What I would like to see for Druids

I had mentioned I had decided to level my Druid. BTW, I hit 80 on Saturday and had been running BGs like mad all weekend long to get some PVP pieces. I really missed my Druid, but only someone who plays with me and has known me a while would truly understand the depth to which I love this class. Just take it on faith that During Vanilla WoW and BC I lived, ate, and breathed Druid. Anyway, I really missed it and finally got back around to playing him again. I knew that there were some serious changes to the class in WotLK but hadn't really understood just how complicated some of those changes could be, or how lacking some of the Druids abilities still are.

The short of of it this: Resto Druids are fantastic. They are great healers with extreme mobility and several "oh shit" abilities. Don't change a thing. Bears are in a good place as far as I can tell, and are still terrific tanks. I haven't plumbed the depth of every boss fight on my poorly geared Druid yet, but I think the core of the tank capabilities are there and are fine. I'll see and I'm sure, say more about Feral tanks as I get into more difficult content. Cat DPS is too complicated however. And I think it needs to be relooked at.

Yesterday I ran several Heroics and ran a Naax-10 though, and got a very good opportunity to see that I just don't have a handle on Cat DPS yet. Think Affliction Warlock melded with Rogue. Cat DPS is all about keeping bleeds on the target, plus conducting large direct damage attacks (Shreds known in Rogue lingo as Backstabs) that have a directional requirement to them, all the while keeping a short term buff up on yourself (Savage Roar) and when possible using those combo points on another bleed instead of on Savage Roar. Like I said, its complicated and it relies on energy just like a Rogue's abilities do which makes it even more complicated considering that energy regenerates at a set pace. All too slowly when you are trying to burn down a boss.

It's too complicated for average people I think, and for me who hasn't touched my Druid in seven months, I'm still used to the pre-WotLK abilities so it's very strange. While leveling you usually don't delve into much more than Mangle > Rip > Mangle > FB so you aren't really exposed to all this. And since the instances I ran from 70 to 80 I did as resto (which I still love BTW), I missed out on those indicators. Another aspect that I definitely think needs to be relooked at is Swipe. I like how Blizz gave Cats an AOE capability, but Swipe takes a huge amount of energy so you can really only get a few AOE attacks off on any given group of mobs whereas Rogues can spam Fan of Knives till the cows come home. Personally I think cat Swipe should act very much like Fan of Knives and should return energy based on the amount of targets it hits thereby bringing it on par with FoK. That would go a long way to increasing viability on all the trash mobs in between Bosses.

None of this is to say that Cat DPS isn't great, because it is. It's very noticeably better than in BC and I have absolutely no problems with it in PVE outside instances and raiding where I think the mechanics need some rework.

Bear tanking still feels very familiar however. I tanked several bosses in Naax-10 last night and did pretty much what I did in Kara, Gruuls/Mags, SSC and TK. One big difference now though, that I absolutely love, is the change in bear Swipe. The omni-directional AOE attack is absolutely fantastic. Run into a group or pull them to you with FF and start swiping. Throw in some Mangles and Berserk/Mauls and voila, you have absolutely zero trouble hanging onto an entire group of mobs regardless of what the DPS does. Good times and I honestly can't think of too much I'd like to see changed on the bear side of things, though I admit I've only just tapped into things at this point.

Resto is nearly perfect and doesn't need any changes as far as I can tell. I've healed normal instances, Heroics and Naax now and Resto Druids are in a very good place. What I do wonder is where Blizzard is taking Resto and Bears in the next expansion. How many HOTs does a Resto Druid really need? Rejuv, Regrowth, Wild Growth, Nourish.... Tranquility... Where you going Blizzard?

My 24 hours of optimism is now over

I had been optimistic about the recent Shaman review and had taken some of their answers regarding totem mechanics to mean they really understood where the community wanted the class to go. Well good ol' Ghostcrawler took the opportunity to kick us in the nads yesterday afternoon to make sure we knew who was really in charge. So much for Shaman ever coming on par with the other caster classes.

We've already announced our intention to change some of the totem mechanics.

I will however touch on one thing. If totems have super-gigantic ranges then their position matters a whole lot less (at least in PvE where they are rarely in danger). They become a whole lot more like other types of buffs. When and where you place them is supposed to matter. The design intent of totems is not that they are pretty much irrelevant to playing the class. That's not what the shaman is all about.

Shaman will forever be tied to a location based on their totems limiting mobility and mobile offense. Looks like my Shaman will remain retired. Sigh.

Shaman first to have their answers

I've been busy lately leveling my Druid, so I neglected to comment on this last week when it was posted. But it's just too good to pass up. Especially since a lot of the complaints these answers address are the prime reason I stopped playing on my Shaman. This is the first in an expected series of long question and answer posts from Blizzard for every class. WoWInsider was nice enough to post an analysis of the official Blizzard response here and here.

Reading through the official post, you can see that Blizzard is putting a lot of effort into figuring out where the real problems with the class lay. And I think they understand that the lack of mobility is a primary problem with the class. Especially in PVP where the totem mechanic is simply too limiting, so I'm optimistic in regards to what Blizzard will ultimately do with the totems over the long term. I think they're on the right track with their current thinking and should pursue making totems into specific short term spells instead of the buffs they give now. And should instead give Shaman group buffs like other casting classes.

Totems are not the only problem in regard to PVP however. Being tethered to a small area around your totems is bad, but the larger problem with Shaman PVP is having to remain still for relatively long periods of time to cast a series of spells is worse. That immobility makes Shaman easy targets. And the lack of any ability to disengage from attackers when every other casting class has one simply means that once someone sets their eyes on you you're good as dead. To address these issues Blizzard should give Thunderstorm a short duration stun or daze and should introduce at least one instant cast attack that Shaman can use while on the run. Shocks would work without the cooldown on them currently.

PVE raiding is in a much better position, but there are some areas that need to be addressed to. Again, the totem mechanic is limiting but the lack of any true AOE is a bigger problem for those that play the class. Right now the only AOE capability is through the Magma or Fire Nova totems. Both of which require the Shaman to run forward with the melee and drop in the groups. Since both totems are relatively short lived it could mean having to do this more than once as well, putting the Shaman in possible danger from whirlwinds or what have you. It also means that while running to the mobs you aren't DPSing. Fights that require movement are simply not feasible for Shaman AOE right now.

Fix the current totem mechanic, give Shaman greater survivability in PVP and give them a true AOE capability and they'll be in a much better position in my opinion.

So, how does a Trooper hold his own against a Sith?

In Bioware's latest developer blog installment, they discuss the Trooper class. That question struck me as rather humorous, though it wasn't meant to be. The answer of course is to bring a lot of friends! "Happiness is a warm gun" indeed, so I would expect to see most people who do not play Jedi or Sith, to be walking around as troopers. Better make them compelling Bioware.

Yes I'm an alt-a-holic

Always have been, and most likely, always will be. I have reformed slightly since the release of WotLK, but I can start to feel the desire creeping back into me to play more and more classes again. In Vanilla WoW my very first character was a Paladin, which I hated and ended up only playing into the 20's. I switched to a Warlock, who I also only played into the 20's when I finally rolled a Hunter. I played the Hunter pretty much as my main until the mid-50's when I had to go away on a trip for about 3 months. When I got back I found my wife had switched servers (we had been playing on Eredar, a PVP server and she switched to Shadowsong, a PVE server) on me. Since we had been playing together I followed her to the new server and rolled a Warrior. On-demand server transfers were in planning, but hadn't been implemented yet, so my poor hunter sat idle on the old server while I power leveled the Warrior to 60 and started raiding MC and ZG with him. But very quickly I found out that raids didn't want me as Fury, even though I was near the top of the DPS meters every run. I was expected to respec into Protection, and I hated it. Within a short time I idled the Warrior and rolled my Druid.

Even though the guild wasn't all that happy about it I never looked back. Within a matter of weeks my wife and I decided to go through another server transfer, this time landing in Kargath, an east coast PVE server. It wasn't that we were unhappy on Shadowsong, but the time difference between us (East Coast) and Shadowsong (mid-western) was just enough to cause evening raiding problems for us. In any event we transferred and quickly found invites to a relatively new guild that was just starting to raid Karazan. I Was Feral and over a matter of a few weeks established myself as one of the better tanks in the guild. Eventually I became the main tank, and filled in as the OT on those fights that clearly didn't appreciate feral tankage.

Despite loving my Druid, I still had wanderlust running throughout me. I continued to raid on my Druid but ended up rolling a Shaman, Mage and Warlock alts, whom I leveled to 70 and raided with. And I rolled Rogue that I leveled to 70 and battle grounded with. With the WotLK expansion I was determined to be a little more disciplined in my approach to the game. I decided I was going to have two characters and that was it. Once of which obviously became the Death Knight you've seen me blog about repeatedly, and the other there for a while was my Shaman. I wanted a melee and a caster and I really liked the Shaman. Unfortunately raiding as an Elemental Shaman just doesn't excite me all that much and I more or less idled him.

That's when the vestiges of wanderlust started to set in again. I wanted a healer. I had my Druid, whom, I had switched to Resto when we transitioned to in SSC/TK and healed with all the way up through Black Temple. But I was non-committal about leveling him for some reason and allowed a couple guild mates to convince me into trying the Paladin. Like the class, but hate the healing style. Sorry that it took me leveling him to 80 to figure that out, but at least I have an inscriptionist now. I've since hopping back on my Druid and dual-specced him Feral/Resto. Gather two sets of gear while leveling is a bit of a drag, but I get more group invites than I can shake a stick at these days. Of course they want me for my healing, which I'm more than willing to do. Besides I truly like the Druid healing style. I love the mobility and the ability to keep heals running on characters despite stuns or silence effects.

I've decided to finish leveling him to 80 and resume my raiding and battleground habits on him as Resto. But raiding with him will be in alt groups. My Death Knight will remain my main for raiding and achievement purposes. Despite having said all that I'm still dallying with my Rogue and a new alt Warrior. And I've been putzing around with my Warlock lately as well. Nothing serious on these, but I recognize the signs of my boredom when I start to think anything but fleeting thoughts of my various alts.

Achievements just aren't enough. Once you get to level 80 there'll be a period of time where you will be happy to run multiple Heroics a day as you level your reputations. But once you start to raid you'll usually start running Heroics less and less, until at some point you stop running them all together. That is when the boredom usually sets in firmly and is when I start thinking about other alts since I'm not an overly social person by nature. A lot of people might be happy standing around in Dalaran or Shatt and shoot the breeze in general or trade chat. But I'm not. I'm a "do'er" and chasing achievements is fun, but just not enough to keep me busy.

So anyway, expect to see me blog about my Druid a lot more in the weeks to come. I doubt it'll take you long at all to realize what a Druid enthusiast I am.

Blizzard wasting their time?

So WowInsider would like to know. I've remained steadfastly quite on the Druid form changes up until this point because I hadn't really come to a firm conclusion until now. While I don't think Blizzard is wasting their time by any means, I am a little disappointed in the new forms and their lack of new animations. The older forms were truly lackluster and the Druid community had been "requesting" and redesign for some time before Blizzard promised it. So it had been something that a lot of people were waiting for with a great amount of anticipation. Instead of completely new art Blizzard instead updated the old models with additional polygons and a few minor art changes in the face. And the new models are only for Cat and Bear forms, so Resto and Balance Druids are left out completely and no new travel form is planned as far as we know.

Like myself, I think most people were expecting completely new forms all together. And not inclusive of cat and bear forms alone. Blizzard had an opportunity to bring a fresh face to the class and demurred. I do not completely berate the new artwork however--it is better than what we currently have and for that I do at least give Blizzard credit.

On the subject of new instances or battlegrounds I think I have to side with Blizzard. There are ample 5-man instances in the 1-60 and 60-70 brackets, as well as in the 70-80 brackets. Besides the 1-60 instances you can pretty much safely ignore and be none the worse for the wear. It's no secret I am an alt-a-holic, so the hearloom items have been a godsend to me. Shoulders and weapons are all you really need to worry about as you level. Everything else can greens you either loot of buy off the AH. You can usually find a few more people actually running the instances in the Outlands, but since you'll probably only be there two to three days anyway, does it really matter if you run any of them? On my last alt I think I ran two instances and didn't notice any detrimental affect. Once you hit 68 you head to Northrend and its better gear and there are by all accounts ample instances there. I think what most people lament is that once you hit level 80 and start running heroics, you will quickly get bored with them. You will have run them all previously in the run up to 80, and you will undoubtedly run them several more times as you level your reputations with the various factions. Once you start raiding however, you quite likely won't step foot in 5-man instances again, or at the very least, step foot in them very in often. Good news though, in patch 3.2 there will be a new 5-man instance for you to rummage around in.

Battlegrounds are a different beast all together. Your level restricts what battlegrounds you can participate in, but I think most people wait until they hit endgame before doing any serious battlegrounding. Personally I'll hit a battleground or two every could days just to break up the level grind. At least that way I'll have a sizable amoung of honor saved up when I do hit the level cap. My Druid that I'm leveling right now (level 73) has nearly 30k honor already, so by the time I hit 80 I should be able to but two pieces of pvp armor immediately.

I think there are ample battlegrounds already. Instead, I think the problem is that only a couple of the existing battlegrounds are really good. Wintergrasp (even after the nerf to the daily quests making them weekly) and AV are by far the best places to get honor. After that is Arathi Basin and Eye of the Storm. And coming in last are Strand of the Ancients and Warsong Gulch. Warsong Gulch is the worst of the bunch with it's completely open game objectives that can, and do, lead to hour long matches that make your eyes bleed. Strand is slightly better because even if you are getting your teeth kicked in, at least you know there is a defined end point in the match.

The number of battlegrounds isn't the problem. The problem is that some of the existing battlegrounds are just plain bad. Blizzard nerfed the daily quests in Wintergrasp because people were going to Wintergrasp in droves and often causing massive lag. People still flock to AV, EotS, and AB because relatively good honor can also be found there, but outside those your choices are limited. At level 80 major pieces cost 30-49k honor, so you do the math.

Where I think Blizzard really needs to improve is in fixing the quest system in the 1-60 bracket. Despite increasing the XP gain from creatures and quests there are still glaring holes in the 40-49 and 50-59 zones and you end up doing a lot of travel in order to get from 40-58 when you can finally step through the outlands portal. Many people have asked recently for Blizzard to deal the final blow to vanilla WoW by allowing new alts to start at level 55 like Death Knights. Blizzard is thus far refusing to do that, so it makes it all the more important for them to go back and fix those holes they know exist. If they'd just do that I think things would be just fine, but again, thus far they are refusing to do that.

Inscription needs to be redesigned

I had thought I'd posted about this previously but a cursory look on the blog indicates I must have been dreaming. At any rate, I had mentioned over the past few weeks that I had started to level a Paladin though I'm not sure I mentioned I did get him to level 80. I never did mention that I picked up Herbology and Inscription on him and have since leveled that to 435. There really is not reason to level it past 430 since the only things that will give you points are the daily major research and the Northern cards, so I pick up a point every day and that's good enough for me. And I had been able to form a few first hand opinions on the trade, so I found it enlightening that Tobold and Gevlon largely agree with those opinions.

Inscription is by far the easiest tradeskill to level up. And that is saying a lot considering how easy Alchemy is to level; however it is also the least well considered of all the tradeskills (I do not personally consider engineering to be a trade skill). It's major problem, apart from every other trade skill, is that something a level 20 character purchases from an inscriptor can still be used at level 80. Once you settle on a set of Glyphs there is never a need to upgrade or replace them. There is no upgrade path so more than a handful of inscriptors can literally flood the market.

In the heady days of early WotLK and after the introduction of the new randomly learned glyphs in patch 3.1, inscriptor did make a great deal of money, but those days are long gone now. Only certain specific glyphs make any money now, and every inscriptor on the server knows it. You can make cards and hope you can sell the ones that aren't really worth all that much, or hope you are able to put together some Nobles decks though you should expect doing that to be a lengthy and expensive process. I decided after a few attempts that it simply wasn't worth it and decided to make my money from selling inks and glyphs instead. Between selling gems and glyphs and doing dailies I'm satisfied but I won't be hitting that money cap any time soon.

I'd really like to see Blizzard take Inscription back to the drawing board. Build in some upgrade path into the system of glyphs in order to give inscriptors a residual income.

Star Wars: The Old Republic Cinematic Trailer Released

I really, and I mean REALLY, want Star Wars: The Old Republic to succeed. I want it to be everything Star Wars Galaxies failed miserably to be, and more. However, unfortunately there has been a complete lack of information pertaining to "end-game". No one really has any idea what kind of game SWTOR will ultimately be and that has made it hard for me to get overly excited and caught up in the marketing hype. All we do know is SWTOR will feature strong storyline elements (questing) that are unique to each class.

Anyway, watch the trailer, it's VERY nice. The cinematic trailer begins at around the 4:30 mark.

Tuesday's edition of "I hate Tuesday"

Just occasionally Blizzard surprises us with simple rolling restarts, but most Tuesdays drag on forever as they conduct "regular maintenance". On special Tuesdays--like today for instance--they roll out a new patch that most likely means extended down times that they spring on us when the servers don't come up on time, and laggy in game performance for the following few days.

Oh and this patch holds YET ANOTHER DK NERF!

• Frost Presence: Armor bonus is now 60% down from 80%.
• Death Knight PvP Gauntlets: The chance to refresh a Frost Rune when casting Chains of Ice has been removed. When equipped, these gloves now generate 5 additional runic power whenever Chains of Ice is used.

[Update] What a frelling surprise!!!

We have encountered some issues and the maintenance on all realms will be extended by 2 hours. All realms not listed below are expected to be playable by approximately 1:00pm PDT.

The realms listed below that are undergoing extended maintenance are expected to be playable by approximately 2:00pm PDT. Thank you for your patience.

Probably some balding 40 year old male

This is just one aspect of the Internet, and how people act within it that I can never truly fully understand. Of course I can't understand anyone that doesn't live a principled life either, but that is a different conversation all together. Anyway, I had honestly never heard of Paladin Smaladin until a few days ago when I first read about this melt down on Tobold's blog. This morning Lum has a lengthier commentary on it all. Quite an interesting read.

Behind the story of the how and what is the even sadder story of the why. I've personally posted very few details about myself on this blog or my tech site because quite honestly I don't know any of you and like my privacy. I suspect none of you are any more interested in knowing more about me than I want you to know anyway. Besides, you're here for game commentary. People like Ferraro who post pictures of themselves (that aren't even theirs) and take on a persona that is wholly a lie are just sad people seeking the attention the attention they've never received. At their core they aren't happy with who they are and fall into a trap that is all too common these days.

TLDR: Be yourself and be happy. Find your value on your own and not within the whimsical opinions of others.

[edit] Here is Ferraro's Blog - Paladin Schmaladin and the real person behind the pictures "Ferraro" was posting as him/herself , Sarah Townsend.