04-16-2004, 12:50 PM
I wanted to try a priest. Really. But reading the changes Blizzard made to the Mage class, I HAD to play another one. Plus, I wanted to see if I'd have a hard time like I did in Phase 1. With the learning curve out of the way, starting out was a breeze this time. After about 5 hours of play, I'm a level 8 undead Mage named TheBolt (please look me up to sign our guild charter this weekend!).
Hooboy, it's been mentioned here before, but Blizzard really dropped the ball on the starting zone of the Undead race. There were far too many people competing for far too few monster kills. One quest had you going to kill some humans, and there was only one camp of them in the whole area. The second monsters spawned, they were tagged, and players were running around desperately trying to get in that first hit so they could claim the kill. Someone pointed out in general chat that by filtering the population window, he found there were over 200 Undead and over 200 Tauren players. However, there were only 40 Troll and 80 Orc players. It's clear what the popular races were. I was actually thinking of playing a Troll until I saw that the Undead start out with much better Intelligence and Spirit. Blizzard, that's LAME. The races should be equal across the board, and while it may seem silly to have gnomes with the same strength as Taurens, it's essential to avoid the scenario where all warrior players pick the same race, and all mages pick the same race, and all rogues pick the same race, etc etc etc. Races SHOULDN'T MATTER and it should be up to the players what they want to be/look like only. I will be using the /suggest function on this issue quite a bit, and if you agree with me, please do so as well while playing. Sure, you COULD pick another race, but you'd be shortchanging yourself. Thus, the vast majority of Mages, over the long run, will wind up being one of two races that give the most starting intelligence and spirit for the Horde and the Alliance. All the Warriors will be Taurens. Blah.
I'm happy to say that once you get over the initial adjustment of MMORPG play, you will do fine. It also helps to not play a Mage when they stink, but that's another matter. Mages have been beefed up significantly in this patch in order to address their lack of crowd control and the downtime they always face.
First of all, as a Mage (or Priest, really), after every level up you need to max out your Intelligence and Spirit. Since these are the primary attributes, they come cheap. In Phase 1, spirit was an afterthought; it had such little effect that raising it was pointless. Spirit has been given a very significant boost in Phase 2, and it takes so much less "downtime" between fights as a Mage that drinking is rare. In Phase 1, you'd have to stop and drink after pretty much every solo fight, since it would take a good half of your mana to kill one mob and you wouldn't want to risk running out on your next fight. This started getting better around level 20 for me, where I could do 2 fights before drinking, but overall it was a slow and tedious process.
I found myself fighting mobs 3-4 levels ABOVE me last night, even before I started partying with MongoJerry. Doing so in Phase 1 would have been suicide, since most spell attacks would be resisted. I don't have Frost Nova yet to freeze monsters in place (and died horribly being reminded of that). I foolishly took on two mobs at once last night and got creamed when I forgot I don't yet have Frost Nova (or Sleep, which comes at level 8), but that's my own stupidity.
Stuttering seems to have been reduced. My attacks still get interrupted, but not as often and not as badly. I mentioned that to Mongo and he believed this was due to his Holy Shields he was casting on me, but I noticed this before we started partying. Now that I have Sleep, obtained just before I had to Sleep in Real Lifeâ¢, I can actually take on more than one mob at the same time! Whoopie! :)
Unfortunately, I haven't played any other classes yet, so it's hard to compare. But Mages in Phase 1 compared to Mages in Phase 2 is like night and day. The Spirit boost is a large kicker. If you read my earlier reports, you might recall how I noted that the melee classes could just move from mob to mob to mob with little interruption, while I had to sit down and drink after each fight. No longer. I commented to Mongo yesterday that this was more like an action game now, and it was quite fun. It's still tough - I died 3 or 4 times last night when I made errors in judgement - but with each death, I knew the fault lay entirely on my goof and not the Mage's inability to take on mobs due to the stuttering, spell resists, and lack of crowd control. However, Mages can now go from mob to mob to mob. At level 7, with spirit maxed out for my character level, I was regenerating about 7-10 mana per second. With 250 mana, that's a huge gob! To kill a mob solo would require about 150 mana, meaning around 15 seconds to be back up to full power. Since much of that time is used for looting the corpse, targeting another mob, and approaching attack range, I was able to do the mob-to-mob-to-mob attacking the melee classes have enjoyed, only needing to stop if the previous mob really roughed me up. My hit points are still way low (100) and my armor stinks, so I have to be careful, but then again I didn't place any points in Stamina. My health regenerates about 3 per second. Only once last night did I feel the need to stop and drink/eat after a mob really took a lot out of me to kill and I didn't want to wait for the regen of Spirit.
Perhaps Blizzard has beefed up Spirit too much, but then again I have no basis of comparison so I won't claim that. I know Mages seem much more useful than before, in solo AND in groups (we have Sleep). In parties, we won't be forced to stop and drink while the other party members watch and tap their feet. We still possess paper-thin armor and low hit points, and that's the way it should be. With the new monster tapping system, there could be issues. Mages can run up to a mob and cast an instant-cast spell to tap it before the melee classes can reach it. Of course, doing this too much while playing solo is not smart, since you'd then have a rampaging monster heading for you, leaving you no chance to get off a timered spell before it reaches melee range.
I have yet to face off against ranged (archer) attackers. I did face some spellcasters, but in WoW, monster spellcasters have low hit points to compensate for their high damage. I could take them down easily enough, since I can get 2 shots off before they can get one at me. My first shot wakes them up, but I'm already casting my second shot before the first one reaches them. Mages need this kind of advantage, especially against charging melee mobs - the ability to nail them with a couple of shots before they close in to melee range. Generally as a Mage, if you lose that "initiative," you should seriously consider fleeing. You don't have the hit points and armor to go toe-to-toe with a melee mob for very long, especially before you get Frost Nova to freeze them in place as you pull away.
I have not yet gotten to try out Sleep, but it's just what the Mage needed to be able to solo in this game and handle 2 mobs at once. Blizzard removed Phantasm, the Mage's semi-minion making spell. I call it "semi" because it only spawned on a per-monster basis, had too few hit points, and never drew aggro at all. I think that's a good move - minions belong to Warlocks and other classes. Sleep, or Blinding, or something like that is more suited to a Mage. In fact, Blinding would be a better alternative, I think - it would protect the Mage, but not the melee classes who might get next to the mob. The Mage should not be a Priest.
Anyhow, enough about the Mage. Those of you who have played the other classes, can you make any comparisons between Phase 1 and Phase 2? How does the Power system work out for Warriors - supposedly now your equipment makes less of a deal? I know that my melee damage is incredibly wimpy now (as it should be). I have to get me a wand, which will do magical damage instead of physical.
-Bolty
Hooboy, it's been mentioned here before, but Blizzard really dropped the ball on the starting zone of the Undead race. There were far too many people competing for far too few monster kills. One quest had you going to kill some humans, and there was only one camp of them in the whole area. The second monsters spawned, they were tagged, and players were running around desperately trying to get in that first hit so they could claim the kill. Someone pointed out in general chat that by filtering the population window, he found there were over 200 Undead and over 200 Tauren players. However, there were only 40 Troll and 80 Orc players. It's clear what the popular races were. I was actually thinking of playing a Troll until I saw that the Undead start out with much better Intelligence and Spirit. Blizzard, that's LAME. The races should be equal across the board, and while it may seem silly to have gnomes with the same strength as Taurens, it's essential to avoid the scenario where all warrior players pick the same race, and all mages pick the same race, and all rogues pick the same race, etc etc etc. Races SHOULDN'T MATTER and it should be up to the players what they want to be/look like only. I will be using the /suggest function on this issue quite a bit, and if you agree with me, please do so as well while playing. Sure, you COULD pick another race, but you'd be shortchanging yourself. Thus, the vast majority of Mages, over the long run, will wind up being one of two races that give the most starting intelligence and spirit for the Horde and the Alliance. All the Warriors will be Taurens. Blah.
I'm happy to say that once you get over the initial adjustment of MMORPG play, you will do fine. It also helps to not play a Mage when they stink, but that's another matter. Mages have been beefed up significantly in this patch in order to address their lack of crowd control and the downtime they always face.
First of all, as a Mage (or Priest, really), after every level up you need to max out your Intelligence and Spirit. Since these are the primary attributes, they come cheap. In Phase 1, spirit was an afterthought; it had such little effect that raising it was pointless. Spirit has been given a very significant boost in Phase 2, and it takes so much less "downtime" between fights as a Mage that drinking is rare. In Phase 1, you'd have to stop and drink after pretty much every solo fight, since it would take a good half of your mana to kill one mob and you wouldn't want to risk running out on your next fight. This started getting better around level 20 for me, where I could do 2 fights before drinking, but overall it was a slow and tedious process.
I found myself fighting mobs 3-4 levels ABOVE me last night, even before I started partying with MongoJerry. Doing so in Phase 1 would have been suicide, since most spell attacks would be resisted. I don't have Frost Nova yet to freeze monsters in place (and died horribly being reminded of that). I foolishly took on two mobs at once last night and got creamed when I forgot I don't yet have Frost Nova (or Sleep, which comes at level 8), but that's my own stupidity.
Stuttering seems to have been reduced. My attacks still get interrupted, but not as often and not as badly. I mentioned that to Mongo and he believed this was due to his Holy Shields he was casting on me, but I noticed this before we started partying. Now that I have Sleep, obtained just before I had to Sleep in Real Lifeâ¢, I can actually take on more than one mob at the same time! Whoopie! :)
Unfortunately, I haven't played any other classes yet, so it's hard to compare. But Mages in Phase 1 compared to Mages in Phase 2 is like night and day. The Spirit boost is a large kicker. If you read my earlier reports, you might recall how I noted that the melee classes could just move from mob to mob to mob with little interruption, while I had to sit down and drink after each fight. No longer. I commented to Mongo yesterday that this was more like an action game now, and it was quite fun. It's still tough - I died 3 or 4 times last night when I made errors in judgement - but with each death, I knew the fault lay entirely on my goof and not the Mage's inability to take on mobs due to the stuttering, spell resists, and lack of crowd control. However, Mages can now go from mob to mob to mob. At level 7, with spirit maxed out for my character level, I was regenerating about 7-10 mana per second. With 250 mana, that's a huge gob! To kill a mob solo would require about 150 mana, meaning around 15 seconds to be back up to full power. Since much of that time is used for looting the corpse, targeting another mob, and approaching attack range, I was able to do the mob-to-mob-to-mob attacking the melee classes have enjoyed, only needing to stop if the previous mob really roughed me up. My hit points are still way low (100) and my armor stinks, so I have to be careful, but then again I didn't place any points in Stamina. My health regenerates about 3 per second. Only once last night did I feel the need to stop and drink/eat after a mob really took a lot out of me to kill and I didn't want to wait for the regen of Spirit.
Perhaps Blizzard has beefed up Spirit too much, but then again I have no basis of comparison so I won't claim that. I know Mages seem much more useful than before, in solo AND in groups (we have Sleep). In parties, we won't be forced to stop and drink while the other party members watch and tap their feet. We still possess paper-thin armor and low hit points, and that's the way it should be. With the new monster tapping system, there could be issues. Mages can run up to a mob and cast an instant-cast spell to tap it before the melee classes can reach it. Of course, doing this too much while playing solo is not smart, since you'd then have a rampaging monster heading for you, leaving you no chance to get off a timered spell before it reaches melee range.
I have yet to face off against ranged (archer) attackers. I did face some spellcasters, but in WoW, monster spellcasters have low hit points to compensate for their high damage. I could take them down easily enough, since I can get 2 shots off before they can get one at me. My first shot wakes them up, but I'm already casting my second shot before the first one reaches them. Mages need this kind of advantage, especially against charging melee mobs - the ability to nail them with a couple of shots before they close in to melee range. Generally as a Mage, if you lose that "initiative," you should seriously consider fleeing. You don't have the hit points and armor to go toe-to-toe with a melee mob for very long, especially before you get Frost Nova to freeze them in place as you pull away.
I have not yet gotten to try out Sleep, but it's just what the Mage needed to be able to solo in this game and handle 2 mobs at once. Blizzard removed Phantasm, the Mage's semi-minion making spell. I call it "semi" because it only spawned on a per-monster basis, had too few hit points, and never drew aggro at all. I think that's a good move - minions belong to Warlocks and other classes. Sleep, or Blinding, or something like that is more suited to a Mage. In fact, Blinding would be a better alternative, I think - it would protect the Mage, but not the melee classes who might get next to the mob. The Mage should not be a Priest.
Anyhow, enough about the Mage. Those of you who have played the other classes, can you make any comparisons between Phase 1 and Phase 2? How does the Power system work out for Warriors - supposedly now your equipment makes less of a deal? I know that my melee damage is incredibly wimpy now (as it should be). I have to get me a wand, which will do magical damage instead of physical.
-Bolty
Quote:Considering the mods here are generally liberals who seem to have a soft spot for fascism and white supremacy (despite them saying otherwise), me being perma-banned at some point is probably not out of the question.
