that all-important raid buff that is thematically perfect for the tree because it scales with the demon and the Warlock's gear. It's a pretty good buff considering that Level 80 Demonology Warlocks will have over 1500 spell damage. Considering that Flametongue Totem at Level 80 grants a flat 144 spell power, Demonic Pact becomes a considerable upgrade as the buffs do not stack. The great thing about Demonic Pact is that it scales with gear. Not so great when starting to get gear but scales incredibly well as the Warlock gets stronger.
Metamorphosis
Requires 50 points in Demonology
According to Ghostcrawler:
"You keep your pet.
You keep your spells.
It buffs spell damage (for that "blow your cooldowns" feel).
It buffs mitigation (you could even tank for a bit).
It provides the current snare reduction for PvP.
You'll still get a few fun demon abilities, but you can just use your normal spells if you'd rather."
Alright, it's hard to do a proper analysis of this spell when it's currently not working as the design team would like it to, hence the spell description above. Right now in Beta, you lose your pet, you get new spells but lose access to the old ones, and get an attack power bonus. Yes, an attack power bonus. Don't ask me what the developers were thinking when they designed it that way. But the good news is that a new Metamorphosis is on the horizon and to be quite honest the verdict on the tree rests on that one talent. Because it's such a spec-defining talent, Metamorphosis has to serve the right purpose -- sort of like a panic button for the Warlock that just unleashes hell. Literally and figuratively.
With a 5-minute cooldown, Metamorphosis is not Moonkin Form and it is not Shadowform. It is closer to The Beast Within, and more appropriately so because like the Hunter, the Warlock is a pet class. That's why it was so important not to lose the pet when Metamorphosis is activated, specially with all the new talents that increase demon and master synergy. We'll do a more thorough review of Metamorphosis when it finally comes out in Beta... which had better be soon. If reports are to be believed, this means that the Warlock class has very little time to mature before release, which leaves me very worried.
Final thoughts
Why does everything hinge on Metamorphosis? Because unlike the other trees, Demonology doesn't have too many active abilities. This is why I love Demonic Empowerment so much. It's fun, it's useful, and it gives that extra kick when needed. But Demonic Empowerment is for the demon, not for the Warlock. The new Demonology tree is full of passive buffs and effects that it doesn't feel very different to play from the live realms. Metamorphosis can change all that.
If Blizzard does it right, Metamorphosis will become the cornerstone spell upon which a Demonologist's DPS spell cycle will revolve around or plan for. The PvP implications are obvious, with the mitigation and snare reduction it provides, but in PvE the spell needs to serve as a massive DPS boost for a short period of time. Done right, Metamorphosis will change the way Demonology is played. I like how Demonology is shaping up, but right now it still needs some work. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
Dalaran's coins reveal the wishes of Azerothians
BlizzPlanet has already found a fun little set of Easter Eggs hidden in the fountains around the new city hub of Dalaran -- apparently with a little Fishing skill, you can bring up the wishing coins of some of Azeroth's famous inhabitants. Some of the coins are spoilers (so be careful clicking through if you want to avoid that kind of thing), but others are just in there for fun -- Arugal has apparently wished for his own estate (with some doggies to keep him company), and Attumen would like a much more comfortable saddle.
There are some good references to the extended universe in there as well, as apparently a few characters from the Warcraft novels have made appearances and throw wishing coins in Dalaran. It's this kind of stuff that is going to make exploring Northrend so much fun -- while Outland was relatively unexplored territory, Dalaran and the rest of Northrend are already well-traveled in the Warcraft universe. It'll be a really good time retracing the footsteps of all the characters we already know.
WotLK collector's edition revealed
People have been asking after the collector's edition since the release date for Wrath of the Lich King broke last night. Blizzard has just updated their official site, confirming the November 13 release date and letting us know that there will be a CE (shock!), and what will be in it.
This is more or less the same pack-in list as the BC CE had. The pricing will be $70 for the CE, as opposed to $40 for the regular edition (same as for BC, as far as I remember). Will you be buying the collector's edition?
Dual wielding and weapon scaling
As the dev team works to firm up Death Knights and get them ready for release, there is a debate that rages on among beta testers and the Death Knight community at large. I don't mean whether the recent huge nerf to Death Knight damage was justified. Rather, the argument I'm talking about is over the clash of 2-handers and dual wielding.
2-handers have been the Death Knight weapon of choice in the modern era of the game up until recently. Frostmourne, the ultimate Death Knight weapon, is a massive two-handed claymore. In the early to middle part of the classic end game, Baron Rivendare was the Death Knight that loomed large in everyone's thoughts, and he too wielded a much coveted two-handed runeblade.
Because of this, many Death Knights have no plans to ever pick up 2 weapons. The massive bloody two-handed runeblade is the classic Death Knight emblem. It's part of the lore and the feel of the class and, they say, there's no reason to change it.. At the same time, many other Death Knights say that dual wielding is here to stay. New prominent Death Knights such as Lord Darion Morgraine dual wield. It's now part of the lore, and 2-handed lovers should just suck it up.
The Nitty Gritty of Scaling
Of course, beyond the arguments related to RP and lore are the arguments related to scaling and viability. Ghostcrawler has said that dual wielding and 2-handed weapons should be interchangeable and equal at the end game. Whether this is actually achievable is very much in doubt.
Once you have adequate hit rating, for pure DPS, dual wielding traditionally works better. Dual wielding does more overall white damage. For Death Knights, talents like Necrosis and Blood Caked Blade will scale better with dual wielding. AP scales better with dual wielding. While we do have many weapon-damage related strikes that scale better with 2 handers, there's some question as to whether they will scale well enough to keep up in the end game.
Death Knights are hardly the only class to face such a problem. Most DPS Warriors go for dual wielding Fury these days for min-maxing purposes, with the odd 2-handed Arms Warriors mostly for Blood Frenzy. However, Ghostcrawler has made it clear that the devs want both keep equal, so that an individual Death Knight can choose either for PvP or PvE. But to that, they'll have to make some choices as to what to nerf or buff to obtain that equality.
The Solution(s)
The choice the devs tried out in the latest beta build is to nerf some of the key talents that make dual wielding scale better. Necrosis was nerfed from 25% extra damage to only 10% extra damage, while Blood Caked Blade now only does 20% weapon damage plus an extra 10% damage for each disease on the target.
Unfortunately, this hasn't actually solved much. Since Necrosis still works off the exact same mechanic as before, it still scales better than 2-handers. As for Blood Caked Blade, well, it's pretty bad all around now, with wide reports of it coming dead last on almost every Death Knight's damage meters in a normal rotation. In other words, it's not even worth the 3 talent points now regardless of what your weapon preference may be.
As far as solutions they have yet to try, the most obvious is probably upping the base weapon damage percentage of certain strikes. Since Death Knights only count main hand attack damage in their weapon damage strikes, 2 handed weapons jump far ahead in calculating those.
The problem is, it's just not far enough ahead. Plague Strike, for example, only does 30% of weapon damage at base. Bumping these instant strikes up would definitely be a boost to 2-handed weapon damage.
But boosting instant weapon strikes brings up a whole new can of worms. There's some concern that boosting them far could make 2handers overpowered as compared to dual wielding, especially at lower levels. Adding more instant weapon strike damage could also push Death Knight burst damage into overpowered territory as well (Not that our burst damage is too amazing right now, according to some). So it's a delicate balancing act on that end as well. Still, instant damage strike boosting may have to come sooner or later to keep 2-handed weapons competitive.
Dual Wield and Variety
As for me, I'm a 2-handed die hard. I don't mind dual wielding per se, and I won't say I won't experiment if two very nice one-handed weapons come my way, but I plan to stay 2-handed for my Death Knight career for both RP and play style reasons, and I wouldn't shed a tear if it disappeared from the Death Knight arsenal. I honestly have to wonder who it is who came up with dual wielding for Death Knights. It's rather shoehorned into the feel of the class from my way of thinking. There's not even a set of dual wield weapons rewarded out of Archerus quests.
Still, the devs seem to want it to stay, and a small but vocal faction of beta testers support it as well. Whether it's worth keeping dual wielding, though, is a question that's probably worth asking. Generally, the biggest argument for dual wielding as that Death Knights need the variety. Of course, the counter argument to this is that Death Knights do, in fact, have plenty of variety. They have 3 talent trees that, in theory, will each have a separate Tank and DPS build.
But there's a lot to be said for more variety too. A lot of Death Knights have been asking not only for a 2-hander only class, but for the ability to keep their original runeblade throughout their career as a Heirloom item due to its looks. That right there gives me pause. My first character was a Feral Druid, and he was my main through the early game, through 40 man raiding, and then through 10 man raiding after Burning Crusade came out. I had to stare at the same Bear model and the same Cat model the whole time. I don't want to repeat that on my Death Knight. From that point of view, maybe the option of duel wielding just for a change of pace is a good thing. Even if I'll never use, it's nice to have options.
Overall, dual wielding is probably here to stay. Here's hoping, though, that they can find the right balance so that I can face down Arthas with my 2-handed runeblade without feeling like a newbie for not dual wielding instead.
Let's face it. Unless your job is to play WoW (insert my maniacal laughter here), you're probably going to have come up with either some vacation time or "other excuse" to get out of work or school on the 13th of November. Why? Because chances are if you're reading this site then the Wrath of the Lich King release date is just that important. And it is... I mean really... it's the World (of Warcraft) to us all.
10. "I'm having an allergic reaction to my cold medicine, and I need a day to recover."
9. "My dog has at a bunch of chocolate last night and I need to be with him."
8. "I have lice."
7. "I need to take a personal day. You don't want to know."
6. "I have to go see my probation officer."
Continue on after the break for the final five.
5. "I think I'm a Cylon."
4. "I think you're a Cylon."
3. "My soul collapsed under the crushing weight of the oppressive capitalist machine. I'll be in tomorrow if I level, however today must play this damn game."
2. "An Elf is telling me to go kill boars. Gotta run."
1. "I'll give you my BlizzCon polar bear mount key if I can just have this day off of work!"
Sunday, September 14, 2008
First steps into Naxxramas-10
Being back in Naxxramas is strange. At level 60, Naxx represented the pinnacle of raiding -- hard work, shiny epics and some really interesting boss encounters. At 70, overcome with nostalgia and spare time, revisiting Naxx meant taking a casual disregard for most tactics and simply overpowering bosses with the force of purples.
So what's it like stepping back into the dread citadel as a fresh level 80, over two years since my first adventures therein? Read on for spoilers...
The first thought that springs to mind is "this place is big". Crowded alongside 39 other raiders, the scale of the instance seemed fitting; accompanied by only nine comrades, we're dwarfed by it. Nowhere is this more apparent than during boss fights, which feel like some strange amalgam of the level 60 and level 70 experiences.
Trash inside Naxx is eerily familiar. Whirlwinding deathknights, gargoyles with stoneskin, even Frogger are all ready to welcome you back into raiding with open arms. And no mention of the residents of Naxxramas would be complete without Mr. Bigglesworth -- yes, for those cat-haters among you, he's still there.
The winged nature of the instance means that you can pick and choose which bosses to do first, although you need to clear all four quarters in order to face Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad. Renamed from their level 60 counterparts, the instance comprises the Construct Quarter (Abomination Wing), Plague Quarter (Plague Wing), Arachnid Quarter (Spider Wing) and Military Quarter (Deathknight Wing).
Construct Quarter
Bosses: Patchwerk, Grobbulus, Gluth, Thaddius
There are no real surprises in this quarter. The 10-man version of Patchwerk is a hard-hitting, hateful-striking sack of flesh and bones that still requires fairly intensive DPS and healing, but should not prove too difficult for a reasonably geared raid. Grobbulus became a zerg at 70, but at 80 it's back to kiting, positioning and dealing with slimes.
Gluth has moved away from fearing and is now tauntable, making the tanking side more controlled; however, you still need to deal with his health-stripping Decimate and, of course, the inevitable flood of zombies. If you don't have a paladin or mage this might be tricky.
Thaddius is as enjoyable a fight as ever; add tanks get teleported to the other side, rather than knocked back, removing some margin for error. The polarity switch mechanic remains intact, so you'll need some strategy for dealing with it. Practice on the level 60 version certainly helps here, and we have visions of struggling PuGs failing to determine left from right... it happens in Mechanar heroic, so it'll happen here!
Plague Quarter
Bosses: Noth the Plaguebringer, Heigan the Unclean, Loatheb
The Noth encounter hasn't changed a great deal; again, you need some way to deal with the adds, but you probably have an offtank who can take care of them. Heigan is a lot of fun; if you haven't done the encounter at 60 or 70, it would probably be a good idea to try it now, as the 'dance' is the same. Fortunately for when you wipe, the gauntlet before his room doesn't respawn any more; also, the teleport mechanic's been removed, so the fight really is just about learning where to stand and when.
The healing mechanic behind Loatheb's been changed to better suit the smaller raid. Instead of a one-minute cooldown on spells, he casts an aura that reduces healing done by 100% (similar to RoS phase 1). Healers must time their casts to land when the debuff fades, while everyone but the tank races to grab spores to provide maximum DPS. Depending on the healing classes you have, this can be tough or easy -- for example, Power Word: Shield helps a great deal.
Arachnid Quarter
Bosses: Anub'Rekhan, Grand Widow Faerlina, Maexxna
Anub'Rekhan is a simplified version of his former self, with no adds initially, though they spawn one at a time during the fight. The locust swarm ability and thus the need for tank kiting is still central to the fight, though you probably won't need to do this more than once. Faerlina is similar, although there's no need to mind control adds any more -- offtanking them is sufficient.
Maexxna is fundamentally unchanged as well, but due to the nature of the fight, is likely to be one of the trickiest encounters in here. You'll need to be able to deal with raid members who get Web Wrap and provide enough healing that the main tank doesn't die during Web Spray. Removing poison and controlling her enrage are also important. Another one that is trivial at 70 but will require effort at 80.
Military Quarter
Bosses: Instructor Razuvious, Gothik the Harvester, The Four Horsemen
At level 60, fighting Razuvious meant giving your priests a starring role and turning them into tanks. Well, sorry priests, but your number's up; at 80, the 10-man Razuvious has two adds, each of which can be controlled via a crystal. The basic idea's the same; offtank an add while the other tanks the boss, switching as required. For those who remember dodging Razuvious's deadly Shout via line-of-sight, you'll perhaps be glad to know it currently has zero effect, though this might change.
The Gothik encounter feels very similar to the level 70 experience; the adds are pretty trivial and most of the fight is spent waiting around, but given reports from the 25-man, it's likely this will be tuned to be a little more challenging.
Many people were interested to find out what would happen with the 10-man version of the Four Horsemen, since fielding four tanks is overkill. Firstly, Highlord Mograine's gone missing and our good friend Baron Rivendare has stepped in to take his place; secondly, the horsemen move to their corners of the room when engaged, removing the need for complicated positioning at the start of the fight.
Rivendare and Thane Kor'thazz are both traditionally tanked, dealing melee damage and using a normal aggro table. However, the two other Horsemen -- Lady Blaumeaux and Sir Zeliek -- deal spell damage to the raid member closest to them. This means you can use any class to tank them, swapping in your actual tanks once their horsemen die. The mark mechanic is the same, so you do need to be wary of debuffs and swap positions -- ie tanks need to relieve each other, DPS and healers should move if their marks get too high, etc.
Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad
After defeating all four quarters' end bosses, you'll be able to access the Frostwyrm Lair and face Sapphiron. This frost dragon is unchanged from the level 60 version; like his previous incarnation, he has a frost aura that ticks constantly, but this time it's healable (so you don't need to be kitted out in frost resistance gear). After avoiding cleaves, tail swipes and blizzards, it's a matter of staying behind ice blocks to avoid his deadly frost breath when airborne, and simply burning him down -- practice on the level 60 version will undoubtedly help, again, as deaths can quickly cascade.
Kel'thuzad, the fight which represented the pinnacle of vanilla raiding, is still an interesting encounter but you'll find it a lot easier than before. Phase 1 is all about dealing with adds, phase 2 requires some awareness and positioning (don't stand in the big red circles of death), phase 3 introduces two adds (finally giving your offtank something to do while you burn him down). Not really the hardest fight in the world.
Impressions
Having seen Naxx cleared multiple times on beta with groups of mostly-Sunwell geared players, it's clear that the 10-man version as it currently stands occupies an interesting space in raiding. It'll keep the guilds who are ahead of the curve occupied until they can start into the 25-man version, but will provide a decent challenge for raiders who don't have cutting-edge gear now.
It is something of a loot pinata and, for people who were expecting the epic encounters of level 60, perhaps an anticlimax of sorts. The mechanics that were so novel at level 60 have been reused since, and so multiple-mob fights, waves of adds, even poison clouds on the floor are all things we're used to dealing with now.
Fortunately this just means the instance is going to be fairly accessible even to those who haven't seen it before level 80, though it's really recommended that you try to see it now if you can, or you'll just get overwhelmed. There's also the disclaimer that more tuning needs to take place, both in terms of individual class balance and the bosses themselves, so things that seem a little too easy now will most likely become a reasonable challenge later on. Still, we're looking forward to it, and can't wait to try out Naxx 25 soon.
Heirloom items are for leveling
So what are these items for? My interpretation is that they're largely to help your alts level, and to give you something to do with badges if you have too many on your mains. Although the stats do scale down when you equip them on lower-level characters, they're still quite powerful items, on par blues. And here's one thing that's reinforcing that impression: I've found four Heirloom shoulders so far that give +10% experience from killing monsters. This is a great idea. You know that anyone who has these shoulders has at least one character at level 80, so why not let them level 5% faster? (5% is based on an estimate of half of one's experience being from quests and half from mobs.)
There seems to be a set of +10% experience shoulders suitable for every class and spec. Armor type (leather/mail/plate) will vary as appropriate for the character you equip them on, as far as I can make out.
It's really nice to see old models return. I expect we'll see very many of these shoulders on sub-80 characters in LK. I'm excited to be able to level my characters that much faster; I've spent more than enough time in Azeroth at this point. As Zach pointed out, Heirloom gear puts the emphasis when leveling on getting levels; it discourages going into dungeons and pursuing drops. Not that I do that these days anyway.
Six things I love about being a Mage in the beta
Each week Arcane Brilliance peeks takes a quick peek into the world of Mages. The peek has to be quick indeed, for to look any longer into that world is to invite madness. I mean, have you looked in there? There are people making copies of themselves, then their copies are turning people into penguins, then those penguins are getting set on fire and frozen, all at the same time...it's...it's not right. I don't know what it is, but it isn't right, people.
So...the giant nerf-patch of doom came down this week. It hit everyone. Except...Mages? Huh? What...how...who?
I had myself all braced for the nerf-bat to hit us, and well, I guess it whiffed? I dunno. Our Mirror Image is still awesome, our Deep Freeze still stuns, does good damage, and is instant, our Arcane Barrage is still on a glorious 3 second cooldown, and our Frostfire Bolt still benefits from every talent that affects either Fire or Frost spells. Surely Blizzard can't be happy with Mages being the actual, genuine kings of DPS in a physical universe that actually exists.
Virtually.
And only in beta form.
Cough.
We'll get a nerf in the cursed name of "balancing" eventually, I'm sure, but for now we get a reprieve. And I couldn't be happier.
This week, I'm going to list a few things--some of them big, some of them small--that I love about being a Mage in the beta right now. If even a few of these make it live, there is cause for rejoicing, and any that we lose in all of the class-polishing hobnobbery that goes on between now and that glorious day in which we install Northrend onto our hard drives will be cause to mourn. Join me after the jump for the list.
1. Our mana gems don't disappear anymore.
This may not seem like a big deal on paper, but brother, it is. The second time I logged into the beta and saw my little Mana Emerald still there, waiting for me with two charges left, my heart did a little dance. That's three seconds of my life I don't lose to a button press each time I log in.
Frankly, it was always stupid that these vanished, anyway. It isn't as if you can give them to anyone else like food, so why make them disappear? What did we ever do to you? Huh?
2. Dalaran
Really, it's like our own little Mage city. It really does feel like a kind of home for us as a class, in a very different way than the home cities of our races. Playing this game, we tend to identify ourselves far more with our class than any other aspect of our character, and for us Mages, places like the Mage Quarter in Undercity or the Mystic Ward in Ironforge have always felt like a small haven for our own kind. Now take that feeling and expand it to a whole city.
Dalaran is full of wonder, a place of magic and mystery, and even though there are sections of it that cater to the other classes, it is above all a city of Mages. Many of the most famous Mages in Warcraft lore are NPCs there, and all sorts of fun magical details keep appearing as Blizzard continues to flesh the city out. Mages can go there before anyone else can (by completing a Mage-only quest at level 71), and once we hit level 74 and learn the Portal: Dalaran spell, we will be able to gleefully extort outrageous sums from everybody else who can't go there until we allow them to. But don't do that--it's not cool, and once everybody sets their Hearthstone or Scroll of Recall to there, they will hate you for having done it. You can extort from Warlocks, though. That's totally acceptable.
3. Missile Barrage
I've talked about this before, I can't stress enough how much fun it is to cast Arcane Missiles when this procs. Seriously, I wasn't expecting it to be this much of a blast. Unless you're a deep Arcane Mage, you'll never know the raw, unadulterated joy of firing 5 missiles out over a short 2.5 seconds (or even less with all the crazy haste gear in the expansion) and watching them just tear something apart. It looks and sounds really rapid-fire, and if you can manage to time it with a Clearcasting proc or pop Arcane Power just before casting it, and just about all five of those babies crit? Sweet fancy Moses.
Frankly, I like a lot of the mechanics like this that they've introduced in the expansion, from the free, instant Fireball from Brain Freeze to the instant Pyroblast two crits in a row will grant you if you take Hot Streak. They add a small dash of extra interactivity and spontaneity to a class that in its current form can feel so static. Here's hoping the days of one-button Mages are soon behind us, never to return. Spamming Fireballs was never anyone's idea of fun.
4. There aren't nearly as many Frost-immune mobs as we were afraid there might be.
I mean, with the exception of a few obvious ones, like the Crystalline Ice Elementals of Dragonblight, I haven't run into much that shrugs off a Frostbolt or can't be frozen in place by a Frost Nova. Even things with names like "Arctic Ram" or "Reanimated Frostwyrm" still go down to a well-placed Shatter combo, so Frost Mages won't have to worry going into the frigid north and being rendered useless. I was as concerned about this as the next Mage, I admit. I thought the introduction of Frostfire Bolt was a sign of things to come, that being a Frost Mage in the expansion would be akin to being a Fire Mage in Molten Core. I'm glad to discover that such is not the case.
5. MIrror Image is still awesome.
I know you're probably sick and tired of hearing me yammer on about this spell, but I forgot to mention a couple neat things in the Skill Mastery post.
First: When you cast the spell, you get a buff that periodically switches positions between you and one of your copies, selected at random. This can be very confusing to an opponent, as they might be attacking you one second, and the next be attacking one of your duplicates. Though the spell is primarily an offensive ability, this little bit of subterfuge can truly help you defensively. It can also be very disconcerting, as you have no way to control which of your copies you will switch with, or even which direction you will be facing when you switch places with them. The nice thing about it, though, is that you can click the buff off if you're in a situation where the cons of switching places outweigh the pros, such as when raiding. It's a neat little effect that's a little buggy at the moment, but has potential.
Also, though their primary spells still seem to be Frostbolt and Fire Blast, your mirror images also seem to randomly throw out the occasional Polymorph: Penguin or Polymorph: Chicken spell. It's nothing huge, but pretty fun nonetheless. And yes, I think it's awesome that my copies can turn things into a chicken even though I personally can't. I just wish they'd take a few of the thirty seconds they have to live and teach me how, that's all.
The spell is currently an instant win in any PvP or PvE situation, even against multiple elite enemies. While this is fun, it will almost have to be balanced. I'm just praying they leave it relevant, and that the inevitable nerfs don't rob the spell of it's current insanely high fun-factor. What we really need is for the other classes to develop a defense to it that will work within the game mechanics, so a nerf isn't necessitated. Come on, non-Mages: L2P or whatever, and hurry up about it, before they blast my favorite spell to smithereenes! There has got to be a natural counter to being able to instantly summon three devastatingly powerful copies of yourself and then switch places with them randomly while they kill everything in sight. Right?
And please, no more nonsense in the comments section about me needing to keep quiet about this spell, or that by suggesting it may need balancing, I will somehow be responsible for upcoming nerfs. It isn't as if I'm letting the cat out of the bag here. This spell isn't exactly low-profile, trust me. Blizzard will continue to design and implement spells in their game as they have always done: with a reasonable amount competence and entirely independent of my opinions. Yours too, unless you happen to post on the official forums under the name "Kalgan," or something. I try to be honest in these columns, and I certainly don't have any kind of agenda that's even remotely detrimental to Mages. I happen to be quite fond of us, actually.
6. Mages rock faces in PvP.
People (usually people who play other classes) like to tell Mages all about the good old days when Mages ruled the earth and Warlocks were terrible and DPS rained from the heavens wherever Mages went. Well, I hit level 60 on my Mage about a month before the pre-Burning Crusade patch hit the live servers, so I guess I missed out on the era of the over-powered Mage. The era I was around for was the "era of the Mage who isn't as good as other DPS classes and yet dies faster than any of them." That era is still ongoing, to be perfectly honest.
Let me just say that on the beta, a new era is dawning. Let's call it the "best era of all time."
I can't even begin to describe how fun it is to have joined the other "roll-face-on-keyboard-and-win" classes, even if it only lasts a little while. Our DPS is high, our survivability is high, and our control is still excellent. We can win one-on-one against every class, and do it in style.
While testing out Deep Freeze for yesterday's Skill Mastery, I wandered into a herd of mammoths in Dragonblight. While systematically dispatching them, I was suddenly reeled in by Death Knight's Death Grip. I was at half mana and a third of my health. I was in combat with two other mobs. I popped Mirror Image. I won.
After eating and drinking, I returned to my mammoth-slaying. The Death Knight rezzed and attacked again, only this time, Mirror Image was still on cooldown. I held the Death Knight and several mammoths off for a bit, until Mirror Image was back off cooldown, then popped it again. Here's a screenshot of the Death Knight's final moments.
If you squint, you might be able to make out my copies fighting mammoths in the distance. You may also notice that even though I'm fighting a very dangerous and magic resistant melee class that is extremely difficult to kite, I'm about to kill her without having lost much in the way of health. You may also notice that we both appear to be nekkid, but be advised that this is due to most of the level 80 armor not having been given models in the latest beta push, and not due to any fashion choices on our parts.
Why do I bring this up? It isn't to brag. I didn't win because I was more skilled that the Death Knight. I won because Mages are awesome on the beta. I could never have survived a similar situation on the live servers. I bring this up to point out in game-terms the unique position Mages find themselves in PvP-wise on the beta. We're...we're...really, really good, and not just because we can summon a table of delicious biscuits and then open a portal to Shattrath at the end of the instance!
I have to tell you, it's a strange and wonderful feeling. I'm not used to feeling like I have the upper hand in every situation. It won't last, but for now, it's pretty great.
How much of any of this stuff makes it live, and the how much of the stuff that does ends up getting nerfed into oblivion is anyone's guess. All I know is that life for Mages right now in the beta is very good. It's been so long since I felt like a real powerhouse, I don't know what the appropriate response is. I know it isn't "shhh keep quiet so Blizzard doesn't nerf us!" because that's just stupid. I know it isn't "whine on the forums about every nerf or bug, and find reasons to complain even about awesome new spells that aren't finished yet," because that's just ungrateful and generally being a prick. I think the appropriate response is probably just being happy. I'm sincerely enjoying the process Mages are going through right now, and though I expect some balancing to happen to our class to bring it in line with everybody else, I'm optimistic that at the end of the cycle, we'll still emerge in a good place. I can't wait to level my Mage to 80 for real, and that's a good way to feel.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Misdirection gets a shorter cooldown in Wrath
Since the addiiton of Tricks of the Trade to the Rogue repertoire in the Wrath of the Lich King Beta, Hunters have felt a little slighted. Not only did Rogues get Misdirection, a somewhat defining Hunter ability in PvE, they got Misdirection on a much shorter cooldown that also augmented the tank's damage for even more threat. Koraa brought good news late last night, mentioning that Misdirection's cooldown will be lowered to 30 seconds (down from 2 minutes) to match the cooldown of Tricks of the Trade.
While Misdirection still doesn't have any secondary effects like Tricks does, you have to consider the fact that it can be used at range which is a pretty big deal. While the abilities have similar effects, they'll be used for wholly different things. It's a threat management tool for Rogues, whereas it's a pulling ability for Hunters. The two abilities fill different roles despite their similarities. Hunter threat tends to have some pretty wild spikes sometimes, but I think they have all the threat management they need. Feign Death is on a 30 second cooldown, and the Rogue threat wipe is at 3 minutes.
Horn of Winter
Horn of Winter is a Death Knight skill that was added in a recent build. Much like the Shaman's Strength of Earth Totem, this skill will give a strength and agility buff to nearby party or raid members -- 155 at the highest rank, to be exact.
It has advantages over Strength of Earth to be sure. It lasts 2 minutes like the totem, but unlike the totem, it's quite a bit more mobile, being a straight-up buff. If there's one drawback to the skill, it's finding the time to cast it.
A Death Knight nearly never sits idle while DPSing. Every global cooldown is precious as you strive to use your runes as soon as they refresh and shed runic power as soon as you have enough for your chosen runic power dump. Some Death Knights think that shoehorning Horn of Winter into there might be asking a bit much, and want it to, at the least, not cost any runic power.
Still, it's a very nice "upgraded" version of the Shaman's Strength of Earth totem, and 20 runic power (10 with a glyph) isn't that bad a cost, so if you're in a physical DPS heavy group or raid, and any Shamans aren't putting out that specific totem, it's worth using it. Any slight hiccup in your damage rotation is probably worth all the nice extra AP and melee critical strike rating you'll get from the buff. Just skip a couple Rune Strikes and cast it already!
Show your pet some love with Happy Pet Snacks
Unfortunately, this won't work on Hunter pets to get their mood up -- you'll have to give them real food for that! Vanity pets have always been one of small things in the game that I enjoyed, even if I didn't obsessively collect all of them. I even have my Mini Tyrael key bound, although I have yet to install the MiniPet AddOn that reminds me when I don't have him out. Even though this build was loaded with nerfs, the developers managed to insert a lot of happy things, too, like lots of new icons for items and spells, including a proper one for my Captured Firefly!
While it's easy to notice huge changes like world zones, class nerfs, and whopper talents, it's little touches like these that keep the game light and fun for me. Blizzard always manages to keep a sense of humor about the game, and it just works. When Mumper talked about having vendors sell more interesting stuff in Dalaran, I'm sure he was thinking of Breanni, too. When Wrath of the Lich King finally goes live, a trip to her little store is definitely on my agenda. As usual, thanks to Wietkop for the heads up!
The Succubus
Today we'll take a quick look at the Succubus, which won't really change much in Wrath of the Lich King. It's good to note that Succubi have had their health and armor increased by 20% and 22% respectively. It probably won't stop them from getting rinsed in PvP, but a buff is a buff. Unlike the Felhunter, which is the best pet for an Affliction Warlock, the Succubus isn't specialized for any particular tree. However, there are talents in Demonology that make her more useful.
The first one, obviously, is Improved Succubus, which has been modified in the Wrath Beta to confer up to a 100% resistance to interruption caused by damage while channeling Seduction. Succubi have four basic abilities, although they are famous this one alone. If a Succubus is ever brought out for PvP, it is purely for Seduction. They are the easiest demon to kill next to an Imp out of Phase Shift and thus almost never see Arena or even Battleground play. However, Succubi provide invaluable crowd control for humanoid-heavy instances. It helps to use an AddOn like FocusFrame to keep an eye on the Succubus' target because learning to reapply Seduction -- try to key bind it -- is crucial to keeping her alive.
Seduction is a great ability but requires micro-management to use well (though it's odd that a channeled spell should have a cast time...). Succubi also have Lash of Pain, its basic melee attack that deals Shadow damage. With the removal of Improved Lash of Pain, it now puts out significantly lower DPS (despite Unholy Power) and leans more towards utility. If you can manage to keep Soothing Kiss on a melee target without the Succubus dying, it's a useful debuff. Lastly, its Lesser Invisibility works well to keep it alive before engaging targets, particularly in PvP. If it's out of combat, keep it invisible. Note that invisibility is not stealth, and she cannot be revealed by stealth detection mechanics.
I like to think of the Succubus as a finesse pet. Its fragility requires close attention in PvP and Seduction is a channeled spell that doesn't last as long as, say, Polymorph or Freezing Trap, requiring frequent reapplication. Even with the new pet scaling, Succubi are still vulnerable pets. The good news is that Demonology Warlocks get an additional tool to keep the Succubus up in Wrath with Demonic Empowerment, effectively a Rogue's Vanish on a 1-minute timer.
When sacrificed to Demonic Sacrifice, a Succubus provides a 10% increase to all Shadow damage done. Whereas it didn't make much sense before with Soul Link active, it's actually an option now considering that Soul Link no longer confers additional damage for master and pet. Soul Link with a Succubus -- in PvP, at least -- is very bad idea to begin with, anyway. Altogether not too many changes in Wrath, but the few new and reworked Demonology talents keep playing with a Succubus challenging and fun.
Warlock changes in Beta
The nerf bat swung low and hard. Did it hit Warlocks? Well... yes and no. This is the stage in Beta where things are tuned downwards -- notoriously labeled the nerf patch -- and Warlocks are big, fat nerf targets. On the other hand, some spells got buffs and others were reworked. This is just Beta, so don't panic. Classes are buffed and nerfed throughout the testing process until everything is finely tuned.
Without further ado: they nerfed Death's Embrace to grant 9% crit to all Shadow Spells when an opponent is at 20% or below health, down from 15% crit. Eradication can no longer be a permanent buff now as it now notes that, "This effect cannot occur more often than once every 30 sec". On the other hand, Death's Embrace and Eradication got cool new icons. Dark Pact, which I raved about when I talked about the Felhunter, has been nerfed back to its current form of granting 100% of the mana drained from pet (down from 200% in previous builds).
Curse of Exhaustion was nerfed to a 30% movement speed reduction, down from 50%. It's now back to the live realm's value but without the benefit of Amplify Curse, which was reworked in Beta. Fel Armor's mana regeneration was removed and replaced with a health regeneration rate of 2% per 5 seconds. I'm not too sure how to feel about that, but since Warlocks treat health as mana, anyway, it's not such a substantial nerf but merely a mechanical change. More nerfs and a few pleasant surprises after the jump.
Demonic Empathy on Destruction Tier 9 has been nerfed to a 3% bonus, down from 6%, but gets a pretty new icon. I discussed the Metamorphosis changes in a previous post, but forgot to mention that the cooldown has been increased to 5 minutes. Think of the demon form as an uh-oh button rather than a Moonkin or Shadowform and you'll appreciate it better. It also has a new icon, no longer using Illidan's face. Demonic Sacrifice has been nerfed slightly to grant a 7% bonus to Shadow and Fire damage, down from 10%.
The Destruction tree is finally completely accessible, with Chaos Bolt and Fire and Brimstone finally in the game, with new icons to boot. The funny part? Chaos Bolt was nerfed even before it got tested, with damage reduced from 1012-1278 to 990-1256. Fire and Brimstone was nerfed, too, to keep Chaos Bolt company, granting 15% of spell power bonus to Immolate, down from 25%. Still an underwhelming 45-50 point talent if you ask me, but hey, test it, anyway. Empowered Imp has been made less powerful as procs now grant a mere 20% crit bonus as opposed to 100% -- I think we should've seen that one coming since Destruction was dealing ludicrous damage through crits thanks to cooperative Imps.
Improved Soul Leech was retuned to work in a similar fashion to other mana regeneration mechanics by not scaling with damage dealt but instead return a flat percentage, in this case 2%, of maximum mana. Emberstorm was nerfed to reduce Incinerate cast time by .25 seconds instead of .5 previously. This actually puts it back in line with the old Emberstorm, which conferred a 10% increase to Incinerate's casting time. And finally, Cataclysm was nerfed to reduce the cost of Destruction spells by up to 3%, down from 6%.
Whew. That wasn't so bad, was it? Now for a bit of good news. Unstable Affliction's silence effect was reverted to its original 5 seconds, up from 3, which is cool but it's still down to a 15 second duration with a cast time. So it's not quite a buff, but definitely not a nerf. Improved Felhunter now increases the effect of Fel Intelligence by up to 10%, which still doesn't match Arcane Brilliance and Divine Spirit but is an awesome change nonetheless. I mean, I can't have my little Rhuunom make Mages and Priests lose their raid spots, you know? The tooltip for Demonic Empowerment now includes the proper durations and Shadowfury is now, at long last, instant cast. That .5 second cast was always very strange, but now it works the way the Demons intended. Then there's one last thing:
Shadow Embrace
Requires 20 points in Affliction
Your Shadow Bolt and Haunt spells apply the Shadow Embrace effect, increasing all periodic damage dealt to the target by you by 5%, and reduces all periodic healing done to the target by 15%. Lasts for 12 sec. Stacks up to 2 times.
This talent was reworked to proc off Shadow Bolt and Haunt instead of DoTs, which forces Affliction Warlocks to toss up their spell cycles a bit. The tooltips are bugged, but in a nutshell the total damage increase is a substantial 10% with 2 stacks and the healing debuff is at 30%. This version of the spell is worlds better than the one on live, and the inclusion of Haunt as a trigger only incentivizes going deeper into the Affliction tree. Mechanically a nerf, if only because DoTs are easier to apply. Otherwise, still an amazing talent.
So there we have it. Warlocks in Beta build 8926, aka The Nerf Build. Don't worry too much about the nerfs, as most of them are simply for testing purposes and will -- if found to be too weak -- be re-tuned to the proper numbers and scaling when the time comes. In fact, if I mention the new icons, it only means that the devs are just about ready to give the class some real work. Look out for more, and better, changes in future builds. Right now, it should be a good time to try out Destruction now and see Chaos Bolt blow up pesky Priests and their shields.
How long before level 80?
Otrebla asks a good question on the forums: how long, do you think, will it take before we see our first level 80 character? He wasn't around during the BC launch, but I was, and you could literally watch people level in the /who -- a few hours after launch, I saw some 64s pop up, and maybe 36 hours or so after the game's midnight release, I did a "/who level 70," and sure enough, there were a few names floating around in there.
Of course, the level 80 titles have been removed, so there's not any real ingame need to rush to level 80, but people will of course do it anyway. Odds are that within the first day after release, we'll see a few level 80s floating around, and I'd imagine that all of the various realms will have at least one or two level 80s within the first few days. The fastest people will do it with the help of their guildies (or saved quest items), but there'll probably be a few people who will just go nuts and get it done all on their own.
I won't be one of them, and I'm sure there are plenty of players like me, who are more interested in seeing the content rather than reaching the next highest level as fast as possible (and that's exactly what Zarhym recommends as well). A few people will race to 80, no question, but the vast majority of people playing will likely be taking their sweet time.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Ghostcrawler's late night Paladin news
Ghostcrawler displays her dedication yet again as she popped up on a few of the Wrath of the Lich King Beta forums in the wee hours of the morning today. Or would that be late last night? What does 2 AM qualify as, again? Anyway! Ghostcrawler popped into the Paladin forums to check in with some concerned players, and brought some fun news. She says herself that it may not be 100% what Paladins want, but it should prove to be good stuff regardless. Let's dig right into it, shall we?
From Ghostcrawler:
All of this sounds pretty good to me, though maybe not ideal. I've always felt Kings was in a strange place, so it'll be interesting to see what they do with it. I'd love to see Protection and Retribution get some more fun toys like Warriors seem to be getting, just fun stuff that you can take or leave. Not to imply that Warriors are getting everything and Paladins are getting nothing, I just get a kick out of the flavor talents like Warbringer. I'd love to see Prot Paladins get more of that.
The mana for Retribution Paladins thing we'll need to see in practice before we can form any opinion on it. Divine Plea being more like Bloodrage in the next beta build should help a lot, because channeling it was a lot of lost DPS time, not to mention interrupts on it. If you're going to make a melee class use mana, they shouldn't have to stop doing what they're doing to get their resources back. Ranged casters are one thing, they all fall victim to that, but can you picture a Warrior backing up from a boss, and instead of hitting the bad guy he beats himself over the head so he gets really, really angry? Maybe the Rogues should go drink a Red Bull for 4 seconds to get their Energy? Maybe those aren't perfect comparisons, but I think you see what I mean. In my opinion, it runs counter to how melee are played and ruins the feel of being in the thick of things. I'm sure not everyone agrees, but those are my thoughts on it.
Overall, while Ghostcrawler's information may not be perfectly in line with what Paladins want, they're still fun things and should prove interesting if implemented right.
Edit: Ghostcrawler is a gal and not a guy, so I have fixed my genderbending. Sorry, crablady!
Boat crews return in the Wrath beta
There was some discussion about the boat/zeppelin crews on the Northrend boats. I'm here to report that transportation crews in Azeroth are back in the current Wrath beta build!
I really liked the idea of the boat crews when they were so briefly implemented before. It was nice to be able to repair or get supplies en route without having to wander all over tarnation to get them, especially if the boat was headed to a discombobulated destination like Booty Bay. And when you'd never been to the boat's destination before, it saved a lot of time. Plus, the goblin crews were just hilarious and I liked watching their banter. So I was very disappointed when they went poof on the live realms.
You can also stay mounted on the boats and zeps now, which is quite convenient. (And, by the way, you can stay mounted in Booty Bay now too!) The crews are level 40 which makes them easily raidable. I'm not sure what to make of the fact that the goblins on the Horde boats are there for the humor but it seems like the humans on the Alliance boats are very serious about their jobs. We've seen some legacy testing items in the Wrath beta -- like the materials quartermasters from 2006 which are still in the beta but not in the live game -- so I hope the crews aren't just leftovers from previous beta builds that Blizzard has no intention of rolling out in Wrath (or in the upcoming patch). We'll just have to wait and see.
Metamorphosis feedback wanted
For all of you Warlock beta testers out there, Ghostcrawler is looking for your help! Since the Wrath Beta began, Metamorphosis has been one of those abilities that sound cool in theory, but the application was totally wrong, more or less. Ghostcrawler has put out a call for focused, constructive feedback on the ability. When you head over there, keep in mind that Ghostcrawler wants feedback specifically about Metamorphosis in this thread, and 'get rid of it' isn't constructive feedback. Those of you not beta testing may be interested in the thread as well, since it might be a pretty strong indicator of where Demonology will end up.
The most common feedback I've seen is that the ability renders most of your other talent points null and void for the duration of the transformation, rather than synergizing with them. I find myself agreeing with that wholeheartedly. It's an interesting concept, but no top end talent should nullify everything before it unless it's good enough to make up for all of those talent points you lost. Metamorphosis definitely does not have 51 talent points baked into it, and I'd say it would be impossible to even do that.
Icecrown Citadel confirmed in post-release content patch
As if we didn't really see this coming -- just like the Black Temple with Burning Crusade, Tigole confirmed for sure that the last instance of Wrath of the Lich King will be pushed off past release to a content patch (likely 3.1 or 3.2, if we had to guess), which means we won't face Arthas for a final showdown when the expansion releases. Of course, there'll be plenty to do anyway -- besides all of the other 5man instances, there'll be Lake Wintergrasp to mess around with, and of course Naxx and Zul'Drak will be in and ready to go. But those looking for a Lich King resolution will likely have to wait -- while we'll see plenty of Arthas, we won't actually face him until the Icecrown content patch.
Disappointing? Not from our perspective -- just like Black Temple, leaving the last instance out of the expansion will not only let Blizzard make sure it's released only when done, but it'll give us something to look forward to after Wrath. No one really expected to see this content in the Wrath box anyway, and not even Blizzard has left us guessing -- they've been pretty clear that Icecrown would get its own content patch from the beginning. Leaves us more time to enjoy the content that does come with the expansion.
Tanking stats updated for Wrath and Patch 3.0
We've been covering in depth the changes to tanking for various classes in the Wrath beta, and how these changes might affect players when Patch 3.0 goes live prior to Wrath's release. Now on the beta servers we have one very big sign that these changes may be going live fairly soon: the stats on Burning Crusade raiding gear, specifically paladin and warrior tanking set gear and many non-set epic plate tanking pieces, have been changed to reflect the new realities of tanking mechanics that are incoming.
In a surprise move that's incredibly welcome (well, in my eyes) Blizzard has gone back and changed Paladin and Warrior tanking tier 4 to 6 gear as well as non set plate drops, shield and badge gear to take advantage of the new mechanics. As I primarily am a tank (and expect to remain so) I went online to check out how my tanking gear will change when patch 3.0 drops. A gallery of some select pieces and how they're changing when patch 3.0 goes live has been provided for all your browsing needs. I have to say that for the most part the changes are very welcome, they maintain old block value for threat while adding the strength we'll need for increased AP to scale our new threat abilities like Shockwave.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Cooking love from Wrath Beta patch
Shockingly, the one profession that most people seem to be excited about in Wrath of the Lich King is Cooking. Inscription? Pfffft. Cooking! Luckily, Cooking seems to be one of the professions getting a lot of focus in the beta right now. The last couple of beta patches have brought us a ton of new recipes and quests.
Just recently we've added tons of those new recipes to our Wrath Cooking gallery, including both the new recipes in this weekend's beta patch and the ones that had previously been inaccessible from the patch before that, so there's plenty there to see. Some of the recipes are useful (spell power, expertise, haste, that whole spiel) and some are just for fun (growing, shrinking, enslaving mini critters to your iron will), but they're all pretty good examples of why Cooking is so exciting in WoW. While it isn't among the new recipes, Kungaloosh has a special place in my heart. Kungaloosh. Kungaloooosh. Say it!
Shadow leveling in the Wrath beta
Welcome to Spiritual Guidance, usually a haven for Holy and Discipline priests hosted by Matt Low of World of Matticus. This week, out with the heals in and with the facemelting! Alex Ziebart and the shadows have taken over. Enjoy!
As you might guess from our list of new abilities in Wrath of the Lich King, leveling as Shadow in Northrend is basically the same as leveling as Shadow in Outland. The only difference is that in Northrend, you get to be a little more reckless thanks to Dispersion. Being reckless is fun.
If you've leveled Shadow before, you probably have used the "pull way too many monsters, tab DoTs, fear, and run around screaming like a fool while they slowly die" tactic. It's tried and true, so I don't know why you wouldn't. You can level pulling only one mob at a time, but why would you? Flailing your arms around in horror is much more efficient, and Dispersion makes it even better. Shock and awe, I know! Dispersion is good!
Let's take a look at the talent spec I've been using in Wrath, shall we? Note that when you look at this, it's a talent spec I am using because it works for me. Leveling is one of those times where you can get away with your talent spec being wholly different. Pick what works for you. This spec works for me.
I went down the Shadow tree first, naturally. Early Discipline after that. You'll have Dispersion before your feet even touch the boats to Northrend. Though that leaves us with little to no excitement from fun talents from 71-80, it's what worked before as far as being awesome and efficient.
Some oddities you may notice in my Shadow choices:
Blackout - I'm a big fan of Blackout while leveling. It's something I dropped almost as soon as I hit 80, but for leveling it's fantastic. PvPers may keep it, but I'm a PvE noob so I toss it out the window right away. While leveling it's good because of that reckless, multi-mob way you'll be pulling things. Those stuns are good for acting as snares while you're pushing and pulling mobs around, and mitigating some of the damage you'll be inflicting on yourself.
Lack of Silence - I don't find Silence to be especially good while just questing around. Great in PvP, decent in dungeons, not worth the point sink for leveling compared to all of the other choices available to you.
Lack of Shadow Affinity - This build is mostly for questing, so threat reduction is not going to make or break you at all. If you run a dungeon, the Improved Shadowform threat reduction will help you out a lot, and your group won't suffer if you need to hold back a little bit. This won't hurt you in the long run. Pick it up at 80, don't worry about it for leveling.
If you disagree with me on those points, no problem! Pick em up for yourself. Pick a spec that works for you. I think the rest of the talents I chose are pretty self-explanatory.
Now, about Dispersion. Does it suck? No. Not at all. Not a chance. Is it exciting? Also no. It fits the Shadow Priest way of leveling, though. When the cooldown is up, it lets you push your limits a little more. Whereas you might have been pulling 3 or 4 mobs at a time before, when the Dispersion cooldown is up you can push it to 5 or 6. That doesn't sound impressive by itself, but when you get yourself into a rhythm where you can do that every time Dispersion is ready, it becomes very, very nice.
Routine usually goes like this: Find a camp of mobs. Tab Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain until they reach melee. Power Word: Shield myself, finish applying DoTs if I need to, drop a Psychic Scream, and start rotating through them with other damage. Mind Blasts, Mind Flays, Shadow Word: Death to get that Spirit Tap, yadda yadda.
When you pull a lot of mobs, they'll usually chew through your shields faster than you can keep them up, and at that point the incoming damage from 5-6 mobs at a time gets painful. Dispersion is great here. It essentially makes you invincible for awhile, regenerating your health and mana. You can use it to 'hold out' for your next fear or shield cooldown.
At level 75, it gets even better. What's at level 75? Mind Sear. Mind Sear is something I would never dream of using while soloing in The Burning Crusade because pushback would make it pointless. In Wrath, the pushback changes coupled with this spell? Fantastic. Your tactic more or less stays the same. Rotate DoTs on a bunch of targets, shield yourself. When you have this spell, you want to put Vampiric Embrace on a target, then focus Mind Sear on a mob that isn't the one you put VE on so you get health returns from Mind Sear's awesome DPS. It does a LOT of damage in this situation. It might fall behind other AOEs in a raid setting, but it's great for this purpose.
You'll still lose a tick or two from pushback, but that's fine. It's still fantastic damage for this purpose. Mind Sear won't hit the mob you have targeted, which is a shame. However, it's a bit like Mind Flay on Steroids on all of your other nearby targets. I think you can see how that's beneficial to how a Shadow Priest levels. You'll need to single target down your last mob, but oh well. You pretty much mangled all of the others in no time.
That's Shadow leveling. It's essentially the same thing you've always done, but now you have permission to pull like a damned fool, because you'll probably live through it! Gameplay hasn't changed much in dungeons and raids, but soloing as a Shadow Priest has become some symphony of chaos perfected.
Don't get me wrong, I still look forward to Shadow improvements in the Wrath beta, but leveling as a Shadow Priest is still fun. Very fun. It's not all bad. The problems crop up later in the game.
