Hmm. Does itemisation count for adding new WoW classes?

Another happy random topic out on WowInsider – What classes would you like to see come to WoW? I wrote:

I think they got the monk very right, except that the Monk wears leather as implemented in WoW. The game’s presentation of monks before this (via Scarlet Mon and others) was as cloth wearers and it would have been interesting to see them as cloth wearers.

So hmm, on reflection my comment was not especially on topic, but I felt it needed to be said.

Itemisation in the game wold have to change a lot to add cloth which is agility based from level 2 upward, and it would also have not helped that only a small range of uses are out there for leather with intellect and spirit. So perhaps the leather wearing monks were an easier path to introduce.

(…note: I’ll say as a lead in to this post that I liked the amalgamation of armour type with stats that was performed. Having some classes gain Hit from Spirit to reduce the range of stat combos which needed to be supplied by boss kills was clever.

I’ll say too that I am mostly for leaving the classes as they are. This is more a post about options, rather than an actual wishlist. I got the Monk class I said I wanted, but now that I have it I’m not keen as it was implemented. That is all my problem, as I accept the choices that Blizzard made happily.

Lastly I know that opening all the classes to all the races is an option, and it is another option that I’d like to see never happen. The story reason for adding anything to the game should be profound and strong. A Pandaren Death Knight is just not likely, especially in the numbers of players who would do it. Saying no to that spread of class race mixes is not a bad thing.

The ideas below conflict with that. Sorry.)

So then now we could see (but probably won’t) a cloth wearing class added? Not so sure. We have 34 specs in play at the moment, with 3x wearing plate, 3x wearing leather, 3x cloth and only 2x wearing mail.

We’ve had Monks and Death Knights as new classes, so having more plate and leather conflict is going to be disruptive. We still have a single class using Plate with Intellect (caster plate) though, and the same problem in Mail caster gear. Perhaps that is a major force in what class style is introduced – add something which has less major rework required at the low end, and can give diversity to the gear spread at the high end.

So if a class was to be added it could be added to the mail category wearing Agi based and Intellect based armour. Hmm, what classes might use intellect based mail armour?

• Demon Hunter? Uhh blarg. Too much like hunter.
• Warmage? Or call it a Warden. A dps caster, a healer, plus melee, plus Tank who wears heavier armour than cloth, but still not a plate wearing, weapon wielding melee guy. Mail suits that concept a lot. It might have 4x spec options to keep adding breadth of choice into the game. It makes for a further mess in the spec line-up.

And now onto even stranger thoughts…

Or perhaps a class is added where their armour sub-type changes according to their active spec? Just because we have the alignment to date does not mean it actually needs to be maintained. We’ve always seen classes change their choice in weapons to suit a role, so why not their choice of armour?

Or perhaps we might see every class which has current specs which are very similar redone? i.e. Fire mage vs Frost mage, vs Arcane mage is essentially a range caster dps with a flavour and play-style. Good on them. Same kind of thing with Rogues, and certainly same kind of thing with Death Knight unholy and frost. A disc priest and holy priest also both heal, but do so in very different ways.

What if those differences were rolled into the Talent choices in the early talent trees and new and very different spec choices were added? Such as:

• Unholy DK becomes a range caster and summoner. It suits a nice little angle of on the lore which has always been present and I do not think it would hurt greatly. It also has the advantage of adding Plate Int a new use, although also makes itemisation in the class more painful. Perhaps they also use staves and such of the casters too. The cross-itemisation might make the fight for gear more prolific, but it would also widen the range of use.
• One of Disc & Holy is subsumed and Priests get a melee “pugilist” spec. Friar tuck with a staff, maces, or some such? (very close to what I thought a Monk would be like)
• Hunters get a spec where they have no pet at all, but instead move into melee mode. I know that “melee hunter” is a great meme, but it would finally make my Hunter playable o suit my style.
• I don’t know what to do with Mages and Rogues, except to make their alt-odd-spec something which changes their mode of play. How do you alter a Rogue to be either range or a heal/tank? I don’t think it can be done well. Perhaps these guys are the real straight dps in their role.

And finally what other classes might we see have a go?

• A summoner type. Ala the Witch Doctor in D3? Hmm a clothie. It makes a sort of sense except it feels overtly niche. What is the Warcraft lore reference?
• An engineer-ish Tinker? Very odd cross-over with the Engineering skill, and it would make an overly bold steam/magic-punk addition for my taste.
• Bloody Bards. As healers and damage they make sense, they could provide the cross range of buffs. Armor type for bards feels like Mail as well.

Happy hunting.

Who’s that new Monk?

After a bit of mucking about I’ve followed the horde of wow players in Mists and created a new Monk, as my distraction and newbie toon. After a few posts about names I followed at least some of my own advice and called the Monk Tetsuho, which is an ancient Japanese firearm (or could mean silly Australian for all I know).

The plan is when I’m capped or frustrated beyond reckoning with the main, this little monk will get some play. I’m in no rush.

These Heirlooms smell Monky

I love heirloom gear and Psynister has noted that we have some heirloom legs on the way for characters. Booya!

These new leg items are effective right up to level 85, which is no benefit for my plate wearers, but a huge deal for the alts and Monks that will be scraping XP from every mob, rock, and flower. The legs have a guild achievement to be unlocked (each profession at 600 in the guild) before they can be purchased, and that achievement is not possible to complete until MoP is released.

As an extra note he’s also got some details on the new Monk staff heirloom too – the Burnished Warden Staff. It’s a staff built for Agility dps and tanks, which smells like Monk to me. It is also available from the vendors as of patch 5.0.4 – its in game folks. It appears to only be useful up to level 80 though, and imho its darn ugly. An Obsidium Bladespear might be nicer looking for levels 80+.

All I need now is a sufficiently clever Panda Monk name… Great work Psy!

(edited to fix some errors in the information, thank you to Gen and Bristal for the comments)

Old Thoughts About Warcraft Monks

I was doodling back in 2010 about what a monk might be link if introduced into World of Warcraft. As far as notes go, this was a long way from what Blizzard did. Thought it might be an easy quick distraction….

New Achievement – Silence Speaks Volumes

Goal: Get through a LFD run without bad mouthing another player, being rude, or otherwise being an asshat.

Awards: A sense of pride and happiness, and 10 points.

Rarity: Priceless.

WoW.com wants Monks too

I want Monks in the game, as I’ve said before. And now wow.com backs me up.

Expect a long rant about this soon, and yes I know I have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting this anytime soon.

A melee healer and dps is not game breaking. It will mean a new set of dps gear needed, something like cloth with agility on it, much like the rogue and cat gear now.

For healing maybe they’d need to me mana users, but with all the new stat changes being talked about an int and spirit based healer cloth gear is not a stretch at all.

C’mon Blizzard – Monk us.

More mount madness

The Instance #179 & #180 talks about new mounts, and by all things holy I think we can go way past riding Hoverboards and Wasps, we can reference the fun ideas in a shared topic on Blog Azeroth, which started it up for me a while back in August 2008.

We might soon see submarines, and all sorts of oceanic mounts. I expect I’ll never see the phoenix or another ultra-low-drop-rate mount, but some of the stuff the Instance crew talk about in #179, and touch on in #180 is interesting.

Just saying its a great thing to add in an expansion, gives breadth of fun to everyone, and has no balance issues to speak of really. And I kind of support a Jetpack for Engineers; more so it can explode or go out of control.

“Help! I am trapped within this tree! I require aid!”

Go read the some spoilers from wow.com’s article on the new instance coming soon in the Dragon Shrine, a few small spoilers in there but nothing event changing. Kind of flavour spoilers.

“Help! I am trapped within this tree! I require aid!” – Somebody in the script department was not thinking; this is a dragon? A powerful creature? Beast of legend? No, not really very impressive.

I bet at least 25 blog posts, and a few podcasts will have this as their names.

PTR update adds new armor models

Now this is a helm that fits the style of Wrath of the Lich King. Awesome.

News just in –  WoWHead Blog has a post with some new armor models.

Link has all the nice models by category. There will be some new visual reasons to attack the content after all.

And wowhead has that cool 3d viewer, so you can really see the detail.

Bok Bok BGerk

A few mates created a guild – and proudly I was involved in both the signing of the charter and the stupidity that created the guild name.

Flee in terror of your new Chicken Overlords – “Bok Bok BGerk” has arrived.

Tribute to the Old World

Just like most players in wow I am pondering the new content. A reasonably predictable set of questions and thoughts are pinging through my mind, from looking forward to the first instance runs, to getting disorientated all over again in new zones. As I scanned websites and read about the new areas I go to thinking about the original game (or old world) too.

What was the most powerful impression from the Old World?

The original game (if you can call it that with the xpac areas which are added) is full of fantastic scapes and geography. One of my favourites is pictured above – the entrance to Loch Modan.

Who do you meet as a new player?

A person I know is trying wow for the first time, and another very very casual has started to log in again. As a confirmed WoW nut I had to moderate my behaviour. Normally I’m foaming at the mouth, singing praises and virtues, looking for subtle gains and measures.

And while that is OK when you’re mid-froth with another wow nutcase, its a poor way to introduce a new player.

Jez from DPS We Deliver is also helping, so the corruption of a new player is not my sole pleasure. New players will see overt enthusiasm as terrible ranting. Information overload and information starvation is something new players have to fight; and raving does not help (I tried, ooops). They are overloaded by a new interface, skills, feel, and flavour. It takes time to sup all that up and get into it.

New Warlock Pet Wishlist

Q. What if somebody gave me free reign to create some new Warlock Pets?

A. Demonology Warlocks would be so darn Pet focused that the Hunters would re-roll.

And here is why…

Other flying mount ideas

BA Shared topic: Flying Mounts for classes.

Shaman = Wind Funnel / dervish. They fly like a superman/woman through the air with a swirling mist around them. Shaman are in tune with the elements, so make the elements move them around. You could use a version of the cyclone affect.

Warrior = Brutally stronger looking warhorse. Make the model much more like a Clydesdayle. Solid, thick necked, and about 10% bigger. Like the warhorse from Ladyhawk.

Paladins = Pegusus. The discerning Paladin’s mount of choice, available is a range of colours and styles…

Priests = Give’em wings, like those used in the Draenei quests in the starting area. You’ve gone so far into being a representative of the light, that you’re now almost angelic. People will re-roll priests to get this, which won’t hurt the healing community either. Think Gabriel in the film Constantine.

Mage = Levitate, unlike the Shaman, they just fly. Mages in a huge range of games and themes can fly. The hard part will be them not getting their capes caught in the Warrior’s whirlwind. Like Magneto in the XMen films. Oh, and of course brooms and carpets, but something avail to the Mages.

Druid = More skins for their current modes. Dragonwhelp, butterfly, sparrow…

Warlock = A demon akin to the Nazgul in PJ’s Lord of the Rings. A mutated, demonic, mottled dragon-ish hell-thing. An undead dragon is not going far enough. It has to be Demonic.

Hunter = Let’em ride giant owls, and all sorts of “natural” fliers. Even those snake-serpents are just as viable as the Ogrilla/Skettis squids as mounts. Also pet dying means no flying mount till they res it and make it happy.

Rogue = Don’t know. Maybe a flash powder affect that makes them invisible, and then they move that way. “I leave you now! *poof* ” Its the one class I can’t think of a good creature that matches them. Perhaps they miss out on a special.

Tricks for young Pallys

As a tanking Paladin there are some subtle parts of playing that it took me a long time to commit to memory, or practice with regularity. Many of the tips & tricks below carry across for any character or class, but in particular I have found a significant difference when using a Protection Paladin who is still gearing up, as opposed to a character who is already using high quality gear.

I’m going to assume that you know about stacking blessings, and you’ve read all about what buffs to use in Opportunistic Rotation – if not let me know and I’ll post on it.

A. Check the damage type from mobs regularly.

Most creatures will be hurting you with physical damage, so the choice of aura/buff is easy. However there are some creatures where the damage type is not obvious, or you may forget to switch Aura type to gain more resistance to a particular type of mob. Especially true of casters who might do shadow damage (like the Skettis casters).

For example the Mana Worms in the Bashir Landing do Nature damage when you hit them, and their physical attacks are really weak. So instead of worrying about which aura or buff, I buy a few Nature Resist potions and absorb the damage. This means the recovery between fights is much quicker.

This is normal behavior in an Instance so you learn what the best strategies are, but it applies equally to solo play.

B. Check the AH for cheap pots, food, scrolls, and buffs.

As prot spec the mana bar when soloing is never full enough, and a few extra mana pots are always handy. Browsing the AH for cheap potions is always a good idea, and the don’t have to be Super Mana or Health to be handy. Also keep an eye out for cheap food, and other consumables, as often folks sell these items without an appreciation of how valuable or handy they really are. That extra Amour potion, or health regeneration can make a difference. Lower level water seems especially cheap (or find a mage and press the button on their forehead). A few silver spent on buffs can cut significant time off your combat recovery.

Extra buffs will make a difference when doing an instance where your gear is close to the limit of what you can survive. Doing a harder instances means you will need stamina food, weapon and shield buffs, and a potion or two. Get them and encourage those you play with to do the same.

A good list of items to watch for is any mid level to late level scrolls and cheap potions. Also check the AH at different times during the week, as popular raid nights will create shortages, and other nights you’ll see a few bargains.

C. Use a buff time manager.

As you run more and more instances, you’ll find the demand for Blessings to be many and varied. There will be times when you will be using 30 minute buffs on some classes, and also 10 minute buffs on others. A good tool for managing this is PallyPower, as it lets you set what buffs each paladin in the group will use. This might seem overkill initially, but it becomes a no brainer to see how long each buff has remaining, who is missing a buff, and re-buffing is a simple one click on each class icon. My old guild was so happy with PallyPower that it is a raid requirement for all Paladins.

An example of this is when you are Tanking with another pally in group. Your tanking buff is useless to them, so hit them with Salv (or what ever is useful), and use the 10 minute tank buff on yourself. The monitor will warn you when its time to re-buff them, which means you only need worry about yourself. They can in turn use the tool to buff you with Light or Wisdom, and 10 minute buff themselves.

Also consider a strategy when in a group with more than one Paladin. If you have buffs that they don’t (Bo Kings) then get them to apply buffs in accordance with what is useful all round. eg. One Paladin does Salv all round (not you), then you do Wis/Might/Kings depending on the target class. If you have three Paladins, get Salv and Kings all round, and Wis/Light/Might on class specifics.

Also check out a mod called Aurora (Ace2 compatible) which gives you a warning when you enter combat with Crusader aura on. The big red warning will help train you to switch before pulling, and catch it for you whe you’re being forgetful.

D. Learn about your friends

Spend the time to learn about what other classes and professions can bring to the run. Taunt, Sap, Shackle, Sheep, Fear (pally and warlock), Stun, Slow, Mind Control, Seduce, Kite, Trap, etc, should all be part of what you regularly consider, but it takes extra effort to really understand what the limitations of these control methods are. Some instances are almost impossible without the right type of crowd control.

For example: if your Priest doing the Mind Control gets hurt, it all goes sour. So tank well away from them, or get them to stand way off to the side. Ask what spec your Rogue and Hunters are to see if they will have the improved versions of Sap and Trap. Might be handy to know that you have a few extra seconds longer than normal on that CC, or that the Hunter is happy to chain trap.

Also learn what professions can help. The Drums of Fear from Leatherworking can help in a pinch, and you can use Freeze bombs and other explosives from Engineering to help slow and pull mobs to where you need them. There may even be times when a well placed Net created by a Tailor may help (like when the Warlock tailor drawns aggro and you taunt is on cooldown).