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The pic above, via The Nameless One on WoW Ladies LJ, shows you just how bad the state of battlegrounds healing is. In a WSG where she was healing, she topped the healing meter, and second place went to a Warlock. Drain Life and healthstones for the win. They're already OP-- do we really need them topping healing meters, too?
Of course, this is just one screengrab from one match, but it's true that healing in the BGs is just plain sad. And it's not surprising why-- there's a huge focus on DPS and taking the other side down in BGs, and there's almost no reward at all for healing. Out of the eight stats listed on that screen, only one of them has anything to do with healing (OK, bonus honor and HKs might get a nice boost if you're a good healer, but at this point, odds are they'd get an even better boost if you're DPS). Healers get all of the damage (since healers are targeted first), and none of the glory.
I'm not sure how we can fix this, either-- tracking "average lifespan," as a way of recognizing healers who stay alive? Providing bonus HKs, just for healing? Providing better PvP healing talents and gear? Personally, I love healing the BGs-- I love sitting behind a tree and keeping my faction alive long enough to take the flag or kill the other team. But right now, it's pretty much its own reward. When a Lock takes second place to a Priest in PvP, you know players need a little more incentive to break out the Greater Heals and Healing Waves.
If you're the type of player who finds cauldrons useful, then you probably already know about them – and if you have no idea what they're for, you probably have no use for them. But Insider Trader is the Martha Stewart of WoW Insider – we happen to think that any tool that helps other players take responsibility for their vitals is, as Martha would say, a Good Thing. So let's talk about the so-called pot o' pots.
Cauldrons are the alchemical, resistance-pot equivalent of a warlock's soulwell. The alchemist creates a bubbling cauldron that other raid members can click on to receive a major resistance potion from one of the various schools of magic – there are cauldrons for each type of magic except for Holy. Cauldrons can turn out 25 potions over a five-minute duration, a decided improvement over creating, carrying and handing out that many individual pots (and quite a bit cheaper than making even less than half the number of normal major protection pots).
Read more about cauldrons, as well as a handy tip about how to use multiple healthstones (yes, that's more than one at a time), after the jump.
While you may not be getting quite so many changes as some other classes out there, your changes beat theirs in...sheer unexpectedness? I dunno. Here's what's slated for patch 2.3 for light-swingers, gunslingers, and masters of the dark:
[Hunter] We are planning to change Wyvern Sting so that it will be instant cast. (Drysc)
[Hunter] Arcane Shot (ranks 6+) will dispel 1 magic effect in addition to the normal damage. (Drysc)
[Warlock] There is a change for Ritual of Souls which will significantly reduce the time to cast and complete it. (Nethaera)
[Paladin] We're pretty much focused on Retribution with 2.3, but some more general changes are being made like lowering the mana cost for Exorcism, Holy Wrath, and Hammer of Wrath.
Another Ret change (just to keep the momentum going) will be an increase to the duration of Vengeance to 30 seconds. (Drysc)
[Paladin] You're amazing, that's absolutely correct [referring to Crusader Strike cooldown being lowered to 6 seconds] (Drysc)
That's a lot to digest. That Arcane Shot is pretty crazy, huh? Kalgan says it'll work like "an offensive dispel", similar to Purge. I suppose that should get some more people using it again, at least in PvP. Will the rest of us have any buffs left, or will a fight with a hunter suddenly be like Garr? Either way, change is good. Bring it on.
Update: Since posting this, Drysc has announced another pleasant change:
How about 20 and 24 slot ammo pouches and quivers?
My favorite class of the day is the Hunter, mainly because I get to control both my main character and my pet at the same time. I love the dynamic of how these two entities fit together and do damage together so nicely. I have also played a warlock up to 30, but so far the dynamic of doing multiple things at once with demon master doesn't seem as interactive to me, though I suspect it may get better later on.
I love the multitasking involved with controlling two game entities with cooperative abilities at the same time, but some people hate it. One friend of mine wishes that hunters didn't have pets at all -- it feels too much to him.
One thing that I can't see myself getting into though, is multiboxing: running multiple WoW accounts on different computers and linking them up so you can control them at the same time. The prohibitive cost is the main reason I'm not interested, but also I like the sense behind the hunter class that the hunter and the pet were designed to work together as a single entity. I feel like multiboxing would only leave me doing less than would be possible if we actually had one real person playing each character.
What's your opinion on doing multiple things at once? Do you love such complexity, or do you prefer a simpler playstyle? Which class do you think has the most things going on at the same time?
Keen and Graev have a good post up about why (according to them) players prefer playing DPS roles. Statistically, it appears to be more or less true-- according to Warcraft Realms, four of the five highest class percentages are traditionally DPS classes: Mage, Rogue, Warlock, and Hunter. Warriors also have a higher population, but it could be argued that only 1/3 of the Warrior specs (Prot, as opposed to Arms or Fury) out there are actually meant for anything other than DPS.
So why do players seemingly prefer to play DPS? K&G give three main reasons. They cite something they call "Big Number Syndrome," which is the idea that unless you're dealing big damage, your class is worthless. They say that doing DPS requires less responsibility-- tanks and healers have to pay attention to everything, but DPSers choose a target and kill it. And they say that DPS classes level faster, which seems anecdotally (at least) to be true-- more damage means a faster kill, which means XP more often.
In general (very generally, in fact), I tend to agree. For these reasons, some people are definitely drawn to the DPS lifestyle. But I don't think that these reasons are why people chose these classes in the first place. Hunters, for example, have pets, and I think that's a much bigger draw to the class than "big number syndrome" ever was. And let's not forget that these are more or less the most archetypal classes in the game-- someone who's never played the game probably would immediately know what a "Mage" or "Rogue" could do, whereas a Shaman (the lowest class population, according to the census) is a little harder to explain.
So I think K&G are putting the chicken before the egg-- these things may be true about DPS looking back (and they may in fact be reasons people choose DPSers as alts). But when people first choose a class to call their own, I think it's a little simpler than that.
Player Amithral of the Magtheridon server has a complaint about LoS (Line of Sight) spells. These are channeled spells like Mindflay, Drain Mana, Drain Life, etc. Pretty much anything where you see a particle animation of a continuous beam from the caster to the target.
His complaint is that if the target breaks LoS, the ray spell continues. Hunters are plagued by LoS issues, but Priests and Warlocks seem to get a free pass as long as they have LoS when they first cast their spells.
Community Manager Tharfor responds that the ray-like spells are considered to be a "working feature and there are currently no plans to change it." However, he also went on state this game mechanic may need to be reevaluated and he will bring it up to the dev team to see if they want to address it.
What do you think? Is the lack of a LoS check after casting an unfair advantage (especially in PvP) or should it be considered an advantage of the classes that have it?
As we all know, warlocks are just so OP, it's very hard to beat one in a one-on-one PvP situation. Thankfully, however, Makale has discovered their secret weak spots, and is willing to share them with the world. The introduction in this video is a bit slow, but once you get to the meat of it, there's no denying that these tips are the best you can get.
Syphonis is back. The poor young Warlock who got banned from WoW by his parents for the "oooh ooooh"ing succubus is back on the forums with another tale of woe.
It's still funny (he's now learned how to pronounce Succubus, though his mother is a little freaked out that she "seduces" people, and we learned the real reason why his parents want him out of WoW: because child predators play "mmogrpos"), but I'm more inclined to call "shenanigans" on this one-- the insight on how kids work seems too mature to me somehow.
Then again, as any parent will tell you, kids are insidious at convincing you to give them their way. Fortunately, he closes the epic story with an acknowledgment that school is just around the corner, and that WoW is going to take a back seat to that for a little while. Sounds like the best thing for everyone, buddy.
Is it just me, or did the process for obtaining my voidwalker get way too hard in the Burning Crusade? I now play a Blood Elf Warlock along with my alliance toons, and just last night I had to go into Ghostlands, to Goldenmist Village to summon a VW, defeat him and high-tail it out of there to get my big fluffy blue peep. No, I have done it before on other toons on other servers, but even with a friend I found this task to be all too difficult. ON the Alliance side, getting your VW in Stormwind can be done while eating IRL, giving the dog a bath, or watching reruns of <insert favorite show>. An ambitious imp can nearly solo it.
Generally, most starting area content in Burning Crusade has been easier. Early quests in both Eversong Woods and Azuremyst Isle give you bags to help you hold more right off the bat, and in both areas you can go from 0-12 in a matter of a few hours. Most quests are geographically close together, and the content is very well laid out to help you move on to the better stuff quickly.
This Warlock rite of passage is the hardest thing I have seen in the lower-level starting areas for a Blood Elf, and it is incredibly hard, especially if you are soloing it. The aggro, and respawn rate of all the ghosties in the area are cranked up much higher than they should be in my opinion, and I think many players would agree. You literally cannot stop running or 3-5 ghosts will be owning your imp in nothing flat, not to mention you. Try it yourself, roll a Blood Elf Warlock and get it to level ten, and try to get your VW, and you'll see what I mean.
Have you found the content in Burning Crusade to be too hard, starting areas or otherwise? Are there areas and problem spots that continually give you hassle that you Blizzard should maybe address, you know, after they put out the new expansion pack that is? Sure it is easy to complain, and says things aren't right, but in this case, I feel that some sort of tweaking is needed. I can't imagine someone who is just starting to play being able to complete this quest, and I have been playing for a while.
Draele just started a blog about being a Warlock called Rantings of the Afflicted, and today he's got a post up about that most heinous of Warlock abilites: yes, none other than fear. A touchy subject (to say the least), but he offers three different suggestions on how to make fear fun for everyone.
At its base, fear is actually Blizzard's way of trying to come up with another game mechanic. If you're a veteran MMORPG player, you know there are three archetype classes-- healer, DPS, and tank. All three of them are centered around damage-- either getting rid of it, doing it, or tanking it. Fear, however, plays with none of those rules-- it's a complete damage negator. The reason Warlocks have fear is so they can wear cloth and yet stay alive for a long time against one target-- long enough for their DoTs to come in.
The problem with fear, however, as even the developers have admitted, is that it's not fun for the person being feared-- getting feared leaves you with almost no option but to sit there and do nothing. It removes control from your character, and that's never fun.
Ah, to be young again. Arawn of L2Lock pointed out this poor kid on the forums, who got caught by his parents checking out the "you know what" of the Warlock Succubus pet, "and then it made this sound like uhh uhh uuhhhhh whiip whippp" ("I think warlocks will know what I mean"), and now the poor guy's banned from playing WoW.
Oh, the post itself is so funny, I don't even know what to add. I haven't heard of it happening in a long time, but way back when the game first came out I remember hearing about kids who rolled female Night Elves just to watch them dance, and I think all of us who played Tomb Raider know exactly what this kid is up to. Yes, I mean you-- Lara Croft didn't have to stand facing the corner for five minutes just so the camera could zoom in that one time. And even Blizzard knows what's going on here.
Still, this seems like a good kid (if nothing else, the experience has gotten him interested in correct pronunciation). You might try telling your parents you're rerolling something like an Orc, buddy-- the uglier the better. Otherwise, wait a few years, and all will become clear. The entire post preserved after the jump.
This will be a somewhat unusual (and self-serving) Build Shop. You see, I have a Warlock alt, rolled one day when I was bored at level 60 with my priest, trying to get my Devout gloves. The warlock has always been either Affliction or Demonic Sacrifice-based, but I'd like to try out the Felguard for leveling purposes (currently, I'm at level 55). The question is, what Felguard spec should I use?
From my research in the official forums and a few other places, and from playing around with the talent calculator, here's the best I've been able to come up with: 15/46/0 or 5/46/10. Fairly similar, as you can see. However, I'm somewhat uncomfortable with both builds; essentially, few of the points that aren't in Demonology really satisfy me.
Currently, in Arena matches, once in the arena, you can still swap your gear before combat starts. Why would you want to do this? There is an immense amount of difference in what my resto Shaman can do depending on whether he's wearing his healing gear of his damage gear, and being able to choose my set after I've seen the other team can be an advantage.
Too much of an advantage, says Blizzard. Even though they haven't changed things on the PTRs yet, Drysc says that when DoTs are affected by resilience, Arena players will no longer be able to swap their gear once inside. Apparently the reasoning is that when opposing players see a Warlock/Shadow Priest combo, they real quick switch on their shadow resist gear, and so casters are hoping for a nerf to gear swapping to come at the same time the DoT resilience shows up (which is what Drysc promises).
It's an interesting little QQ session, and like all good PvP worries, it means a whole lot to the people who are affected by it, and not much to anyone else. Still, nerfing gear swapping seems like a big change to make just to deal with folks who are trying to duck shadow damage in 2v2 Arenas. But it seems like, as soon as 2.2, Blizzard might be telling arena players to pick a set and stick to it.
Because this is a repeat panel from yesterday, we didn't liveblog it. But here are some notes as well as the Q&A session from today.
Senior Vice President of Game Design, Rob Pardo announced that they would be going through the same information as yesterday, but more quickly so that there would be more time for Q&A. The crowd applauded.
Notes of differences or embellishments compared to yesterday's panel:
Shamans were witch doctors in Warcraft 3.
PvP balancing is done for 2v2 or 3v3, etc. WoW is not a dueling game, so class abilities in team PvP are worked on as opposed to single class vs. single class.
Talents were inspired from Diablo 2.
Moonkin Itemization in the PvE environment is not supported currently and is being worked on.
Mages are the "experimental" class.
The three classes of the Paladin put the class in three different roles as opposed to, for example, the Mage who is DPS, regardless of spec.
Priest's Lightwell will get some scaling from gear.
Warlocks got booed again.
Death Knight notes:
Hero Classes are classic Warcraft 3 characters and should have an Epic feel to them.
There are class balance concerns, particularly with tanking. But because tanks are hard to find for groups, adding a different tank was considered a good idea.
Death Knights will have their own Rune Resource system.
Nyhm is a blood elf warlock who is just so Over-Powered that he wants to sing about it. In the spirit of Weird Al (you might recognize the tune) he brings us his declaration of just how OP he is.
The thing I like about this is how he pronounces "OP" as if it were "oappie" or "oh, pee." It's a good song to bring a smile to your face.
While you may not be getting quite so many changes as some other classes out there, your changes beat theirs in...sheer unexpectedness? I dunno. Here's what's slated for 
Keen and Graev 
Syphonis is back. The poor young Warlock who 
Is it just me, or did the process for obtaining my voidwalker get way too hard in the Burning Crusade? I now play a Blood Elf Warlock along with my alliance toons, and just last night I had to go into Ghostlands, to Goldenmist Village to summon a VW, defeat him and high-tail it out of there to get my big fluffy blue peep. No, I have done it before on other toons on other servers, but even with a friend I found this task to be all too difficult. ON the Alliance side, getting your VW in Stormwind can be done while eating IRL, giving the dog a bath, or watching reruns of <insert favorite show>. An ambitious imp can nearly solo it.
Draele just started a blog about being a Warlock called 
Ah, to be young again. Arawn of 
Currently, in Arena matches, once in the arena, you can still swap your gear before combat starts. Why would you want to do this? There is an immense amount of difference in what my resto Shaman can do depending on whether he's wearing his healing gear of his damage gear, and being able to choose my set after I've seen the other team can be an advantage.
