I think my views on the upcoming 4.1.0 content patch remains fairly indifferent.
New dungeons and raids are nice. It'll be great to be able to do Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman AT LEVEL. The new mounts are nice and all but really.. I passed on the Zulian Tiger mount to a friend last year because I knew that despite what special/shiny/rare ground mount I had in my collection I would always stick with the Warlock Flaming Horse of Flaming Death Goodness Rawr! Watch this is going to be nerfed for PVP purposes, the fire on the Warlock mount gives rogues cataracts so they are just going to change the Felsteed to a normal Undercity Horse with an orange ribbon. I can so see this coming.
The new flying mounts look "OMGAD" and they aren't dragons for once! Slowly we will see the front of the Org auction house filling up with shiny flaming birds rather than the various spattering of Drakes. I've given up on my quest to obtain the Drake of the West Winds. My plan was to get it, then AFK in a high traffic area for long durations so everyone can see how cool I was but I got too lazy to do dailies. Oh well. Epeen denied. Tol Barad Dailies: Best done in a group or on a BM Hunter who can actually pull every single mob in the area and take no damage after downing them all. All in a faster, burstier fashion.
There have been no changes to warlocks. GOOD STAY AWAY FROM ME! After the Fel Armor change I actually haven't even been playing my warlock since I DIE EVERY SINGLE PULL AND HAVE TO WASTE TEN MINUTES OF MY LIFE USING SOUL SIPHON I AM ALREADY WASTING MY TIME PLAYING THE GAME WHY SHOULD I WASTE MORE TIME RIGHT? (When I say "die" I mean take like 7k damage, which is a LOT!) Sorry about that. My performance in dungeons have also declined since I just find my lack of burst and knowing that my health isn't regenerating back as quick as before.
I've also found that as the other classes catch up in gear, demo locks really lack burst. Like...really lack it. Our AOE is OK But essentially our entire AOE rotation is out-done by TWO multi-shots of an equally or lesser geared Survival Hunter. Or three ticks of a Shadow Priests' Devouring Plague. Seriously. (Our AOE is also really perilous as we must be in melee for most of it to happen, it is a testament to one's skill to down all of Magmaw's worms without getting bitten!) Maybe I should roll a Shadow Priest. Oh wait I have one and it's boring and weak as nuts. But I guess in raids they have high sustained DPS? I guess? Since there's what only like 9 buttons to push?
Silly warlock, its not about damage its about fun. Well....its really not that fun when I can't even get off TWO spells! Damn you faceroll dungeon buff!
So with the class now becoming un-fun and with nothing left to do but OLD WORLD stuff such as questing and rep grinding (and refusing to do dailies or finish Uldum), will this new patch bring about change? No. We'll probably run the hell out of ZG and ZA and Abyssal Maw then get bored.
Wow this has become a bitter rant so I probably won't be back for a while until something dramatic happens!
Good day!
Friday, February 25, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
Loque'Nahak Again!
 |
| Go go heart attack! |
Just earlier this week Turby came home from a late night of wine and cheese and he decided to log on and wait at one of Loque'nahak's known spawn points while he went to go take a shower. When he returned, his NPCscan had not gone off so he flew his usual circle-route around Sholazar counterclockwise from where he had been waiting. Just as he flew by the very next known spawn point his Macro picks up Loque'nahak, alone just west of the Skyreach Pillar. He swooped down off his mount and tamed this very beautiful snow leopard. (Great, now I have to make a page for this over at growlandcower)
Yes, the Loque you see here is not the one in discussion. As you can see, this spawn point is the one directly East of the Skyreach Pillar. This picture was taken last night as Turby was flying around the Basin looking for King Krush, the green Devilsaur. Loque'nahak had spawned again! Turby quickly checked the /who hunter and /who 72-85 and saw that he was the only Horde hunter online in Sholazar. Then he thought to himself: "Wait, do I want to kill Loque for the Frostbitten achievement? Or should I leave it alone? No one else would tame it, and I don't want to see it dead.....", so he tamed it.
What would be a logical explanation for one hunter to have tamed two of the same unique pet? It's kind of like saying I killed Lord Raid Boss and he shows up again in a week and you kill it again? Oh wait...that already does happen. Ok bad example.
What if Harkoa goes and finds a *different* mate everytime someone kills or tames Loque? But how would she know? Is she psychic? Do the tickbirds email her or bbm her? Does she even use a Blackberry? Cause I think Harkoa is more of an Android user. Err, and all her mates must be named Loque'nahak due to ritual purposes? Why is he all the way in Sholazar? Hunting? Wouldn't grizzly hills be closer? Are the animals in Sholazar more nutritious or plumper and more delicious? How did he get to Sholazar from Zul'drak? Did he fly? Did he travel south through grizzly hills then bore west through Dragonblight to Borean Tundra and made his way through the only entrance that could be traversed by foot?
I'll get to the bottom of this!
Turby the Hunter
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Warlock, I am Disappoint
Scenario: Hellfire Ramparts
Toon: Level 61 Resto Shaman
Disappointed in: Destruction Warlock
Hi! Wow what a lame intro. Anyways. With nothing better to do at end-game except raid /shudder I am levelling my 61 resto shaman and 67 protection pally through Outlands (obviously). Also due to the fel armor changes I am slowly transitioning my "main" to be my Hunter once again. He's having a blast hunting down rare pets. But that's a different story.
A normal hellfire ramparts, whatever. Everything is going well I'm half AFK as usual, come back to refresh Earth Shield and pretend to heal by spamming Chain Heal and while I'm doing all this I notice over the shoulder of my character...TWO firesballs fly by. I swear even my in-game character turned her head in confuzzledment.
Wait a minute. I look at the little recount box hidden in the corner of my screen. Brown, Yellow, Green, Purple, Blue (ME!)
No Light Blue for Mage. A fireball? For a warlock? Soulfire? With an Imp? Repeatedly? Say what? Ok so the first fireball was the imp's but the second? And continuously?
In an instant I deduced that this Warlock was doing something "different". Why would he chain cast Soulfire when he's not Demo spec? Given that the imp may give him an instant one I can definitely see from the fireballs flying past me that they are being fired off at casting intervals.
I stop and watch.
Soulfire, Soulfire, Soulfire.
I look at recount.
Warlock: Soulfire. Count 45 Damage xxxxx
That's it. He was just spamming this.
His average DPS was 450, which is...is that average? I think my shaman in elemental spec can pull 1,000?
"To each their own I guess", was my first thought. But the inner warlock/elitist in me couldn't contain the rage.
I whispered them "why are you only casting soulfire, you know you have immolate+conflagrate right?"
They say "It's better".
HMMM....is it? If so then we have a serious game-design issue where spamming soulfire out damages the regular destro-rotation pre-chaos bolt. What about rain of destruction? We're not in Cata heroics yet its pretty safe to AOE stuff?
But I rationalized and said "but with conflag your next few spells could cast faster".
"I guess" was the response. He then proceeds to cast some random spells for 20 seconds then continues to spam Soulfire until the end of the run. I guess pushing more than two buttons was too complicated for him?
I felt dirty.
I tried selling the Demonology tree to him if he loved Soulfire so much "you know you might be interested in the Demo tree there are talents that buff that spell".
"How do I do that?"
"Uhh...you just respec".
WHAT? We didn't dumb the game down so much that people don't even know they can dual-spec or respec right? You STILL have to go to a trainer to learn spells right?
I think they were doing it on purpose to troll everyone. I really hope that that was the reason for this. Why would we go through all this effort to design the warlock class if you're just going to spam one button? We're not in burning crusades anymore??
Did they even READ the Incinerate tooltip? Should we make tooltips bigger? Should we force players to read tooltips OUT LOUD and email us a copy of them reading it out loud before they are able to learn it? Should we quiz them first? Let's scrap complicated spells that affect second spells altogether? Are people really playing SO SO casually now that they just don't care? No, I play casually I spend time flying around looking for dinosaurs and shiny cats but I still know how to optimize damage! ARRG!
If a spell that takes 2.5 seconds to cast does 1000 damage vs a spell that takes 1.5 seconds to cast that does 750 damage, which one does more damage over 120 seconds?
What if we dumbed down the talent trees to THREE talents? And also, you just push ONE button that will recognize all your trained skills to produce the most effective spell rotation? That'd be nice!
Ok maybe this person was 12 years old? No! Why are you playing WOW get back to school and do your homework! What ugggh too stressful!! Troll-lock wins, application of despair and anguish successful!
Shinjen the Resto Dr..err Shaman!
Toon: Level 61 Resto Shaman
Disappointed in: Destruction Warlock
Hi! Wow what a lame intro. Anyways. With nothing better to do at end-game except raid /shudder I am levelling my 61 resto shaman and 67 protection pally through Outlands (obviously). Also due to the fel armor changes I am slowly transitioning my "main" to be my Hunter once again. He's having a blast hunting down rare pets. But that's a different story.
A normal hellfire ramparts, whatever. Everything is going well I'm half AFK as usual, come back to refresh Earth Shield and pretend to heal by spamming Chain Heal and while I'm doing all this I notice over the shoulder of my character...TWO firesballs fly by. I swear even my in-game character turned her head in confuzzledment.
Wait a minute. I look at the little recount box hidden in the corner of my screen. Brown, Yellow, Green, Purple, Blue (ME!)
No Light Blue for Mage. A fireball? For a warlock? Soulfire? With an Imp? Repeatedly? Say what? Ok so the first fireball was the imp's but the second? And continuously?
In an instant I deduced that this Warlock was doing something "different". Why would he chain cast Soulfire when he's not Demo spec? Given that the imp may give him an instant one I can definitely see from the fireballs flying past me that they are being fired off at casting intervals.
I stop and watch.
Soulfire, Soulfire, Soulfire.
I look at recount.
Warlock: Soulfire. Count 45 Damage xxxxx
That's it. He was just spamming this.
His average DPS was 450, which is...is that average? I think my shaman in elemental spec can pull 1,000?
"To each their own I guess", was my first thought. But the inner warlock/elitist in me couldn't contain the rage.
I whispered them "why are you only casting soulfire, you know you have immolate+conflagrate right?"
They say "It's better".
HMMM....is it? If so then we have a serious game-design issue where spamming soulfire out damages the regular destro-rotation pre-chaos bolt. What about rain of destruction? We're not in Cata heroics yet its pretty safe to AOE stuff?
But I rationalized and said "but with conflag your next few spells could cast faster".
"I guess" was the response. He then proceeds to cast some random spells for 20 seconds then continues to spam Soulfire until the end of the run. I guess pushing more than two buttons was too complicated for him?
I felt dirty.
I tried selling the Demonology tree to him if he loved Soulfire so much "you know you might be interested in the Demo tree there are talents that buff that spell".
"How do I do that?"
"Uhh...you just respec".
WHAT? We didn't dumb the game down so much that people don't even know they can dual-spec or respec right? You STILL have to go to a trainer to learn spells right?
I think they were doing it on purpose to troll everyone. I really hope that that was the reason for this. Why would we go through all this effort to design the warlock class if you're just going to spam one button? We're not in burning crusades anymore??
Did they even READ the Incinerate tooltip? Should we make tooltips bigger? Should we force players to read tooltips OUT LOUD and email us a copy of them reading it out loud before they are able to learn it? Should we quiz them first? Let's scrap complicated spells that affect second spells altogether? Are people really playing SO SO casually now that they just don't care? No, I play casually I spend time flying around looking for dinosaurs and shiny cats but I still know how to optimize damage! ARRG!
If a spell that takes 2.5 seconds to cast does 1000 damage vs a spell that takes 1.5 seconds to cast that does 750 damage, which one does more damage over 120 seconds?
What if we dumbed down the talent trees to THREE talents? And also, you just push ONE button that will recognize all your trained skills to produce the most effective spell rotation? That'd be nice!
Ok maybe this person was 12 years old? No! Why are you playing WOW get back to school and do your homework! What ugggh too stressful!! Troll-lock wins, application of despair and anguish successful!
Shinjen the Resto Dr..err Shaman!
BM Hunter vs Demonology Warlock as a Pet Class 4.0.6
Not included in my non-analysis are our good friends the Frost Mage, and the Unholy Death Knights.
For this entry I will focus on the "pet" part of the two classes rather than the actual hunter or warlock themselves.
An unfortunate statement I would like to make is that Warlocks do not use "pets". The Felguards you see running alongside their demonic masters are merely tools. Fodder. They don't like you, nor do they require your love in any way, shape, or form. A warlock uses this demon to accomplish their own goals, if it dies in the process the Warlock will just call upon it from the nether once more.
A Beast Master hunter has a lot of synergy with their pets. Their main damage dealer "Kill Command" reflects this bond. It's an "active" skill that you can command your pet to execute wherever you are. Sure, the Warlock can also command their demons towards certain attacks but those are based off of the demon's own action bars. Hunter pets ALSO have those abilities as well.
Levelling
For this entry I will focus on the "pet" part of the two classes rather than the actual hunter or warlock themselves.
An unfortunate statement I would like to make is that Warlocks do not use "pets". The Felguards you see running alongside their demonic masters are merely tools. Fodder. They don't like you, nor do they require your love in any way, shape, or form. A warlock uses this demon to accomplish their own goals, if it dies in the process the Warlock will just call upon it from the nether once more.
A Beast Master hunter has a lot of synergy with their pets. Their main damage dealer "Kill Command" reflects this bond. It's an "active" skill that you can command your pet to execute wherever you are. Sure, the Warlock can also command their demons towards certain attacks but those are based off of the demon's own action bars. Hunter pets ALSO have those abilities as well.
Levelling
For levelling purposes, both classes will do fine, and your pet or demon will be able to hold aggro off of you while you pew down mobs. You will learn to send your pet or demon onto one mob while you dot up the first mob while you go and kill a second mob. It's a beautiful dance where you can take out entire villages of mobs without even taking a break through alternating between managing your pet and yourself.
When your pet takes damage as a hunter, you can throw on a mend pet and that usually solves your problems. The Mend Pet skill has improved DRAMATICALLY for the Cataclysm expansion. The "old" mend pet would heal your pet for a flat amount, something along the lines of 10K health at level 80. Now it heals your pet for 40% of its health over ten seconds. This can be modified by glyphs and talents, both which I am too lazy to link but just trust me on this. The massive benefit that a hunter has over a warlock is that once he or she uses mend pet they can continue to DPS or manage the situation as this heal works like a druid's heal over time.
When your demon takes damage as a warlock, your only option is to start channeling Health Funnel which I believe has changed for the expansion as well since it returns a measly amount of health to your demon. It's still enough to keep it alive but this spell must be channelled and you probably will end up channelling it several times for it to have the same effect as a single cast-it-and-leave-it Mend Pet.
Aggro
Another huge difference between a hunter and warlock's aggro versus their pet or demon is that at end levels, your Felguard will probably never be able to keep aggro off of you unless you play it nice and only throw out Dots and weak attacks. In the event that you do steal aggro, warlocks have Soul Shatter on a 2 minute cooldown, which reduce your threat by 90% towards all mobs. Essentially with the way that I play, I would send my Felguard in and maybe use Felstorm. I would use Shadowbolt then Hand of Gul'dan, by the time Hand of Gul'dan hits the aggro is usually on me. The thing is Demonology lacks instant burst so even though we are strong at end game you will still take a few hits before you can kill a mob, unless you blow some cooldowns, which wouldn't be ideal in a solo/questing situation.
Hunters have absolutely no issues with aggro at end-level. With the glyph of Misdirect, everytime we misdirect our pet, the cooldown of misdirect is instantly refreshed, aka perma-misdirects. Since roughly 40% of our damage is from our pets and Kill Command is part of our "rotation", once you hit Kill Command the aggro is guaranteed to be on your pet. Throw on a mend pet and the world is yours to command. If you DO manage to pull six or seven or twenty mobs, you can Feign Death, which is on a 30 second cooldown, get back up, misdirect your pet, heal it, and burst down those mobs. You'll end the fight at full health, and so will your pet.
Playstyles
A warlock takes on a more chaotic style of play. Demonologists using Metamorphosis will have no problem nuking down a dozen or more mobs at equal level at the same time. You'll end the fight half dead but you also have Soul Siphon on a 30 second cooldown, which returns a large chunk of health. Essentially you'll run into a group of mobs and try to literally burn them down before they kill you.
A hunter takes on a more controlled style of play. Beast Masters will rely more on their pets and with perma-misdirect you can trick all the mobs that you think your pet can handle onto it and Bestial Wrath them down.
Pet/Demon Varieties
Warlocks have a limited choice amongst pets.
Imp: Ranged, fireball throwing little minion. He's very squishy.
Voidwalker: Tank. High health, low damage tanking pet. Now the only demon warlock with a taunt and one of the less used pets due to his low damage. I tend to use him only during emergencies where I know even my Felguard will get crushed.
Succubus: Seduces humanoids and has a whip!
Fel Hunter: Also known as the Felpuppy, the perfect anti-caster pet!
Felguard: The Beast! Once you learn Felstorm you'll see what I mean. For a good while in the game his sheer damage will keep aggro off of you.
Hunters have HUNDREDS of pets that can be tamed straight from the Wilds of Azeroth.
Hunter pets have their own talent trees and there are three types of pets with three different trees.
Ferocity: Ferocity pets have talents that focus on boosting their own raw damage and also the hunter's damage.
Cunning: Cunning pets come with "utility" type attacks and have talents that boost their damage or battle utility such as movement speed, damage reduction, crit immunity. You can pick and choose to your liking to create a offensive or defensive cunning pet.
Tenacity: Tenacity pets are the "tanking" pets. Their talents focus on survivability such as increasing their health/armor/resistances. They become crit immune when talented and can heal themselves when they growl. Also, there is a talent that increases the effect of heals on them.
Miscellaneous
Hunters can own up to 25 pets, with 20 stabled pets and five active pets.
Hunters can name and rename their pets to their liking.
If your pet dies, the only way to get them back is to spec into Heart of the Phoenix or spend about ten seconds casting revive pet.
Warlocks can not rename their demonic tools.
If your demon dies, you can instantly summon them back talented. Otherwise, burning a soul shard can also bring back your demon instantly.
Ending Comments
Now the decision lies in your hands. Do you like more controlled fights?* Do you tend to be chaotic? Do you feel a need to "bond" to your "pet", or do you just need a tool to absorb the damages for you? Up to you, try them both out!
True Reason For This Post
This post is actually just a rant about the 4.0.6 Fel Armor changes and how much it SUCKS. It is also a post to state how I refuse to change the playstyle of my warlock just so I can avoid taking damage during fights. I am not a hunter, nor am I a shadow priest. Even with 6% of direct spell damage returned as health, we must be producing 15,000 DPS to match what the old Fel Armor was doing. This assuming you are NOT taking damage. Sadly, you WILL be taking damage, or else this whole issue would be immaterial. If you are taking about 3-5k damage every few seconds, which is normal for Cata mobs, you would probably need to be doing 20,000 DPS. I know I could slow down and just throw hots and use Fel Flame or slowly let my pet whittle a mob's health away but I refuse! We kill slow already as Demonologists why slow down our killing even more? (Though I have absolutely no problem levelling as Destruction as the burst from Conflagration is just disgusting, mobs die within 3 spells). Perhaps this is only and issue with Demonlogists with our lack of burst? Maybe I should just stfu and start using the Voidwalker?
Truny and Turby the "Pet" Classes
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
The God Mode Retreat
My mood tends to dictate the playstyle in which I am comfortable with; when I feel chaotic and messy I'll play my Warlock, when I'm tired and needing a more calm and calculated approach to murdering mobs, I play my hunter. But what happens when neither of those mind-sets are appropriate? What if I just wanted to spam buttons and see tons of numbers and shiny effects and not have to worry about dying. I play my Protection Paladin!
Yes, a tank! Of course, this tank is only level 67 but there's something that just fits right with pally tanking right now. Perhaps its the satisfaction of seeing my shield throw hit for a lot, guaranteeing aggro, or my Judgement hammer giving me infinite mana, or Word of Glory Godly Self Heals.
I don't know! All I know is sometimes I get into such a holy righteous tanking fury that I'll just pull away regardless of whether or not the healer or the DPS are behind me, or if they are alive, because what it boils down to is even if they had all died I could probably still kill everything and end up at full health and mana. Weird and creepy yes? Yes I know this goes against every single tanking code out there, such as minding your healer and...making sure no one's dead!
I also get to be a "dps" who doesn't have to look at the charts but end up near the top of them anyways just because of all the natural AOE damage that come from my attacks. And the healer has their mouse on you at all times so you can go ape-shit!
I've also decided that this tank will officially replace my Druid. Forever. Bear tanking is just.....not so fun. I don't really care if its efficient or whatnot, or if all those added cooldowns made things more stable.....bear tanking just feels really off right now. Why would Swipe have a cooldown? Why did Maul also get a cooldown? What's with all these cooldowns? I say we get rid of Roar of Courage or whatever the hell that useless running speed roar is and add a USEFUL Feral spell and scrap Thrash altogether. I refuse to change and adapt to such folly! Maybe I'm too frenzied to play as a bear tank? See you usually have to charge in, then build up your aggro slowly with your one maul, one swipe, and one thrash. Then mangle and lacerate whatever your want main-threat as. If anyone pulls aggro you can taunt ONCE, but if two mobs get ripped off, which is highly likely since some DPS'ers just can't WAIT eight seconds...you're screwed. Maybe Feral Tanking is more cerebral now and we must delegate our cooldowns properly rather than spamming them? Ugggh! It's not.....fun but stressful. Do I find a challenge stressful? Perhaps, but it could also be FUN if my character were to be FUN to begin with? Does that even make sense? It's sad that I used to find both of my Druid's specs were fun to play. In resto, just being in treeform was entertainment enough, but as we all know that has been removed /shakefist. Bear tanking was fun, with the buttom spamming. Maybe it's just me then. I'm crazy. Take for example my old keybinds: 1, lacerate. 2, mangle. 3, maul. 4, swipe. Before I would literally be doing this on my end of the keyboard: 3334444444444444444444433333333321111143333333444444444444444443333333333333333, though it would only seem like I am doing 3,3,4,4,2,3,3. No. Now its even worse, I am forced to be like: 3..........4...........5..............6............1,1,1,5,2,2.....................3......................zzzzzzzzz
With a paladin, I can instantly snap aggro from whatever my shield hits, run in consecrate to "claim" the aggro zone, holy wrath for extra aoe, then hammer of AOE. Maybe its because whether I like it or not I still don't enjoy playing as melee classes. For a Druid Tank to grab aggro they have to be in ACTUAL melee to do anything, where as a paladin can THROW shields and hammers and not actually have to be in melee range to do anything. All the buttons that we can push just naturally work with one another and it just feels right and I can't reiterate that enough!
Or maybe I'm just really really shallow and only like playing classes that don't die. I don't play my rogue because he gets hit ass handed to him EVERY SINGLE FIGHT. He's subtlety spec and can usually one shot most mobs via stealthing and ambushing. But if a mob were to not die, then the fight essentially boils down to MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS. Take a 15 minute rest to bandage up and continue. That wastes way too much time. Subtlety is fun and all but I'm just not patient enough to play it in PVE. PVP is a different story /cackle
What other melee classes are there? Warrior. Nah. How am I even supposed to get rage to attack? Oh yeah, a DK. Didn't I say I was going to level my DK in glorious fashion? Uhh well he's now just camped by the Jewelcrafting Daily Quest Giver and....yeah....
So anyways, my rational mind is saying: "This Paladin provides your main with no economical benefit other than being able to produce Blacksmithing Belt Buckles, which you no longer require. And in order to maximize the use of this profession this toon must also acquire faster flight speed, which results in the allocation of funds with a long-term prospect for a return on investment."
Anyways enough of my nonsense for you goodbye!
Turby the Paladin
Yes, a tank! Of course, this tank is only level 67 but there's something that just fits right with pally tanking right now. Perhaps its the satisfaction of seeing my shield throw hit for a lot, guaranteeing aggro, or my Judgement hammer giving me infinite mana, or Word of Glory Godly Self Heals.
I don't know! All I know is sometimes I get into such a holy righteous tanking fury that I'll just pull away regardless of whether or not the healer or the DPS are behind me, or if they are alive, because what it boils down to is even if they had all died I could probably still kill everything and end up at full health and mana. Weird and creepy yes? Yes I know this goes against every single tanking code out there, such as minding your healer and...making sure no one's dead!
I also get to be a "dps" who doesn't have to look at the charts but end up near the top of them anyways just because of all the natural AOE damage that come from my attacks. And the healer has their mouse on you at all times so you can go ape-shit!
I've also decided that this tank will officially replace my Druid. Forever. Bear tanking is just.....not so fun. I don't really care if its efficient or whatnot, or if all those added cooldowns made things more stable.....bear tanking just feels really off right now. Why would Swipe have a cooldown? Why did Maul also get a cooldown? What's with all these cooldowns? I say we get rid of Roar of Courage or whatever the hell that useless running speed roar is and add a USEFUL Feral spell and scrap Thrash altogether. I refuse to change and adapt to such folly! Maybe I'm too frenzied to play as a bear tank? See you usually have to charge in, then build up your aggro slowly with your one maul, one swipe, and one thrash. Then mangle and lacerate whatever your want main-threat as. If anyone pulls aggro you can taunt ONCE, but if two mobs get ripped off, which is highly likely since some DPS'ers just can't WAIT eight seconds...you're screwed. Maybe Feral Tanking is more cerebral now and we must delegate our cooldowns properly rather than spamming them? Ugggh! It's not.....fun but stressful. Do I find a challenge stressful? Perhaps, but it could also be FUN if my character were to be FUN to begin with? Does that even make sense? It's sad that I used to find both of my Druid's specs were fun to play. In resto, just being in treeform was entertainment enough, but as we all know that has been removed /shakefist. Bear tanking was fun, with the buttom spamming. Maybe it's just me then. I'm crazy. Take for example my old keybinds: 1, lacerate. 2, mangle. 3, maul. 4, swipe. Before I would literally be doing this on my end of the keyboard: 3334444444444444444444433333333321111143333333444444444444444443333333333333333, though it would only seem like I am doing 3,3,4,4,2,3,3. No. Now its even worse, I am forced to be like: 3..........4...........5..............6............1,1,1,5,2,2.....................3......................zzzzzzzzz
With a paladin, I can instantly snap aggro from whatever my shield hits, run in consecrate to "claim" the aggro zone, holy wrath for extra aoe, then hammer of AOE. Maybe its because whether I like it or not I still don't enjoy playing as melee classes. For a Druid Tank to grab aggro they have to be in ACTUAL melee to do anything, where as a paladin can THROW shields and hammers and not actually have to be in melee range to do anything. All the buttons that we can push just naturally work with one another and it just feels right and I can't reiterate that enough!
Or maybe I'm just really really shallow and only like playing classes that don't die. I don't play my rogue because he gets hit ass handed to him EVERY SINGLE FIGHT. He's subtlety spec and can usually one shot most mobs via stealthing and ambushing. But if a mob were to not die, then the fight essentially boils down to MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS. Take a 15 minute rest to bandage up and continue. That wastes way too much time. Subtlety is fun and all but I'm just not patient enough to play it in PVE. PVP is a different story /cackle
What other melee classes are there? Warrior. Nah. How am I even supposed to get rage to attack? Oh yeah, a DK. Didn't I say I was going to level my DK in glorious fashion? Uhh well he's now just camped by the Jewelcrafting Daily Quest Giver and....yeah....
So anyways, my rational mind is saying: "This Paladin provides your main with no economical benefit other than being able to produce Blacksmithing Belt Buckles, which you no longer require. And in order to maximize the use of this profession this toon must also acquire faster flight speed, which results in the allocation of funds with a long-term prospect for a return on investment."
Anyways enough of my nonsense for you goodbye!
Turby the Paladin
Friday, February 11, 2011
&#$#!@ NERF EVERYONE QQ!!
I was running the quick and easy daily slaughter of the Crown Chemical Team in SFK yesterday and for this short and simple fight my damages was looking awesome. With the initial burst of Meta I was at 19k DPS and after it wore off and we had to switch targets it stabilized to a comfortable 13k.
I was happily topping the meaningless chart until...I lagged! Big time! I was already at 1.9K latency but my button presses were getting pinged through and I was lucky that the spells cast while under METALOL actually worked. In this four to five seconds of complete lag, none of my spells were working and.......and the Survival Hunter caught up in damage! I LOST! FFF!!! At that moment I thought, why I even had a Warlock if I'm going to be second on the charts of trivial fights and I thought maybe we hadn't nerfed Survival hard enough. Let's reduce Black Arrow and Explosive Shot by another 5%!
After a Demonologists' initial burst, we don't have any more burst for 45 seconds, then roughly 90 seconds. Or 120 if you only combine Meta with Demon Soul.
So there we have it. I lost, so I quit my Warlock once again.
A) DPS Sucks when lagging.
B) Crappy Fel Armor.
C) I lost. The hunter won. They got more Justice Points in their heart box, they got more gold from the pool, and now they can say "Demonology sucks lol I just pressed 4 buttons with my left eye closed"
Reactivism at its best.
Truny the Reactive
I was happily topping the meaningless chart until...I lagged! Big time! I was already at 1.9K latency but my button presses were getting pinged through and I was lucky that the spells cast while under METALOL actually worked. In this four to five seconds of complete lag, none of my spells were working and.......and the Survival Hunter caught up in damage! I LOST! FFF!!! At that moment I thought, why I even had a Warlock if I'm going to be second on the charts of trivial fights and I thought maybe we hadn't nerfed Survival hard enough. Let's reduce Black Arrow and Explosive Shot by another 5%!
After a Demonologists' initial burst, we don't have any more burst for 45 seconds, then roughly 90 seconds. Or 120 if you only combine Meta with Demon Soul.
So there we have it. I lost, so I quit my Warlock once again.
A) DPS Sucks when lagging.
B) Crappy Fel Armor.
C) I lost. The hunter won. They got more Justice Points in their heart box, they got more gold from the pool, and now they can say "Demonology sucks lol I just pressed 4 buttons with my left eye closed"
Reactivism at its best.
Truny the Reactive
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Demonology Warlocks: 4.0.6
Aaaand once again in a non-comprehensive fashion:
The new fel armor for 4.0.6 sucks. I find myself on the brink of death after every single pull rather than at the 100% health that I have been used to all my warlocky life. It sucks, but I can always use this so called "soul siphon" thingy to get health back. It's a lot of health. I put it on my keybinds and I am used to it now. Whatever, at least it lasts FOREVER now instead of having to refresh it every 30 minutes!
Felstorm got nerfed. Oh noes. BUT WAIT, our MASTERY points are worth more bang for their buck now. Before the patch, my extra damage in Metamorphosis was +44%, after the patch it turned into +52%. And 8% increase in damage for MYSELF, and for my Felguard as well. I also saw Felstorm crit occasionally in the 11,000 range so I have nothing to complain about as this number will only get better as gear progresses along.
Immolation Aura damage has been reduced, but ....it's so passive and strong on its own anyways I don't really care. It's still free dps! And remember, since our Demon Form got a slight slight buff and we can only use Immolation Aura during our Demon Form, this nerf is a Little Bit Less Nerf But Still Nerf.
Immolate lasts six seconds longer now. This is EXCELLENT as I've found that trying to put in that second Hand of Gul'dan after an exciting first few seconds of spell-casting to be sometimes fairly tight and I would have to default to using Fel Flame. With this extra six seconds I *might* put Corruption back into my spell rotation. If there is room on my action bars.
I actually haven't even respecced. Since Improved Soul Fire got moved down a tier I have an extra point in this "Aftermath" thing, which buffs Rain of Fire. Eww. Though with this spec I still did an *okay* 14K-ish DPS on Argaloth*. I believe I could optimize my skills better if my Soulfire had an extra 0.5 seconds shaved off of its cast time. If I get around to respeccing I'll let you know, but right now...whatever we're killing stuff so...yeah whatever. We're going to hit up Bastion of Twilight tomorrow no wait today is still Thursday...we are going to hit up BOT on Saturday so I shall report my findings in there for the raiding state of the Demos. *
Yeah yeah Argaloth is easy mode but he has enough health where I can pop Metamorphosis TWICE MWAHAHA!
What else got changed? Well, again with our Mastery benefit increased by 33% (not 33% but the 1.5% times 1.33) I took out "some" glyph and replaced it with the Glyph of Metamorphosis, giving me an extra 6% of this added damage bonus. And it also gives you an extra 6 seconds of nukes to actively reduce the cooldown of your NEXT Metamorphosis. I would have to say "Impending Doom" is one of our bestest talents out there.
Otherwise, I keep seeing search parses for "Demonology sucks for damage".....WHY?? Can you please tell me WHY? Like, send me your details and maybe a video of you pushing your buttons and which buttons you are pushing and in what scenario?? This is stressing me out cause I think we are completely fine?? Are you looking at damage done on Controlled Trash Pulls (henceforth known as CTPs). Uhhh for those....no one gives a damn. They are controlled so the group may progress.
From what I can deduce for sure this issue isn't spawning from trash pulls. Heroics are actually....facerollable nowadays as long as:
1. CC Baddies if needed.
2. Kill adds.
3. Common Sense
So for trash pulls its usually "FELSTROMLOLOLOL99999DPS"
Actually you know what I think I know why and I'm going to put this into another post, goodbye!
The new fel armor for 4.0.6 sucks. I find myself on the brink of death after every single pull rather than at the 100% health that I have been used to all my warlocky life. It sucks, but I can always use this so called "soul siphon" thingy to get health back. It's a lot of health. I put it on my keybinds and I am used to it now. Whatever, at least it lasts FOREVER now instead of having to refresh it every 30 minutes!
Felstorm got nerfed. Oh noes. BUT WAIT, our MASTERY points are worth more bang for their buck now. Before the patch, my extra damage in Metamorphosis was +44%, after the patch it turned into +52%. And 8% increase in damage for MYSELF, and for my Felguard as well. I also saw Felstorm crit occasionally in the 11,000 range so I have nothing to complain about as this number will only get better as gear progresses along.
Immolation Aura damage has been reduced, but ....it's so passive and strong on its own anyways I don't really care. It's still free dps! And remember, since our Demon Form got a slight slight buff and we can only use Immolation Aura during our Demon Form, this nerf is a Little Bit Less Nerf But Still Nerf.
Immolate lasts six seconds longer now. This is EXCELLENT as I've found that trying to put in that second Hand of Gul'dan after an exciting first few seconds of spell-casting to be sometimes fairly tight and I would have to default to using Fel Flame. With this extra six seconds I *might* put Corruption back into my spell rotation. If there is room on my action bars.
I actually haven't even respecced. Since Improved Soul Fire got moved down a tier I have an extra point in this "Aftermath" thing, which buffs Rain of Fire. Eww. Though with this spec I still did an *okay* 14K-ish DPS on Argaloth*. I believe I could optimize my skills better if my Soulfire had an extra 0.5 seconds shaved off of its cast time. If I get around to respeccing I'll let you know, but right now...whatever we're killing stuff so...yeah whatever. We're going to hit up Bastion of Twilight tomorrow no wait today is still Thursday...we are going to hit up BOT on Saturday so I shall report my findings in there for the raiding state of the Demos. *
Yeah yeah Argaloth is easy mode but he has enough health where I can pop Metamorphosis TWICE MWAHAHA!
What else got changed? Well, again with our Mastery benefit increased by 33% (not 33% but the 1.5% times 1.33) I took out "some" glyph and replaced it with the Glyph of Metamorphosis, giving me an extra 6% of this added damage bonus. And it also gives you an extra 6 seconds of nukes to actively reduce the cooldown of your NEXT Metamorphosis. I would have to say "Impending Doom" is one of our bestest talents out there.
Otherwise, I keep seeing search parses for "Demonology sucks for damage".....WHY?? Can you please tell me WHY? Like, send me your details and maybe a video of you pushing your buttons and which buttons you are pushing and in what scenario?? This is stressing me out cause I think we are completely fine?? Are you looking at damage done on Controlled Trash Pulls (henceforth known as CTPs). Uhhh for those....no one gives a damn. They are controlled so the group may progress.
From what I can deduce for sure this issue isn't spawning from trash pulls. Heroics are actually....facerollable nowadays as long as:
1. CC Baddies if needed.
2. Kill adds.
3. Common Sense
So for trash pulls its usually "FELSTROMLOLOLOL99999DPS"
Actually you know what I think I know why and I'm going to put this into another post, goodbye!
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Dailies: Slow Down and Sip the Flowers
I hate daily quests. First we have Tol Barad. Ugh there are SO many cool items from their Quartermaster. Trinkets, TWO mounts, Seagull Pet. Ugh. I have been refusing to do any of these tedious quests other than the Skin 8 Crocodiles one. I am a skinner, and with the two or three stacks of leather I find, I send them off to Turny so he can make them all into ONE piece of Heavy Leather.
How much leather do leatherworkers need to max out their profession like 5,000?
Do I need all these cool items? No.
Therazane. I refuse to do their dailies as well. Pebbles. Enchants. No I refuse.
But, rep! Yeah reputation, I am wearing the Guardians of Hyjal tabard and the only place for me to gain rep with them is through dungeoning. The one dungeon as I only have time to queue for one dungeon, given it is successful. 30 min queue + 45 min run. Can only do that once.
Why do I run dungeons? Cause I get to trap things. And use a spec I don't really like to help kill things faster. I could suck it up and stick with my old trusty Beast Mastery. I've caught a plethora of cool and crazy pets that I can't even use because the spec is just so much behind Survival. Given the Rage-groups nowadays it seems best to sticking with killing faster over aesthetics and roleplay, that's not even part of WoW anyways. There are role-play servers for taht aren't there?
My new blog will be up soon once I find my focus and intent for it. I know there won't be talk of gear nor will there be much useful hunter tips on it. Not that Kluptomania was of any use to any Warlocks with Truny babbling away randomly. It takes a certain know-how to read through all her underlying text to get to the main point, which is usually random rambling.
I am thinking of taking a more casual explorative approach to this new blog. To bring back the feel of starting from scratch. 0 gold. ilvl 0. 4 attack power. You are in southern durotar, with no sense of how big the world is. You've never seen Org, nor have you even HEARD of a place called Outlands. You're constantly lost and you have no care in the world to maximize your stats, if you are even lucky enough to know what benefits your class.
The thing with WoW now it seems, is that from level 1-84 you can just muck about casually face-rolling through everything, then once you hit 85 BAM. Hello Mr. Wall.
You'll realize a few things:
1. You must find a guild or have a great assortment of friends to continue your enjoyment. For example: Tol Barad dailies. If I were to queue up for a heroic alone, then waltz into Tol Barad to (attempt to) do the daily quests, it's quite difficult to group with random single people who want to finish quests quicker. Say Foreman Walson or whatever the hell he's called. At any given time there are about six to seven thousand people waiting for him to spawn, and everyone is spamming their aoes to get the first tag. Ugh. If I were to group up with someone just for this quest, my heroic queue would disappear. Ideally you would queue up with a friend or guildie to alleviate this problem. Good thing this has been changed where anyone who even touches these mobs ankles get credit for the kill.
2. You can't play as you have played from 1-84. I'm having a blast on my Prot Pally right now, she's rockin Outlands straight out the door! If she were to do a heroic our group would probably wipe. Slow down and sip the flowers. Ugh I gotta get into my slow and methodical strategic mode. Then again, our guild heroic runs are quite entertaining especially when there are three hunters. We will trap wordlessly, and things get downed. It all depends. But see our tank can't just run into a group of mobs recklessly, and yes...we had to trap. When was the last time you actually felt the urge to trap from levels 1-84. Like REALLY needed to?
3. Blizzard is indirectly saying "If you don't need this gear, you don't need it so don't complain". If you have no intent on raiding/dungeoning then there is absolutely no way to gain rep with some of the new factions. This would include hmmm Ramikens, Earthen Ring, Guardians of Hyjal. Am I missing any? Too tired to count. You could run normal dungeons and gain some slow rep but then again you don't really need that gear. And in all honestly you really don't.
Hunters can hunt for pets in their downtime. Northrend is practically desolate and there are a lot of rare cats (apparently) available to be tamed if you're not beast mastery. Patch 4.0.6 brought about many many cool pets as well, though right now I am trying to hunt down all the various colors of Madexx!
Archaeology. Oh god no. I can see this as a great off-thing to do while levelling. But trying to level this from scratch on a high level toon is tedious. At least you can fly around. This profession should only be done in short bursts. What I tend to do is see if a dig-site is close to where I am, and if there is I will do that ONE and that is that.
Once again I'm not even sure what I was originally talking about. Oh right, let's give hunters a generic interrupt. Come on, we are the ones calm and steady in the back. If there is anything to interrupt just let us do it. "Warlocks need one too!", says Truny.
I found that when I am on my Death Knight in an Interrupting Scenario I sometimes get so worked up at my "spell priority rotation crap" that for 80% of the fight I'm really staring at my action bar. How fun is that? If I know there is something to interrupt I literally have to stop what I'm doing, hover my fingers over the buttons that I can spam, such as frost strike of obliterate but also hover my mouse over my interrupt. It's not all about the numbers and go go go go go, but wow makes it so easy to get into that mentality.
And what's with Ret Paladins nowadays? They used to be POW POW BAM 1482k DPS and everyone within a 45 yard radius is dead due to their wrath. Now they seem to be just...I don't know how to describe it but....less. Though I did see a ret pally top the charts in Argaloth? Maybe I haven't ran into any crazy-sauce ones or the Argaloth fight is just rather simple with no interrupt mechanics.
Ok I'm going to take up an experiement, and that is to suck it up and run a full heroic as BM. If I don't get kicked from group I shall report back just like Truny did. I believe she had reported on most if not all of the heroics already so you might as well take pleasure in reading them from a Beast Master's perspective (LMAO!)
This post seems to be quite ramblish as well if I say so myself!
Oh remember when individual pets had individual abilities? Like Monstrous Bite, when it was cool? Now they are all standardized!
They all come with:
Generic Bite/Claw/Maul/Mangle/Whatever
Generic Debuff/Buff
Sometimes Another Skill
Hey! Let's use the pet model as the perfect basis to homogenize all the classes!
/gasp
The "new" Beast Mastery is kinda interesting right?
How was the old one played again?
Send in pet. Serpent sting, stand there and steady shot, and hit arcane shot. Use Kill Command and Bestial Wrath. Done. Kill shot when it pleases you.
Now it is, Serpent sting, stand there and cobra shot, kill command, watch focus make sure you have enough focus for an arcane shot given that kill command isn't coming off cooldown, if not then cobra shot for focus and kill command, and use it if it lights up. BW when it pleases you.
It's more cerebral. Sort of. Very bursty and lets you interact with your pet. Your PET is giving you your huge crits, not your own bow!
Ok I am completely lost as to what the focus of this post is so GOOD DAY!
Turby the Hunter
Ok I am completely lost as to what the focus of this post is so GOOD DAY!
Turby the Hunter
Monday, February 7, 2011
High-End Asshats
I don't know about everyone else, but everytime I accidentally end up on an elitistjerks link or page while looking for some general information all I see in the threads are:
Ok from my preliminary results my findings for stats A,B,Y, and Z are as follows:
A: 1.5 (1.05*x) + 2.5(FAP - LMAO): =.95 of the expected variance
B: 1.4 (1.06*y) + 2.34(LOL + WTF): =.90 of variance
It is clear that the 0.005% gain is definitely superior to what you previously stated as my test results are conclusive and blah blah and everywhere like such as.
And given optimal environmental factors, with five fireballs per fight your autoattack should look like:
AUTO = 1.5 + your face + {(9.5xAP+1.05*RAP)+Your Bow-(Boss' Face + Your friend's face)]
Given that you are talented for 1/2/3% increases the formulas change based on the color of your pet's favourite toothbrush such as:
TB * 1% given 95% uptime = your face
TB * 2% given 95.22% uptime = more face and so on and so forth
WTF? I was just looking to see if my hunter should have some haste to help with regen and cobra shot? However from my own findings it seems I want about 8%-ish haste. I *think*. It is sitting at 4% now and is FINE but a bit more haste never hurt nobody.
Also, on a completely unrelated note I am intending to drop my 525 skinning and persue one of my hunter's original professions because it can produce some shiny and useful things: Engineering.
I do have a question, in terms of end game is there much different between specializing between Gnomish or Goblin engineering? This is crucial because it seems each specialization can make their own mini-pets. The De-Weaponized Mechanical Companion, and the Personal World Destroyer, respectively. This is a crucial decision because I have decide between an awesome robo-bunneh, or a mini-fel reaver! (Though they sell for 1K g anyways.....)
Turby the Asshat Toothbrush
Ok from my preliminary results my findings for stats A,B,Y, and Z are as follows:
A: 1.5 (1.05*x) + 2.5(FAP - LMAO): =.95 of the expected variance
B: 1.4 (1.06*y) + 2.34(LOL + WTF): =.90 of variance
It is clear that the 0.005% gain is definitely superior to what you previously stated as my test results are conclusive and blah blah and everywhere like such as.
And given optimal environmental factors, with five fireballs per fight your autoattack should look like:
AUTO = 1.5 + your face + {(9.5xAP+1.05*RAP)+Your Bow-(Boss' Face + Your friend's face)]
Given that you are talented for 1/2/3% increases the formulas change based on the color of your pet's favourite toothbrush such as:
TB * 1% given 95% uptime = your face
TB * 2% given 95.22% uptime = more face and so on and so forth
WTF? I was just looking to see if my hunter should have some haste to help with regen and cobra shot? However from my own findings it seems I want about 8%-ish haste. I *think*. It is sitting at 4% now and is FINE but a bit more haste never hurt nobody.
Also, on a completely unrelated note I am intending to drop my 525 skinning and persue one of my hunter's original professions because it can produce some shiny and useful things: Engineering.
I do have a question, in terms of end game is there much different between specializing between Gnomish or Goblin engineering? This is crucial because it seems each specialization can make their own mini-pets. The De-Weaponized Mechanical Companion, and the Personal World Destroyer, respectively. This is a crucial decision because I have decide between an awesome robo-bunneh, or a mini-fel reaver! (Though they sell for 1K g anyways.....)
Turby the Asshat Toothbrush
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Altlicious Updates
So how are the Truny's alt's doing nowadays? Have I even played them? Ahem, well, let's do this in a list fashion.
Turby (Hunter): 85 and raid ready. He is starting his own blog and is now flying around Azeroth collecting pets and I believe he is going to create mini reports on these pets on his blog if anyone is interested.
Turny (Druid): 84 and is occasionally (and when I say occasionally I mean once every two weeks) tanking or healing dungeons at his level. He has maxed his enchanting and is waiting for Maelstrom Crystal prices to come down from the sky!
Klupty (DK): 83 and is on his way to max Jewelcrafting, he still provides nice transmutes on his Alchemy profession. Nice money.
Husbrus (Priest): 81! Yes! She somehow levelled past 80 and is just standing around not doing anything. Disc priesting is still fun.
Truby (Paladin): 66? Pally tanking is fun. I think Prot is what Ret SHOULD have felt like, bam bam bam pow pow, rather than button, wait......button button....wait.....
Shinjen (Shaman): 53? Two reasons I want to level my Shaman: 1) Chain lightning is too cool. 2) Her Inscription level has been maxed at 350 ever since she hit 50. Once she hits 65, she has about 1000 northrend inks to play around with. I needs the free glyphs!
All other lowbies remain untouched. I deleted my mage and remade it on another account.
That's all nothing interesting.
Turby (Hunter): 85 and raid ready. He is starting his own blog and is now flying around Azeroth collecting pets and I believe he is going to create mini reports on these pets on his blog if anyone is interested.
Turny (Druid): 84 and is occasionally (and when I say occasionally I mean once every two weeks) tanking or healing dungeons at his level. He has maxed his enchanting and is waiting for Maelstrom Crystal prices to come down from the sky!
Klupty (DK): 83 and is on his way to max Jewelcrafting, he still provides nice transmutes on his Alchemy profession. Nice money.
Husbrus (Priest): 81! Yes! She somehow levelled past 80 and is just standing around not doing anything. Disc priesting is still fun.
Truby (Paladin): 66? Pally tanking is fun. I think Prot is what Ret SHOULD have felt like, bam bam bam pow pow, rather than button, wait......button button....wait.....
Shinjen (Shaman): 53? Two reasons I want to level my Shaman: 1) Chain lightning is too cool. 2) Her Inscription level has been maxed at 350 ever since she hit 50. Once she hits 65, she has about 1000 northrend inks to play around with. I needs the free glyphs!
All other lowbies remain untouched. I deleted my mage and remade it on another account.
That's all nothing interesting.
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