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Faced with Nerf or nothing, we choose Nerf
There's nothing elegant or alluring about Nerf's DS Lite Armor cases, but they look protective enough to guard against even the most rugged lifestyles. The $12.99 ensemble holds the handheld close with a plastic shell and swaddles it with Nerf's unique foam padding. Nothing short of a tactical nuclear weapon (or a puppy that loves to chew on your valuables) will penetrate its cushioned coat. Though GameStop advertises that the cases won't be available until next month, Fanboy reader PW was able to acquire one early by setting his DS clock ahead. According to his impressions, the extra padding allows people with "giant gorilla hands" to finally play games on a DS Lite without having to suffer hand cramps. We've got more photos of his Nerf DS Lite Armor after the post break, so don't miss out on those. You should note that while PW's case is orange, that particular color isn't listed as an option on its packaging or on several online sites. Maybe this is an in-store-exclusive edition? You might want to head to a brick and mortar shop if you want to purchase one anyway, as GameStop's online product page states the following gem: "The DS Lite Nerf Armor comes in 4 colors: Pink, Blue, Black and Green. Colors are chosen at random when shipped."Who's the genius that came up with that plan?!
A case for patience on the PTRs
You'll forgive me for trying to inject a little reason into a nerf debate (an impossible task, probably), but that's what I'm about to try and do anyway.Yesterday, mages, warlocks, and shadow priests were up in arms about the changes on the test realm to the tailoring epic outfits. Blizzard was experimenting with adding ability stats to the armor while nerfing spell damage, and tailors went ballistic over the changes. And so, within a matter of hours, Eyonix announced on the forums that the changes had already been reverted and would not go to the live servers.Now, yesterday I said the nerfs weren't that big a deal, and since then, I've seen some good points that say they were-- lots of people spent lots of time and gold getting just these recipes together (some even leveled tailoring for just these pieces), and it definitely presents a problem to make serious changes to gear that people have already sacrificed a lot for.On the other hand, there were good reasons behind the changes as well. As even a few tailors have said, these crafted pieces matched up to the Tier 4 and 5 pieces, and I see problems with basically requiring clothies to be tailors to be competitive in the endgame. Many warlocks cried the most about the changes, but because +spell damage doesn't translate directly to most of their DOT spells, in many cases, they would actually be the least affected (Update: In hindsight, I shouldn't have judged how affected anyone was by this change. But that's not the point of this article-- read on.)But my point now isn't to argue whether these sets should have been changed or not. What I want to point out now is that being outraged on the forums and yelling at Blizzard about something that's happening on the test realms will actually impede the developers' abilities to make good changes on the live ones.
Kalgan on Retribution
Everyone wants to DPS. And if a Paladin wants to DPS, he's likely to look at the Retribution tree. However, that tree has been somewhat de-emphasized as of late; the developers have out and said that the Paladin is a tanking/healing hybrid, and its DPS is meant to be somewhat sub-par. Of course, this implies that Ret is not a very strong talent tree: if Pallies are meant for healing and tanking, it stands to reason that Holy and Prot will probably be stronger trees than Ret.Indeed, many players are currently dissatisfied with the state of Ret, and Kalgan (a.k.a. Tom Chilton, the WoW designer responsible for classes, among other things) recently stopped by the forums to chat about Ret a bit. Here's what he had to say (the responses are scattered through this thread):However, while I don't disagree that there aren't many highly rated ret pallies, it's worth pointing out that there also aren't many highly rated prot warriors, destro locks, balance druids, survival hunters, enhancement shamans, etc. While trying to get each spec to be arena viable in the different formats is a noble goal, the reality is that it isn't an immediate goal for every spec to be optimized for every aspect of the game (arenas, battlegrounds, solo-ing, raiding, heroics, etc). In the case of arenas, it seems to me that getting each class reasonably represented in highly rated teams is a more important goal, and unfortunately the paladin class happens to be somewhat grossly over-represented in this regard. So...there's too many Paladins in arenas, therefore they can't buff Ret, because that would cause even more Paladins? Hm...
Breakfast Topic: Why do you keep playing?
Some people call them "nerfs." Some people call them "balance." (And usually this is exactly proportional to how the change impacts your own class.) But however you want to phrase it, gameplay in World of Warcraft changes -- and it doesn't always change for to the benefit of your playstyle. So how do you keep yourself playing when you seem to have hit the bottom of the nerfing/balancing cycle? Reroll? Play alts? Explore areas you've ignored in the past? Tell us, why do you keep playing?
When it comes to nerfs, maybe change is good
Here's a fascinating post over on Terra Nova. Joshua Fairfield has been playing a lot of Arena PvP, and he suspects something very interesting: that the developers might not be trying for equilibrium in PvP at all. They may actually be trying for imbalance.Our assumption, he says, is that with every nerf and/or buff, the developers are trying to reach a nirvana of balance-- a game where every class has an equal chance to win when all of their abilities are used correctly. Keep in mind that the "chance to win" could only involve a percentage of the time-- Blizzard has already stated that they're working for a "rock, paper, scissors" solution, where rogues beat casters but warriors beat rogues, and so on. But we've assumed that the main goal is a balance, where as long as every class is played well, every class will win a certain percentage of the time.But Fairfield suggests the opposite-- that "games that seek permanent engagement by communities," i.e. MMORPGs like WoW, are actually working against equilibrium, and fighting to keep things constantly interesting. Mages are winning because of Pyroblast's high damage? Nerf it to make Mages use other spells. Warriors are being kited around? Give them a way out of it, so other classes have to learn new strategies.That's a wacky way of looking at game design, but it works for games like WoW because we're already expecting the rules to constantly change. Chess has an established balance-- rook moves a certain way, queen moves another way, and every game they will always move those ways. But WoW is dependent on the rules changing every patch-- if players maxed out their characters and learned all possible strategies, they'd quit paying the monthly fee. So in that strange sense, Blizzard should be happy when lots of players cry foul over a nerf-- the more players they affect with a change, the more they can keep interested. "Any change disrupts the current equilibrium," and forces players to figure out new ways to win.
Blue Notes: Wind serpents and frost Mages
Hunters with wind serpents that have a lot of +spell damage gear (??), this is for you. Ommra declares:A hot fix has been applied. This fix reduces the amount of bonus damage that the Hunter pet ability Lightning Breath receives from the Hunter's +damage gear.Well, OK then. Do Hunters really wear a lot of +spell damage? I hear the Wind Serpent is a great DPS pet, and I doubt this is going to affect it very much.And here's a development in some news that's had the Mage forums in a bit of a tizzy:Mages Increased the chance Frozen effects are broken when the target is critically struck by a spell. *This note was unintentionally left out of the patch notes but is now properly listed.I'm actually a bit confused about this -- other blue sources state that all crits will break Frozen. Hopefully we'll get this totally clarified soon; if this note here is correct, and not what Tseric wrote earlier, the Mage nerf is significantly reduced.
Mystery buff incoming for priests! [Update 2]
Yep, a mystery buff -- doesn't that sound exciting? We have no idea what it is, because the CMs don't have the go-ahead to tell us yet, but Nethaera claims it's "a positive change." And though she's trying not to overplay it, there are a lot of hopes riding on it being something good. Nethaera hopes to have more information for us on Tuesday -- but until then, it's speculation run wild! Do any of you have predictions for the priest's mystery buff?Update: Nethaera is currently telling us that we may get news tomorrow, Wednesday the 28th. Sorry to get everyone's hopes up, but hopefully we'll have some official news soon.Update 2: I believe we have the final word on improvements for priests this patch via Nethaera.
Of warlocks and their fiery little friends...
Back at the beginning of February, Blizzard removed the spell damage coefficient from the warlock's imp pet's damage abilities, causing, obviously, a decrease in its damage. Why'd they do it? Because their calculations were bugged, resulting in the imp gaining too much damage. The solution to remove all damage bonuses seemed like something of an overkill, but today they've come back and fixed it to their satisfaction, re-implementing spell damage coefficients, though at a lower level than before.In addition to this, Tseric has reports back on the long bugged talent Improved Firebolt, which reduced the casting time of the imp's firebolt ability by a half second per point. But due to the fact that the game isn't capable of understanding casting times lower than 1.5 seconds (Tseric is not specific, but I assume this is a pet-based limitation, since player spells do not have this problem), the second point of the talent (which would reduce cast time to a single second) wasn't granting the full benefit. I am having some difficulty typing this with a straight face, but in order to fix this, they have changed the talent from reducing cast time by .5 seconds per point to reducing cast time by .25 seconds per point.
Quiet paladin nerfing
After reading the patch notes, you may have come away with the impression that paladins made it out relatively unscathed. However, players hitting up the test realms have discovered that this isn't entirely the case. Paladinsucks is reporting that Forbearance (a debuff left for a minute after being affected by one of the paladin's bubbles) is also applying a -15% physical damage debuff (conflicting reports say this may be all damage). If this makes it onto the live realms, that would certainly put some hurting on the paladin class.However, not even Tseric seems to know if this is an intended change. On the forums he tells paladins that he won't be able to confirm whether this should have been in the notes or is a bug until after the weekend. Seems like a terribly odd bug, if it is...
Is there hope for the priest class?
After seeing the latest patch notes, there are plenty of unhappy priests out there. Not only was Vampiric Embrace -- a key talent for shadow priests attempting to maintain group utility and solo viability -- reduced in effectiveness by a forth (and its ability to crit removed completely), but shadow priests also lost threat reduction and holy priests lost Prayer of Mending -- a low-cost instant-cast heal that was excellent for priests trying to heal in PvP combat that is now rendered mostly useless by its new 20 second cooldown. Many priests seem to think that these changes are the death of PvE shadow priests and PvP holy priests. Is there a reason for priest players to have hope? Well, Nethaera says there is. On the priest forums she's reassuring players that their feedback is important and saying that Circle of Healing is being looked at and Lightwell may be looked at. And while I'm happy the class is still under review for possible tweaks, I wonder if they don't need a little more than what Nethaera says Blizzard is offering. And like the many other players who have attempted to post well-reasoned and constructive feedback on the priest forums, I feel ignored, despite Nethaera's assurances that all feedback is read. But if that's the case, I have to wonder why abilities that made life easier for priests are nerfed while complaints on countless other topics produce neither response nor result. Thank goodness I've been leveling a paladin -- with strong healing talents and great PvP survivability, they're everything I used to think my priest could be.
Add cheap nerf crap to your Wii remote
Apparently the powers-that-be at Nerf feel that the existence of one set of cheap attachments to make your Wii remote look like various sports equipment just isn't enough. Sure, Nerf's set is made of their trademark squishy foam, meaning there's less chance of knocking out your little brother's teeth when swinging that mini-tennis racquet. But we have to reiterate our bafflement at why anyone would want these in the first place. It's not like attaching these things to your remote affects the way it feels to play Wii Sports -- we doubt anyone is going to mistake swinging these flimsy faux foam things to using their real equivalents. The only real function here is to make you look like a bigger doofus while you're playing. What's more, the attachments look like they actually block the IR sensor on your remote, meaning you'll have to take it off every time you want to navigate a Wii Sports menu. Stop the fun, I want to get off! [Via Engadget]
Nerf shows us the softer side of Wii Sports accessories
Wii Sports is getting Nerfed, but not in the bad way. These upcoming Wiimote attachments bring soft, friendly foam to the accident-waiting-to-happen that is Wii gaming, and we can't wait to get our hands on a set. These babies should take care of the weight and balance issues we experienced with the Brando Wii Sports Pack, though we hope they can still provide a greater challenge. Also, you can hit your friends with these as many times as you like without drawing blood. Probably. If you don't get too creative.While we're on the subject, don't forget to enter our Brando giveaway -- we've gotten more entries than we anticipated, but there's still time to get in there and get a real Wii Sports weapon. Er. We mean bat.
Nerf Sports Pack for Nintendo Wii stops the violence -- sort of
After six successful generations of hard plastic accessories, who could've guessed that generation seven would bring with it the Wiimote's penchant for screen destruction and innocent-bystander injury? That's why nobody batted an eye at those shiny and solid Wii Sports attachments for simulating golf clubs and tennis rackets in the beginning, but a few contusions later we're all looking for a way to cut down on risk. Enter Nerf with soft, forgiving, foam-built attachments for a bit of added realism for your golf, tennis or baseball game without all the pain. No word on price yet for these suckers, but we've got a feeling they'll be selling like gangbusters when they hit shelves this Summer. Hopefully next up will be a Manhunt 2 Nerf pack with various, erm, attachments for bumping the realism to Rockstar's upcoming murder simulator -- 'cause hitting your buddies with a Nerf baseball bat is only fun the first 500 times or so.
WoW Moviewatch: Nerf Druids
I know, I know -- we had such a positive discussion yesterday about cries of "nerf this!" and "nerf that!" But this compelling video evidence is awfully hard to argue with. [Thanks, Tylluan, for pointing out that Joystiq tagged this video first]
Today's overkilliest video: Nerf Druid
Finally, some hard video evidence that druids are a bit too overpowered in World of Warcraft. You can't really argue after seeing this video. Could your poor warlock, paladin, or shaman stand up to this? We highly doubt it. Hopefully Blizzard will heed the call and scale back on the druids just a tad, because while some of the other classes are pretty powerful, this one goes to 11.
Forget Warlocks, nerf Imps
Apparently, Warlocks' littlest demon friends have been performing far better than expected. This would be due to receiving way too much of Warlocks' +damage bonus. To remedy the situation, a hotfix has been instated that removes Imps' spell damage coefficient entirely. Drysc: We will be implementing a hotfix this evening that temporarily removes the Warlock Imp's spell damage coefficient as it was performing far in excess of our intention. This will remove any spell damage bonuses from improving the Imp's attacks. We are currently on schedule to be implementing the correct values with the next patch. While we are able to effectively block the spell damage bonus with a hotfix it will require a client side patch to input the intended spell damage bonus the Imp is receiving. Overkill? Certainly. But if they couldn't hotfix it to the right value, I suppose underpowered is better than imba. Thoughts?[Thanks, Tim]
Warlocks nerfed; every other class throws a party
Rumors have been flying all day, and now it's official: warlocks on the beta realms have been nerfed. From Nethaera: I just wanted to take some time to drop in and reassure people that the change to the dots is intentional as a part of ongoing balancing that we have been doing. It is not a bug. Just so that everyone knows a bit more the approximate damage reduction is 10% for "Curse of Agony" and "Corruption" for the average Warlock. It looks like this is achieved through lowering the +damage coefficient for DoTs; specifically, Warlock DoTs now seem to be receiving somewhat less than 100% of your +damage. This means that well-geared Warlocks with high +damage will feel more pain from this.Well, everyone asked for it, and now they've got it. Warlocks got a whack with the nerf bat. Did they deserve it?
All aboard the nerf train in the BC beta
If you haven't been on the forums for a day or two, you may not have noticed: the devs finally pulled the nerf bat out for the expansion. Lots of classes are running around crying their heads off (droods I'm looking at you), there's lot of flaming going on, and the world is generally coming to an end. You haven't noticed? Strange.So here's the changes that freaked everyone out so bad. These appeared in the patch notes for the beta server, which we posted here without fanfare when they first showed up. Warriors got a big change to rage generation that, as far as I can tell (there's a lot of math involved) gave a nerf to anyone carrying around a two hander. Rage was normalized, especially on crits, so people are reporting from 3-4 to up to 10 less points of rage per crit damage. Of course, as gear gets better, so will rage generation, but the warriors aren't thrilled. Mage AOE took a hit, as well-- right now, AOE hits any number of mobs in a certain area (hence, "area of effect") for the same damage. After the patch, AOE will diminish (see point number 6) after a certain number of mobs-- beta testers are saying it's around ten or so. I didn't think this was a big factor (because when are you really fighting more than ten mobs, but I was proven wrong tonight in ZG, when we found countless numbers of panthers and spiders and the AOE was necessary to finish them. Hunter pets got "normalized" (more math-- anyone want to try explaining this simply), which means Cat pets will see a drop in damage and Bears will see a small gain. Also, Hunters aren't thrilled that The Beast Within (one of their BC skills) was nerfed to a 10% damage bonus from a 30% damage bonus. But they aren't crying nearly as much as the... Druids, who got hit big: there will now be a one second cooldown for all shapeshifting abilities. Also, feral druids were very excited to be able to use consumables (and weapon procs) in bear and cat forms, but the devs say that was apparently a bug, and it's not happening in the beta. That has got druids torn up more than anything else, so there is QQing aplenty over on the druid forums (though there may be hope yet). Now, I'll leave it to you guys to determine whether or not these changes are deserved or necessary. Right now I'm playing a Shaman and a Rogue, so I'm pretty much staying out of it, but feel free to unleash your rage (or, in Cat form, your energy) in the comments below).But I will say that I think it's inevitable the nerf bat had to be brought out eventually. Blizzard has been exceptionally generous, I think, with these expansion talents and spells (don't forget, mages still have Invisibility, and almost all classes are getting completely new spells and strategies to use), and so I'm not surprised at all that these changes came about-- and I won't be surprised if more show up as well (Shamans, I still expect a dual wield nerf for us).But at the same time, the Mage and Druid changes confuse me a little bit. AoE seems so fundamental to the Mage class, and you'll rarely hit 10 targets in a PVP setting, so why bother nerfing it in PVE? And even if the Druid consumable problem is legit (and I think it is-- Druids shouldn't be able to be replacement warriors in every situation), the devs just call it a "bug"? That's a pretty big bug to let float by for so long.Anyway, have at it. And if you've played on the BC server, are these changes as much of an issue as everyone thinks they are? Or is this stuff all just creating a river of tears for nothing?
Nerf FEAR!
We've all been there -- cheerfully minding our own business in a battleground when along comes a warlock to ruin our day. Fear, dot, dot, dot, fear, shadowbolt, fear, shadowbolt... And you've died with nary a chance to defend yourself. You may be tempted to run to the most convenient forum and yell "nerf locks! nerf fear!"Well, people of that persuasion, I point you towards Stylewalker's Nerf Warlocks FAQ, which covers all the bases on why fear isn't always an "iwin" button. Like how it's on diminishing returns (on a shared timer with seduce, even) and breaks on direct damage (and becomes more likely to break on dot damage with more spell damage gear). Does fear alone win fights for warlocks? I doubt it -- I've fought with plenty of horrible players for whom fear wasn't near enough to win a fight.
Because your Wiimote needs armor
The Wiimote is dangerous. This is undeniable; never before has a video game controller come packaged with such sheer potential for mayhem and insanity. With all that bat-swinging sword-slashing gun-firing nonsense, a few skulls are sure to crack ... and despite Nintendo best efforts (read: a wrist strap), some safety freaks might need a little extra come these holidays. Worry no more! Some recently leaked shots of some warehouse somewhere (actually, it's a CompUSA storage facility) shows off some nice controller "gloves" in a multitude of colors (pictures after the break). More intriguing, but sadly without images, is the news that Pelican will be manufacturing a "Nerf Wii Remote" and a "Nerf Nunchuk Controller Wii", as listed on amazon.com. Oh, how we long for the squishy days of yore![Thanks, Ali!]
