As I love doing so every now and again, come with me my dear reader who may or may not still be that warlock from many years ago, and travel with me back to late 2010 when Cataclysm launched.
/cast Reverse Time
It was an exciting time, the first time in fact that we could do anything relevant such as...earn exp in the newly shattered world. There were many new zones and dungeons to be explored and we leveled our merry way to 85. Then something happened. Class changes were put through, raiding got more serious and everyone got a lot more competitive. Warlocks still held their own as formidable dealers of chaotic damage but something just felt wrong. Our spells were awkward, and the felguard was no longer the optimal pet.
I thought I was burnt out, or that I was doing something completely wrong, or that I had to just accept the fact that either Demonology was ultra clunky feeling with disjointed mechanics, or that I HAD TO KEEP ISF UP AND CHAOS BOLT HIT LIKE A WET TOWEL. Fun and enjoyment in the class itself had been lost. I defaulted to my hunter who could dish out just as much damage with a great feel to their class and had a great bond with his pet. I tried to keep my warlock relevant up till T13, running the occasional LFR until she was FULL 384 and pretty much abandoned her by the inscription trainer until further notice.
It was sad, yet there was nothing I could do.
--Begin: Rave on Destruction Warlocks--
Then MoP Beta was released, and having read of the complete overhaul for the warlock class, the first character I copied over was Truny. I tried out all the specs and found that:
1. Demonology: OMG teh demonz!
2. Destruction: Chaos Bolt just EATS everything up!
3. Affliction: Nice! Malefic Grasp!
The potential was HUGE, and having had a taste of this delicious malefic fruit I would at least log into my warlock once a week (we still sucked) to make a glyph or whatever, in the spirit of looking forward to the changes to come. I also embarked on a journey across Azeroth to collect ALL the shiny 2-handers that my future Wrathguard could wield. I believe he has a heroic Kiril, Fury of the Beasts that nobody wanted.
After the talent change revamp hit near the very end of DS, I gave my warlock a spin in Dragon Soul and just as I had predicted, the potential in the new changes was amazing. No longer did we have to spend MORE time juggling dots and managing buffs than we did paying attention to the fight and maximizing our "rotation", but instead we were just destructive powerhouses. Once again in my full 384 gear I was performing at and beyond what everyone else who was in full regular to heroic DS gear. (I know, this isn't Diablo where gear matters but that's a lot of missing stats).
What Changed
First and most importantly was that Chaos Bolt was actually WORTH casting. At level 85, if anyone even remembers, or if they had even cast this spell...what did it hit for? 30k crit? How much did incinerates crit for? 40k? Yeah. Now it is a GURANTEED crit, with even more damage based on how high your crit chance is and hits for over 100k, and sometimes 300k.
We are once again pretty useful when it comes to trash mobs. You gotta love this:
1. Spread immolate on EVERYTHING.
2. Rain of Fire - Which is now cast it and does not require channeling
3. Havoc 2 mobs, you can either incinerate or DOUBLE chaos bolt them.
4. Pick off weak mobs using Soulburn, which hits ALMOST as hard as chaos bolt, but can be cast indefinitely as long as you have embers, which you get back if you land a killing blow.
Oh, another note on Havoc. This spell actually duplicates the next spell you cast to another target rather than just apply the damage done. In otherwords, you get TWO physical chaos bolts, or six incinerates while this buff is up. DOUBLE DRAGON!
Essentially, even with trash we have a very powerful "execute" that can be used on EVERY SINGLE mob as long as you catch the killing blow. Go try it out and giggle with glee as you chain cast 150-300k on 7 mobs. GO do it now.
Though when I first tested out destruction, the "rotation" felt kinda....non-existent. I would put on my curse, use my one dot, use conflagrate up and spam incinerates until my ember meter filled up. That's it. The rest is managing how to spend those embers throughout a fight by maintaining a balance of chaos bolt usage vs saving up for execute. There isn't much going on, which one may find that the class has become too over-simplified. This could be the cast for single target fights where you really can't do anything else, and your old brain is just twitching to keep some buff up or looking for some other complication.
My thought was to add just a SLIGHT tiny smidgen of RNG into our nukes, perhaps we have a chance to proc 3 mini-chaos bolts. Maybe? Perhaps we auto-cackle when we cast chaos bolt?
I am definitely not complaining, we've got it all. A flaming mount that can cross water, a VERY powerful execute, a very satisfying nuke, NO mana management, and we set ourselves on fire as each fight goes on.
On dailies, my warlock does not worry about doing dailies because she is so efficient at doing them. Since I had levelled my druid to 90 first, and he had such a huge head-start on rep, I felt obliged to get him to revered/exalted just because all this rep would have gone to waste if I abandoned my druid. Being a boomkin sucks. Well, not really. Having multiple dots and self heals is nice, but.......it's very slow. As a warlock with very solid voidwalker tank, I could pull multiple mobs and kill them withing 3 globals all the while continuing to pull multiple mobs. So much more efficient.
Now we have news that we can embark on a quest for green fire, and can cast Cataclysm....what else is missing? Are we not allowed to ask for more? I say we stop complaining....
What about Warlock demon flying mounts?
Truny the Warlock
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Friday, October 19, 2012
Blood and Thunder
I had discovered an interesting little shrine in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms and couple weeks ago, which detailed the origins of our beloved rare Thundering Cloud Serpent Alani. This got me thinking to the popular Horde phase of "Blood and Thunder". Is there some intricate web of history and lore that ties the origins of the horde and the burning legion straight to the land of Pandaria?
Alani was born out of warfare. Well, moreso exploded out of a bloody lake after it was struck by lightning.
Is there some scandal brewing here? Or perhaps the ideal of blood and thunder is just a common theme for Blizzard designers? Or is this ANOTHER cultural reference that I am not getting? Wrathion did hint at fel meteors striking Azeroth, but how does this relate to events that have happened in the past that could tie Pandaria to the burning legion.
I thought Emperor Shaohao had shrouded the lands in mist before the well of eternity exploded?
I think the only way for me to find an answer to this riddle is to continue to eviscerate every living creature other than the Pandarens in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, collect 7 more Skyshards and ask Alani myself!
Turny
Alani was born out of warfare. Well, moreso exploded out of a bloody lake after it was struck by lightning.
Is there some scandal brewing here? Or perhaps the ideal of blood and thunder is just a common theme for Blizzard designers? Or is this ANOTHER cultural reference that I am not getting? Wrathion did hint at fel meteors striking Azeroth, but how does this relate to events that have happened in the past that could tie Pandaria to the burning legion.
I thought Emperor Shaohao had shrouded the lands in mist before the well of eternity exploded?
I think the only way for me to find an answer to this riddle is to continue to eviscerate every living creature other than the Pandarens in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, collect 7 more Skyshards and ask Alani myself!
Turny
Thursday, October 18, 2012
No Time for Dailies
Hello dear reader,
I had intended to write this post the day Mogu'shan Vaults was released, however I did not have much time. Ever since the first raid was released, we were sitting at "end-game" whether we liked it or not, despite being VERY ambitious this was the plan and we weren't going to deviate from it.
Let me give you a recount (get it, recount?) of my druid's Pandaria experience thus far:
1. Level to 90 as fast as possible while gearing up along the way. I did not read any quests, nor was I actually present for probably 30% of my leveling experience (questing with an efficient buddy with a ridable mount helps).
2. Hit 90, and run Sha of Anger IMMEDIATELY upon receiving a luck token, and grind heroics until they are sick of me and vice versa.
3. This part gets messy: grind dailies because ohgodwhy.jpg
Dailies. This aint fresh news to nobody, but... I'm not quite sure where I stand on the topic of dailies.
First off, I felt compelled to do EVERY SINGLE faction's dailies, everyday. My motivations might be different than most. See, how I see doing dailies and getting rep, gear, and mounts are tinted by how I perceive society as a whole from an American standpoint. Wait what? It's sort of a Keeping Up With the Joneses notion where if you aren't in a certain "stage" of the game, then you are behind and "bad". It's not exactly how I see view society, but how I think society wants me to think about itself. Y'know?
I knew for sure that I wasn't going to be server first 90 anything. I had actually put off levelling for several days to check out pet battles. Thus, right off the get-go I wasn't going to be the "best" druid. Someone else had hit 90 before me therefore I am irrelevant. See what I am trying to get at? Other than playing the game, which from what I see is actually pet battles, and materials collection, I was made myself do the "other" thing...dailies.
The moment where the answer to my question of "do we get tabards?" was a resounding "no", I decided that I disliked the entire reputation system only on the basis of "needing" to gear up and have all the mounts right now.
My major qualm are the Golden Lotus dailies. There are a LOT of dailies divided into multiple hubs, which provides one "reward" at the end which may or may not contain something useful/useless. My ranting on the Treasures of the Vale thus ends here because I did find a Sky Shard in one of my bags so now I know they DO work. (However, someone had already found 10 shards and caught Alani, so that mount is no longer special)
These dailies involve a lot of killing, then some clicking, then more killling and clicking and ends with a "big boss" type quest, then sends you away to do more killing or clicking. This would be fine if I had TIME. By the time I get off work to bed-time I have about 4 hours of playtime. Yesterday was a non-raid day so I did these dailies with glee. However on raid nights, there's no TIME since I "have" to do them on multiple characters with various professions. And you know what the sad thing is? Truny hit honored, which means she has to do all THREE hubs of dailies! BAH. Luckily a destruction warlock is about three times more efficient than my poor boomkin.
I wouldn't mind if the Golden Lotus dailies were just THREE dailies that reward 550 rep each. For example the dailies could be:
1. Kill this dangerous monster.
2. Traverse this dungeon and kill another monster
3. /wave at Alani
Instead of committing genocide on everything in the vale amirite?
This, my friend, is just one faction. At revered, I opened up Shado-Pan (SP) and the August Celestials (AC). SP requires you to go all the way to Townlong Steppes to kill yet another hundred or so mobs. Fuck that I don't even have time to fly to their hub let alone do their lame quests. AC has a hub in Krasarang Wilds? What am I a time traveller you might as well send me back down to Tanaris to do a quest.
I have rationalized these two factions, and considering that my VP acaquisition rate is so slow, there won't even be a feasible method for me to have every faction unlocked to buy everything they have to offer anyways. My plan is to have Truny work on Shado-Pan, she is the most efficient killer, and the mobs from those quests are rather annoying to kill; and to have Turby work on AC once he is 90 and once he hits revered with GL in his own sweet ass slow time.
After hitting revered with the Tillers and Klaxxi I sighed a breath of relief that I would never have to interact with them ever again on my druid. The sad thing is that my VP acquisition rate slowed completely down and I'll be damned if I can ever manage to cap my VP in any given week.
So now we go back to the age old question of "what can we do at end game?"
If you think about it, dailies are a HUGE part of end game, they unlock the gear, and also provide the currency as a means to obtaining said gear, they unlock recipes and also the mounts. ALL the mounts (except the Yaks).
If you take out dailies, what have you got left? Dungeons? Meh already outdated. Scenarios? Interesting but the rewards have been insignificant since day 5 unless you somehow managed to level up through gathering. It would be nice if they FULLY COPIED LOTRO and gave scenarios/dungeons their own set of currency rather than a pittance of VP and crappy blues.
We have challenge modes, those look interesting. Beautiful transmog gear and ugly phoenixes. I guess we can spam challenge modes non stop for months on end?
LFR? Does this even count? People are crazy in LFR despite long-winded explanations on every single mechanic, which may or may not be relevant.
Farms? Farms are getting annoying. It's nice to have your own plot of land, away from all the crazy people but really it takes so damn long to plant all my crops, why can't they just be planted and stay happy? Does everything I plant have to be infested/weeded/attract angry birds? There isn't much interaction with the farms other than the Annoying Random Event. You plant your stuff, then leave.
We have one thing left, and that one thing is by default the defining "game thing" of WoW: Pet Battles. But who has time for that with all these dailies in the way?
So, what is the point of all this? To gear up? To appreciate the art of the new mounts? To have fun with friends? I think the one single line that the Panda from the Pandaria Cinematic resounds quite well with the game, "what is worth fighting for?"
Nothing. You've heard this line before "slow down!"
Turny the Needs to Slow Down
I had intended to write this post the day Mogu'shan Vaults was released, however I did not have much time. Ever since the first raid was released, we were sitting at "end-game" whether we liked it or not, despite being VERY ambitious this was the plan and we weren't going to deviate from it.
Let me give you a recount (get it, recount?) of my druid's Pandaria experience thus far:
1. Level to 90 as fast as possible while gearing up along the way. I did not read any quests, nor was I actually present for probably 30% of my leveling experience (questing with an efficient buddy with a ridable mount helps).
2. Hit 90, and run Sha of Anger IMMEDIATELY upon receiving a luck token, and grind heroics until they are sick of me and vice versa.
3. This part gets messy: grind dailies because ohgodwhy.jpg
Dailies. This aint fresh news to nobody, but... I'm not quite sure where I stand on the topic of dailies.
First off, I felt compelled to do EVERY SINGLE faction's dailies, everyday. My motivations might be different than most. See, how I see doing dailies and getting rep, gear, and mounts are tinted by how I perceive society as a whole from an American standpoint. Wait what? It's sort of a Keeping Up With the Joneses notion where if you aren't in a certain "stage" of the game, then you are behind and "bad". It's not exactly how I see view society, but how I think society wants me to think about itself. Y'know?
I knew for sure that I wasn't going to be server first 90 anything. I had actually put off levelling for several days to check out pet battles. Thus, right off the get-go I wasn't going to be the "best" druid. Someone else had hit 90 before me therefore I am irrelevant. See what I am trying to get at? Other than playing the game, which from what I see is actually pet battles, and materials collection, I was made myself do the "other" thing...dailies.
The moment where the answer to my question of "do we get tabards?" was a resounding "no", I decided that I disliked the entire reputation system only on the basis of "needing" to gear up and have all the mounts right now.
My major qualm are the Golden Lotus dailies. There are a LOT of dailies divided into multiple hubs, which provides one "reward" at the end which may or may not contain something useful/useless. My ranting on the Treasures of the Vale thus ends here because I did find a Sky Shard in one of my bags so now I know they DO work. (However, someone had already found 10 shards and caught Alani, so that mount is no longer special)
These dailies involve a lot of killing, then some clicking, then more killling and clicking and ends with a "big boss" type quest, then sends you away to do more killing or clicking. This would be fine if I had TIME. By the time I get off work to bed-time I have about 4 hours of playtime. Yesterday was a non-raid day so I did these dailies with glee. However on raid nights, there's no TIME since I "have" to do them on multiple characters with various professions. And you know what the sad thing is? Truny hit honored, which means she has to do all THREE hubs of dailies! BAH. Luckily a destruction warlock is about three times more efficient than my poor boomkin.
I wouldn't mind if the Golden Lotus dailies were just THREE dailies that reward 550 rep each. For example the dailies could be:
1. Kill this dangerous monster.
2. Traverse this dungeon and kill another monster
3. /wave at Alani
Instead of committing genocide on everything in the vale amirite?
This, my friend, is just one faction. At revered, I opened up Shado-Pan (SP) and the August Celestials (AC). SP requires you to go all the way to Townlong Steppes to kill yet another hundred or so mobs. Fuck that I don't even have time to fly to their hub let alone do their lame quests. AC has a hub in Krasarang Wilds? What am I a time traveller you might as well send me back down to Tanaris to do a quest.
I have rationalized these two factions, and considering that my VP acaquisition rate is so slow, there won't even be a feasible method for me to have every faction unlocked to buy everything they have to offer anyways. My plan is to have Truny work on Shado-Pan, she is the most efficient killer, and the mobs from those quests are rather annoying to kill; and to have Turby work on AC once he is 90 and once he hits revered with GL in his own sweet ass slow time.
After hitting revered with the Tillers and Klaxxi I sighed a breath of relief that I would never have to interact with them ever again on my druid. The sad thing is that my VP acquisition rate slowed completely down and I'll be damned if I can ever manage to cap my VP in any given week.
So now we go back to the age old question of "what can we do at end game?"
If you think about it, dailies are a HUGE part of end game, they unlock the gear, and also provide the currency as a means to obtaining said gear, they unlock recipes and also the mounts. ALL the mounts (except the Yaks).
If you take out dailies, what have you got left? Dungeons? Meh already outdated. Scenarios? Interesting but the rewards have been insignificant since day 5 unless you somehow managed to level up through gathering. It would be nice if they FULLY COPIED LOTRO and gave scenarios/dungeons their own set of currency rather than a pittance of VP and crappy blues.
We have challenge modes, those look interesting. Beautiful transmog gear and ugly phoenixes. I guess we can spam challenge modes non stop for months on end?
LFR? Does this even count? People are crazy in LFR despite long-winded explanations on every single mechanic, which may or may not be relevant.
Farms? Farms are getting annoying. It's nice to have your own plot of land, away from all the crazy people but really it takes so damn long to plant all my crops, why can't they just be planted and stay happy? Does everything I plant have to be infested/weeded/attract angry birds? There isn't much interaction with the farms other than the Annoying Random Event. You plant your stuff, then leave.
We have one thing left, and that one thing is by default the defining "game thing" of WoW: Pet Battles. But who has time for that with all these dailies in the way?
So, what is the point of all this? To gear up? To appreciate the art of the new mounts? To have fun with friends? I think the one single line that the Panda from the Pandaria Cinematic resounds quite well with the game, "what is worth fighting for?"
Nothing. You've heard this line before "slow down!"
Turny the Needs to Slow Down
Monday, October 15, 2012
Who the Heck is Xi'an of the Endless Shadow?
I haven't stalked myself on Armory for quite some time since setting foot in Pandaria, and I just noticed that our Mogu'shan Vaults progress was 4/6. What the heck? Who was the 4th boss? Who is Xi'an of the Endless Shadow? Then I remembered, oh yes, we did down the 4th encounter. It was so horribly easy that I totally forgot about it, and that we are making attempts at Elegon, who is in fact the 5th boss, not 4th.
I thought the 4th encounter was called Spirit Kings? We 2 healed this and I fail-kin DPS'd it with 1000 latency.
Turny's Tips for Spirit Kings
Are you ready for this? Now that I remember doing the encounter, I believe there are 4 kings that you must defeat, each with fairly trivial mechanics, and once they are defeated, they keep one of their mechanics that you have to deal with on top of any new king you encounter.
I'll be damned if I remember what they are called.
Guy Where You Stack Then Don't Stack and Move Out of Wall
So, stack in front of this guy. When you see a giant ground animation, run out, or through him TOGETHER with your tank so you don't die. If the group does not run together, the tank may die since his main attack is split amongst everyone for a bajillion damage. He summons a line of soldiers that everyone must move together to safety out of.
He continues to summon walls after he is..re-dead.
Pro-laggy tip: If you are SUPER laggy, run out a second before everyone or just stay out.
Guy That Has the Shadow Things
This guy summons shadow things that follow you and ..don't really hit that hard, but kite them and kill them and stay out of shadowy pools.
He continues to spawn the shadowy following things when he is down.
Guy That Shoots Arrows and Pins You and Spins
This guy shoots arrows in volleys of 3, with increasing damage with each volley. Very simple to move out of unless you are dodging a wall of soldiers and trying to kite a shadowy figure. He'll also pin random players to the ground, who need to be freed akin to Bone Spike in ICC and he will spin. That's about it.
I'm not sure what he does when he is down but it is probably trivial.
Guy That Goes Mad and Reflects Damage and You Stack and Do 40k Damage to Each Other
This guy is tricky, and it's ideal that you get him as the last boss as he has an ability that makes everyone mad and take heavy damage until you've been friendly fired enough. This adds a hectic element to the fight especially with all of the other king's abilities going on. But pretty much stack, then stay alive. He also reflects damage when he goes into coward mode? So...don't tunnel vision!
We will be attempting to make Elegon dead tonight so I shall update you shortly!
Turny the Failkin
I thought the 4th encounter was called Spirit Kings? We 2 healed this and I fail-kin DPS'd it with 1000 latency.
Turny's Tips for Spirit Kings
Are you ready for this? Now that I remember doing the encounter, I believe there are 4 kings that you must defeat, each with fairly trivial mechanics, and once they are defeated, they keep one of their mechanics that you have to deal with on top of any new king you encounter.
I'll be damned if I remember what they are called.
Guy Where You Stack Then Don't Stack and Move Out of Wall
So, stack in front of this guy. When you see a giant ground animation, run out, or through him TOGETHER with your tank so you don't die. If the group does not run together, the tank may die since his main attack is split amongst everyone for a bajillion damage. He summons a line of soldiers that everyone must move together to safety out of.
He continues to summon walls after he is..re-dead.
Pro-laggy tip: If you are SUPER laggy, run out a second before everyone or just stay out.
Guy That Has the Shadow Things
This guy summons shadow things that follow you and ..don't really hit that hard, but kite them and kill them and stay out of shadowy pools.
He continues to spawn the shadowy following things when he is down.
Guy That Shoots Arrows and Pins You and Spins
This guy shoots arrows in volleys of 3, with increasing damage with each volley. Very simple to move out of unless you are dodging a wall of soldiers and trying to kite a shadowy figure. He'll also pin random players to the ground, who need to be freed akin to Bone Spike in ICC and he will spin. That's about it.
I'm not sure what he does when he is down but it is probably trivial.
Guy That Goes Mad and Reflects Damage and You Stack and Do 40k Damage to Each Other
This guy is tricky, and it's ideal that you get him as the last boss as he has an ability that makes everyone mad and take heavy damage until you've been friendly fired enough. This adds a hectic element to the fight especially with all of the other king's abilities going on. But pretty much stack, then stay alive. He also reflects damage when he goes into coward mode? So...don't tunnel vision!
We will be attempting to make Elegon dead tonight so I shall update you shortly!
Turny the Failkin
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Brewfest Woes
The timing of the Mists of Pandaria launch and the dawn of the Direbrew Festival this year is just horrendous. I only have 2 characters who can queue at a chance for the one single holiday mount I have not been lucky enough to find: The Brewfest Ram.
Very painful. To add to this pain, is it just me....or has anyone noticed that a lot of groups that queue for this FAIL HORRIBLY? Honestly, the Coren fight is more hectic to heal than what we have seen so far of Mogu'shan vaults. The one clincher to this fight is Ursular Direbrew, she spawns when he is at about a third health and will CC anyone highest on her threat list. This SHOULD go to a DPS, not the tank, or healer. That should be enough explanation.
Long Explanation: If you are the tank, ignore her, if you are dps, HIT HER so you take one for the team. If you are a healer, yell for someone other than the tank to aggro her.
Lastly, why are people doing 10-20k dps on him? My level 89 warlock managed 35k. Isn't the level 90 baseline 40k? Is this a dire sign that the game is shifting?
Truny the Shuddering Warlock
Very painful. To add to this pain, is it just me....or has anyone noticed that a lot of groups that queue for this FAIL HORRIBLY? Honestly, the Coren fight is more hectic to heal than what we have seen so far of Mogu'shan vaults. The one clincher to this fight is Ursular Direbrew, she spawns when he is at about a third health and will CC anyone highest on her threat list. This SHOULD go to a DPS, not the tank, or healer. That should be enough explanation.
Long Explanation: If you are the tank, ignore her, if you are dps, HIT HER so you take one for the team. If you are a healer, yell for someone other than the tank to aggro her.
Lastly, why are people doing 10-20k dps on him? My level 89 warlock managed 35k. Isn't the level 90 baseline 40k? Is this a dire sign that the game is shifting?
Truny the Shuddering Warlock
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