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Lil’ K.T. vs. Mr. Bigglesworth

Especially underpowered when you compare them to, say, the proposed list of racial skills for worgen and goblins. Granted, they’re clearly up for change – at this point, what isn’t? – but the sheer usefulness (and number!) of skills for worgen and goblins makes it pretty obvious the other races are going to get a serious rebalancing act. Heck, the goblins are kind of OP at this point… or at least, they have a crapton of utility skills. Check it:

Worgen:

• Darkflight – instant, 3 minute cooldown – Activate your true form, increasing movement speed by 70% for 6 seconds.
• Viciousness – passive – Increase damage dealt by 1%.
• Aberration – passive – 15% reduced duration on Curses and Diseases used against you.
• Flayer – passive – Skinning skill +15, skinning speed increase, no knife required.
• Two Forms – instant, 1.5 sec cooldown – Transform into your currently inactive form (human to worgen and back again).

Goblins:

• Rocket Jump – instant, 2 minute cooldown (shared with Rocket Barrage) – Activate your rocket belt to jump up to 20 yards.
• Rocket Barrage – instant, 2 minute cooldown (shared with Rocket Jump) – Fire your belt rockets at an enemy within 30 yards.
• Time is Money – passive – 1% increase to attack and casting speed.
• Best Deals Anywhere – passive – Always get the best possible discounts, regardless of reputation.
• Pack Hobgoblin – instant, 30 minute cooldown – Calls in your personal servant, allowing you bank access every 30 minutes.
• Better Living Through Chemistry – Alchemy skill +15, your potions give more health/mana.

So keeping in mind that these are the new baselines for racial traits, what would you like to see for your race? Let’s hear some wild ideas in the comments.

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Racial revamps

So instead, I’ll just quote Palehoof from a post on the forums (via MMO-Champion’s Bluetracker):

Wow has been "ruined" according to people unhappy with one or two aspects of the game since its inception. Since it began, it’s been ruined by rooftop camping, the removal of rooftop camping, the lack of honor, the implementation of honor, the lack of dishonor, the implementation of dishonor, the removal of dishonor, the removal of wall walking, rank rewards, decaying rank, the removal of rank decay, the removal of PVP titles, Ahn’Qiraj, Scourge Invasion, Zul’Gurub, the cost of mounts, the lack of information about TBC, all information released about TBC, playable Blood Elves, playable Draenei, Horde Paladins, Alliance Shamans, flying mounts, the timing of the release of TBC, the cost of flight, Jewelcrafting, the LFG channel, holding people accountable to the Terms of Use, meeting stones, arenas, the number of arena teams one player can have, arena-based gear rewards, the lack of battlegrounds, the addition of battlegrounds, everything about battlegrounds, Illidan being killable, Daily quests, instance-based reputations, the Darkmoon Faire, /pizza, playable wisps, Tinfoil Hat, the Armory, Warden, the lack of information about Wrath, all information about Wrath, a failure to revamp old world areas, the inability to transfer from PVE to PVP servers, hero classes, siege engines, cold weather flying, Wintergrasp being a PVP zone, death knights, the inability to start a new character of any class at 55 or higher, the lack of a dance studio, character recustomization, the inability to change race or faction, the cost of mammoths and motorcycles, the fall damage negation of mammoths and motorcycles, the removal of fall damage negation from mammoths and motorcycles, the ability to transfer from PVE to PVP servers, dual specs, Achievements, holiday events, Mountain Dew Game Fuel, streaming Blizzcon ’09 on pay per view, the revamping of Onyxia’s Lair, Worgen for the Alliance, Goblins for the Horde, revamped old world areas, the ability to change faction, the ability to change race, new race/class combinations, purchasable vanity pets, as well as weekly maintenance and patches 1.1 through the current one inclusive.

In that time, while WoW was being ruined by all of the above, WoW has quintupled its subscriber base. So don’ t be disappointed if Blizzard doesn’t leap to change whatever you say is killing the game.

That pretty much sums up most of my thoughts on the “ZOMG UR RUININ THE GAEM” mindset. My only other reactions to the whole minipets-for-money fiasco can be summed up as follows.

1. This is basically the same as paying money for a loot card, only it cuts out the middleman, so it’s kind of got a weird feeling to it – but deep down, I know it’s really not that different. It’s just who I’m buying it from.
2. I sincerely believe Blizzard knows the line between selling vanity items like minipets and mounts, and selling actual content like impactful loot.
3. I love Lil’ K.T. to death, and his ability to frostbolt critters to death is fantastic. The Pandaren monk, however, never fails to make me jump like a shot when he starts abruptly making his kung-fu noises in an otherwise-quiet zone.

Keep the comments civil, because I know a lot of people have very strong opinions on this, or I’ll shut them right the heck off.

(pic of Lil’ K.T. courtesy of MMO-Champion, because I forgot to take a screenshot, too. Sighhhhh.)

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Vanity pets are ruining the game (too)

1) Hold off on that AOE for just a second if you would. Death and Decay is less like a Thunder Clap and more like a Consecration: a pulsing mass of energy on the ground that steadily builds threat. It is not a huge spike of threat, and it will not build threat if an enemy dashes into it and you immediately shoot them, causing them to run back out. Sure, its puny-looking damage is amplified by our talents and AP and whatnot (plus diseases, for Unholy DKs with Ebon Plaguebringer), and it has an enormous threat component when combined with Frost Presence (something ludicrous like 250 Threat per point of damage), but here’s the part a lot of AOE happy boomkeks and volley launchers don’t seem to get: it isn’t going to build any threat if you don’t for Heaven’s sake let me hit it first. Let me put down my D&D and spread my diseases – my other quick method of building constantly ticking threat, and you’ll know when it’s down because you’ll see black lines briefly connect through all the trash – and look at Omen, and then go ahead and unleash your great thundercloud of lightning-y doom.

One thing a lot of people are not aware of is that most of the DK specs are relying entirely on D&D for AOE threat. Unholy tanks used to be able to count on Unholy Blight as well, but our giant cloud of buzzy fleas is now simply a DOT applied when we cast Death Coil. Frost tanks can use Howling Blast, but that’s got its own cooldown on top of our normal rune cooldown; they’ve probably got it easiest. Blood tanks are a lot like warriors using Cleave, only they can’t add an extra target via glyphs – Blood AOE consists of tab, Heart Strike, tab, Heart Strike, tab, Heart Strike. It’s kind of hectic.

In short: if I see one more hunter target an enemy on the other side of D&D and expect a simple run through the red glowy circle to out-threat their shots, or a druid who pops a thundercloud before Death and Decay has ticked once, and then bitches at me because they’re getting their face beaten in, I am going to scream. No lie.

2) If we are silenced, please dispel it. This is something a lot of DKs are not aware of, as well as a lot of people around them – hell, I didn’t figure it out until I started tanking. If we are fighting a mob who is capable of silencing us, and you notice we’re silenced, please do something to get rid of it if we can’t do it ourselves. When silenced, we lose access to:

• Icy Touch
• Howling Blast
• Death Coil
• Death and Decay
• Dark Command
• Blood Boil
• Pestilence
• Icebound Fortitude
• Bone Shield
• Death Grip
• possibly Strangulate
• possibly Mind Freeze
• Anti-Magic Shield
• Anti-Magic Zone
• possibly Rune Tap
• Hungering Cold
• possible Vampiric Blood

The list goes on and on. Essentially any spell-like ability is affected by silence. In short, if a DK is silenced, our list of threat and survivability tools is reduced to Plague Strike, Scourge Strike (unholy only), Blood Strike, Frost Strike (frost only), Obliterate, Death Strike, and Heart Strike (blood only). We lose the ability to lay down an AOE (any of them at all), we lose the ability to taunt, and we lose our biggest source of magical protection and free runic power.

So please, if you see your DK tank get silenced, and it’s a kind of silence you can dispel, please do!

(P.S. Casters with silence and hunters with silencing shot, if you really want to shut a death knight down in PvP, I guess now you know what to do.)

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Two things your DK tank wants to tell you

Places to be

A trend I’ve noticed on my shaman as I’ve been leveling him up through the old world is that many of the old-world instances felt like places to be. It’s hit or miss, but it seems to be a largely “vanilla WoW” tendency that’s gone away over the years. Some examples:

Blackrock Depths. This is one of my favorite instances to run, ever. It’s a bit convoluted in places, and sometimes even an old hand at it like me has problems getting around, but BRD is the perfect example of feeling like a real place. A trip into Blackrock Depths really feels like you’re a visitor to a city full of hostiles, and are basically in there to bust some heads. It’s got barracks, it’s got bars (well, one anyway), it’s got forges and anvils and other dwarven trappings, and it’s got a king and his pregnant, maybe-she’s-kidnapped-maybe-she’s-not wife. It’s got love stories, it’s got an arena, and periodically it has a very angry dwarf who really just wants to enter the brewing competition, dagnabbit. And it’s got an entrance into the Dark Iron Dwarves’ biggest mistake: the home of the unleashed Ragnaros.

That’s not saying BRD doesn’t have its problems. It’s got a lot of the amateur mistakes you see in old instances; namely, quest lines that require multiple trips in and out just to complete something. It also is really confusing to get around in, and has tons and tons of trash. Tons of it. Tons. But BRD is hands down just about my #1 winner in terms of feeling like a real living, breathing place inside an instance portal. Stratholme (the level 60 version) is also on this list, for many of the same reasons.

Troll instances. The old-world troll instances are very good at creating this kind of place-ness feeling – Zul’farrak and Zul’gurub feel like actual places that trolls would hang out and do their thing, like summoning old gods into the world. (Sunken Temple is notoriously not on this list.) Some of the trolls are just chilling in their tents, joking with other trolls; some of the more important ones, like Bloodlord Mando’kir, are accepting important visitors when you show up. In Zul’farrak, the sheer number of trolls milling around is kind of outrageously high, but the city itself does a good job of giving that “trolls live here” feel – scattered tents and huts everywhere, little sanctums for some of the bosses, a party that got there before you and got caged after a wipe, and so on. There’s a few shortcomings (for example, I have no idea where the Sandfury were stashing that many slaves), but ZF and ZG are definitely on my list.

Karazhan. For a long stretch of instances in TBC, you lose the “place” feel – until you get to the raiding level, and set foot into Karazhan. From the moment you start going through Karazhan, you realize this is a place designed for people to inhabit, and it shows. Of course, it makes sense – Magus Medivh did live here, for quite a while, as did a few others – but it’s got a certain aura around it that other raids and instances in TBC definitely don’t have. It really feels like if you cleared out all the crap, and figured out exactly why the top of your tower is sticking into the Twisting Nether, you could move your guild in and call Karazhan your extremely spacious home.

Naxxramas. Now, I know, Naxxramas is probably an odd addition to this list, but Naxxramas really fits its purpose. The place is supposed to be a floating war fortress, where the forces of the Scourge are assembled and ready to attack. Granted, most of what they seem to be doing is milling around, but the place that I think exemplifies this the most is Instructor Razuvious. Since abdicating his position as head instructor aboard Acherus due to a hostile takeover, he’s actively tutoring a new generation of Death Knights, just like he always did. There are, however, a few bosses that throw off this image – Heigan, anyone? Or Loatheb? But Naxx actively feels like a fortress preparing for war, as soon as Arthas delivers the word.

Places to die

The number of instances that fall into this category are many and varied, and the vanilla instances aren’t exempt from this at all – Wailing Caverns, I’m looking at you. Instances that don’t have a sense of “place-ness” generally give the feeling of a straight line between the goal and the finish, in between which there are enemies roaming around whose only purpose in “life” is to roam around and wait to be killed. They’re linear, they’re generally short on story, and they make up most of the instances between 60 and 80.

Hellfire Ramparts. This is the worst offender, and the first one that jumps to mind when I try to come up with examples of linear instances. This is pretty much because other than a few negligible turns, Hellfire Ramparts is almost literally a straight line from start to finish, with trash and bosses scattered along the line. Oh, sure, there’s a little bit of choice at the end – do we kill Omor first, or the other guy? – but it still gives none of the feeling of a place to exist that the others do. Maybe it’s just a place for them to patrol? Well, sure, but where do they go from there? No one’s hanging out in Shattered Halls or Blood Furnace, that’s for sure. Ramparts always gives me the impression of fel orcs milling around, waiting on you to wander by and kill them.

Wailing Caverns. Can we buy the Fanglords a chair? What’re they eating, snakes? Why hasn’t Mutanus already wandered out and killed Naralex? How did Verdan the Everliving even get into that room? All these mysteries and more, in the linear craphole that is Wailing Caverns. Of course, WC also has the side benefit of also being fairly confusing to get around your first time in.

The Nexus. Parts of this have a certain veracity to them – namely, the wandering wildlife in the crystallized section, and the blue dragons fighting an ongoing fight against malevolent magical oddities. (Although, in that case, why haven’t they formed a raid and gone to fight Anomalus themselves? I guess no one wanted to heal.) But other areas… especially the parts all around Grand Magus Telestra. Why are the humans all just hanging out in the Nexus? Yeah, I know they’ve sided with Malygos against the world, but why are they hanging out in the Nexus of all places? It’s a cold, unfeeling shell of a place, apparently built to service the scale and needs of dragonkin (and serve as a prison for Malygos’ mind-controlled mate), and yet these humans are all just standing around. Maybe they’re waiting on a delivery from Ikea, or for the mage who went for takeout to get back. Even Telestra herself is kind of oddly placed: she has a giant featureless glass bubble. Talk about sparse accommodations.

What difference does it make?

I won’t lie to you – I’m whitewashing the old-world instances a little. They tend to be immense, have poorly thought-out questlines in terms of travel time (why does everyone in Feralas want something from the Hinterlands?!), and have way too much trash. But the linear instances, well, they get pretty boring after a run or two. In Cataclysm, how about some instances with some thought and attention put into it? Maybe the Lost City of Tol’vir really will feel like a City – the place-ness feel of older instances and raids, but with the design lessons of the new (less trash, more interesting fight mechanics, questlines that all can be gathered and then end in the 5-man).

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Places to be, versus places to die

One of our near and dear Devils, Julie, has been diagnosed with breast cancer, and is due to start treatment on November 9th. We’re hoping to show our love and support for Julie, and have put together Raid for the Cure, a cross-factional event taking places on the Kael’thas (US) server.

What is it? An event for both the Alliance and Horde, a cross-factional march to show support for someone going through a trying time and to encourage donations to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure charity, so that maybe someday events like this won’t ever have to take place. Pink Mageweave Shirts will be provided for walkers of both sides, and we’ll have some representatives from Sidhe Devils on hand to ensure the walk goes smoothly (i.e. security detail).

This is not a race, despite the pic above. It’s more about solidarity for a cause.

When and where is it? The event will be held on Saturday, November 14th, at 2PM Central Time (Kael’thas’s server time). Participants for the Alliance side will start in Shadowglen near Darnassus, participants for the Horde in Camp Narache in Mulgore. Members of Sidhe Devils will be available to both factions to hand out Pink Mageweave Shirts to those who’re showing up from other servers to participate.

How do I participate?

1. The most obvious way, of course, is the march. Both sides will work their way towards Crossroads, meet up and head for Ratchet, take the boat to Booty Bay, and boogie down with the pirates in a giant sea of pink shirt and dress-sporting toons. Afterwards there will be a drawing (offline) for…
2. … the raffle! In order to raise money for breast cancer research, we’re holding a raffle. Various prizes will be coming from the WoW community, with the grand prize being a guest spot on the “Sidhe Devils Gone Wild” podcast. If you want to enter the raffle, it’s simple enough: go to the Raid for the Cure website (set up by Sidhe Devils for donations, but administered by Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and make a donation using a valid email address. Afterwards, email a copy of your receipt to tigerlordgm AT yahoo DOT com with the words Raid for the Cure Raffle Entry in the subject line. That’s all it takes – you’ve donated to a fantastic cause, and entered yourself in the drawing for fantastic prizes. One entry per person, no minimum donation necessary. Even if you can’t make it to the march, we encourage you to donate to this great organization.

BBB has a lot more details on his blog, including exactly when and where people should meet up for the run.

See you there!

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Gaming vs. Cancer: Sidhe Devils present “Raid for the Cure”

This is a short example video of how I joust. It may not be the greatest demonstration in the world, but it should give you an idea what I do. Barring the few times I’ve mysteriously gotten 2500ms+ ping, or down in Icecrown when I accidentally tagged 3 Commanders at once (ouch…), I boast a 100% success rate.

Jousting? Yeah, I got that.

I’ll add this note for Nibuca’s sake: a few people have told me they don’t “get” strafing. It’s also probably true that what I do isn’t strictly strafing – it’s a combination of strafing and mouse movement. Anyhow, for those of you who still have your movement bound to the default keys, Q strafes left and E strafes right – moving you left and right without actually turning. It’s great for getting at range from someone.

For those of you using the n52 or n52te, with movement bound to either the keys or the joystick, you can simulate the leftward movement I do in the beginning of the video by moving the joystick/keys left while mouse-moving to the right – it ends up with a pseudo-strafe rotation that still leaves you facing your opponent (even if it doesn’t look like you are). The right movement is exactly the reverse – joystick/keys right, mouse move left.

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How I joust

The Hall of Thanes is a massive, natural cavern complex. It is located in Ironforge’s lowest depths. The area is a true marvel of organic stone formation: no dwarf has touched this area with pick or chisel. Ironforge’s kings are buried in the Hall of Thanes, and the old throne is here as well. Also within this cavernous area is the ancient, weathered Iron Forge — perhaps the greatest titan artifact ever unearthed. The dwarves do not use this holy anvil, but keep it near their honored dead and the seat of their power. Brann Bronzebeard believes that as dwarves uncover more truths about their ancestry, they will find greater uses for the Iron Forge. He believes the titans must have given it to them for a reason.

It does exist in modern-day WoW, behind an inaccessible door in Magni’s room – there’s a few ways to get into it, and in the 3.1 PTR it was in fact an openable door (though still blocked by an invisible wall).

However, I’ve never been one to let silly things like walls or door stop me.

Not a lot to look at right now – a long hallway running from the High Seat down to a vast flat stone area (that’s screenshots 1 and 2), then a little winding path that goes under the first area and deadends at two doors that don’t go anywhere. (Oh, and lava. Lots of lava.)

If you liked this little exploration of closed areas, you might want to check out my look at the Farm at the End of the World, and perhaps in a few days I’ll post another good look at the Ironforge Airport. After all, who knows if it’ll still be up there, come Cataclysm?

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Touring Old Ironforge

2) Got other upgrades, mostly from badges and ToC and suchlike. Is all good, but paying for enchants and gems is getting old.

3) Got Kallech ready to run Sunken Temple, then do one last leveling sprint in vanilla.

4) Grinded pirates for 4 or 5 hours. Noticeable progress made!

5) Completely invalidated all my numbers on pirates (some of which were wrong anyway due to a miscalculation about when the rep stopped – right BEFORE revered, not just AFTER revered) by changing Rajaat to a human for the duration of the rest of Insane in the Membrane. Bleh. Not super-happy about it, as humans in WoW are kind of… well, bland… but I think I’ll get more mileage out of Every Man for Himself and the expertise racials (and, of course, Diplomacy). I dunno. We’ll see if I stay that way or not – maybe being human will grow on me.

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Things done this weekend

• Currently my reputation with the Steamwheedle Cartel is as follows:
• Ratchet: 9138/36000 Hated
• Gadgetzan: 8578/36000 Hated
• Everlook: 8055/36000 Hated
• Booty Bay: 8055/36000 Hated
• I’m totally a popular guy. So here’s the facts. For the first part of the reputation grinds:
• I’m not grinding Knot Thimblejack runs. I may regret it later, but I need to be able to set foot in goblin towns, and honestly – doing speed runs through DM to kill just the bosses to get Gordok Shackle Keys is not getting me any more librams than just wandering in and slaughtering everything willy-nilly – in fact, it’s getting me less.
• Killing pirates outside Ratchet nets me approximately 6000 rep per hour with Ratchet, because I can do it at top speed. Also, Baron Longshore is kind enough to simply count as 5 pirates. They also stop giving rep once I hit Revered with Ratchet. Keeping that in mind, I’m looking at having to kill approximately 10,771 Southsea Freebooters outside Ratchet, which will consume nearly 9 hours of my life.
• Since these pirates also yield 2.5 reputation with the other 3 Steamwheedle factions when killed, I’ll gain approximately 26,926 rep with the other 3 as well.
• So after finishing up Ratchet, where does that leave us, approximately?
• Ratchet: 3/21000 Revered
• Gadgetzan: 35504/36000 Hated
• Everlook: 34981/36000 Hated
• Booty Bay: 34981/36000 Hated
• Well, uh, almost 1/4 of the way there!
• Now it’s off to Gadgetzan. Here, killing the Southsea Pirates again nets me 5 rep a pirate until revered; again, Andre Firebeard is nice enough to count as 5 pirates. If I get bored I can go kill Wastewander Bandits, but unless there’s something I’m forgetting, they’re actually more spread out and would slow down my rep gain in Tanaris (3000/hr max) even more. Plus, Caliph Scorpidsting only counts as 3 pirates. Borrrrring (comparatively). Southsea it is.
• Once again, we kill pirates! Luckily, it’s a lot fewer pirates to get to revered with Gadgetzan, thanks to all that grinding in Tanaris. I have to kill exactly 5500 pirates in Tanaris – approximately 10 hours. This tips me over into Revered with Gadgetzan, and adds another heap of rep to the other 3.
• How much, approximately?
• Ratchet: 13,753/21000 Revered
• Gadgetzan: 4/21000 Revered
• Everlook: 3731/6000 Friendly
• Booty Bay: 3731/6000 Friendly
• Well, not bad. Ratchet is well on its way. If I killed another 2900 pirates in Tanaris (and really, after I’ve killed five and a half thousand, what’s another 2900?), that’d finish off Ratchet – netting me 7,248 rep with the three non-Gadgetzan cities (roughly 2 and a half, maybe 3 hours). Now, approximately:
• Ratchet: 1/999 Exalted
• Gadgetzan: 4/21000 Revered
• Everlook: 4979/12000 Honored
• Booty Bay: 4979/12000 Honored
• At this point, I have two choices: go back to doing Knot Thimblejack runs, or go back to Ratchet and grind their super-fast pirate rep grind until Everlook and Booty Bay ding exalted. I think I know which one I’m going to pick, don’t you? That’s 28,022 rep (roughly), or another 10 hours, or, in pirates, 11209 pirates. Putting me at:
• Ratchet: 1/999 Exalted
• Gadgetzan: 999/1000 Exalted
• Everlook: 1/999 Exalted
• Booty Bay: 1/999 Exalted

Oh, and then I still have to get exalted with Shen’dralar, exalted with Ravenholdt, and exalted with Darkmoon Faire.

Total Body Count: 30,380 pirates
Total Time Spent Just On Steamwheedle Reputation: 43-44 hours

Spot the madman!

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Plans; or, suck it, pirates