Wrath Friends and Family Alpha Over?

WoW Insider are reporting that the Friends and Family Alpha has finished, sourcing your two favourite Alpha Leak sites. The same sources report that the expansion is in a very rough state right now so the deadline seems pretty arbitrary, especially as neither hide nor hair of the the Paladin and Hunter talent trees/spells have been seen. It may be a reflection of the looming spectre of Warhammer: Age of Reckoning in September (if it makes that date), and perhaps something of a giddy up for their developers in that regard. I just hope they can cope with the sorts of Beta Testers they've let themselves in for.

Conspiracy theories are already abound suggesting that this is the first indication of the influence of Activision on Blizzard since the merger, but it is worth repeating that Blizz had a history of a 'we'll fix it in Beta' for certain development milestones long before this. It also may indicate a longer than anticipated Beta Period (IIRC The Burning Crusade was around 4 months from Beta to Gold), or perhaps that with all the leaks 'Alpha' status and NDA were proving to be meaningless.

Regrettably this is just the sort of news that will rattle the collective cages of the Paladin (and I would guess Hunter) community. You can unfortunately hear the seething mass of resentment all ready to boil over onto the official forums. It probably can't be helped, but I really hope that the talents and class changes for both Hunters and Paladins are halfway decent in order to sate the unwashed.

EDIT: Via Worldofwar.net

WoW Patch 2.4.3 Now On Live Servers.

After what seems like the longest testing period for a mini-patch in WoW history, 2.4.3 has just been released on the Live servers in the US and hence is scheduled for release in the Europe Region tonight. Check out this news post on MMO-Champion for the full list of official and unofficial patch changes, and patch notes should be up on the Official Site soon. While there are quite a few gameplay and levelling changes, only one patch change known significantly affects Paladins as I mentioned last month:

* Dispel effects will no longer attempt to remove effects that have 100% dispel resistance.

PvP Ret Paladins should take careful note of this. It means that Sanctified Seals 100% Resistance may be counter-productive when encountering Dispell-heavy match-ups. The mooted proposition of 20/41, taking 2/2 Stoicism and 2/3 Sanc Seals, gaining 1 talent point and losing 1 crit for 96% effective Dispell resistance on the Seal - and hence the Dispell mechanic not avoiding Seals and going straight to Blessings/ImpRF, looks like the best bet if it wasn't already.

So, have fun. I'm now off to power-level my Shaman to 30 ;).

EDIT: I am sorely disappointed that my idea of Grifta selling 16 slot 'Gigantik' Bags for 50g wasn't taken up by Blizzard. Oh well, can't have everything I guess...


... stop sniggering in the back!

More 2.4.3 Links:

Patch 2.4.3 - End of Raid Herpes by Zanderfin
A Healing Druid's take on 2.4.3 at Resto4Life
WoW Insider's run-down of prominent Patch Changes
Patch 2.4.3 And You by Josh at E4AE.

DPS, Tanking and UI's - A Reflection on the Week.

Well, having been back playing WoW for a week now I thought I'd share my thoughts on the current state of play:

My Paladin, Jana (apologies for the Welfare Epics), can comfortably perform well enough in a DPS role for Heroics. I've still got to re-learn encounters, especially particular Heroic encounters, but I'm happy that I won't be letting the group down by taking her over my Warlock.

Tanking is still fun in the gear I've collected. I've done a couple of normal lvl70 instance runs now and it's all pretty straightforward. Mana can be something of an issue, but that may be only because of outgearing the instance somewhat. Learning to be a little more frugal may be a good idea. Next stop, better avoidance gear and HP's and then Heroics / Raid Off-tanking

I love Windfury. It can have my grotesque human-totem hybrid babies.

Jana can do well enough in 10-man raids, but I still have a lot to (re-)learn...

What do I have to learn? Well, the most obvious part is the Karazhan encounters from the perspective of a melee character: keeping in the right position behind the target, getting out of range on timed AoE or area effect damaging debuffs etc. Also getting the hang of CC and using the /focus commands would be pretty handy too (yeah, we had 2 priests and no hunters on Moroes, gogo Turn Evil...). But above all what I find most difficult, and probably what separates (proverbially) the men from the boys is dealing with all the information you have coming in at any one time.

At any given time a newish player in a raid may need to make upwards of a dozen concious decisions in some short number of seconds. Those who have been raiding for some time make these decisions automatically and without thinking about it - hear the raid warning, do your special thing, get back to the fold - all the while keeping careful note of swing timers, cooldowns, and their general given roles (DPS/Tanking/Healing etc). It's this, and not the gear gap, which I think is the most significant hurdle to progressing from small group encounters to raids.

So in an effort to improve my performance I'm making a concerted effort to get to grips with custom UI's, boss mods, macro's and the like so as to streamline my decision-making processes. Just downloading and installing the mods isn't enough, you need to understand the numerous visual and auditory clues those mods provide. If a warning isn't necessary on an encounter for your role turn the damn thing off, if it's critical make sure you'll notice when you get the warning.

Now seems like a good time to put in a couple of handy blog links. So I will:

Josh over at Eye For An Eye's take on UI Mods.
Siha at Banana Shoulders, for a Holy Paladin's Take on UI's.

The UI mods available are a great addition to WoW in all areas of the game. Similarly simple action automation is a boon - it's amazing how much effort a weapon-switch or Judge+Reseal macro saves. Players need to be careful though that all the information they get on screen doesn't lead to information overload. Easing your way in, starting with non-standard Unit Frames, ActionBars and Boss Mods and then slowly working your way up towards more complex and information-rich mods such as swing timers and cooldown trackers is probably more sensible than looking at the various sites around and grabbing everything they suggest. Blogs and other informative sites suggesting mods are long-time veterans of the game and hence are well used to all the information coming at them during your typical raid. You, if you are anything like me, won't be.

Paladins Are a Melee Class.

One of the most maddening misconceptions others can have of the Paladin Class is that they are not fundamentally a Melee-based Hybrid Class. The point they most often put forward is that Paladins are most often healers and that some Paladins (usually Shockadins) use ranged spells to do damage. But lets look at the evidence:

Paladins Use Mana

But mana is just a name for a fairly generic power system. What happens if we changed the colour, called it 'Faith' or 'Zeal' or 'Goldfish'? The name of the Power system, or indeed how it works, means very little.

Paladins are Healers

Paladins have all of 2 baseline low-cooldown healing spells, three with talents, that they may use as a matter of course in a given encounter. By comparison they have a huge number of non-healing skills and skills with affect both melee and healing. We don't call dispute that Hunters are a ranged class even though they have a wide range of Strikes at their disposal because the vast majority of the rest of their abilities, and talents, require range. Why do we do the reverse with Paladins?

Paladins have a Holy Tree

This is by far the most perplexing. Yes, we have a Holy Tree, but we also have two (count them, 2) Trees dedicated to performing a function in melee range. Shouldn't this indicate that melee is an integral part of the classes dynamics?

But but but, Shockadins

Yes, it's true, Shockadins do exist as an offensive spec. They take their name from Holy Shock, the 31pt Holy Talent, but unfortunately melee-based (Swing + SoR) damage still contributes more damage than any other source. Further, every source of damage from a Shockadin except for Holy Shock itself requires you to be within 10yards of the enemy. Whether you class an ability as a 'spell' (consecration) or 'skill' (thunderclap) it's the range which is important... Warriors aren't any less melee-oriented for having Thunderclap or Commanding Shout.

Paladins are Spellcasters

'Spellcaster' is a meaningless term, defined more by a predetermined assumption of what constitutes a spell or by the power system used by the class. For example, Repentence is a 'Spell' and yet Blind isn't, even though both work in a nearly identical way. Similarly the scaling of any ability has been arbitrary since Vanilla, for example see old Arcane Shot or multiple Paladin abilities which scale with a pick'n'mix of melee and spell stats. Those calling Paladins Spellcasters are in effect assigning their assumptions and preconceptions to the class rather than logically analysing the skills they have available and the roles those skills encourage.

That Paladins have been pigeon-holed into a Healing role (or before that, a spam-Cleanse role) does not make them less of a melee-oriented class from a design perspective, it simply means that chain-casting healing as a mechanic is too strong (or alternatively Paladin melee abilities aren't strong enough). The vast majority of interactive abilities which are available to a Paladin require melee range to be effective or are designed to keep Mobs in melee range, and so to consider Paladins to be anything other than a Melee class makes no sense. Additionally, I would argue that the most development time and effort should be made to draw them into melee range, not to make Paladin healing more viable in WotLK. Frankly, I'd count it a failure if at least 50% of raiding Paladins aren't engaging encounters in melee range, and even more of a failure if more Druids and Shaman were up front than Paladins.

There, not only are Paladins a melee class but I've laid out my argument for why Paladins should be considered (and redesigned if necessary) as such in Wrath when creating new Skills, extending the talent trees, and creating concepts for where Paladins should be in 5-man, 10-man and 25-man encounters. Don't like it? Well perhaps you should have been playing one of the ranged-hybrids to begin with, there are plenty to choose from.

Paladins and Mana.

Josh over at Eye for an Eye and Klepsacovic at Troll Racials have both made posts in the last couple of weeks about Paladins and the limitations of mana as a combat 'power' mechanic for the class. They're both well worth reading, and with any luck will be a quality retrospective view of the 'bad old days of TBC' in a years time when we are all playing Wrath. I posted my response on E4aE, but here it is for my own blog:

This issue isn't unique to Ret Paladins, Holy Paladins also suffer from the exact same issue and is a reason why many stack Mp5 over Spell Crit (the other being that it is cheaper budget-wise). To a lesser extent so do so Hunters, and whilst I can't recall if AotV mana regen is hugely significant (i.e. beyond that of BoW), I do know that it is a great concern for them. On the flip-side, JoW roxors their soxors, but the comparisons for 10-man and 5-man encounters still hold.

This of course really comes out of Mana being a broken mechanic for Melee, in fact it's tacitly acknowledged by Blizzard in that DK's have a unique power mechanic and Prot Paladin's mana pool has been fudged into a pseudo-rage pool which can still be mana-burnt. Shaman were pretty much always casters, and Enhancement was thrown a huge amount of scaling mana-regen in the form of Shamanistic Rage to compensate. It's only now, with active damage abilities that we're all starting to clue up on how important mana is for a DPSing Paladin.

On a similar note, Mana Burn is an immense problem which needs addressing, and I feel that they need some form of protection from that mechanic, both for PvE and PvP. But... I don't think they are going to change it. In many ways they will probably utilise it to reinforce the concept of DK's being the premier anti-caster tank.

The problem is, I just don't know what Blizzard would be willing to do about this state of affairs. I have the feeling that they want Paladin mana starvation to be downside for the class as a whole (similar to lack of armour, waiting for energy or... erm... what's the downside to rage again?), meaning that we will continue to have to synergise well with other classes in order to fight for over 5 minutes. This is all very well and good in raids, but absolute balls for 10-mans where arguably a Ret Paladin is weakest. If they were to boost our personal mana regen it would probably be through a significant buff to SoW, to the extent that it procs on every hit and regens 5% of total mana per hit. There are many more interesting ways to boost Paladin Regen for both Holy and Ret, but Blizzard have painted themselves into a corner in limiting the mechanics available to Paladins to such an extent that I just don't see them doing it in a way which doesn't compromise their damage or healing to a non-negligible extent.

Just How Heroic is a Hero Class? Part 1: Unlocking.

A lot as been made of the Deathknight, Blizzard's first Hero Class; what are its core mechanics, what are its key strengths, what are its counters etc. Discussion remains somewhat limited whilst Wrath remains in F&F Alpha and only 6 of the 10 classes have new spells and talents, but what I'm going to attempt to extrapolate is what Blizzard considers 'Heroic' about this class.

Unlocking the Deathknight

At Blizzcon 2007 the designers threw out a few ideas on how they envisioned the unlocking mechanism of the Deathknight Class. Most of the speculation had been based around the principle of your character 'becoming' a Deathknight and then being redeemed, breaking him/her from the will of Arthas and regaining their identity (whilst continuing to have access to the abilities of a Deathknight). This promising (fan-envisioned) idea was watered down somewhat - the idea that the designers themselves floated was you performing a quest chain at a high level with one of your characters which unlocked DK creation. That's not necessarily as strong in Lore as the fan idea (but then, is it ever?) but it still had a lot of potential.

Fast forward around 10 months and Blizzards ideas have solidified into a working plan, and some are bound to be disappointed. Now all you need to do to unlock the Deathknight class is reach lvl55. Yep, that's all, reach lvl55. Frankly, I have to say that this sucks, and I can only think of two reasons for Blizzard to do it:

Their account management system prevented them from being able to do it, i.e. there was no way for quest completion status to feed back into the procedures used to manage characters, or

They want to make it as inclusive as possible, and a simple character level threshold accomplishes this.

Either way this waters down some of the uniqueness of the Deathknight class, and no matter if you are casual, hardcore or some combination thereof reaching lvl55 surely can't be considered 'Heroic'. That they are intending to have a Deathknight-specific area for starting in with a whole raft of class specific and quests and lore is great so long as they are sufficiently dense (3+ levels worth) and make it to release. Right now it looks suspiciously like you get dumped next to Fordring at lvl55 in full gear and go as normal from there... yippee. At this moment in time the only genuinely unique things about DK's character creation is that they start out at lvl55 and you can have only 1 per realm which is, needless to say, far from Heroic.

So far, Blizzard isn't doing too well. Next... Part 2: Class Mechanics.

Age of Conan Released, Wrath Leaks

Age of Conan has dropped in North America and is due to arrive in Europe on Friday. Early indications of the game are good, and the sales figures are look promising with 700,000 pre-orders and CE's sold out. Plus, they've layed on new servers for the NA launch, which is always a promising sign of high demand. Will AoC be able to maintain this momentum?... only time will tell, though it has to help that WoW has no new major content patches due between now and the launch of Wrath. With any luck I'll be able to snaffle a copy/trial for the EU release this weekend.

For More AoC news and updates, check out AoCWire.net, part of the IncGamers network.

On the subject of Wrath of the Lich King, more leaks are coming out from those datamining the F&F Alpha (initially posted on MMO-champion, but no doubt they'll be taken down so I won't bother linking). It cannot be assumed that any talents or spells mined now will be in the final release version as is (indeed some of them sound enormously powerful, too much perhaps), but they do indicate possible changes in class design philosophy. Nothing new for Paladins as yet (lol, surprise!), Hunters and Rogues but here are some thoughts on the other classes.

Warriors: They are now entitled to have viable AoE, though of course it is Point Blank in nature and will probably have an associated downside.
Shaman: Snares and CC, and possibly a new Shock mechanic. A lack of CC (stun, polymorph etc.) has always been the Shaman's most significant inherent weakness.
Mages: On demand Stuns for Frost and more AoE, but no clues yet on anything truly innovative.
Druids: AoE HoT's and more multi-form talents for Feral. Expect to see abilities stolen from Hunter's, Rogues and Warrior's here, but I guess that's to be expected in a tanking hybrid.
Warlocks: AoE DoT's, advanced Forms (e.g. Shadowform) and non-negateable (Chaos?) - not even by immunity - Damage. All bar the last are natural extensions of abilities we've seen in the game so far, from both NPC class surrogates and similar PC classes, and so shouldn't be too shocking. The last is always going to be questionable, but with Immunity now always being prefaced by 'not quite' and the Deathknight's anti-magic abilities perhaps this is inevitable. If AoE DoT's are released, expect more magic/disease dispel/immunity abilities for Druids, Priests and Paladins.
Priests: PvP and Pets, in one form or another. Of course this means damage reduction, instant direct heals and unique pet mechanics, but there's nothing revolutionary here. Expect raucous laughter from Paladins if the rumoured 51pt Holy talent goes through.
Deathknights: No ability except direct healing appears to be verboten. Powerful pets, AoE snares and self-rez are the order of the day as the most powerful talents, aswell as some undead-flavour abilities appearing throughout the talent tree (*cough* Will of the Forsaken). Right now, Blizzard seem to be throwing everything at the DK and seeing what sticks, pretty much what you'd expect from a character in Alpha. But by extension it implies that the vision for what a Deathknight should be is weak, much like the vision for Paladins in late Beta and release was weak. Hopefully this is sorted long before the Wrath Beta.

Hopefully I'll find out something fun about Paladins over the coming months. Hunters and Rogues... I'm less concerned about ;).