Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.I know, I know. Last week I presented you with Part 1 of my examination of guild alliances, and my readers are probably wondering what the heck happened to Part 2. It's coming next week, I promise! (In fact, it's already written.) But since we were unexpectedly flooded with so much great information about 2.3, I thought I'd make this column a bit more timely and put Dark pacts, Part 2 on hold. The next major content patch has some interesting additions and changes that will affect many aspects of the game, but there are a few that officers should be thinking about now. Let's take a look.
I've already talked about preparing for Zul'Aman and guild banks in a previous column, so let's look at some of the more specific changes 2.3 is bringing us.
Faster 20-60 Leveling: Does your guild suffer from a serious lack of a certain class? 2.3 will make Azeroth-side leveling a lot faster by rewarding more experience per quest and requiring less experience per level. Soon it will be the perfect time for your members to grind up a few alts of the classes you desperately need. Why not make a contest out of it and reward the person who makes it to 60 fastest?
Repair Bots: Is that the sound of hell freezing over? Blizzard has announced some engineering love, including an updated repair bot schematic that will not only repair your armor but sell all kinds of necessities such as ammo, reagents, and potions. If you're in a raiding guild, you probably have a lot of min/max-type players, and most min/max'ers -- with relatively few exceptions -- all dropped engineering long, long ago. So it may be worth it to help one of your members power-level engineering before the patch hits. That way you'll have access to this handy little robot during longer raids like Karazhan and the Black Temple. The new flying mount schematics should sweeten the deal for whomever has to make the sacrifice and drop a "real" profession.
Enhancement Shamans, Elemental Shamans, and Retribution Paladins: It remains to be seen whether the buffs will be enough to make these "off-specs" more desirable in raid situations. The already-announced improvements certainly sound like Blizzard is on the right track here. Once the 2.3 PTR goes live, get your class leaders on the test server so they can offer their opinions. If these specs offer solid utility, you'll need to decide who's going to make the switch and start gearing them up appropriately.
Fear Ward: Allow me to put on my Horde-bias hat for a minute. It's true: We're finally getting Fear Ward. But just like Blizzard nerfed paladins not long after the Horde finally got access to their sweet, sweet buffs and unparalleled single-target heals, we're getting a Fear Ward that's only a shadow of its former self. Just how overpowered was Alliance raiding in classic WoW? Exclusively Horde players will never know, but the playing field has finally been leveled, at least as far as PvE goes -- not that the Horde really needs it these days. Anyway, this is just a heads-up that all priests will have this spell, so adjust your Nightbane strat accordingly (or don't, since the cooldown is way too long).
Sorry about that, Alliance players. At least you're getting a solid PvP racial in its place, right?
+Damage Bonuses on Healing Gear: Do you know any healers who quit the game or permanently rerolled because they couldn't accomplish anything on their own without respec'ing? Send them a quick hello and let them know their raiding gear won't be useless outside of an instance anymore! Maybe you can entice them back to healing or back into the game.
Ritual of Refreshment: Now that mages will no longer have to chain-cast their food and water spells for 10 minutes before every run, let's show them we appreciate all their past efforts by paying the training costs for the new spell. Thanks, mages -- and congrats!
I'm sure there will be even more exciting changes and additions announced for 2.3 in the near future. Keep an eye out for things your guild can take advantage of soon -- and start planning for them today.
/salute
Send Scott your guild-related questions, conundrums, ideas, and suggestions at scott.andrews@weblogsinc.com. You may find your question the subject of next week's Officers' Quarters!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-01-2007 @ 1:10PM
Amok2006 said...
Starting to be thankful I took up engineering and went to 375.
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10-01-2007 @ 1:38PM
Dryssa said...
I doubt anyone will help us mages pay for the training cost of Ritual of Refreshment, though I wouldn't be surprised if the food/water ranks from the books are prerequisites.
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10-01-2007 @ 1:39PM
tmklein said...
its been announced that 2.3 will be the patch that increases xp gains and lowers them per level?
anyone have a link?
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10-01-2007 @ 1:42PM
Addie said...
Okay, I'm excited about dumb stuff... but GUILD BANK GUILD BANK GUILD BANK GUILD BANK GUILD BANK GUILD BANK!!! O.o *dances*
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10-01-2007 @ 1:45PM
RogueJedi86 said...
"its been announced that 2.3 will be the patch that increases xp gains and lowers them per level? " - tmklein/#3
Blizz said it in the past, including BlizzCon. And I recall reading elsewhere that many of the Group Quests in 20-60 are being made solo quests, generally by making elite mobs non-elite. Haven't seen a direct blue confirmation though, so that's just speculation.
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10-01-2007 @ 2:36PM
aggregate said...
call me a cynic, but a lot of these changes seem too little too late to me. is blizz all-of-a-sudden paying attention to raider's needs because they see number going down?
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10-01-2007 @ 2:55PM
Omegi said...
You're such a cynic Aggregate. There I said it.
I'm happy for all of the changes. The latest being the reduction in mana cost for priest buffs. This equates to less down time after a wipe in 25 raids.
Now if they would only implement the free mana cost to prepping for raids like they do for arena/bg's. That would increase actual time on content and not prepping for content.
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10-01-2007 @ 3:42PM
Epiny said...
The Horde get a nerfed up FW and the alliance Priests get a 2 second stun that ALL priests have been asking for?
Would have rather they just kept FW.
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10-01-2007 @ 3:45PM
oshin said...
I have my doubts about 2.3 being the faster leveling patch.
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10-01-2007 @ 3:59PM
Delta said...
I for one would welcome a change in group quests to be more soloable, being a mostly solo player (sans instances and nights i can drag my friends around) it makes my leveling process a lot easier when I can get a lot of quests done by myself. I'm all for groups and playing with others, but where I am it's often hard to even get decent pugs for instances, let alone quests.
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10-01-2007 @ 4:03PM
Rudi said...
Uh, speaking as a guild officer I'm much more concerned with how ZA will fit in the raiding schedule. Balancing another stupid 10-man in with 25-man content is already setting our officers forum on fire.
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10-01-2007 @ 5:04PM
Adam Hyland said...
I'm still unsure as to why or how the +damage coefficient came out of the works. I don't know a single non-DPS class that solos in their raiding gear. No prot warriors (that have a clue) solo with a sword and board, no resto shaman bust out their cloth and leather (haha) healing gear to go tromping through Skettis. Likewise, on my priest, I have always soloed in quest blues and drops that would have been sharded otherwise.
I'm now in possesion of a full DPS set from badges/kara for my priest. Soloing obviously is much slower in my healing build than a comparable damage build, but that would be true regardless of gear choice.
What the +damage will help with is single target fights (Leo, Jindo, etc), so that healers don't need to lower their +healing and regen in order to help nuke.
What about all the other notes?
Mage mana efficiency increased? Priest mana efficiency increased? Will this cause you to suggest more priests in the raid, or fewer? Will this change demand for certain items among raid members (As this prioritizes spirit again for Mages and Shadow Priests)
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10-01-2007 @ 5:36PM
Razzberry said...
Re: Levelling speed changes
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=1778587130&postId=19976312150&sid=1#5
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10-01-2007 @ 5:38PM
dpak said...
@6? CYNIC!!! (or is it troll...hmmmmm)...
Anyway, I think these changes are good. I am a bit disappointed in the fear ward (that is WHY I rolled a dwarf preist anyway) as the cool down / duration now makes it pretty useless (compared).
One of the things I DO disagree with is the advanced leveling rate for 1-60. This is the wrong solution to the problem. 1-60 is fine for new players. Really. They are looking at it from the perspective of those who have levled numerous characters, and do not get as much fun out of the repetitiveness.
Their solution....make the pain go faster.
Personally, add new content, then it wont be painful, and the new players wont feel like they are abandoned, second class, or "red headed step children".
A new 10 man? Great. For that small percentage of players who have done all the other high end content. How about more low content, for the masses who have not.
just my 2c.
Dpak
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10-02-2007 @ 3:40AM
Ade Collis said...
+dmg for healing priests is great - but what about helping the tanks out please? I've long since given up soloing on my prot warrior as it's just too boring.
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10-02-2007 @ 7:33AM
BenMS said...
I love the way that the Blizzard posters always talk about how the new patch will be coming out very soon™
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10-02-2007 @ 12:01PM
John said...
Wow.....thanks for just relisting the patch notes....
This article becomes more and more a waste of space every week. Either give out some useful info, or gtfo...
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