Project Lore

Blue Stew is a new semi-daily column bringing you a delicious concoction of developer news, thoughts, and opinions straight from the boiling pot that is the official World of Warcraft forums. The highlights of each day include additional commentary by Project Lore staff. PvPvPvE Would you look at this pair of winners... In one thread, Paladin extraordinaire, Feanorion, wonders:

"why are PvE concerns being trumped by the concerns of such a miniscule portion of the subscriber population? "

And in another, posted the same day, Fireweed puts on her frowny-face:

"Since the Illidan kill in TBC I swore I would not touch PvE ever, ever again. It's mind numbing, forces you to deal with people you never want to deal with on your free time, it requires way too much dedication in the scene/too many people and to stay in a guild that is capable to handle it and so forth... What I really enjoy about this game is arena, even some random battlegrounds here and there with a small group."

This, friends, is a microcosm of all that is wrong with the average complainer's mentality towards the game : "I don't like it, so it shouldn't be there!" I've said time and time again that I'm not particularly in favor of PvP, at least not to its extremes, but that's the way I prefer to play. I'm not going to outright deny the ways in which other people might have fun. But the fact of the matter is that if any decisions to change the underlying structure of Warcraft, it would be based on an entirely different group altogether, as Ghostcrawler so handily points out:

"If you expect us to balance around the most popular way to play the game, then you'd see most of our changes aimed at low level alts and very few end-game raiding tanking changes. "

I think we all get so caught up in the endgame, that we forget most people who subscribe to WoW simply enjoy tooling around, by themselves, or with a couple of close friends, in the lower levels of the game. These are the people that like to level up over a week, not a couple of hours. And these are the people that enjoy picking herbs just because they enjoy picking herbs, not because they need to make flasks for the next raid. And that's why I think Cataclysm is going to be such a big hit with the community. It refocuses the game on these types of players without entirely forgetting those at the level cap. You see, WoW is a lot like this scrum-diddly-umptious cake... (image courtesy of http://www.mmmmbrains.com/blogg/) But even ignoring this group of players, can't we just all accept that PvP and PvE are integral parts of the game? I used to be a nay-sayer, too, but I've long since learned that both styles are like two delicious flavors coming together to make World of Warcraft just as enjoyable as a tasty little peanut butter cup! Ghostcrawler explains in a seperate thread why you will never see them split:

"Internal consistency for belief in the game world is part of it. Just keeping complexity down is another part of it. We don't want to see every spell or talent have two tooltips and players having to keep all of that straight. It just feels like two games with one art set at that point, which isn't what we're going for."

Please Explain Argent Tournament Reset Seems like the Faction Change service includes everything but the kitchen sink. Or, in this case, Argent Tournament progress. Kisirani gives a simple enough answer:

"I'm responding to this thread because it's written in a calm and concise manner, so thank you for that. Simply put, while it was not a decision we enjoyed making, due to the way the Argent Tournament functions it was not feasible on a technical level to properly switch progress between factions. I am sorry we were unable to offer a better solution."

I wish he would've expanded a bit more on that, but then again, that's due to my own curiosity. I'm always intrigued to know how the game is built, how its underlying systems are structured to allow certain things and not others. While I have no way of being specific myself, I imagine it's the case of simply coding, or constructing, the Argent Tournament in a certain way at a time before the requirements for the Faction Change service were fully laid out, leaving the two aspects of the game incompatible with each other. So for those of you still considering a Faction Change, please keep this in mind. You'll have to do the Argent Tournament all over again (though, presumably, the earned reputation with each home city will remain intact, even if the quest progress doesn't). And for those of you who already did, without realizing this caveat, I'm sorry! That's potentially months worth of daily work down the drain! Earthen Power Nerf: Overkill Oh, it's the weekend. I'll throw you guys one more bone to look over! This one's for the Enhancement Shamans out there, in response to the most recent PTR patch update, which makes changes to the way in which Earthen Power works, potentially affecting their performance in Arena teams:

"The 3.2.2 PTR change to earthen power will be crippling to Enhancement Shaman, I am not saying that this talent isn't a bit too powerful, but granting the shaman short term immunity to movement impairing effects is not the issue, the issue is it granting the shamans team mates the immunity. Removing the immunity from the shaman themselves will do nothing but cripple a spec that has just recently regained viability, without showing any form of dominance, except as a part of a counter RMP team in one tournament, a tournament which doesn't well reflect the state of play on live (nothing over item level 213)... I would propose that if you feel earthen power is overly powerful, you remove the snare immunity from allied targets, but leave it on the shaman, else we will see a return enhancement shaman being unable to stick to a target. We already suffer greatly from a lack of controllable damage, reliance on long cooldowns (bloodlust/heroism, spirit wolves), and inability to kill healers. Returning Enhancement Shaman an easy to kite class will severely undermine everything you have done to give us arena viability."

Ghostcrawler explains that they favored Ghost Wolf as a reducer of movement-impairing effects instead:

"We think Earthen Power and the Ghost Wolf change were trying to solve the same problem. Together they felt like overkill to us, and we thought the Ghost Wolf change was more interesting so we kept that one. Your mileage may vary and I would be surprised if many shaman agreed since they were the target of the nerf."

Alright, folks! Have a fantastic weekend, but don't forget to respond and let us know what you think about all of these different subjects before you do!

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A Goblin Zeppelin heading into Undercity. Pixiestixy broke the news last night about the mount changes that will be coming in the next major patch, 3.2. There are some additional news to note as Zarhym posted some more information about transportation changes which are being implemented to improve leveling: From the World of Warcraft Forums:

In the next major content patch we will be adding a few methods of improved transportation to areas of interest while leveling. It is time for the denizens of Azeroth to witness the full might of the Horde as they do what they do best: employ goblins to construct zeppelin towers and float players across vast seas using sky boats. That's right, a new zeppelin route is being added in Thunder Bluff and will transport players to Orgrimmar. Isn't technology magnificent? Also, brought to you by Azeroth's greatest users of magic, are all new portals coming to Stormwind and Orgrimmar. These portals will transport players directly to the Stair of Destiny at the Dark Portal. Travel is just so much more convenient when it's instantaneous! Players will then find that a new connecting flight path exists at the Stair of Destiny allowing players new to Outland easy and direct access to the city of Shattrath. Keep your seat backs and tray tables in a full upright and locked position, and we hope you continue to enjoy your methods of travel in Azeroth and beyond!

So even more changes are in store! Horde players I'm sure will be loving the new zeppelin between Orgrimmar and Thunder Bluff, while everyone can appreciate the instant transport to the Stair of Destiny to get you to the Outlands faster! These changes seem to fall in line with the Blizzard philosophy of making leveling more accessible and faster for players. As a player who has only one max level character and a multitude of alts I can really appreciate this! This is not the end of the changes of course as there are also changes coming to the class specific mounts and movement abilities, also found on the World of WarCraft Forums:

Movement Speed Training By Class

• Druid
  • Travel Form: Requires level 16
  • Flight Form: Requires level 60 (150% flight speed)
  • Swift Flight Form: Requires level 70
• Hunter
  • Aspect of the Cheetah: Requires level 16
• Shaman
  • Ghost Wolf: Requires level 16
• Paladin
  • Warhorse: Requires level 20
  • Charger: Requires level 40
• Warlock
  • Felsteed: Requires level 20
  • Dreadsteed: Requires level 40

No surprises from the class mount changes, but the movement ability changes are nice as getting ghost wolf, aspect of the cheetah and travel form earlier will be a really nice change for leveling! What do you think of these changes? Good or bad? Is Blizzard making it too easy for newer players?

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I'm currently specced enhancement, which is my spec of choice for the time being. It's also the one I tend to recommend to shaman who are leveling up. Of course, both Elemental and Restoration have come a long way in their viability as leveling specs, but an enhancment shaman is able to solo with very, very little downtime, PvP decently, bring utility along with great DPS in groups, take on elites without breaking a sweat, heck I even tanked the ranged horsemen in 10 Man Naxx. Knowing the abilities that are at your disposal will help you make fights go much smoother. One of the key abilities available to enhancement shaman is Feral Spirit, the 51-point enhancement talent introduced in the Echoes of Doom patch. I said I would address my love for this tandem of wolves and you might have wondered what they do besides look cool and make lots of noise. I'll tell you right now - they are a versatile little cooldown that I've used in a myriad of situations. While leveling through Northrend, I used my wolves to solo most of the group quests that I encountered. My basic strategy when approaching an Elite was to start out with totems that would increase my damage output. That means Strength of Earth, Windfury, Flametongue, and Mana Spring. If I knew the enemy was a caster, I'd drop a Grounding Totem and wait for the cooldown to be up before heading in. Once set, I'd run in, let the dogs out, take some damage, heal with a 5 stack of Maelstrom Weapon when I got low on health, use my wolves' Twin Howl when I got too low on health to let them soak up a little damage, grab aggro again, and repeat. Usually by the time my wolves despawned, I was able to kill the enemy. If things got too dire, I'd use Shamanistic Rage or even Heroism, but most of the time I wouldn't need to go to those lengths. Now, while the additional DPS from the twins doesn't hurt, the real key to these guys is one of their abilities: Spirit Hunt. Spirit Hunt heals the wolves along with the Shaman, for 150% of the damage they cause, which ends up being a very nice HoT on both me and the wolves. This means that when I'm ping-ponging aggro on an elite by using their taunt, I generally don't need to heal myself during the time that they are being targeted and they don't need healing unless they're taking a severe beating. It also gives your healers a break during heavy raid damage and can give you a nice buffer in PvP so long as your wolves can stay on an enemy. Another useful ability that the Spirit Wolves have available is Bash, which is a stun. This is the only true stun that shaman have access to. It's amazing for PvE since it can give you an extra breath between damage, and in PvP, well, you can't do that while stunned. If you're a Shaman who's done any real PvPing, you know how much it sucks to be stunned, so start using it against all of those rogues and pallies. Unfortunately, the wolves will cast this as soon as they start attacking something, and although autocast can be turned off manually once the pets are out, it will turn back on the next time they are summoned. I've looked and tried hunter macros that turn off autocast, but they are not effective on the spirit wolves. Blizzard is aware of the issue and hopefully it will be fixed soon. Spirit Walk is the last of the wolves' abilities that I'll cover. It is a Sprint-like ability that increases your run speed and your wolves' run speed by 60%. It also clears any root effects on all three of you. Incoming AoE spell? Stuck in a Frost Nova? Getting kited? Running a flag? Trying to catch a flag carrier? For an enhancement shaman, if you aren't in melee range, you're missing out on a lot of your potential damage. Sure you can Lava Burst for a decent crit on top of a Flame Shock, but that's not how you get your damage done. Movement is critical especially in PvP. Spirit Walk will get you there faster than Ghost Wolf, frees you from roots, and even works indoors! (Insert Plea for Ghost Wolf Indoors, maybe a glyph? Please!). If used early enough in the wolves' 45 second duration, it can be used twice per summon. I often use it while running back in an instance if I know it is going to be a long one. Now, if only they were permanent and not just 45 seconds every 3 minutes...

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