fearward
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Patch 2.3 and you: Et cetera edition
With the bonanza of upcoming changes coming out, there are a few categories that don't have enough changes to merit posts of their own. These are their stories. We're adding new relics to support all talent trees in patch 2.3 for Shaman, Paladins and Druids. In addition, (not that this will sweep you off your feet), most of the arena-system relics have been renamed so there is a more consistent naming convention. (Eyonix) Those who completed the [Tempest Keep] attunement process will have access to the title "Champion of the Naaru". Also, the plan is to hard-cap it at 70, meaning you can't go back at 80 and "cheese" the title. (Eyonix) We're looking into potential improvements for earth shield, and even lightning shield (Eyonix) Fear Ward will be available to all priests at level 20, but there are some changes in addition. Current plans are to reduce duration to 3 minutes, and increase the cooldown to 3 minutes.To give the dwarves and draenei something else to even it out, they'll see a new ability called Chastise (also given at level 20) which will cause holy damage and incapacitate the target for 2 seconds. (Drysc) Yay! Fear Ward for all! Racials are still a stupid idea, in my opinion, but this takes some of the sting out of them. A new title, and some new relics are both very welcome; the current relics are in many ways a bit silly.
Blue Notes: Fear ward for all, and a faster Armory
Apparently, Fear Ward is going to be a spell for all priests as of Wrath of the Lich King. This is indirectly confirmed by Nethaera. In response to a post translated from German that implies a universal Fear Ward, the candle said:This is true that we plan to spread Fear Ward around, but don't expect it until most likely the expansion. There's a bit of a difference between "spread it around" and "for all races," but still, I'm betting on every race getting it just to end the debate. And it looks like the URL change is not the only refreshing the Armory is getting today; the "first phase" (ooh, there's more?) of Armory optimizations has gone live: Smarter, faster results pages: The Armory's various search results pages respond more quickly when changing pages or sorting within the results. The Armory's right hand panel also takes advantage of this new speed and now remembers what page you were last viewing as well. Faster item tooltips: The tooltips that appear when mousing over items in a character profile or an item search results page are now much more responsive. Open Armory links in new windows/tabs: Now you can open links from the Armory in their own tabs or windows for quick comparisons between profiles, items, search results, and more. New advanced item search button: This button takes you to the Armory's powerful advanced item search options and is located in a prominent, convenient location under the main search field. And much more: Many more specific improvements have been implemented, the details of which can be found on the Updates page. In addition, general performance has been greatly improved in the areas of response time, loading time, and memory usage. Neat. The Armory is an indispensible tool, and making it faster is a big plus. The item tooltips still don't work in Camino, my browser of choice, but I'm told that's a Camino bug and not really Blizz's fault.
The latest on Priest racial abilities
Starting its life as a brief comment at Dungeon & Raids panel at BlizzCon 2007 ("We are going to do something about Fear Ward for the Horde."), we're now getting some interesting news on the future of the Priest's racial abilities. Says Drysc, post-BlizzCon:I think the general consensus among the designers is that ultimately priest racials were ... a poor choice to make... I'm not sure how many remember, but priest racials were created because there was player concern over how an Undead could appropriately wield the healing powers of the light, and the racials were added to give flavor which could back up some of those player concerns. Aside from some probably poor decisions on what that flavor should be, ultimately it was a concern that players would ultimately have benefited from if we had simply ignored it. It could be addressed any number of ways (everyone is given everything, or it's cut down to a small pool of abilities which everyone has access to, or only specific abilities are passed to different races, etc.), and I don't believe a final decision has been made at this time.So it looks as though Priests are looking forward to a future without distinct racial abilities. And while I'm sure that some Priests are happy about that, I'm thinking that those who picked their race for a specific skill (Dwarves and Draenei, in particular) might not be. Which side of the camp do you fall on -- are you glad that Blizzard is addressing the issue, or wish they'd just leave it be?
Remember, fear isn't going to be a big factor in the expansion!
That was the logic used by Blizzard to give Fear Ward to Draenei priests instead of Blood Elves. This comment runs through my mind every time I get feared into mobs in Steamvaults/Underbog/other instances, wiping the group due to something I cannot control. I hate mobs that fear in PVE. As a rogue, there's nothing I can do to control or stop the fear aside from permanently staying outside melee range. (No, I'm not undead.) I haven't even done Nightbane yet, who is apparently another Nef-like encounter that involves major fearing. Sure, tremor totem can help, but if you don't have a shaman you're sort of boned. This isn't another Alliance-has-it-easy complaint -- I know that most Alliance groups probably don't have a dwarf or draenei priest, and many of the "fear" effects are actually horror and aren't stopped by Fear Ward. The mechanics of PVE fear are annoying to everyone, from gnomes to tauren, and I sincerely wish it had some kind of counter -- either by reducing its appearance in instances or giving all priests Fear Ward. It's an overdone and repetitive mechanism that no one actually likes. Looking at the forums, it seems many people agree with me. And surprisingly enough, a good share of the complainers are Alliance. A dwarf paladin notes that he "loves getting stuck between a wagon and its wheel or falling through the world" after a fear, a human warrior hates that you can't stance dance past insta-cast fears, and a night elf priest says that "it's pretty uncreative to make the frustration factor in instances solely based on one spell for almost twelve instances." So do you think fear is overused, or do we just all need to lrn2play by pulling mobs further back and clearing large areas?
