spellpower
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Spellpower 101, or how I learned to love unified attributes
The big patch today is changing the way stats work in WoW. In its own way, it's as much of a change as combat ratings were in the pre-BC patch. Specifically, there are two major stat changes coming: Hit and crit rating will be will no longer have separate stats for melee and for spells. Both spell hit/crit rating and melee hit/crit rating will now simply be hit (or crit) rating. This will mostly benefit hybrid classes; for instance, +hit for a Paladin will make both their spells and their melee strikes more likely to land. +Damage and +healing are getting unified into one stat: spellpower. This latter change could use a bit more explaining, and that's the main subject of this post.
Arcane Brilliance: Preparing your Mage for patch 3.0.2, part 1
Each week Arcane Brilliance patches itself with new Mage content. These weekly patches are always full of buffs, and never any nerfs. They never contain any changes made for the sake of class balance. There are no bug fixes; because Arcane Brilliance has no bugs (or at least no bugs that can't be retroactively called "features"). This week, the patch notes read as follows:Mage: New spell: Polymorph: Corpse - 1% of base mana, instant cast, 50 yard range, transforms the target into a corpse, making it dead. While dead, the corpse cannot attack or cast spells. Lasts however long it takes for the target's ghost to run back to their corpse. Mages can now equip plate armor. Mana no longer goes down when casting, it instead goes up. Next week, I'll complain about this patch. It's totally not powerful enough. Also, Warlocks are OP.All signs point to this coming Tuesday being the day patch 3.0.2 arrives and turns the game on its head. Up will be down, left will be right, dogs and cats will live together, mass hysteria will ensue. We need to prepare for this coming insanity, if only so that we're able to give snarky answers to the many questions that will pop up in trade chat after we all log back in. I expect lots of "LOL WUT HAPPEN TO MY TALENTS?" and the occasional "I used my mount and it disappeared! Bug?"This week will be the first of two columns in which we'll go over the changes most important to Mages that we can expect come Tuesday. We'll begin with general changes, and move on to the altered trainable spells. The second part will appear Monday, and will cover the three talent trees and review the many changes we'll find there. Jump on past the break and we'll get started.
Spiritual Guidance: Everything you ever wanted to know about raid healing at level 80
Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of PlusHeal, a new healing community for all restorative classes. This week Matticus offers his opinion and experience on raid healing at level 80. Find out about how Matt manages his mana, his take on whether Priests really are "useless", skills needed to thrive, and just how hard it is to heal tanks. When I write blog posts about Priests, I don't like to rely on speculation. I am certain there are many Priests (other healers even) who want to know what the next age of Wrath healing will look like. I am not a Shaman, a Paladin, or a Druid; therefore, I cannot speak from their perspectives but I have seen them in action. I am not a theorycrafter. I can't break everything down into numbers for you. There have been a few blue posts asking for healer feedback and maybe this post can offer some insight.That being said, this post is drawn from my experiences as a healer in both normal (10 man) and heroic (25 man) versions of Naxxramas and Obsidian Sanctum. I won't tell you what I think should get nerfed or buffed; I will, however, tell you how I coped with the challenges that the expansion brought forth.
Breakfast Topic: The simplification of the game
One of the key reasons behind WoW's runaway success when it launched was it made MMORPG's accessible. Quests were tracked, instances were on rails and progression was clear. Other games on the market at the time were deeply complex affairs that required players to spend more time outside the game researching it than actually in it playing.As time went on WoW became more complex in an effort to continually challenge its players. New game mechanics were introduced and corresponding stats showed up on items to deal with them. Classes took on new roles and new game mechanics were introduced to cater to it. Multiple sets of gear became necessary to deal with the many different encounters available in Azeroth and the Outlands.But now, with Wrath, Blizzard is simplifying the game to a great extent. Item stats are being merged or removed (hello, +Spellpower.) Different classes are approaching encounters the same way (all tanks are getting better at AE abilities). Raid boss mechanics, which only a small percentage of the player population has seen, are being reused in more accessible encouters.So the questions is: Do we want a more simplified WoW so we can spend more time playing and less time analyzing dps charts or is the complexity of the current game part of the appeal?
Ask a Beta Tester: Spell power, phasing, and more
The image above has almost nothing to do with the content of today's Ask a Beta Tester, but I found it funny so you get to deal with it. We'll jump right into things with Turfing's question... I have a priest alt getting close to 70. Planning on doing healing come Wrath. With the conversion to spell power should I be picking up healing gear or damage gear right now? How is, for instance, Spell fire stacking up against Primal Mooncloth? Is spellfire actually able to heal better right now in the beta? How about damage?I strongly recommend hopping over to Wowhead's Wrath site and doing some research on how the numbers turn out. In most cases, DPS gear has better DPS stats (hit, crit) and Healing gear has better Healing stats. The spell power numbers are just much, much closer. In your particular example, the Primal Mooncloth Robe has more spell power than the Spellfire Robe, but it has mp5 and the Spellfire has crit. A DPS spec/class would rather have the crit.A few weeks ago I covered the effects of the spell power change in Hybrid Theory, with some raw numbers to look at. You can read that over if you'd like, but I mostly just suggest hitting up wotlk.wowhead.com for specific items.For more answers to your questions, read on!
Insider Trader: Faction recipes for enchanters
Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.Last week we took a look at some of the more popular and requested enchants and how to get them for yourself. I also promised that I'd continue the faction recipe series by taking a look at enchanting for this week. So far, I've talked about the following professions and which factions hold appropriate recipes: Designs for jewelcrafters part one, and part two. Plans for blacksmiths. Recipes for alchemists. Patterns for leatherworkers. Patterns for tailors. Here is a complete list of the factions to which any enchanter should "suck up" and how far you'll need to take it: Shattered Sun Offensive, honored. Consortium, revered. Cenarion Expedition, exalted. Thrallmar/Honor Hold, exalted. Keepers of Time, exalted. Lower City, exalted. Sha'tar, exalted. Violet Eye, exalted.
Latest Beta build kills spell downranking [UPDATED]
A new build has hit the Wrath Beta server tonight, and while it's minor enough that it doesn't even fix quite a few bugs from last build, it does have a doozy of a change: Blizzard appears to have killed downranking, the practice of using a lower rank spell (usually, but not always, a healing spell) to save mana, prevent overhealing, or apply an attached buff or effect. They've done this by making all lower levels of a spell cost one high mana cost, sometimes more than 100 mana higher than the highest rank. Right now, it's looking like all these spells are now a percentage of base mana.
Git along, li'l dogies
Time for a little WoW blog roundup, cowpokes! Whoopie-ti-yi-yo!Making gold with second account | Full Time WoW AddictWith Blizzard's new refer-a-friend incentive, you might be thinking about opening a second account to get those XP benefits. Even better, Examino at Full Time WoW Addict shows you how to earn your raiding gold with some light multiboxing. No Wrath spoilers!Spellpower and You: Gearing in WotLK | Banana ShouldersSiha at Banana Shoulders (best blog name ever!) compares theories to practice in Wrath's current Paladin spellpower changes.Achievements and why they suck | Yet Another Warlock NerfSome people think the achievements system coming in Wrath is awesome sauce. Horns at Yet Another Warlock Nerf vigorously disagrees.Three more blog dogies after the break...
Wrath Beta patch notes: Priest
My main is a Priest. A Shadow Priest, to be precise. While I started out Holy, my Priest has always been my main and probably always will be. The only thing that could possibly draw me away is my Protection Paladin, should my raid ever need another. Obviously, the very first thing I looked at in the Wrath Beta patch notes were the Priest notes. I've talked about what we saw in Alpha, and I was cautiously optimistic at the time. After seeing these notes... well... yeah, I'm still optimistic. I am (dare I say it?)... excited, even!I'll tuck my analysis behind the cut, but here are my three favorite notes out of the Priest notes: New Talent: Improved Spirit Tap (Shadow) - Gives you a 50/100% chance to gain a 50% bonus to your Spirit after gaining a critical effect chance from your Mind Blast or Shadow Word: Death spells. For the duration, your mana will regenreate at a 25% rate while casting. Lasts 8 sec. Lightwell (Holy): Cast time reduced to .5 sec, down from 1.5 sec. Charges increased to 10, up from 5. Now breaks from any attack that hits you for 30% or more of your total health. Cooldown reduced to 3 minutes, down from 5. Shadowform (Shadow): Now has an innate 30% threat reduction. Now has a shapeshift UI.
WWI '08 Death Knight Demo: General Impressions
We learned at the Q&A panel on Saturday that Death Knights will be starting at a new area just off Eastern Plaguelands called Ebon Hold, but for now, it remains unimplemented. Thus, these demo Death Knights start at Tirion Fordring's house in the west of Eastern Plaguelands.On Death Knight Gear and Gear Mechanics: They start with a complete outlay of green gear with DPS Warrior type stats: strength, agility, critical strike rating, and stamina. Their sword itself is blue quality 2 hander named the Massacre Sword. It does 127-191 damage at at a speed of 3.1 seconds, giving it 51.3 DPS. It also provides 22 strength and 23 hit rating. It should be noted that the gear did not have spellpower, and it doesn't look like Death Knights will need it at all. Almost every spell that did magic damage specifically stated that the damage was modified by attack power. This is perfectly in line with Blizzard's recent trend to simplify and consolidate gear, which they discussed in relation to Retribution Paladins at Saturday's class panel. Perhaps we'll even see this mechanic show up on other magical melee hybrids in the future. The Death Knight came loaded with 6 runes on their rune weapon bar: 2 Blood Runes, 2 Unholy Runes, and 2 Frost Runes. Talents points were unavailable with this demo, although we could see the talent descriptions themselves. Death Knight Starting Spells and Playstyle: The Death Knights started with a few basic skills: Blood presence:Requires level 55Costs 1 Blood RuneInstant cast, 1 second cooldownDescription: Strengthens the Death Knight with the presence of blood, increasing damage done by 15% and healing the Death Knight by 4% of damage dealt. Only one presence may be active at a time. Blood Strike:Requires level 55Costs 1 Blood RuneInstant cast, 1 second cooldownMelee rangeDescription: Instantly strike the enemy, causing 60% weapon damage plus 55 for each disease effect on the target.Icy Touch:Requires level 55Costs 1 Frost Rune Instant cast, 6 second cooldown20 yard rangeDescription: Deals 217 to 235 Frost damage modified by attack power and reduces the target's ranged, melee attack, and casting speed by 15% for 20 seconds.Death Coil Requires Level 55Requires Runic PowerInstant cast 30 yard rangeDescription:Unleashes all available runic power, causing up to 460 shadow damage modified by attack power to an enemy target or healing up to 460 damage from a friendly undead target.Death GateRequires Level 55Costs 1 Unholy Rune10 second cast, 15 minute cooldownDescription: Returns you to Ebon Hold (Note: Since Ebon Hold is not yet implemented, in the demo it returned you to Tirion Fordring). Death GripRequires level 55Costs 1 Unholy RuneInstant cast, 35 second cooldown.30 yard rangeDescription: Harness the unholy energy that surrounds and binds all matter, drawing the target toward the Death Knight and forcing the enemy to attack the Death Knight for 3 seconds.Plague Strike Requires level 55Costs 1 Blood Rune and 1 Unholy RuneInstant cast Melee rangeDescription: A vicious strike that deals weapon damage plus 37 and plagues the target, dealing 350 shadow damage over 12 seconds. Casting these spells uses up the listed runes, which have a cooldown of 10 seconds. Our (lucky) play tester reported that the system felt a bit like having 3 seperate mana pools with their own spells, but that the pacing seemed to work well, and that she was now interested in actually trying one out in when beta rolls around where she hadn't been before. Introducing the Knights of the Ebon Hand After roaming about a bit and killing stuff, Elizabeth stumbled upon Light's Hope Chapel. This venerated base of the Argent Dawn had some new guests known as the Knights of the Ebon Hand, lead by a night elf named Siouxsie the Banshee, a Death Knight trainer. It's likely, of course, that these NPCs will be gone and moved to Ebon Hold once it's implemented, but for now, they gave us a sneak peek at the new Death Knight faction and some of the spells Death Knights will get post-55.
Hybrid Theory: Healers, hit, and homogenization
Welcome to Hybrid Theory, where we discuss all things hybrid in the World of Warcraft. Hybrid Theory is brought to you each week by columnist/blogger Alex Ziebart.Brace yourselves, ladies and gentlemen. Today's Hybrid Theory is purely guesswork and speculation. In no way will I pretend that these are facts, and you should not take them as such. It's a topic that grabbed my interest, and it's something I really enjoy trying to figure out despite the missing pieces of information we don't have yet. I welcome all of you to add your thoughts on it in the comments section below. Perhaps we can get a decent idea of what's to come.Let's get started, shall we? In the previous weeks of Hybrid Theory, we've discussed all we knew about some of our favorite classes. During this discussion, matters of itemization often came up. Most notably, the new Spellpower mechanic. This would allow healers and DPS classes to use the same gear, but Healing spells would get twice the benefit.First thought is that DPS and healers will share gear. Right? Well... maybe. Possibly. There are a lot of factors we don't really know yet. While it isn't always the case, for some classes there is a pretty large divide between gear that is good for a caster and gear that is good for a healer, and the deciding factor isn't how much damage or healing is on that item. In some cases you'll be able to switch seamlessly from DPS spec to Healing spec and not need to change your equipment, but trying to optimize your gear in both cases is not going to be so easy.
Bornakk on item scaling in WotLK
We're already seeing some significant changes to the way gear works in Wrath of the Lich King. However, in a thread on the official forums about the ever-increasing character level cap, Bornakk steps in to set at least a few minds at ease regarding the way gear will scale. He says the developers don't plan on overhauling gear in Wrath quite the same way they had when TBC came out. So, while the items will be more powerful, we shouldn't see the same disparity between WotLK items and pre-WotLK items that we did for BC gear and pre-BC gear. It won't be like you'll pick up a green from a level 71 quest that replaces your S4 gear. But there's a bunch of stat changes in WotLK that've already been revealed. Does this mean the spellpower changes will go back through all of the BC gear, or is it just that the item level is going to remain a steady scale? Or will unified spellpower only be available in Northrend? Eh, we're only in Alpha right now. Just the notion that Blizzard is aware and considering this issue is enough for now, and I guess we can wait and see how the drops will look.
Combat stats and spellpower consolidated on Alpha
Sources are saying that a new Alpha build showed up on the WoTLK Alpha servers yesterday, featuring a few interesting changes. Kalgan's promised spellpower change we have mentioned, and it now appears to be on the Alpha servers. In addition, it looks like the dev team is working on consolidating even more stats. As of the latest build, all instances of haste rating, hit rating, and critical strike rating on gear will now modify both physical attacks and spells at the same time.
No pure +damage gear in Wrath, claims Kalgan
In an out-of-the-blue quote from an otherwise unremarkable PC Gamer interview, Tom "Kalgan" Chilton, WoW's lead class designer, was asked what might be changing in Wrath of the Lich King. He responded that they would be doing away with +damage-only gear, and adding talents that would convert +healing to +damage and vice versa, which would allow magic DPSers and healers to use "the exact same gear."Hold on, what? If I'm reading this correctly, it means they basically want damage caster gear and healer gear to be identical.
