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Cool Guys and Girls needed to play Warlocks
Axel on LJ points us to an easter egg on the Official WoW page that I can't help think must be fairly old, but I've never seen it before, so here you go: highlighting text under the Warlock and Warrior listings on the class page reveals some funny flavor text.The US page seems to have been changed from the original above (as of this writing, under Warlocks it says "hey you found some hidden text, there must be some giant conspiracy here"), but the European page shows the original "cool guy/girl" as a recommended player for Warlocks. At least one commenter on the LJ page says this has been around since day one on the main page, and I wouldn't be surprised -- Blizzard is familiar with leaving secrets on the official page for players.
G15 Tanking
Last week I covered playing with your mouse, and playing with your keyboard. In my keyboard post I mentioned that I would share with you all my Logitech G15 keyboard map. For those of you who don't have a G15, the keyboard is unique in that there are 18 programmable keys located on the left side of the keyboard. The keys looks like those pictured to the right.Each of these 18 keys can be assigned three independent functions – based on selecting "M1", "M2", or "M3" at the top of the keyboard. This gives a whooping 54 possible key combinations and functions. I don't use all these though, only the first 18 for most everything, and then the second for some random addon and programming things. So without further ado, here's what my G15 keyboard map looks like:
The Art of War(craft): Twinkage Part I
In the wild and wooly world of WoW PvP, there's one interesting subcategory that deserves mention -- the twinks. Defined as characters who are disproportionately powerful for their level, twinks are either loved or hated. On one hand, if you have a Level 70 character (or a few max-level friends), it's rather easy to 'twink up' another toon. On the other hand, many players who are leveling for the first time may find their Battlegrounds experience diminish when they encounter (and consequently have their faces smashed in by) ridiculously-geared and enchanted opponents on the field. In fact, twinks are a subculture of their own, with more than a few guilds set up exclusively for twink PvP. Love them or hate them, twinks are here to stay. In fact, in response to a question at last year's Blizzcon, Blizzard responded that they were actually considering Arenas for characters Levels 19 and 29 (the common twink level limits). The problem, they said, was designing rewards for them and if there was sufficient player demand. Designing rewards for twinks seems to be a hyperbolic response considering that it's likely that the only characters that will excel in those low levels are already well-geared. That said, there is a small subculture of players who enjoy PvP at low levels to the point of wanting an experience toggle to keep their toons at a comfortably low level.The reasons why people twink up toons varies, although most of these players have one or more Level 70 toons and want to have a little fun being overpowered in the Battlegrounds. Personally, I enjoy PvP at max level because it affords me the greatest challenge and gives me the most skills to work with. At lower levels, all classes have a limited number of skills and -- here's the important part -- not all classes will be good to PvP with because not all classes have access to key PvP skills yet. However, I'm sure a lot of people find twink PvP a lot of fun, even if they eventually plan to level past the twink stage. For purposes of this article, we'll take a look at Level 29 twinkage... it's not too low to have extremely limited skills, yet not too high so as to have too much of a skill discrepancy between classes.
Rolling the same toon
When I'm being completely honest with myself, I'm forced to admit that one of the things holding my alts back is that I get dissatisfied with their appearance. Whether it's the limited number of options you get at the character selection screen, or just an overwhelming and completely inexplicable preference for a single character model, I always find myself thinking at some point in an alt's 20's or 30's that I'd take them back to the drawing board if I could. I deleted a level 30 Night Elf Druid in no small part because she bore an uncanny resemblance to Cher, and I am very uncomfortable both with the idea of playing Cher and Cher being able to kill people with Moonfire spam. I'm pretty close to deleting a level 30 Draenei Mage for the same reason. Well, not because she looks like Cher, but something about her appearance just....bugs me.My main is the only character for whom I've never had that impulse, and I don't know why. Female Tauren don't have particularly interesting animations, jokes, or special attacks. They're less plausible (how on earth do they run like that?), less dramatic, and less impressive-looking in endgame armor than their male counterparts. Maybe it's just their distinctively awkward gait -- you can tell it's them from a mile away -- or just that so few people play a Hordeside female who's not a Blood Elf, but I find them hopelessly endearing.So I keep rolling moo-cows. Or, to be accurate, a particular model. Call me boring, but no toon from my growing herd will ever be mistaken for Cher.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Damage Per Second
The Care and Feeding of Warriors takes the time this week to discuss putting the hurt on things. Whether you are fury, arms, or even sometimes prot (stop laughing) there will be times when it's less important that you keep a mob occupied and more important that you bash it's head in, chop it's arms off, or otherwise bring the unpleasantness. Matthew Rossi has been bringing said unpleasantness for a long time now. Oh, right, yes, in game, certainly, what else did you think we meant?Before we even get started, yes, that is a warrior in Tier 1 with a Terestrian's Stranglestaff equipped. For some odd reason the staff only drops if we have no druids on the run, so there you go. Why is he in Tier 1? Because Tier 1 still looks freaking awesome, that's why. And that's not the lookalike 70 blues, man, that's the old school set. You can tell by the coloring. (You know you've been playing a warrior for a very long time when you can look at a piece of gear and know by its color what it is.)I've talked a lot about how I mostly tank nowadays, so it's kind of ironic that I'm talking about DPS today, considering that I mainly DPS'd for months and months and seemed always to be talking about tanking. Maybe I should start running around bandaging people. Or I could make a whole lot of food before the raid and pass it out to folks while making weird gestures beforehand.Anyway, warriors as DPS are, as always, melee. We don't have much in the way of spell damage (no, Thunderclap doesn't count) and even our debuffs generally make for up close action. Basically, all warriors (be they tanks or DPS) hit and yell at things. That's about all we do, really, we hit things and we yell at them, either making them feel bad (Demoralising Shout) or good (Battle and Commanding Shout), and sometimes we break wind so powerfully that they can't attack us as fast (Thunderclap). Okay, so the tooltip doesn't actually say that we're flatulent when we use Thunderclap, but I've yet to see any other explanation as to why I can explode periodically for physical damage when I have no magic. Yes, it counts as a spell, and yes, it's mitigated by armor, so I'm totally in the dark as to what else it could possibly be.The Care and Feeding of Warriors may just have had its first fart joke. I'm sure we're all very proud. Now that we've all gotten that out of our system, so to speak, let's get on to what a warrior DPSing is and isn't, and what they can and can't do. I'm not going to dwell too much on things like weapon speed or if dual wielding is superior to a 2h weapon because that will really ultimately depend on your build, and I won't know what that is. There are DPS builds in both arms and fury that use 2h weapons and dual wielding (although I have to admit that I don't understand a dual wielding DPS arms build very well) so such a talent choice will be up to you.
Is Mortal Strike the new black?
What's up with Mortal Strike? And why is it, when Blizzard feels that a class or spec needs to be made viable in Arenas -- and let's face it, the game is all about Arenas now, isn't it? -- they give them a Mortal Strike-style debuff? When the developers were figuring out how to raise Hunters' representation in Arenas, they changed Aimed Shot in Patch 2.3 to give a heal-gimping debuff similar the the Arms Warrior's bread and butter ability. Enter Patch 2.4 in the PTRs. When Kalgan finally descended upon the Shaman forums, he said that Shamans were definitely getting buffed just in time to quell the wake of an uproar to the nerfs made to the Elemental spec. Along with the reversal of the Nature's Swiftness and Elemental Mastery shared cooldown, the current iteration of the progressive patch is seeing a change to the Shaman's Flametongue Weapon and Totem, which happens to be -- surprise, surprise -- a Mortal Strike-style debuff. Yawn.While it's certainly a welcome change, considering that Shamans get so little love, frankly it's getting a little boring. Allie mentioned calls for putting the buff on every class (Mortal Sheep or Mortal Portal for Mages is a classic), so this begs the question... is a Mortal Strike-type ability the only way to make a class or spec viable in the Arenas? Aside from the fact that Mortal Strike Warriors are conceivably the most popular class & spec, healing debuffs are clearly one of the game-breaking abilities in Arenas. With Resilience making crit-based and burst damage specs less and less viable, is there really a need for another Mortal Strike? Can't Blizzard make another buff to make a spec Arena-viable without using the same old trick? What do you guys think? How much more creative can you be?
Build Shop: Warrior 28/33/0
Every Tuesday, Chris Jahosky contributes Build Shop, which takes a look into one of the many talent specs available to players.This week's build comes to you courtesy of reader James (who put this together anticipating the changes to the Fury tree coming in 2.4), so today I'm going to dissect his build. Fury heavy builds are quite strong and very popular for PvE encounters through the end game (the most famous perhaps being a variant of 17/44, sometimes called a RiP (Rogue in Plate), which is desirable for the high damage output).However, this kind of hybrid build has started to see more use in other areas. While not as effective as a RiP build in PvE, these hybrid builds often pick up a weapon specialization from the Arms tree in addition to some utility talents, making them more adaptable in PvP and solo play. James' build is 28/33, and seems to be based off of the standard Fury/Weapon Spec build of 26/35. They have a good bit of variation, though -- James' focus seems to be on PvP, with talents like Iron Will and Improved Intercept, whereas the standard build focuses on damage output.After the break, I'm diving into my thoughts on the build, but make sure to share your experience and suggestions with James in the comments!
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Unleash the fury
The Care and Feeding of Warriors burns from within this week. Matthew Rossi has played a lot of warriors, and this week he dedicates the column to fury warriors, the spec which seems the most basic to the rage concept, really. It's a rage bar, after all. No, not a place you go to drink rage. How would that even work, rage potion cordials? It doesn't bear thinking about.My first warrior leveled as arms, back in the dim past before patch 1.2. It's hard to explain to people just how bad playing a warrior was back then. We didn't generate rage on blocks, parries or dodges, executes took all of your rage even if they missed, and there was a bug that caused attacks that were dodges to be calculated as misses, causing you to miss out on a ton of overpowers. Berseker stance used to grant 10% melee haste, but no one really knew what that meant. (I wonder if warriors today would trade 3% crit for 10% faster attacks?) I managed to get him to 60 mainly through instancing with friends/guildmates. (To be fair, I was ahead of most of my guild, with the exception of a couple of hunters who'd started playing before I did.) So when I created a new warrior on a new server to play with some real life friends, I wanted to do things differently.And so I went fury. Being the stubborn cuss I am, though, I didn't level fury with a dual wield build... I didn't like the way I'd miss so many attacks and at that early stage of the game there wasn't much I could do to prevent them, so I stayed with my beloved 2h weapons. I still remember when I got the Relentless Scythe and started to really understand how to output DPS with it. While most warriors were carrying Arcanite Reapers around, I was tweaking my gear for AP and crit and trying to figure out how to squeeze the most DPS out of a two hand weapon (although I also had a pair of Bone Slicing Hatchets enchanted with +15 agility to annoy my wife... as a hunter, she found it irritating that I got them before she did, and I did enjoy using them) - amusingly, just as dual-wield specialization was coming into the game, I was getting into raiding and the guild I was in didn't need a prot warrior, just an off-tank for various MC mobs. I picked up a Draconian Deflector cheap off of Drakkisath (he was very slightly dead at the time, he got better) and headed into Molten Core - you could tank as fury in those days, and I did.
The Art of War(craft): Motion Theory Part III
Alright guys, you got me. Last week, I dissed Priests for their lack of mobility, but some of you, such as user thebvp pointed out that Priests are more slippery than I gave them credit for by pointing out their dispel abilities, among other things. With a little more thought, I really have to agree and re-assess Priests on the movement hierarchy. To kick off the final installment of this overly long review on class mobility, we'll start with a second look at Priests.PriestAs pointed out by your comments last week, Priests have the first tier Discipline talent Unbreakable Will, which is a key PvP talent that increases Stun resistance by a massive 15%. This gives Priests more flexibility to move, although a Rogue spamming Kidney Shots every 20 seconds will probably still be a real pain to deal with. While Priests have no natural movement enhancing capabilities, they benefit from instant cast spells in the same way that Druids do. In PvP, particularly in Arenas, the ability to cast Renew, Power Word: Shield, or Prayer of Mending while on the go is critical. I cannot stress enough how instant cast is king in PvP, and Priests have it in spades.Draenei and Dwarf Priests also have Chastise, which replaced Fear Ward. With a 30-second cooldown, it is a fairly reliable means of crowd control, arguably even better than the Paladin's 31-point Retribution talent Repentance. It is effectively a spell interrupt every thirty seconds, and the incapacitate effect gives the Priest a small window within which to move away from undesirable encounters. Of course, enjoy it while it lasts as Patch 2.4 reportedly brings a change to Chastise. It will no longer be a an incapacitate effect but a root. As far as movement goes, it's a winner, but will no longer be usable as a spell interrupt. The change also makes Repentance slightly less embarrassing.Dispel Magic is an instant cast spell that Priests can use to full effect because it is like a mixture of both Purge and Cleanse, usable on both friend and foe alike. Against magical snares such as Entangling Roots or Frost Shock, Priests can remove the debuffs on themselves as well as their allies. This ability extends to limiting the movement of certain classes such as Shamans, whose Ghost Wolf spell is actually a magical buff rather than a physical form, or Paladins, who rely on Blessing of Freedom constantly in PvP. Lastly, I forgot to mention how Priests and their friends can be highly resistant to fear thanks to the now-usable-by-all-races Fear Ward and Shadow Protection. Since a good number of Fear effects are shadow-based (Vims, I'm looking at you), the latter ability provides excellent protection against CC in PvP. Of course, as far as CC goes, Priests have Mind Control, so they can turn enemies into friends for a short while until they can run them off the side of cliffs or until the cavalry arrives. Good times.
All the World's a Stage: Authentic class
All the World's a Stage is a source for roleplaying ideas, suggestions, and discussions. It is published every Sunday evening.Sometimes it can be difficult make your character feel really authentic. Very likely, you work in an office in real life, for instance, and perhaps you daydream of burning up all your paperwork. You certainly don't cast hellfire and summon demons to wreak havoc upon the world, so naturally you have no personal understanding of how a warlock would really behave. Of course it helps to do some research on the lore behind your class, but in fact even lore writers are only imagining. No one in the world has practical experience of what any of the Warcraft classes would be like. Even classes like priests and hunters are so heavily fantasized that there is a great difference between the class and its real-life namesake. Imaginative extrapolation is the name of the game here, and as always when imagining things, it helps to try and root your character's class-based behavior around some tried-and-true character quirks, things that will make everyone who interacts with you feel compelled to say to themselves, "Wow! That's just the sort of thing a <insert your class here> would do!" Read on for some practical quirks, with links to more resources on the characteristics each class would display.
A spec for leveling and a spec for endgame
This post by Catherine on WoW Ladies (about getting just the right spec for PvP and grinding) got me thinking about specs and their purpose in general. For a lot of classes, it's pretty much accepted at this point that you spec one way for leveling, another way for endgame, and a third way for PvP. While some classes can pull off all three with pretty much any spec (hunters and warlocks, ahem), other classes are much more confined (leveling as a resto shaman or prot warrior is possible, but I wouldn't want to do it any time soon).Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Blizzard has made a big deal (and a lot of money) about making sure that almost any class can jump into any situation at any time and do what they want to do. But the opposing viewpoint of that is that when all classes can do everything, no one class can do one thing better than others.I think there's a good balance at this point, and though respec costs could be lower, they're definitely low enough that you can change spec a few times in the journey from 1-70 without a problem. But there are two ways to fall off the edge Blizzard is walking here: either specs become too limited, and you need to respec to do different things, or specs become too vanilla overall, and there's no reason at all to change anyway.
All the World's a Stage: Class is in session
All the World's a Stage is skipping class (gasp!), and playing with roles every Sunday evening.Our spells are shiny and bright, well worth using in more than just combat situations! Last time we talked a bit about this idea, as well as how druids, hunters, and mages could use their spells to entertain their friends. Today we turn to the remaining classes: priests, paladins, rogues, shamans, warlocks and warriors. Each roleplayer would do well to sit down and examine his or her action bar to pick out those spells which can be used outside of combat, and think of whatever opportunities imaginable to make good use of them. Chances are, if you put your mind to it, you can come up with some really creative ideas.Buffing, for instance: You've got these beautiful abilities that can benefit anyone around you, no matter what class or level they are. If you're going to bless them with such a neat thing, why not say something about it while you do so? You can say, "<Deity Name> guide you, sir!" or, "you look pretty dumb -- have some extra intellect!" or whatever expression sounds right for your character.
2.4 gives tanks some love
Whether you're a bear or you clank around in plate, the two rage-based tanking classes have some changes incoming in patch 2.4, according to Bornaak. First up, you druid tanks, Lacerate is seeing a damage increase to scale with attack power, which should help you whether you're a tank or not, but since lacerate is a key threat move for bear tanks it seems like good news on that front.Secondly, for warriors, two new changes in 2.4: Endless Rage is finally going to be adjusted to work as the tooltip indicates (so less of a buff than a bug fix, but still welcome) and more importantly, a long time problem, offhand critical hits from attacks like Whirlwind will now proc Flurry and Rampage, a nice improvement for Fury warriors everywhere. Seems like both bear druids and warriors will be seeing improvements to both tanking and DPS options with these changes or fixes.
Blood Sport: Warrior-Druid overpowered?
Every Thursday, V'Ming - who thinks that gnome warlocks are travesties of nature and need to be KOSed - shares thoughts and ideas on becoming deadlier at the Arenas. He also dabbles in the dark arts in Blood Pact.A quick look at the chart above and one thing clearly leaps out. Clue: it has to do with mortal strikes, HoTs and cyclones. Well, every third team you meet nowadays in 2v2 will probably be a Warrior-Druid team. This comp (short for composition) seems to be running away with the 2v2 bracket currently: 20 of the top 50 US teams are Warrior-Druid comps - that's 40%. For teams with ratings greater than 2200, close to 30% are Warrior-Druid. They also make up almost a quarter of all 2v2 teams, regardless of rating. That's a lot of Warrior-Druid teams.What makes the comp tick?
Gamers on the Street: The classes of 2008
Gamers on the Street logs into U.S. servers to get the word from the front on what's going on in and around the World of Warcraft.What's the "right" class and spec to be playing right now? What's going to make the biggest splash on the scoreboards? Why do players choose the classes that they do? WoW Insider readers, who generally enjoy theorycrafting and playing their classes to the absolute hilt, are a savvy lot when it comes to class balance and what specs are hot, hot, hot. Log in, though, and you're much less likely to encounter players who are concerned with theorycrafting or running up whatever spec is considered the new hawtness. In game, players seem concerned about how to get a fair shake with their character of choice. We logged in during prime time last night on The Forgotten Coast (PvP) realm to see what players had to say about the classes of 2008 -- who's hot, who's not and how it all affects their characters and play styles. Who got the raves, and who's chalking up the most bad press? Read on to find out ...
Phat Loot Phriday: Cataclysm's Edge
No messing around here. Just a big, bad sword. This is why half of us are playing a sword and sorcery game in the first place, right?Name: Cataclysm's Edge (Wowhead, Thottbot, WoWWiki, WoWDigger)Type: Epic Two-hand SwordDamage/Speed: 386 - 580 / 3.50 (138.0 DPS)Abilities: +75 (!) Strength, +49 Stamina Equip: your attacks ignore 335 of your opponent's armor. And that's not a proc, that's an equip. Wild. The math around that is complicated to say the least, but suffice it to say that whenever you attack anything with the sword, you treat the opponent like it has 335 less armor than it really does. Which means even more damage. And all that strength adds damage as well, since strength adds to attack power, which adds to melee damage, too. In short, when something gets hit with this sword, it feels it. And I always get called out and shown up when I make statements like this, but according to WoWWiki, this is the highest DPS melee weapon in the game. Theorycrafters, if you would like to challenge that, feel free to do so in the comments below. WoWWiki shows that the Axe from the Illidan Kael'thas (you're right, I'm drunk) event does more damage, but that's a summoned axe, and not a player-useable weapon. Same deal with the Artifact Twin Blades of Azzinoth. So I'm standing by the original claim. Prove me wrong if you must. How to Get It: Drops from Archimonde, the last boss in Mount Hyjal (and arguably, the game itself). It's a 10 to 15% drop, so you'll need to get him down a few times for the odds to fall in your favor. And you'll have to fight all those Mortal Strike warriors and ret pallies for the roll, since everybody who likes chopping things in half will be after this one.But the good news is that this will last long after the "gear reset" coming in the expansion. I hesitate to say that it will actually be able to challenge Frostmourne (because who knows how they'll implement that in the game), but odds are that if you're lucky enough to get this now, you'll be chopping things with it for quite a while.Getting Rid of It: Are you nuts? If you have so many of these things laying around that you have to get rid of one, go talk to Matthew Rossi, our warrior writer-- I'm sure he'll want one. But if you must vendor it, you'll get 19g 57s and 38c for it. Disenchants, as usual, into a Void Crystal.
The happiest class?
We all know which class QQs the most (I know, I know, low blow-- but it made me laugh), but which class smiles the most? Skrattin (who is actually a Warlock himself) speculates that it's 'Locks who are happiest with the game. Even though they've taken some nerfs (although they might still be OP, depending on who you listen to), they still seem to be pretty happy with their class and the game at large. And it's true-- I've never once heard of a Warlock protest out there on the realms.I generally think of Warriors are pretty happy guys, but even they have had their problems. And while most Priests I know tend to actually be pretty cheery about being the first to die when aggro is lost and playing whack-a-mole all the time, they've had their problems as well. And while I do like my Shaman, I can't really defend my class-- we're pretty big whiners (even if it is justified).So maybe it's true-- Warlocks just might be the happiest class in the game. It's not that there isn't Warlock QQ, it's just that, for most of the game, it's been about 'locks, not by them.
Blood Sport: "Locks OP as hell," says top Warrior
Every Thursday, V'Ming - who thinks that gnome warlocks are travesties of nature and need to be KOSed - shares thoughts and ideas on becoming deadlier at the Arenas. He also dabbles in the dark arts in Blood Pact.In Season 2, the top teams in all three brackets of the Bloodlust battlegroup all had one toon in common: Serennia, a female gnome warrior. The diminutive warrior quickly earned the nickname "best warrior in the world" and became the gnome to loathe (or love, for some) in bloodthirsty PvP circles.Behind this pint-sized powerhouse is a 23-year-old who is working on his multimedia degree in Houston, Texas. SK Gaming's Gosey had an excellent interview with him recently. Serennia talked about team setups, warriors, his druid alt, warlocks and offered some PvP tips.
Wolfking announces MVP series gamepad and mouse for gamers
If you're the type of gamer who digs alternative input devices, you might have a gander at the Wolfking Warrior gamepad (sister site Massively has a review) and the Trooper gaming mouse (besides, any gadget named after an Iron Maiden song is worth a head turn). Both units have gotten an update in the new MVP series, with the Warrior USB 2.0 55-key circular gamepad receiving a style update in the form of deep black audio keys to match its matte black finish. The Trooper delivers a frame rate in excess of 7080 frames per second, up to 45ips and 20g high speed motion detection, 2400 dpi resolution, onboard LED displays and a Rapid Fire Switch function button that lets you select your rate of fire from 1 to 4 shots per click. The MVP Series versions will be coming in at $34.99 for the Warrior and $59.99 for the Trooper.
All the World's a Stage: Something to remember me by
All the World's a Stage is a column for creative minds, playing with roles every Sunday evening.The best characters in novels and movies often leap into your mind from the moment you first see them -- something they say or do sets them apart and captures your interest, and from that time on, you're hooked. Likewise, when we roleplay, our characters should always have some memorable trait which can hook other people's interest. Too often, I see roleplayers focusing too much on dark secrets that they only reveal to their closest friends, and neglecting those mannerisms which could give everyone they meet an instant and profound impression of their character. Of course, if some people prefer to roleplay this way, that's fine. But to my mind, roleplaying is best when it avoids cliquishness, and the best roleplayers are those whose characters stay with you, even if you never see them again. When I'm creating my own characters, I think of such memorable traits as "gimmicks," but that word usually has a negative connotation that doesn't apply in this case. For now, the best word I can think of is "quirk." It's an instantly recognizable pattern of behavior or speech that can let others know who your character is right away. Below you will find some of my favorite quirks I have seen people use in their roleplaying in WoW, each of them entertaining and inspiring it its own way.
