Tuesday, February 26, 2008

What the FUCK?

I'm absolutely speechless.

The good old days.



Ahh how I miss griefing my own faction when the raids were done and the honor system yielded nothing more than a senseless grind. However, I actually enjoyed pvp back then more. You know who the top dogs on the server were. You might have hated them, or liked them, it didn't matter, because you respected them.



That's something the recent pvp system really lacks lately, is a real sense of community. Now, it just seems like you're tossed in the same random sandboxed pvp matches, but with completely new and different people. You don't really know anyone in the BG, except the people you queued up with. There's no sense of respect for the opponent anymore, because you don't really know who they are, and you don't really care. That goes a long way to take a lot of the fun out of the matches. There's no sense of pride in beating a team. Now the best you can get is "we beat a tich/blackrock/silverhand/etc premade. But, who cares? They're just random "faces" that you don't even really know.




And now it seems that the current trend is to add guards everywhere, even to all the new instances that are in CONTESTED areas. I just don't get it. What happened to fighting over content? What happened to having WARS in WARcraft on PVP servers. Come on. Blizzard has caved into people getting so butthurt over PVP happening on PVP servers, that PvP is now discouraged as much as possible, except when leveling out in the boonies. Whoopdee do.




The world pvp in this game lost its epic feel a long time ago. I'm hoping they will bring it back in WotLK. No more guards outside of instances or near meeting stones. No more flying mount guards that storm bolt you out of the sky. No more of that faggotry. If you want to put that stuff in on PVE servers, FINE. Go ahead. But let the people who rolled on pvp servers actually get the feeling that they are on one for once, ok? The actualy mechanics in wow for PvP in terms of combat are pretty solid. It would be even better, if you let the players create epic pvp encounters of their own, especially when they get tired of the same 4 battlegrounds all the time, doing the same exact routine, for the umpteenth time, against anonymous, meaningless, faceless opponents that they could care less about.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Shaman & Lock changes

2.4 looks like one hell of a patch, but it's still too early to tell if it's going to be a good patch or not.

Gear-wise, it should be fantastic. For anyone leveling new characters from here on out, gearing up should be much less tedious.

1) The shaman changes so far look OK. Unfortunately, their out of control burst had to be nerfed. As much as I hate to see classes get nerfed, I had a feeling it was coming. I don't know why Blizzard didn't change the EM + NS combo back when they nerfed combustion for mages, but waiting this long to do it will only cause unnecessary pain. Hopefully they'll get a lot of other buffs to make up for the areas that shaman are weak in. The insta ghost wolf and undispelable rage talent changes look awesome. Hopefully enhancement gets some more love, as it needs it more than any other tree. I also don't agree with nerfing the spell pushback bonus on on the ele gear set down to 50%. If you're going to take away shaman guaranteed crit burst, then at least let them keep their sustained damage. I'm glad to see that they will be getting a lot of totem love coming up this patch.

2) The warlock changes. Incinerate changes look good. Lifetap changes look bad, but I know why they're doing it. It's a direct nerf to warlock efficiency and staying power, which, under many conditions, can be a little outrageous. HOWEVER, when you consider the fact that A) Warlocks typically have 0 armor against most physical dpsers this season, and B) heavy melee teams are all the rage (heh) this season, things were already looking bad. You already don't see warlock dominance this season simply because of the changes made at the end of season 2. Warlocks simply do not have the staying power they once did, simply because how easy they are to assist train down and are forced to eat nearly every second of it that they are not bopped or Pain suppressed. Melee rape warlocks this season ridiculously hard, harder than the devs are probably realizing.

I have a feeling that with this new proposed lifetap change (that already screwes PVE locks quite a bit), that if warlocks are given no escape methods or other ways to mitigate damage from physical dps assailants, then they will essentially swap places with mages as far as class representation goes for season 4. I believe that there could have been another way to balance warlocks more effectively, but this was the wrong way to do it. Hopefully there are other, more positive changes coming down the road for locks, because as it stands, they'll be pretty weak in the long run after this change. I just find it odd that lifetap now scales negatively against getting higher level gear. Gaining stamina hurts warlock efficiency? Weird. Just doesn't make any sense. I can't see it staying this way.

It also strikes me as odd that nothing was done with warriors at all, yet they will only continue to grow even stronger with every arena season that passes, as they arguably gain the most benefit from their iLvLs than any other class. Warriors always start out weak when gear levels are reset at release of the game or expansion, and then dominate when gear levels are maxed out. I don't think that system will ever change.

Also, my forum access has been removed. Yeah, it was for leaking stuff I absolutely shouldn't have. No, I can't blame them, as I shouldn't have. Also, I no longer play on tichondrius, so don't bother harassing me or (especially) tom anymore. You stalkers with nothing better to do can go eat a dick for all I care. If you need to get ahold of me for any legitimate reason, just post here and I'll get in touch with you somehow.

Also, Sorry to hear about Maso.

Edit: To clarify, I won't be playing on Leiah or Jadefury. I'm now playing and submitting feedback for druid on another server. (Balance is pretty weak, although the other two trees are quite solid)