So yeah, I just got out of Blackrock Depths after tanking my first instance. I feel like a noob all over again. And I love it. We did good, but in the beginning I just mashed buttons randomly (I read a prio list but my bindings were perhaps not that great) and managed to hold aggro just fucking fine.
So yeah. I was in LFM because I needed a group for Sunken Temple, for warrior class quest about some fucking feathers or something. And someone randomly whispered me asking if I wanted to come to BRD. Now, I remember that instance to be really hard, but I mostly ran it on my shaman with what was most probably undergeared groups. But I figured, how hard can it be? I outlevel the instance and I have decent gear in almost all slots, and can probably fill the rest while we are down there (I got a few greens and blues, not exactly something that's made me excited before but I went "Woo! New tanking shoulders!" out loud >_>.
I made sure to tell them that I'd never tanked before. Never tanked a warrior, never tanked BRD, never. They seemed fine with it and I figured it'd be OK since most people were around 55. Turns out all of them were Swedish (for some reason they all went SWE!? almost right away). We slugged ourselves over there, me and a priest got there first and started summoning people and in we went. I wanted to show how awesome I was so I chainpulled the miners that are in the antechamber thingie, making sure my rage was optimal and just generally being badass. Inside the instace things were about as easy except for one thing: THE HUNTARD. Yeah, a PuG with a stupid hunter, who'da thought. He kept pulling out of impatience when healer was low on mana and did not turn off his pet's growl. And the damn pet kept ripping mobs off me and kept taking damage and he kept nagging the priest and ret paladin to heal his pet. I swear to God, I had a full playing board of PuG bingo right there. We told him to turn the taunt off, he told us his pet in fact did not have a taunt. At least we weren't wiping so we made do with simply not talking about it anymore. We went around randomly first cause noone had the key (epic confusion throughout the run since there are a gazillion types of keys to keep track of) and the other four had never been there before. I felt big and manly when I walked around with only a vague idea about where the first three bosses were, but we did the Law circle thing and managed to progress. Turns out the hunter was 15 (he said he was turning 16 tomorrow when the paladin said he had to have a quick afk to eat cake with his grandma cause it was his 17th birhtday...), the priest was 29 and the warlock probably somewhere around my age (he called the rest "kids"). Go figure.
I noticed being rage starved pretty much all the time until I figured out the key: CHAINPULL MOAR. Not that I thought rage would be pouring in as fast as a mob looked at you, but having two of them beat on me only allowed me to do shield slam as often as it came off CD basically. Having figured that out, I reached tanking heaven when controlling packs of 8-10 mobs at the same time, moving them according to my slightest whim. Trying to peel off and kick my healer's ass? Not on my watch! Taunt! Shockwave! Fuck yeah ain't going nowhere bitch. Playing a warrior as opposed to a mana class is a completely different game, I got that figured out. But actually tanking, playing the threat game, it just blew my mind. The first group fell apart somewhere around us ninjajumping to the entrance to Molten Core and realizing we were stuck cause noone had the key.
Me and the priest found three new DPS and came back, made sure we hade the key quest and even though the PuG really sucked (worse this time, there was a impolite mage, a really stupid paladin (who was 48 so he had the biggest aggro range with hilarious results) who refused to stay close to me and a DPS warrior with a tanking complex) I stuck around because I was enjoying it so much. I still don't know if it was because it was something completely fresh or because I genuinely enjoyed tanking and will keep on liking it, but I will keep going until I find out. I befriended the priest and we've agreed to do Strat and Scholo someday this week. Will be nice to get some more tanking experience under my belt before I venture into Outland for levelling and the hopefully harder instances there. Still refreshed from the experience I ventured back to my home server, where people don't have guild names that are "potatodruggies" or "chase a naked man" or character names that are "iamalock" or "elitepala" or "dillfather" or "cheesesandwich" or "gandálf" or "hateful" or "unnecessary" or "pelledruid" NYAAAARHRG. Time to sort the lineup for tonights Ulduar-25. Tanks and healers as always but lacking DPS. Comfortable problems.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Sartharion with three drakes up
Sweet Jesus, that fight is worse than Mimiron. We tried zerging it a couple weeks back to no avail - Sarth goes invincible when Shadron activates, leaving only 75 seconds to burn him. Even with all DPS doing an average of nearly 7k DPS (using 6 DPS:ers) I think some mechanic stops Sarth from being killed without the drakes going down first.
We came back hoping to do it right - surely we'd have the DPS to burn the drakes in between each phase, and healers + tanks good enough to deal with the adds so we could burn them down during transitions.
HELL NAW. And it's not like we brought the light hitters. The people in the raid group generally perform well on meters during raids, that was not the problem. People dodged flamewaves, the adds got tanked (on the last tries anyway, more on that later) and DPS was decently consistent. Second drake lands. BOOM. We blow up. When the adds were supposed to be tanked by the drake tank they frequently came loose and blew the healers up. When the adds were tanked properly we didn't have the DPS to burn Tenebron before Shadron landed, and we even struggled to do this after having killed Shadron - we had 90 seconds to burn her, and keep control of the adds, and still Tenebron would be up when Vesperon landed, and in that transition, we'd blow up. We ended up biting the bullet and killing him with just one drake up because of people having to leave (mostly me, had been up for quite a while) and repair bills stacking (and I was cloth and got off easy - it's just we'd been having wipenights for a few raids in a row, which takes it's toll even on the wallet of a reasonably rich mage).
All in all it was a great experience, because it tells me that some encounters still almost require a certain composition. We had no rogue to deal with the adds, we had no shaman to provide blood lust, and we weren't stacked for physical or magic damage but instead had a bit of both. Every little thing helps (or in this case, hinders) and correctly stacked we would have had a better shot at doing it. We did have good tankage and good healage. If you read this, well done!
We came back hoping to do it right - surely we'd have the DPS to burn the drakes in between each phase, and healers + tanks good enough to deal with the adds so we could burn them down during transitions.
HELL NAW. And it's not like we brought the light hitters. The people in the raid group generally perform well on meters during raids, that was not the problem. People dodged flamewaves, the adds got tanked (on the last tries anyway, more on that later) and DPS was decently consistent. Second drake lands. BOOM. We blow up. When the adds were supposed to be tanked by the drake tank they frequently came loose and blew the healers up. When the adds were tanked properly we didn't have the DPS to burn Tenebron before Shadron landed, and we even struggled to do this after having killed Shadron - we had 90 seconds to burn her, and keep control of the adds, and still Tenebron would be up when Vesperon landed, and in that transition, we'd blow up. We ended up biting the bullet and killing him with just one drake up because of people having to leave (mostly me, had been up for quite a while) and repair bills stacking (and I was cloth and got off easy - it's just we'd been having wipenights for a few raids in a row, which takes it's toll even on the wallet of a reasonably rich mage).
All in all it was a great experience, because it tells me that some encounters still almost require a certain composition. We had no rogue to deal with the adds, we had no shaman to provide blood lust, and we weren't stacked for physical or magic damage but instead had a bit of both. Every little thing helps (or in this case, hinders) and correctly stacked we would have had a better shot at doing it. We did have good tankage and good healage. If you read this, well done!
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Ding! 20!
Sometime today, my noob dinged 20. He promptly asked for new quest areas since he was tired of the Barrens. Why, oh why, if you are undead, do you go to The Barrens to quest? Guess he is a proper noob after all. If you read this, go to Hillsbrad foothills. You can get far into the 20's fast there and the higher level quests are kinda easy too.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Understanding a boss fight in six easy steps
This is a set of thoughts I've pondered for a while, and I think I need it out of my system. While raidleading, and through some extensive raiding, I've discovered these "phases" in understanding and executing a boss fight. I've tried using them to my advantage.
1. Reading/hearing about it
The very first step is getting a general idea of what is going to happen. Written guides tend to focus a lot on exactly how much damage a certain ability does rather than the execution itself. This is good for finetuning (figuring out the abilities that will be healable through for example), but does not really help someone trying to understand the basic composition. Instead, people hear other people talk about things that happen in the fight and get a (sometimes faulty) idea of what's going on. When I'd read the Yogg-Saron fight quickly (didn't want to spoil it too early on!) I figured there'd be tentacles and an episode of going into the god himself - just like C'thun. When I truly studied it (in preparation of maybe downing Vezax) I quickly realized we'd have no chance on performing the fight without ample preparation and practise. This is a very basic step, you need to know the abilitie's names to be able to distinguish what the hell the raid leader is shouting about to be able to execute the fight. This leads me into the next step.
2. Watching videos of it
By now, you have the very utterly basic grasp of what the boss can do. To realize what you are going to experience however, you need to see it done. This also helps with stuff like situational awareness, graphics/animations for boss abilities and a general feel of timing between events (written guides, again, are very specific - but 15 seconds during Ignis are completely different from 15 seconds during Razorscale). If you can find PoV's from your class it's all the better, but anything works. By now, you're fairly well equipped. Assuming your raidleader (or someone else for that matter) has a brief repetition before the fight, you are ready to go on to step 3.
3. Doing it the first time
Face it, you'll most probably fuck up. You've misunderstood how an ability works, you're too slow, you forget an important mechanic and you most likely have a few others in the raid who are just like you. Or, everything will go fine, you got carried by the raid and whatever pitfalls were there you avoided them through some kind of miracle. However, this only leads to ignorance as you will think you did fine, which you may have done due to luck, and the next time, one of the random abilities may pop more often, and you'll wipe.
4. Doing it the fifth time
This is perhaps my favorite phase of all - the fight still feels new, you still have some ideas about what to do to do better, and you have learning experiences still. You'll also be starting to work out a way to optimize the execution for future smooth kills. My first Hodir tries I had no idea about the fires so I'd run around like an idiot between Starlights and tested the limits of my IA Arcane spec's mobility. Too much running, too little DPS. Then I learned about the Singed debuff, and I figured the toasty fires out, and the other day I hit a 18k DPS peak (overall DPS was still weak but I'll get som epic DPS next time...). Arguably, I'd been stupid before and not read the add's abilities thoroughly enough, but we did down him and I'd probably never noticed unless I'd sat down to study the fight again. Reason I did this? To start raidleading, which brings me onto my next step.
5. Being able to explain it to someone
It is true for all knowledge and understanding: you have truly understood it the moment you can explain it to someone and have that person understand too. This is doubly true for boss fights in WoW, since you actually need to do good and accurate explanations to maximize performance. Once you know everything there is to know about the boss fight (to be able to execute it "good enough", at least) you have reached an understanding. By now you have several high performance kills behind you and you still try to do your best and beat your score on those kills, be you healer, tank or DPS. If you haven't already, you could problably lead a raid that does this boss - you know all the ins and outs and can make judgement calls about who does what. You also have enough awareness and multitasking skill to shout at people, warn about abilities and mechanics.
When I raidlead, I utilize explanations made by raid members as both a kind of checkup, a way to have people other than the raid leader be heard, and to make sure that the people attending get explanations by different people (which guarantees different angles). It's a trick I learned as a squad leader trainee in the military. :)
6. Being able to dick around
This is the final phase in a boss fight's life - when he or she or it turns to the dreaded farm status. You are good enough that you can afford to make mistakes and still make the kill, and you might even try and have a threat race with the tank, doing your best to steal aggro instead of manage it, just to give the tank a challenge. You might blabber on Vent and not do your job and the raid's overall performance won't be affected that much. You might not need to kill offtanked adds cause the tank who's on them is good enough. You can go watch a Youtube video on your other monitor and still keep a decent DPS rotation up. Be mindful though! Once the mistakes I mentioned start to happen, and the interrupting rogue steals aggro and gets twatted, you still need to focus and shape up. All of a sudden it got serious again. If you have gotten to step 6, you should be able to drop down to your step 5 performance and still pull the kill off. This is what separates a good group that's on step 6 from a bad one.
5. Being able to explain it to someone
It is true for all knowledge and understanding: you have truly understood it the moment you can explain it to someone and have that person understand too. This is doubly true for boss fights in WoW, since you actually need to do good and accurate explanations to maximize performance. Once you know everything there is to know about the boss fight (to be able to execute it "good enough", at least) you have reached an understanding. By now you have several high performance kills behind you and you still try to do your best and beat your score on those kills, be you healer, tank or DPS. If you haven't already, you could problably lead a raid that does this boss - you know all the ins and outs and can make judgement calls about who does what. You also have enough awareness and multitasking skill to shout at people, warn about abilities and mechanics.
When I raidlead, I utilize explanations made by raid members as both a kind of checkup, a way to have people other than the raid leader be heard, and to make sure that the people attending get explanations by different people (which guarantees different angles). It's a trick I learned as a squad leader trainee in the military. :)
6. Being able to dick around
This is the final phase in a boss fight's life - when he or she or it turns to the dreaded farm status. You are good enough that you can afford to make mistakes and still make the kill, and you might even try and have a threat race with the tank, doing your best to steal aggro instead of manage it, just to give the tank a challenge. You might blabber on Vent and not do your job and the raid's overall performance won't be affected that much. You might not need to kill offtanked adds cause the tank who's on them is good enough. You can go watch a Youtube video on your other monitor and still keep a decent DPS rotation up. Be mindful though! Once the mistakes I mentioned start to happen, and the interrupting rogue steals aggro and gets twatted, you still need to focus and shape up. All of a sudden it got serious again. If you have gotten to step 6, you should be able to drop down to your step 5 performance and still pull the kill off. This is what separates a good group that's on step 6 from a bad one.
Project Noob - the Shocker!
So, last night I contacted my noob on IRC to see when he'd be able to play next time. I greeted him "hai" and he said almost instantly "Good that you're on! Do you know any good places to farm linen cloth?". A bit stumpted, I said "well, all humanoids drop cloth, and there's not a lot in Tirisfal Glades" and he went "I know they do! I asked if you know any good places!" and I had to reply "well, there's quite a few humanoids in Silverpine once you get to that level range..." and he replied "Yeah I'm having some troubles with the mages there". He was leveling tailoring and enchanting (I'm not sure, but I think he'd read that on Noob says WOW. Either that, or he'd figured it out on his own. Either way, good call!).
Turns out he is level 17 (or was, when I left him last night) and had run out of quests to do on his own. We discussed macromaking and how to handle multiple mobs (with targeting, focus and stuff), and it looks like the little bastard is turning into quite a competent warlock. I knew I should have tricked him into some other class...
We still discussed some nuances of the game but he seemed to have gotten a pretty good grasp of what he can grasp at that level, and I also let him ride my mammoth to some quest mobs and fragged them for him. He was fascinated by the locales and seemed excited about going to Hillsbrad foothills at level 20 - he'd been playing those missions in Warcraft 2 just earlier. I'll try and set up an interview with him - if you have any questions you want me to ask, try and post them in the comments section.
On a unrelated noob post, the mage 4T8 bonus is ridicolously fun. Even two in a row is great, three makes me giddy and at six I had to change my pants.
Turns out he is level 17 (or was, when I left him last night) and had run out of quests to do on his own. We discussed macromaking and how to handle multiple mobs (with targeting, focus and stuff), and it looks like the little bastard is turning into quite a competent warlock. I knew I should have tricked him into some other class...
We still discussed some nuances of the game but he seemed to have gotten a pretty good grasp of what he can grasp at that level, and I also let him ride my mammoth to some quest mobs and fragged them for him. He was fascinated by the locales and seemed excited about going to Hillsbrad foothills at level 20 - he'd been playing those missions in Warcraft 2 just earlier. I'll try and set up an interview with him - if you have any questions you want me to ask, try and post them in the comments section.
On a unrelated noob post, the mage 4T8 bonus is ridicolously fun. Even two in a row is great, three makes me giddy and at six I had to change my pants.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
How to fix mages
Holy shit here's some mage QQ!
Here are my top five concerns about mages, and how to fix them.
1. Mana regeneration. Evocation can sometimes be folded into a pretty little swan that we hang in a string in our window to love (glyhped, in PvP or while solo/leveling). Sometimes, it's a white-hot lamp post shoved up our arses (PvE). Make it Innervate style. I know we shouldn't steal mechanics, but Blizzard are homogenizing the classes so much anyway so it's not gonna matter. Let it be instant and self-cast and have it break on any other cast being made, instead of channeled. And hey, remove the cooldown. Every tick we are casting Evocation instead of Fireball is a DPS loss anyway, so people would keep it to a minimum. They are lowering mana costs across the board and upping mana returns (in the Fire tree) but it does not solve the problem, only alleviate the symptoms ever so slightly. We need a tool to manage our mana, not stuff we pop on every cooldown like, to paraphrase a good friend, a tramp on chips. We especially do not want that only. ONLY. Tool to be able to flunk. Huntards may accidently stay too long in AotV and do shite DPS. Warlocks may lifetap and have it kill them. But they will always get the mana, even at the cost of DPS and/or life. The L2P issue is non-existant. A mage that runs out of mana (and we will) is useless and has fallen into a hole that means begging the druids for innervate, bugging the priests about whateverit'scalled and telling shammies to pop their free mana totem when the shamans themselves are at 95% mana. That, or we wait excrutiating seconds while wanding, at least keeping Scorch and Living bomb up at the target. Even 20 seconds spent in this manner is extremely frustrating even if we completely ignore the fact that we'll drop on the meters. It's simply boring to autoattack. FIX. MAGES'. MANA. TOOLS.
2. Threat managment. Make Mirror Images work like Lolcrawler thought they did. Take them off the global cooldown. Have Invisibility keep ticking no matter what (damage, movement etc.) - the three second fade timer I can live with since it is not our oshit button (MI working as intended should be), but a deliberate and planned complete threat dump. Also, make sure that I can still see stuff and keep the boss targeted, so I can insta-break it in raids with a new cast (just like hunters have been able to since, I dunno, forever?), and so that I can navigate solo/leveling/PvP content while under the effect (just like rogues have been able to do sine, I dunno, forever?). Fire has extra issues due to little threat reduction talents and extreme streakyness. Every instant Pyroblast we cast is going to have been preceded by two Fireball crits in a row for the proc by definition, and it will be cast right at the tail of a third fireball, that quite possibly could crit, and the Pyroblast could also very well crit, for a total of metric fucktonne damage in half a second. This will be further adressed below.
3. RNG dependent DPS. This is especially true with the T8 four-piece set. Rogues get Rupture crits. We get another lottery. I like this, but the T8 bonus needs to be a refresh of the proc, not just a non-consumption. The whole Hot streak mechanic fucks with the Haste = More DPS, Crit = More DPM paradigm because we will want to cast those instant Pyros, consuming a buttload of mana (also, Burnout). Right now haste and crit give about the same DPS value for Fire mages, with haste slightly on top, and you can chose to "spec" for garantueed DPS (haste) or potentially higher, potentially lower DPS (crit), or a balance that fits you. How to fix this? I love proc playstyles, but Hot streaks needs to be a lot more consistent (not necessarily more often, mind you). Change it to three crits, consecutive or non-consecutive. This will slightly alleviate the threat spikes too. This means that a series of crit, non-crit, crit, non-crit, crit, non-crit, crit, non-crit, crit, non-crit would yield one Hot streak instead of zero as today, and a series of crit, crit, crit, crit, crit, non-crit, non-crit, non-crit, non-crit, non-crit would yield one Hot streak instead of two as today. Less RNG, and still rewarding to have a high crit percentage. You'd not get them back to back to the same extent anymore, but up the proc chance on 4T8 and that would be solved, at least a little. Alternatively, one could work in a Maelstrom like mechanic, where it lowers the cast time instead, and have a 20% chance to add one charge per Fire spell hit, and 75% chance to add 1 charge on each crit. It's a lot more predictable and won't make the DPS vary so wildly. I can feel in my spine when I'm getting few procs, and when I glance at the DPS meter, I get that confirmed. I don't want to have to do that. You'd still have the fights with many procs and the fights with few ones, but the span would be smaller.
4. AoE DPS and sustainability. This is a big one, and they're experimenting with allowing multiple LB casts. I love this, but it needs a small tweak - it needs to explode when the mob dies. 12 seconds is far too long for any trash to live, and it would add some fun micro managment to trash pulls - imagine having the sparks that the twin mobs in Auriayas patrol path use popped so that a mage's LB would detonate when it's right next to the recipient, for some extra damage. Fun for the whole raid, since you want to pop it late, but not too late... This would give us a fun extra tool.
Flamestrike needs to be frontloaded enough that it's worth casting on trash, without skipping the DoT entirely, it can be of use when we AoE trash close to bosses due to Ignite. And Jesus, give it a larger reticle. Five yards is pathetic. Keep the cast time, but make it worthwhile - it's a FLAME STRIKE damnit, not "Ow, the ground is hot".
Now, Blizzard on the other hand, should recieve a fade mechanic. Keep the reticle size, but have it stop using mana when you stop casting it, and keep doing nerfed damage for a while. This way you could keep a big one up via channeling, or spam a lot of small ones at a lower mana cost to cover larger areas. The overall DPS should be balanced so that each reticle needs four or five targets for it to be worthwhile to do the "instant" Blizzard (where you'd just start casting it and let the "fade" mechanic do the rest, practically turning it into an ice version of old Flame strike), and two targets for a full channel to pay off, and maybe three or four for a balanced, half one. Needs smart usage, and can yield nice results. Different new tools for different situations, built into the same old spells.
Overall, mana costs need to be reduced, but not too much - remember we fixed Evocation :). Fix the bloat in the Fire tree so that Fire mages can pick up Dragon's breath and Blastwave. Fix the bloat in the Arcane tree and give Arcane a targeted AoE too. I'd like the concept of a magic reducing zone, but DK's have that one covered, and the slowing of attack time is covered by hurricane, and lowering cast times feels a bit unimaginative. A targeted vulnerability-style AoE debuff that applies a DoT to the stuff it hits? This would further the notion of Arcane as the utility tree - stick up... "ARCANE NEEDLE STORM" and then go to town with your normal AoE rotation on weakened mobs. Have Arcane have talents that make it good enough to be their best AoE choice so that each spec actually uses the spells from it's main tree.
I want to AoE, and I want to contribute, but I am very reluctant because what tools I have are very blunt for the job - they cost too much and have a very low risk/reward ratio.
5. Quality of life issues. Amp/Damp magic needs to be castable on a raid in one go. Slow fall needs to be castable on a raid in one go (with same mana cost per target in range - quite possibly make the range akin to Arcane Explosion's but apply Slow fall to all within, and keep the targeted version at the current 30-something yards depending on talents). Improved Scorch needs to be a one point talent that makes your Scorches apply "MAGIC VULNERABILITY", a shared debuff that locks speced into ISB and mages speced into Arcane and Frost can apply and refresh that is -shared- and always at 5%. The 3% extra ego crit that was stuck on there can be smacked onto some other talent to not nerf Fireball crit rates or removed if that's the price to pay for better debuff application. Mages should be allowed to keep mage food during logouts, other classes not. None of this will break the game, but will make us feel more awesome. And that's really what it's all about. Multitarget Slow falls, if ONLY EVER GOOD ON ONE FIGHT (to alleviate fall damage during Malygos vortices), would make me feel so damn cool. A raid leader going "GATHER UP FOR SLOW FALL" would make me all tingly inside, instead of having to waste precious global cooldowns that could have been spent fireballin'. I can probably think up a couple more if I get the chance, but the problem is that we have so many small problems it's turned into a really big one.
My last point is the PvP/PvE discrepancy. We want four viable PvE specs instead of one if I'm being harsh, three if I'm being kind, and two if I'm being reasonable, and four viable PvP specs instead of two. Fixing Fire PvP and Frost PvE requires entire posts though, so I won't cover that here but instead mention it as a quality of life issue. I want to be able to PvP as Fire, and I sure as hell would want to be able to PvE as Frost. FOR FUN. Not because some arbitrary mechanics require me to be pigeonholed. Hell, kill that stupid Frostfire spec anyway, if that's what it takes to fix Fire PvP and Frost PvE. It's not a interesting hybrid elemental build, it's just a Fire mage with more mana and a differently colored ball of hurt. Three PvE specs and three PvP ones is plenty.
In conclusion, I don't really mind that raid leaders don't need to bring more than one mage. I wan't the old DPS vs. Utility classes back. But, if Blizzard is hell bent on keeping hybrids' DPS on par with pures' DPS, then I -do- want utility above and beyond 5% extra spell crit on stuff I Scorch. The choice shouldn't be "Hmm, do I get 3.5k DPS and 5% extra spell crit, or 3.5k DPS and 13% extra spell damage, or do I stack for melee buffs instead" but rather "Hmm, do I take a 3k DPS that brings 13% spell damage and 5% spell crit, or do I bring a 5k DPS". Numbers are made up, and should be read as balanced, assuming 5% crit is worth the same as 13% spell damage etc, but I hope it serves to illustrate my point a bit.
Here are my top five concerns about mages, and how to fix them.
1. Mana regeneration. Evocation can sometimes be folded into a pretty little swan that we hang in a string in our window to love (glyhped, in PvP or while solo/leveling). Sometimes, it's a white-hot lamp post shoved up our arses (PvE). Make it Innervate style. I know we shouldn't steal mechanics, but Blizzard are homogenizing the classes so much anyway so it's not gonna matter. Let it be instant and self-cast and have it break on any other cast being made, instead of channeled. And hey, remove the cooldown. Every tick we are casting Evocation instead of Fireball is a DPS loss anyway, so people would keep it to a minimum. They are lowering mana costs across the board and upping mana returns (in the Fire tree) but it does not solve the problem, only alleviate the symptoms ever so slightly. We need a tool to manage our mana, not stuff we pop on every cooldown like, to paraphrase a good friend, a tramp on chips. We especially do not want that only. ONLY. Tool to be able to flunk. Huntards may accidently stay too long in AotV and do shite DPS. Warlocks may lifetap and have it kill them. But they will always get the mana, even at the cost of DPS and/or life. The L2P issue is non-existant. A mage that runs out of mana (and we will) is useless and has fallen into a hole that means begging the druids for innervate, bugging the priests about whateverit'scalled and telling shammies to pop their free mana totem when the shamans themselves are at 95% mana. That, or we wait excrutiating seconds while wanding, at least keeping Scorch and Living bomb up at the target. Even 20 seconds spent in this manner is extremely frustrating even if we completely ignore the fact that we'll drop on the meters. It's simply boring to autoattack. FIX. MAGES'. MANA. TOOLS.
2. Threat managment. Make Mirror Images work like Lolcrawler thought they did. Take them off the global cooldown. Have Invisibility keep ticking no matter what (damage, movement etc.) - the three second fade timer I can live with since it is not our oshit button (MI working as intended should be), but a deliberate and planned complete threat dump. Also, make sure that I can still see stuff and keep the boss targeted, so I can insta-break it in raids with a new cast (just like hunters have been able to since, I dunno, forever?), and so that I can navigate solo/leveling/PvP content while under the effect (just like rogues have been able to do sine, I dunno, forever?). Fire has extra issues due to little threat reduction talents and extreme streakyness. Every instant Pyroblast we cast is going to have been preceded by two Fireball crits in a row for the proc by definition, and it will be cast right at the tail of a third fireball, that quite possibly could crit, and the Pyroblast could also very well crit, for a total of metric fucktonne damage in half a second. This will be further adressed below.
3. RNG dependent DPS. This is especially true with the T8 four-piece set. Rogues get Rupture crits. We get another lottery. I like this, but the T8 bonus needs to be a refresh of the proc, not just a non-consumption. The whole Hot streak mechanic fucks with the Haste = More DPS, Crit = More DPM paradigm because we will want to cast those instant Pyros, consuming a buttload of mana (also, Burnout). Right now haste and crit give about the same DPS value for Fire mages, with haste slightly on top, and you can chose to "spec" for garantueed DPS (haste) or potentially higher, potentially lower DPS (crit), or a balance that fits you. How to fix this? I love proc playstyles, but Hot streaks needs to be a lot more consistent (not necessarily more often, mind you). Change it to three crits, consecutive or non-consecutive. This will slightly alleviate the threat spikes too. This means that a series of crit, non-crit, crit, non-crit, crit, non-crit, crit, non-crit, crit, non-crit would yield one Hot streak instead of zero as today, and a series of crit, crit, crit, crit, crit, non-crit, non-crit, non-crit, non-crit, non-crit would yield one Hot streak instead of two as today. Less RNG, and still rewarding to have a high crit percentage. You'd not get them back to back to the same extent anymore, but up the proc chance on 4T8 and that would be solved, at least a little. Alternatively, one could work in a Maelstrom like mechanic, where it lowers the cast time instead, and have a 20% chance to add one charge per Fire spell hit, and 75% chance to add 1 charge on each crit. It's a lot more predictable and won't make the DPS vary so wildly. I can feel in my spine when I'm getting few procs, and when I glance at the DPS meter, I get that confirmed. I don't want to have to do that. You'd still have the fights with many procs and the fights with few ones, but the span would be smaller.
4. AoE DPS and sustainability. This is a big one, and they're experimenting with allowing multiple LB casts. I love this, but it needs a small tweak - it needs to explode when the mob dies. 12 seconds is far too long for any trash to live, and it would add some fun micro managment to trash pulls - imagine having the sparks that the twin mobs in Auriayas patrol path use popped so that a mage's LB would detonate when it's right next to the recipient, for some extra damage. Fun for the whole raid, since you want to pop it late, but not too late... This would give us a fun extra tool.
Flamestrike needs to be frontloaded enough that it's worth casting on trash, without skipping the DoT entirely, it can be of use when we AoE trash close to bosses due to Ignite. And Jesus, give it a larger reticle. Five yards is pathetic. Keep the cast time, but make it worthwhile - it's a FLAME STRIKE damnit, not "Ow, the ground is hot".
Now, Blizzard on the other hand, should recieve a fade mechanic. Keep the reticle size, but have it stop using mana when you stop casting it, and keep doing nerfed damage for a while. This way you could keep a big one up via channeling, or spam a lot of small ones at a lower mana cost to cover larger areas. The overall DPS should be balanced so that each reticle needs four or five targets for it to be worthwhile to do the "instant" Blizzard (where you'd just start casting it and let the "fade" mechanic do the rest, practically turning it into an ice version of old Flame strike), and two targets for a full channel to pay off, and maybe three or four for a balanced, half one. Needs smart usage, and can yield nice results. Different new tools for different situations, built into the same old spells.
Overall, mana costs need to be reduced, but not too much - remember we fixed Evocation :). Fix the bloat in the Fire tree so that Fire mages can pick up Dragon's breath and Blastwave. Fix the bloat in the Arcane tree and give Arcane a targeted AoE too. I'd like the concept of a magic reducing zone, but DK's have that one covered, and the slowing of attack time is covered by hurricane, and lowering cast times feels a bit unimaginative. A targeted vulnerability-style AoE debuff that applies a DoT to the stuff it hits? This would further the notion of Arcane as the utility tree - stick up... "ARCANE NEEDLE STORM" and then go to town with your normal AoE rotation on weakened mobs. Have Arcane have talents that make it good enough to be their best AoE choice so that each spec actually uses the spells from it's main tree.
I want to AoE, and I want to contribute, but I am very reluctant because what tools I have are very blunt for the job - they cost too much and have a very low risk/reward ratio.
5. Quality of life issues. Amp/Damp magic needs to be castable on a raid in one go. Slow fall needs to be castable on a raid in one go (with same mana cost per target in range - quite possibly make the range akin to Arcane Explosion's but apply Slow fall to all within, and keep the targeted version at the current 30-something yards depending on talents). Improved Scorch needs to be a one point talent that makes your Scorches apply "MAGIC VULNERABILITY", a shared debuff that locks speced into ISB and mages speced into Arcane and Frost can apply and refresh that is -shared- and always at 5%. The 3% extra ego crit that was stuck on there can be smacked onto some other talent to not nerf Fireball crit rates or removed if that's the price to pay for better debuff application. Mages should be allowed to keep mage food during logouts, other classes not. None of this will break the game, but will make us feel more awesome. And that's really what it's all about. Multitarget Slow falls, if ONLY EVER GOOD ON ONE FIGHT (to alleviate fall damage during Malygos vortices), would make me feel so damn cool. A raid leader going "GATHER UP FOR SLOW FALL" would make me all tingly inside, instead of having to waste precious global cooldowns that could have been spent fireballin'. I can probably think up a couple more if I get the chance, but the problem is that we have so many small problems it's turned into a really big one.
My last point is the PvP/PvE discrepancy. We want four viable PvE specs instead of one if I'm being harsh, three if I'm being kind, and two if I'm being reasonable, and four viable PvP specs instead of two. Fixing Fire PvP and Frost PvE requires entire posts though, so I won't cover that here but instead mention it as a quality of life issue. I want to be able to PvP as Fire, and I sure as hell would want to be able to PvE as Frost. FOR FUN. Not because some arbitrary mechanics require me to be pigeonholed. Hell, kill that stupid Frostfire spec anyway, if that's what it takes to fix Fire PvP and Frost PvE. It's not a interesting hybrid elemental build, it's just a Fire mage with more mana and a differently colored ball of hurt. Three PvE specs and three PvP ones is plenty.
In conclusion, I don't really mind that raid leaders don't need to bring more than one mage. I wan't the old DPS vs. Utility classes back. But, if Blizzard is hell bent on keeping hybrids' DPS on par with pures' DPS, then I -do- want utility above and beyond 5% extra spell crit on stuff I Scorch. The choice shouldn't be "Hmm, do I get 3.5k DPS and 5% extra spell crit, or 3.5k DPS and 13% extra spell damage, or do I stack for melee buffs instead" but rather "Hmm, do I take a 3k DPS that brings 13% spell damage and 5% spell crit, or do I bring a 5k DPS". Numbers are made up, and should be read as balanced, assuming 5% crit is worth the same as 13% spell damage etc, but I hope it serves to illustrate my point a bit.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Project Noob - The patching
The poor bastard had to patch for about one and a half hour. His first race choices were blood elf, night elf or forsaken. But, he kinda liked Sylvanas in The Frozen throne, and he seemed to like the DPS/DoT/Debuff approach to the playstyle of a warlock, and said "forsaken warlock perhaps?". I made some jokes about mages and warlocks being sworn enemies and stuff but that I'd told my brother to roll warlock over mage if he wanted a caster because I think the playstyle suits more people and it's a flexible, fairly easy class.
He said "rogue might be fun?" shortly after and I said I liked the playstyle so-so and explained the difference between mana and energy, and combo points/finishers, and compared them to assassins from Diablo 2.
Then he went on to say "what class does Forsaken fit as?" and I explained that their racials had pretty little impact on what class he chose (if you are a troll, by contrast, your racials benefit the classes that benefit from haste or ranged damage) but that they made good casters cause of the male undead offensive casting animation (which I really like).
After some naming (no dashes, no spaces etc) issues he eventually settled on a greek name for his female undead warlock. I met up with him almost as he emerged from the Deathknell crypt (I ran my druid from Crossroads when he started making his character) and we set up some chat for him (a party tab) and made sure he got some basics down - right clicking initiates melee combat which is kinda inefficient if you are a caster, but pressing 2 tosses a shadow bolt that deals a lot more damage. Using WASD for movement lets you access your number buttons a lot easier than using the arrow keys (seems to be a prelevalent noob mistake) and when he was level 2 we managed to get him an imp. I taught him some basics about threat after he heard my quite audible Omen threat warning over Skype, and demonstrated the diffence in damage threat and taunts by use of Growl. He tried making sense of the skill/talent system by referring to Diablo 2 and I think he's got a grasp of how trainers got into the mix. Kinda tricky to explain "specs" with the talent trees not visible but I compared him to a necromancer in Diablo 2 and I think he got it. His mic was also kinda useless so I couldn't hear what he said half the time, but he does own a proper headset so that'll hopefully change.
He got ready for a party, thanked me for the crash course and we agreed on playing sumoar sum other day. A good start, if I may say so myself.
He said "rogue might be fun?" shortly after and I said I liked the playstyle so-so and explained the difference between mana and energy, and combo points/finishers, and compared them to assassins from Diablo 2.
Then he went on to say "what class does Forsaken fit as?" and I explained that their racials had pretty little impact on what class he chose (if you are a troll, by contrast, your racials benefit the classes that benefit from haste or ranged damage) but that they made good casters cause of the male undead offensive casting animation (which I really like).
After some naming (no dashes, no spaces etc) issues he eventually settled on a greek name for his female undead warlock. I met up with him almost as he emerged from the Deathknell crypt (I ran my druid from Crossroads when he started making his character) and we set up some chat for him (a party tab) and made sure he got some basics down - right clicking initiates melee combat which is kinda inefficient if you are a caster, but pressing 2 tosses a shadow bolt that deals a lot more damage. Using WASD for movement lets you access your number buttons a lot easier than using the arrow keys (seems to be a prelevalent noob mistake) and when he was level 2 we managed to get him an imp. I taught him some basics about threat after he heard my quite audible Omen threat warning over Skype, and demonstrated the diffence in damage threat and taunts by use of Growl. He tried making sense of the skill/talent system by referring to Diablo 2 and I think he's got a grasp of how trainers got into the mix. Kinda tricky to explain "specs" with the talent trees not visible but I compared him to a necromancer in Diablo 2 and I think he got it. His mic was also kinda useless so I couldn't hear what he said half the time, but he does own a proper headset so that'll hopefully change.
He got ready for a party, thanked me for the crash course and we agreed on playing sumoar sum other day. A good start, if I may say so myself.
Project Noob - The beginning
Subject aquired - a male somewhere between 20 and 30 who wishes to be anonymous. Subject is an avid gamer of all sorts and well versed in the Warcraft universe (although claims to get the stories from the different games mixed up), but has never played a MMORPG before, due to "Not trusting myself to handle it". After reassuring him that WoW actually is kinda boring and can feel like work after a while, and the lore:y parts that would fascinate him doesn't stretch that far into the game (the TBC and WotLK parts are far in his future, and those are the "loose ends" from WC3 that he'd be interested in looking into), he started downloading the client.
Updates will follow, along with some in-depth looks at his first thoughts.
Updates will follow, along with some in-depth looks at his first thoughts.
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