stat-mechanics
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The Daily Grind: How stat-heavy do you like your game mechanics?
Playing Allods Online, you will not find yourself simply raising one stat even if all you do is swing a weapon at something. See, there's one stat that increases your overall damage, another stat that improves the range of that damage (so you're more likely to hit for a higher number rather than a lower one), and a few other stats that also affect something as simple as "how hard do I hit." It's not simple by any means, but it does provide an interesting dynamic wherein your primary stat isn't all that high, and you hit for astonishingly consistent amounts. Is that a good thing? Well, some players will be quick to point out that the game is doing with four stats what could really be done with one. Others like to have that amount of fine control over a character. So today we ask: How stat-heavy do you like your game mechanics? Do you want even the simplest character to be looking at seven or eight different numbers at all times, or are you happiest when you've got a choice between three stats at most? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Spiritual Guidance: The mechanics of shadow priest haste
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Every Wednesday, shadow priesting expert Fox Van Allen rains sheer purple destruction down on all who oppose him. Proceeds from this week's Spiritual Guidance will be donated to Li'l Sebastian's favorite charity, The Afghan Institute for Learning. Haste. It's a really easy to understand concept, right? It makes spells get cast more quickly. The end. Except that's not quite the end. Haste reduces the casting time of our spells, sure, but there's a limit to how much it can do so. Haste also make our DOTs tick more quickly, meaning there are certain levels of haste where our DOT spells gain an "extra tick." These factors give different weights to each point of haste, creating weird, nebulous concepts such as haste soft caps and haste plateaus. With a little bit of math, we can pinpoint the exact value of haste where these caps and plateaus are said to exist. But how much weight should we give these numbers? And how should these numbers affect how we gear?
