Warsong Gulch is my least favourite Battleground. It ranks as the least favourite amonst the general WoW community. In theory it's a very fun enterprise. A 10 vs 10 Capture the Flag. It's small scale, fast paced and tactical.
Where it falls down, and has for 4 years since it's inception, is the constant slide into 35min stalemates where both teams are in possesion of each others flags. Apart from being very frustrating - it deters players from the BG itself and makes obtaining reputation with Silverwing Sentinels, an already slow and painful journey, even more annoying.
Fortunately, tokens aren't needed nearly as much as they used to be but it doesn't soften the blow on stupidly long games which will often result in ONE token and not much honour for your time committed. Tokens are still handed in for nice honour gains and are needed for the Silverwing Tabard (often needed for the Tabard achievement) and the PVP mounts (often required for that respective acheivement (and because a lot of people want one).
In patch 2.4 Blizzard attempted to counter the problem of 30min+ turtle matches by adding a debuff which is applied to the flag carriers if there has been no capture after 15min. The debuff is doubled after another 15min. The change did absolutely nothing to fix the problem. Games still went for 30min+ and reaped little benefit for the time invested.
My solution to the problem is a simple one, yet I believe it to be effective. Allow flags to be capped even when yours is missing.
What would this do? It would make games VERY fast paced. At the same time it would force teams to actually apprehend the other faction in the process of tearing back to the base with their flag. The focus would be on applying all class abilities to protect your flag carrier and eliminate any attackers, whether by force or crowd control. Yes, crowd control would finally make a comback rather than sheer burst in numbers.
Some may think that this would just lead to druids or rogues getting Blessing of Freedom spammed until they made it over the line. While this may work sometimes - your enemy may be doing the exact same thing. The team is then required to snipe the enemy whilst protecting their own runners. Something which I believe will be exciting and fun. It will require the same, if not more, teamwork and games will cease to become long, tedious, frustrating and worthless.
The potential problem of just zerging a flag home is self countered by NEEDING to slow down an enemy presumably doing the same.
You can argue that this tactic is essentially what should be used now in WSG - it's generally true however by allowing the flag to be capped at will you remove any chance of an infuriating turtle game and increase the match pace tenfold.
Here's hoping. I want to enjoy WSG!
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Exorcised
A minor patch hit the realms today, 3.1.1
The patch was only small, around 8mb, designed to fix a few bugs mostly. However, included in the patch was an undocumented change to Exorcism. Just last week in the huge 3.1 patch, Exorcism was given the ability to be used on all targets in an attempt to add some sustainability to Retribution after some tweaks to their burst were made.
Just this morning we've been told this is no longer usable on players. Apparently it was causing "too much burst" for, what we believe, were Retribution paladins talented and glyphed for it. As Holy, and Protection in my secondary spec, it's not a huge issue. It was nice bonus for when some punk tried to gank me.
The thing that gets me is that how did it only last for a week? 3.1 was in testing for months. Players are reporting crits with this spell from 3k anywhere to 5k. The higher of the scale presumably from a Ret pally aimed at a low resilience target. As Holy with 2k+ spell power mine barely crittically striked for 2.7k even with my 3 points in Sanctity of Battle. There were no Arenas last week so it can't have possibly come from whiney Arena players.
While I'll miss having a 30y damaging spell in my arsenal, it's not the end of the world for us, especially my Holy brethren but I'm just lost by the reasoning of the nerf. It just boggles my mind that his was only learned to be "too much" during the first week of the patch and changed with no warning and presumably no real info regarding the necessity.
The patch was only small, around 8mb, designed to fix a few bugs mostly. However, included in the patch was an undocumented change to Exorcism. Just last week in the huge 3.1 patch, Exorcism was given the ability to be used on all targets in an attempt to add some sustainability to Retribution after some tweaks to their burst were made.
Just this morning we've been told this is no longer usable on players. Apparently it was causing "too much burst" for, what we believe, were Retribution paladins talented and glyphed for it. As Holy, and Protection in my secondary spec, it's not a huge issue. It was nice bonus for when some punk tried to gank me.
The thing that gets me is that how did it only last for a week? 3.1 was in testing for months. Players are reporting crits with this spell from 3k anywhere to 5k. The higher of the scale presumably from a Ret pally aimed at a low resilience target. As Holy with 2k+ spell power mine barely crittically striked for 2.7k even with my 3 points in Sanctity of Battle. There were no Arenas last week so it can't have possibly come from whiney Arena players.
While I'll miss having a 30y damaging spell in my arsenal, it's not the end of the world for us, especially my Holy brethren but I'm just lost by the reasoning of the nerf. It just boggles my mind that his was only learned to be "too much" during the first week of the patch and changed with no warning and presumably no real info regarding the necessity.
Monday, April 20, 2009
I <3 Huckabees... I mean Jewelcrafting.
Right before 3.1 hit the live realms I bit the bullet and decided to power level Jewelcrafting. I was bored, wasn't farming herbs any more due to my large wallet and had always wanted the shiny JC only gems for my gear.
I did some maths and figured I'd need roughly 2,200g to get it up to 400+. I underestimated it pretty badly. For people wanting to level it fast and at whatever cost - expect at least 3,000 and allow for 3,500-4,000g if you're server is expensive or you get bad luck. If you're patient you could do it for the 2,200g that I quoted - however I'm a VERY impatient player when it comes to levelling professions.
I was sitting on 13,000 gold (spent buttloads on decking out my prot gear not long ago plus some other little things) + another 2,000 that a mate owed me so I thought I would call in that loan to pay for it all.
All up JC cost me 3,200 gold to get up to 420 (to get my trinket and gems). I've made back 1,500 of that already, and more steadily coming in, but I'm happy with the upgrades to my character. As Holy I gained another 2,000 mana which, fully raid buffed, leaves me sitting a whisker under 30,000 mana (!) and a nice little mana regen from the trinket itself. As Protection I gained about 1,500 hp which I can't complain about it - again with a nice dodge proc on the relative trinket.
I ummed and aahed about whether I should drop Herbalism or Inscription before levelling Jewelcrafting. I decided it was pointless having JC and Herbalism together (have a high level mining alt for prospecting) as I fish for a lot of my income rather than gather herbs. I also did not want to part with my Scribe only shoulder enchants because I've not even looked at the Sons of Hodir. Inscription has also been making me a bit of cash since 3.1 due to people buying lots of Glyphs. Unfortunately I've not been lucky enough to get my hands on one of the new Glyph recipes which are selling for ridiculous prices at the moment but I'm really not fussed too much.
I did some maths and figured I'd need roughly 2,200g to get it up to 400+. I underestimated it pretty badly. For people wanting to level it fast and at whatever cost - expect at least 3,000 and allow for 3,500-4,000g if you're server is expensive or you get bad luck. If you're patient you could do it for the 2,200g that I quoted - however I'm a VERY impatient player when it comes to levelling professions.
I was sitting on 13,000 gold (spent buttloads on decking out my prot gear not long ago plus some other little things) + another 2,000 that a mate owed me so I thought I would call in that loan to pay for it all.
All up JC cost me 3,200 gold to get up to 420 (to get my trinket and gems). I've made back 1,500 of that already, and more steadily coming in, but I'm happy with the upgrades to my character. As Holy I gained another 2,000 mana which, fully raid buffed, leaves me sitting a whisker under 30,000 mana (!) and a nice little mana regen from the trinket itself. As Protection I gained about 1,500 hp which I can't complain about it - again with a nice dodge proc on the relative trinket.
I ummed and aahed about whether I should drop Herbalism or Inscription before levelling Jewelcrafting. I decided it was pointless having JC and Herbalism together (have a high level mining alt for prospecting) as I fish for a lot of my income rather than gather herbs. I also did not want to part with my Scribe only shoulder enchants because I've not even looked at the Sons of Hodir. Inscription has also been making me a bit of cash since 3.1 due to people buying lots of Glyphs. Unfortunately I've not been lucky enough to get my hands on one of the new Glyph recipes which are selling for ridiculous prices at the moment but I'm really not fussed too much.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
That itching feeling.
Well it's been almost 3 months since I made a post - purely out of laziness.
I joined a new guild around the time of the last post and still soldiering on with them. We cleared everything a while back now (Sarth +3 on 10 and 25), had a few Undying clears, couple of Plagued proto-drakes etc. Unfortunately haven't got an Immortal yet but we're not that fussed due to 3.1 having arrived.
So anyway - the big patch. Three point one.
-Dual Specs
-Ulduar
-Multiple class changes
-much much more
It's been very well documented over the last few months. I'll comment on a few things that have effected me, for better or worse.
Infusion of Light got changed for what I think is the better. It was intended primarily as a PVP nerf because Holy Paladins in Arena were blasting out near instant Holy Lights and making all the Arena fan boys scream blue murder. It was also believed to be a knock down for PVE stop us pumping out 1.2 second 10k+ heals. Holy has had a recent reputation of being VERY mana efficient with the amount of crit that many of us have - Divine Plea already copped a nerf to slow down our regen - but I think changing the casting speed reduction to increased crit is only counter intuitive to the other nerfs. Personally - even as a PVE player mostly these days - I find it a buff for both sides of the game. Season 6 is going to see healers become stronger again so bigger heals and more regen can only be good for that.
Dual Specs has been quite nice. I've not used it all that much. Given it's been out less than a week - but I'm glad none-the-less to have it. Farming Naxx25 for so many weeks left me with a very schmick Protection set that I had always wanted (33k unbuffed it's quite ok with me).
Not too much too write home about other than that. I'm definitely enjoying the patch and all the other things it's offering.
I joined a new guild around the time of the last post and still soldiering on with them. We cleared everything a while back now (Sarth +3 on 10 and 25), had a few Undying clears, couple of Plagued proto-drakes etc. Unfortunately haven't got an Immortal yet but we're not that fussed due to 3.1 having arrived.
So anyway - the big patch. Three point one.
-Dual Specs
-Ulduar
-Multiple class changes
-much much more
It's been very well documented over the last few months. I'll comment on a few things that have effected me, for better or worse.
Infusion of Light got changed for what I think is the better. It was intended primarily as a PVP nerf because Holy Paladins in Arena were blasting out near instant Holy Lights and making all the Arena fan boys scream blue murder. It was also believed to be a knock down for PVE stop us pumping out 1.2 second 10k+ heals. Holy has had a recent reputation of being VERY mana efficient with the amount of crit that many of us have - Divine Plea already copped a nerf to slow down our regen - but I think changing the casting speed reduction to increased crit is only counter intuitive to the other nerfs. Personally - even as a PVE player mostly these days - I find it a buff for both sides of the game. Season 6 is going to see healers become stronger again so bigger heals and more regen can only be good for that.
Dual Specs has been quite nice. I've not used it all that much. Given it's been out less than a week - but I'm glad none-the-less to have it. Farming Naxx25 for so many weeks left me with a very schmick Protection set that I had always wanted (33k unbuffed it's quite ok with me).
Not too much too write home about other than that. I'm definitely enjoying the patch and all the other things it's offering.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Glyph of Ghostcrawler
As usual - a knee jerk reaction to something that should have been picked up a long time ago.
Glyph of Holy Light nerfed
No thought put into the "nerf", just a typical response to "QQ" - even an attempt to say otherwise. I've avoided the "we hate Ghostcrawler" bandwagon for a long time but he's gone one too far now. I doubt his committment to providing balance to this game in all aspects now.
Why nerf the range to something less than was originally intended. As was feared - it was nerfed harder as a result of the buff.
I really am dumbfounded they would make a change like this when the solution is simple. Base the splash heal off the effective heal. How hard is the concept to grasp. 8 yards is just as gimp as 5 yards. 10 yards makes is effective and reasonable - as was originally intended to be the range. 20 yards, as I said previously - was too much.
Glyph of Holy Light nerfed
No thought put into the "nerf", just a typical response to "QQ" - even an attempt to say otherwise. I've avoided the "we hate Ghostcrawler" bandwagon for a long time but he's gone one too far now. I doubt his committment to providing balance to this game in all aspects now.
Why nerf the range to something less than was originally intended. As was feared - it was nerfed harder as a result of the buff.
I really am dumbfounded they would make a change like this when the solution is simple. Base the splash heal off the effective heal. How hard is the concept to grasp. 8 yards is just as gimp as 5 yards. 10 yards makes is effective and reasonable - as was originally intended to be the range. 20 yards, as I said previously - was too much.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Glyph of Holy Sh*t
It has unfortunately been deleted now, however last night on the WoW Healing forums, a tear jerking thread of epic proportions took place over the sanctity of the "new" Glyph of Holy Light which went live yesterday morning.
The Glyph itself allowed Holy Light to heal 5 players nearest the target for 10% of the value of the heal. The range is 20 yards.
eg. I heal tank for 10k with my Holy Light. The 5 closest players to him will receive a 1k splash heal.
This glyph has been in the game since 3.0 hit in October last year, yet until Priests had their CoH "nerfed" to a 6 second cooldown, no one has uttered a word about this Glyph. I'll admit, the range was a measly 5 yards, however the healing this provided has not changed at all.
It seems a few Priests are scared that they are now "useless" in the raiding environment now with the 6 second cooldown added to their previously spammable Circle of Healing.
I really am amazed at the "QQ-ing" that was generated within hours of the patch being released. It wasn't "MY SPELL IS TOO WEAK" it had become "THEIR SPELL IS TOO POWERFUL" which is rich coming from Priests. Arguably the kings of AOE healing, combined with a powerful stamina buff, strong HoT spell and a protective shield.
When the 'buff' to the Glyph was changed from 10y to 20y I honestly believed that it was too much but I wasn't complaining. The splash healing was negligible and was not a smart heal, nor was it instant cast.
Anyway, a few similar threads have popped up, including some Paladins that are worried it will lead to a more severe nerf. With the way Blizzard tossed Retribution around, it's a fair call to be freaking out over Holy now as well.
There is so much more I could include about this - from both sides of the argument but I'm not going to essentially repeat what's being spewed out all over the healing forum at the moment, you can see that for yourself.
I will say this however - to the Priests complaining - you need to re-evaluate your style of healing around the CoH cooldown. You are quite literally screaming murder over the change to ONE singular spell. If you rely on that solely, you should perhaps re-think you're spec, class or even game. To the Paladins saying it's fine - don't expect it to last. The most appropriate action I can see and am willing to live with would see a reduction in range back to 10 yards and the splash heal tuned to be a percentage effective healing, which I believe would have been originally intended.
The Glyph itself allowed Holy Light to heal 5 players nearest the target for 10% of the value of the heal. The range is 20 yards.
eg. I heal tank for 10k with my Holy Light. The 5 closest players to him will receive a 1k splash heal.
This glyph has been in the game since 3.0 hit in October last year, yet until Priests had their CoH "nerfed" to a 6 second cooldown, no one has uttered a word about this Glyph. I'll admit, the range was a measly 5 yards, however the healing this provided has not changed at all.
It seems a few Priests are scared that they are now "useless" in the raiding environment now with the 6 second cooldown added to their previously spammable Circle of Healing.
I really am amazed at the "QQ-ing" that was generated within hours of the patch being released. It wasn't "MY SPELL IS TOO WEAK" it had become "THEIR SPELL IS TOO POWERFUL" which is rich coming from Priests. Arguably the kings of AOE healing, combined with a powerful stamina buff, strong HoT spell and a protective shield.
When the 'buff' to the Glyph was changed from 10y to 20y I honestly believed that it was too much but I wasn't complaining. The splash healing was negligible and was not a smart heal, nor was it instant cast.
Anyway, a few similar threads have popped up, including some Paladins that are worried it will lead to a more severe nerf. With the way Blizzard tossed Retribution around, it's a fair call to be freaking out over Holy now as well.
There is so much more I could include about this - from both sides of the argument but I'm not going to essentially repeat what's being spewed out all over the healing forum at the moment, you can see that for yourself.
I will say this however - to the Priests complaining - you need to re-evaluate your style of healing around the CoH cooldown. You are quite literally screaming murder over the change to ONE singular spell. If you rely on that solely, you should perhaps re-think you're spec, class or even game. To the Paladins saying it's fine - don't expect it to last. The most appropriate action I can see and am willing to live with would see a reduction in range back to 10 yards and the splash heal tuned to be a percentage effective healing, which I believe would have been originally intended.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
A Noble Inscription
So I dropped a profession when 3.0 went live in lieu of Inscription like 100's of other loonies who had the same great idea. I thought I would jump on the bandwagon as soon as I could and get a slight head start on the crowd. I had all my herbs ready to go and was one of the first 5 to max out Inscription on the realm (as far as 3.0 would allow). Unfortunately even though I was slightly ahead of the pack, the pack was enourmous and really not that far behind.
I regretted it almost the very next day. I had after all dropped alchemy which was making absolutely truck loads of gold even the dying days of TBC. I soldiered on with it in Wrath and continued to complain about how underwhelming it was as a profession. Not only in the economy but in how bloated and inefficient the mechanics and menu are for it.
After a mate said I should focus on making the Darkmoon cards I went off to Sholazar Basin and spent an hour collecting up all sorts of herbs to mill. 6 stacks later and I have 3 Snowfall Inks to show for my work.
Great. So much for making money out of this at all. I continue to bitch and moan to my friends and guild mates about it. I get to a friend's place for a little LAN and continue to complain. He promptly says "mate you get much higher rates milling Icethorn and Lichbloom, go gather that".
The next day I gave it another shot and low and behold I was getting about a 75% millrate for Snowfall Ink. I made my first card. Five of Storms. Sold for about 150g which wasn't too bad. It at least kept my head up for the Profession.
The next day I go and gather some more, didn't take too long. Next card, Eight of Nobles from the infamous Nobles Deck. Another day later I try my luck again and create the Ace of Nobles. I am on fire. I probably won't ever get another Nobles card again as it was just teasing me not to drop it and go back to Alchemy but at least I got some return on the thing. Sold the pair of cards for 2800g.
There's actually a funny story to that as well. My guild were finishing off last week's Naxxramas run and after we 1 shot Gluth I posted in general chat as a joke "WTS Eight and Ace of Nobles" and I promptly get whispered by someone who'll take both for 2800. Fine by me, I pulled them off the AH and sold them to him.
Still the interface is incredibly clunky to use. It looks very very rushed, like the devolopers made it on the fly. Three menus labelled as "other" ? Please, that's just sheer and utter laziness. Also instead of having a menu for every class why don't they do what they have done with every other profession and call it "Glyphs" in the main menu and the have the classes as Sub-menus. It's such an easy fix which would remove half of the enourmous main menu. Anyone who has seen the Inscription UI will agree it's some of the worst work that Blizzard has ever done and they should be ashamed to let something so horrible make it to the live realms. It almost feels beta.
Outside of that I hope that dual specs will allow for Inscription to actually make money from Glyphs. I'm disappointed over all with the usefulness of the profession. Darkmoon Cards won't be expensive for ever and I just can't see Glyphs ever making money. On top that, the only 'perks' to the trade are the shoulder enchants. While Leatherworking receive bracer, glove and leg enchants; Blacksmithing receives sockets to gloves and bracers; Tailoring gets leg and cloak enchants and Jewelcrafting can create a slick assortment of trinkets and BoP gems. Even Alchemists get their stones and buffs from their creations.
Overall Inscription is and was a very poorly planned and produced tradeskill for Warcraft. I really do hope that it is revamped sometime soon because it has a lot of potential to be fun and profitable like all the other crafting professions.
I regretted it almost the very next day. I had after all dropped alchemy which was making absolutely truck loads of gold even the dying days of TBC. I soldiered on with it in Wrath and continued to complain about how underwhelming it was as a profession. Not only in the economy but in how bloated and inefficient the mechanics and menu are for it.
After a mate said I should focus on making the Darkmoon cards I went off to Sholazar Basin and spent an hour collecting up all sorts of herbs to mill. 6 stacks later and I have 3 Snowfall Inks to show for my work.
Great. So much for making money out of this at all. I continue to bitch and moan to my friends and guild mates about it. I get to a friend's place for a little LAN and continue to complain. He promptly says "mate you get much higher rates milling Icethorn and Lichbloom, go gather that".
The next day I gave it another shot and low and behold I was getting about a 75% millrate for Snowfall Ink. I made my first card. Five of Storms. Sold for about 150g which wasn't too bad. It at least kept my head up for the Profession.
The next day I go and gather some more, didn't take too long. Next card, Eight of Nobles from the infamous Nobles Deck. Another day later I try my luck again and create the Ace of Nobles. I am on fire. I probably won't ever get another Nobles card again as it was just teasing me not to drop it and go back to Alchemy but at least I got some return on the thing. Sold the pair of cards for 2800g.
There's actually a funny story to that as well. My guild were finishing off last week's Naxxramas run and after we 1 shot Gluth I posted in general chat as a joke "WTS Eight and Ace of Nobles" and I promptly get whispered by someone who'll take both for 2800. Fine by me, I pulled them off the AH and sold them to him.
Still the interface is incredibly clunky to use. It looks very very rushed, like the devolopers made it on the fly. Three menus labelled as "other" ? Please, that's just sheer and utter laziness. Also instead of having a menu for every class why don't they do what they have done with every other profession and call it "Glyphs" in the main menu and the have the classes as Sub-menus. It's such an easy fix which would remove half of the enourmous main menu. Anyone who has seen the Inscription UI will agree it's some of the worst work that Blizzard has ever done and they should be ashamed to let something so horrible make it to the live realms. It almost feels beta.
Outside of that I hope that dual specs will allow for Inscription to actually make money from Glyphs. I'm disappointed over all with the usefulness of the profession. Darkmoon Cards won't be expensive for ever and I just can't see Glyphs ever making money. On top that, the only 'perks' to the trade are the shoulder enchants. While Leatherworking receive bracer, glove and leg enchants; Blacksmithing receives sockets to gloves and bracers; Tailoring gets leg and cloak enchants and Jewelcrafting can create a slick assortment of trinkets and BoP gems. Even Alchemists get their stones and buffs from their creations.
Overall Inscription is and was a very poorly planned and produced tradeskill for Warcraft. I really do hope that it is revamped sometime soon because it has a lot of potential to be fun and profitable like all the other crafting professions.
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