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Cleavage buffed on PTR
The PTR has changed once more. Sure, the star changes are rollbacks on the Life Tap nerf and Flametongue buff, but there is at least one other change that I think is highly significant. Expect a Patch Note Watch soon exhaustively detailing every change that made it into the patch notes. Until then, however, enjoy the following:Cleave, Multi-Shot, Swipe, Chain Lightning, and Avenger's Shield will no longer hit targets that are under the effect of CC spells that break on damage, such as Polymorph or Sap. This includes Felguard Cleave and the Chain Lightning effects caused by various items. As far as I can make out, this is all spells that hit multiple targets, but are not AoE; Thunder Clap, for instance, will still break sheep. Edit: Whirlwind, Sweeping Strikes, and Blade Flurry do not seem to be included. Overall this change is, frankly, awesome. The implications for tanking alone are highly pleasant, as well as for Hunter and Elemental Shaman DPS. I'm starting to get excited about patch 2.4 all over again.
WoW Rookie: Knowing your place in an instance
Last week on WoW Rookie, I showed you the instances you might want to run in your first forty levels. This week, I'd like to tell you more about what to do when you get there. As you level up, playing your intended role becomes more and more important. There are three (or four depending on who you ask) main roles in an instance: tank, heals, damage (dps), and crowd control (cc). The typical instance team includes a tank, a healer, and three dps/cc characters. Read on for more about these specific roles.
Cautiously cracking crowd control
In any fight where your group is fighting multiple mobs, you're going to want to have some version of crowd control. For those that play tanking classes the challenge comes not when the fight begins and the mobs are tied up with freezing traps or polymorph, it comes afterward, when the time comes to break said methods of control. As Karthis mentions in a recent post on Of Teeth and Claws, breaking crowd control successfully is more of an art form than you might think.First, there is the concept of threat. Each method of crowd control angers a monster to varying degrees. Add to this the other abilities a crowd controller might have used previous to controlling the mob -- a hunter plinking away at the mob a few times to get its attention, for example -- and the CC'ers threat is pretty darn high. The monster, once they are free, will have eyes (and claws) only for the group member that kept them tied down in the first place. It makes sense, honestly. I know if someone shackled me to the ground for a minute or so I would be pissed.
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?
Fear and how to fix it
Draele just started a blog about being a Warlock called Rantings of the Afflicted, and today he's got a post up about that most heinous of Warlock abilites: yes, none other than fear. A touchy subject (to say the least), but he offers three different suggestions on how to make fear fun for everyone.At its base, fear is actually Blizzard's way of trying to come up with another game mechanic. If you're a veteran MMORPG player, you know there are three archetype classes-- healer, DPS, and tank. All three of them are centered around damage-- either getting rid of it, doing it, or tanking it. Fear, however, plays with none of those rules-- it's a complete damage negator. The reason Warlocks have fear is so they can wear cloth and yet stay alive for a long time against one target-- long enough for their DoTs to come in.The problem with fear, however, as even the developers have admitted, is that it's not fun for the person being feared-- getting feared leaves you with almost no option but to sit there and do nothing. It removes control from your character, and that's never fun.So how can we fix it?
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: The Holy Trinity?
Every week Matthew Rossi writes The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to the class everyone can aspire to except blood elves. Why can't blood elves be warriors? Because giving Taunt to blood elves would be redundant. The common wisdom is that there are three roles in an instance. You have your DPS, who kill things. You have your healers, who keep things from killing you. And you have your tanks, who keep the things you intend to kill from killing you first. It's a concept so simple and widespread in WoW that most people refer to it as 'The Holy Trinity'. The only problem with this beautiful theory is, it's wrong. When I first thought about it, the glaring omission was CC, or Crowd Control. You have CC to help the group by deciding which mobs you're going to try and kill first and prevent other mobs from trying to kill you while you do it. Eureka, I shouted from my bathtub (almost dropping my laptop), there are four lights! But the more I thought about it, I realized that I'd fallen into a subtle trap. There aren't four roles, there are still only three.CC, DPS, and healing. And that's it.
Conjecture Countdown: 2 days to go
Even with a diminished E3, there's no controlling the wave of rumors that hit the Internet every year before the show. Why fight it? From now until E3 hits, we'll be posting one piece of wild speculation every day. Some may be patently ridiculous, and others just might turn out to be true. Even some of the ridiculous ones might turn out to be true! Rest assured, everything will be totally made-up and unfounded. Except, of course, when we speak about all the ass Reggie is going to kick. That part? Totally true.Rumor: The dentist game we've all been expecting since Nintendo first revealed the Wii remote will finally be announced. Titled Open Wide, this orthodontic release will feature minigames like filling cavities and fleecing parents out of thousands of dollars by recommending that their children wear braces for the next decade. Though you'll be able to trade dental x-rays with your friends, online multiplayer support will not be included. According to developers, working with Nintendo's WiFi connection was like pulling teeth. Har har har!
Circuit City trims HDTV selection, blames 1080p for slipping sales
To be perfectly honest, it's only disappointing that it has taken Circuit City this long to realize that relying primarily on the sales of highly marked-up HDTVs to boost its bottom line was a direful decision. Still, it is impressive to see the company finally break away from its past and "no longer regard TVs as the centerpiece of its product strategy." Reportedly, the firm will soon be eliminating many models from its floor, giving users fewer selections and aiming to sell more 42-inch and under models that may fall below the magical $1,000 price point. Interestingly enough, CEO Phil Schoonover was quoted as stating that his outfit had really been "emphasizing 1080p, maybe to its detriment," and noted that 720p ought to be "good enough" for today's modern shopper. Right, we're sure the plummeting sales have nothing to do with that Wally World across the way.[Image courtesy of ICSC]
Build Shop: Hunter 5/13/43
Welcome back to Build Shop! A short break was taken due to some technical difficulties, but here I am once again. And although I had previously claimed to have covered every class, it appears that I was mistaken: I missed Hunter! Therefore, as a thank you to the person who brought this to my attention (let's call him Mr. X), I will be reviewing his Hunter build. (To Mr. X: you didn't give me a screen name or anything, and I'm not sure if you want your real name attached to this. Drop me an email if you want me to credit the build to you.)This build definitely falls into the "strange" category. You've all seen enough raid builds and leveling builds, time for something a bit different. Here's how Mr. X describes the build:This Hunter idea just caught my attention, the ability to control 5 mobs, freeze trap, wait for cool down (24 seconds), wyvern sting pull, concussive shot another, one gets trapped, drop a trap for another, you pet tanks the last, 1 sleeping, 2 trapped, pop readiness, drop trap for the last, call pet back, wyvern sting the one it was fighting, relax a moment or two, back up, send pet in at first wyvern sting, let loose, then back to the second wyvern sting, trap cooldown should be up, retrap first ice block, fight the second ice block, have pet grab third ice block, mend pet, take out, and retrap the last ice block, step back, send in pet, let loose again. 5 mobs down, 1-2 minutes.-in a goup this hunter could have some fun too. the ability to free 3 targets, for 26 seconds each, pull a group of 6 in end game instances, rogue and mage in group, 1 sap, one sheep, and 3 ice blocks, then a wyvern sting mid combat should it be needed, and chain trapping one of the 3, the group can take out 1 enemy at a time, even in a group of 6, or without mage and rogue, still stop 5 for a period, life becomes really easy at this point. plus expose weakness on the 1 target everyone is fighting. this could be especially helpful with boss adds, since freezing traps arent specific to a specific target type (i.e. humanoids, beast, undead, etc)
Who needs CC anyway, amirite!?
Crowd control is definitely helpful, that I'll agree. It's much easier to do a Shadow Labs run with two mages who know how to sheep. But I also have to agree with sydney over at WoW Ladies: CC is far from necessary. You can have a great group and still fight all of the mobs all of the time.Gear, of course, makes a big difference. If your shaman has a few epics on him, chances are he can take a few hits before the tank has a chance to grab a mob off. And a group with tons of DPS can do really well at tearing down a mob as they pull them-- I've played in groups where we never once bothered with sheeping. We just had so much DPS that when we pulled something off of the tank, we killed it before it could hit anyone.Not to mention that even if you have a group without CC, there are plenty of abilities that you can use as CC. During my Heroic Slave Pens run this past weekend, we had me (a resto shaman), a prot warrior and a holy priest, a moonkin druid, and a warlock. Whoops, no sheeping or traps, right? Nope, but we did have cyclone, chain fear, my elemental pets, and mind control. Ok, well, my elemental pets did drop pretty quick (it was heroic, after all), but incredibly (even though we were a little undergeared for the instance), we made it far enough to pick up two Badges each. Yeah, the mind controller gave us a little trouble, but it was getting late anyway, so we called it.CC helps, and you do kind of need the basics (tank, healer, and DPS, although it's true that even with those, you can make some subs that don't seem possible), but the truth is that the limit of your group is the limit of the players in it. All of the classes have some ability to keep mobs out of play (or just keep them busy for a little bit until you're ready to fight them). It's just up to players to think of creative ways to do so.
Discount retailers want to sell more handsets
With 65% of U.S. mobile handset buyers going to carrier outlets and counters to buy all those handsets, that leaves the other 35% of US wireless customers looking at other sources for all those cellphones by our math; physical and online retailers pick up that slack. Which, exactly? Wireless Week reports that powerhouse retailers like Best Buy, Radio Shack, Target and Wal-Mart are (unsurprisingly) doing their part. Hey, are those calling plan commission bells we hear? Anyway, Wal-Mart has gained ground from the days of selling low-end phones and plans, offering a decent assortment from more than a few carriers these days; Best Buy is doing well also, while Radio Shack -- once chummy with several carriers -- is apparently being beaten badly by the bigger consumer electronics and discount chains, and the news that its outlets won't be getting the iPhone in store can't be easing the heartburn. Of course, we figure this kind of fierce competition can only be good news for consumers, so bring it on; if the big boxes want to beat carriers' corporate stores dollar-for-dollar on handsets, you're not going to hear a peep of complaint out of us.
Caption contest: eternal rest inside a Nokia
Yep, it's a coffin. Mobile phones have become such a critical part of our daily lives, and apparently they're becoming a critical part of our deaths now, too -- but if you're going to spend the rest of eternity inside a single phone, do you really want it to be a Nokia 7250? Seriously?Chris: "Giving 'Early Termination Fee' a whole new meaning."Ryan: "Nokia: connecting dead people."Paul: "Of course it comes with an FM radio!"Sean: "Though it will never pass the pocket test, the coffin does include the rarely used AG2GP (Audio Grave to Grave) Bluetooth profile."Evan: "*Casket will only work in certain graveyards, $200 reburial fee applicable"
HD DVD looks Circuit City's way, compels independent filmmakers
Although the most recent reports (well, in the US, anyway) have insinuated that Blu-ray disc sales are claiming the lead over HD DVDs, you can bet the (currently) losing side isn't sitting around idly. While various parties have claimed victory over the other, it looks like the HD DVD camp is opening up a previously closed door by pushing Toshiba players into Circuit City stores. Apparently, Circuit City hasn't been exactly fond of carrying Tosh's HD DVD units up until now (or vice-versa), but getting the devices in front of hordes of potential buyers has reportedly enticed a myriad of HD addicts to pick up said units. While a spokesperson for Toshiba declined to get specific, she hinted that having its second-generation players in the big box retailer's store for just a few months allowed them to "eclipse the lifetime sales of the company's first-generation players." On a not-so-surprising note, it seems like consumers might see even steeper price drops sooner due to the newfound BD pressure, and in a presumed attempt to find yet another genre to grab tight to HD DVD, Microsoft is joining the team in order to persuade independent filmmakers to consider the format. Of course, only time will tell if the little guys can actually make it on the high-definition format, but you won't see us complaining with HD DVD titles hitting stores whilst never making their silver screen debut.
Deal of the Day: Zelda Wii on the cheap
Priced at $37.49 US (including free shipping), The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is the lowest price we've seen for a Wii game yet. Sadly though, Circuit City's website will not allow you to purchase the game and pick it up in-store, meaning you'd have to wait a few days for it to arrive on your doorstep. Now, we also understand that pretty much anyone who bought the Wii already also bought this game, so this could possibly be useless news to a majority of you. What say you all?[Thanks totufa!]
