As patch go Patch 3.0.8 was a little on the hefty side. Especially considering it added no new content to the game. What it did do was change a tremendous amount of talents, game mechanics, items, and instances. Most of which I think were very positive, but some are downright frustrating. Many of the changes to Death Knights are strictly PVP related, which is something I have always found to be quite onerous. I do not Arena, and I don't like changes that are Arena driven to force changes in my PVE play. I'm referring to the changes in the Anti-Magic shell and Gargoyle as examples of some of these.
Outside of a few of those instances I think Blizzard did fairly well. You can definitely see the trend of balancing similar abilities across class, like all taunts now having a 30-yard range and damage mitigation or avoidance abilities being equalized. From that we can see they haven't backed off their assertion regarding classes -- "Bring the player, not the class", though it still isn't quite correct. If you look at Rogues right now for example, they are no where near the top of the DPS hierarchy raid wise. Which is surprising considering where they were at the end of the Burning Crusade. As a raid leader, Rogues are probably the last DPS class I would want to bring now. So I think Blizz still has a little work cut out for them.
In summary, I think I'd give Blizzard an 8 out of 10 on this patch. Some very nice changes and additions, but I think they made a few that falling into the annoying category too.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Musings from the previous few weeks
Unfortunately I was just really busy, and sick the past few weeks and didn't get much of a chance to blog. So let me catch you up on what has been taking up the lions share of my time recently. I had commented previously that my guild had started to hit Naaxramus hard, however that started off somewhat rocky. Myself and a couple other friends then started a mostly static 10-man raiding group and we were actually the first group in the guild to clear Naax. And we continued to have good success raiding it twice a week.
It seems our little raiding group was the topic of considerable conversation in the guild amongst the officer corp however. And from what I had heard, none of it very good. It seems most of the officers didn't like what we were doing and were taking the opportunity to cast stones our way, unfortunately without realizing the irony in their opinions.
I had been in this guild for about three years, and had actually been the main tank (MT) on my Druid throughout most of the Burning Crusade (BC). Yet despite the effort and dedication that took I never really broke into the "clique". The guild had originally been formed by five family members and a few close friends. Its only natural that these people would be a little more close to one another than anyone else you just meet on the Internet. But others that came over from their previous guild and had close ties to them were also included in this "clique", though many of them are some of the nicest people one could imagine.
Decisions were made regarding raiding--everything from the DKP system, to who was queued to raids, to what was to be raided on a given week--were made by the "officers" without any input from the rest of the team. And people I had brought into the guild to fill holes the guild had were treated shabbily in my opinion. One of those was a tank that I worked with and was one of the tanks in a successful raiding guild on a PVP server. He actually transferred his Protection Warrior and hunter from that server to come raid with us when we were in desperate need for more tanks. Despite that knowledge, the guild ended up continuing to recruit more tanks and we ended up with a glut of tanks again. And my friend ended up getting the short end of that stick. And two other friends that I worked with who had joined the guild also were treated in a similar manner. None of them ever received a static or even semi-static raid spot. My tank friend was often asked to raid on Gruul, but only on the King fight for instance. Then he was asked to leave so a DPS could replace him. I can certainly sympathize because that entire dungeon was just badly planned, but to have to undergo this treatment week after week is inexcusable. Other tanks were not asked to rotate so that each of them would get a chance to actually complete the raid and get some gear. And ultimately he left the guild and transferred back to his old server in disgust. And frankly I was very upset about his treatment, as well as the treatment the others I had brought in were being given. Particularly when a small number of others that were recruited by key members of the "clique" were given static spots on the raid team after only being in the guild as short as two weeks.
You see that is just an example of how the guild has operated and been managed for the past three years, and those sorts of issues have greatly upset many people other than myself. And many people have left the guild including a handful of well known and liked people within the past few months. And when these things flare up, the officers act surprised and dumbfounded as to why people could possibly get upset enough to leave. Yet when the issues are clearly communicated to them they act indignant, deny the message, or gloss over the entire episode entirely.
And such is what we have been going through in the guild yet again for the past few weeks. There are a few 10-man raiding groups that are running--largely independent of one another for weeks now. But the guild started up active 25-man raiding a few weeks ago. Completely unsurprisingly most of the raid spots went to "clique" members, including to some who weren't even ready for raiding when it started. They ended up allowing others to fill those spots, and then displaced those people when the "clique" members were ready. Because we're a casual raiding guild, there are more people in the guild than available raiding spots, so outside of of the handful of spots that are open for people to apply for every week everyone is largely on their own for raiding. And so it was with our little 10-man group that was happily clearing Naax every week with no fuss, no muss, and absolutely no drama.
That was until it was decided by the majority of the group that they wanted to bump up to running 25-man content. I won't get into the nitty gritty details, but one of the members of our group took it upon himself to open up a line of communication with the Officers and began to "make sure the officers were on board" with it all. I have no idea what someone would feel it necessary to do this, because none of us felt we needed permission to raid on our own. But it opened the can of worms again and comments that we were causing problems in the guild were thrown around. How ironic.
Ultimately the Guild Master told us that we would not be allowed to run any 25-man content unless the officers were in control and we followed their rules. Needless to say we did not agree and our raid leader was asked to leave the guild. A bunch of us followed. In fact it was the largest exodus of people from the guild at one time I have witnessed in the three years I was there. Yet two days later one of the "clique" posts in the raid forum that "good things were happening (in the guild)". She painted a completely rosy picture of what just happened, and it illustrated precisely how out of touch they all are with the rank and file in the guild. Truly sad. We of course started our own guild and should be resuming 25-man raiding next week.
Outside of all that I have been very busy lately with achievement chasing. You'd never know my Death Knight is only two months old.
It seems our little raiding group was the topic of considerable conversation in the guild amongst the officer corp however. And from what I had heard, none of it very good. It seems most of the officers didn't like what we were doing and were taking the opportunity to cast stones our way, unfortunately without realizing the irony in their opinions.
I had been in this guild for about three years, and had actually been the main tank (MT) on my Druid throughout most of the Burning Crusade (BC). Yet despite the effort and dedication that took I never really broke into the "clique". The guild had originally been formed by five family members and a few close friends. Its only natural that these people would be a little more close to one another than anyone else you just meet on the Internet. But others that came over from their previous guild and had close ties to them were also included in this "clique", though many of them are some of the nicest people one could imagine.
Decisions were made regarding raiding--everything from the DKP system, to who was queued to raids, to what was to be raided on a given week--were made by the "officers" without any input from the rest of the team. And people I had brought into the guild to fill holes the guild had were treated shabbily in my opinion. One of those was a tank that I worked with and was one of the tanks in a successful raiding guild on a PVP server. He actually transferred his Protection Warrior and hunter from that server to come raid with us when we were in desperate need for more tanks. Despite that knowledge, the guild ended up continuing to recruit more tanks and we ended up with a glut of tanks again. And my friend ended up getting the short end of that stick. And two other friends that I worked with who had joined the guild also were treated in a similar manner. None of them ever received a static or even semi-static raid spot. My tank friend was often asked to raid on Gruul, but only on the King fight for instance. Then he was asked to leave so a DPS could replace him. I can certainly sympathize because that entire dungeon was just badly planned, but to have to undergo this treatment week after week is inexcusable. Other tanks were not asked to rotate so that each of them would get a chance to actually complete the raid and get some gear. And ultimately he left the guild and transferred back to his old server in disgust. And frankly I was very upset about his treatment, as well as the treatment the others I had brought in were being given. Particularly when a small number of others that were recruited by key members of the "clique" were given static spots on the raid team after only being in the guild as short as two weeks.
You see that is just an example of how the guild has operated and been managed for the past three years, and those sorts of issues have greatly upset many people other than myself. And many people have left the guild including a handful of well known and liked people within the past few months. And when these things flare up, the officers act surprised and dumbfounded as to why people could possibly get upset enough to leave. Yet when the issues are clearly communicated to them they act indignant, deny the message, or gloss over the entire episode entirely.
And such is what we have been going through in the guild yet again for the past few weeks. There are a few 10-man raiding groups that are running--largely independent of one another for weeks now. But the guild started up active 25-man raiding a few weeks ago. Completely unsurprisingly most of the raid spots went to "clique" members, including to some who weren't even ready for raiding when it started. They ended up allowing others to fill those spots, and then displaced those people when the "clique" members were ready. Because we're a casual raiding guild, there are more people in the guild than available raiding spots, so outside of of the handful of spots that are open for people to apply for every week everyone is largely on their own for raiding. And so it was with our little 10-man group that was happily clearing Naax every week with no fuss, no muss, and absolutely no drama.
That was until it was decided by the majority of the group that they wanted to bump up to running 25-man content. I won't get into the nitty gritty details, but one of the members of our group took it upon himself to open up a line of communication with the Officers and began to "make sure the officers were on board" with it all. I have no idea what someone would feel it necessary to do this, because none of us felt we needed permission to raid on our own. But it opened the can of worms again and comments that we were causing problems in the guild were thrown around. How ironic.
Ultimately the Guild Master told us that we would not be allowed to run any 25-man content unless the officers were in control and we followed their rules. Needless to say we did not agree and our raid leader was asked to leave the guild. A bunch of us followed. In fact it was the largest exodus of people from the guild at one time I have witnessed in the three years I was there. Yet two days later one of the "clique" posts in the raid forum that "good things were happening (in the guild)". She painted a completely rosy picture of what just happened, and it illustrated precisely how out of touch they all are with the rank and file in the guild. Truly sad. We of course started our own guild and should be resuming 25-man raiding next week.
Outside of all that I have been very busy lately with achievement chasing. You'd never know my Death Knight is only two months old.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Upcoming patch 3.0.8
By now I'd think that everyone would have heard about the upcoming "minor content patch" that we should probably expect to hit the live servers next Tuesday. The patch might be called a "minor content patch", but that is only because it doesn't add new content. Overall the patch is on the larger side and there are quite a few class changes to get in front of. Since I'm pretty much only playing my Death Knight these days I've more or less been focusing on those to the detriment of the other classes. But even cursory looks through the remaining classes I think shows that Blizzard is still in the midst of trying to balance the classes.
Overall there are probably only a few changes that I would have removed. The first of which is the Death and Decay Glyph change. As of patch 3.0.8 glpyhed Death and Decay is having its "horror" effect removed. Instead it's being changed to increase damage by 20% while Death and Decay is active. There are other changes, like this, that were clearly in response to PVP complaints. And that just twerks my nerves. I do not like my PVE game changed to suit PVP game play. Basically the glyph was a requirement for DK PVP (read ARENA) play because of the mini-CC ability it gave. The problem with this change in particular is that lots of DKs, like mine, use it extensively in PVE for AOE farming, or for CC assistance on raids.
Now that will be gone, and I'll get very little out of a 20% buff to damage during DnD. I say that because DnD is usually only used on trash pulls. Its not part of my rotation on boss fights, so I lose the mini-CC effect and get a short term bump in damage on mobs where I really don't need that. Blizzard could have simply added diminishing returns on the horror effect, as they have done to nearly every other type of CC/silence effect in the game and been done with it.
Other changes of note are to Elemental Shaman, who are seeing somewhat of a buff to their DPS (10-20%) through an increase in spell coefficients and added AOE abilities through their fire totems. Rogues also are being buffed somewhat by removal of the cool down on Fan of Knives, which means they can start semi-AOE'ing on trash pulls like other classes. There are other changes to be sure, but I think those are the two biggest changes
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Happy belated New Year
The last couple of weeks has gone by incredibly fast. I caught a cold at Christmas and basically spent the two week period between then and New Years at home and not feeling very motivated to do much of anything. Then on the 4th I flew out to California on a two week business trip which I'm still in the middle of. I've neglected my poor blog, but I think that is largely over now. There are a couple things--namely the upcoming 3.0.8 patch that I want to pass some comments on, as well as the upcoming 3.1 patch and the expected inclusion of the dual-spec system. Both blog posts will be coming soon.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
The New Year commeth
It's now 2009, and like many of you I have been busy. Well, busy and sick that is. I got smacked with the cold stick a week ago and just now find myself crawling out from underneath that. Just in time for me to fly out on a two-week business trip to California on Sunday as well. Ahh, real life--it's so much fun! Beside that, I've been commiserating in WoW. I'm still finding the achievement system a great deal of fun and have been chasing more of those on my Death Knight lately. In fact I've noticed I hardly play my Shaman or even my Druid much these days because I've moved to raiding with my DK. I'm a big one for character development, so I've been spending most of my time on him lately.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Merrymaker
I mentioned yesterday how I thought some of the world event achievements needed to be tweaked to make them somewhat less reliant on blind luck. I was a little annoyed by the situation and decided to do some more poking around. Despite the vast amount of bad information on the official forums, and the vague information released by Blizzard itself it seems that the hats can only be obtained--now--in level appropriate content. They still drop as world loot off various mobs, but I'm not sure about WotLK mobs. At any rate, I failed to a hat off any low level mob, so I think the loot tables were modified so that it also requires level appropriateness to loot.
With a week left in the event I did not want to give up. Especially considering the hat was the only thing left standing between me and my Wintervale world event completion. Turns out you can two-man the boss in Nexus and I was able to get a friend to run me through on two of my toons. Merrymaker title obtained!
With a week left in the event I did not want to give up. Especially considering the hat was the only thing left standing between me and my Wintervale world event completion. Turns out you can two-man the boss in Nexus and I was able to get a friend to run me through on two of my toons. Merrymaker title obtained!
Friday, December 26, 2008
Some achievements need tweaking
I've mentioned before that I got turned on to in-game accomplishments with the introduction of the new achievement system. I had a great deal of fun accomplishing achievements on my Shaman, but as time has gone by and I've started investing more time into my other two characters some of the achievements have become harder to get. Particularly some of the holiday achievements like "Tis the Season" which requires you to loot a holiday hat from bosses in various instances. As with the "Sinister Calling" during the Hallows End celebration, I've been very unlucky. I've failed to loot either the Sinister Squashling for two years now, and I've yet to loot a holiday hat on any of my toons either. Which of course means I can't complete either Hallow's End or Wintervale world events, and can't progress toward the "What a long, strange trip it's been" achievement which awards a purple proto-drake mount.
I know Blizzard has answered criticism on this very point during the Hallow's end event, saying they meant the achievement to be harder than others. But as I've already said I failed to loot a Sinister Squashling for two years now. Last year the achievement system wasn't in place so I largely ignored my frustration, but this year there was new incentive to loot the pet. Harder is one thing, but two years without being able to complete that particular achievement crosses over into ridiculousness I think. And now I've seen two world events that I can not complete because of the exact same problem.
One might rightly point out that no one forces us to complete these achievements and that they really don't mean anything anyway. But one could simply answer that this is a game in the first place and doesn't mean anything also. The fact is however, that people want to complete the achievements and while I accept that one should have to work on them, having a complete world event achievement hinge on a drop and winning a roll is probably too far to go.
I know Blizzard has answered criticism on this very point during the Hallow's end event, saying they meant the achievement to be harder than others. But as I've already said I failed to loot a Sinister Squashling for two years now. Last year the achievement system wasn't in place so I largely ignored my frustration, but this year there was new incentive to loot the pet. Harder is one thing, but two years without being able to complete that particular achievement crosses over into ridiculousness I think. And now I've seen two world events that I can not complete because of the exact same problem.
One might rightly point out that no one forces us to complete these achievements and that they really don't mean anything anyway. But one could simply answer that this is a game in the first place and doesn't mean anything also. The fact is however, that people want to complete the achievements and while I accept that one should have to work on them, having a complete world event achievement hinge on a drop and winning a roll is probably too far to go.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Raiding update
I last wrote that we had started our formal raiding and had run into some problems. Since then we've changed out a couple people and actually cleared all four wings of Naax. The team is gelling and I think it will not be very much longer before we clear Naax all together. Unfortunately for me, my rolls have not yet improved. So I've yet to see a single T7 piece whereas my wife now sports the only T7 chest piece in the guild to my knowledge. I know eventually I'll get mine, but I hope it won't take me six months to get a single piece like it took my Druid to get his staff in Karazan.
Right now our schedule calls for us to raid Naax two nights a week, and the Obsidian Sanctum on a third night. Sartharion is on farm status, so I think we plan on trying for one add up next week for some extra loot. Should be fun, but I can't wait until we can start doing Sartharion with three adds and start getting the mount.
Right now our schedule calls for us to raid Naax two nights a week, and the Obsidian Sanctum on a third night. Sartharion is on farm status, so I think we plan on trying for one add up next week for some extra loot. Should be fun, but I can't wait until we can start doing Sartharion with three adds and start getting the mount.
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