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When your fearless leader hasn't played your class
Back when I first started tanking 5-mans, there was a particular hunter who pulled off me with irritating regularity. This was partly because the early Druid tanking set at 70 is itemized more for mitigation than threat generation, but partly because he was a young guy, he was good dps, and he knew it. MM-specced Hunters actually do have a lot of control over mobs that get pulled off the tank, and I suspect on some level he made a game out of seeing just how long he could lock something down while the exasperated tank turned her attention elsewhere, usually after bellowing at him in party chat to "DISENGAGE! FEIGN DEATH! DISENGAGE!"Not having played a Hunter at that point, I had a fuzzy notion that Disengage somehow reduced threat and was highly affronted at any hunter with aggro spikes who wasn't using Feign Death over and over again. After starting to level a hunter alt, it quickly became apparent that: a). Disengage was a melee-only skill that still had to "hit" the mob, and b). Feign Death wasn't exactly a spammable ability and could be resisted no matter what you did. I am by no means an expert hunter player, but I have at least learned to bellow, "FEIGN DEATH ON COOLDOWN!" if they're not trapping (and just minding my own business if they are).I am still occasionally reminded of my days as a backseat hunter, and never more so than while listening to my GM trying to figure out what's gone wrong in a raid.
Possible new Badge of Justice loot unlocked on the PTR
MMO-Champion has just posted a whole batch of loot that's just been unlocked on the test server. It seems no-one's found a vendor for it yet, but especially with some it still sporting "Sunwell Badge Loot" names, speculation right now would suggest it's part of the new tier 5 Badge of Justice gear we were promised by Drysc a bit back. Right now, one of the new daily quest givers at the Sun's Reach Armory named Smith Hauthaa implies that if you can help her get supplies, she will be able to sell you powerful weapons and armor. It looks like we'll need to do her daily quest "Making Ready" enough times to unlock the ability to buy the gear. There's definitely some sweet upgrades here. Casters who've not had any luck getting Prince Malchezzar to drop his dagger (and even those who have it) should be ecstatic for the Scryer's Blade of Focus, while the hunter in me is drooling over the Crossbow of Relentless Strikes. Haste and spell haste rating seems to figure quite prominently on the various types of armor, but there's also a good amount of hit rating as well. Some of the cloth pieces might even get some tailoring Shadow Priests and Affliction Warlocks to shed their Shadoweave sets. The search goes on for a vendor for all these goodies, but with any luck they'll be found soon. If this is the badge gear, and it is unlockable by finishing different levels of the daily quests at Quel'danas, I'd say it's another great mechanic by Blizzard, in that it's yet another thing that'll definitely bring the server together by giving a really excellent incentive to finish the race. In addition, the badge gear should not only let casuals who prefer to stick to clearing Karazhan and running Heroics have a definite avenue of improvement, but also let raiders who have been waiting forever for that one boss drop have a chance at picking themselves up some reasonable side-grades, especially now that they'll be able to get the badges they need from the 25-man raids themselves.
WoW mud dolls attack the internet
And now it's time for something ridiculously cute. Behold, World of Warcraft mud dolls! There's grinning Orc Shamans (pictured), Blood Elf Warlocks in cartoon tier 5, and even a Paladin wearing full Lawbringer, which is awesome beyond words. 'W00t' doesn't count.Thousands may have lined up to buy their own characters from FigurePrints.com, but these ones were all hand-made by a girl in China. And very nice they are, too. It's not just me that finds these stupidly amusing, right? RIGHT?The full gallery contains twenty-one total images and is hosted at MMOsite.com; the blog they're hosted on appears to be Chinese-only.
PTR: Screenshots of the 'Tier 5' weapons
Screenshots were posted early this morning showing off the new weapons meant to go with the Tier 5 sets. Now before anyone thinks that they've changed the set bonuses to include weapons; they haven't to my knowledge. These just happen to be weapons that continue the theme and colors of the Tier 5 armor sets. (Which means there are some wicked cool looking weapons in the group!) At the moment, the exact drop locations haven't been listed, beyond the Paladin-set match Hammer of Atonement, which dropped for Impervious the other day on the PTR. I suspect we'll be seeing some more stats before long, especially with the Devs focusing the testing on newer bosses lately. [via MMO Champion]
Tier sets: Who chooses, guilds or players?
What classes should have priority on what gear in raiding instances has been a topic of debate for a long time. Tier 4 and 5 -- with their options of tank, DPS and healing sets for hybrid classes -- looked like they might help solve this problem. Feral druids can get their DPS sets, resto shamans can get their healer sets, and protection paladins can get their tank sets, and everyone will finally be happy and stop arguing with the master looter. This looked pretty good until someone on the Raids and Dungeons forum posed a nasty dilemma. Let's say that you're a paladin officer in a raiding guild at 70 that's hoping to progress through content quickly. You have a couple paladins that are protection specced for tanking, maybe one paladin who's retribution specced because he has the gear for it, and a bunch of pallies who are specced to heal. Paul the paladin heals in raids and seems to enjoy his role. One day, Paul wins his first Tier 5 token, and goes and gets ... the Crystalforge Battlegear. "What the heck, Paul!" you say when you inspect him. "You're holy specced! I thought you liked healing! This retribution gear won't help you in raids! How are we going to kill Illidan if people don't upgrade their healing gear?" "I do like healing in raids," says Paul, "and I'll keep doing it, but I need to solo too so I chose the DPS set. I know I won't wear it in raids, but in the end, it's my gear, isn't it? I earned it." This situation is tough. On one hand, the guild helped Paul get that Tier 5 under the expectation that he'd use it to fulfill his primary raiding role, and thus help the guild progress. If everyone picks DPS sets for farming, the guild probably won't be able to handle some fights. On the other hand, it is Paul's gear, and Paul's got to farm sometime. As long as his healing is adequate, shouldn't Paul get to choose which set he wants when it's just him, the token and the gear vendor? I'm glad that as a rogue, I won't have to face this choice. (Should I take the damage set or ... the damage set?) In theory, it would be nice if everyone took the set that they would use in raids, but that's not necessarily going to happen all the time. For those of you who are officers or hybrid classes, I ask: What should our fictional guild do about Paul the paladin? Should guilds have any influence on which sets their hybrid classes pick?
Breakfast Topic: Best Looking Tier Set
We saw the tier 5 video yesterday, and it got me thinking...which of the tier sets look the best? I will admit to being partial to the tier 2 paladin set, simply because it looks positively awesome...less so when some pally is bubble hearthing in front of me, but awesome nonetheless.Another set that I find rather interesting is the warlock tier 3 set. Sure, it makes warlocks look a little like Sand People, but there is something about it that makes me want to look at it. Whether I want to look at it because I like it, or because I am fascinated by it's lameness, I am not entirely sure.What do you guys think? What is the best looking tier set out there?
