Mortal Strike
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Patch 5.2 PTR: More class and set bonus iteration from Ghostcrawler
As testing continues on the patch 5.2 PTR, so dose the iteration from the design team. Some of the highlights from this round: Druid Maim damage has been increased by 100% Druid Cyclone range nerfed a bit due to PvP Warlock 4pc bonus now increases Demonic Fury from all spells by 10% Some changes with Arms warriors were rolled back Ghostcrawler and his team also note at the end of the piece that these design iterations are typical for a PTR. Moreso many of the changes they make on their internal builds never go live, so even though this list is large, in some respects, it could be a heck of a lot worse. Ghostcrawler is right when he says this is pretty normal; since they started making directed design comments after each downtime, this level of iteration is par for the course in just about every aspect of the game's design. Ghostcrawler's full post after the break.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Patch 4.1 PTR Warrior changes
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host. It wouldn't be a patch without warrior changes, and patch 4.1 is nothing if it isn't a patch. What are the really big standouts from an initial overview pass of the changes? Rallying Cry is a new ability that seems to work like Last Stand for the entire party or raid. Colossus Smash now only lowers armor by 70% for 6 seconds, down from 100%. Intercept stun is reduced to 1 second. In addition, Juggernaut will no longer increase the stun duration of Charge. Whirlwind will now reduce its cooldown by 6 seconds if it strikes four or more targets. Several arms abilities have had their damage increased, from Mortal Strike (175% weapon damage) to Overpower (145% weapon damage) to the talented Improved Slam (increases slam damage by 20/40%, up from 10/20%). These are most likely intended to compensate arms for losing Colossus Smash's armor penetration, indicating that nerf was aimed at fury DPS. Finally, Improved Hamstring will now also reduce the global cooldown on Hamstring by half a second for 1 point and a full second for two. Less stunning for warriors and more snaring seems to be the order of the day.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Fury demolishes entire cities in 4.0.1
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host. Forget Deathwing. After the horrible start fury got in 4.0.1, it saw some buffs that have made it an extremely beefy DPS spec again. While we may not be topping the meters in all fights, we're certainly putting out some very solid DPS numbers. "Solid" depends on your gear, of course, but my mixed-geared night elf can easily push out 9-11k in a heroic, and my much better-geared draenei can easily put out more if the boss stays alive long enough. With the ICC buff, fury is once again competitive for the top spot (although much less likely to own it) and is no longer a hindrance to your raid. And if you're not a raiding fury warrior, with the change to the justice point system and the removal of ratings on PvP gear, it's never been easier to get solid DPS gear (like I did for my night elf, above). The gearing requirements are different now, the rotation has changed and we have new glyphs to consider, so while the damage is solid again, there are some real differences to consider.
Patch 3.2 PTR: Priest changes in build 10072
A new build for patch 3.2 hit the PTR recently, and all of the related Shadow Priest changes are things that the recent Q&A hinted toward or straight out told us to expect. Let's not waste any time here and dig right into the changes. Vampiric Touch now deals more damage when dispelled. (Max rank deals 1360 damage, previously 680) Definitely not a surprise here. I've been saying for a long time that this component of the spell needed a significant buff, Ghostcrawler agreed, and doubling its base damage can probably be considered that. We'll still need to see it in action to determine if it's enough. If it's not enough, at least it's closer, and that's something. Devouring Plague cooldown removed, can now only be applied to one target at a time. This is a change I long expected, and despite Ghostcrawler initially seeming iffy on it in the Shadow Priest Q&A, the simple fact that it was mentioned made me more hopeful that it would happen. And it is happening! So I'm pretty happy about that. There isn't much more to say. It'll make playing a Shadow Priest much less frustrating when it comes to encounters where you're swapping targets a lot. Yogg-Saron, I'm looking at you.
The future of healing in the Arena
If you've been in the Arena during Season 5, you probably have noticed a particular change to the way gladiators fight. It can be summarized in a single word: "Damage." In the bygone days of Season 4, drain teams and Mortal Strike debuffs were all but an entry requirement to high ranked play. Without a strategy to reduce or nullify your enemy's healing, you were unlikely to produce sufficient burst DPS to actually kill anyone. A few double-DPS teams managed to thrive, but for the most part, a gladiator's number one priority was shutting down the healer. That dynamic is all but dead in Season 5. Players output such a high level of damage compared to other players' health that healing is almost a non-factor in most matches. My friends, Ghostcrawler is aware of this dynamic, and is looking into it. (It turns out, Ghostcrawler mostly plays a healer in the Arena.) As stated by the crab himself, the Arena should not simply be about burst damage. (Nor, however, should it be solely about healing or solely about crowd control.) Of course, Ghostcrawler does admit he has difficulty saying what the long terms plans are going to be. The design team hasn't had enough whiteboard time to say anything with complete honesty. But he also hopes that as more Resilience gear enters the PvP system, the damage might scale down to be more reasonable. (To quote, "It's mostly just math.") Still, there's hope that future teams will include more than just seeing which team can burst down the other first.
Shifting Perspectives: State of the class, part 1 - Balance
Every Tuesday, or possibly Thursday when the writer votes on Tuesday and spends Wednesday screaming and beating her laptop over formatting errors, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting Druids and those who group with them. This week Allison Robert steals John Patricelli's column once again, secure in the knowledge that she will never be forced to atone for her crime as long as she writes something nice about ferals and keeps a respectful distance from Dan O'Halloran's whip.I hate Tauren cat form.Good. I got that out of my system and can write something productive. Although, believe me, if I could get away with it, an entire Shifting Perspectives would be devoted to just how much I hate Tauren cat form. I mean, just look at it! Look at the angle on the horns! The cat can't bite anything! Christ, I just -- hi, Dan. Yes, I'm totally writing the column! Look at me go!This week, mindful as always of American election-year politicking, I'm going to borrow a page from presidential duties and write a little something I like to call "State of the Class." Druids have undergone a number of changes in the transition to Wrath of the Lich King, and will acquire even more as they level to 80. We are one of Blizzard's primary targets for both gear and role consolidation, which raises a few questions over how comfortably we're going to scale in relation to pure classes and what we can realistically expect on the march to a new level cap.The TL:DR version of this article -- I believe our future is generally bright, the Druid community continues to have a few concerns over certain aspects of the class, our focus in PvP seems to be changing the most, and I hate Tauren cat form. This is a three-part post, so let's get started with balance. However, if you want to jump ahead to feral, you'll find that here; and the third part, restoration, is here.
Phat Loot Phriday: Arcanite Reaper
Yes, the Reaper, like 40 man raiding, has basically gone the way of the dodo. But with the coming of the Arcanite Ripper and even more references in Wrath, you kids today might not realize that there was once a weapon that everybody simultaneously loved and feared.Name: Arcanite Reaper (Wowhead, Thottbot, Wowwiki)Type: Rare (yes, it's not even Epic) Two-Hand AxeDamage/Speed: 153-256/3.80 (53.8 DPS)Abilities: +13 Stamina (this was before resilience was introduced to the game), +62 Attack Power (which is still substantial, but back then was phenomenal) And the main reason the Reaper was so nuts was because of it's slow attack, but high damage. Back in the day, before things got all normalized, Mortal Strike was the shiznit. It was an instant attack based on weapon damage, and since this weapon's damage was so high, pushed forward by the Attack Power bonus, Warriors basically owned PvP back around early level 60 times. In fact, you might even be able to trace the current population of Warriors back to this weapon alone, and for that reason, it's earned not only a place in Warriors' hearts, but in Blizzard's culture as well. I should also mention Shaman and Windfury weapon here, because back before all the changes were made to Windfury, and even before Shammies could dual wield, one Shaman with Windfury and this weapon could one-shot almost anyone. Nowadays, everything's mitigated, with nerfs and resilience and all the changes to endgame and Arena PvP. But back then, the Arcanite Reaper ruled the roost. Which explains why it's everywhere -- the Arcanite Ripper is a direct rip, if you will, off the old weapon, and brought many a tear to a Warrior's eye when it returned to the game as a guitar. The skin has also been reused a few times, as with the Spinal Reaper. And in the next expansion, there'll be an heirloom item bound to account called the Bloodied Arcanite Reaper, so all of your two-handed melee characters can relive the old days as they level up. Oh, and take a close look at that summoned Felguard running towards you while the Warlock's DoTs are ripping you apart -- he's carrying an old Arcanite Reaper as well. How to Get It: Here's another reason why the Reaper was such a big deal -- not only was it the best weapon to have for any class that wielded two-hand melee and counted on Attack Power, but it was craftable and BoE, so pretty much anyone who wanted one could get one. The plans drop from Bannok Grimaxe, a rare spawn found in Lower Blackrock Spire, which is actually an instance that's getting some traffic nowadays with not one but two vanity pets and an achievement in there. You can probably solo to him without too much trouble, but the drop is the problem -- it's only around 6%, so you've got to be lucky.But maybe you can find a Blacksmith with the plans already -- in that case, you'll need 20 Arcanite Bars, six Enchanted Leathers (made by an Enchanter from a Rugged Leather and a Lesser Eternal Essence), and two Dense Grinding Stones. Not a tall order, actually (yet another reason why this weapon was so popular). Melt it all together, and voila, you've got a classic weapon. Won't do much good these days, as mechanics and upgrades have rendered the once great Reaper into a not very attractive blue. But don't tell any grizzled old Warriors that -- they'll make you remember the old days whether you like it or not.Getting Rid of It: Sells to vendors for 6g 57s 36c. Disenchants into a Large Brilliant Shard. Has killed more Mages than you'll ever meet, consarnit!%Gallery-33600%
Forum post of the day: Freakin' frogs
Ftoomsh of Aman'Thul is hopping mad that Shamans will be getting Hex in Wrath of the Lich King. Green with envy, she feels that Mages are already being rendered obsolete in PvE. Polymorph as a unique ability should not be added to a pool of skill for more classes to draw from. The original poster jumped to the conclusion that giving this ability to Shamans make Mages completely useless. Baah, I say. Hex is similar to Polymorph, but is definitely not the same spell. You might even say it doesn't go the whole nine yards. Several of the responding post reminded Ftoomsh that the Hex ability in its current form only lasts ten seconds. On top of that it set to a one-minute cool down while Polymorph has no cooldown but diminishing returns. The frogged character will be in control of their movement, but ill not be able to cast with the debuff. I'd like to add that Hex does appear to lack the healing mechanic of polymorph.
Build Shop: Warrior 31/27/3 for Season 4
Every Tuesday, Chris Jahosky contributes Build Shop, which takes a look into one of the many talent specs available to players. This week, Michael Gray guest writes to talk about the perennial Warrior build for the upcoming Season 4. If you're like me, you're looking forward to June 24th with almost breathless anticipation. New season, new ratings, new competition. And like hundreds (thousands?) of others, we have a Warrior sitting patiently at the stables, prepping for the gates to open. He sits there, foaming at the mouth, smiling nervously at his partner Druid or Priest, with Mortal Strike almost literally visible in his pixellated eyes.Build Shop has discussed Warrior hybrid builds previously, but that 28/33 build was focused on actual hybrid play - a mix of PvP and PvE. The classic Arena-based "Mortal Strike Hybrid" starts off with at least 31 points sitting in the Arms tree -- you can't have a "Mortal Strike Hybrid" without Mortal Strike. Mortal Strike is a foundation of the Arena build. While there's leeway earlier in the Arms and Fury trees for this build, the deeper in the trees you get, the more certain talents become "mandatory."After the break, let's talk about the talents and whirligigs that make the Mortal Strike Hybrid so popular and powerful in the Arena.
WoW Insider on the Arena Tournament server tonight!
After my weekly dose of Battlestar Galactica* the WoW Insider team will be logging onto the Arena Tournament Server for some hot arena action. What's hot about it you ask? Why our 3-11 record! Also hot is the spec I'll be going with - an actual honest to God Mortal Strike build.In all seriousness, we've got a great team of people getting together that are starting to learn to play with each other. Our record will improve, and we'll have some fun while playing some great matches. So if you haven't already signed up for the Arena Tournament (it's only $20), go do so now and come over and fight your favorite authors!Also, I'll be frapsing most of our matches tonight, so if you get lucky, you might just find yourself in a WoW Insider video. Who? The WoW Insider Arena Team and you!What? Arena BattlesWhere? Arena Tournament Server OneWhen? 10:00 p.m. CDT, tonight So what are you waiting for? Grab your sword and fight the Horde!
First impressions of the Arena Tournament Server
Last night Amanda Dean, Amanda Miller, and I got together and fought a few arena battles. We were online and fighting between 10:00 p.m. CST and midnight (timed so I could watch the first showing of Battlestar Galactica, and Amanda D. could watch the second – we write for a computer game website, what do you expect?). The server itself was interesting, and the matches were a blast.We've been at this before on the Tournament Test Realm server, which was the "beta" version of the Arena Server. There was only one server and everyone could make a character, so it was often crowded and slow. On the Arena Server, you have to register to enter the Arena Tournament, which costs $20. Only then can you get on the Arena Server. This makes things a bit more manageable in terms of population and server stability. There wasn't much lag or other issues.One thing that I found was the queue times were very fast. We didn't have to wait more than 10 seconds to get in a game. We were playing 3v3 matches, so this might have had something to do with it; as I'm sure the queue times were higher for 5v5 or 2v2.If you're wondering, and I'm sure you are, our team name is "WoW Insider" on server one, and we're named "insideradam", etc... How many matches did we win?
Upper Deck introduces Traitor cards for the WoW TCG
Those of you who are fanatics of the WoW TCG have probably heard of the new Servants of the Betrayer expansion already, but even if you have, it's worth checking out this new article on the official Upper Deck TCG site. It goes into greater length about the philosophy behind the new cards, and introduces the basic ideas, mechanics, and lore behind the new Traitor Heroes. While "Servants of the Betrayer" rightly assumes you'll be able to control Vashj and Kael, they decided that they did not want to make those two central to deck building, since they already plan to release a new Black Temple raid deck later on. Instead, they will be possible allies of a new series of "Traitor Heroes."
Best arena hunter in the world now banned?
I'm still not sure what to make of this, but according to a number of very upset hunters on the official forums, Blizzard has handed a permanent ban to a player known as Megatf, said to be the best arena hunter in the world. His Armory does in fact show him as being #2 in his battlegroup (Reckoning) for 2's, #1 for 3's, and #1 for 5's, so even if he wasn't the best in the world, the guy knew a thing or two about PvP. The ban is popularly attributed to Megatf's having posted criticism of how Blizzard has handled the Hunter crisis in arena. It's certainly tough to argue that hunters are doing well; they are the only class that is underperforming in all three brackets, even by Blizzard's standards and months after the introduction of an MS-debuff to Aimed Shot.A player called Macrospamftw (yeah, I laughed) insists it's because Megatf was posting content and links that contained keyloggers, which sounds a lot more plausible than mere criticism (let's face it, if CM's banned people for that, the official forums would be a ghost town). But the player Guinevere counters by saying there were no links in the banned posts. Poking around a little more resulted in additional details: Megatf often posted while tipsy and was prone to foul language. That's certainly more than enough for a forum ban, but a permanent one?Megatf does seem to have vanished from the forums completely. Not only are the threads in question gone, but according to the hunters, Megatf's popular post on Hunter PvP has also disappeared. Do any of our readers know what's going on?
Scattered Shots: The line of sight between hunters and the Arenas
I'd like to take a break from the hunter leveling goodness we've had the last few weeks in Scattered Shots to take a look at where hunters stand as a class in Arena PvP, and where we might be going in the future. Blizzard developer Kalgan's measurement of how the different classes are faring in the Arena got me thinking quite a bit about the state of hunters -- currently functioning at the lowest place with 50% or less representation in the three Arena types at high rating brackets, followed by mages and shamans, in the 2vs2 Arena especially.What in the world is causing such a huge discrepancy between hunters and other classes when it comes to high-rating arena representation? When I play in Arenas and Battlegrounds, I don't feel like my class is somehow deficient or underpowered. My team's Arena rating is average -- we're not the best, but not the worst either. When I get beaten, I usually feel like the other team actually played better (or outgeared us, at least), so it's rather hard to see what's so messed up about hunters.The most obvious issue I can think might be the issue is that of Line of Sight. Hunters obviously have a rough time shooting at things behind sort of obstacle. In battlegrounds there are more wide open spaces, so it seems less of an issue there, but in Arenas it can get fairly annoying. Classes like warlocks and shadowpriests can just put a damage-over-time spell on you, and then hide behind a pillar, while druids can move freely around obstacles to give them plenty of time to heal themselves between your attacks. Warriors and other melee classes can hide for a bit, then get in so close that you can't use your best ranged abilities on them for a few seconds until you can somehow get away.
Lifetap and Flametongue changes rolled back on the PTR?
While the PTRs are still down to apply the latest round of changes, World of Raids has already sniffed out a few changes and additions to the latest patch files. Possibly the most interesting change is the fact that the Warlock Life Tap nerf seems to be currently completely reversed. The spell is restored to its 2.3 status, with the highest rank swapping 580 health for 580 mana at the base value. In addition, the Mortal Strike debuff appears to have been removed from the description of the Flametongue weapon and totem for Shamans. Priests will now also be able to dispel up to 10 friendly and 10 hostile targets using Mass Dispel. Also added this patch were the musical files for the Sunwell, as well as a handful of new effects with names such as "Quest Complete," "Summon Festival Scorchling," and "Guzzle Beer," which look to most involve the seasonal content for the Midsummer Fire Festival. Welcome to progressive patching, folks. This is an incredible turn of events for sure. Not only is one of the most controversial nerfs in WoW history completely reversed, but it seems that Shamans can't quite celebrate their re-ascension to PvP power just yet. These could be temporary, of course, and we'll see what happens when the dust settles. If Blizzard has simply decided to revert these changes in the short term, how will they tackle the underlying issues of Warlock mana usage and Shaman PvP viability? Will they put it off for another patch, or take a different angle as testing continues? We'll be eager to find out!
Is Mortal Strike the new black?
What's up with Mortal Strike? And why is it, when Blizzard feels that a class or spec needs to be made viable in Arenas -- and let's face it, the game is all about Arenas now, isn't it? -- they give them a Mortal Strike-style debuff? When the developers were figuring out how to raise Hunters' representation in Arenas, they changed Aimed Shot in Patch 2.3 to give a heal-gimping debuff similar the the Arms Warrior's bread and butter ability. Enter Patch 2.4 in the PTRs. When Kalgan finally descended upon the Shaman forums, he said that Shamans were definitely getting buffed just in time to quell the wake of an uproar to the nerfs made to the Elemental spec. Along with the reversal of the Nature's Swiftness and Elemental Mastery shared cooldown, the current iteration of the progressive patch is seeing a change to the Shaman's Flametongue Weapon and Totem, which happens to be -- surprise, surprise -- a Mortal Strike-style debuff. Yawn.While it's certainly a welcome change, considering that Shamans get so little love, frankly it's getting a little boring. Allie mentioned calls for putting the buff on every class (Mortal Sheep or Mortal Portal for Mages is a classic), so this begs the question... is a Mortal Strike-type ability the only way to make a class or spec viable in the Arenas? Aside from the fact that Mortal Strike Warriors are conceivably the most popular class & spec, healing debuffs are clearly one of the game-breaking abilities in Arenas. With Resilience making crit-based and burst damage specs less and less viable, is there really a need for another Mortal Strike? Can't Blizzard make another buff to make a spec Arena-viable without using the same old trick? What do you guys think? How much more creative can you be?
Mortal Strike for all!
In the wake of the most recent PTR change to Flametongue Weapon applying a -50% healing debuff over 5 seconds and -- it now appears -- the Flametongue totem itself doing the same for others' melee attacks, a number of forum threads have popped up questioning the increasing number of these debuffs in the game. The funniest asks, "Is there some sort of Mortal Strike non-proliferation treaty that stops me from having Mortal Strike on my priest?" (short of Hex of Weakness, I guess). Suggestions include an MS effect on Crusader Strike, "MORTAL SHEEEEEEEEP!", and "Mortal Portal" for mages.The best argument I've seen is not that Mortal Strike or MS-like effects like Aimed Shot are themselves imbalanced, but they're bound to seem that way if healing is overpowered in PvP. Healing per second is nearly always more efficient than damage per second if you're specced for it, although that's cold comfort to yours truly while resto-specced and under heavy fire in battlegrounds or arena. Nobody knows if the newest version of MS is really going to help Shamans in arena, but between this and the nerf to drinking, it does look more and more as if PvP is increasingly being balanced around the notion of healers staying exposed (and vulnerable) for longer.
New Flametongue bugged
As predicted, Enhancement Shamans got some nice buffs yesterday, including the addition of a Mortal Strike-like effect of reduced healing to the Flametongue weapon.But the weapon hasn't quite had the desired effect yet on the PTR. In fact, as World of Raids has posted, it actually does exactly the opposite. As you can see above, Flametongue is actually adding to heals on the target of the attack, not halving them as its now meant to. No doubt this will be fixed before long, but a note to whoever's working on the Shaman class on the PTR: you should have used that minus sign in the code there, not the plus one.
Build Shop: Warrior 41/20/0
Welcome back to Build Shop! This time we're checking out an Arms Warrior Poleaxe build (41/20/0), and what a good time to do it, thanks to the newly implemented changes to the talent trees in patch 2.3. The Arms tree for warriors has a long and illustrious PvP history, and it's just gotten even stronger. Moving Death Wish out of the Fury tree clears Warriors up to go deeper into Arms to pick up those last few talents and is a very welcome change for me.This is an Arms build mostly focusing on PvP using a Polearm or Axe, but shift those 5 specialization points around depending on what weapon you're using.
Paladins and Warriors in the Arena
Relmstein has been doing an excellent examination of the two seemingly strongest forces in the Arenas-- Paladins and Warriors. His second column probably should have come first-- he did a breakdown of Paladin and Warrior numbers on some of the top teams in the Arenas, and as you might have expected, they're out there. Out of the twenty teams he looked at (the top five teams on four different battlegroups), 15 had at least one Paladin and one Warrior, and 18 had at least one Paladin or one Warrior. One top team (Pretty Standard on Stormstrike) even has one Paladin and three Warriors-- two Arms, and one Fury.So now back to Relmstein's first post on the subject-- what's the deal here? Arena is singular among most of WoW's PvP in that it isn't about capturing flags or nodes or completing objectives or earning points for your team. It's all about staying alive. And no one does that better than Paladins and Warriors. Combine that with the fact that both classes have amazing talents for either keeping others alive (Paladins can heal and stay alive), or negating the opponents' attempts to stay alive (Warriors can stay alive and do Mortal Strike), and you can see why Warriors and Paladins are so valued in the Arenas.This doesn't mean Warriors and Paladins are unbeatable-- a Paladin needs mana, and a Warrior can be counteracted by crowd control like fear and Hunter traps-- but it does make the classes tailor made for getting in fights and remaining upright at the end. Blizzard has already said that they're fine with letting certain classes be stronger in some areas than others, so it seems, as Relmstein says, that in Arenas, the Arcanite Reaper days are back. Beware Mortal Strike and the Paladin healer in the Arenas.
