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WoW Archivist: Launch classes' 9 biggest aggravations, part 2
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? Vanilla WoW is properly considered the golden age of this beloved MMO. The evolutionary ideas behind the game were exciting, the art style was fresh, and the world was full of mysteries. Some yearn for a return to that time. But many forget that classes at launch suffered from some truly aggravating designs. Last time on Archivist, we looked at priest racials, hunter mana, warlock shard farming, and shaman weapon skill resets. This week, we review the most aggravating aspects of warriors, mages, druids, rogues, and paladins. Warriors: The leather conundrum Let's be fair: warriors, for the most part, had it pretty good in vanilla. Back then, they were the only class that could viably tank and their DPS was better than most hybrids. Rage had its share of problems early on, it's true, but the mechanic worked -- warriors just needed more of it. Stance dancing was annoying to some but the mark of a pro to others. Warriors also had a crippling bug at launch that would register all enemy dodges and parries as misses, preventing skills like Overpower from ever proc'ing. The bug made early leveling painful, but it was solved a few months after launch. The biggest aggravation for warriors throughout vanilla -- and beyond -- was leather.
The Light and How to Swing It: A little less hybrid
With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and helps with the puppet shows at the Argent Ren Faire up in Icecrown. Ghostcrawler has been doing a lot of talking pertaining to paladins and Blizzard's vision of them for the future. A lot of this has been spawned by some of the changes the developers have been toying around with on the public test realms. In the current build of the PTR, Lay on Hands causes Forbearance on its target which has prompted quite an uproar from the playerbase. This cuts a leg out from our two major defensive cooldowns making us choose either health or invulnerability during a fight. Holy paladins are getting some text tacked onto Sanctified Light which will allow them to reduce the chance it will cause Forbearance on others by 33/66/100% to allow it to still be useful when healing in groups. As this is the PTR, we don't really know how much of this will end up on the live realms. The developers have been toying around with several different ideas and at the moment we're not sure which one or ones they'll end up going with.
Addon Spotlight: PallyPower
Today I thought we'd look at an addon that many guilds require their paladins to use. To be honest, I'd never really understood why until I transitioned to 25-man content. Coordinating blessings with one other paladin (our Karazhan runs rarely had more than two paladins.) was never complicated, but when you've got three or more paladins, it can get messy and can waste valuable raid time.As my guild continues its efforts in The Eye and Serpent Shrine Cavern, I've found myself somewhat frustrated by paladins who don't use this one. Granted, I was that guy until recently, thinking that because ZOMG Buffs played nice with buff assignments via PallyPower, that I was good to go. Now suddenly I'm taking a more active role in buff assignments and realize that like Omen, Healbot and logging for WWS, the more players using a utility, the better.
WWI '08 Panel: Paladin (UPDATED)
There weren't very many exciting things for Paladins at the Worldwide Invitational Panel earlier today, and this reflects the development we've seen leak out from the Wrath of the Lich King Alpha. The sneak peek of the Alpha showed that while most classes have proposed talents and abilities mapped out, there's still very little work done for Paladins. This doesn't mean Blizzard isn't thinking about the class, though. In fact, from the few things they've mentioned, it looks like they're moving in the right direction. Confirming something the Paladin community has known for quite some time now -- Retribution itemization blows is very poor. They're moving itemization for Retribution Paladins to share items with Death Knights and Warriors. This means future Retribution items will have no Intellect on them... could this herald some Strength as mana mechanic? UPDATE: Also on the Retribution Paladin front, Blizzard mentioned during the Q&A that Retadins will have their group utility increased by making them more efficient DPS-wise. No details on exactly how, but this little bit of information should send a thrill down the spine of every 2-hander swinging Paladin out there. Hand of Purity is a new "reactive healing" spell for Paladins, something that the oft-maligned 'two-button healers' sorely need. It will work as a clutch Prayer of Mending-type spell. Will it be instant cast? As the two staple heals of a Paladin unenviably have casting times, maybe this new spell will actually be something to thank the Light for. Having another healing spell to cast during encounters should be a real blessing. Speaking of blessings, overlapping Blessings have always been a problem with Paladin support, with active Blessings like Blessing of Freedom and Protection overwriting passive Blessings already on the target like Blessing of Kings. Blizzard plans to allow these spells to be non-exclusive and rename them. Not much, but it definitely addresses existing issues. These changes aren't as exciting as a Warlock's Demon Form (or Illidanform, as Blizzard staffers jokingly call it), or a Warrior's Titan's Grip, the changes show that Blizzard knows what's wrong with the class and is serious about fixing it. So while there hasn't been any major news like a new tanking tree for Hunters or greater Arena viability for Priests, we're hoping to see more exciting stuff for Paladins! WoW Insider is on the ground in Paris at the Blizzard Invitational bringing you the big announcements and latest Wrath news as it happens. Check out our latest coverage!
Darkmoon Faire Decks: An overview
As I've mentioned before, The Darkmoon Faire is currently in Terrokar Forest, just outside Shattrath City, so if you have decks to turn in or need to refill your private stock of Darkmoon Special Reserve, now's the time to get on it. But if you're still a little bit taken aback by the prospect of gathering all those cards, or wondering if the trinket at the end will really be worth it, we'd like to help you out. In this post, we'll be looking at both the old and new decks and listing some pros and cons of each deck so you can figure out if you want to spend the next month tracking down cards before the Faire shows up in Elwynn Forest in March, or even if you just want to blow your epic flying mount fund on getting a deck before it leaves for the month. We'll start in on everything after the jump.
Breakfast Topic: Thank the Light it's a Paladin!
Mark it on your calendars! Our class encouragement continues today with Paladin Day, the special day when we give thanks to the Holy Light for the Divine Intervention that paladins can bring about. So many things make the Paladin class (and the people who play them) welcome on a team, that today we count our Blessings and talk about what it is we really love about our Paladin friends... or... perhaps enemies too! What do you love about playing as a paladin, playing with a paladin, or playing against a paladin anywhere in Azeroth or Outland?
New Pally buff graphics leaked from BC
Well we've seen new armor, we've seen new mounts, and now we even see new animations from BC. Pallysucks points us to this forum thread in which Aireon from Arthas shows us a bunch of leaked animation graphics that look pretty sweet if you ask me. I've mirrored the files here for everyone to check out. First, as a bonus, here's what's purported to be the Pally PVP set. Nice shield! New Pally seal animations: Wisdom, Command, Crusader (I like that one, reminds me of the DAoC graphics) And others: Holy Shield, Blessing of Wisdom (think that one looks cool too, can't wait to see the other blessings), and Judgement. And perhaps the best thing about this leak is that this probably means there's lots more new graphics in store for all the different buffs and heals. I wouldn't even have though Blizzard was going to revamp the current game this intensively, but it looks like they weren't kidding around when they numbered the expansion WoW 2.0. Can't wait to see it in action.
