Class Room
Season 8 Full Sets Revealed (Pictures)
After a long wait, Blizzard has finally released a series of stills showing off the new Season 8 Arena gear for every class. Looks good except it seems as if Paladins have been breezed over with gear very similar to Season 7, with only the colour scheme changing; sorry Uther.
Armor Penetration Set to Recieve a Nerf in 3.2.2
The nerf to armor pen in 3.2.2 is intentional. Compared to the recent buff where we increased the value of armor rating to 125%, this nerf would take it back down to 110%. While we are still evaluating the effects of this change in the 3.2.2 build, we did want to let you know of the possibility in case you were about to spend a lot on armor pen gems.
In fact, this was really the point. Several melee specs (and Marksman hunters) had begun to focus on armor pen at the expense of all other stats. Gear without armor pen was being passed over and gem sockets were increasingly being filled with just this one stat. While every spec has stats that are more valuable than others, this one felt like it was starting to trump everything. Not coincidentally, characters stacking lots of armor pen were starting to do more damage than their peers and more damage than we were comfortable with.
This change is largely for PvE reasons, though we won't cry at all if melee damage in PvP drops a little as a result.
We're letting you know now so that this doesn't feel like a stealth nerf, assuming it goes live. While you might disagree or be frustrated by the change (though I also suspect it won't come as a surprise to many players), we ask that you try and keep your response to something appropriate for these forums. (source)
A Few Notes on Druids' Battle Resurrection
Currently, Druids are the only class that can ressurrect friendly players while in combat. The spell, called Rebirth, is trainable at level XX and can be used by any Druid, regardless of their talent spec. With a reagent requirement and a twenty-minute cooldown, Rebirth is a spell that, much like a Paladin's Divine Intervention or a Shaman's Reincarnate, should be used sparingly and only as a last resort. More often than not, when and how to use Rebirth is a split-second decision that can make the difference between a successful boss kill or a wipe.
Here are a few points to consider for all you raiding Druids.
– It's good to carry a few reagents for Rebirth, regardless of your spec. Starleaf Seeds aren't that expensive, and your battle resurrection might become necessary at some point, particularly in progression fights. Alternatively, if you can spare a minor glyph slot, consider getting a <Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth>, which eliminates the reagent requirement altogether.
– Another useful glyph is <Glyph of Rebirth>, especially if you're a healer. The utility of this glyph is arguably limited to situations where one of the tanks dies and needs to be brought back to life and pick up the boss straight away; however, it can also give you a few extra seconds to throw some spot buffs on whoever you've just brought back without having to worry about heals.
– If there is more than one Druid in the raid, decide the order in which to use your Rebirth cooldowns in advance. Make sure that your spells don't overlap and essentially waste a cooldown. On that note, remember to set up a macro to announce that you used your Rebirth, and also call it out on Vent if possible. The basic macro should look something like this:
/cast Rebirth
/yell Resurrected %t!
* %t will display the name of your current target
Alternatively, instead of /yell, you can use /rw if you're the raid leader or have assist.
– Be mindful of when you resurrect; if there is any kind of AoE damage going around, the player might die again before you get a chance to bring them to full health, they'll eat a hefty repair bill afterwards, and you've just wasted an essential cooldown.
– Last but not least, always use your better judgement to decide who to resurrect. Take into consideration the specifics of the fight and resurrect accordingly. As a general rule, it's a good idea to save your Rebith for a healer or tank, but there are always exceptions.
Argent Tournament Jousting
I am sure we have all heard of the Argent Tournament. One of the main things the tournament focuses on is mounted combat, at least after you have achieved Valiant status. At first, mounted combat can be quite difficult. This guide will quickly transform you into a worthy opponent for the Black Knight.
First, we need to review the abilities at your disposal. (Each number label corresponds to the abilities numeric key in game.)
1. Thrust: 6yd Range, Instant, 2 sec CD, A melee attack that inflicts 3250 damage.
2. Shield-Breaker: 5 – 30 yd Range, Instant, 2 sec CD, A ranged attack that inflicts 2000 damage and removes one layer of Defend from the opponent.
3. Charge: 8 – 25 yd Range, Instant, 6 sec CD, A charging attack that inflicts 8500 damage and removes 1 layer of Defend from the opponent.
4. Defend: Instant, 4 sec CD, Reduces damage taken by 30%. Strikes by Shield-Breaker or Charge remove 1 layer of Defend! Up to 3 layers of Defend may be stacked.
5. Refresh Mount: Melee Range, Instant, 1min CD, Heals your mount. Can only be used out of combat.
6. Duel: 10 yd Range, Instant, 1sec CD, Challenge another combatant to a mounted duel!
Before you attempt to best your mounted opposition you need to build up your defenses. Use Defend three times. Keeping Defend maximized on yourself and minimized on your opponent is very important, so keep Defend as close to maximum as possible. Approach your enemy and start the joust. The enemy will get into position; DO NOT MOVE. As soon the enemy is in range of your Charge ability use it. After you run through the enemy you have a keen opportunity to use Shield-Breaker, but you must turn around very fast.
The best way to do this is to jump and turn around mid-air using your keyboard turning keys or mouse movement. You will have enough time to spam Shield-Breaker until you hit your enemy with one. After you shield break close the distance on your enemy as soon as possible. After the distance is closed, spam Thrust as much as possible and renew any lost Defend buffs. When your enemy tries to get into position again remain still and use Charge when it is in range again, or back-pedal to get in range quicker. The entire process repeats from here on out until you have bested your opponent.
Even with this guide it will take some practice; don’t get discouraged. Good luck jousting!
An Introduction to Addons
Greetings all, I'm Si and I'm here to give you an insight into the world of addons.
But first a little about myself; I've been playing WoW since 2005, I'm also the developer of the addon Comix (not the original developer, but I have been adding to it for some time). I live in Melbourne, Australia, and I'm currently trying to get a job in the game development industry. Whats that? You don't want to hear my life story? Alright, well onto the addons.
It crossed my mind to make my first post entirely self serving and write about my own mod but I thought that might be a bit on the lame side so instead I thought I'd write about one of the more necessary mods for the game:
Threat Meters
Combat is all about threat, you make the mob more angry at you than it is at someone else and it will go after you first. Therefore it's a good idea to have a visual representation of how much threat you are generating in respect to others in your group.
This is what threat meters are for, they show how much threat each party member (or a specified number of people) is generating on the current target.
There are two categories of targets that will show up in any threat meter:
- The Tank – Should always be at the top, that's what the tank is there for
- Everyone else – It's in your best interest to stay under the tank unless you want to die a horrible, painful death
For anyone that wants to raid, it's generally assumed (and most of the time required) that you will have a threat meter installed. There are a few around but here is a small list:
- Omen – most likely the number one threat meter, has multiple modes for showing information, plenty of configuration options and is my threat meter of choice.
- Simple Threat Meter – shows your threat on the current target, nothing more nothing less, perfect for those who don't care about having a lot of info and just want to make sure they don't pull aggro
- NoThreat and MyThreat – minimalistic threat meters that show you a percentage display of your threat on the target, perfect for those who don't like any sort of clutter on their screen
There is also an in built threat display system that uses the floating combat text style of display to inform you about your threat, so if you don't want to install a threat meter, or don't use addons (in which case you may be reading the wrong article) then you can still get the information you need.
Bring the Player, not the Class
Recently Blizzard has been addressing that some classes are simply more powerful than others in certain aspects of the game, and players have expressed that it should be them determining this, and not the class, a representative responded earlier in the week:
"We don't think that's true. Some of you guys seem to always head for a purity of game design where things would look very neat in a table or plotted on a graph. But we're not trying for a design where every possible raid comp is equally viable. We don't need to support a design where the raid of 8 mages and 2 dps warriors is as effective as the raid with 10 Holy paladins.
All we need to accomplish is to give groups enough flexibility to be able to bring the players they want while still getting all of the big buffs and enough of the smaller buffs. And we've done that. In the Sunwell days, the rosters of most progression-oriented raiding guilds (basically the ones trying today's equivalent of hard modes) were very similar. Now they are quite diverse. We don't have 30 specs represented yet, but we have 4 tanks, 5 healers and at least one dps spec of every class. That's more class diversity in raiding than WoW has ever had before. If you look at the guilds doing hard modes, they have pretty different rosters these days and that's even more true of the normal modes.
If you're new to raiding in WoW, that's awesome because a lot of people are and we made a big effort in LK to make that happen. But talk to the groups that did Sunwell and the frustration they had in trying to build their raids. The first thing these guys said to us when they heard about a new class was "There's no room in my raid to take any."
If you're looking for that one thing that's going to get you a raid spot, I'd shoot for a reputation that you know what the blank you're doing and some good friends."
Worgen Now Available to be Tamed by Hunters
Yes, that's right, Hunters are now able to tame a cool new pet, a Worgen! Now, if this interests you, this is how you do it:
1. First you need the Alpha Worg (A) / Alpha Worg (H) quest. You won't be able to get the pet if you already completed this quest.
2. Find Garwal and take him down to 59% life. % might vary slightly depending on people, just do a few tests on your own.
3. Use Wyvern Sting.
4. When there is 11 or 10 seconds left on the Wyvern Sting sleep effect, start taming Garwal. Again, the time might vary slightly depending on people.
5. The goal here is to complete the taming process right when Garwal says: Enough of this charade!
(Be aware that this is sure to be fixed soon and you may lose the Worgen as a pet once this happens.)
Patch 3.2 brings massive changes to resilience mechanics
There have been alot of Blizzard reps posting on the forums, answering questions and clearing up any uncertaintanty regarding the upcoming 3.2 patch.
One of the more interesting topics of discussion has been the changes heading in the direction of how resilience works. The following is an excerpt from a discussion on resilience from the forums:
"Just to clarify, the change to resilience affects ALL player damage. This includes both normal hits and crits. We wanted to keep the proportion of damage coming from hits and crits the same and just reduce damage across the board. Crit damage is lowered twice, but will still contribute the same proportion of damage as it does today.
Dots do receive a slight relative buff since they are no longer taxed more than other forms of damage.
In all seriousness though, I'm curious about the reasoning behind this change. You've mentioned before that you'd like to slow fights down, where players go from 1-2 global cooldowns to 3-4. Is this change an attempt to achieve that goal?
That is the intent. We want to lower damage so that players don't die quite so quickly and have a chance to do something to respond. This should help lower the "burst damage" problem, along with some changes to specific classes. It does nothing for, or perhaps exacerbates, the "burst healing" problem. To attempt to counter this, we lowered the healing done by Penance and Lifebloom and hit some of the mana sustainability of Holy paladins (through Illumination) and druids (through Innervate and Improved Barkskin). Shamans were not heavily respresented in Arenas so we didn't think their healing output needed to be nerfed. It's possible healing may still be too good and that is something we'll need to keep a close eye on.
We changed the way dots were affected by resilience (or to be more specific, we started treating all player damage the same way) because Shadow priests and warlocks were also not performing at the level we wanted them to see them, and obviously they do a lot of damage through dots. Dots were not lowered the way other forms of damage were lowered, so dot classes by comparison will do more damage in PvP than other forms of damage than they do today.
Changing resilience to affect player damage is an attempt to make it unattractive to tanks and make it less useful for PvE in general. Note also that resilience becoming a more important stat in PvP means that damage (and to a lesser extent healing) will also likely go down, since wearing PvE gear in PvP will be even riskier.
We understand this change can affect rage generation. We have found however that rage is a notoriously difficult number to predict based on math and simulations alone (that's kind of an understatement given the history of the mechanic) so we need to see some more PvP tests to know what the actual effects will be and what changes are needed.
I should add that this is a pretty major change for PvP and will no doubt require additional iteration going forward. It is also not a panacea that obviates the need for additional PvP balance changes as needed. We ask that you be patient and try and direct your feedback towards constructive comments that will help improve the game. We think we can get PvP, and Arenas specifically, into a place that is more fun for everyone."
Unholy Blight to become useful in PvP
The Death Knight ability "Unholy Blight" is set to become quite useful in both PvE and PvP situations with the new update it is set to receive in the upcoming patch. The ability is being changed from a constant AoE damage around the Death Knight, to a DoT that is applied to an enemy after having Death Coil casted on them.
The small area of effect that the spell has today has been lackluster to say the least, and the players have been voicing their opinions on it since it was available. The new change is going to make many players very happy (that play a DK) and many not so happy (All you Rogues out there).
Only time will tell how effective the change will be, and what the community thinks; but from a theorycrafting standpoint, it seems to be a nice change for Death Knights everywhere.
Patch 3.2 details released
The patch notes for 3.2 were released today, and there are somg big changes in store. Death Knights got a big overhaul, as did Paladins, among many other changes. Engineering recieved a buff while other professions weren't so lucky. To check out a detailed list of every change, head over to the official patch notes page.
Blizzard addresses some in-game issues
Blizzard recently fixed some issues in-game, and changed some things to generally make the game a bit fairer for us all. The following comes straight from Blizzard and definately seems to cover some major issues people have complaining about recently.
Rogue Mage Priest (RMP)
We'd prefer to see other comps as dominant as RMPs in 3s. The problem is if we nerf RMP without making other changes, then double melee teams would likely just take their place. The public perception is that at least RMP requires more coordination and finesse than double melee (though we also think there is validity to the claim that just because you have the option of crowd control doesn't mean that bursting someone down makes you somehow more legit.)
PvP Issues
I'll be very brief, but here are the problems we see in PvP right now.
1) Too much emphasis on Arenas and not enough on BGs.
2) Too much emphasis on 2s and not enough on 3s and 5s.
3) Not enough class / spec representation in Arena. Warlock, hunter and shaman numbers in particular are too low, but they're not the only ones.
4) Too fast-paced.
Let me explain this last one in more detail. Some people in the community think that burst dps is too high. We disagree, and the reason we do is that healing is also very powerful in Arenas, to the point at which not having a Mortal Strike debuff may be a huge liability. If you can't burst someone down when wounded, they just aren't going to die unless the healer is mana-drained or chain crowd-controlled, neither of which are overly fun in the extreme case. You can have too much damage, too much healing or too much crowd control.
Exclusive interview with Ryan 'Realz' Masterson from SK-Gaming
We've got a treat for you all today, an interview with one of the top World of Warcraft gamers, Ryan 'Realz' Masterson from SK-Gaming. We were privileged to talk exclusively with him soon after his team's win over eMg in Columbus, and bring it straight to you guys; we hope you enjoy.
The Dalaran Inn (TDI.com): Firstly, thanks for taking the time to talk to us today, Ryan. My first question would have to be about your career as a professional gamer. When did you first start playing WoW competitively?
Ryan Masterson (RM): My first professional level appearance was at ESL Philadelphia back in November (2008), but I have been playing WoW pvp competitively since just before cross-server battlegrounds were introduced. I was associated with my server's best horde-side Warsong and AB team, and playing games with them was a blast. Fast forward to the introduction of ladder play and the Arena, and I have been playing that aspect of the game competitively since day 1 of Season 1.
TDI.com: You were SK-Gaming’s Priest in the recent MLG tournament, what appeals to you most about playing a Priest, and is it your favourite class to play when not in competition?
RM: Historically, Shadow Priest has been my favorite class to play in any aspect of the game. Lately though, Shadow has not been as good, which makes Rogue probably my overall favorite class to play outside of competition for sheer enjoyment factor. That being said, Priest is still a very dynamic class and very fun to play, competitively or not. When I just need to release though, I hop on my Beast Mastery Hunter and just blow people up for a bit.
TDI.com: Describe the most intense arena match you’ve ever played.
RM: This is a tough one. If I had to boil it down to a specific game, there was a game back in Philadelphia that came down to a 1v1 (with me on Rogue) against Pandemic's Mage, Malice. This was during patch 3.0 at level 70, just before the WotLK expansion, and the matchup heavily favored the Arcane Mage. A little planning, a little luck, and I came out on top. Another good one if looking at a whole match was the recent MLG match against Ensidia – we had a plan going into the match, we were all really into it and it was gratifying to see it pay off.
TDI.com: In your opinion, what does it take to be a professional gamer? Can anyone do it, or does it require an innate ability that you are born with?
RM: I'm not sure if I can speak to all professional gameplay, but for WoW specifically there are a few things that stand out. First, you need the ability to pay attention to more than one thing at once. Secondly, you need teammates who are on the same page as you in-game. Practicing to become comfortable with each other's decision making is important. Also, WoW pvp often creates a flood of incoming information, and being familiar with the game's mechanics and abilities as related to pvp will help your brain filter out what's important and what's not instead of being overwhelmed. Finally, practice makes perfect, and understanding and perfecting the generalities of Arena play takes experience.
TDI.com: How do you prepare yourself both mentally, and physically, for tournaments and intense competition?
RM: Mentally you prepare by practicing as much as possible without feeling burnt out on it. Physically, you need to keep yourself from making any poor decisions at the tournament itself that would hinder you from playing your best. By this I mean you need to make sure you get enough sleep, that you eat enough of the right foods (i.e. don't overload on sugar and caffeine), and that you stay hydrated.
TDI.com: What has been your greatest accomplishment thus far in your professional gaming career?
RM: ESL and MLG Champion!
TDI.com: What is behind the nickname ‘Realz’?
RM: My first WoW character was my Priest, which I named 'Real'. At the time I was just thinking about how my WoW character was very much not real and thought the name was somewhat ironic. At a certain point I transferred servers and my original name wasn't available so I added a 'z' to the end of the name. People came to know me primarily as that and it sounded better anyways, so it stuck.
TDI.com: What do you do for fun when not in competition?
RM: I own a blue 2006 Yamaha R6 motorcycle (a sportbike), which is excessively faster than anything I should ever own but is an absolute blast to ride. I live in California so nearly 9mo out of the year are pretty comfortable for riding in terms of the weather. I also am a pretty big nerd, and I play Magic: The Gathering with some friends in addition to WoW. I used to play it somewhat competitively, and now I play more casually but the game is very mentally engaging which I enjoy. Outside of that, the usual 'hang out with friends, watch movies, etc etc' applies to me the same as most social people.
TDI.com: Where do you see WoW in five years?
RM: I have no idea… dead maybe? Perhaps not dead, but perhaps 'the next big thing' will be out by then, and it won't be WoW. Blizzard's next-gen MMO for example.
TDI.com: Lastly, who do you side with, Alliance or Horde?
RM: I've always gravitated towards Horde, but I don't really have anything against Alliance.
TDI.com: Thanks again for taking the time to talk to us today, Ryan.
Protection Warriors: a brief introduction
Protection Warriors – The least needed tank as most people would say, but to those who play them feel they aren’t needed because of the DK tank addition, as well as the abilities to substantially tank AoE and single targets better than a Protection Paladin, or a Tankadin as we call them. Many people think Warriors can’t output the same threat, or hold AoE threat as well as Death Knights and Paladins, but many are wrong when coming to this conclusion. Warriors are just a more complex and gear-based Tank. Also, just because DKs are sold as a Hero Class they’re supposed to be ‘easier to play’; and Paladins, well I can’t get started on Paladins because I just don’t know if I'll ever stop. Paladins are just great hybrids, if anything, they're too good in my opinion.
A lot about the Warrior Tanking in front of your raid, or group of any kind, is the player behind that Warrior. Warriors aren’t a two button class as some might think, they’re more ability based, you have to use many different abilities to build your first burst of threat. Every Warrior that plays World of Warcraft needs to know to use Thunderclap whenever they first charge in. Warriors tend to think “It’s only X amount of damage, and generally not that good” but a smart Warrior would use it, and spec into Improved Thunderclap as well.
Each time a Warrior blocks an attack, try to use Revenge when it is available, off of cooldown. After doing that you would have to build Sunders, use Devastate, grouped up with Glyph of Devastate to give it a chance to apply two sunders instead of one, it doesn’t generate more threat, but generally 3 sunders is ‘go time’ for DPS to start attacking, and by the time you apply three Sunders you have five on the target thanks to the Glyph. Afterwards, use Shield Slam and Heroic Strike to get the most of your rage, and than from there on out keep using Heroic Strike + Shield Slam. Ensure when on boss special abilities to use Shield Block to increase your block chance against said ability.
You can play a Protection Warrior two different ways – there are PvP talents, and PvE talents, even down the Protection Tree. Things to avoid getting, although they may sound appealing, are talents such as Gag Order and Improved Disarm, those are nearly never able to be used in end-game raiding, but are great for PvP. A great spec I would suggest is 5/8/58, getting Parry in Arms, and Armored to the Teeth & Critical Chance in Fury, and as mentioned above, excluding Gag Order & Improved Disarm. Major Glyphs one would encourage a Warrior to use are Glyph of Devastate, Glyph of Blocking and Glyph of Revenge; and for the minor slots: Glyph of Bloodrage, Glyph of Thunderclap, and Glyph of Charge.
Just remember, being a fellow Warrior in the battlefield, I understand being left out of groups because of the abundance of DK tanks and the increase in Paladins becoming Tanks with the Dual Spec feature being released. We are still a viable class, all you need to do is learn a clear rotation so your group doesn't draw threat off you, and to keep yourself on top of TPS (Threat Per Second).
Ability of the week: Reflective Shield
We all have those spells or abilities that we love and rant on about to our guilds and random players we run into on our travels; for me, this week at least, it’s a Priest’s Reflective Shield.
That shining bubble that laughs in your face when you're trying to take down a Priest. The familiar golden shape that denies you that HK, you've all come across it before.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with this talent, it’s located in the Discipline tree, and becomes available at level 30. It works by returning a part of the damage you take back onto your attacker. So whenever you are hit, you will return 45% of the damage.
This may not seem like anything special, but believe me, coupled with the rest of the talents in the Discipline tree; it makes Priests almost impossible to kill for most classes. Combined with the other Disc talents, a Priest can simply bubble, get the haste buff and cast Penance – straight back to full health and there isn't anything you can do about it. If you are incredibly unlucky, they will also get double bubbled, with Divine Aegis, meaning when one of their heals crits, they get a protective bubble put on them for a percentage of the heal.
So there you have it, the ability of the week, what do you think should be featured next? Maybe Killing Spree or Penance? Let us know and we’ll write about why it deserves to be the ability of the week!
Character aesthetics: do we all look the same?
World of Warcraft is without a doubt a visually driven game. We all love looking like shiny beacons of hope to our fellow players and faction. This is where a major problem for many players arises.
Once you reach level 80 and begin collecting gear for your class and spec, you begin to blend in with your fellow players; it begins to become nearly impossible to tell one player from another. We find ourselves deciding to not have our helm or cloak showing just to be different, only to find everyone else is doing the same. So what can fix this? Is this even a major issue? It was recently raised on the Blizzard forums and received and official response from Crygil:
"While we don't have any plans to implement any changes to the character aesthetics at the current time, we are always thinking of ways to make the game feel more unique and personalized for the player. It may come to pass that someday we will expand personalization through some means. Unfortunately, that time is not now and may not be for some time."
Some players were under the impressions that glyphs would help in breaking the conformity, but to no avail; apart from a mage's ability to change what their polymorph targets turn into, there was a big letdown within the visually driven community.
So, with Blizzard stating that they have no real plans to change character aesthetics at this point and the overwhelming player outcry for something to change; all we can really do is make frequent trips to the barbour and hope one day we can escape from this cycle of conformity.
