There's a new chapter in the ongoing saga of Shaman disappointment with patch 2.4, and it's this: "1, 2, 3, 4... 6?" As you may have noticed in the patch notes, Call of Thunder (an Elemental Shaman talent that increases the crit strike chance of Lightning spells) had five ranks that gave 1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, and 6% respectively. But patch 2.4 will bring it in line with standard arithmetic, and have rank five give 5% crit chance.

An obvious nerf, right? Blizzard doesn't seem to be so sure. Players say that there was a reason rank five gave 6% chance to crit, and it was probably to balance the ability with other abilities in endgame. But Neth says that though it is a nerf, the devs did it just to bring the values in line with other similar ranked talents. Even giving Neth the benefit of the doubt on the devs' decision, that seems really unlikely-- no one would "accidentally" count 1, 2, 3, 4, 6. Clearly the extra percentage crit chance was in there for a reason, and the devs shouldn't change it back unless Shamans really are critting too much (and by all accounts, they are not).

It seems like a lot of whining over a small issue (and yes, that could be said about all of this Shaman business), but once again not only is Blizzard not clear on their communication, but they continue to mangle Shaman relations-- in a patch where Elemental Shamans are finally hoping for a buff, the devs decide instead to nerf one of their biggest talents, supposedly to fix a mathematical bug. If the devs suddenly said that Fel Concentration was getting nerfed to 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, and 50% (rather than the 14%-70% it's at now) because those numbers were more "in line," Warlocks would throw a fit. And that's exactly why Shamans are so unhappy right now.

Hi there! Yes, after a long hiatus, Arcane Brilliance is back. Snack tables all around! Anybody ninjas the biscuits, they get a Fireball in the face. Nah, just kidding. Even ninjas are welcome here. As long as they're mage-ninjas.

I've been a Mage since day one with WoW, and until a few weeks ago I had never really questioned my class choice. I liked the idea of being a caster, a back row fireballer with robes and a pointy hat. When I came over from FFXI I asked my WoW-playing buddy (the aforementioned shammie) which class I should be. He asked what I was into, and I said something like "I want to be a huge caster-tastic wizard in a dress who sets things on fire with his mind. Is there a mage-type class?" He said. "Yes. It's called...Mage." And that was it. I rolled my undead Mage and began conjuring flaming death and croissants. I happily leveled my Mage to 70.

And then...the bubbling, Healthstone-critting warlock happened.

After the jump: Shameful self doubt, soul searching, and finally...sweet redemption! And more Mage-talk.

ces_1 over on WoW Ladies posted bragging about her 9.7k Healing Touch crit, and it reminded me that I do exactly the same thing. For some reason, seeing those big numbers pop up in the middle of battle is an indescribable thrill. Crits are strange entities-- they aren't even always helpful (there are many situations, mostly when aggro is tight, in which big crits are actually bad to get). But big numbers inspire something primal in us. And even if we aren't world-record critting (even in the LJ comments, people are showing off bigger Healing Touch crits), there's something super inspiring about seeing a huge number and then realizing it's your personal best. A 3k Lighting Bolt crit isn't that much, but darned if it wasn't a terrific feeling when I finally hit it on my Shaman.

Loot is fun, but at the highest levels, it's a group thing-- you need to go into somewhere as a group or a raid, and then even if you do down the boss, you have to make sure you win a random roll or however else loot is distributed. But crits are far more personal-- even though they come from that loot, they're a result of all the gear choices you've made and the talents you've chosen for your character. Sure, a big dragon to fly around on is fun, but crits, out of the many rewards we've all earned in Azeroth, are maybe the most personal achievements you can find-- a real, numerical symbol that you've learned how to combine gear, class, and talents to do big things.

We've all heard them, those people in Alterac Valley or in Steam Vaults that announce those amazing crits every time one pops up on the screen. You may very well be one of those people yourself. But every time one of those huge numbers pops up in the chat log, you could very well stop and wonder, are they telling the truth?

Nicholas over at WoW LJ posted on this topic today, and I identified with his side of things. He mentioned that whenever someone announces "omg my shadowbolt just crit for 5k!" there is a pause that happens, followed by self-doubt. I know I have been there myself. I sit there and seethe, wondering if I will ever be able to reach those kinds of numbers myself one day. He also brings up the possibility that not everyone is honest when they post these outlandish numbers. Maybe the hunter's Arcane Shot really didn't crit for 4k. Maybe it's a whole huge cover up, where we are all sitting here envious of numbers that don't actually exist.

I'm not really sure either way. I know I'm not a huge crit machine (yet), and I don't post fabulously high numbers mostly because I don't achieve them. If I do, it's something I tell my friends, and we rejoice together in my outrageous luck. Without judgement, I'd like to ask the same question Nicholas does at the end of his post:

also, (nobody will judge you for telling the truth), have you ever done this and lied about the damage you did? (maybe add an extra 100 or 5?)

[via WoW Livejournal]

One of the funniest threads I've ever seen on the WoW forums starts out in a fairly innocuous way: "One time my Astral Recall crit ... Found myself in New York," wrote the shaman Spaceshock. From that, the thread evolved into a pure being of win and awesome, as other players imagined what would happen if some of their abilities crit. The best include:

• One time my Tame Beast crit, and I ended up with a litter of kittens.
• One time my Lay on Hands crit, and I got sued for sexual harassment.
• One time my Ritual of Doom crit, and Kil'jaeden showed up.
• One time my Detect Traps crit, and I realized the rebuilt Death Star was fully operational.
• One time my Drain Soul critted and, well, it is really useless in the end and death is really the only thing to look forward to. Death is preferable to the endless swirling darkness that is the way we treat each other at the best of times.
• One time my Track Hidden crit and I found Osama.
• One time my Volley crit, and we had to fight in the shade.
• One time my Recklessness crit. I ran eighty-seven red lights, took eleven cars off the road, and smashed into a Wal-Mart.
• One time my Summon Treants crit, and I saved the rainforest.

What do your abilities do when they crit?

In today's continuation of our series on what the various stats in World of Warcraft do for you, we're going to be discussing caster stats. And, while a long-time player probably knows everything I'm talking about here, someone who's newer to the game might find spelling all of these things out to be handy. Curious as to how gear with +spell damage helps you out? Not quite sure how useful gear with mana per five seconds on it is for your class? You're in the right place.

However, before you keep reading, it's well worth it to check out part 1 (covering the five main game attributes) and part 2 (covering statistics effecting physical damage). Coming up our next installment we'll talk about defensive statistics (armor, dodge, parry, resilience, etc), so stay tuned!

Not sure what exactly resilience is? Then I'll start out with an explanation: resilience is a stat which reduces your chance to be crit and reduces the damage done by crits when they do hit you. Of course, you'd think there's something of a downside to reducing your chance to get crit -- cool abilities that are activated by critical strikes won't activate, right?

Actually, as confirmed by Drysc, wrong. Players have been reporting that crit-activated abilities activate inconsistantly when they have high resilience, and Drysc explains that this is by design. High resilience can prevent crits from landing -- but to allow crit-activated abilities to still benefit the player, whenever a hit occurs, the crit-activated abilities have a small chance of being activated. Abilities are checked individually, so it's possible for say, Blood Craze to activate without Enrage activating.

On the leaked PvP set information, you may have noticed a few oddities. Firstly, +crit (rephrased as "critical rating") was being thrown around like candy (+32 spell crit on a single piece of armor?) and, secondly, a new stat, "resilience" was mentioned. Well, I still consider all of this to be rumor, but the Curse Gaming forums have some interesting discussion on what alpha test players are seeing with these stats.

Poster Daviesh suggests that percent-based +hit and +crit have been removed entirely, and replaced with critical rating, which gives you an amount of both based on your level. And Poster Anders chimes in with precise numbers -- +10 critical rating for 1% to hit at level 60 and +14 critical rating for 1% to crit at 60. At level 70, the numbers shift -- 15.769 critical rating per 1% to hit and 22.076 critical rating for 1% to crit. As to resilience, it's still somewhat mysterious, but poster Ruinx suggests that it's an anti-crit trait (if this is true, that would make it similar to +defense on current itemization).

Of course, the question on everyone's minds is how this sort of change will impact the game. And that's difficult to do without seeing how exactly these new stats will be itemized throughout the game. If we assume it will be itemized similarly to the current +crit and +to hit bonuses, we would have to assume that less (equivalently) +crit will be seen, since it will always be bundled with +to hit. And if the amount of benefit gained by crit rating does change with level, it may end up more difficult for a max-level player to stack +crit for a sky-high crit rate. But as to the actual impact this change may have on the game (and whether it will actually be implemented to the extent described) we may not know until the beta begins and more information is widely available.