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. It's once again been a few days since the last update, but don't fret! After having some Chili from Wendy's for lunch, I was inspired to make this Stew extra chunky! Goodbye World of Warcraft You thought you had a bone to pick with Blizzard? Well, I bet 10 gold Pureheart's got you beat! Besides wanting to turn Azeroth into a communist state, he also manages to represent just about everything wrong with the worst of the game's players. Mindless whining? Check. Anti-social attitude while playing a social game? Check. Unfounded sense of entitlement? Check. Need to make his inane opinions known before allegedly "quitting" the game? Double check. Let's see precisely what he has to say about the nature of guilds, raiding, and the resulting rewards:

"First of all its not fun when other players have something you cant get, its bad enough having to put up with this in the real world in the form of rich celebrities who have everything like nice cars, money, etc... unfortunatley the game design doesnt allow for the majority of players to be successful at the game."

OK, let's be completely straight here. Even in a fantasy world, you've got to work for what you earn. The real treat is that instead of waiting years for that promotion or pay increase, you can obtain a new piece of gear or a few achievements in the matter of a few hours. The game needs to cater to various types of people willing to put different amounts of time or effort in. With tons of solo-friendly content in the game, I don't understand why someone like Pureheart can't be happy with what he is able to obtain.

"Also the game used to be fun, but now it just seems to be a gear competition, who has the best gear... this is not my idea of fun or cool. Like i said the game is very good, i love the raid boss fights but, the amount of stress and effort involved in getting there isnt worth it for me personally."

Yakov Smirnoff wants his schtick back! Gear envy is an interesting phenomenon to me to me, though. Pureheart seems to disply an innate resistance to the mechanics of the end-game, but the problem is that the gear he seems to want is rewarded to players so that they can progress farther within it. Rarely does Blizzard throw a new encounter into the game without taking into account the best currently available gear, ensuring that said progression functions much like a step-ladder. In other words, gear that drops from Flame Leviathan, Razorscale, and XT-002 in Ulduar should prepare you well enough for the fights later in the dungeon. We often forget that high item-level equipment serves a function beyond looking cool, and that's where Pureheart's contradictions kill me. He rails against the very kind of person he reveals himself to be: a loot whore. He hates that World of Warcraft has turned into a gear competition, and yet, he seems angry because he feels that he is unable to obtain the gear that he desires.

"To sum up, to many annoying people and factors in the game, i cant handle it anymore and i dont want to waste time and effort trying, and i cant play without joining a guild because its to annoying when other players have better gear/mounts than me, so all the fun is taken away from this once rich and beautifulk world i really used to enjoy being in."

So fun is taken away when the game tries to challenge you? Would it honestly be better if any piece of gear was handed to you anytime you want? I suppose it does for this player, who so desperately wants to "[escape] the capatlist society of real life." Moving on. Tank Balance And Encounter Design Speaking of raiding, how do we feel about the difficulty of the dungeons? Even though this is a surprisingly insightful thread, I don't bring up Lyesmith's post specifically to talk about tanking. Rather, to shed light on the ways in how players react to, and shape, new encounters designed by Blizzard. Lyesmith's beliefs can be summed up as such:

"TL;DR: Tank balance has two sides: the player and the boss. If the bosses favor a particular style, then it will show up player side."

Essentially, his argument is that despite what Blizzard reps might say about tank choice ("bring the player, not the class") that certain encounters overwhelmingly favor one type of tank over another. For instance, Mimiron has several abilities that can instantly kill the tank, making a class with more "oh shit buttons" more efficient at taking the brunt of the damage. However, Nilzen claims that encounters are designed the other way around:

"But the truth is, players act a specific way due to encounter mechanics. Encounter mechanics are designed a certain way because of what Blizzard sees that players can do. Avoidance levels were too high. Blizzard makes bosses hit for 80% of a tank's hp because they otherwise avoid too much. Tanks stack stamina. Blizzard makes Impale and other mechanics to counter stamina stacking."

So, instead of creating bosses intentionally designed to favor certain tank or class combinations, he asserts that they're designed due to the way the players have reacted and dealt with encounters in the past. Both posters are more or less correct, as game balance is a never-ending cycle created by this dynamic relationship between trend-setting players and the raid design team. So, is there a way to keep tanks on their toes without relying solely on stacking one stat or another? Lyesmith and Nilzen both offered up the idea of making certain boss abilities slightly more random. Therefore, skill and reaction time would be more important than what class currently seems to be leading the pack. Other fine thoughts included increasing raid damage in order to taxs the healers (so keeping the tank up would become even tougher) and tuning down player stats across the board This brings me to the second point that I wanted to touch on, and it more directly relates to difficulty. You can argue that raids have gotten fundamentally easier over time. You can also argue whether or not most players have simply gotten better at playing the game over time. But one thing I don't think anyone can deny is how extra-mechanical elements such as mods and strategy sites have made "figuring out" any given encounter a lot easier than it once was. It seems that Ghostcrawler feels this way, too:

"If it feels like you aren't struggling to learn these fights as much as you used to, then that's probably true: there are now many sources for videos and strategies that have become a lot more robust and user-friendly, as well as pretty sophisticated UI mods to help you track everything going on. The whole raiding community is just more well-connected than it was in the MC and BWL days. Many casual raiders could name a handful of cutting-edge guilds these days, which just didn't happen 4 years ago."

Just think for a second how much tougher certain encounters might be if you didn't have Deadly Boss Mods counting down the time to the next use of an ability or even if in-game warning didn't flash on the screen when the boss was about to use a raid-wiping mechanic. Sure, add-ons like GRID might be slightly more kosher, as they primarily improve play control, but even they offer quick access to data that you'd otherwise have to click on individual players to figure out. The reason for the popularity of these mods is because they fundamentally reduce the innate chaos of an encounter by giving you access to information in an way that is much easier to process. If information is power, then it becomes even stronger than the best gear in the game. The problem is when said information becomes too convenient and starts outstripping its basic ability to reduce the chaos. At that point, it just plain makes a fight easier. And I haven't even touched on top-level strategies that are quickly formed by the best players and then posted on the internet for everyone else to follow. Usually, unless an encounter is changed drastically on live servers, these tactics are learned on the PTR, so you end up with the sort of situation we encounter time and time again where new bosses are being downed the first night they're widely available. I feel like I'm sort of making up for a few days of Blue Stew absence, but the fact of the matter is that this post is already running longer than it probably should be. If you're interested in this subject, I'd go ahead and read the rest of the thread as it's linked above, and I'm always up for rapping with you guys and gals in the comments section if you'd like to explore things further! Until next time, ta-ta!

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In the upcoming patch, death knights will be the only class to receive a talent point refund because, once again, they are getting an overhaul. Some of these changes are nerfs, some are buffs and others are redesigns of how the spells and abilities function. The death knight community is already analyzing all of the data and surmising why these changes have occurred. Let's explore some of these changes, but keep in mind that all of this is subject to change before this patch goes live.

Blood Strike: The bonus damage this ability receives from diseases on the target has been increased to 50% per disease.

This change is creating quite a stir in the death knight community. That's a huge buff to that ability and some folks are speculating that it's a typo and they meant to say "increased by 50% per disease", which would mean it increases from 12.5% to 18.75% per disease and not 50%. If the change does remain as written, then blood strike could replace heart strike in the blood rotation and some of the scourge strikes in the unholy rotation. The blue post found here seems to indicate that it's not a typo, however, it's already been reduced on their latest internal build, which would make it different than the patch notes.

Chains of Ice: Now reduces movement by 95% instead of 100%. The main effect of this change will be that targets of Chains of Ice will not have to re-issue a movement command to continue moving.

This is a change for pvp and will probably come as a relief to many hardcore pvpers. However, I don't see DKs making much of a stink over it. Chains of ice is still amazing and has the same basic function.

Frost Presence: 10% bonus health reduced to 6% bonus stamina. Icebound Fortitude: Cooldown increased to 2 minutes. Toughness: This talent now grants 2/4/6/8/10% armor instead of 3/6/9/12/15%, placing it in line with similar abilities of other classes. Veteran of the Third War: Stamina bonus reduced to 1/2/3%.

Ouch! The death knight tanks take another heavy blow with the nerf bat. In patch 3.1.3 frost presence armor bonus was reduced by 20%. Now we see a 4% nerf to the stamina bonus and the doubling of the cooldown on the death knight's main survival ability. In addition, the armor and stamina talents in the blood and frost trees are also taking a hit. It seems that they are trying to make death knight tanks more like the other tanks. The original design felt like death knights would have more frequent cooldowns to push to offset the fact that they do not have a shield and cannot block. These changes, however, make them feel more like the other tanks and icebound fortitude is now more in line with other tank talents like last stand. If I'm being objective, I think the icebound fortitude change can solve some issues. Recently, my guild took down General Vezax using a paladin main tank. It was a little obnoxious knowing that we could survive the surges of darkness easier if our main tank was a death knight solely because icebound fortitude had a one-minute cooldown. Much of the screaming from the DK tank community seems to revolve around the fact that paladin tanks are getting a decent amount of buffing, including this hard to believe change:

Ardent Defender: Redesigned. Currently, any damage taken by the paladin while at 35% health or below is reduced. Instead, any attack that would reduce the paladin to 35% health or below has its damage reduced. In addition, once every 2 minutes an attack that would have killed the paladin will fail to kill, and instead set the paladin's health to 10/20/30% of maximum.

If I'm reading that correctly, that's a passive guardian spirit every two minutes? I'm sure glad my guild often runs with two protection paladins!

Frost Strike: This ability can now be dodged, parried, or blocked. Weapon damage bonus reduced to 55%, down from 60%.

Frost strike hits hard and it was probably viewed as too much burst in pvp especially considering it couldn't be mitigated. The slight reduction of damage is probably going to be a wash considering that blood strike is getting buffed. The blue post here, seems to indicate that the frost dps is being spread out a bit more and not consolidated on just one ability.

Dancing Rune Weapon: This ability now has a fixed duration of 12 seconds (which can still be modified by its glyph) and a fixed cost of 60 runic power. Summon Gargoyle: The gargoyle now flies lower to the ground, making it susceptible to melee attacks. This ability now has a fixed duration of 30 seconds and a fixed cost of 60 runic power.

These are the 51 point talents for blood and unholy specs. The jury seems mixed on these changes. While I'm not sure if it's an overall buff or nerf to the damage of these spells, what I do know is these spells will be a lot easier to use now that they have a fixed runic power cost and duration. Currently, the timing of when you use these abilities can drastically affect the amount of extra dps they give you. Pop them at the wrong time and you have just wasted a precious cooldown. So I'm eager to see these changes in action.

Threat of Thassarian: New 3-point talent. When dual-wielding, your Death Strikes, Obliterates, Plague Strikes, Blood Strikes and Frost Strikes have a 30/60/100% chance to also deal damage with your off-hand weapon. Off-hand strikes are roughly one half the effect of the original strike.

Dual-wielding used to be one of the top approaches to take for a dps death knight. Recently, however, many of the changes have all but killed it. So in patch 3.2, the dual wielding death knights might make a comeback with this new talent in the frost tree.

Desecration: This talent has been reduced to 2 points for 25/50% snare and no longer increases damage done by the death knight. It has also been moved one tier earlier in the tree and its spell effect has been made more transparent. Desolation: New talent. This talent is in the position formerly occupied by Desecration. It causes Blood Strikes to increase all damage the death knight deals by 1/2/3/4/5% for 12 seconds.

Interesting. So the current desecration is being split into two separate talents. Desecration is now mostly a pvp ability. The good news is, the infamous desecration graphic will now be much less prominent in pve, which will make most raid leaders happy. However, the speculation is desolation may not be worth taking because the 12 second duration may mean that it is not active at all times with the current rotations. We'll have to see if this new talent gets modified at all before it releases.

Blood of the North: Reduced to a 3-point talent. Increases Blood Strike and Frost Strike damage by 5/10/15%. There is now a 33/66/100% chance whenever you hit with Blood Strike or Pestilence that the Blood Rune will become a Death Rune when it activates. Lichborne: Duration reduced to 10 seconds, and cooldown reduced to 2 minutes.

There isn't much to comment on here. The talent points saved on blood of the north are probably meant to make room for the new dual-wielding talent in frost. The lichborne change makes it more dynamic since you can use it more often, but need to be more exact on the timing.

Scourge Strike: Weapon damage bonus reduced to 40%, down from 45%. Damage increased by 10% per disease on the target, down from 11%. Unholy Blight: This talent has been redesigned. It no longer deals damage to nearby targets. Instead, when you deal damage with Death Coil, the target will take periodic damage for 10 seconds equal to 30% of the damage done by Death Coil. This damage accumulates in the same way as Ignite and Deep Wounds.

Last but not least, some big changes to the unholy tree. Scourge Strike is the bread and butter for the unholy DK. The nerf in damage seems partly pvp related. Since scourge strike deals shadow damage, it is not reduced by armor and can be a wrecking ball. Blizzard doesn't seem to like large amounts of burst coming from a single ability. The reduction in damage on scourge strike is offset by the buff to blood strike, which should see more use. This may also be a push for unholy DKs to get more benefit out of armor penetration. Items with armor penetration are rife in Ulduar and currently it's not a stat that does too much for unholy DKs who spend most of their time scourge striking shadow damage. The unholy blight redesign is one of the biggest changes for death knights in this patch. Unholy blight is the signature spell of the unholy tree and the main reason that this spec is normally associated with AOE damage. Well that all changes in 3.2. Unholy blight no longer deals AOE damage at all, in fact, it is not even a spell, it is a passive ability that adds a bleed effect to your death coils. This change really alters the flavor of the unholy death knight and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Don't get me wrong, this change may turn out to be powerful, but I thought it was interesting how each of the three dps specs for death knights felt unique. Blood was the heavy hitting single target crusher, frost seems to be evolving once again as the dual-wielding spec and unholy was the master of AOE damage. Well I guess we'll have to wait and see how unholy feels after the changes go live. In summary, death knights are looking at some tanking nerfs and a reduction to burst and AOE damage in 3.2. On the other hand, some abilities will be easier to use, dual-wielding should be viable again and raid members should no longer die by standing in fires that are obscured by spell effects. What do you think of the death knight changes coming in 3.2? Is there anything you're particularly excited or angry about?

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I'd like to talk about the Paladin class, but more specifically about the idea of dual speccing. I started WoW on the day it was released, and up until about six months ago, I was a retribution pally. I stuck to my guns and took all the punishment Blizzard gave us, but when they supposedly fixed us and gave us amazing DPS only to take it away a month later I finally had enough. It was then I decided to read up on tanking. I spent weeks researching the spec and trying out different talent specs to get the most out of my paladin. Currently I've become the Main Tank for my guild on Kargath, and we are kicking Naxx’s butt right now. A few weeks ago I got to a point where I was stuck, though. I've obtained every upgrade I possibly can for my tank spec outside of Naxx. So I asked myself, what do I do now? I'm still running heroics and collecting badges for more gear, and during recent Naxx trips plate healing gear has been dropping left and right. Since nobody else wants it, I've started collecting it all. Now I'm spending those badges from heroics on healing gear. So aside from my tank gear I now have an epic healing set that's got my skills as follows: 2005 Bonus Healing, 26% Crit rating, 388 mana regen and a 17K+ mana pool, all unbuffed. Now that I have the gear, I've changed specs many times to work on my healing skills simply because I find it fun. The problem is I've done it so many times I'm capped at 50g per talent point reset. Personally I find this to be stupid and annoying. I know there are several things in the game that act as money sinks (Haris Pilton's bag for instance) but respeccing? Come 3.1, Blizzard is going to give us "Dual Specs" that will be 1000g and it will even change our glyphs and action bars. Great, but without an ETA on the horizon why don't they just remove the fee to reset for now? Why are players penalized for wanting to try something new? I've even had to pay twice simply because I've put a talent point in the wrong spot once and had to reset (which they addressed finally). What's worse is if I'm specced as a tank and my guild needs a healer, it costs me 100g to go holy and then back to protection. Anyway, I'm curious to see how many more people are out there that play an active role in two specs in their guild and if they are tired of the fees. Do you think that while we wait for the dual spec feature, we should get the option to change for free or are you ok with paying 50g per switch till 3.1 and then paying another 1000g to have the option?

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