schwick
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Patch 3.1 and beyond, a look at what's after Wrath
Looking for the latest patch 3.1 information? Check out WoW Insider's Guide to Patch 3.1!We've got the hot pre-Wrath patch 3.0.2 coming soon, with the much-anticipated Wrath of the Lich King storming along in mid-November. But the game doesn't stop there. Blizzard's already planning for the time after Arthas stomps his kicky, icy little boots into Northrend. The big-MVP-on-campus Schwick has already started building his "what we know" thread for 3.1 and beyond. I'll grant that what we know right now is a little slim, and doesn't include the myriad of buffs and nerfs we should expect after the expansion. Schwick -- and WoW Insider -- will keep you updated as more information becomes available. For now, after Wrath releases, we're already expecting: Icecrown Citadel -- A raid instance for groups to explore, this will be released after Wrath's initial live date. A built-in Outfitter -- The ability to organize your gear in convenient, logical, and easy-to-swap functionality. Now you're in tank gear, and then one second later, now you're in DPS gear! Guild Bank upgrades -- Better controls and organization for the often-ninja-plagued Guild banks. Personally customized tabards -- The ability to create your own, personal tabard. Of course, there's a lot of stuff on the "to-do" list that isn't necessarily going to be put in 3.1. Dance studios, cross-server chat functions, and account-based achievements, to name a few.
EU MVP Schwick takes a break
EU Forums MVP and community member (and friend of WoW Insider) Schwick, he of the Warcraft Weekly and the occasional "what we know" roundups, has decided to take a step back from posting as much in order to finish up his schooling. He's aiming to be a game developer, and so while he's still planning on doing the occasional roundup, he's stepping away from his weekly posts to focus on schoolwork.Which is kind of a shame, as his posting was a huge boon to the community. But on the other hand, school is much more important-- focusing on school now will definitely let him do this kind of work more later.So a big thanks yet again to Schwick for all his hard work, and here's wishing him good luck in his studies.
At last, Warriors, you will know the power of a Community Class Review
Warriors, turn and face the community! Once again Schwick has compiled a list of what the EU forums put forth as the issues of a specific class, this time our buddies in plate without mana, the warriors. You've seen what the community had to say about druids, about rogues, priests and hunters. What do they want to see changed for warriors? Here are a few highlights.Block valueCurrently Block values aren't affecting Warriors that much. An idea to make this stat more desirable could be to enhance the Threat levels of Sunder Armor and Devastate based upon Block values. This would also help with the aggro generation on mobs/bosses.I can't really say I disagree with this one. I'd like to see more done with block.Improved Mortal Strike While Mortal Strike is nice, this talent doesn't help much. Most Warriors agree that the reduced cooldown and more damage don't have much affect. Removing this with something more useful might help. I see a lot of warriors saying this, but while I get the logic that speccing that deep into the tree loses you fury talents like flurry, I still find myself agreeing with WarriorPWNS when he argues for Imp MS. The talent could maybe use a little buff, but it's hardly useless.If you're keep to see what the posters had to say (including what seems to me to be a lamentable focus on gutting fury of all its good PvP talents in exchange for, well, nothing) then take a look here, s'il vous plaît.
Community class review from the EU: Druids
The EU community MVP Schwick is really great at compiling lots of good info. In the past, he's done compilations on issues raised by the community for Hunters, Priests, and Rogues, as well as a bunch of other stuff. Now he's come up with the first draft of his compilation on Druids. He asked forum-goers what their main problems with the Druid class are, sifted through all the responses, and put them together in a very readable format for the Blizzard devs (and other players) to have a look at.It seemed to me that most of the Druid issues had to do with items and abilities not scaling so well in endgame raids after Karazhan. There were some points that addressed other general issues, as well as arena PvP, but overall casual druids seemed pretty content. There wasn't even any mention of the graphical updates to the shapeshifted forms that many druids have been asking for.Keep checking the thread to see what additional thoughts the players had, and to see future drafts of the compiled suggestions.
Community class review from the EU: Hunter
MVP Schwick continues to compile community-driven class reviews. This week he has completed his summary of Hunter issues. Within it are standard complaints about itemization, PvP & raid viability, certain talents being useless, etc.But what makes this different is than most QQ class posts is that solutions are offered. This one in particular stood out for me:Being able to customize a pet is what makes being a Hunter fun...Adding Collars to pets might help increasing the uniqueness. A collar will be a new Hunter item slot for the pet. Some ideas are:- Increases focus by XX- Increases crit chance by XX- Increases hit chance by XX- Increases ability YY by XX- Increases Armour by XXThis will also deal with such things as Hunter pets not scaling with crit and hit chance.Check out the post for the complete post. Next week, Druids are up for community review.
Community class review from the EU: Priests
Yesterday, we spotlighted a class review of Rogues done by the European players on their official forums. Turns out MVP Schwick asked the EU players to review Priests the week before. They also took into account the upcoming Patch 2.3 Priest adjustments.Issues brought up covered Priest performance in the areas of PvE, PvP, Raiding, Utility, DPS, Healing, Itemization, and Racials. Despite some argument over Priest's biggest problem, everyone agreed on the following: Holy Priests are not in enough demand for raids Spirit needs its mana regen increased Mana issues plague the class PvP survivability is a big issue Holy talents needs buffs Priests are too fragile A more thorough explanation of the issues along with a list of other concerns can be found in the original thread.Next week, the community class review will focus on Hunters.
A Rogue class review by WoW's European players
In the past, MVP Schwick of the European forums has solicited players for their opinions about how their class can be improved. Now he has put out a call to the readers for a list of issues concerning the Rogue class in particular.Schwick read through all the rants, complaints and well-thought out solutions. Then he compiled the best suggestions into one post. In it he covers Rogue issues with PvE, PvP, itemization, talents, abilites and combo point abilities.There is no guarantee that the Blizzard devs will see the list, but if they are looking for class issues, this thread would be a great place to start.Check it out and let us know if you feel anything needs to be added.
Class improvement ideas from the European forums
MVP Schwick on the European WoW forums has compiled a weekly list of the best class improvement suggestions culled from the boards. He usually organizes this list by theme, but for this week its a free-for-all of interesting concepts. Here are the highlights: Talah of Ravenholdt would like to see Paladins improve their ability to heal multiple targets by changing how Holy Shock works. Neerco of Thunderhorn would like a player to be able to click off DoTs they've placed on mobs before they've run their full course. This would be helpful if a DoT'ed mob needed to be CC'd. Moolik of Arathor would like Tier 4/5/6 armor to be tradable with the reward NPCs for all the class variation sets. For example, once a Druid picks the Restoration set, he can then turn it in for the Feral set if he changes specs. Umah of Frostwolf has many, many suggestions to make playing a druid more fun. And Kalpothyz of Al'Akir wants Priest buffs to have lower mana costs so he can get back into the Battlegrounds without losing half his mana bar to rebuffing. What do you guys think of these suggestions? Solid improvements or L2play?
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Beyond Patch 2.2: Schwick's compilation of verified info
Patch 2.2, currently in testing on the PTR, has some great improvements like voice chat and reporting AFK'ers in Battlegrounds. What it doesn't have is any new, big, sexy chunk of playable content. So when are we going to see the post-Karazhan 10-main raid zone, Zul'Aman? New Heroic Badge rewards? Guild banks? Oh, we already know that last one.Forum MVP Schwick on the WoW European forums has compiled a list of known updates in Patch 2.3 and beyond. He often provide reference links to his sources form many of his future patch notes, which makes him an information god in my book.He also goes on to list all the verified information about the WotLK expansion. I thought I had read all the info that was out already, but on Schwick's list I found items I didn't know, like the fact that Blizzard has a plan to deal with the fact that the Horde doesn't have a fear ward. Or that Naxxramas, the last raid zone introduced before TBC launched, will be repurposed in the new expansion. Or that new shaders will be introduced for shinier graphics. Mmm, sparkles.Check out Schwick's post if you want to get a look ahead about what's known for future patches.Screenshot of Zul'Aman boss models courtesy of MMO-Champion.com.
EU Warcraft Weekly posts 100th issue
EU Forums MVP Schwick has posted episode number 100 of his Warcraft Weekly forum feature, and it's a humdinger. It's got lots of tidbits from around the forums, including Blue posts, the best of fan posting, and even a brand new comic based on forum comings and goings called Forum Life (there's quite a few in-jokes in the first one, but hopefully subsequent comics will be a little more about the forums, and a little less about the people running them).And in his "Specials" post, Schwick's got interviews aplenty-- he was able to talk to the devs (he doesn't get much out of them, but Elekk and Hawkstrider PvP mounts are on the way, and both a Shaman totem UI and more weather effects are being planned), and also got to chat with three of the best WoW comics artists out there-- the guys from LFG, Dark Legacy (who just hit a hundred of their own), and Chidori from The Flaming Ruby.Excellent job as always, Schwick, and grats on number 100.
All the expansion news that's fit to print
EU MVP Schwick has been keeping this thread containing expansion details relevant and updated since February (yes, February!). And after all this time, this Q&A is still the best place to go to get all of your Burning Crusade questions answered in one convenient spot. With the expansion release just around the corner, you'd hate to be caught by surprise![Thanks, Schwick]
