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Breakfast Topic: We all want to play the overpowered class, right?
'Splain this one to me, breakfast crew: Do WoW players really want to play overpowered characters? I mean, we all joke about wanting to be the OP flavor of the month. And if you're trying to level quickly or you know you're going to be playing primarily on your own, sometimes you really do need a particularly sturdy character. It's one thing to have a toolkit that works especially effectively in certain situations. I consider that to be flavor, not a sign of OP-ness -- the dungeons with DoT-based encounters that simply cry out for strong HoTs, or the bosses that demand more interrupts than some melee classes can reliably produce. But some players seem to want characters that can bully their way through whatever the game can dish out. It's that kind of gameplay, in my mind, that turns what should be a glorious adventure into a one-note to-do list. But maybe that's not the way you see it. Maybe you think being OP feels more like a reliable, rewarding way to heroically master whatever the big bads can throw at you. Does being "overpowered" make you feel capable and satisfied with the game, or do you feel hungry for a real challenge after chewing through content with ease? Do you think most players really want to play an "overpowered" character that can manhandle most of the content without breaking a sweat? Do you? What is being "overpowered," and is it a good thing or not?
Hyperspace Beacon: The SWTOR Terror From Beyond experience
Last week, BioWare launched its fourth major update for Star Wars: The Old Republic, Terror From Beyond. This new game content also happens to be the fourth operation (or raid) for the game. Eight to 16 players battle their way across the planet Asation, hoping to close or destroy a rift in hyperspace that has opened on this ancient Gree world. Along the way, many strange creatures and beings from other worlds attempt to stop the strike force from reaching its goal. Just like the other operations (Karagga's Palace and Explosive Conflict), Terror From Beyond continues the story of the Dread Masters. With each new addition to the story, the goal of these six Sith lords becomes more and more clear. Mechanically, this operation consists of five boss fights and a fairly linear path to the ultimate goal, a swirling vortex about a kilometer away from the starting point. Thankfully, none of the boss mechanics is a simple tank-and-spank ordeal, and the trash mobs along the way might cause a bump or two as well. This weekend, my guild ran this brand-new endgame addition to SWTOR in story-mode to get a taste of what it has to offer. I'd like to break down the experience into three major categories: aesthetics, boss mechanics, and overall impressions.
Breakfast Topic: What's the most overpowered class in the game?
As a PvP player, I'm very aware of the constant complaints that one class or another is overpowered, or OP as the popular jargon calls it. One moment it's feral druids, the next it's rogues, then mages, then you throw a legendary staff into the mix and all of a sudden, out of nowhere it's balance druids and shadow priests! But then, once you start to play one of those apparently OP classes, you suddenly realise what they're up against to achieve their OP state, and you might begin to realise how to counter their moves, and suddenly you're back on what feels like a far more level playing field with that class, but a whole bunch of other ones are OP. And the notion of an overpowered class can translate into PvE as well, just as nicely. Some healers have it easier than others, some DPS might too, some tanks have more in their toolkits or different abilities that cater better to some situations than others. So, that being said, what is the most overpowered class in the game? Are there genuine imbalances at this late stage of the expansion? Or are things just ticking along nicely? My nomination would probably be either mages or rogues from a PvP standpoint. Both have high burst DPS and a good amount of crowd control, which can be a pretty nasty combination to come up against. In battlegrounds, I might change my response to paladins, particularly healers. They have so, so many get-out-of-jail-free cards! And in PvE, hmm, much more tricky. I would say that Blood DKs are in a really good place right now. And perhaps arcane mages -- it feels like their relatively simple rotation ought not to yield such high DPS! What about you? What do you think? And tell me, how many of you think that the class you play as a main or second character is completely overpowered. Is the grass truly always greener?
Behind the Mask: What does unbalanced even mean?
One of the major criticisms of Champions Online is a lack of game balance. People claim that the phrase "your own hero, your own story" doesn't cover the fact that your hero might be a gimp compared to someone else's. Although archetypes have their own balance issues (even among themselves), this complaint most commonly leveled at the freeform game where there are millions of possible characters. However, I think that most armchair game theorists have a terrible understanding of what "balance" even means. Decades of competitive gaming (yeah, I'm that old) have given me a comprehensive understanding of what the term means, and I think it's worth looking at how CO stacks up.
The Daily Grind: Which class is your arch-nemesis?
Admit it: even the nicest amongst us have a deep-rooted grudge against a particular class. Our foe. Our bane. Our arch-nemesis. It's the class we squint at in anger whenever we see them pop up on the battlefield or in our PUGs. It's the class that gives us physical hives whenever we come into close contact with one of their members. It's the class that we gladly devote a nine-page rant against on the official game forums, calling for their extermination, or at the very least, to be neutered. So what's your arch-nemesis class? Is it a class that repeatedly stamps all over your face in PvP? A class that is -- obviously -- so OP that you can't stand it? Perhaps it's a class that does whatever your class does, but better and with more flair. Maybe your arch-nemesis class seems to attract more mentally unstable and emotionally immature players than usual. So get it off your chest today -- which class is your arch-nemesis?
Are Death Knights autowin in PvP?
Here's a question I'm sure a lot of players have asked themselves when faced against those dreaded Death Knights. Critical QQ wrote an interesting post in his blog theorizing that the side with the most number of Death Knights will win. Think Ret Paladin during the first week or so of Patch 3.0. He posits that Death Knights are such a powerful PvP class that they tend to turn the tide of a battle. To a degree, it's actually true. The very first Arena Master was a Death Knight. The blog post plays out several scenarios where Death Knights make a difference but doesn't get into too much detail. But the point he makes is clear, and some of you might have actually felt it whenever you played some Battlegrounds -- whichever side has the most Death Knights wins. I've never actually stopped to figure out the ratio of Death Knights in all my Battlegrounds games, but there's no question a Death Knight is a force to be reckoned with in PvP. But are they unbeatable?
Forum post of the day: Serious business decisions
WoW has changed considerably over the years, often for the better and sometimes for the worse. Better and worse are, of course, a matter of perspective. Slovotsky of Turalyon is getting fed up with people complaining about the easing of raids. He's confident that Blizzard made the choice to lower the difficulty on raids because more of the player base can now have a chance to experience them. He disagrees that casual players have ruined the game. Familiarity may also lead to boredom. Some of the guilds that have progressed through Naxx have already done so either in the Pre-BC era or on the PTR.As some pointed out, Blizzard is a for-profit business. The company's job is to sell a product, not to rule with a heavy hand or coddle the incompetent. The switch to an inclusive raiding environment was most likely a marketing decision. Caydence of Draka drove this point home, to rebut the argument that players will quit WoW because it's easier. It is simply a better business decision for Blizzard to alienate the "hardcore" players who make up a small minority. She suggested that the subscriber base has grown with each ease in difficulty.
[UPDATED] Invincible vengeance no more
Retribution Paladins continue to take a beating. As much as Ghostcrawler tried to soften the blow in his post, there just isn't any nice way to go about this -- Blizzard is looking for a way to make Divine Shield and Avenging Wrath to be mutually exclusive once again. He says that the combination of both spells contribute to the impression that the spec is overpowered. Blizzard might do this through Forebearance, but says that they're also looking to reduce the duration of Forebearance through a hotfix. This means it's a pretty serious issue considering the duration of Forebearance was also intended to balance or space out the use of Divine Shield and Divine Protection. They have no timetable for the change, although it should be expected that it will be applied soon. Blizzard doesn't seem to hold back on nerfing the Paladin class, stating that "the last round of pretty severe nerfs didn't seem to do enough to Ret's dominance of PvP".These are very fast reactions to nerf a spec that was "dominant" for all of a few weeks in a metagame that is tuned for Level 80. This is an extremely disappointing course of action in comparison to the complete absence of nerfs to Druids despite their utter dominance of the Arena format for three seasons (reducing Cyclone's range wasn't quite the solution, was it?). Paladin representation in Arenas went on sharp decline through all four seasons -- and this includes the Holy spec.[UPDATE: The nerf has been applied on live realms. So much for the advanced warning Ghostcrawler was talking about. Avenging Wrath now causes Forebearance, and Forebearance's duration has been reduced to 2 minutes.]
Be careful what you ask for
Amidst all the excitement surrounding the coming of Wrath and the beta testing revelations, I have a question. Does anybody care that Death Knights will be OP? I disagree with my fellow bloggers when they surmise that the upcoming Wrath world will not be overpopulated by Death Knights. On the contrary, I think you won't be able to sneeze without three Death Knights around you to say Gesundheit. And what's more I think they won't be a flash-in-the-pan like the Blood Elves and Draenei overpopulations were.I believe this because I hate tanking and have never liked playing melee classes (my main is an elemental shaman and my highest alt is a warlock) and yet I'm having HUGE fun in the beta realm playing a Death Knight. I've played the class PvE to level 65, trying all three specs multiple times. I no longer fear dueling. I solo group quests that are above my level. I can approach elites one level higher than myself, alone and with no fear. I just run into a group of mobs with little strategy and almost always survive. Although I think the clarity of the purpose for each spec is still a bit muddy, I see Death Knights mostly filling a tanking role. (Perhaps this was Blizzard's response to the tank shortage? Make a tank so fun to play that lots of people will play them?) And yet Death Knights have soloing capabilities like warlocks and hunters -- only they survive better. They are by far the best soloing class I've tried. For illustration purposes, I even made a goofy movie showing how badly you can play a Death Knight and still take some serious names without dying once.Blizzard has proved that it knows what it's doing over the last four years. However, the current class system even without Death Knights has always had complaints about balance. As even Blizzard itself has admitted, adding a new class is not easy. Perhaps I am wrong and the tweaks they are making to the existing classes for Wrath will make everyone feel like they are overpowered. As it is, though, playing my new Death Knight gives me such a feeling of power that I've never had in the game before that I can't imagine that there won't be a lot of other players like me when Wrath hits the shelves this fall. Will this be good for class balance? More importantly, will anybody care?
Forum post of the day: Too OP or not too OP
The news and analyses keep rolling in for Wrath of the Lich King. We've all got our pet talents and abilities we're psyched about. Everybody's going to get a shot in the arm. While Blizzard will balance and rebalance until release and then even after, some abilities stand out ad more exiting and powerful than others. Issenaril of Blood Furnace is afraid that Titan's Grip is going to be an over powered ability. The ability allows Warriors specced 46 points into the Fury tree to swing two two-handed weapons at a slowed speed. With a maximum of five points in this ability, the weapon speed will be decreased by 20 percent. He believes that this ability will massively increase Warrior DPS and make imbalanced in PvP. Liganu agrees that a 50 point Fury build will be helpful in battlegrounds, but it won't be as viable in arena combat.
