There are a couple if interesting changes with the new Beta build over the weekend. There are also some things I missed in prior builds that I wouldn't mind talking about.
- Winter's Chill (Frost Mage Talent) is now a 3 point talent and gives your frost spells a 33/66/100% chance to apply the winter's chill effect. increases the chance Arcane, Fire and Frost spells will critically hit the target by 2% for 15 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times. - This talent has been hinted at in the offical talent calculator for the beta but hadn't been included in the beta until the last build and Lissanna has confirmed that this included in the latest build. From a moonkin perspective this is an awesome change, but it maintains the status quo. After the changes to Natures Grace, Curse of Elements and the Mana on Crit mechanic, I have openly wondered if Starfire would still be our primary nuke. This talent combined with Imp Scorch ensure Starfires future as our main raid spell. These buffs are highly dependent on your raid make up and the encounter, but they are also very powerful since the provide 10% buff to damage, 10% buff to Crit, and therefore more mana regen.
The down sided to this is that it reenforces the status quo. Currently Wrath has no real use in a raid. It uses more mana, and with raid buffs does only a little more damage then Starfire does. If you of Tier bonuses Wrath actually does less damage. Murmurs on the Druid forums was saying that the changes in CoE and Natures Grace was an effort to make Wrath a High DPS, High Mana Cost spell that we could use at the end of a fight for alittle extra DPS to empty our mana bar. Imp Scorch and Winter's Chill appear to contradict his. Anyway, it is still early. This chould change.
- Potion Sickness is not included in the latest Beta build. - This is according to WoWInsider. There were a lot of different opinions on Potion Sickness. Some felt that it was awesome in that it reduces the amount of cosumables that would be needed for Wrath raiding. Moonkin and some other classes were worried what this would mean for their mana regen. Many Alchemists were mad because this would significantly reduce the profit ability of thier profession. Well it appears that the anti potion sickness people have won. I as never a fan or a hater of Potion Sickness, but it is good to know that my mana regen isn't changing significantly in a negative direction.
- Wild Growth - Embrace the natural energies surrounding you, healing you for 2000 over 15 sec. Instant, 5 min cooldown. - A while it was released that gatheing professions were getting passive buffs that were trainable. Miners got extra stamina and skinners got extra crit, but the herbalist buff was not released. Well, now it has and its name is Wild Growth. To say the very least I am NOT happy. It is an underpowered heal that isn't affected by any of the usual modifiers. I currently have close to 10k raid buffed, by the time I hit 80 I am sure that I will have close to 16k at least. This ability will heal me for only 1/8th of my health and will only get worse as my gear improves. On top of that it is a 15 second HoT that takes a global cooldown, so it reduces my DPS and by the time it is done I will have most likely been healed to full or killed. The only good part I can see about this is that it is usable in forms. This one needs to go back to the drawing board.
-Totem of Wrath (Elemental Shaman) increases the damage done by spells and effects by 6% and increases the chance strike chance of spells and effects by by 3%. (Previously increased hit chance by 3%) - This is an interesting change. It's hard to say if it's good or bad until we see how easy it is to hit cap. From my perspective I currently don't need the extra spell hit. So an extra 6% damage to my spells is a great trade.
- Ritual of Souls now lasts 3 minutes or 25 charges (instead of 10). - WOOT!! I'm not a warlock but any raider should love this. Many times I have seen a cookie basket drop and be gone in seconds because all 10 stones were taken. This just makes sense.
- Starfire Rank 9 and 10 had their damage increased a little. (661-779 to 670-790 for Rank 10) - Not huge but better then nothing.
Glyphs: Blizzard added a bunch of Glyphs to the beta for Pallys, Priests, and Shaman. There wasn't anything too exciting there from my perspective, but I would like to go back and look at the Druid Glyphs released a few weeks ago.
Glyph of Starfire - Your Starfall ability increases the duration of your Moonfire effect on the target by 3 sec.
Glyph of Moonfire - Increases the periodic damage of your Moonfire ability by 75% but initial damage is decreased by -90%.
Glyph of Insect Swarm - Increases the damage of your Insect Swarm ability by 30% but it no longer affects your victim's chance to hit.
Glyph of Hurricane - Your Hurricane ability now also slows the movement speed of its victims by -20%.
Glyph of Starfall- Increases the duration of Starfall by 2 sec.
Glyph of Wrath - Increases the chance you'll resist spell interruption when casting your Wrath spell by 50%.
Glyph of Entangling Roots - Increases the damage your Entangling Roots victims can take before the Entangling Roots automatically breaks by 20%.
Glyph of Thorns - Empowers a Minor Glyph to reduce the mana cost of your Thorns spells by %s1%.
These are all the Balance related Druid Glyphs. We don't know what level of Glyph most of them are but It does provides some interesting possiblities. My first question is, does the Glyph of Starfire increase the MF duration every time you hit the mob with the Moonfire. Basically, could you keep one MF rolling the whole time by just casting SF over and over? This is a mechanic that blizzard has implented for Priest and Warlock DoTs. If that is the case then this glyph should be used in conjunction with the Glyph of the Moonfire and the damage would be awesome. Moonfire would probably tick off eventually but having to refresh it only once every 30 seconds instead of once every 12 would be awesome.
The other Glyphs aren't that big of a deal to me right now. Glyph of Insect Swarm will make it into a decent DoT damage wise, but it looses its avoidence. This could be good or bad depending on who you talk to. The Roots and Thorns Glyphs are ok to if they both are Minor Glyphs. Over all I'm not that inpressed with Incriptions yet as a non professional. People who take up the profession have some nice abilities like the hearth scrolls but they aren't good enough to make me think I should switch.
Edit: Eclipse: I wanted to let all of you know that I am offically off the Eclipse train. In a couple of posts ago I linked a thread on the WoW forums talking about Koraa's comments. In that thread I started debating the value of Eclipse with them. This thread is what clue'd me into Winter's Chill, and showed me how Eclipse compared to other talents available. I also did some more math.
My new thinking comes down to three things. 1) Preemptive casting to get a buff is a bad idea. You will spend extra mana to get extra damage, but by my math that extra damage is very mana inefficent. 2) Winter's Chill combined with Improved Scorch make SF a superior spell. With the Wrath buff you will be doing more DPS but it is a huge mana efficency lose. 3) The extra damage you get for a Tier 9 talent is small compared to Improved Shapeshifter and other talents.
So If WotLK dropped right now I see no need to pick up this talent by anyone.
Toon Update:
Graylo - He had a very busy weekend. I transfered Graylo with only 400 gold. I did it because I wanted Grayfel to get his flying mount as quick as possible when he hit 70. I figured 400g was enough to deal with repairs and reagents and such and that I could farm gold fairly easily when I needed it. Well, there was one thing I had not considered. Shadow Resist Gear. My new guild is fast approching Mother Shahraz. Luckly I have been selected as part of the group that will get SR gear for the progression kill, but that has sent me scrambling.
To build the full SR gear sets provided by the BT rep you need 9 Heart of Darkness, 5 Void Crystal, 13 Primal Life, and 18 Primal Shadow. An entire raid will need that times 25. Even more if you don't have the same 25 each week. As you can imagine that is lot to provide for a guild that has only been around for two months. So what they desided to do was make us get the Cloak on our own and they would provide the Heart of Darkness for the Wrists, Belt, and Boots. We are ignoring the Legs for now until we get more HoDs.
Well, Hearts of Darkness currently cost about 500g. Along with that I needed 12 Primal Shadows. Luckly I transfered over most of my Primal Lifes and was able to trade some of them for Primal Shadow. All I had to do was come up with the HoD. I did all of the SSO dailies on Saturday and got the money for one Heart, but it left me fairly broke. Plus, If I wanted to get SR cloak enchant I would need another 8 primal shadow. So, on sunday I did another 24 dailies and I am up to a decent amount of gold.
I do have a lot of Shadow Resist now. The 4 peices of crafted gear and the BT attunment neck give me 228 Shadow resist. On top of that I have a pair of green SR gloves and a green SR ring that I just happened to get from my SSO dailies. I also have my old T4 helm in the bank (being a pack rat paid off) which I as able to put a SR enchant on for another 20 shadow resist. These three items bring my SR up to 292. With the buffs I will be up to 362, only 3 below the cap. This should be enough. The problem with all this is I am dropping a lot of DPS gear to get there. Hopefully we will get enough hearts to make the pants soon.
On top of all this I need to get the [Medallion of the Alliance]. Apparently it is needed to down Archimond. So I had about 7000 Honor to farm on a WSG weekend. I was not looking forward to it. Luckily I had a lot of honor marks in the bank from the various BGs, and as able to turn them in for honor.
Graypal and Grayfel didn't see much action, due to my focus on Graylo. I originally had a goal of getting Grayfel to 70 by the end of August, but that doesn't look likely anymore. There are just to manythings I need to do with Graylo right now to push him forward.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Friday, August 8, 2008
Guild Matters
This post will be about why I left WA and how my first night was with Lastt Standd. I am hesitant to write about WA because I still have friends there and a couple of alts. However, I feel the need to get some of my thoughts off my chest. I don't think any of it will be two emflamitory, but if anyone from WA would like to post a responce I will be happy to include it in an edit.
Why I left Wandering Alliance:
I left for several reasons, but they are all kind of jumbled together in my head. Ultimately the WA I left isn't the WA I joined, and I just wasn't happy anymore, but let me elaborate.
First of all I think the guild has fallen apart and wont be back to a high level of raiding anytime soon. Guilds and other organizations never fall apart quickly but you don't always see the signs until long after it started. From my perspective, WA's more recent troubles started in mid April. Our GM's computer got fried, and he didn't have the cash at the time to get a new one or fix the old. This created a little bit of a vacuum at the top of the guild. For a while we waited for Fero (the GM) to come back, but it quickly be came clear that Fero would be out indefinitely.
Unfortunately, the guild didn't have a good replacement in my opinion. I've said it a hundred times already, but I think being GM is a hard and thank less job, that every few people can do. I know I am not capable of doing it. It requires the right combination of hard work, desire, vision, charisma, and decisiveness that few people have. Some of the guild leaders had a lot of these qualities (including Aradane who eventually took the job), but no one had all of them. As a result the guild lost some of its sharpness. Decisions took longer to make, raiders got a little more sloppy, things just didn't go as smoothly as the once did.
On top of this, the general tone of the guild started to change. It became a lot more adversarial. I don't know what caused the change. I'm sure some would partially blame me. I did get in to several big arguments with people in the Guild forums regarding guild issues. I have heard others blame some of the new members we brought into the guild. I think the lack of definitive leadership also had a big deal to do with it. Anyway, the guild be came very snippy. The raid members felt it and started leaving slowly.
Another problem we had was a bloated leadership. I remember one raid where 14 of the 25 people in raid were officers. It is impossible make any decisions quickly when you have 14 people voicing opinions. Since we didn't have a clear leader it became even harder.
These problems were recognized and under the right circumstances they could have been fixed. However due to a combination of timing, bad luck, and poor choices the guild wasn't able to turn it self around. First of all, raiding sucks on Eitrigg right now. The top two alliance guilds folded with most of their core members transferring servers. Many small raiding guilds have folded also and the ones that are still around are having serious problems with recruitment. Having all of this happen during summer when raiding generally slows didn't help either. However, the biggest issue I had was how the top leadership tried to correct our problems.
What they did was completely restructure our officer rankings, without even telling all of the officers before it happened. They didn't even attempt to get input from me or a couple of other officers. Before the change we basically had three officer ranks, Officer, Class Lead, and Class Assistant. What they did was get rid of Class Assistant, Change the name of Class Lead to Class Support, and insert a new rank between Officer and Class Support called Raid support. The way they described the change was that Officers would run the raids and the guild. Raid Support would be the back up in case officers were not available. Class support would be consulted on Class specific issues if needed.
Ultimately it was a deceptive way to try and exclude some people (Class Support) from guild management and the decision making process. A new section was created on the Guild Forums only Officers and Raid Support could see. A chat channel was created that informally acted as an Officer chat for most of the Officers and Raid Support. Its a really funny feeling to hear a raid related question asnwered over vent when you can't see the question in Gchat, Raid Chat, or Ochat and it wasn't asked in vent.
As you probably guessed I was a part of the Class Support. When the changes were made, I felt unappreciated and disrespected. I felt like I had done a lot for the guild and was cast aside without any consideration for my feelings. The promotions and demotions seemed to have more to do with who your friends were then actual abilities. Several officers were promoted to Raid Support or Officer when they didn't do any more for the guild then I did and in some cases they did less. Since Eitrigg was such a bad server to recruit raiders from, I tried to maintain a thread on the Guild Recruitment forums on the WoW website. Even after I asked several times, not a single person could help me bump the thread to keep it near the top of the forums. My morale fell very low at this point and I couldn't find a reason to keep promoting the guild or working for its survival anymore. They had successfully pushed me out.
I wasn't the only one having problems with the new system. We started losing more members and some of the Officers and Raid Support people were also having trouble with the new system and the new leadership. Criticisms from some officers stopped being constructive and was purely belittling. Eventually a good friend of mine who was also an officer of the highest level was pushed out and she transferred servers. Another friend of mine from my FoC days decided that to transfer to another server also. It was clear that this was the end of the guild as I knew it. Many of our core raiders left for one reason or another and we couldn't recruit enough quality people to replace them. Eventually almost all raiding stopped, and the guild just wasn't fun anymore.
As I said in my last post, I found leaving really hard. I was surprised at just how hard it was for me to prepare for the transfer. Mailing all of the mats and consumables between my different alts and graylo so that he would have every thing he needed was very sad. When it came time for me to announce my choice I almost couldn't do it. It felt a lot like breaking up with a girlfriend. There are a lot of things I really like about WA that I will miss, but ultimately WA wasn't able to provide me with the things I need to make the game fun. If the game isn't fun, why play?
I wish them the best of luck with what ever direction they take the guild in.
First Day with Lastt Standd:
I freely admit that I was very nervous about transfering servers. I worried about it for a lot of different reasons. What would the people be like? How strong is the guild? Is it going to progress or is it another failing guild trying to survive? And probably the most nerve wracking for me, how will I perform relative to their current members?
I raided with them for the first time Thursday night. It's a little early to make a final judgement on the quilds quality but I think last night went very well. Most of my concerns have deminished. The people were nice. I found them a little cocky at times but nothing bad. In fact they reminded me of FoC quite a bit. The guild appears to be strong. We had 30+ people on before raid time and there seemed to be quite a few people on well before raid time also. Relative to the rest of the guild my performance was very good in my opinion. I was in the top 5 on damage most of the night.
We started the night in Hyjal. They had downed the first 3 earlier in the week and wanted to down Azgalor before we headed to BT. We ended up one shotting Azgalor which was nice since it is only the 3rd kill on him for the guild. We then headed to BT. Earlier in the week they downed the first 4 bosses including a guild first kill of Gorefiend. Last night was the first time Lastt Standd was attempting Bloodboil. I was a little nervous going into this fight. I had heard that it was very tough, and I expected a long night of wipes. It turned out to be not nearly as bad as I expected.
The fight requires a lot of coordination. First you need three tanks to coordinate their threat. They have to be the top three on the threat list and can't get to far from each other. Otherwise they will be unable to take aggro from each other because he is untauntable. The second trick to the fight is the bloodboil rotation. Bloodboil is a dot that targets the 5 raid members farthest from the boss. Since it stacks you have to rotate people in and out of range so nobody takes to much damage. The third trick is Fel Rage. The boss will target one person and he will have aggro for 30 seconds. This person will be taking a ton of damage and the healers have to react quickly so that he doesn't die.
The tanks did a good job of managing their threat. Some of the DPS (including my self at times) didn't but it wasn't to much a of a problem. The Bloodboil rotation went very well. We only had problems there when someone died. The only real problem we had was with the fel enrage healing. It took the healers a few trys to pick it up. Overall, with a good raid this isn't a hard fight at all. I don't know why I was nervious.
Monday we will be trying Requim of Souls (RoS). I have read up on it a little and it sounds like another fun fight. Next week we will be attempting Archimonde. Unfortunately the PvP trinket I have is the cheap one with a 5 minute cooldown. I need to BG some this weekend to get the 2 minute cooldown trinket.
Anyway, that is it for now.
Why I left Wandering Alliance:
I left for several reasons, but they are all kind of jumbled together in my head. Ultimately the WA I left isn't the WA I joined, and I just wasn't happy anymore, but let me elaborate.
First of all I think the guild has fallen apart and wont be back to a high level of raiding anytime soon. Guilds and other organizations never fall apart quickly but you don't always see the signs until long after it started. From my perspective, WA's more recent troubles started in mid April. Our GM's computer got fried, and he didn't have the cash at the time to get a new one or fix the old. This created a little bit of a vacuum at the top of the guild. For a while we waited for Fero (the GM) to come back, but it quickly be came clear that Fero would be out indefinitely.
Unfortunately, the guild didn't have a good replacement in my opinion. I've said it a hundred times already, but I think being GM is a hard and thank less job, that every few people can do. I know I am not capable of doing it. It requires the right combination of hard work, desire, vision, charisma, and decisiveness that few people have. Some of the guild leaders had a lot of these qualities (including Aradane who eventually took the job), but no one had all of them. As a result the guild lost some of its sharpness. Decisions took longer to make, raiders got a little more sloppy, things just didn't go as smoothly as the once did.
On top of this, the general tone of the guild started to change. It became a lot more adversarial. I don't know what caused the change. I'm sure some would partially blame me. I did get in to several big arguments with people in the Guild forums regarding guild issues. I have heard others blame some of the new members we brought into the guild. I think the lack of definitive leadership also had a big deal to do with it. Anyway, the guild be came very snippy. The raid members felt it and started leaving slowly.
Another problem we had was a bloated leadership. I remember one raid where 14 of the 25 people in raid were officers. It is impossible make any decisions quickly when you have 14 people voicing opinions. Since we didn't have a clear leader it became even harder.
These problems were recognized and under the right circumstances they could have been fixed. However due to a combination of timing, bad luck, and poor choices the guild wasn't able to turn it self around. First of all, raiding sucks on Eitrigg right now. The top two alliance guilds folded with most of their core members transferring servers. Many small raiding guilds have folded also and the ones that are still around are having serious problems with recruitment. Having all of this happen during summer when raiding generally slows didn't help either. However, the biggest issue I had was how the top leadership tried to correct our problems.
What they did was completely restructure our officer rankings, without even telling all of the officers before it happened. They didn't even attempt to get input from me or a couple of other officers. Before the change we basically had three officer ranks, Officer, Class Lead, and Class Assistant. What they did was get rid of Class Assistant, Change the name of Class Lead to Class Support, and insert a new rank between Officer and Class Support called Raid support. The way they described the change was that Officers would run the raids and the guild. Raid Support would be the back up in case officers were not available. Class support would be consulted on Class specific issues if needed.
Ultimately it was a deceptive way to try and exclude some people (Class Support) from guild management and the decision making process. A new section was created on the Guild Forums only Officers and Raid Support could see. A chat channel was created that informally acted as an Officer chat for most of the Officers and Raid Support. Its a really funny feeling to hear a raid related question asnwered over vent when you can't see the question in Gchat, Raid Chat, or Ochat and it wasn't asked in vent.
As you probably guessed I was a part of the Class Support. When the changes were made, I felt unappreciated and disrespected. I felt like I had done a lot for the guild and was cast aside without any consideration for my feelings. The promotions and demotions seemed to have more to do with who your friends were then actual abilities. Several officers were promoted to Raid Support or Officer when they didn't do any more for the guild then I did and in some cases they did less. Since Eitrigg was such a bad server to recruit raiders from, I tried to maintain a thread on the Guild Recruitment forums on the WoW website. Even after I asked several times, not a single person could help me bump the thread to keep it near the top of the forums. My morale fell very low at this point and I couldn't find a reason to keep promoting the guild or working for its survival anymore. They had successfully pushed me out.
I wasn't the only one having problems with the new system. We started losing more members and some of the Officers and Raid Support people were also having trouble with the new system and the new leadership. Criticisms from some officers stopped being constructive and was purely belittling. Eventually a good friend of mine who was also an officer of the highest level was pushed out and she transferred servers. Another friend of mine from my FoC days decided that to transfer to another server also. It was clear that this was the end of the guild as I knew it. Many of our core raiders left for one reason or another and we couldn't recruit enough quality people to replace them. Eventually almost all raiding stopped, and the guild just wasn't fun anymore.
As I said in my last post, I found leaving really hard. I was surprised at just how hard it was for me to prepare for the transfer. Mailing all of the mats and consumables between my different alts and graylo so that he would have every thing he needed was very sad. When it came time for me to announce my choice I almost couldn't do it. It felt a lot like breaking up with a girlfriend. There are a lot of things I really like about WA that I will miss, but ultimately WA wasn't able to provide me with the things I need to make the game fun. If the game isn't fun, why play?
I wish them the best of luck with what ever direction they take the guild in.
First Day with Lastt Standd:
I freely admit that I was very nervous about transfering servers. I worried about it for a lot of different reasons. What would the people be like? How strong is the guild? Is it going to progress or is it another failing guild trying to survive? And probably the most nerve wracking for me, how will I perform relative to their current members?
I raided with them for the first time Thursday night. It's a little early to make a final judgement on the quilds quality but I think last night went very well. Most of my concerns have deminished. The people were nice. I found them a little cocky at times but nothing bad. In fact they reminded me of FoC quite a bit. The guild appears to be strong. We had 30+ people on before raid time and there seemed to be quite a few people on well before raid time also. Relative to the rest of the guild my performance was very good in my opinion. I was in the top 5 on damage most of the night.
We started the night in Hyjal. They had downed the first 3 earlier in the week and wanted to down Azgalor before we headed to BT. We ended up one shotting Azgalor which was nice since it is only the 3rd kill on him for the guild. We then headed to BT. Earlier in the week they downed the first 4 bosses including a guild first kill of Gorefiend. Last night was the first time Lastt Standd was attempting Bloodboil. I was a little nervous going into this fight. I had heard that it was very tough, and I expected a long night of wipes. It turned out to be not nearly as bad as I expected.
The fight requires a lot of coordination. First you need three tanks to coordinate their threat. They have to be the top three on the threat list and can't get to far from each other. Otherwise they will be unable to take aggro from each other because he is untauntable. The second trick to the fight is the bloodboil rotation. Bloodboil is a dot that targets the 5 raid members farthest from the boss. Since it stacks you have to rotate people in and out of range so nobody takes to much damage. The third trick is Fel Rage. The boss will target one person and he will have aggro for 30 seconds. This person will be taking a ton of damage and the healers have to react quickly so that he doesn't die.
The tanks did a good job of managing their threat. Some of the DPS (including my self at times) didn't but it wasn't to much a of a problem. The Bloodboil rotation went very well. We only had problems there when someone died. The only real problem we had was with the fel enrage healing. It took the healers a few trys to pick it up. Overall, with a good raid this isn't a hard fight at all. I don't know why I was nervious.
Monday we will be trying Requim of Souls (RoS). I have read up on it a little and it sounds like another fun fight. Next week we will be attempting Archimonde. Unfortunately the PvP trinket I have is the cheap one with a 5 minute cooldown. I need to BG some this weekend to get the 2 minute cooldown trinket.
Anyway, that is it for now.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
WotLK Moonkin News (Now With Blue Post)
Lisana is apparently a long time Blizzard Alpha and Beta tester going back to the early WoW days and plays a Moonkin. She posted a thread on the offical Beta forums to let European WoW players know that she was paying attention to their concerns, addressing some of them, and forwarding them on to Blizzard using the ingame feedback.
Well here post prompted Koraa, a blizzard class designer, to respond with some of his thoughts on the current moonkin design. While none of the following is all that shocking, I must say that it is very intersting to hear blizzard's perspective on our spec. Here is a Link.
Edit: There is a good discussion about these topics on the WoW forums with lot of good moonkin that I respect. You can find it here.
Koraa:
"Bloat: Bloat is another word for "I can't have everything I want!". We want every class to feel their tree is "bloated" to a degree. We want classes to have to make choices and sacrifices over good talents, because that is ultimately what makes talents interesting. If it weren't that way, we would just make it a linear progression without any choices. That said, if you feel the flow of the talents makes you spend points in something that doesn't necessarily benefit you what that build is for (i.e. spending too many "PvE" talents for a PvP build), then that can be addressed. "
My thoughts: First off Moonkin are forced to invest points in several talents that I believe are not that useful for a PvE Raiding Moonkin. Personally I would rather not put 6 points in Nature's Focus, Naturalist, Natures Grasp, or Control of Nature. Unfortunately there aren't any better talents in the first two tiers of the Balance and Resto Trees.
Now looking at Bloat. You know, in some ways I agree with him. Players should have some choices in their spec on how to play them. I think the resto tree is an example of where "bloat" isn't a bad thing. I have seen Trees spec several different ways. Some go a full 0/0/61 and pick up all of the AoE and Healing Touch talents. Others deside to ignore the Healing Touch talents and deside to pick up some talents in the Balance tree. Both specs make very affective healers. Its just that one spec provides more DPS and the other provides more healing options.
Where Bloat goes bad is when you have so many talents that are fundamental to your primary job that you can't take any of the more situational talents. For example, I have created a sample Moonkin build using the WotLK talents. Here is the Link.
A moonkin's primary job is currently single target DPS. So, I think most of us would agree that our first priority when choosing a spec would be to maximize our single target DPS. With that in mind I created my sample build. You will notice that I skip 4 of the 6 talents in the top 3 Balance tiers, and one of those talents I did pick isn't maxed out.
Now, I know many raiding Moonkin out there will disagree with some of my "Core" choices. Many players consider Eclipse to be a useless talent. They may be right, but I think they will change their mind once they realize how much the Starfire vs Wrath competition has been shifted in Wrath's favor. If things stay as they are Moonkin will be casting a lot more Wrath in WotLK even without Eclipse. The other main disagreement will be around Mana regen talents. Some will say will say that we can sacrifice Dreamstate, Intensity or Omen of Clarity. In my opinion our mana regen is still way up in the air and we may need all we can get, but I will talk more on that later.
However, even if we ignore Eclipse and reduce our mana regen, that still leaves us with only 5 or 6 extra points, and look at all the talents we've passed up:
Force of Nature - A good source of threat free DPS, but not useful in all fights and requites some finess to use them correctly.
Starfall - A nice AoE spell but it has a very long cooldown and requites the caster to stand among those he is DPS. AoE is a fairly situational need in Raides and is more than adiquately covered by Locks and Mages with out using a ton of talent points.
Earth and Moon - More on this later but Koraa says that this talent is going to be buffed. Depending on what it is we may want to put a full 5 points in it.
Typhoon - I consider this more of a PvP talent but it is an AoE and I'm sure it will have its uses in raids.
Gale Winds - Buffs the damage of Hurricane and Typhoon. PvPers may pick it up for the extra range on Cyclone but from a raid perspective it is very situational
Brambles - I have said a lot of bad things about this talent in the past, but they may have finally buffed it enough in the WotLK to make it a requited 3 point investment. Lisana says in the forum post I linked above that Thorns will now scale with our spell power. If true then the added damage of another point may noticably increase a tanks threat.
To sum it up, Bloat is ok when your choosing between talents that are outside of your "Core" roll. However, as it is now, it seems like all of our talents are taken up by our core role of single target DPS, and we don't have much opportunity to take some of those cool but situational talents like Starfall and Force of Nature.
Put another way, Bloat is ok when choosing between vanilla or chocolate ice cream. Its not ok, when choosing between medication or food. I don't mean to over dramatize it but I think the balance tree currently leans towards the later.
Well here post prompted Koraa, a blizzard class designer, to respond with some of his thoughts on the current moonkin design. While none of the following is all that shocking, I must say that it is very intersting to hear blizzard's perspective on our spec. Here is a Link.
Edit: There is a good discussion about these topics on the WoW forums with lot of good moonkin that I respect. You can find it here.
Koraa:
"Bloat: Bloat is another word for "I can't have everything I want!". We want every class to feel their tree is "bloated" to a degree. We want classes to have to make choices and sacrifices over good talents, because that is ultimately what makes talents interesting. If it weren't that way, we would just make it a linear progression without any choices. That said, if you feel the flow of the talents makes you spend points in something that doesn't necessarily benefit you what that build is for (i.e. spending too many "PvE" talents for a PvP build), then that can be addressed. "
My thoughts: First off Moonkin are forced to invest points in several talents that I believe are not that useful for a PvE Raiding Moonkin. Personally I would rather not put 6 points in Nature's Focus, Naturalist, Natures Grasp, or Control of Nature. Unfortunately there aren't any better talents in the first two tiers of the Balance and Resto Trees.
Now looking at Bloat. You know, in some ways I agree with him. Players should have some choices in their spec on how to play them. I think the resto tree is an example of where "bloat" isn't a bad thing. I have seen Trees spec several different ways. Some go a full 0/0/61 and pick up all of the AoE and Healing Touch talents. Others deside to ignore the Healing Touch talents and deside to pick up some talents in the Balance tree. Both specs make very affective healers. Its just that one spec provides more DPS and the other provides more healing options.
Where Bloat goes bad is when you have so many talents that are fundamental to your primary job that you can't take any of the more situational talents. For example, I have created a sample Moonkin build using the WotLK talents. Here is the Link.
A moonkin's primary job is currently single target DPS. So, I think most of us would agree that our first priority when choosing a spec would be to maximize our single target DPS. With that in mind I created my sample build. You will notice that I skip 4 of the 6 talents in the top 3 Balance tiers, and one of those talents I did pick isn't maxed out.
Now, I know many raiding Moonkin out there will disagree with some of my "Core" choices. Many players consider Eclipse to be a useless talent. They may be right, but I think they will change their mind once they realize how much the Starfire vs Wrath competition has been shifted in Wrath's favor. If things stay as they are Moonkin will be casting a lot more Wrath in WotLK even without Eclipse. The other main disagreement will be around Mana regen talents. Some will say will say that we can sacrifice Dreamstate, Intensity or Omen of Clarity. In my opinion our mana regen is still way up in the air and we may need all we can get, but I will talk more on that later.
However, even if we ignore Eclipse and reduce our mana regen, that still leaves us with only 5 or 6 extra points, and look at all the talents we've passed up:
Force of Nature - A good source of threat free DPS, but not useful in all fights and requites some finess to use them correctly.
Starfall - A nice AoE spell but it has a very long cooldown and requites the caster to stand among those he is DPS. AoE is a fairly situational need in Raides and is more than adiquately covered by Locks and Mages with out using a ton of talent points.
Earth and Moon - More on this later but Koraa says that this talent is going to be buffed. Depending on what it is we may want to put a full 5 points in it.
Typhoon - I consider this more of a PvP talent but it is an AoE and I'm sure it will have its uses in raids.
Gale Winds - Buffs the damage of Hurricane and Typhoon. PvPers may pick it up for the extra range on Cyclone but from a raid perspective it is very situational
Brambles - I have said a lot of bad things about this talent in the past, but they may have finally buffed it enough in the WotLK to make it a requited 3 point investment. Lisana says in the forum post I linked above that Thorns will now scale with our spell power. If true then the added damage of another point may noticably increase a tanks threat.
To sum it up, Bloat is ok when your choosing between talents that are outside of your "Core" roll. However, as it is now, it seems like all of our talents are taken up by our core role of single target DPS, and we don't have much opportunity to take some of those cool but situational talents like Starfall and Force of Nature.
Put another way, Bloat is ok when choosing between vanilla or chocolate ice cream. Its not ok, when choosing between medication or food. I don't mean to over dramatize it but I think the balance tree currently leans towards the later.
Koraa:
"Dreamstate: If we deem Moonkins to have mana issues we can change this talent to work with Spirit/improve it, but from what I've seen it's the total opposite right now. If anything we might of gone too far in Moonkin efficiency . "
My thoughts: I agree that Moonkin Mana Efficency has improved quite a bit. The past two patches have done wonders and the Mana on Crit is a dream come true, not to mention Omen of Clarity now including Spells. However I am very worried that they might think they have gone to far. My worry stems from the new Potion Sickness.
Currently, Moonkin get a lot of their mana regen from Mana Pots if they don't have a Shadow Priest. Now that a player can ue only one potion per encounter where is our mana regen going to come from? I can't get to worried, because there are still alot of questions to be answered. For instance we don't know how raid encounters are going to be changed for the lack of potions. However I am concerned that blizzard my take a couple of our new goodies away.
Koraa:
"Earth and Moon: I realize that the talent doesn't really justify more than a few points of investment. We'll do some changes here."
My Thoughts: I think Koraa's comment is dead on. As of right now I would put only 3 points in this talent. It may take a little while to build a stack, but it would be fairly easy to maintain. I am interested to see how they will improve it, but don't really know how I would put two more points in this talent. This could increase the Bloat problem mentioned above.
Koraa:
"Eclipse: Eclipse is intended to be a good DPS upgrade when you utilize it, if it isn't resulting in that then we will change the damage bonus effects it gives you. Your specific results with Eclipse testing would help. It is intended to be a long cooldown, though. Otherwise you'd get fatigue from swapping between Wrath and Starfire too much. "
My Thoughts: Their are problems with this talent, but I think most people dismiss it to quickly. I agree that it is useless in leveling. By the time you get the buff the mob will be dead. Its use in 5 mans and pvp will be limited also since those fights are very quick. The Mobs will probably die before the buff expires most of teh time.
The other big problem with Eclipse right now is that it is so unreliable. If the Random Number Generator (RNG) desides to screw you one night your going to have issues. Right now there are 3 things left up to the RNG. You have to crit to get the buff. Then only 60% of yoru crits will activate the buff if it isn't on cooldown. Finally if you're using the Starfire buff then your not quarenteed any extra damage because it boosts your crit by 10%.
However, I still maintain that from a raid perspective this talent has a lot of potential. I think most moonkin are still caught up in the Wrath is for PvP and Starfire is for PvE mindset. I don't think they have done the math yet and don't realize how much Wrath has improved in WotLK. If things stay as they currently are, I predecit that Wrath will be a prominant spell in the moonkin raiding rotation.
There are two changes I might make in the talent. First, I would definately increase the proc chance from 60% to 100%. It wouldn't increase the damage to much, but would decrease a lot of the luck involved in the talent. The second thing I may change is the Starfire buff. Ten percent doesn't sound like much, and again you can get really unlucky with this buff. It would be interesting if they chould make it like the Darkmoon Wrath card that increased your chance to crit after each spell cast.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. Let me know what you think in the comments.
Toon/Guild Update:
I have left Wandering Alliance sort of. I have transfered Graylo to the Hyjal server to raid with the guild Lastt Standd (extra t and d are intended). It has been a really hard decision, but one that I felt like I had to make. I won't go into detail now, but Wandering Alliance just didn't feel like the right place for me anymore.
I don't know anyone at the new guild. I choose this guild because their progression is very similar to mine, they wanted a moonkin to be a regular raider, the server has very good progression with a US top 50 guild, and their raid times fit my schdule very well. I'll be honest, I am very worried about the move. I have no idea what to expect.The good news is that the Guild Leader is an Elemental Shaman, and he has got to want my aura, but that is of small comfort right now. I guess the worst that could happen is that I don't like it or get kicked and get stuck on the server with no friends for a month.
Anyway, whats done is done. I have left Graypal and Grayfel on Eitrigg and have asked to keep them in Wandering Alliance. I may transfer them over if everything goes well, but I think that is at least a month or two in the future. For right now they are a way for me to continue playing with my friends.
Wish me luck.
Friday, August 1, 2008
WotLK Release Date Pool
Apparently Mike Morhaime, Blizzard co-founder and CEO, said "we have said that it will be coming out this year," but "I can tell you it's not coming in the July to September quarter." This info is coming from WoWInsider. It is a little unusual to get this type of info since Blizzards standard response to release date questions is "when its ready."
However, the time frame he provided is not a shock at least to me. Any smart business man would want to try and include their product in the holiday shopping season. I also don't think they want to go two years between expansions. It will be very close as it is but It will look much better at a high level to say that BC came out in 2007 and WotLK came out in 2008. This would be a little misleading but everyone knows business and PR people are not above spinning the facts.
Anyway, none of that really matters, but it has prompted some thought in the release date. I think most WoW players like me have put some thought into it and have a guess as to when it will be released. Well, I want to make my guess official and list it in my blog. I encourage my readers (the millions that there are of you) to post your guess in the comments and other bloggers to post it on their bogs or in my comments.
So, lets get down to business. The date I am picking is:
Tuesday 12/02/2008
I have picked this date for a couple of reasons. First, its a Tuesday. Second, I think October is to soon. From what I hear there is to much work to be done to have it out by then. I also kind of think the official release date will be announced at Blizz Con which is in October. Third, I don't think they want it to get lost in a holiday. So I think they will avoid releasing it before Thanksgiving, but I think they want to release it as far away from Christmas as possible to give it some time. With all that in mind 12/02/2008 seems to fit the bill.
There is no prize for guessing the right date other than bragging rights. Also, I don't think I have an exclusive claim on 12/02/2008. If you think that date sounds good feel free to choose it also.
However, the time frame he provided is not a shock at least to me. Any smart business man would want to try and include their product in the holiday shopping season. I also don't think they want to go two years between expansions. It will be very close as it is but It will look much better at a high level to say that BC came out in 2007 and WotLK came out in 2008. This would be a little misleading but everyone knows business and PR people are not above spinning the facts.
Anyway, none of that really matters, but it has prompted some thought in the release date. I think most WoW players like me have put some thought into it and have a guess as to when it will be released. Well, I want to make my guess official and list it in my blog. I encourage my readers (the millions that there are of you) to post your guess in the comments and other bloggers to post it on their bogs or in my comments.
So, lets get down to business. The date I am picking is:
Tuesday 12/02/2008
I have picked this date for a couple of reasons. First, its a Tuesday. Second, I think October is to soon. From what I hear there is to much work to be done to have it out by then. I also kind of think the official release date will be announced at Blizz Con which is in October. Third, I don't think they want it to get lost in a holiday. So I think they will avoid releasing it before Thanksgiving, but I think they want to release it as far away from Christmas as possible to give it some time. With all that in mind 12/02/2008 seems to fit the bill.
There is no prize for guessing the right date other than bragging rights. Also, I don't think I have an exclusive claim on 12/02/2008. If you think that date sounds good feel free to choose it also.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Alchemy Changes and more.
With the new Beta release there are to big changes regarding Alchemy.
Alchemical Blood: This is Awesome! I haven't seen an word on how much this will increase the affect of flasks, pots and elixirs, but it is a great change.
Potion Sickness: My first reaction to this is that its bad, but to be honest it has both pluses and minuses.
Minuses:
* There goes a good portion of my mana regen. It is a fact of life that most moonkin will chain mana pots if they don't have an Spriest to give them mana. This makes that impossible.
* One of the best sources of income for Alchemists was making mana and health pots for raids. I personally can go through 20 on a long night and I have heard some people use as many as 40. This will cut those numbers dramatically. Therefore their value on the AH will drop quite a bit also.
Pluses:
* It will save time and money. I hate farming. This will reduce the amount I need to do and will save a lot of players money when they go to get their consumables.
The overall impact of this change is hard to see right now. Fact of the matter is Blizzard will not create content that is undoable. So, blizzard will have to make changes to compensate for Potion Sickness. This could mean more mana regen from talents and gear. It could mean tuning the fights so that they are less mana intensive. It could mean retuning spells so they use less mana. Who knows, but rest assured they will make up for it somehow.
Other Changes:
Improved Scorch (Mage) - More damage types added, now your Scorch spells have a 33/66/100% chance to cause your target to be vulnerable to Fire, Frost and Arcane damage, increasing damage taken by 2/4/6/6/10% and lasts 30 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times. - Huge boost for moonkin. I actually missed this but thanks to Phea over at Resto4Life for pointing it out. With all of the changes that had been coming out for moonkin I started to wonder if Starfire would still be the clear favorite a raiding moonkins spell rotation. Some of the changes like the new Natures Grace were shifting the debate a little bit in Wrath's favor. This buff clearly shoves it back in Starfire's favor.
Inscription - More Glyphs: MMO Champion has listed a bunch of new Glyphs and most of them are for druid abilities. Here is the link. There is some coolstuff in there, but nothing earth shattering for Moonkin in my opinion. There seems to be quite a few typos, so I would expect this list to change quite a bit.
Alchemical Blood: This is Awesome! I haven't seen an word on how much this will increase the affect of flasks, pots and elixirs, but it is a great change. For a long time there was no real reason to have Alchemy on your main, but blizzard has made some changes to correct that. However, most people believe that the current benefits aren't enough. The Mad Alchemist's Potion really only benefits casual players. The new Alchemist Stones have t there ups and downs depending on your class and spec. The Tanking stone is horrible and the Melee DPS trinket leaves something to be desired from what I hear. The two caster trinkets are awesome with their spell bonuses and added mana from pots. However, there benefit will be reduced with the change I have listed below. Plus you could make an argument that there are better trinkets at the highest level of raiding making the benefit obsolete.
That isn't true with Alchemical Blood. You get the benefit from level 5 to level 80, and it isn't affected by gear upgrades. Which is the calling card of the best raiding professions. Tons of people have picked up Enchanting purely for the ring enchants. Whole guilds picked up leatherworking for the Drums. This change has the potential to move Alchemy up to those ranks.
Potion Sickness: My first reaction to this is that its bad, but to be honest it has both pluses and minuses.Minuses:
* There goes a good portion of my mana regen. It is a fact of life that most moonkin will chain mana pots if they don't have an Spriest to give them mana. This makes that impossible.
* One of the best sources of income for Alchemists was making mana and health pots for raids. I personally can go through 20 on a long night and I have heard some people use as many as 40. This will cut those numbers dramatically. Therefore their value on the AH will drop quite a bit also.
Pluses:
* It will save time and money. I hate farming. This will reduce the amount I need to do and will save a lot of players money when they go to get their consumables.
The overall impact of this change is hard to see right now. Fact of the matter is Blizzard will not create content that is undoable. So, blizzard will have to make changes to compensate for Potion Sickness. This could mean more mana regen from talents and gear. It could mean tuning the fights so that they are less mana intensive. It could mean retuning spells so they use less mana. Who knows, but rest assured they will make up for it somehow.
Other Changes:
Improved Scorch (Mage) - More damage types added, now your Scorch spells have a 33/66/100% chance to cause your target to be vulnerable to Fire, Frost and Arcane damage, increasing damage taken by 2/4/6/6/10% and lasts 30 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times. - Huge boost for moonkin. I actually missed this but thanks to Phea over at Resto4Life for pointing it out. With all of the changes that had been coming out for moonkin I started to wonder if Starfire would still be the clear favorite a raiding moonkins spell rotation. Some of the changes like the new Natures Grace were shifting the debate a little bit in Wrath's favor. This buff clearly shoves it back in Starfire's favor.
Inscription - More Glyphs: MMO Champion has listed a bunch of new Glyphs and most of them are for druid abilities. Here is the link. There is some coolstuff in there, but nothing earth shattering for Moonkin in my opinion. There seems to be quite a few typos, so I would expect this list to change quite a bit.
Monday, July 28, 2008
What did I Miss?
As I mentioned in my last post I was on vacation all of last week, but I was checking WoW Insider and some of the other WoW news resources regularly just to see what was going on. I was also checking my e-mail quite regularly to see if I got a beta invite, and like most people I have not received one yet.
Anyway, here are some of the news items that stuck out to me over the past week. Some of these things may have happened before I left, but I didn't comment on them then so I wanted to now.
Patch Note Changes - I have seen several patch note changes on various news sites. They are all very similar but not exactly the same. The first one is the mana cost and cooldown of Force of Nature and Moonkin Form. They all suggest a reduction in mana cost and cooldown. The second set of changes concern Typhoon and Starfall. Here they are increasing range, mana cost, and damage it appears. Really none of these changes are all that big.
Stat Changes - This had been hinted at for quite a while, and we are starting to see some info on how it will take shape. Blizzard is combining stats so that they are usable by multiple classes. For example, Healing and Spell Damage are now being combined into Spell Power. Healing spells will get more benefit from spell power then damage spells by having a higher coefficient. Hit Rating and Crit Rating will now affect both spells and melee, and the spell versions of these stats are being eliminated.
Overall I think this is a good change, but I see both pluses and minuses. On the plus side, this will reduce the amount of gear that is sharded and will help casters change their role if needed. This is good for the raid but I think it is bad for moonkin for a couple of reasons.
First we already have trouble competing for cloth gear from locks, mages and priests. Now healers will want that same cloth gear, we will have to compete with resto's for the decent leather gear, and cloth casters may start to assume again that we should roll on cloth because there is more leather gear available.
My second problem with this is that Resto gear and Moonkin gear are not similar. Resto's are big spirit users, but don't need much if any Crit or Hit. Moonkin are big Crit and Hit users, but don't need a lot of spirit. The druid gear that will be provided will clearly favor one spec over the other or neither. I worry that Blizzard and other players will just assume that because moonkin can now benefit from resto gear that they don't need to itemize for moonkin. I guess we will see what happens..
Achievements - There seems to be quite a few people that are excited about this but to be honest I don't really care. To me it is the equivalent of another rep grind. Having some extra titles and/or gear will be cool, but I can't imagine that it will be all that different then the rep rewards we currently get from factions. This could be a big help for guild management though. If this info is available on the armory then it will help guilds assess new applicants and who they need to get into raids to get attuned.
Mounts/Non Combat Pets - I am not a pet fanatic like some people but I do think they are kind of cool. However, I have destroyed several for bag space. I also don't like holding two mounts in my bags for air and land. So now we hear that blizzard is going to treat Mounts and Non Combat Pets as spells is great. It should save a little bag space for everyone and for the pet lovers out there it saves a ton of bag and bank space. This is a good change.
New Token System - It is obvious that blizzard loves tokens. We gather tons of tokens from various sources so that we can purchase items from items and other rewards. Frankly I have tons of things in my bank just sitting there in case I need them later. Every thing from Badges of Justice to Battleground Marks. I think treating tokens as currency is a great idea. You don't know how many times I have gone all the way out to the sunwell to purchase a gem only to realize I left my BoJs in the bank. Or how long AV marks have sat in my bags because I was called into an instance on short notice and I forgot to put them in the bank. Another good change in my opinion.
Leveling from 60-70 - Given the changes in leveling from 20 - 60 this isn't a big surprise. So far they only appear to have changed the amount of XP needed to go from one level to the next and the amount of XP awarded by killing a mob. Quest XP hasn't been changed get from what I have seen. This is a welcome change since I expect that Outland will become a ghost land after WotLK is released just as Azeroth has since BC's release.
Inscriptions - Very little is known about the new profession but there are some interesting bits of information available. Basically this profession will provide permanent enchants to a couple of your spells and several temporary buffs to your armor. You can find more info here. They haven't listed many of the Inscriptions yet but many of the few that they have listed deal with druids and moonkin. None of them are amazing but it is nice to get a quick peak at the way they they are thinking. You can find them here. The one thing that did catch my eye though was Scroll of Recall. Basically it is another hearth stone with a shorter cooldown. I assume that it will be consumed after use, but it will be nice to have a couple on each toon so that I can get them back home quickly if I need to hearth twice in short succession.
WotLK Gems - One of the things that upset a lot of people when BC came out was how green quest rewards immediately replaced some epic level raiding gear that took months to obtain. As a result Blizzard has said that there will not be a significant gear reset with WotLK and this seems to hold true when you look at the WotLK quest rewards. However I was caught by surprise when I looked at the gems available in WotLK. I have always assumed that Green WotLK gems would be similar to Blue BC gems, and wouldn't be more then Purple BC gems. My assumption was wrong. Take the [Runed Bloodstone] for example, It is two points better then the BC epic. BC gems will be officially worthless. I'm not sure how this will affect profession leveling since it will be hard to sell the gems, but at the same time the blue gems needed to level past 350 should be easier to purchase. Then again, who will be farming them to make them cheap.
Passive Gathering Buffs - This is the change that excited me most since my last post. In WotLK gathering professions will give the toon a passive buff. Minings is Toughness, and Skinning is Master of Anatomy. The buff for Herbalism hasn't been released yet. These aren't major buffs even at level 70, but it is nice to have a reason to keep a gathering profession on your main. I have often considered dropping Herbalism on Graylo so that i could pick up another profession like Leatherworking or Enchanting, but haven't done it because I don't have another flower picker. Here's to hoping that Herbalism gets a good buff like Spell Power/Attack Power.
Toon Update - Not a whole lot to say here since I was gone all last week, so I will only hit the high point.
Grayfel - I HAVE A DREADSTEED!!!!!!!! Finally I don't have to use the slow mount anymore. Now that no one runs Scholo and Dire Maul anymore it has been a real pain to find a group to do these quests. Many thanks go out to the guildies that helped me complete the quests. Onyxstar and Beevis spent 3 hours running me to the Scholo Alchemy Lab and then through DM east. We were unable to three man this portion of the quest chain so I summoned two more guildies, Gaylin and Ravendrache, and finished it quickly. Once again, I owe all of you many thanks. If you need help with anything please let me know.
Anyway, here are some of the news items that stuck out to me over the past week. Some of these things may have happened before I left, but I didn't comment on them then so I wanted to now.
Patch Note Changes - I have seen several patch note changes on various news sites. They are all very similar but not exactly the same. The first one is the mana cost and cooldown of Force of Nature and Moonkin Form. They all suggest a reduction in mana cost and cooldown. The second set of changes concern Typhoon and Starfall. Here they are increasing range, mana cost, and damage it appears. Really none of these changes are all that big.
Stat Changes - This had been hinted at for quite a while, and we are starting to see some info on how it will take shape. Blizzard is combining stats so that they are usable by multiple classes. For example, Healing and Spell Damage are now being combined into Spell Power. Healing spells will get more benefit from spell power then damage spells by having a higher coefficient. Hit Rating and Crit Rating will now affect both spells and melee, and the spell versions of these stats are being eliminated.
Overall I think this is a good change, but I see both pluses and minuses. On the plus side, this will reduce the amount of gear that is sharded and will help casters change their role if needed. This is good for the raid but I think it is bad for moonkin for a couple of reasons.
First we already have trouble competing for cloth gear from locks, mages and priests. Now healers will want that same cloth gear, we will have to compete with resto's for the decent leather gear, and cloth casters may start to assume again that we should roll on cloth because there is more leather gear available.
My second problem with this is that Resto gear and Moonkin gear are not similar. Resto's are big spirit users, but don't need much if any Crit or Hit. Moonkin are big Crit and Hit users, but don't need a lot of spirit. The druid gear that will be provided will clearly favor one spec over the other or neither. I worry that Blizzard and other players will just assume that because moonkin can now benefit from resto gear that they don't need to itemize for moonkin. I guess we will see what happens..
Achievements - There seems to be quite a few people that are excited about this but to be honest I don't really care. To me it is the equivalent of another rep grind. Having some extra titles and/or gear will be cool, but I can't imagine that it will be all that different then the rep rewards we currently get from factions. This could be a big help for guild management though. If this info is available on the armory then it will help guilds assess new applicants and who they need to get into raids to get attuned.
Mounts/Non Combat Pets - I am not a pet fanatic like some people but I do think they are kind of cool. However, I have destroyed several for bag space. I also don't like holding two mounts in my bags for air and land. So now we hear that blizzard is going to treat Mounts and Non Combat Pets as spells is great. It should save a little bag space for everyone and for the pet lovers out there it saves a ton of bag and bank space. This is a good change.
New Token System - It is obvious that blizzard loves tokens. We gather tons of tokens from various sources so that we can purchase items from items and other rewards. Frankly I have tons of things in my bank just sitting there in case I need them later. Every thing from Badges of Justice to Battleground Marks. I think treating tokens as currency is a great idea. You don't know how many times I have gone all the way out to the sunwell to purchase a gem only to realize I left my BoJs in the bank. Or how long AV marks have sat in my bags because I was called into an instance on short notice and I forgot to put them in the bank. Another good change in my opinion.
Leveling from 60-70 - Given the changes in leveling from 20 - 60 this isn't a big surprise. So far they only appear to have changed the amount of XP needed to go from one level to the next and the amount of XP awarded by killing a mob. Quest XP hasn't been changed get from what I have seen. This is a welcome change since I expect that Outland will become a ghost land after WotLK is released just as Azeroth has since BC's release.
Inscriptions - Very little is known about the new profession but there are some interesting bits of information available. Basically this profession will provide permanent enchants to a couple of your spells and several temporary buffs to your armor. You can find more info here. They haven't listed many of the Inscriptions yet but many of the few that they have listed deal with druids and moonkin. None of them are amazing but it is nice to get a quick peak at the way they they are thinking. You can find them here. The one thing that did catch my eye though was Scroll of Recall. Basically it is another hearth stone with a shorter cooldown. I assume that it will be consumed after use, but it will be nice to have a couple on each toon so that I can get them back home quickly if I need to hearth twice in short succession.
WotLK Gems - One of the things that upset a lot of people when BC came out was how green quest rewards immediately replaced some epic level raiding gear that took months to obtain. As a result Blizzard has said that there will not be a significant gear reset with WotLK and this seems to hold true when you look at the WotLK quest rewards. However I was caught by surprise when I looked at the gems available in WotLK. I have always assumed that Green WotLK gems would be similar to Blue BC gems, and wouldn't be more then Purple BC gems. My assumption was wrong. Take the [Runed Bloodstone] for example, It is two points better then the BC epic. BC gems will be officially worthless. I'm not sure how this will affect profession leveling since it will be hard to sell the gems, but at the same time the blue gems needed to level past 350 should be easier to purchase. Then again, who will be farming them to make them cheap.
Passive Gathering Buffs - This is the change that excited me most since my last post. In WotLK gathering professions will give the toon a passive buff. Minings is Toughness, and Skinning is Master of Anatomy. The buff for Herbalism hasn't been released yet. These aren't major buffs even at level 70, but it is nice to have a reason to keep a gathering profession on your main. I have often considered dropping Herbalism on Graylo so that i could pick up another profession like Leatherworking or Enchanting, but haven't done it because I don't have another flower picker. Here's to hoping that Herbalism gets a good buff like Spell Power/Attack Power.
Toon Update - Not a whole lot to say here since I was gone all last week, so I will only hit the high point.
Grayfel - I HAVE A DREADSTEED!!!!!!!! Finally I don't have to use the slow mount anymore. Now that no one runs Scholo and Dire Maul anymore it has been a real pain to find a group to do these quests. Many thanks go out to the guildies that helped me complete the quests. Onyxstar and Beevis spent 3 hours running me to the Scholo Alchemy Lab and then through DM east. We were unable to three man this portion of the quest chain so I summoned two more guildies, Gaylin and Ravendrache, and finished it quickly. Once again, I owe all of you many thanks. If you need help with anything please let me know.
Friday, July 18, 2008
BETA Patch Notes!!! OMG!!!!!
Edit: Added Imp Moonkin Form change not in patch notes.
Edit 2: Added Omen of Clarity and Blessing of Salvation comment.
What a great thing to wake up to. I didn't expect anything involving the beta for another at least a week or two, but I sign on this morning and what do I find?
BETA PATCH NOTES!!!!!!!! (link)
I haven't gone through everything in them yet, but I have taken a quick look at the Druid section. Most of the information is stuff that we learned from the Alpha wiki, but there are some major changes that we hadn't heard before. Here are my thoughts in red.
Note: Before I and everyone else gets to excited lets remember a couple of things. 1) These are just the beta notes. These are likely to change to some extent before Wrath is released. 2) Some of the changes are completely out of left field and are very similar to information we learned from the alpha. In these cases I can't help but wonder if its a typo.
* Brambles (Balance): Now increases the damage done by your Treants, and also damage caused from your Treants and Barkskin has a 5/10/15% chance to Daze the target for 3 sec. - First off, this must be in addition to the current talent. Otherwise there would be no point in having this talent at this level. You can't get Treants until level 50 and Barkskin until level 44. I also wonder if this is a typo. We have heard about thorns having a daze affect but not Barkskin. Including Barkskin in the daze effect isn't an off the wall idea, but given the information from the alpha the difference raises a few questions. The BIG change here is that brambles now increases your Trents damage. I don't think this will cause people to max this talent out for raiding, but it definately makes those two points I put in there more attractive.
* Entangling Roots: Can now be used indoors. - This isn't new, but I still have to do the moonkin happy dance.
* Force of Nature (Balance): Cooldown reduced to 2 minutes, down from 3. - Not huge, but nice. They can provide a nice little damage boost in PvE, and should be a big help for PvP.
* Improved Faerie Fire (Feral): Now also works with spell hit, in addition to ranged and melee hit %. - Wait a minute. Did that say Feral? Again this could be a typo, but this would be a Major change if this is correct, and I am not sure how I feel about it. May people have advocated for this for a long time because it affected melee hit only. Now that it includes spell hit also I'm not sure they will feel the same. If it is moving to Feral, it will remove it from my rotation which is nice. Losing the global cooldown does decrease our DPS quite a bit. However, I am not all that excited about losing some of our raid viability. Moonkins haven't had enough in the past and I am reluctant to give any up.
* Moonkin Form (Balance) no longer increases your attack power or causes you to regenerate mana off melee attacks, but now has a chance to cause you to instantly regenerate 2% of your total mana every time you critically hit with a spell. - WWWWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!! Heck Yea. If you have read my blog for a while you know that I have been advocating this change for a really long time. Finally, Blizzard is replacing one of the worst conceived mechanics in the game with a truely awesome ability. Think about it for a second. If you have 10,000 mana and 25% crit, this translates to 16 MP5 minimum with current gear, and that doesn't take into account Natures Grace or the New Imp Moonkin Form haste.
* Nature's Grace (Balance): Now also reduces the global cooldown of your Wrath spell by 50% while in effect. - WHAT????? Another huge change. Natures Grace is a huge reason why Starfire is better then Wrath in raids. Also, this may be a typo, but this would reduce the GCD below a second. The GCD is currently 1.5 seconds. This would make it .75 seconds. This could have a huge impact in PvP and PvE. Raid wise if you need some speedy DPS and don't care about mana this is your spell. Imagine how powerful this will be in Arena. We would be a wrath Machine Gun with Celestial Focus. As long as we get heals we will destroy people.
* New Spell: Revive - Returns the spirit to the body, restoring a dead target to life with health and mana. Cannot be cast when in combat. (Ranks 1-7 added) - Its not a balance ability or even a suprise but it is a huge change that Resto's and all druids should be very happy about.
* Tree of Life (Restoration): You can now cast all Restoration spells (Healing Touch) in the form, but Tree of Life now only reduces the mana cost of your healing over time spells (Rejuvenation, Lifebloom, Regrowth and Flourish) by 20%. - Again this isn't a balance ability but I think it is a great change. It made no sense for to have a healing spell that we couldn't use in our healing form. I also like the fact that Healing Touch doesn't get all the benifits of Tree of Life form. Druids should be HoT healers, and Healing Touch should only be there in case of emergency.
* Omen of Clarity (Restoration): Now a passive spell. Now also works for spells (healing and damage). Proc rate is roughly 6% with a 10 second internal cooldown. - A really big change that I missed this change my first time through the patch. This makes the talent useful for all specs of Druids.
* Blessing of Salvation renamed Hand of Salvation, now reduces total threat on the target by 2% per second for 10 seconds while also reducing all damage and healing done by 10%. Only one - This is not a druid ability but this is such a big change that I felt the need to talk about it. Many players are calling this a nerf but I am not so sure. It depends on the cooldown and what they do with threat in general. This would be really for guilds that have a couple of really high flyers and a lot of people well below the cap, but it will be really tough on guilds that have a lot of people that are threat capped. Ultimately I see this as a way to give Holy paladins something to do besides heal. I think it also makes a couple of them requited for a raid.
Edit 2: Added Omen of Clarity and Blessing of Salvation comment.
What a great thing to wake up to. I didn't expect anything involving the beta for another at least a week or two, but I sign on this morning and what do I find?
BETA PATCH NOTES!!!!!!!! (link)
I haven't gone through everything in them yet, but I have taken a quick look at the Druid section. Most of the information is stuff that we learned from the Alpha wiki, but there are some major changes that we hadn't heard before. Here are my thoughts in red.
Note: Before I and everyone else gets to excited lets remember a couple of things. 1) These are just the beta notes. These are likely to change to some extent before Wrath is released. 2) Some of the changes are completely out of left field and are very similar to information we learned from the alpha. In these cases I can't help but wonder if its a typo.
* Brambles (Balance): Now increases the damage done by your Treants, and also damage caused from your Treants and Barkskin has a 5/10/15% chance to Daze the target for 3 sec. - First off, this must be in addition to the current talent. Otherwise there would be no point in having this talent at this level. You can't get Treants until level 50 and Barkskin until level 44. I also wonder if this is a typo. We have heard about thorns having a daze affect but not Barkskin. Including Barkskin in the daze effect isn't an off the wall idea, but given the information from the alpha the difference raises a few questions. The BIG change here is that brambles now increases your Trents damage. I don't think this will cause people to max this talent out for raiding, but it definately makes those two points I put in there more attractive.
* Entangling Roots: Can now be used indoors. - This isn't new, but I still have to do the moonkin happy dance.
* Force of Nature (Balance): Cooldown reduced to 2 minutes, down from 3. - Not huge, but nice. They can provide a nice little damage boost in PvE, and should be a big help for PvP.
* Improved Faerie Fire (Feral): Now also works with spell hit, in addition to ranged and melee hit %. - Wait a minute. Did that say Feral? Again this could be a typo, but this would be a Major change if this is correct, and I am not sure how I feel about it. May people have advocated for this for a long time because it affected melee hit only. Now that it includes spell hit also I'm not sure they will feel the same. If it is moving to Feral, it will remove it from my rotation which is nice. Losing the global cooldown does decrease our DPS quite a bit. However, I am not all that excited about losing some of our raid viability. Moonkins haven't had enough in the past and I am reluctant to give any up.
* Moonkin Form (Balance) no longer increases your attack power or causes you to regenerate mana off melee attacks, but now has a chance to cause you to instantly regenerate 2% of your total mana every time you critically hit with a spell. - WWWWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!! Heck Yea. If you have read my blog for a while you know that I have been advocating this change for a really long time. Finally, Blizzard is replacing one of the worst conceived mechanics in the game with a truely awesome ability. Think about it for a second. If you have 10,000 mana and 25% crit, this translates to 16 MP5 minimum with current gear, and that doesn't take into account Natures Grace or the New Imp Moonkin Form haste.
* Nature's Grace (Balance): Now also reduces the global cooldown of your Wrath spell by 50% while in effect. - WHAT????? Another huge change. Natures Grace is a huge reason why Starfire is better then Wrath in raids. Also, this may be a typo, but this would reduce the GCD below a second. The GCD is currently 1.5 seconds. This would make it .75 seconds. This could have a huge impact in PvP and PvE. Raid wise if you need some speedy DPS and don't care about mana this is your spell. Imagine how powerful this will be in Arena. We would be a wrath Machine Gun with Celestial Focus. As long as we get heals we will destroy people.
* New Spell: Revive - Returns the spirit to the body, restoring a dead target to life with health and mana. Cannot be cast when in combat. (Ranks 1-7 added) - Its not a balance ability or even a suprise but it is a huge change that Resto's and all druids should be very happy about.
* Tree of Life (Restoration): You can now cast all Restoration spells (Healing Touch) in the form, but Tree of Life now only reduces the mana cost of your healing over time spells (Rejuvenation, Lifebloom, Regrowth and Flourish) by 20%. - Again this isn't a balance ability but I think it is a great change. It made no sense for to have a healing spell that we couldn't use in our healing form. I also like the fact that Healing Touch doesn't get all the benifits of Tree of Life form. Druids should be HoT healers, and Healing Touch should only be there in case of emergency.
* Omen of Clarity (Restoration): Now a passive spell. Now also works for spells (healing and damage). Proc rate is roughly 6% with a 10 second internal cooldown. - A really big change that I missed this change my first time through the patch. This makes the talent useful for all specs of Druids.
* Blessing of Salvation renamed Hand of Salvation, now reduces total threat on the target by 2% per second for 10 seconds while also reducing all damage and healing done by 10%. Only one - This is not a druid ability but this is such a big change that I felt the need to talk about it. Many players are calling this a nerf but I am not so sure. It depends on the cooldown and what they do with threat in general. This would be really for guilds that have a couple of really high flyers and a lot of people well below the cap, but it will be really tough on guilds that have a lot of people that are threat capped. Ultimately I see this as a way to give Holy paladins something to do besides heal. I think it also makes a couple of them requited for a raid.
Anyway that is my quick review of the Druid section of the patch notes. I won't be checking my blog as much coming up because I will be on vacation. However, I should have access to a computer and if something jucie drops, I will post about it.
Its not in the patch notes but there is a change to the new Improved Moonkin Form talent. According to the WotLK wiki the tool tip now says:
Improved Moonkin Form - Your Moonkin Aura also causes affected targets to have a 100% chance to gain 20% spell haste when they critically hit with spells for 8 sec. This effect has a 30 second cooldown. - They reduced the buff duration from 10 seconds to 8 seconds. Plus they added an explicit 30 second cooldown. This is a nerf from the prior version but how much of a nerf is hard to say. According to the wiki, this talent had a 10 to 15 second individual cooldown and a 3 to 4 second party cooldown in the alpha. As long as the ability doesn't have a party wide cooldown any longer I am ok with this change. The maximum amount you will be able to have this buff up is a little over a fourth of the time, but given the nature of crits having it up about a fifth of the time is the best that can be hoped for. This would result in about a 4% haste average which isn't to shabby.
As you can imagine this is huge news around the blogging community. There are some thoughts from other bloggers:
Resto4Life - Official "Beta" Changes to Druids
Yet Another Warlock Nerf - WotLK Beta Patch Notes - Warlock
PS: No Toon Update because I posted just a couple of days ago.
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