As a whole was as WoW players are a pretty tough crowd to please.This is probably because of the diversity of the player base as well as the variable goals that we set for ourselves.We range from casual PvPers to hard core raiders.We all have our fair share of complaints, but judging by the games massive popularity, it seems Blizzard has done a decent job of responding to the competing demand of its subscribers.
Amgusrex of Moon Guard is concerned that play in Wrath of the Lich Kingwill not be challenging enough.He feels that Blizzard does a disservice to players by nerfing the difficulty of content with progressive patching.His post is pretty inflammatory, calling others cry babies and pointing toward a "massive population that is bad at video games."Taking a look at the Original Poster's Armory profile, I have to assume that he is not posting on his main, because if he is he still has to over come many challenges himself before declaring the game "easy mode."
Blue poster Bornakk has clarified what many people were noticing yesterday: all Burning Crusade raiding mobs have had their health reduced (approximately 30 percent according to data collected). He also goes on to say that the mobs will be doing less physical damage, although the spell damage will remain the same.
As far my close and personal friend Illidan goes, he will no longer be casting Shear. While I understand the need for this, as a Warrior can no longer spam Shield Block come patch 3.0.2, I will miss this particular mechanic in that it truly provided a test of skill above the standard tank and spank mechanic.
The HP nerf to all of the raid bosses isn't sitting too well with me either. It makes me sigh in frustration at the weeks my guild spent getting the last 25% of Brut down to a science. Had this nerf been in place three months ago, we would have killed him on the second night of attempts.
Now we know. The clock is ticking. Blizzard has given themselves a deadline by which they have to get the expansion and all of its nifty features into our hands. This in itself isn't that hard, I'm sure. The hard part is getting the expansion to us in a state that we enjoy. Polished. Finished. Done.
Case in point here is the essential balancing element between the classes in terms of how they perform versus one another in PvE and PvP. Looking at the current state of things on the beta, many people have been looking at the amount of balancing work left to be done, then looking at the time Blizzard has left to do it, and thinking that our favorite little company that could isn't going to make it.
Then again, most of the people saying this are players of one particular class or another. Very few have the ability to stand back and see all the classes at once from a very knowledgable and objective point of view, how they interact with one another and what their various strengths and offsets are. Most players see the entire game from their little own little vantage point, and are apt to view their class's shortcomings as serious failures of game design rather than areas in which they'll need to get their friends of other classes to come help them and work as a team. Sometimes, after playing for a while, the general playerbase realizes that the huge nerfs everyone was yelling and screaming about just a little while ago aren't really that bad, and the game is still very enjoyable regardless.
What do you think? Are the classes going to be balanced by the time the expansion goes live? Or are the actually more balanced than they seem, even now? Is it going to be a huge disaster with just a few classes stomping all over the others, or is Blizzard going to pull some magic rabbits out of their hat just in the nick of time? Will we see tons of post-launch minor adjustments, or certain classes just languishing for months at a time, or will it all turn out to be okay pretty much from the beginning?
Scattered Shots occasionally wanders around collecting arrows and bullets when they totally miss the target.
The key to understanding hunters in the beta is to look at the big picture. This is something affecting all classes currently, but I'm going to discuss it in relation to hunters in particular. Beta testing buffs and nerfs ultimately come down to a matter of perspective -- do you see your class changes happening in isolation, for now and forever as long as you and your pet shall live? Or are your particular class changes happening as part of an ever-evolving system involving you, me and everyone else over time?
Anyone who's done much research on Feral druiding, especially cat form, has probably run across the concept of powershifting. Basically, powershifting plays off Furor (a talent that pretty much every Feral druid has) by shifting out of cat form and straight back into it to reset your energy to 40. If you do this at 80 energy, of course, you've just lost 40 energy, some mana, and a global cooldown, and there's no point to that. But if you do it at 0 energy, you've just traded a GCD and some mana for 40 energy, which is often worth it. Powershifting was made even easier in a recent patch with the door opened to macros like "/cast !Cat Form", which shifts you in and out with one button press instantaneously.
This no longer works in the current LK beta build. Now, as explicated at length by blue poster Jimmythenumbers (who we here at WI have never heard of), Furor works by setting your energy to the amount you would have if your energy regen had been working while shifted out, up to a maximum of 40 energy [reworded for clarity]. For instance:
Part of the allure of drums in raids has been the ability to overlap the effects of different types of drums by having several leatherworkers drumming at a time. One member might boost attack power and spell damage for party members in range, while another might restore health and mana.
With the new Tinnitus debuff, any targets affected by drums are immune to the effects of all other drums for two minutes. While this sounds like a nerf, it might actually have a balancing effect.
In fact, other professions are seeing similar changes. Potions will create Potion Sickness, which will prevent the consumer from using more than one in any given encounter. Players will have to rest out of combat in order to refresh the privilege.
So far, this also is affecting mana gems and similar items, although it is unclear if that particular effect is a bug or not. What does this mean?
So, the world (and WoW Insider) is alive with the sound of the Wrath of the Lich King beta, and it's high time that we take a look at our favorite commander of evil... the Warlock. We'll want to be sure we understand what's coming for us, so as not to let anyone think those otherevil guys are horning in on our territory. And, yeah, there's definitely some things changing.
A lot of the changes are a little hard to noggin out -- are they meant to be buffs? Nerfs? Inexplicably different, but not really better or worse? Demonology is certainly getting a thorough shuffle, but it's hard to say whether it's good or bad. We'll chat more about it after the cut. Let's start with what the first beta patch notes obviously say, and consider what each item means. Then, in Part II, we'll start looking at each tree individually, with each of its new spells.
As promised Blizzard is giving Shamans some love in the next expansion.The Beta patch notes deliver on some of that.Most of what we're seeing at this time is changes to talents, but there's quite a bit of totem news in there.Some totems stand to get buffed, others nerfed and some removed from the game altogether.
As expected totems will be placed in the physical school, rather than magic.To date, one of the major downfalls of totems is that has been if the Shaman is locked out of the Nature school of spells, they are more or less out of luck until the effect wears off.Even when completely silenced it will still be possible for Shamans to drop their totems.This will be handy in both PvE and PvP, but will probably be more influential for PvP Shamans.
Well, it finally happened. The dreaded nerf to Cheat Death was finally implemented in yesterday's Patch 2.4.3, and it seems like more than a few Rogues are unhappy. Oddly enough, the most important change to me wasn't the nerf itself but the adjustment to how Cheat Death works. If I'm not mistaken (I often am, though), Cheat Death is the only talent specifically designed to work with Resilience.
No other talent or ability in the game works or improves with Resilience the way Cheat Death does. Because the ability scales with Resilience -- the more you have, the more it works like the old Cheat Death -- it's a clear indication that the ability is for PvP. While there are talents that are more suitable for PvP than others, no other abilities are designed to work specifically with the Resilience stat. In this case, a Rogue would need roughly 442 Resilience points (at Level 70) in order to achieve the maximum 90% damage reduction. It's an ability that requires players to gear a certain way in order to maximize their gains.
Prior to Patch 2.4.3, many Rogues mixed PvP with PvE gear in order to increase their damage output (double Warglaives, anyone?) but were able to maintain high survivability thanks to Cheat Death. With the nerf to the talent, many PvE-geared Rogues suffered a significant reduction in survivability because low Resilience means an inefficient Cheat Death. It's an interesting shift because Blizzard has claimed in the past that it doesn't create trees specifically for PvP. In the future, it's possible that we'll see more PvP-specific talents that require Resilience or reduce Resilience directly. I think it's a positive direction in Blizzard's design philosophy.
An interesting change to Sunwell raiding cropped up in today's patch notes: in short, M'uru, Entropius and adds are all taking a health hit, and a couple of things have been smoothed out in the Kil'jaeden encounter.
Let's talk about M'uru first. Countless guilds have had trouble with this fight, yet those that have beaten it have praised its unforgiving tuning.
With some guilds reporting over 500 wipes on this boss alone, no wonder Blizzard felt some need to change the encounter. Although it's not known quite how much their health will be reduced (speculation ranges from 5% to 20%), the tuning as it stands means that any significant reductions change the entire pacing of the fight.
Due to itemization and abilities, Warrior and Paladin tanks currently have a greater ability to avoid Crushing Blows than Druid tanks. In the near future, this may become a moot point.Khurg of Spirestone, a Tauren Warrior, worries that Warrior tanks may become somewhat obsolete with the removal of Crushing Blows from boss mobs and a potential thirty second cool down on Shield Block.He asked "What will be the purpose of defense in WotLK ?"The following response from Rawglrlrgll of Lothar was that the defense statistic prevents critical strikes and still buffs the chance for avoidance.
Since its inception World of Warcraft has been an evolving game.Someone who played only shortly after release would hardly recognize the game now.Blizzard has always welcomed feedback, but some changes have elicited more feedback than others.In a thread entitled "Epic moments in WoW QQ history," Gatsukaa chronicled some of the most upsetting events that have occurred in the evolution of our game:
Moment 1: WoW is first released. Hunter and warlock pets could be one-shot. Hunter dps was pretty lackluster. Soulstones gave you rez sickness (I think). No soulshards from PvP. The first emo whiners in WoW were born: Hunters and Warlocks. World of Roguecraft video is released showing how a rogue in crap gear could wtfpwn people while warlocks were so gimp. Result is that warlocks went on to get buffed in nearly every patch as they were on their way to god-hood. No more world of roguecraft videos. Hunters saw substantial improvements as well, but weren't made into demigods.
Let's get it on... again! Yes, while the level 30 mount news got a lot of play, and Rogues had to grapple with the Cheat Death nerf, there was one tasty morsel of news hiding in the patch 2.4.3 notes: Clockwork Rocket Bots will be back up to fighting shape! I've had this Winter's Veil gift in my pack from last December, and was bummed when they removed the ability of the bots to fight each other when summoned out. Now, finally, when two players have them summoned close to each other, the little bots (which look a little bit like Wall-E, don't they?) will throw down.
According to the patch notes, the problem was a little strange, too -- the robots were supposedly attacking other people in the Arena. No idea why the bots would see other players as attackable targets in the Arena, but there you go. Unfortunately, the bots still aren't buffable, as they once were -- it was actually a really fun minigame trying to keep those little bots alive as they fought, but at this point, your bot is on its own. Which means when my bot comes by, your bot better watch its little bot-ty back! Fight!
I have to admit, I was a little bit astonished by news of patch 2.4.3.We know that Blizzard is ramping up for the release of Wrath of the Lich King, as they did for the Burning Crusade.The two things that stand out most to me are the Cheat Death nerf and the reduction of riding skill level requirement to 30.Even as a Cosmo Girl, I don't really care much about Harris Piltion's new line of designer bags. (Unless those bags have 24 slots and don't have tacky, brand-name logos on them.)
I think we can expect more changes in the not-too-distant future.We've already seen the death of most raid attunements. I expect to see the cost of epic flying skill reduced considerably in future patches.The same thing happened with epic land mounts, and long ago Drysc hinted that such a change may be in the works.I'd also like to see an additional character slot or two added to each realm.
What changes do you predict will occur prior to Wrath's release?
The question arose in the WoW official forums "Why do they call it 'rolling?'"This is of course in reference to creating new characters.The original poster pointed out that there really is no rolling involved just selection.I'm sure its obvious to most of us that the terms comes from pen and paper role playing games where we roll dice to determine character statistics and sometimes other attributes.But it got me thinking of terms that we use for WoW that came from other games:
The battleground Zerg comes from Starcraft's Zerg race which was kind of a fast, battle driven faction.
Nerf means to make things less powerful, and refers to the Nerf brand of spongy toys.
For some reason we refer to instances as dungeons, despite the fact that Stockades is the only actual dungeon that comes to mind.Though I have to admit, even in D&D dungeon crawls were typically done in caves or castles.
It's surprising how terms seem to stick with us even when they're obsolete.Speaking of rolling, when was the last time you actually rolled down a window in a car?
It's good to go back and remember out gaming roots.I'm sure there are many more crossover terms, and terms from the World of Warcraft lexicon like Leroy Jenkins, will out live Azeroth. For the life of me I can't find the etiology of the term "twink."What else am I missing?
As a whole was as WoW players are a pretty tough crowd to please. This is probably because of the diversity of the player base as well as the variable goals that we set for ourselves. We range from casual PvPers to hard core raiders. We all have our fair share of complaints, but judging by the games massive popularity, it seems Blizzard has done a decent job of responding to the competing demand of its subscribers.
Blue poster 
So, the world (and WoW Insider) is alive with the sound of the 
As 
Well, it finally happened. The 
Due to itemization and 
Since its inception World of Warcraft has been an evolving game.
Let's get it on... again! Yes, while 
I have to admit, I was a little bit astonished by news of patch 2.4.3.
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