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Blood Pact: A look at the Q&A
Crimson broth slides from pricked fingers. Droplets falling listlessly to a blank page below, leaving trails of vital ink in their wake. The sanguine blemishes blot, and shift. They twist and writhe on the page as though in agony, contorting into shapes, which become letters, which form words. The Warlock has sealed his legacy. A Blood Pact is forged. After an arduously long wait, Blizzard finally rolled around to Warlocks in their series of Class Question and Answer sessions, and we got some questions answered. Or did we? In the past I've often been told that I'm far too forgiving of Blizzard, that I tend to support their position too easily. But even I couldn't help but feel dejected after this Q&A session. It would be hyperbole to say that we didn't get any answers, but it certainly seems like you could replace most of the answers we got with "maybe we'll address this someday, possibly," without losing too much in translation. The questions themselves weren't bad. I often find Q&As and Interviews disappointing, because the things I care about are never asked, but that wasn't the case with this. Some people have complained to me that several of the questions were frivolous, but I honestly think it's about damn time Warlocks got some kind of official acknowledgment on the green fire issue. That said, many of the answers were, at best, vague and unhelpful, and evasive at worst. Whatever the overall merit, however, the Q&A was long enough that I wont waste any more of my word count introducing it. So lets jump right into analyzing individual answers shall we?
Blood Pact: All about soul stones
The Moon has aligned with Mars, and the cosmic energies have infused this week's Blood Pact with diabolical tidbits of Warlock-related content that will sear the souls of mortal men! This week, Blood Pact invites you to sit in on an actual gaming session...Nick W.: I'd like to roll a Craft(Writing) check to make a column. Game Master: Alright, make your check. *Click clatter of rolled dice...* Nick W.: I rolled a four... Game Master: You create an episode of Blood Pact. Nick W.: Damn! Though it may have been watered down by the "bring the player, not the class" mantra, Warlocks are a utility class at heart. We can rock the DPS as hard as anybody else, but our real value comes in our summons, our debuffs, and our Soul Stones. That's what I'd like to talk about this week. Proper Soul Stoning is an important topic. One which I've never seen covered to my satisfaction. The general one line of advice everybody gives to new Warlocks is "make sure the healer has a Soul Stone." But that's about as helpful as "cast spells at things to make them die." Sometimes it's not true, and even when it is true, the fact of the matter is a great deal more complicated than the single sentence of instruction can convey. So what is proper Soul Stoning procedure? Soul Shards are easy enough to come by these days that there really isn't any excuse for not being prepared to Soul Stone whenever it's appropriate, but when is that? And when it is appropriate, who is the best candidate for having the stone cast on them? The latter question is far too often ignored, particularly in raid situations where there's more than one healer to choose from.
Blood Pact: Of spells and bad metaphors
A shaving of pencil lead, bark of a dead tree, the ashes of one of Kafka's short stories, bound together with a drop of writer's blood. Set it aflame, and the pact is forged! Let all who are bound by this Blood Pact be forever cursed to reconsider content distribution! Also, here's the Warlock column!Ah, mid June. That blissful period between the end of finals, and Blizzard answering my questions. Time to sit back, unwind, and get back into my gaming and my writing. However, since I didn't spend much time in WoW during this past finals week, I found myself lacking inspiration. So, as I am wont to do now and again, I spent some time perusing the writings of my class columnist colleagues, hoping to happen upon some inspiration. And as it turned out, I stumbled across a gem of a post from the gentlemanly fellow over at Arcane Brilliance. He really is a rather dapper chap. Sadly, I am particularly ill-suited to write a post on useless Warlock spells. You see, I have a dark and terrible secret. And not just the ones that come standard issue for all card-carrying Warlocks: this is a truly dire bit of personal arcana which I am mortified to admit in public... but here goes: I am a spell pack-rat. I use action bar supplementing addons just so I can keep every single spell or ability I've ever acquired somewhere on my screen. If my raid leader demanded that I ride my felsteed around in eleven circles, then dismount and dizzily cast a rotation made up entirely of Curse of Weakness and WANDING, then I wouldn't even need to open my spell book. Might need to find a new raid leader, but at least I wouldn't be unprepared. Given my unseemly disability, I've decided that rather than directly emulating my esteemed counterpart, I'll simply write a column from the opposite perspective! Many spells in a Warlock's arsenal are unduly maligned as "useless" by mobs of rampaging children demanding to be buffed. It's downright unfair to call these spells useless when in fact they are only (if you'll forgive my overused joke) usefulness challenged.
Blood Pact: Spelling test
With a flash of flame and a gout of smoke, Blood Pact appears again! It demands that columnist Nick Whelan make a sacrifice! Either he must write on a relatively simple subject this week, or be doomed to perform poorly during his finals! Left with no other recourse, Whelan submits to the will of the column.Spells are the essence of playing a Warlock. Just about every part of playing the game, save role playing, has spell casting as a central feature for us. Fighting for control of Arathi Basin, dueling on matters of honor with some upstart Mage, questing and leveling, or any instance from assailing Defias scum in The Deadmines, to unlocking the secrets of Azeroth in Ulduar. Without spells the only things a Warlock could do would be run, jump, and weakly bonk our foes with our staffs. And there just aren't enough platforming sections in WoW to make that kind of thing fun.Depending on our spec and in-game vocation, different Warlocks focus on different spells. And the decision of which spells to focus on is based on numbers. Such as the time required to cast the spell, potential damage output the spell has, or the amount of time that the spell will allow us to reign destruction on our foes while they run around screaming in abject terror. Understanding the mechanical uses of spells is essential if we're to be effective Warlocks. But as I've said in the past: Rain of Fire isn't just an area of effect spell channeled over 10 seconds which causes 2-3k non-crit damage every 2 seconds to enemies within a 15 yard radius--it's fireballs falling out of the sky!
