Scattered Shots is for hunters. 'Nuff said on that topic. The Freezing TrapDavid was stuck in last week also wore off a little bit, thanks to Daniel, permitting him to write once more without his fingers snapping off from the cold.
In the wake of the recent confusion regarding Scare Beast, once again some hunters have gotten to complaining a lot about the state of their class. While on one hand, there are certainly problematic issues hunters are having, it's really not fair to say that the class is broken. It isn't -- being a hunter is more fun than its ever been, and it looks like this class will only get better in the future.
Nonetheless, looking at the problems we do have might give us a clearer sense of where we're going in the future. With more and more information coming out about Wrath of the Lich King, and especially since Blizzard started asking for feedback from hunters, it's worthwhile to have a look at what holes do exist for our class, and how future changes might seek to plug them up.
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Since patch 2.4, hunters have been having some problems. Aside from the outrage over the fact that our traps are now announced, we seem to be having issues with mana.
On the forums, hunters are not seeing much love from the non-hunter crowd, but I suppose that is to be expected. It is important to note however, that our mana efficiency is an intended attribute of our class. We are useful, not solely, but arguably primarily, because we can provide sustainable, long-term DPS. No, we don't crit like mages. In a boss fight though, we can keep going after mages short out.
Why are hunters all of a sudden having issues with mana? There are a few theories floating around, but we have yet to be graced with a blue response. Take the jump to learn more about why this might be happening.
We've mentioned it in passing, but it's considered by some to be a pretty massive change in the way Warlocks will be played in the future, and thus deserves a closer look. Life Tap will now take a certain percentage of your max hp (26% at the highest rank on the PTR currently), and give you a certain percentage of your max mana (26% at the highest rank on the PTR currently, as well). Before, it took a set amount of your max hp and gave all of it to you as mana.
But what exactly does that mean? How does it change Warlocks, and why do so many Warlocks hate it? Let's look at it closer after the break.
Yes, burst damage is an increasingly important factor in class balance, but have you heard of burst drinking? Apparently that's a big problem, too, as the latest update to the patch notes adds a very strange function to drinking: as of patch 2.4, "the benefits of drinking have been delayed," and the real mana regen won't start until five seconds after you've started drinking. Wha?
But it's true-- apparently Blizzard felt that anyone drinking for only five seconds (either in a PvP or PvE situation) was getting too much mana. Drysc confirms that it's a serious change, and that anyone worried about their mana regen only needs to drink for six seconds, at which point they'll have as much mana as before the patch (which suggests that there is a burst of mana given at the 5 second mark, to make up for the delay).
But is this really that much of a problem? Sure, with the changes to spell haste, things are going to get faster in the battlegrounds. But are we at the point already where an extra second of out of combat drinking makes all the difference? Blizzard thinks so.
Matthan of Burning Blade brought up an issue with drinking to recover mana on the public test realm.He found that he was not receiving the normal benefit from imbibing.Hortus indicated that this phenomenon is not a bug but a change in the mechanics that ramps up mana regeneration over time.Players are used to a steady increase in mana with every tick.This change was not included in the patch 2.4 notes.
The general consensus from players is negative.Speculation suggests that the change was geared toward casters drinking Star's Tears or conjured water in the arena. Posters have made many arguments on why this would have negative consequences in the PvE environment.Many casters drink between pulls and do not usually have the opportunity to spend thirty seconds drinking in raids and instances.Incremental increases in drinking over time would inconvenience all members of a party or raid as they would have to wait for casters to fill up on mana.This could change become disastrous in chain pulls and endurance fights, where every second counts.
Screwface on the forums has an interesting idea about a PvP tweak, even though his implementation isn't quite right. He says that since healers are so overpowered in PvP (well that's his first problem), abilities like Rend and Garrote should not only bleed blood, but also bleed mana off of casters. Of course, simply making all bleed abilities also take off mana would make them overpowered on their own, so his plan of making a sweeping change like that doesn't quite compute.
But the idea of more abilities that directly affect mana is an interesting one. Right now, there are only four "mana drain" spells in the game (warlocks can steal mana for themselves, priests can turn mana into damage, and hunters can sting mana off of a target). But as much as mana pools and regen have grown in the last patch, it's true that there hasn't been a balance in the opposite direction. No, warriors don't need another buff, but what if shaman were given a mana drain totem somewhere in the next ten levels? Or Boomkins got a spell that negated mana over time?
It's nothing to play around with lightly. But Blizzard does have to come up with ten more levels of abilities and talents for the next expansion, and messing with mana is something they haven't done much of lately. In Northrend we might not only be worried about health and DPS, but mana draining and mana attacks might become another piece of the class balance puzzle.
Conjured Manna Biscuits or Mana Biscuits? Which is right? Flaye reported it as a text bug, but Hortus confirms that Manna is the correct spelling.
Manna: Magical food. You may have heard it in a non-game context as "manna from heaven".
Mana: The resource pool that is used for casting spells in WoW.
So Manna, in this context, replenishes Mana (and Health). It may have been a better idea to call the food that restores both health and mana something like ambrosia or chocolate chip pancakes or something less confusing.
What do you think would have been a better name for the Conjured Manna Biscuits?
Mmmmm. Chocolate chip pancakes. Now I'm hungry. /afk
Here's some more good news today for mages. On top of Hypothermia going back from 45s to 30s, Kalgan has stopped by the mage forums to promise some additional buffs in person. These probably won't make it into 2.3, but he says they'll go in "in the near future." My guess is that translates to 2.3.X or 2.4. It looks like Blizz is basically in a "buff" swing recently, which fits in with their general design philosophy -- start underpowered, and then build the classes up as necessary. Buffs make far fewer people angry than nerfs do.
What are these buffs, you ask? Trainable Ice Block, and "to-be-finalized improvements to mana issues in longer fights" (source). We've been seeing more and more skills moved to trainable as the game has matured, from Evocate to Holy Fire to Improved Sap. Ice Block mades good sense to add to that list. Kalgan's reasoning is that IB is something they want to be able to design PvE encounters around all mages having, and that it helps open up the range of viable specs for PvP. As far as the "mana issues" improvements, it's hard to comment too much on that without any details, but efficiency is good. Any speculation on what they're going to do there?
Oh, and in a later post, Kalgan lets slip that mana gems are also slated to be buffed. Let that be a sort of after-dinner mint of buffage.
The pulling one is an especially good tip-- decide at the beginning of the run who's going to pull, and then only have that person pull. Can't tell you how many times, someone decided to just pull with an instant spell because they felt like it, and not realizing that another pull was already incoming. And I think the "not wear thy gear in vain" tip is an interesting one, too-- you should putting gems and enchantments on your gear already, just to make your character the best it can be. Seeing it as a way of benefiting the group is a new way of looking at it, but it's true as well.
If everyone followed these tips all the time (and even the best tanks I know sometimes forget to wait for mana), we'd all have better groups, whether they be PuGs, good friends, or raids.
Dueling has a bad reputation, I think. Too many players see it either as a way to brag about their own skill (or, more likely, time investment), while many other players see it as a way for the first group of players to do that at their own expense. I love dueling, whether I win or lose, because it's a great chance for me to see if I can use everything in my arsenal to the fullest, as well as see another player working against me, hopefully at their best. A great duel is a chance for two players to duke it out and have a great time without anybody dying, while a terrible duel (and the perception of most duels, I think) can be a humiliating or confusing experience.
And so, in my efforts to bring honor back to dueling, I present the Ten Commandments of Honorable Dueling in World of Warcraft. I've split them up into three sections-- Before the Duel, During the Duel, and Post-Duel-- and each one covers a point that has been corrupted or ignored among the worst players in dueling. No longer should we suffer from duel spamming. And no longer should there be jerks who gloat and taunt after a duel has taken place.
Dueling is a very interesting form of PvP-- it's not the large scale onslaughts of the battlegrounds or the smaller matchups in the Arenas. Dueling can even be held within factions-- it's a one-on-one skirmish between two players in the game. And unlike the Horde vs. Alliance shenanigans held in world PvP or the BGs, I believe dueling should be an honorable and respectful endeavor. Click the link below to read the Ten Commandments of Honorable Dueling.
Over on the European forums, there's been some question over the Mage ability Evocation. High end mages are saying it's just not restoring enough mana to be useful. CM Aeus comes to the rescue with an answer -- though not the answer most Mages want to hear: We feel evocate is working as it is intended: it's simply highly dependent on how much spirit the mage has. Unfortunately, many mages seem not to like spirit that much and would rather spend their gem slots and enchants on other stats. This is fine, everyone has the freedom to choose what stats they want to focus on. Whereas in the past we forced a lot of spirit onto the mage's tier sets so that they would have good mana regen, to leave more room for flexibility and choice we have replaced a lot of that spirit with gem slots in recent gear.
Mages, on the other hand, say that to maximize their DPS and justify their use in a raid, they're required to stack gear and gems that eschew spirit and add to their spell damage, thereby rendering Evocation useless. But if they want decent returns from Evocation, and enough mana regeneration to keep them going in long fights, they have to sacrifice their spot on the damage charts in order to equip more spirit gear. To this Aeus responds: No one's asking anyone to gimp themselves; just making it clear that choices have to be made when it comes to certain aspects.
So, Mages, what do you think? Is Evocation working as intended -- or does it just not give Mages these days enough staying power if they're trying to keep to the top of the DPS charts?
Some people just do it all the time. The easiest simple move in the game-- every character can do it at almost any time-- is to hit the space bar and jump. And some people do it constantly.
Of course it drives some others nuts. 9 times out of 10, there's probably something better you could be doing than jumping-- even in an instance, you could be crafting, or summoning, or drinking for mana, or organizing the groups, or getting food and water ready, or organizing your bags. Why are you jumping? Stop it, you're giving me a headache!
Then again, I jump all the time. Usually, it's actually to signal impatience-- if I'm ready for a pull and we're not pulling, I'll start with the jumping. And if I ever feel helpless-- I've been spell interrupted, or I'm silenced, or in PvP, where there's nothing for me to do while I'm sitting stealthed defending by a flag. Some times when I'm surrounded and getting murdered in PvP, I'll jump just for the heck of it, like a last laugh against death (sometimes I even do the /laugh emote at the Paladin that's tearing me apart). Or sometimes I'm raidleading and I want to get the raid's attention. There are lots of good reasons for jumping around.
But many times, there's not, and I do it anyway. Are you a jumper?
A couple of interesting Mote related changes have popped up in the patch. I was well aware of the Mote of Shadow change-- those babies are now dropping not off of demons, but only off of void creatures (you can find tons of them in the southern part of Hellfire Peninsula, and in small pockets in many instances). Which makes sense, but makes you wonder why they dropped off of demons in the first place-- or why it matters which one they drop off of at all.
The other change was a little more hidden in the patch notes, and most players didn't realize it would be happening until they saw the drops: Essences are now dropping in Outland in the same place that Motes are dropping. You remember Essences-- they're the elemental components of many recipes found on the Azeroth side of the Dark Portal. A few players were unhappy that Essences were dropping instead of Motes, until Drysc confirmed that Essences are actually dropping in addition to Motes-- it's not a matter of either/or at all. Essences are completely extra.
And of course that'll have an effect on the economy. Right now, Essences are selling for up to 1g a pop on most AHs (Update: and even higher on other servers, sometimes up to 15g apiece), but they still only vendor for 4s, which is pennies compared to even most gray drops in Outland. And that price will probably drop anyway, considering the market is about to be flooded with them. One solution is to raise the vendor price. And another solution, say a few enterprising players, would be to give Alchemists a Transmute Essence to Mote spell, either at a 2-to-1 exchange rate, or a long-ish cooldown, that would set the economy on these little things right. Clearly there's a need for having Essences around (how else could you enchant firey weapon, right?), but it looks like Blizzard could have put a little more thought into their effect on the economy.
Infinite mana sounds like a good thing to me (I always did love fighting Vaelastraz), but this odd game behavior has to be a bug. There seems to be different speculation about what causes it, with some posters on Lurker Lounge suggesting it's a bug involving the priests' Divine Spirit buff. But whatever the cause, it was still in the game prior to today's maintenance, though I can't find any confirmation on whether it's still occuring. Reader Louies, who sent in this video, says that a GM replied this was a known issue which can currently be fixed by relogging.
Scattered Shots is for hunters. 'Nuff said on that topic. The Freezing Trap David was stuck in last week also wore off a little bit, thanks to Daniel, permitting him to write once more without his fingers snapping off from the cold.
Yes, burst damage is an increasingly important factor in class balance, but have you heard of burst drinking? Apparently that's a big problem, too, as the latest update to 
Matthan of Burning Blade
Screwface on the forums has an interesting idea about a PvP tweak, even though his implementation isn't quite right. He says that since healers are so overpowered in PvP (well that's his first problem), 
The 
Reader Poga dropped us a line to this article he wrote for his guild about 
Dueling
Are you a jumper? I am.
A couple of interesting Mote related changes have popped up in the patch. I was well aware of the 
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