treants
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Hold the gates: Dawn of Fantasy dev diary gives an overview of stronghold defense
We haven't heard from 505 Games' Dawn of Fantasy for a while, but it looks as though the MMORTS is coming along quite nicely. In a first of hopefully several developer diaries, Lead Writer and Associate Producer Gordon Farrell shows one of the game's modes: stronghold defense. Dawn of Fantasy players will be encouraged to take control of pre-built villages, towns, and castle fortresses and defend them from the enemy as the situation warrants. In the video, Farrell shows how these strongholds can be built up and defenses laid out prior to the enemy's assault. The diary goes on to show a sample scenario of a player attempting to hold on to a multi-tiered fortress against the combined assault of Elves and Orcs. Each faction looks to have its own style and special units -- for example, the Elves wield giant Treants as siege weapons, whereas the Orcs have mobile towers and battering rams. Even though the cavalry comes to the rescue, the defending player is soon overwhelmed. However, Farrell speculates about what you might have done differently instead. You can watch the full dev diary after the jump!
Patch 3.3 PTR: Druid changes (so far)
Hail, druids. There really aren't too many known changes to our class on the patch 3.3 PTR. As I write this, the only gameplay change you're likely to notice will be the buff/nerf to pet avoidance, which will only affect the Balance talent Force of Nature. More experienced Balance players will have to chime in here, because the wording on the change makes it sound like they're referencing an existing feature. I'm racking my brain trying to remember if Blizzard's ever done anything to tinker with the treants' survivability versus AoE damage, and I don't think they have. My guess is that the wording is just in line with similar changes in other classes with access to pets. Anyway, the change reads as follows: Avoidance (passive): Now reduces the damage your pets take from area-of-effect damage by 90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players. For PvP, I think this is going to be business as usual, because the treants have historically been weak to AoE, and a key part of Balance arena strategy is timing a treants cast when your enemy's AoE or escape abilities are on cooldown. For PvE, it's a considerable buff, and it means that you'll no longer have to /headdesk over losing a key damage cooldown to a boss AoE.Apart from that, the only other known change to the class is a bug fix on rank 15 Rejuvenation (correcting the base duration from 15 seconds to 12 seconds), but we'll keep an eye on the PTR for you, and any additional changes will be noted here.
Wrath Beta patch notes: Balance Druids
Now that the Wrath of the Lich King Beta is live, and the patch notes are up, we have some solid information on Druid talents as they're being tested. Here is what the patch revealed:Balance treeIf you were to invest three points into your Brambles tier three talent, you will not only have the current 75% boost to damage caused by Thorns and Entangling Roots, but your Treants will have their damage boosted by 15%. In addition, all damage caused by Treants, and any attacks done to you while Barkskin is active, have a 15% chance of dazing the target for three seconds. Actually, Force of Nature, which summons your Treants, is having its cooldown reduced from three minutes to two. This will be a nifty talent for Moonkin in battlegrounds and arena, although it won't be enough to convert all of those Restoration druids to the ways of the Giant Chicken.
