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Behold, the power of moonkin
I agree with myrch over on Livejournal-- there's been a spec creeping up in the DPS charts lately that we might not have expected to get there. Slowly but surely, these players have been finding a niche of gear, talents, and class choice and exploiting it to the fullest. While their class is known for the other two specs, a third is definitely coming to light as one of the best DPSers in the game. The class is druid, and the spec... is moonkin.Laugh if you want (and I certainly do when I see that dance), but moonkin (or Balance-specced) druids are doing well for themselves lately. Druid tanks have been getting all the press because of the new feral gear in Outland (and more recently, a few solid nerfs), but moonkin have been slowly building up their buffs, and using the best gear in both cloth and leather to max out their DPS. While the spec is really meant for PvP, it seems, they can definitely shine in PvE-- everyone loves Innervate, of course, but moonkin give that great crit bonus that adds a lot to any DPS raid group (definitely useful for Shaman, too, despite the Clearcasting nerf). They've got a nice armor bonus, so while they have to really be careful about managing aggro (they so far have no threat-reducing abilities), they can still take a few hits, and they have a few nice roots (Cyclone and the Tauren War Stomp, and Entangling Roots if they happen to be outside) that can hold things down until the tank intercepts. Not to mention that if need be, they're just a gear change and a shapechange away from becoming respectable offhealers, if not main healers.Myrch lays out what moonkin need to do to really shine-- they've got to really concentrate their focus and load up on the spell damage gear (a guildie of mine, a moonkin who routinely fights mages and hunters for the top DPS spot, often wears cloth just for the spell damage), add a little mp5 to the stuff they wear, and of course watch that aggro. But more and more, we're seeing that a well-geared, well-played moonkin is a really great class to have along in almost any situation.
Breakfast Topic: Pick your poisons
Today's Breakfast Topic is going to be rogues only, but heck, we all know there's tons of you out there. The question comes from Quill: What poisons do you use? Of course, it depends on your spec to a certain extent, and even moreso on your situation. Personally, my rogue is PvP specced, and so when I'm in battlegrounds or doing world PvP I usually run with, as Quill says, Wound and Crippling Poison (one halves healing on the target, while the other slows enemies down). Mind-numbing is also nice to slow casters down. Some rogues will say they use Deadly, but since I'm a stunlocker, I stay away from any DoTs while PvPing.Soloing, I just run with Instant on both daggers, but mostly because it's cheapest and lets me hit hard while stunlocking. In instances, I usually can't keep a mob stunned long before someone hits it, so I'll use Deadly and something else depending on what's needed (running mobs get Crippling, casters get Mind-numbing, etc.).But my rogue is my alt, and I'm sure plenty of you have rogue mains-- I haven't done much theorycrafting on it, and I'm sure you all have. What poisons do you use when and why?
Stealthing while clinking: Rogues in chainmail
Way back when, I found a post on the forum that suggested that Shaman should get temporary, summoned pets to use, and when I said it'd be a great idea, you guys laughed at me. And yet, come the expansion, we get those fun little Elemental Totems to play around with. So while you might laugh at this suggestion at first, think about it for a second before you say I'm crazy: Let's give Rogues mail!Guize on Skullcrusher has come up with what I think is a very interesting solution to the problem of endgame survivability for Rogues (we'll put PvP aside for a second and just talk about PvE for now). Currently, as players have said before, Rogues are a liability in most endgame raids-- yes, they can dish out damage, but considering how many endgame bosses pour out AoE, Rogues often end up to be more of a drain on the healers than anything else. I'm sure Cloak of Shadows has helped that a little bit (I haven't got too much experience with it yet, as my Rogue is only 61), but the fact is that while tanks can take it, Rogues take a beating more than any other class (ok, maybe healers take a worse beating, but that's only in a bad party).Enter Guize's suggestion of a 31-point Combat talent that allows Rogues to wear mail armor (alternately, to avoid having to add tons of new agility mail gear, he says it could just be a talent that bumps up armor from items). That would let PvE Rogues not be so squishy when asked to be right up there on the front lines of melee, and it would help out healers a whole lot, especially on the 25 and even 40 man instances.Now, in terms of PvP, I have to admit it seems a little unbalanced at first, considering that rogues are basically killing machines. But remember, too, that magic ignores armor-- Warlocks and Priests will still be able to DoT and fear just as much as they did before (and Cloak of Shadows is more of a problem for them anyway, and it's already in the game). There is, of course, the problem that it's really hard to be stealthy when all that mail armor would be clinking around, but if you want to finally give rogues a chance against the endgame AoE bosses, giving them the option to wear mail would definitely do it.
Thoughts on guild halls in Azeroth
There's not much new to say about this (Blizzard is still stonewalling on any plans for development), but players are still very interested in getting some form of player housing in the game, and one interesting form of that would be the idea of guild halls, an instance or a place ingame for a guild to make their own.Drysc gives a standard response on this one: it's a good idea, but there are no plans to implement it or anything like it in the game. But he does encourage discussion on it, and players have some interesting ideas. First and foremost would be a way to recognize the guild's accomplishments ingame-- trophies or heads of defeated bosses on the walls or in the building.Another purpose of such a place might be a few items of convenience, including a physical guild bank, and maybe even special vendors or profession workspaces. Drysc does say that if Blizzard did create something like this, and if it was guild halls, they wouldn't want to include anything that would take players away from the main game-- if they did put NPCs in the guild halls, it wouldn't likely be anything like trainers or auctioneers that kept players away from the main cities.Other interesting ideas include guild buyable portals to cities or even instances, an area for PvP-- either within the guild or between guilds, and even a raid signup system or scrimmage area of some kind. All interesting ideas-- what have you got? This is complete and total speculation, but it could be that Drysc is fishing for feedback because Blizzard is poking around at this idea to see if it's viable. If they included a guild hall area in the game, what, within reason of course, would you want to see there?
Hellgate London 'might' be subscription-based [update 1]
Flagship Studios' Hellgate: London will share many similarities with the typical MMO, including a subscription fee. Make no mistake, Hellgate's online component won't be a string of PvP deathmatch servers, no, included in the multiplayer experience will be an expansive social system that includes guilds and raid-type gameplay.Online, Hellgate will feature all of the single-player missions, plus additional modes, primarily focusing on group PvE instances -- limited PvP gameplay will be available at launch. Additional content will be continually provided by a dedicated team of developers. Sure sounds like an MMO, no?Update: Co-publisher EA has stated that the online pricing model has not been officially decided (more here).
Tier 5 stats from the BC beta
It appears the vendor for the Tier 5 armor has appeared on the beta (like Naxx, Tier 5 will be distributed via a token system), and I gotta say it looks cool. I found all the pictures here (a few classes are still missing at the moment), but I've hosted them here as well in case that resource disappears for whatever reason: Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Warlock.As a point of reference, I see a lot of** damage and healing* on one of the Priest sets (the Tier 3 set has +483), and that's not counting all the pluses to spell crits, hits, and so on (not to mention filled jewel sockets, of which none of these currently have). The set bonuses are nice as well-- particularly the Hunter's, where only a two piece set bonus gives every pet attack a chance to heal the pet for a small amount. Finally, it looks like the sets are made up of only five pieces each, which means it'll be that much easier to get those bonuses in place (and combine them with other sets that may happen to show up).So what do you think? I'm not blown away by the stats completely, but there's no question these are extremely nice upgrades, even from Tier 3. And I still think that the Warlock, Mage, and Rogue sets look freakin' sweet.*Update: Druid dude insightfully points out what I missed: the Priest bonus is for damage and healing, not just healing. I might take back what I said about not being blown away-- that's awesome.**Update2: My math skills FTL. For specific numbers on how the new sets' +dmg and +healing compare to old sets, see the comments below.
Breakfast Topic: Realm type
Before we even go into this... yes -- I am a carebear. I play almost exclusively on PvE servers. I just, personally, have never been that excited by the full-out PvP experience, and the amount of PvP I can find on a PvE server has always suited me perfectly well. However, when first logging on, there are several options of realm type -- so today's question is what's your favorite? PvE, PvP, RP, or RP-PvP?
Poll: What type of server do you play on?
With all the different playstyles available in WoW, which do you prefer? If you play on multiple types of servers, let us know! What type of server do you play on? PvE PvP RP RP-PvP Free polls from Pollhost.com
To PvP or Not to PvP
A comment that a reader made on yesterday's post about PvP experiences got me to wondering what the general playerbase's preference is; for PvP or PvE?Generally, MMORPG's such as WoW have tended to steer clear of non-consentual PvP; in many cases offering it as only an afterthought. However, due to the very ideaology behind the Warcraft series, Blizzard promised to make PvP a more involved part of their multiplayer game, and from the number of PvP servers out there, it looks like the players are embracing it.At one point a few weeks ago, I could swear there were actually more PvP servers than PvE servers on the list, so obviously a lot of people enjoy it. PvP has had a bad reputation in games of this nature since the original free-for-all slaughter days of Ultima Online, and several games that tried to make PvP an integral part of the experience have failed in the marketplace (Shadowbane, anyone?), but it seems like Blizzard have hit upon a formula that works. %uFFFDI've only been playing on PvP servers for a few months now, but personally, I hardly ever venture over to the PvE servers nowadays; the extra danger just makes the game that much more exciting for me.What about you guys? Do you prefer PvE or PvP servers? Which ones? Why so?
