My Personal Norris

So, it turns out breaking down gear selection into a pleasurable read isn't as simple as I was expecting. Do I break it down into simple 'this stat is always more important than that stat?' No, that would be wildly inaccurate. Do I give weighted averages and graphs detailing a particular stat's effectiveness in conjunction with other stats? No, cuz then I might as well just copy paste a spreadsheet. So I'm trying to work out a balance for the post, and while I've been doing that, this blog has gone five days without being updated--oops!

So, lest I allow myself to be considered a poor host, I'll bake you a delicious cake as an apology for my lack of productivity. This cake just so happens to be made of words. Words on a web page. Words on a web page which appear to be 'humorous anecdote' shaped, rather than cake shaped. Words on a web page which probably taste like electricity and death if you try to take a bite out of them. Still, it's a delicious cake damn you!*

From about level 45 or so, and on through Karazhan, I was a member of a close-knit group of friends who instanced together. Very much at the heart of this group was our tank; a warrior who went by the name of Espado. Espado is a lovable, artistic fellow, who becomes an absolute bear of a man when he tanks (not literally, that's druids silly.) Tank is hardly even an appropriate word for what he did for our group. This man was a combine harvester, who shredded his way through groups of mobs while the DPS and the heals tagged along behind him, never fearing that anything would escape his massive pile of aggro.


Espado and I pause for a moment after a fierce battle--can you tell I was a clicker back then?

I'll not list all the many exploits of my good tanking friend because my reader's heads would explode, and I rather enjoy having readers with heads. Instead, I'd like to fast forward to last week, when Espado and I were hanging out together, talking about art in the manliest possible fashion, and at some point, I asked him if he would mind if I leveled his toon--which has been neglected due to how very boring he finds Wrath of the Lich King (I told him not to level in the Boring Tundra!) He readily agreed.

He got me logged into his account, and I stepped into shoes that I would attempt to fill by using approximately one metric fuckton of tissue paper. I promptly logged back out again because who the heck plays using the number pad!? Rather than mess up his settings, I installed bartender so I could set up my own action bars--which I populated primarily with things I already understood from the 28 levels of McJiggins I've played so far. And, since my understanding of the class is pretty much limited to tanking--and because it's ESPADO--I decided to tank something. I found a level 76ish healer, two level 71ish DPS, and headed off to Utgarde Keep!

Words really don't do the rest of this story much justice, so I'll turn it over to a more visual medium:


Huh, those first dozen pulls weren't so bad! The death knight only pulled from me a time or two, and he's REALLY good...maybe I can pull this off after all!


HOLY SHIT I JUST TANK'D A LEVEL 70 INSTANCE WITH ONLY A SINGLE DEATH! (Wasn't my fault either, the lock got hit by too much AoE!)


My accomplishment filled me with such exuberance that I started shouting Espado's old catchphrases! PANTS OFF, GAME ON!

That was one of the most fun things I've done in World of Warcraft in MONTHS. And I've been to Gnomergan.

Seriously.


See?


*Anyone found iterating 'the cake is a lie' in the comments just because cake was mentioned will soon find me on their doorstep with a notarized document from a judge, which grants me the right to harm him/her for the e-crime of repeating that god-awful phrase.

Changes on the Horizon!

Extra! Extra! Changes for warlocks are a-coming!

I was planning to do a post today about how to select gear as a warlock at any level, but the information which was just release means I'll have to save that post for another time. For now, lets dive right into the changes announced, and my thoughts on them.

Improved Shadow Bolt – this talent now provides a 5% spell critical strike buff (similar to Improved Scorch)
This is clearly in response to Blizzard's stated concern that Improved Scortch was, as they put it, "too much of a unique snowflake." That said, I'm not sure how happy I am about this change. On the face of it it seems very obviously to be a buff, but if this new function of the Improved Shadow Bolt talent removes the OLD function, then this is probably going to work out as a nerf for affliction warlocks. On the bright side, perhaps, it might make shadow destro / shadow demonology a more viable choice (provided more changes are enacted) which will certainly be beneficial to people who don't like casting nothing but fire spells these days.

Improved Soul Leech – this talent now provides Replenishment (similar to shadow priests)
I'm pretty happy about this change. It will add some badly needed utility to the destruction spec, which I'm always happy to see. Furthermore, it turns destruction warlocks into a mana battery, which makes them more attractive for raids. Move over shadow priets! We're here to take your raid spot. =P

Drain Soul now has a chance to produce Soul Shards even if the target doesn’t die.
I'm not quite sure what this means, but I'm really happy to see that blizzard is continuing their recent trend of making soul-shards less of a pain in the ass. Between resummoning your pet after every death, making firestones, summonging people, passing out healthstones, and soul-stoning the healer, I'm ready to accept any change that makes acquiring some souls easier in situations such as PVP, and instances with very few trash pulls.

Siphon Life no longer as an active ability but the talent grants the old Siphon Life effect to Corruption.
What precisely this means is a bit confusing. Fortunately Blizzard explained it a bit further later on. So it seems that the simplest way to put this is that Siphon Life will no longer be a button on your action bar; rather, it will simply be automatically applied when you cast corrupion. Two dots, once cast. Good news for everybody who thinks affliction is too complicated, so-so news for everyone who relishes in that complexity. I can only imagine that the new Siphon Life will join corruption in being re-applied by Haunt.

Curse of Recklessness and Curse of Weakness have been combined into one spell.
More curse combinations! If these keeps up, the debuffer class will only have a handfull of debuffs left. Still, this conjunction of two semi-useless debuffs will hopefully be more useful than their contingent parts were.

Consume Shadows – this Voidwalker ability is no longer channeled but has a cooldown.
Nice little quality of life buff here. No longer will we have to stand still while our voidwalker heals himself. Instead, he can run along beside us while he regens health!

Several other warlock talents have had their ranks reduced, their effects changed or removed. This list includes but is not limited to Demonic Empathy, Shadow Embrace, Eradication, Suppression, and Pandemic.
I'll avoid speculating as to what exactly these changes are. My sincere hope is that the shadow damage buff afforded by Shadow Embrace has been increased, that the amount of dots Pandemic applies to has been improved, and the internal cooldown of Eradication has been lowered. I'm also wondering if, perhaps, suppression is being combined with Cataclysm. Damn, I speculated. >.>

Additional new talents have been added.

I trust they are as generally promising as these have been! =D

Obviously, as the blue post points out, this is all subject to change. I remember there were a LOT of things in 3.0 that I was looking forward to with great anticipation; things which never saw release on a live server. Still, this is at least a good indication of things to come, and we can always hope that things will only improve for the better as this patch is developed further.

In closing, I'd like to thank Blizzard from the bottom of my heart. I want to thank them for being more open with us--the community--than they have been in the past. It makes the game much more fun for me to be able to follow the development process in something like real-time. And I further think it is our duty, as the World of Warcraft fan community, to respect Blizzard's decision to be more open with us. We should respect it by remembering that they could have easily kept all of this secret from us until it was more finalized. We should respect it by not bitching if a change we liked is reverted before the patch goes live.

Where Went the Warlock Quests?

Sentaigrehsk's Journal; Level 1, I met a lady standing in the graveyard behind the chapel today. She looked scary. Beside her was a dark man, with a wicked little creature dancing beside him. She had a task for me--much like everybody else around here seems to have. Like a fool I took her at her word. I hunted down and killed three people--defias scum, no real loss I suppose. But when I returned to her she revealed that what I took from them had never been hers in the first place; she revealed that the defias theives had played right into her hands by stealing a book that she had wished to steal herself. I'm unaware of how I should feel about this...but she taught me something in exchange...

Back in the day, there were class-quests. Why the hell did they quit making those? Granted, many of them were stupidly easy, and those that were not easy had somewhat lackluster rewards (I imagine to placate those who wouldn't be able to find groups.) But they added a depth and immersion to the classes and to the game itself that I simply don't feel from level 61 onward.

Astien's Journal; Level 10, 'At green-stached codger Blackwrench gave me some bit about needin' ta head ta the ol' stormie city to talk ta some tall bastard 'bout getting meself a blueberry. Fucker said he'd fallen in with some pretty young thing and lost 'is shiney bauble. Now it's my job ta go get it back jes cuz these tallies can't keep it in their pants. Nether blasted assholes must not be gettin' enough air bein up so high likes they is.

Going to the trainer and simply learning new abilities has no charm, no flair. I certainly understand why it's necessary for most of a class' abilities. After all, if we had to quest for every single one, than most people wouldn't bother getting half, or more, of their spells--but blizz had a good balance in vanilla WoW, why'd they abandon it altogether?

Arnoux's Journal; Level 20, Men of honor and goodness, the blind one was right in questioning their existence--for there are none. Their race is week; subject to the whims of their flesh-bound form. In all the world only two were said to exist, and even those two cursed me as I cut their hearts from their chests. What honor can there be in such an ignoble entrance to death? I was fortunate that the Succubus accepted my offering despite the impurity of weakness with which it was tainted.

Not just abilities either. I remember gathering shards of a crystal from Shadowfang Keep and Blackfathom Deepths (I think) to forge an off-handed item with some killer stats. And back before all the gear was re-itemized in patch 2.3 (when spellpower and other stats were added to low level gear) the bloodrobe was one of the best pieces of non-endgame gear in vanilla WoW. I know at least a few warlocks who stuck with it until Outlands. (Though I managed to upgrade to the Robes of the Lich myself.)

Sentaigrehsk's Journal; Level 53, I was working with the druids in the Fel Wood today, trying to use my knowledge of demonic magic to help them reverse the demon-taint that pervades the land. We made only a little progress, but that's not important. Far more noteworthy than my continued failure to apply my knowledge as a force for good is this pompous little gnome I met. He promised me the ability to summon a guardian of immeasurable physical strength if I helped him out. While the gnome's petty ambitions are of no concern of mine--perhaps this knowledge he promises will prove the key to unlocking Fel Wood's cure!

Wait, wut? (Yes, I was a terrible warlock in those days.)

There are a lot of mechanics blizzard has abandoned as time has gone on, thanks to WoW's development team has learned and evolved. On most issues, I applaud them for that. I may be a fan of the old, more hardcore-oriented content, but speaking in terms of the big-picture, I think most of blizzard's decisions have been for the better. Making raids more accessible, creating more 5-man endgame content, giving classes like druids and pallies the ability do do something other than heal--these are all excellent things.

Sentaigrehsk's Journal; Level 60, I constructed the cage as I was instructed, and used the device Mr. The Decrepit had me build to ensnare one of the legion's Doomguards here in the tainted scar. Thank The Shadows Lord Kazaak no roams there. As promised, I learned the secret of summoning and controlling one...but the secrets that were imparted to me fill me with fear. Such terrible power at my fingertips, with a cost only a demon would be able to bear upon his conscience. I wonder, not for the first time, if the path I have chosen will leave anything left of my soul.

On this matter, however, I think the devs made a mistake. I'm certainly not an experienced game designer, but I'm familiar enough to know that adding 2 or 3 quests for each of the ten classes would not be a terribly difficult thing to do. Certainly not as difficult as many of the other projects blizzard undertakes. An NPC here or there, some quest text, toss a named mob into some unused bit of real estate and boom.

Sentaigrehsk's Journal; Level 70, Today I helped my young student Moreven master her Dreadsteed. For months she's collected spell components, bartered with demons, and ventured into lethal danger, and today I watched as she single-handedly subjugated a Nathrezim with the skills I have taught her. My eyes welled with tears at the sight...and I'm not sure if it is my pride in her for succeeding, or my shame in myself for enabling her to do so.

Given that two expansions have gone by since the last class quest, with one or two exceptions, I doubt we're going to see any more of them in the future. However, if Blizz is listening, then please heed the words of this humble old warlock, and give me back this little bit of immersion that you abandoned. I don't care if the rewards are absolutely worthless, or if there are no rewards at all. I just want my class to feel special again.