Ghostcrawler Had A Busy Thanksgiving
iTZKooPA on Tuesday, December 2, 2008 - 16 Comments Tags: blue posts, busy week, dual spec, ghostcrawler, itemization, patch 3.0.4, tanking, thanksgiving 
Yesterday I mentioned that most of my Thanksgiving was spent trying to convince people to join me in Azeroth, rather than playing myself. It isn't that I didn't want to play, I did my best to find the time, but living far away from my family forces me to obligate the little time I have with them to them. I blame society and quality parenting (don't ever tell my parents I said that).
While I was busy chastising my brother for his disinterest in Wrath and cursing my cousin's friends for ruining a raiding buddy, Ghostcrawler was busy on the official forums discussing the intricacies of World of Warcraft. Seeing as we have extended maintenance this fine Tuesday, I thought we could dive into his numerous posts and do some light theory discussing today.
The first meaty post I noticed from Mr. Crabbie was a discussion on the upcoming dual spec feature. Healers and tanks have been looking forward to this feature more than anyone, as it will allow them to tank or heal when needed, and revert to a better talent build for solo leveling. Sadly, if the feature doesn't make it into the game soon then most of us will be level 80, and it will lose he majority of its impact. Blizzard realizes this, and even though they won't put an ETA on it, they are trying to get the feature in for patch 3.1.
After reading that over, I noticed another post of interest to PvEers. I have been following the discussion of Wrath's difficulty ever since Ensidia (then TwentyFifthNovember) crushed the end game content. GC mentions that Blizzard is happy with the way PvE is going. Specifically, the developers want players to run the lower level dungeons at the appropriate levels, and make sure they do not “hit the introductory raid content like a brick wall.”
One of the most interesting posts to players of all flavors will be the discussion on itemization. Greg Street gives some background into how Blizzard wants you to feel when you have to decide between items. Back in the day, and after The Burning Crusade's launch, it was pretty obvious that one piece was vastly superior to another. Blizzard is now creating gear that doesn't lend itself to clearcut answers.
Shall I take a bit of haste or a large amount of attack power? These are the kind of questions Blizzard wants you to ask when looking at your gear options. I guess that explains why I have five trinkets that are almost equal. I went with the one with the lowest cooldown and best static stat.
Last but not least, Ghostcrawler spread tanking posts all over the holiday period. The pre-Thanksgiving post is the most interesting (and possess the least QQing by the OP) as it discusses core mechanics behind tanking. The OP asks what the point of the defense mechanism is, to which Street replies to, some 20 posts later. The interesting part is that the tanking mechanics that have been a staple in World of Warcraft since the days of Onyxia, may have just been added to the crustacean's whiteboard. The pincher possessor is not happy with the fact that the mechanic pulls “double duty.” In the future we may see the stat split up into multiple pieces, as the current incarnation “might eventually be a problem.” Topics such as easy tanking and tanking scalability – needing two or three tanks for 10- and 25-man raids – were also brought up.
The decapods dedication to World of Warcraft, the world he has helped to create, is astounding. Being in California one would assume that he celebrated Thanksgiving, yet he managed to post a horde of responses on that day alone. Seems that he took off Wednesday and Friday for travel days thought. The sheer volume of informative posts from Saturday makes me feel inadequate.
Here's to hoping that dual spec is implemented before I turn my focus back on my priest.
Reader Comments (16)
Yeah ive noticed that, he's pretty hardcore ;p
First!
o nvm, 2nd :(
I like the dual spec feature not only for leveling, it's also useful for raiding. Fire mages can spec frost if they have to kite adds or something, enhancement shamans can spec heal if another healer got ill :P, feral tank druids can spec feral dmg if you have enough tanks and so on. Even for pvp it's cool, so i can spec my combat pve rogue to subtlety pvp if i want to do some arena play for example.
dual spec is going to be so nice for me :D
i've noticed the stuff about the gear as well. All the quests rewards are basically the same thing with a slightly different stats which makes no real difference unless you get a whole load of them. Anyway the main stuff that i dislike is how ugly some of the stuff it. I'm a warlock so i want fancy cloth gear but all of the helmets make you look like leatherface. Maybe it's cos i'm a belf and it looks better on trolls but they are still ugly.
the items i have seen so far have all been to do with haste which i feel like i dont need already under 1:00 attack speed in cat and i am finding tryin to get tank gear for my druid hard.
Personally I hate that all the quest rewards are the same item with only slightly different stats. Its frusterating. I want to feel like my progression through Northrend is met with quality gear upgrades. I shouldnt be getting gear in Storm Peaks that not only looks the same, but has basically the same stats as a peice I got in Borean.
how long did it take you to come up with all those different names for our favorite epic crab?
Many of my childhood days spent crabbing in Rhode Island covered most of them. Had fun with it.
I'm looking forward to the dual-spec thingy. I've noticed that, as Holy Paladin you go OOM way to often... Well atleast I did on my first try as Holy Paladin. I couldn't do one mob in Northrend without going OOM. But, nobody seems to want a Retri paladin when DK's are doing a much better job at DPS:ing. Bah, this post has lost it's meaning.
Dual speccing is much needed now, more than ever as it seems. With the introduction of Death Knights, many servers have been experiencing a significant influx of tanks (whether good or bad ones). While this may have been part of Blizzard's agenda, there's still a severe lack of healers about.
For raiders, being able to switch to and from two specs can be costly to some, i.e. 50g to switch to Healer for the night and another 50g back to a spec that can get through solo rep-grinds comfortably.
And yeah, GC has to be one of the most hardcore guy around. The amount of QQ he has to sift through each day can turn anybody into a trogg.
I think duel speccing will add a whole different aspect to the game. I love to play DPS with my warrior but sometimes groups need a good tank and not being specced Protection can make tanking a problem for me.
As far as the new item stats I find that they have taken a totally different approach to spell based classes. I have a lvl 70 mage with around 10k mana (mostly from all my armor), but all of the new stuff I come across has no Int, just a ton of Spirit. If all of the other high lvl gear is like this it will change the play of the game, which isn't a bad thing, just means I'll have to learn how to be conservative with my mana, which is not always easy for me.
bwahahah..check out this hilarious video i found of the election duel being fought in the world
of warcraft.. is obama realy an elf??..by far the funniest clip ive seen in weeks..a must watch
for any true warcraft fan!!
http://effinfunny.com/sketch-n-funny/election-duel!
Sunalar as a Mage with 16k mana I can tell you there is plenty of Int to be had once you pass about level 74. Being well geared from TBC and going into northrend you wouldn't expect to replace all your purple gear right off the bat and that was one of the big complaints with TBC.
I will love duel spec with a hunter and druid as mains. In raids i spec feral tank for the trash and feral dps if we need to take a boss. And for my hunter pvp and pve spec if you are not bm hunter then you will need a other spec for pvp as for pve. btw gogogo feral druids dps at boss fights (i like to outdps rogues and steal there gear :P)