August News/Discussion

[Taelas]

Fair world PvP is more or less a myth:)

Depends on your value of 'fair', I suppose. Outside of the ganking, my experience on that PvP server was more or less exactly what I wanted. The ganking, however, ruined it.

I don't know why people would spend time ganking and camping people significantly lower level than them; the handful of times I did it, it was either part of a server-wide world PvP thing (back in the day prior to the honor system, two full raid groups of Horde comprised of three different guilds took over Stranglethorn Vale for three hours) or a vengeance camp. I thoroughly enjoy ganking in terms of people within about five levels of me, and it's downright hilarious when someone gets ganked by me, gets their main, and then consequently has their main camped by my alt (who is currently lvl 63) and has to call for help. But going out of my way to camp lvl 30s without prior provocation? Sounds boring to me, unless it's somwhere like Nessy's where I'd be trying to provoke a big fight.

Then my main gripe does not apply to you (though I'm not letting you entirely off the hook:P). The fact remains, however, that people who do it exist. To use your example, at Nesingwary's, they'd kill low-level characters and disappear the moment reinforcements show up.

If it was just someone spotting a lowbie and deciding to kill him spontaneously, I could get over it -- that's expected to happen. I wouldn't enjoy it, but it'd not be a deal-breaker. It doesn't happen often enough that it's an issue, and it's easy enough to avoid by questing in less well-travelled areas (such as Desolace).

Vengeance ganking is something entirely different -- at least it was provoked.

[Sir_Die_alot]

For lack of a better post to reply to I'm posting it to Mav's because it's more where I'm coming from.

On the typical PvP server there is no excitement because the only difference between a BG and the larger world is the run back and the frequency of cross factions meeting. I absolutely expect someone to smack me when I'm trying to take their flag/capture their tower/kill their leader. If I'm just riding my chicken along a path on my way to Karazhan my expectation of a PvP confrontation should go way down. On the average PvP server it doesn't, red = dead. Hey look another gank party waiting for their Kara group to get together. YAWN. Such a place is for the people to stretch their epeen because there is little else to do cross faction.

A pve server is just as bad. You have no way to counter things like the opposite faction stealing a mining node and you KNOW you can turn your back on them. The world of farmcraft. <_<

The better option is somewhere in the middle and the only server I've seen it on is the one I'm on now. It's a RPPvP server and of course there is ganking and camping. PvP server = thems the rules. But its not CONSTANT. I can go to skettis and MAYBE that person with a red name will attack me and MAYBE he won't, people don't go out of their way to make you a corpse. The POTENTIAL for danger makes it so much more interesting AND rewarding when it does come to a fight. It also allows those people who want their epeen to have more fun at it. Its not rare to see one alliance do their dailies totally unmolested, when another who is from a certain guild or just "that guy" has 5 or 6 people rushing to jump them.

This also does not hurt world PvP, no it makes it BETTER because the faction hate is PLAYED not real and born of frustration from getting corpse camped... again. Events can be cross faction arranged, my server has crashed on some occasions due to the popularity getting out of control. I've gone to some where I could only guess at around 200 people being there.

For a really fun PvP experience there needs to be a mix of the above. My experience is that it doesn't happen on the average PvP server because people are too focused on "its red its dead". Predictable game = boring game. Wether its born of too much pvp or too little.

[WimpySmurf]

Aug 12 News
~~~
Sadly, as quickly as it was in, Potion Sickness is gone. It's a shame, and I hope that it comes back. I realize that it'd be quite hard to rebalance the current encounters around Potion Sickness (if Blizz would even bother doing it in the first place) but I liked the idea of encounters balanced around one potion, and having to choose that potion carefully (not to mention the farming time it would slice out of the game)

I was chatting with a friend about Potion Sickness a few days ago and we though it'd be nice if they broke Potions into 3 groups (ala Elixirs) and gave you an independent Sickness for each. So you could eat: 1xHealth, 1xCombat and 1xEnergy potion per battle. With Energy being Rage,Mana,Energy potions. Combat would be your Haste,Destruction,Stoneshield pots. That would allow you to still have to decide when to use each, but would prevent chain chugging, yet also keep the uh oh I just drank that Haste Pot now I'm at 100HP and really should be using a Health Pot situation.

-WimpySmurf

[Mirajj]

Aug 14 News
~~~

Well, hunters have gotten some pretty serious love this push, and next it would seem.

However, casters of every sort have just taken a major hit.

[Jester]

I don't know why people would spend time ganking and camping people significantly lower level than them; the handful of times I did it, it was either part of a server-wide world PvP thing (back in the day prior to the honor system, two full raid groups of Horde comprised of three different guilds took over Stranglethorn Vale for three hours) or a vengeance camp. I thoroughly enjoy ganking in terms of people within about five levels of me, and it's downright hilarious when someone gets ganked by me, gets their main, and then consequently has their main camped by my alt (who is currently lvl 63) and has to call for help. But going out of my way to camp lvl 30s without prior provocation? Sounds boring to me, unless it's somwhere like Nessy's where I'd be trying to provoke a big fight.

I think we are meaning different things by "ganking". If you mean killing someone in a relatively fair (within 5 levels) fight, and not corpse camping except in exceptional circumstances, then I don't think there are many here who would disagree that this is what you sign up for when you roll on a PvP server. It is also not what people are complaining about, and there is at least one lurker who would not call that "ganking", but just plain "killing" in PvP. Ganking is about killing the powerless, those who are vastly lower level, or killing people after they rez repeatedly, or other utterly unequal contests. It's as much about PvP as schoolyard bullying is about competitive boxing.

What is seen as immature is making someone significantly lower level than you miserable by not only killing them, but camping them, and generally wrecking their day when there is no reason except outright malice to do so. This is the behaviour that you seemed to be defending as being perfectly mature. It is allowed, since PvP servers are open season, but it is not mature. If it sounds boring to you, that's because it is boring. It's only interesting to immature players who want nothing more than to feel superior without the threat of someone skilled showing that they really aren't.

-Jester

[Jester]

However, casters of every sort have just taken a major hit.

I don't think this is that dramatic. It changes how casters will have to gear to maintain their favoured regen-to-throughput ratio, but that's not a really big deal in my books. Indeed, I'm rather glad, because it actually introduces gearing choices, rather than just being able to gear for throughput, and then manipulate spell ranks to achieve the desired mana consumption.

It will make protecting innervates a lot more costly for Druids in Arenas. But, then, nobody is crying for Druids in arenas. :whistling:

-Jester

[Quark]

However, casters of every sort have just taken a major hit.

*Ahem*




Good freaking riddance rank 1 Arcane Explosion!

[ryan4nayr]

I don't think this is that dramatic. It changes how casters will have to gear to maintain their favoured regen-to-throughput ratio, but that's not a really big deal in my books. Indeed, I'm rather glad, because it actually introduces gearing choices, rather than just being able to gear for throughput, and then manipulate spell ranks to achieve the desired mana consumption.

Agreed there Jester. Maybe the partly pvp-epicced locks+mages in my guild would stack stats for longevity instead of aggro-ripping:wacko:

My prot paly would miss rank 1 Consecrates for tagging new mobs to aoe-grind, but soon a non-issue considering the addition of Hammer of the Righteous & the bone thrown at retadins, Divine Storm.

[Delc]

Losing rank 1 drain soul makes me sad.:(

[Monkey]

I don't think this is that dramatic. It changes how casters will have to gear to maintain their favoured regen-to-throughput ratio, but that's not a really big deal in my books. Indeed, I'm rather glad, because it actually introduces gearing choices, rather than just being able to gear for throughput, and then manipulate spell ranks to achieve the desired mana consumption.

I just wish that the costs were pegged to the max rank instead of a percentage. Pegging to an amount higher than the max rank is overkill--it penalizes those who choose to toss a buff on lowbies that they meet out in the world (b/c of automagic buff downranking).

Edit: Looks like they are aiming for the costs to be identical (even though they're not, yet):
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...geNo=3&sid=1#44

[Mirajj]

I don't think this is that dramatic. It changes how casters will have to gear to maintain their favoured regen-to-throughput ratio, but that's not a really big deal in my books. Indeed, I'm rather glad, because it actually introduces gearing choices, rather than just being able to gear for throughput, and then manipulate spell ranks to achieve the desired mana consumption.

It will make protecting innervates a lot more costly for Druids in Arenas. But, then, nobody is crying for Druids in arenas. :whistling:

-Jester

I don't know. A lot of healers use various levels of their heals. I know even on my alt priest, I use several different levels depending on how much needs to be healed. It may not be as big of a deal for damage dealers, but I have a feeling this'll hit a lot of healers where it hurts.

[Taelas]

0_o

What. The. HELL.

I currently use at least three different ranks of all my healing spells on my druid, as well as two different ranks on my paladin. This change is... well...

URGH. Look at the positives. I'll get more action bar space. >_>

Goodbye casting low rank spells for healing trivial damage.:(

Gahhh. Just realized this is going to severly hurt my paladin's flexibility when it comes to managing mana and tanking. I have R1, R4 and R6 Consecrate bound to help with mana costs but without completely removing my ability to deal threat.

>_< Not a fan.

[Mordekhuul]

Lack of downranking would be rough in TBC.

In Wrath, however, it will be a different animal, and classes will be balanced around it, so I don't see it hurting anyone's ability to do their jobs well, necessarily. I reserve judgement on that until Wrath is complete and folks are testing it at 80 with decent gear.

I like that this might make gearing more interesting for some classes though. If you want longevity, you won't just continue to cheese out your gear for maximum throughput and downrank to gain it, you'll have to gear for it.

As mentioned, a lot of classes will, even in wrath, miss little things (I have experience keeping mobs aggro'd to me with rank 1 consecrate as I gather up hordes of them for AOE grinding and with rank 1 Drain Soul).

I also thought mixing rank 5 or 6 holy light every so many FoL casts was nice to keep Light's Grace up 100% of the time on the nights I am spec'd holy, but then again, paladin healing is changing a lot (for the better) in wrath, from the look of the direction they are headed (holy tree isn't finished yet).

[--Pete]

Hi,

I think we are meaning different things by "ganking".
snip

Well said over all. Even attacks by enemies many level higher do not, IMO, constitute ganking.

I have a simpler criterion: if the sole purpose of an action is to irritate another player, then that action is ganking. A trivial example: a player is fishing. You're bored, so you place your avatar on top of that player's float every time he casts, thus preventing him from getting the visual feedback of a strike. Your actions have absolutely no rational within the context of the game, you're simply being an asshole. That is ganking.

As to the RL examples some people have given, face-to-face ganking will often result in fist-to-face reply. There are few who have the guts for that. But online, it's easy to have big balls.

--Pete

[Tuftears]

This is horrific for healing efficiency and you can bet since they just pushed the change out, they haven't rebalanced encounters around it. All healers rely heavily on spamming lower ranks of spells to keep MTs alive during heavy-hitting boss fights.

"Lol cancel heal" you say? Risky - if you cancel the heal at the wrong time, the tank's got no heal coming for 3 seconds, which is usually dead-making by Morogrim and beyond.

[Mordekhuul]

This is horrific for healing efficiency and you can bet since they just pushed the change out, they haven't rebalanced encounters around it. All healers rely heavily on spamming lower ranks of spells to keep MTs alive during heavy-hitting boss fights.

"Lol cancel heal" you say? Risky - if you cancel the heal at the wrong time, the tank's got no heal coming for 3 seconds, which is usually dead-making by Morogrim and beyond.

But its on beta they pushed it out, so who cares if they haven't rebalanced the (purely non-raid, non-heroic) encounters available on beta yet?

[Kevin]

This is horrific for healing efficiency and you can bet since they just pushed the change out, they haven't rebalanced encounters around it. All healers rely heavily on spamming lower ranks of spells to keep MTs alive during heavy-hitting boss fights.

"Lol cancel heal" you say? Risky - if you cancel the heal at the wrong time, the tank's got no heal coming for 3 seconds, which is usually dead-making by Morogrim and beyond.

Eh I cancel heal in T6 content all the time. My shaman doesn't really do much downranking anymore. The deeper we got into content the less and less downranking I did because my gear got better and better and running out of mana even with being inefficient wasn't nearly the concern it used to be. Besides I've gotten so used to cancel healing since I've been doing it since, oh Scarlet Monestary days (so for nearly 4 years across all the healing classes) that it's just natural for me to do it that way. I'm not saying that this isn't a very significant change but I don't see it as the end of the world. Blizzard has been trying to get rid of it for a long time because it's not what they wanted to balance the game around. Will it affect how I heal? You bet it will since I do still downrank for various reasons and on rare occasions I've done the be completely mindless and just spam a lower rank spell for 5 minutes (oh how fun and engaging that makes an already mostly boring job but it's the best option in some case). But I'm hoping they get the balance right with the changes.

I have no idea if they'll get it right though.

This affects my hunter in PvP a fair bit too. I down ranked quite a bit on various skills because a rank 1 arcane shot when you are nearly out of mana (or are out and are just getting viper regen) is a lot more damage than not doing anything at all and can mean you kill that druid before he gets away to drink. It affects my tanking paladin with the different ranks of consecrate for aggro and mana conserve. It does all kinds of things to my shaman (who is resto) as I use a lot of rank 1 shocks for various reasons and I did more downranking in PvP of heals then I did in PvE since mana conservation was way more critical to a win or loss in PvP than it was in PvE in most cases.

Again I see this as a much bigger impact on PvP than on PvE, but as mentioned, Blizzard has been looking at ways to get rid of it in PvE for a long time because it was never how they intended people to handle stuff and they obviously did not like trying to design for it (like with the pre TBC potions and flasks which is a change that I'm soooo happy they put in. I actually started to use consumables way more when they made the change. Before it just annoyed me more to use some because it just felt like what is the point if I'm not going to go all the way on consumables and going all the way took way too much farming. Yeah my logic is very very flawed but that's how it worked for me. :)


The hunter changes look nice though. I've been playing as beast recently just because, but I've been survival a long time in TBC. I was beast for much of pre TBC until my focus became mostly raiding then I went marks until they put in the TBC talents it was obvious to me that beast would be better DPS so I went back to beast, stayed beast for early Kara, then went survival when it was clear that expose weakness was doing more for the raid than me being beast was. Then I stopped playing PvE and did mostly PvP and being survival in PvP was just way more fun so I stayed survival for PvP and PvE. So anyway I've missed deterrance a lot in several different situations. I still wish scatter shot would be trainable though. PvP without scatter shot just sucks I feel too much like a glass cannon as beast because you are a one trick pony that gets your one big burst then you are just so weak until that trick comes back. As survival I got used to be able to survive in 3 on 1 situations long enough for help to arrive, and I was much better and surviving the DPS while I killed the enemy healer. That just isn't the case as beast unless I have my one trick. I lot of that ties into not having scatter shot. The weaker traps, the lack of the sleep sting, no deterrance no counter attack, less HP, they play a part too, survival is the right name for the tree if played well in PvP. But I do like some of those skills being baseline. I still would prefer to have scatter as any spec, but I do understand why they don't, and it's for PvP reasons. I'll be happy to always have my deter button though.

[WimpySmurf]

Lack of downranking would be rough in TBC.

I also thought mixing rank 5 or 6 holy light every so many FoL casts was nice to keep Light's Grace up 100% of the time on the nights I am spec'd holy, but then again, paladin healing is changing a lot (for the better) in wrath, from the look of the direction they are headed (holy tree isn't finished yet).

Yeah, I actively use 3 different ranks of Holy Light to keep Light's Grace, and heal the an appropriate amount (minimizing overheal). Assuming that spell stay %base mana, in Wrath it kinda looks to me like a Holy Pally will not try to keep Light's Grace up full time by mixing in lower ranked Holy Lights. But will instead be casting Flash & Beacon, until a burst of damage occurs, which they'll lead off with a Holy Shock followed by an instant max Rank Holy Light and then into 2s Holy Lights if needed. I rarely ever use Holy Shock for healing just because of the range issue, but with it having a 40yd range for healing in Wrath, it'll be much more useful. Of course this change could also just pigeon hole Holy Pallies further into MT healing roles as well, with them going back to full time cancel casting of max rank Holy Lights.

-WimpySmurf

[Concillian]

undocumented change in current push:

Apparently any spell cast initiates the GCD, even if canceled. So you cannot start a cast, move, then re-start a cast as was common in PvP to attempt to get an opponent to pummel / kick when you weren't casting.

Well, you can do it still, but with a 1.0 to 1.5 second pause between casts instead of the 0.5 to 1 that people would generally use in PvP. It also would severely affect the cast / cancel way of healing which would need to happen with the downrank change. I really don't see both downrank and this GCD change staying. One or the other (or both) will need to be re-worked some.

[Mordekhuul]

undocumented change in current push:

Apparently any spell cast initiates the GCD, even if canceled. So you cannot start a cast, move, then re-start a cast as was common in PvP to attempt to get an opponent to pummel / kick when you weren't casting.

Well, you can do it still, but with a 1.0 to 1.5 second pause between casts instead of the 0.5 to 1 that people would generally use in PvP. It also would severely affect the cast / cancel way of healing which would need to happen with the downrank change. I really don't see both downrank and this GCD change staying. One or the other (or both) will need to be re-worked some.

Yeah, that sounds odd. I'm not sure what about cancel-casting Blizzard would dislike.

Really, on another note, I'm very anxious to see the full implementation of inscriptions after they quit monkeying around with it.

Between rumors it is like jewels where once a glyph is slotted you have to overwrite it to change it, losing the glyph you overwrote, to rumors (fed by a Blizzard post or interview, if I recall correctly) that you will be able to swap glyphs in and out as desired from your inventory....

Damn I'd love to be able to swap them out as desired. It would be a fun side-game to optimize glyph use per encounter, and the alternative would be just annoying as hell for those of us that both PVP and PVE and use multiple specs even for straight up PVE.

EDIT - Also, some glyphs just seem designed to be swapped in here and there, but not kept up all the time, like the glyph that makes Avenger Shield only hit one target, but for increased damage/threat. I'd love to use that when pulling the hunter boss on Karathress or some trash pulls, where I want one mob on me, but don't want the MT to have to run around trying to pull the extra off of me, but would never want to give up multi-target AS altogether.