September News/Discussion

[Mavfin]

Two short replies:
I doubt anything major. Threat is less of a focus in the expansion, and the developers were sick of everyone wanting Paladins to run the easy content.

Yes, I got tired of being an experienced warrior, and responding to LF1M tank for X heroic, and then being told "Oh, we want a pally tank, sorry." I spent more time DPSing with my prot warrior than I did tanking once pallies really took off. And PuG DPS got dumber all the time about focus fire, etc, because they didn't have to bother thinking about it with a pally tank, which made it harder for the druids and warriors, since people forgot how to focus fire.

I have no problem with pally tanks in and of themselves, but their AOE-tanking advantage sucked for any other type of tank following them. Glad to see they're making it more or less equal for all tank classes on that.

[Mavfin]

Certain mechanics are being made easier, because they lend themselves to outside-the-game performance (metagaming) affecting results more than how you actually play. Don't be surprised if the boss fights are (eventually, not in Naxx) made harder to compensate.

Obviously, if threat is less of a focus, because tanking is simpler, and threat thresholds are a lot higher, then you can do a lot of other things to make the fights harder.

[Mirajj]

September 30 News Addendum

~~~

In a bit of a shocker move, Bornakk announced that Honor Points and Tokens will NOT be reset with the release of Wrath of the Lich King. Zarhym clarifies how things will work with Arena changes.I don't know about this. I thought that the honor reset was actually a really good idea, giving folks a chance to get in against the folks who had been hoarding points for a long time. Even if the items are "really expensive", those who hoard their points will have a big advantage of those who do not. It really seems to me, as Bornakk says " However, many players would still be surprised by an Honor and token reset as it isn’t something we’ve done in the past." that this is caving into the forumites.

[Sir_Die_alot]

Even if the items are "really expensive", those who hoard their points will have a big advantage of those who do not. It really seems to me, as Bornakk says " However, many players would still be surprised by an Honor and token reset as it isn’t something we’ve done in the past." that this is caving into the forumites.

I have to say I agree with this. Why? Getting honor and tokens is not closed to anyone. This creates no unfair advantage for anyone. If you want a free shot at the new items work for it now, its open to you as much as the next person. People made a great point with gold. Should there be a gold reset? No. People worked for that. Same thing IMHO. :)

[Taelas]

You can't compare honor points with gold. Gold is used for practically everything -- you can buy crafted/dropped PvE/PvP gear, mounts, spells, talent resets, etc. with gold -- you can't do that with honor points. Gold can be transferred between characters.

Honor points are more similar to Badges of Justice than gold. Both are currencies that can be spent towards gear and nothing else.

The biggest issue at hand is death knights, however. Death knights shouldn't have any trouble collecting gold; you can farm gold on any toon, and only people with at least a single high level toon can make death knights. Honor, though... you can't transfer honor.

Not resetting the honor system is clearly not fair to death knights.

[Sir_Die_alot]

You can't compare honor points with gold. Gold is used for practically everything -- you can buy crafted/dropped PvE/PvP gear, mounts, spells, talent resets, etc. with gold -- you can't do that with honor points. Gold can be transferred between characters.

Honor points are more similar to Badges of Justice than gold. Both are currencies that can be spent towards gear and nothing else.

The biggest issue at hand is death knights, however. Death knights shouldn't have any trouble collecting gold; you can farm gold on any toon, and only people with at least a single high level toon can make death knights. Honor, though... you can't transfer honor.

Not resetting the honor system is clearly not fair to death knights.

I have no sympathy for a class that gets to start in their 50s instead of leveling from 1. Nuff said there.:P

As for comparing gold, you made arguments for my point not against I think.:w00t:

[Kevin]

You can't compare honor points with gold. Gold is used for practically everything -- you can buy crafted/dropped PvE/PvP gear, mounts, spells, talent resets, etc. with gold -- you can't do that with honor points. Gold can be transferred between characters.

Honor points are more similar to Badges of Justice than gold. Both are currencies that can be spent towards gear and nothing else.

The biggest issue at hand is death knights, however. Death knights shouldn't have any trouble collecting gold; you can farm gold on any toon, and only people with at least a single high level toon can make death knights. Honor, though... you can't transfer honor.

Not resetting the honor system is clearly not fair to death knights.

So do a BG here and there while you are leveling to 80. The PvP gear won't matter until then anyway.

Sure it's a bit more work/time whatever, but you also have to keep in mind that most BG games play out a lot faster when you are in the sub capped bracket. That was a good lesson learned from some guildies in that you could max out marks and honor a lot faster doing it pre 70 than starting fresh at 70.

And like Sir Die said, they start at L55, I don't feel that bad for them. :)

[Taelas]

So do a BG here and there while you are leveling to 80. The PvP gear won't matter until then anyway.

"A BG here and there" won't amount to 75,000 honor points.

Sure it's a bit more work/time whatever, but you also have to keep in mind that most BG games play out a lot faster when you are in the sub capped bracket. That was a good lesson learned from some guildies in that you could max out marks and honor a lot faster doing it pre 70 than starting fresh at 70.

That depends entirely upon the bracket. Some brackets have no activity whatsoever.

And like Sir Die said, they start at L55, I don't feel that bad for them. :)

:huh:

What exactly does that have to do with this issue? At all?

If they were starting at 70, you might have a point... but as it is, they still have to work harder than anyone else to reach the cap, assuming you're not suddenly changing your main to a class you haven't played before. Speaking as someone who changed mains to a 50ish toon pre-TBC... it's not fun. Watching everyone else be 10+ levels ahead of you is hell, especially as you struggle through old content.:(Luckily Outlands isn't as bad as the old world, but it's still a penalty.

AND they do not get the benefits of the honor cap.

As for comparing gold, you made arguments for my point not against I think.:w00t:

....

What?

I said you CAN'T compare them... which you were doing.

You're confusing me, here. Maybe it's because I haven't slept.

[Bob the Beholder]

I keep hearing arguments from both sides of this honor reset, saying all sorts of similar things.

"Blaaaargh! You should not be able to walk over and buy half a pvp set the moment you ding 80! It's unfair and will mess up everything!"

"Glaaaargh! A few pieces of pvp gear early on won't matter! Everybody can get them anyway, 'cause honor's easy to farm, so it's only a small headstart!"

But then I say, "Hey, by all appearances even the blue pvp set is going to require arena points. So... what does any of this matter? By the time people start getting arena points anyone who really wants to will have plenty of time to make up the extra honor, with maybe the exception of death knights who are just really taking their time to level."

And the whole argument goes on like I said nothing. (I'm mostly talking the official forums, here, of course)

[Kevin]

If they were starting at 70, you might have a point... but as it is, they still have to work harder than anyone else to reach the cap, assuming you're not suddenly changing your main to a class you haven't played before. Speaking as someone who changed mains to a 50ish toon pre-TBC... it's not fun. Watching everyone else be 10+ levels ahead of you is hell, especially as you struggle through old content.:(Luckily Outlands isn't as bad as the old world, but it's still a penalty.

AND they do not get the benefits of the honor cap.

And this is yet another reason why I don't care. Even if you reset honor points all the other classes STILL have an advantage on death knights because they are at 55 and not 70 so they will still take longer to get to 80 and they will still be behind the curve.

So since they are going to be behind the curve anyway, who cares.

Of course if they do reset honor and arena points I don't care either, I'll spend what I have saved up on other stuff, the current honor gear will still last 4-8 levels into Northrend anyway just like badge gear and might still serve OK as a starter set for the L80 PvP crap.

And finally since the PvP playing field has never been remotely close to even to begin with it still doesn't matter. The folks who really want to PvP with Deathknights will end up on even footing within a few weeks of the arena season really getting moving. And will easily be on even footing by the time the 2nd season starts, which is the first season that will matter because all the people that take 2 weeks vacation to get to to L80 and start arena for points earlier than everyone else that will likely take 4+ weeks to gt to cap will have an even bigger advantage over everyone else.

WoW PvP is not and never has been fair. It's been decent enough that a someone like me has been able to have a lot of fun hanging around in the 1650 - 1750 range though and I don't put that much time into it. Sure I've seen the bad balance first hand, but it's been good enough that I could have fun with it.

I even took a completely new 70 into arenas about 2 months into season 3 and was still able to hold about a 1450 rating even though I was so amazing outgeared (I had one piece of PvP gear and I couldn't even get the full blue set because I didn't have all the reps yet) and I was partnered with another alt that was geared just as bad as me. But it was still fun. Had I had the time to stick with it, I would have gotten him pretty much on an even playing field within a month or 2.

So yeah, I don't care about the death knight imbalance. It is there no matter what you do. Well that isn't true, I suppose you could start DKs at L70, reset honor, eset gold, reset rep, reset mounts, and reset gear for everyone else. Then it would be a level playing field (because money does help you level faster, and if you level faster you can get an edge in PvP). So yeah, maybe if you start everyone naked at L70 with all the same rep and all the same money, and then change all the quest rewards and quest locations so that the folks who played beta don't have an advantage you can make it even. That sure would be fun. :)

[Quark]

But then I say, "Hey, by all appearances even the blue pvp set is going to require arena points. So... what does any of this matter? By the time people start getting arena points anyone who really wants to will have plenty of time to make up the extra honor, with maybe the exception of death knights who are just really taking their time to level."

How do you know this assumption is true? Even now, playing BGs for honor sucks compared to playing Arena for points/rating. They're vastly increasing the honor cost.

[Taelas]

So yeah, I don't care about the death knight imbalance. It is there no matter what you do. Well that isn't true, I suppose you could start DKs at L70, reset honor, eset gold, reset rep, reset mounts, and reset gear for everyone else. Then it would be a level playing field (because money does help you level faster, and if you level faster you can get an edge in PvP). So yeah, maybe if you start everyone naked at L70 with all the same rep and all the same money, and then change all the quest rewards and quest locations so that the folks who played beta don't have an advantage you can make it even. That sure would be fun. :)

The fact that there's going to be an imbalance does not justify making it worse.

And really, gold can be freely transferred between characters on the same realm and faction. In order for you to even make a DK, you have to have a high level toon already. Gold isn't a problem. Reputation doesn't matter; there's little to no advantage in being Exalted with an outdated faction. Mount training just costs gold; beyond that, they're vanity pets. Gear is getting reset. Reset honor and start the DK at level 70, and the playing field would be as even as it could be.

[Artega]

How do you know this assumption is true? Even now, playing BGs for honor sucks compared to playing Arena for points/rating. They're vastly increasing the honor cost.

So run a premade. That's what I do for honor and marks. We run AV premades every weekend and sometimes on weeknights if there are enough people. You don't need great gear or extreme organization to do it. We have a core of maybe 10-15 people that we know to be reliable and able to follow orders and lead their individual groups and are sure to have them cover bases - tank for Vann/Bal (me), healers for each group, and so on. Everything else is just filler.

Group 1 hits Balinda and beelines for Aid Station. Group 2 hits Balinda and beelines to North. Group 3 hits Balinda and goes to South. Group 4 hits Balinda and goes to Icewing. Group 5 heads directly to Stonehearth and then either proceeds north or heads back home to help defend depending on what the Alliance are doing. Group 6 is in Galvangar's room. Groups 7 and 8 hang out at the Iceblood chokepoint, with group 7 being on-call for Galv when needed, and group 8 being our recall group in case some people manage to squeeze through the choke.

We usually win in less than 20 minutes and make over 600 honor per game - we were doing it in about 12 minutes for nearly 800 honor per game this weekend, being AV weekend.

WSG, AB, and EOTS go similarly, with most of those games being under 10 minutes. 2/5/3 for Warsong, and a flat out blitz for AB and EOTS.

I don't really care if they wipe honor, but I do think that if they plan on wiping it, we should be compensated for it. Whether that means we can convert our honor into gold or something else similarly useful or have a crack at buying those new lvl 80 PvP items at increased prices before the expansion goes live... I don't care. I do care that people whining about "it's not fair!" are trying to tell me that my gametime is worth less than theirs because they want to roll a Death Knight or they are too lazy to work for their honor like I did.

EDIT: I'll try to clarify a bit.

We'll use the gold analogy you've been using. Honor, like gold, is easy to come by. In fact, I think of it as the Experience of the level-capped PvP-focused player, much like you might consider badges or reputation the Experience of the level-capped PvE-focused player. You put in a little time each day, maybe 30 minutes here, a couple hours there, and it slowly accrues until you eventually have enough to get that next level (or shiny piece of purple gear in this case.)

I don't know what the Lurkers guild - or whatever guild you belong to - is doing in the interim between now and the imminent expansion, but ours is farming gold when we're not screwing around, doing old world stuff (Onyxia, Molten Chore, BWL, all that fun stuff a lot of us never got to check out.) I'm PvP focused, but I've been in the same guild since I started back in 2004 in one way or another, so I help them far as well (and pick fights with every single red name I see while doing so, much to the chagrin of the people I'm farming with in some cases.) We aren't doing dedicated, hardcore farming - we might rake in a few hundred gold on an average day, maybe a thousand gold on one of those rare hardcore days. But it adds up, little by little. That gold will be used to get designated guild crafters (one of each, plus someone who will be making a Scribe, and likely a DK at the same time) to the profession cap and nifty/rare recipes faster so that the guild as a whole benefits.

Comparing this to honor, I'm spending some and stockpiling more in anticipation of what's to come. Obviously I can't share my honor with others, but the principles are the same. Spending my time in game preparing for the expansion.

Now, what if they decided to wipe gold? After all, guilds with 75,000 gold stockpiled plus several thousand on individual members (our most industrious member has probably greater than 15,000 to his name alone, and he has epic flyers on every single one of his toons) are going to have a significant advantage over guilds that don't - they'll be able to afford to get their crafters capped faster, get those crafters rare recipes faster, and outfit their raids with consumables more efficiently than ones without those gold reserves. So let's wipe gold and make it fair. But what about all that time those people spent into farming that gold? Where's the fairness in that? It's basically saying, "Well, these people who could not or would not invest the time into farming gold were whining about it being unfair, so we decided to utterly fsck you so that they'd be complacent again until the next time."

So don't go crying about being unfair that honor/gold/whatever isn't getting wiped, okay?:)

[Mordekhuul]

Healadins seem to have hit rock bottom in the latest patch. Taken from mmo-champion:

Skills
Holy

* Divine Plea changed to : You gain 25% of your total mana over 15 sec (Old - 10 sec), but the amount healed by your spells is reduced by 100%. (Old - 50%)


Talents
Holy

* Judgements of the Pure now lasts 1 minute. (Up from 30 seconds)
* Infusion of the Light now reduces the cast time of your next Holy Light spell by 0.5/1sec. (Down from 1.25/2.5 sec)


Retribution

* Judgement of the Wise has been changed to grant you 33% of your base mana instead of 20% of your maximum mana.


Glyphs

* Glyph of Exorcism - Your Exorcism also interrupts spellcasting for 2 sec.
* Glyph of Flash of Light - Your Flash of Light heals for 50% less initially, but also heals for 140% (down from 200%) of its inital effect over 15 sec.
* Glyph of the Warhorse - Removed
* Glyph of the Wise - Reduces the mana cost of your Seal of Wisdom spell by 50%.

Essentially they removed the one interesting mechanic given to holy paladins in wrath, instant-cast holy light procs and returned them to stand and MT heal bot mode, with some debate about whether they are even a better choice for MT healing than a priest or druid.

Take also a quote from Ghostcrawler that basically amounts to "Healadins were overpowered, now their good, learn2play and stop whining."
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/5/10535470005...ly-but-wtf.html

Color me surprised if we have many healadins running around in Wrath. Our strongest healadin (Niz) was already swapping to priest for healing in wrath - good move?

[Mordekhuul]

Here is an excellent series of posts on beta after the recent patch outlining some concrete concerns over the current state of Holy.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...600037&sid=2000

Great read.

[Bolty]

So don't go crying about being unfair that honor/gold/whatever isn't getting wiped, okay?:)

Hey guys, write this down, I'm agreeing with Artega on something. :)

When Blizzard first announced the honor and token wipe, my reaction was "ah dangit, but I guess it's necessary." Since Season 2 started, my main character has always maxed out her honor in preparation for the next season. It's extremely convenient to be able to buy all the honor-based PvP pieces you need on the first day of a new season, spending almost all of the honor you had built up, and then take the next 6 months (if needed) to build that honor back up at a leisurely pace. There's no feeling of having to play just one more game to get that one particular PvP piece; you have it on day one and can get back to the cap whenever.

The new arena requirements on the gear just means it may take a day or two to get up to 1700 for those honor-based pieces now; same difference.

The main reason for the honor and token wipe (have to wipe tokens, since tokens can be turned in for honor) is that the epic PvP gear is also pretty nice for PvE. Right now, the easiest and fastest way to gear up an alt solo is to run battlegrounds a lot and score itemlevel 140+ epics. Going right from quest greens to this gear is just sick, but if you didn't allow it then there would be no way for a new 70 to even begin to compete in arenas.

At level 80, the situation could wind up being the same: you level up to 80 and immediately blow your 75,000 honor and 400 tokens to buy some awesome epics that can have immediate PvE impact. Why run instances for blues? So Blizzard put in arena requirements for *all* level 80 honor-based epics to help offset this, and wiped honor to make it a bit more time-consuming. I understood the viewpoint and accepted that I'd lose the efforts of many weekends of time to build my current honor to 75,000.

But then I started seeing the other viewpoint. As Artega was saying, honor = time. It doesn't take skill to gain honor. You can show up and lose forever and cap your honor, no problem. Honor just means time spent, much like 95% of this game. Gold = time spent, level = time spent, honor = time spent. I spent a considerable amount of hours gathering that honor, and if Blizzard had just said at the start of Season 4 that they expected to wipe honor for the expansion, I'd have no issues with that. But they didn't - in fact, early blue posts indicated that this was not planned at all.

So now they're doing the best compromise. Much like the gold you earn now will have use, but not as much use at level 80 (because you can earn more faster then, and prices will be higher), and the gear you obtain will have use, but not as much as if you had just waited and spent the time to get level 80 gear more, the honor you have now will have use, but not as much at level 80 as it does at level 70. Hopefully it keeps everybody happy.

-Bolty

[Jester]

Hopefully it keeps everybody happy.

:lol:

Hope springs eternal, I suppose.

-Jester

[Concillian]

Ghostcrawler is a 'she', actually.

http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/10/10/ghost...ed-to-blizzcon/

Owned.

[Mavfin]

Dual specs are coming, looks like you can change mid-raid, just not in combat or mid-arena, as I read it.

I might spec my warrior with Prot and a TG build, and my shaman with a backup resto build to go with the elemental, for examples.

[Mordekhuul]

Dual specs are coming, looks like you can change mid-raid, just not in combat or mid-arena, as I read it.

I might spec my warrior with Prot and a TG build, and my shaman with a backup resto build to go with the elemental, for examples.

They also said your glyphs would be tied to your spec, so you don't have to re-glyph every time you swap specs. Pretty kick ass.