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Welcome to axi0m's Armory where I'll be testing and reviewing the latest and greatest RL loot to aid you in your quest to slay the baddies. Today I'll be reviewing the Razer Naga a sweet little gem brought to you by... well... Razer. While this isn't the only MMO focused mouse on the market, it is one of the most popular with its primary competition being the Steelseries World of Warcraft MMO Gaming Mouse.
Overview:
The Razer Naga is a mouse designed with MMOs in mind. What do I mean by that you ask? Well on your typical "gaming" mouse the button scheme tends to be a lot more reserved and relatively minimalistic. Take the Logitech G5 for example; you have your standard middle mouse wheel, left and right click, a mouse 4 button, and a feature many "gaming" mice have to adjust your DPI(Sensitivity) on the fly. Definitely designed more around twitch gaming and FPS. The Razer Naga takes the old concept of gaming mice and throws it right out the window. On this mouse you have the staple left/right/middle mouse buttons, there is a mouse 4 and mouse 5 situated right at pointer finger length. Here's where the craziness comes in though, on the left hand side right where the thumb normally rests you have a 3x4 section of 12 buttons which can be configured in numerous ways using bar mods. There is a button on the bottom that switches their layout to bind to numpad or to your primary numbers across the top of your keyboard as well.
Another cool thing about this mouse is that while it doesn't have the in game integration that the Steelseries mouse has, it does have a UI designed for it by the guys over at Razer. The add-on itself is built off of Dominos and has a lot of settings unique to the Naga. Bindings by default on all the bars are set for 1 through = and an entire bar can have it's modifier (Shift, Alt, etc) changed by just a couple clicks.
Aside from the in game UI there is also a software package which allows for some finer tuning of the mouse. The DPI scale can be adjusted anywhere from 100 to 5600 with the default being 1800. The software also allows for all of your other typical features, binding what each primary key does within Windows(Full OSX software is coming soon), also adjusting acceleration and polling rates. The software also allows for the creation of profiles so you can adjust settings on the fly based on the game you're playing or if you want to use a higher DPI when gaming and a lower one for normal use.
The mouse also comes with little sticky bumps and a usage recommendation guide for them. The purpose of the trainer bumps is to help you adjust to the positioning of the buttons on the mouse. I typically hover my thumb over "5" and I had the bumps on the 4/5/6 and 10/11/12 rows since that's what seemed to work best for helping me to adjust.
Review:
After un-boxing it I had the software and driver package installed within ~5 minutes. Install was simple and straight forward, updating the firmware was kind of annoying because my case is huge and you've gotta unplug it then hold Left, Right and Middle down while plugging it back in to boot into the firmware update mode of the mouse.
The feel of this thing is absolutely incredible, it took some getting used to given the switch from the WoW Steelseries beast, to this smaller more reserved shape. It glides across my mousepad effortlessly and has very good balance and weight compared to the Steelseries mouse. I used to play FPS (Counter-Strike specifically) competitively so it's something I tend to pick up on and appreciate greatly.
Razer states that on average it takes around 18 hours of game play to become fully acclimated with the mouse. Being highly impatient I decided to jump into that nights raid going gung-ho with the mouse to see if the claims were true. Being as that I'm one of my guild's main tanks the first thing I noticed was a definite increase in mobility, by forcing all the bindings over to the mouse I had free reign over utilizing the strafe buttons as well as WASD for much better movement and positioning for whatever mob I was tanking at the time, kiting oozes on Rotface had never been easier. I was even able to reinvent the way I use WASD since I didn't have to worry about having at least one finger free for hitting my bindings.
One of the greatest advantages that I've seen however over my 3 week span of testing the mouse has been quicker reaction times and less "oops wrong button" instances. Having everything in a small area where I can quite literally hit 4-5 different bindings without even moving my thumb has definitely helped to lower my error rate to virtually 0%. This also allows for the usage of many more modifiers on bindings as well. Realistically based on the length of your fingers you typically never use 7 through = for any normal use keys. Most people I've talked to normally put their primary attacks on 1 through 6 and use modifiers out the wazoo to keep all their abilities easily within reach, that definitely isn't the case here. No more crazy contortionist positioning of the fingers to hit your Shift+Alt+6 modifier to use a potion, now you can hover two fingers over shift and alt while having full control over WASD and just tilt your thumb accordingly to hit the binding of your choice. Hitting that speed pot binding you have set at Shfit + Alt + = can be hit just as easily as hitting 1, 2, or 3. Much like the claims made by Razer it did take roughly 18 hours of gameplay to become fully adjusted to it, and 3 weeks later I'm still seeing slight increases in mobility and reaction time.
Final thoughts:
Overall this mouse has everything an MMO player would want, great feel, great weight, and tons of easily programmable buttons.
Pros:
Cons:
Overall I give this mouse a 4.8 out of 5.
Overview:
The Razer Naga is a mouse designed with MMOs in mind. What do I mean by that you ask? Well on your typical "gaming" mouse the button scheme tends to be a lot more reserved and relatively minimalistic. Take the Logitech G5 for example; you have your standard middle mouse wheel, left and right click, a mouse 4 button, and a feature many "gaming" mice have to adjust your DPI(Sensitivity) on the fly. Definitely designed more around twitch gaming and FPS. The Razer Naga takes the old concept of gaming mice and throws it right out the window. On this mouse you have the staple left/right/middle mouse buttons, there is a mouse 4 and mouse 5 situated right at pointer finger length. Here's where the craziness comes in though, on the left hand side right where the thumb normally rests you have a 3x4 section of 12 buttons which can be configured in numerous ways using bar mods. There is a button on the bottom that switches their layout to bind to numpad or to your primary numbers across the top of your keyboard as well.
Another cool thing about this mouse is that while it doesn't have the in game integration that the Steelseries mouse has, it does have a UI designed for it by the guys over at Razer. The add-on itself is built off of Dominos and has a lot of settings unique to the Naga. Bindings by default on all the bars are set for 1 through = and an entire bar can have it's modifier (Shift, Alt, etc) changed by just a couple clicks.
Aside from the in game UI there is also a software package which allows for some finer tuning of the mouse. The DPI scale can be adjusted anywhere from 100 to 5600 with the default being 1800. The software also allows for all of your other typical features, binding what each primary key does within Windows(Full OSX software is coming soon), also adjusting acceleration and polling rates. The software also allows for the creation of profiles so you can adjust settings on the fly based on the game you're playing or if you want to use a higher DPI when gaming and a lower one for normal use.
The mouse also comes with little sticky bumps and a usage recommendation guide for them. The purpose of the trainer bumps is to help you adjust to the positioning of the buttons on the mouse. I typically hover my thumb over "5" and I had the bumps on the 4/5/6 and 10/11/12 rows since that's what seemed to work best for helping me to adjust.
Review:
After un-boxing it I had the software and driver package installed within ~5 minutes. Install was simple and straight forward, updating the firmware was kind of annoying because my case is huge and you've gotta unplug it then hold Left, Right and Middle down while plugging it back in to boot into the firmware update mode of the mouse.
The feel of this thing is absolutely incredible, it took some getting used to given the switch from the WoW Steelseries beast, to this smaller more reserved shape. It glides across my mousepad effortlessly and has very good balance and weight compared to the Steelseries mouse. I used to play FPS (Counter-Strike specifically) competitively so it's something I tend to pick up on and appreciate greatly.
Razer states that on average it takes around 18 hours of game play to become fully acclimated with the mouse. Being highly impatient I decided to jump into that nights raid going gung-ho with the mouse to see if the claims were true. Being as that I'm one of my guild's main tanks the first thing I noticed was a definite increase in mobility, by forcing all the bindings over to the mouse I had free reign over utilizing the strafe buttons as well as WASD for much better movement and positioning for whatever mob I was tanking at the time, kiting oozes on Rotface had never been easier. I was even able to reinvent the way I use WASD since I didn't have to worry about having at least one finger free for hitting my bindings.
One of the greatest advantages that I've seen however over my 3 week span of testing the mouse has been quicker reaction times and less "oops wrong button" instances. Having everything in a small area where I can quite literally hit 4-5 different bindings without even moving my thumb has definitely helped to lower my error rate to virtually 0%. This also allows for the usage of many more modifiers on bindings as well. Realistically based on the length of your fingers you typically never use 7 through = for any normal use keys. Most people I've talked to normally put their primary attacks on 1 through 6 and use modifiers out the wazoo to keep all their abilities easily within reach, that definitely isn't the case here. No more crazy contortionist positioning of the fingers to hit your Shift+Alt+6 modifier to use a potion, now you can hover two fingers over shift and alt while having full control over WASD and just tilt your thumb accordingly to hit the binding of your choice. Hitting that speed pot binding you have set at Shfit + Alt + = can be hit just as easily as hitting 1, 2, or 3. Much like the claims made by Razer it did take roughly 18 hours of gameplay to become fully adjusted to it, and 3 weeks later I'm still seeing slight increases in mobility and reaction time.
Final thoughts:
Overall this mouse has everything an MMO player would want, great feel, great weight, and tons of easily programmable buttons.
Pros:
- Good Balance.
- Good Weight.
- Comfortable fit for most size hands.
- Has its own UI.
- Compatible with other bar mods including WoW default.
- Great customer support through forums and guides on the official site.
- Cool flashy lights.
Cons:
- Firmware updating is a bit tricky.
- The "trainer" bumps you can stick on tend to fall off quickly.
- Mouse 4 and Mouse 5 buttons are in a somewhat awkward position unless you have a long pointer finger.
- The color of the cool flashy lights can't be changed.
Overall I give this mouse a 4.8 out of 5.
Lorewise - Background to the game you play - Episode 3
Today, 04:15 PM |
Chimina 
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Greetings one and all! Blizzard has posted a nice recap of their own about the upcoming Gnome and Troll events, but that doesn't stop me from adding my own. So here's part 2 about the upcoming world events regarding the Gnomes and Trolls!
Episode 3 - Da Voodoo Shuffle
The trolls are probably the most diverse race on Azeroth, one of the oldest races aswell as one of the tallest, standing 7 feet on average. There used to be 2 great Troll Empires, in the time before the Night Elves rose to power. There are even rumours that the power of the Well of Eternity transformed some Trolls into the first Night Elves, but this hypothesis has never been proven.
Within the Horde we find a few troll tribes over the course of history. During the Second War, the Amani Forest Trolls of Zul'jin were recruited into the Horde after their mortal enemies, the High Elves of Quel'Thalas, joined the Alliance. After Warchief Doomhammer decided to pull out of Quel'Thalas, Zul'jin became furious with him and stayed behind to slaughter the elves. But when the Horde seemed to have lost the war, the Trolls returned to their savage ways and Zul'jin was captured, tortured but escaping when he cut his right arm off. When the Blood Elves joined the Horde after the Third War, he became outraged, and events eventually led up to the Zul'Aman raid of patch 2.3.
Right before the Third War, after Thrall managed to escape the Eastern Kingdoms looking for a place to settle an Orc Nation away from the Human suppression, the Orcs took shelter on an island among the Broken Isles, where they found the Darkspear tribe. This tribe under the leadership of the Witch Doctor Sen'jin, was entangled in a long conflict with a band of Murlocs. Under the control of a Naga Sea Witch, these Murlocs kidnapped Thrall, Sen'jin and some of their followers. Ultimately unable to save Sen'jin from the Sea Witch, Thrall was enthrusted with a vision the Troll had, where the Orcs would lead the Trolls off the island.
Thrall and his followers returned to the island, they fought off the Murlocs, and set sail for Kalimdor once again. The Trolls, now under the leadership of Sen'jin's son Vol'jin, allied themselves to the Orcs and left the island with them. After reaching the new Orc homeland, named Durotar after Thrall's long lost father Durotan, the Trolls made the Echo Islands just off Durotar's coast their new home.
When the fleet of Kul'Tiras, under Daelin Proudmoore's command, arrived in Kalimdor, the Trolls had to flee their islands. The misguided old ideas of Proudmoore that the Orcs are the root of all problems to the humans, made him a considerable threat to the new Horde. The Trolls and Orcs fought hard and overcame the Humans, but not long after another attacked the Darkspear's home, but now from within.
It was the Witch Doctor Zalazane, who took control of a lot of his Troll brethren through dark magic, and forced them into being his slaves. Vol'jin had no choice but to evacuate the remaining free Trolls of the isles, and Zalazane took control. The Trolls settled on the nearby shore, creating Sen'jin Village named in honor of their lost leader. From here they send forces back to the isles to try and take it back from the insane Zalazane.
Now that the Lich King is being dealt with, the Trolls can focus once again on their domestic affairs concerning Zalazane. He has been eluding them for a long time and Vol'jin has had enough. Recruiting any able Horde member to their cause, the Troll leader is bent on finally taking back their land granted to them by Thrall, and finally make their own true place in the world to call home.
Will you answer the call of Vol'jin?
"I don't know exactly what the witch was talking about, but I do know that our destiny lies elsewhere. For now, we set sail for Kalimdor. That is where our future will unfold."
Episode 3 - Da Voodoo Shuffle
The trolls are probably the most diverse race on Azeroth, one of the oldest races aswell as one of the tallest, standing 7 feet on average. There used to be 2 great Troll Empires, in the time before the Night Elves rose to power. There are even rumours that the power of the Well of Eternity transformed some Trolls into the first Night Elves, but this hypothesis has never been proven.
Within the Horde we find a few troll tribes over the course of history. During the Second War, the Amani Forest Trolls of Zul'jin were recruited into the Horde after their mortal enemies, the High Elves of Quel'Thalas, joined the Alliance. After Warchief Doomhammer decided to pull out of Quel'Thalas, Zul'jin became furious with him and stayed behind to slaughter the elves. But when the Horde seemed to have lost the war, the Trolls returned to their savage ways and Zul'jin was captured, tortured but escaping when he cut his right arm off. When the Blood Elves joined the Horde after the Third War, he became outraged, and events eventually led up to the Zul'Aman raid of patch 2.3.
Right before the Third War, after Thrall managed to escape the Eastern Kingdoms looking for a place to settle an Orc Nation away from the Human suppression, the Orcs took shelter on an island among the Broken Isles, where they found the Darkspear tribe. This tribe under the leadership of the Witch Doctor Sen'jin, was entangled in a long conflict with a band of Murlocs. Under the control of a Naga Sea Witch, these Murlocs kidnapped Thrall, Sen'jin and some of their followers. Ultimately unable to save Sen'jin from the Sea Witch, Thrall was enthrusted with a vision the Troll had, where the Orcs would lead the Trolls off the island.
Thrall and his followers returned to the island, they fought off the Murlocs, and set sail for Kalimdor once again. The Trolls, now under the leadership of Sen'jin's son Vol'jin, allied themselves to the Orcs and left the island with them. After reaching the new Orc homeland, named Durotar after Thrall's long lost father Durotan, the Trolls made the Echo Islands just off Durotar's coast their new home.
When the fleet of Kul'Tiras, under Daelin Proudmoore's command, arrived in Kalimdor, the Trolls had to flee their islands. The misguided old ideas of Proudmoore that the Orcs are the root of all problems to the humans, made him a considerable threat to the new Horde. The Trolls and Orcs fought hard and overcame the Humans, but not long after another attacked the Darkspear's home, but now from within.
It was the Witch Doctor Zalazane, who took control of a lot of his Troll brethren through dark magic, and forced them into being his slaves. Vol'jin had no choice but to evacuate the remaining free Trolls of the isles, and Zalazane took control. The Trolls settled on the nearby shore, creating Sen'jin Village named in honor of their lost leader. From here they send forces back to the isles to try and take it back from the insane Zalazane.
Now that the Lich King is being dealt with, the Trolls can focus once again on their domestic affairs concerning Zalazane. He has been eluding them for a long time and Vol'jin has had enough. Recruiting any able Horde member to their cause, the Troll leader is bent on finally taking back their land granted to them by Thrall, and finally make their own true place in the world to call home.
Will you answer the call of Vol'jin?
"I don't know exactly what the witch was talking about, but I do know that our destiny lies elsewhere. For now, we set sail for Kalimdor. That is where our future will unfold."
Warchief Thrall adressing the Orcs and Trolls after defeating the Naga witch
Creative Creations - Wrath of the Lich King Machinima and Stand of the Exiles
Yesterday, 03:59 PM |
Zuelu
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This week for Creative Creations, in terms of our Machinima we go from Classic to Wrath of the Lich King, and we also take a look at some Draenic Creative Writing.
Wrath of the Lich King
This week for Machinima we have Wrath of the Lich King by Onix. This is a great work combining raid video with Machinima wonder, Onix's vision of the major steps in Wrath are sitting in the limelight. From the Lana'thel face time, to the monologue of Uther combined with great Warcraft III era backdrops make this Machinima well worth the watch.
Stand of the Exiles
Stand of the Exiles, brought to life by Billiedoll of Fanfiction.net, is the story of a Draenei Priestess and a Draenei Vindicator after the attack on Shattrath City by Illidan's Army of Blood Elves. From the swamps of Zangarmarsh to the Ruins of Farahlon (modern day Netherstorm), this couple, guided by the Light in their respective teachings, learn that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and they most certainly don't kill each other.
Again, if you find a Machinima or Story (or one of your own), feel free to message me or post about it in our Creative Writing, Machinima & Lore forum.
Wrath of the Lich King
This week for Machinima we have Wrath of the Lich King by Onix. This is a great work combining raid video with Machinima wonder, Onix's vision of the major steps in Wrath are sitting in the limelight. From the Lana'thel face time, to the monologue of Uther combined with great Warcraft III era backdrops make this Machinima well worth the watch.
Stand of the Exiles
Stand of the Exiles, brought to life by Billiedoll of Fanfiction.net, is the story of a Draenei Priestess and a Draenei Vindicator after the attack on Shattrath City by Illidan's Army of Blood Elves. From the swamps of Zangarmarsh to the Ruins of Farahlon (modern day Netherstorm), this couple, guided by the Light in their respective teachings, learn that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and they most certainly don't kill each other.
Again, if you find a Machinima or Story (or one of your own), feel free to message me or post about it in our Creative Writing, Machinima & Lore forum.
Blue Tracker Updates, StarCraft II Beta Invites & Full Reset
Yesterday, 10:58 AM |
Kody
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Blue Tracker Updates
We updated the blue tracker last night with a few new things and bug fixes. Here are some of the changes:
Blue Posts
StarCraft II Beta Invites
Check your email addresses if you're already in the StarCraft II beta. Yesterday Blizzard sent out "Friend Invites" for all (or most) beta participants, allowing you to bring one person into the beta. If anyone is looking for keys, be sure to post in this thread and hopefully someone can hook you up with one if they have any extra!
StarCraft II Beta Full Reset
It looks like Blizzard is gearing up for a new phase of beta as they're planning to do a full database reset, wiping all information aside from who is actually in the beta. Check out the post below for details.
We updated the blue tracker last night with a few new things and bug fixes. Here are some of the changes:
- The Share feature has mostly returned. There's still a bug with the forum quote version that we need to get fixed.
- To bring up the Share functionality, simply mouse over the blue
icon on each blue post.
- To bring up the Share functionality, simply mouse over the blue
- It now tracks the StarCraft II Beta forum and the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game forum.
- Proper post times should now be displayed after the recent Daylight Savings Time change.
Blue Posts
Quote
Managing resources as tanks and using it for threat vs staying alive (Source)
Yeah we think this is a problem. It makes sense that a tank need to spend some percentage of button presses on the "staying alive" component of tanking and not all on the "boss control" part of tanking. We just need a "staying alive" button that doesn't feel very maintenance-y. There is kind of a sweet spot between pushing something on cooldown and never ever pushing it because you need to save it for an emergency that might not ever come.
We've also kind of let tanks (except DKs) opt out of having to manage their resource, and threat by and large isn't hard to maintain on single targets, at least 10-20 seconds into a fight. Tanks always have a lot of responsibility for positioning the mob and everything but that probably still leaves some bandwidth for making decisions about staying alive that we aren't really filling at the moment.
Shield Block (and Holy Shield) will be more meaningful in the Cataclysm block model too.
Why not make "100% uptime" abilities passive since the classes are balanced around them? (Source)
It's just a matter of degree. Slice and Dice isn't too bad used as every other finisher or so (though even then it's such a game-changer that having it fall off is devastating). Slice and Dice as something you had to do every other attack would be masochistic (and yeah, Hunger for Blood might be close).
Brain Freeze doesn't proc all that often to where you're literally doing Frost Bolt / Fireball / Frost Bolt / Fireball.
Really though one of the biggest differences is the role. If dps specs don't have some kind of rotation or priority system, they become boring to play. With tanks and healers, they have a lot going on in addition to using their abilities. We do ask dps specs to sometimes do really important things in a raid, and they often have to move out of the fire or whatever, but then again, so do the healers and tanks.
I'm not saying tanks shouldn't be hitting buttons often. They need to do be fun. But there are two extremes that both sort of suck. One is you have to hit a button constantly that has very little depth to the decision. The other is that you never want to push the button because you're saving it. Cooldown plays into this a lot. On a 15 sec cooldown, any time you're saving the ability, you're probably wasting it. On a 10 min cooldown, any time you use the ability you feel like you're wasting it. Somewhere in the 2-3 minute timeframe you can feel like it's okay to use the abilities often, but you can also hold them on occasion for those scary periods where the boss is bursting damage on you or the healers are repositioning or whatever.
I don't think we're horribly off with the cooldowns today, but I think we are off.
Operation Gnomeregan level ranges (Source)
Players of all levels will be able to take part in some form or another. We'll have more details for you as we get a little closer to the event.
It's too late to bring back crowd control; you're not going to do it (Source)
There can be something in between Heroic Shadow Labs when it shipped and Heroic Nexus today in your 251 / 264 gear. Stopping to crowd control some of the pulls isn't so terribly onerous, given that the dungeons themselves are a lot shorter than they were in the day when Scholomance was serious business.
I'll still argue some (but not all) of it was the gear. Naxx was available immediately and relatively undertuned, especially in the 25 player version. In BC I spent a lot of time finishing up all of those Shadowmoon quests with blue rewards so that I could handle Karazhan. In Lich King many of us were in Naxx before we saw some of the heroic dungeons. By the time we got back to those dungeons, we totally overgeared them.
Heroic Halls of Reflection isn't a great example because of the nature of the first room, but if you look at something like Heroic Pit of Saron, that dungeon took a bit of learning before it was a milk run. The pulls before the tunnel at the end typically require crowd control until you overgear it with raid drops and Frost badge gear.
But to go back to the Naxx example, if all the Blizzards, Pestilences and Volleys hit for less damage, then you'd single target stuff down more, and it all of the mobs weren't dying at once, then the tank would be in more danger from dying to too much damage. (This will be particularly true when block doesn't scale so well to lots of weak attackers.)
We give classes a lot of tools and when half of those tools (to exaggerate) aren't ever used, then classes feel shallow. Not every pull will require CC, but more of them will than today.
Hunter
Beast Mastery still needs help (Source)
If you're talking best possible gear, we think BM is pretty close to Survival in 3.3.3. Marks is ahead, and that's largely a function of armor pen, but again you are talking about absolute best gear. If you aren't in Icecrown 25 hard modes, then gear is likely to have just as much effect on your damage as spec. Ideally, things are balanced at all levels between level 1 and 80 with BiS gear, but there are going to be a lot of points along the way where that's probably not true. We see Survival hunters beat Marks hunters all the time in what I would categorize as average (meaning not server first guilds but capable of progressing) raids. Hopefully we'll see some BM guys up there too, but it may take higher gear levels.
Beast Mastery trails far behind with BiS gear (Source)
We didn't obviously compare the gear of every hunter out there. We looked at a few different levels of progression and BM is pretty close to SV in a lot of cases. Eurytos up above thinks BM is pretty close to SV, and in fact I'll quote him in a minute. If you're a BM fan I think you can raid as BM in 3.3.3 without utterly embarrassing yourself. Are there hunters out there who can out dps you? Sure. But there would be hunters out there who could beat you even if you were both MM. Any of us can pull out parses where the Elemental shaman or Shadow priest or Blood DK is topping the meters for that particular raid and still making ICC progression. Let's assume BM and SV are 1500-2000 dps behind MM. At that level, the damage is probably close enough where skill and gear are going to have a much greater impact than your spec for most of you.
Is that acceptable for Lich King 25 hard mode? Probably not. But the guilds at that level of progression are obsessed about even minimal dps gains, and they need to be. I'm not sure we can ever balance all 3 specs of a given class to be within 100 or so dps of each other on the most challenging content given that the specs have different mechanics that produce different strengths and weaknesses on different encounters. Balance at the hardest of the hard core is different from balance at the rest of the game, and much of the community would do well to focus less on maximum dps potential with the best gear and focus more on what they themselves can do. BM in 3.3.2 was unacceptably low in PvE. I'm not sure it is now.
Rogue
Our minor glyphs suck aside from Glyph of Vanish (Source)
I would disagree and say that all of the minor rogue glyphs are pretty decent in one way or another. So maybe this is just a detachment of what people see as useful for their own play style. They're certainly more subjective than "you must have these major glyphs if you're this spec". But I think that's pretty cool, that you can pick and choose the ones that match what you want to do and not have a clear "omg you HAVE to have these or you're a dumb!"
They're quality of life improvements or fun alterations, that's essentially what minor glyphs are.
Warrior
Using Shield Block to survive is no different from using Shield Slam to maintain threat (Source)
I think they are different though. You are probably not going to die from failing to push Shield Slam, except possibly very early on the pull when threat is dicey (and today, even that is unlikely.) The other problem is the resource issue I mentioned before. Back in BC (especially early), warriors had to prioritize rage a little more. If you hit Heroic Strike so much that you lacked rage for a Shield Slam (or a Shield Block), then you were doing it wrong. In today's environment, many Prot warriors might as well take the rage bar off their screen. (Caveat: This does not mean being eternally rage starved is fun. It just means that choosing which ability to use is more fun than hitting them on cooldown.)
To go back to a few discussions on this forum lately, you (and I mean y'all plural, not Devium specifically because he gets into that a little in his post) have to ask yourself what you like about being a tank. For some players, they just like getting the attention and if being a tank is trivial, no biggy. Others like to have some kind of challenge, whether that means competing for threat, staying alive, positioning the mob, or all of the above. To have a challenge then there needs to be some penalty (even a small one) for making the wrong decision. The potential to screw up needs to exist. For a rogue that might be letting SnD fall off. For a priest that might be using Guardian Spirit when you didn't need it (or ideally running OOM by overhealing way too much.) For a warrior it might be not using Shield Wall when you needed to use it, but I'm not sure those decisions roll around often enough.
Yeah we think this is a problem. It makes sense that a tank need to spend some percentage of button presses on the "staying alive" component of tanking and not all on the "boss control" part of tanking. We just need a "staying alive" button that doesn't feel very maintenance-y. There is kind of a sweet spot between pushing something on cooldown and never ever pushing it because you need to save it for an emergency that might not ever come.
We've also kind of let tanks (except DKs) opt out of having to manage their resource, and threat by and large isn't hard to maintain on single targets, at least 10-20 seconds into a fight. Tanks always have a lot of responsibility for positioning the mob and everything but that probably still leaves some bandwidth for making decisions about staying alive that we aren't really filling at the moment.
Shield Block (and Holy Shield) will be more meaningful in the Cataclysm block model too.
Why not make "100% uptime" abilities passive since the classes are balanced around them? (Source)
It's just a matter of degree. Slice and Dice isn't too bad used as every other finisher or so (though even then it's such a game-changer that having it fall off is devastating). Slice and Dice as something you had to do every other attack would be masochistic (and yeah, Hunger for Blood might be close).
Brain Freeze doesn't proc all that often to where you're literally doing Frost Bolt / Fireball / Frost Bolt / Fireball.
Really though one of the biggest differences is the role. If dps specs don't have some kind of rotation or priority system, they become boring to play. With tanks and healers, they have a lot going on in addition to using their abilities. We do ask dps specs to sometimes do really important things in a raid, and they often have to move out of the fire or whatever, but then again, so do the healers and tanks.
I'm not saying tanks shouldn't be hitting buttons often. They need to do be fun. But there are two extremes that both sort of suck. One is you have to hit a button constantly that has very little depth to the decision. The other is that you never want to push the button because you're saving it. Cooldown plays into this a lot. On a 15 sec cooldown, any time you're saving the ability, you're probably wasting it. On a 10 min cooldown, any time you use the ability you feel like you're wasting it. Somewhere in the 2-3 minute timeframe you can feel like it's okay to use the abilities often, but you can also hold them on occasion for those scary periods where the boss is bursting damage on you or the healers are repositioning or whatever.
I don't think we're horribly off with the cooldowns today, but I think we are off.
Operation Gnomeregan level ranges (Source)
Players of all levels will be able to take part in some form or another. We'll have more details for you as we get a little closer to the event.
It's too late to bring back crowd control; you're not going to do it (Source)
There can be something in between Heroic Shadow Labs when it shipped and Heroic Nexus today in your 251 / 264 gear. Stopping to crowd control some of the pulls isn't so terribly onerous, given that the dungeons themselves are a lot shorter than they were in the day when Scholomance was serious business.
I'll still argue some (but not all) of it was the gear. Naxx was available immediately and relatively undertuned, especially in the 25 player version. In BC I spent a lot of time finishing up all of those Shadowmoon quests with blue rewards so that I could handle Karazhan. In Lich King many of us were in Naxx before we saw some of the heroic dungeons. By the time we got back to those dungeons, we totally overgeared them.
Heroic Halls of Reflection isn't a great example because of the nature of the first room, but if you look at something like Heroic Pit of Saron, that dungeon took a bit of learning before it was a milk run. The pulls before the tunnel at the end typically require crowd control until you overgear it with raid drops and Frost badge gear.
But to go back to the Naxx example, if all the Blizzards, Pestilences and Volleys hit for less damage, then you'd single target stuff down more, and it all of the mobs weren't dying at once, then the tank would be in more danger from dying to too much damage. (This will be particularly true when block doesn't scale so well to lots of weak attackers.)
We give classes a lot of tools and when half of those tools (to exaggerate) aren't ever used, then classes feel shallow. Not every pull will require CC, but more of them will than today.
Hunter
Beast Mastery still needs help (Source)
If you're talking best possible gear, we think BM is pretty close to Survival in 3.3.3. Marks is ahead, and that's largely a function of armor pen, but again you are talking about absolute best gear. If you aren't in Icecrown 25 hard modes, then gear is likely to have just as much effect on your damage as spec. Ideally, things are balanced at all levels between level 1 and 80 with BiS gear, but there are going to be a lot of points along the way where that's probably not true. We see Survival hunters beat Marks hunters all the time in what I would categorize as average (meaning not server first guilds but capable of progressing) raids. Hopefully we'll see some BM guys up there too, but it may take higher gear levels.
Beast Mastery trails far behind with BiS gear (Source)
We didn't obviously compare the gear of every hunter out there. We looked at a few different levels of progression and BM is pretty close to SV in a lot of cases. Eurytos up above thinks BM is pretty close to SV, and in fact I'll quote him in a minute. If you're a BM fan I think you can raid as BM in 3.3.3 without utterly embarrassing yourself. Are there hunters out there who can out dps you? Sure. But there would be hunters out there who could beat you even if you were both MM. Any of us can pull out parses where the Elemental shaman or Shadow priest or Blood DK is topping the meters for that particular raid and still making ICC progression. Let's assume BM and SV are 1500-2000 dps behind MM. At that level, the damage is probably close enough where skill and gear are going to have a much greater impact than your spec for most of you.
Is that acceptable for Lich King 25 hard mode? Probably not. But the guilds at that level of progression are obsessed about even minimal dps gains, and they need to be. I'm not sure we can ever balance all 3 specs of a given class to be within 100 or so dps of each other on the most challenging content given that the specs have different mechanics that produce different strengths and weaknesses on different encounters. Balance at the hardest of the hard core is different from balance at the rest of the game, and much of the community would do well to focus less on maximum dps potential with the best gear and focus more on what they themselves can do. BM in 3.3.2 was unacceptably low in PvE. I'm not sure it is now.
Rogue
Our minor glyphs suck aside from Glyph of Vanish (Source)
I would disagree and say that all of the minor rogue glyphs are pretty decent in one way or another. So maybe this is just a detachment of what people see as useful for their own play style. They're certainly more subjective than "you must have these major glyphs if you're this spec". But I think that's pretty cool, that you can pick and choose the ones that match what you want to do and not have a clear "omg you HAVE to have these or you're a dumb!"
They're quality of life improvements or fun alterations, that's essentially what minor glyphs are.
Warrior
Using Shield Block to survive is no different from using Shield Slam to maintain threat (Source)
I think they are different though. You are probably not going to die from failing to push Shield Slam, except possibly very early on the pull when threat is dicey (and today, even that is unlikely.) The other problem is the resource issue I mentioned before. Back in BC (especially early), warriors had to prioritize rage a little more. If you hit Heroic Strike so much that you lacked rage for a Shield Slam (or a Shield Block), then you were doing it wrong. In today's environment, many Prot warriors might as well take the rage bar off their screen. (Caveat: This does not mean being eternally rage starved is fun. It just means that choosing which ability to use is more fun than hitting them on cooldown.)
To go back to a few discussions on this forum lately, you (and I mean y'all plural, not Devium specifically because he gets into that a little in his post) have to ask yourself what you like about being a tank. For some players, they just like getting the attention and if being a tank is trivial, no biggy. Others like to have some kind of challenge, whether that means competing for threat, staying alive, positioning the mob, or all of the above. To have a challenge then there needs to be some penalty (even a small one) for making the wrong decision. The potential to screw up needs to exist. For a rogue that might be letting SnD fall off. For a priest that might be using Guardian Spirit when you didn't need it (or ideally running OOM by overhealing way too much.) For a warrior it might be not using Shield Wall when you needed to use it, but I'm not sure those decisions roll around often enough.
StarCraft II Beta Invites
Check your email addresses if you're already in the StarCraft II beta. Yesterday Blizzard sent out "Friend Invites" for all (or most) beta participants, allowing you to bring one person into the beta. If anyone is looking for keys, be sure to post in this thread and hopefully someone can hook you up with one if they have any extra!
StarCraft II Beta Full Reset
It looks like Blizzard is gearing up for a new phase of beta as they're planning to do a full database reset, wiping all information aside from who is actually in the beta. Check out the post below for details.
Quote
Quote from: Bashiok (Source)
In the near future, we will be doing a full reset of the beta database. This reset will wipe the following information for all players:
Due to the amount of people currently participating in the beta, this database reset will allow us to monitor and test conditions similar to a game release (albeit smaller). We want to thank everyone for their patience and continued help and support in testing StarCraft II.
In the near future, we will be doing a full reset of the beta database. This reset will wipe the following information for all players:
- Character and identifier
- Friends list
- Profile
- League placement
- Ladder rank
Due to the amount of people currently participating in the beta, this database reset will allow us to monitor and test conditions similar to a game release (albeit smaller). We want to thank everyone for their patience and continued help and support in testing StarCraft II.
We all know that the Cataclysm is impending, and I thought it a better time than any to talk about the stat changes due in Cataclysm. Lore from Tankspot has graciously decided to give his opinions on the topic, and answer multiple side questions in regards to the changes.
As a fore-note, all comments provided are from the knowledge of Cataclysm stat changes at the time of the interview and posting. I will be doing a follow-up with Lore when the Cataclysm Beta is released.
Parry
Lore: For quite a while now, Dodge and Parry have basically been the exact same thing, just with different degrees of effectiveness.
Seems Blizzard read Lore's mind and decided to change parry up slightly. While it still fully avoids a TOTAL of one hit, it will reduce the damage of the parried hit by 50% and the one after it. While you will still be hit by one hit, parry retains it's full function, it has (finally) become different from dodge. Lore also raised a little concern about dodge possibly walking in on parry's fun.
Lore: My initial guess is that Dodge will be stronger, just because if you parry one hit and then immediately dodge the next you could basically lose out of half of the effect of your parry, but that's the kind of thing they look for during beta.
Block
Block Value in Cataclysm is going away in it's entirety. Before you start cringing, Blizzard is taking care of us. Instead of making it a value, based off strength and gear, it is becoming a flat 30%. Blizzard did mention that block chances will probably be lower, but Lore thinks it's time to rejoice for Paladins and Warriors.
Lore: The block change is ultimately good for the game. It's basically impossible to balance as it is; changing it to a percentage rather than a flat number will make it a much more reliable number, which will help the developers keep the tanks closer together in terms of survivability.
As for Warriors and Paladins becoming the premier tanks...
Lore: I don't think the change is going to make Paladins and Warriors overpowered, just easier to balance.
Mastery
Arguably the most misunderstood stat of the Cataclysm expansion, the stat on your gear is intended to ramp up your final mastery (presumably after you put 51+ points in a tree). What does this mean? No one is sure yet.
Lore: I'm honestly not sure what mastery is going to do; If I had to guess, I'd guess that the Final Mastery bonus will be threat related; we tanks have so many different survival stats to juggle and relatively few ways to increase threat.
Mastery may spell the end of freedom of tree tanking-wise for Death Knights.
Lore: I don't think that Death Knights will be Kiddy Cornered into a talent tree for tanking by Mastery; If they do, Blizzard will have tried everything in their arsenal to keep it from happening. They may end up doing something like Feral; You do more damage in Blood Presence, you have more health in Frost Presence, etc. If the Final mastery bonus is threat related, it makes it even more unlikely. We'll have to see.
Defense
As most have learned, Defense is going away. Through this change, we can estimate that the three plate wearing tanks will lose a good 13-14% (or possibly more) avoidance from miss and the added bonus of dodge and parry from defense. Before you scream "WHY BLIZZARD WHY?!?", there is a reason. Blizzard wants to reduce tank avoidance, and bring us back to a more...nostalgic era.
Lore: It's almost like Blizzard is bringing us back to Classic WoW; Large health pools compared to Boss damage, large amounts of efficient heals coming in, and if the tank's health gets low, he either avoids a hit (thus allowing the stream of heals to catch up) or the healers switch to an in-efficient big heal (and thus use more mana). The entire tanking and healing game is going to be put on its head.
Also, coming in tandem with this change is that in each tanking "stance" (Righteous Fury, Defensive Stance, Dire Bear, Frost Presence), there is a built in feature that reduces the chance to be critically hit (similar to the function of Survival of the Fittest). It's time for another toast, says Lore.
Lore: This change will help out tanks starting out a bunch. It will allow anyone to jump in and tank (similar to their original intent in Wrath) as long as they have correct gear and tree setup. Will this solve the tank drought? Maybe. Will this make it easier to gear up a brand new 85 for tanking? Absolutely.
Accuracy Stats (Hit and Expertise)
In Cataclysm, the accuracy stats (hit and expertise) will be changing so that more of each will be required as you progress; I.E. : You need 5% hit in Tier 11, 8% in Tier 12, etc. Time will tell if this is a blessing, or a curse.
Lore: At the early stages, specifically this expansion, in order to make any significant headway in the threat department, you would have to give up boatloads of survivability, and in Icecrown we're trying to figure out ways to get rid of hit. This change might not exactly solve the age old dilemma of threat generation in it's entirety, but it will fix several key aspects; you won't be sitting in the desert without any hit but you won't be drowning in it either.
Mage Tanks?
Lore: Unlikely.
That's it for now! Again, thanks to Lore for his comments and predictions. Next week, we go in depth with the Pally Tank.
As a fore-note, all comments provided are from the knowledge of Cataclysm stat changes at the time of the interview and posting. I will be doing a follow-up with Lore when the Cataclysm Beta is released.
Parry
Lore: For quite a while now, Dodge and Parry have basically been the exact same thing, just with different degrees of effectiveness.
Seems Blizzard read Lore's mind and decided to change parry up slightly. While it still fully avoids a TOTAL of one hit, it will reduce the damage of the parried hit by 50% and the one after it. While you will still be hit by one hit, parry retains it's full function, it has (finally) become different from dodge. Lore also raised a little concern about dodge possibly walking in on parry's fun.
Lore: My initial guess is that Dodge will be stronger, just because if you parry one hit and then immediately dodge the next you could basically lose out of half of the effect of your parry, but that's the kind of thing they look for during beta.
Block
Block Value in Cataclysm is going away in it's entirety. Before you start cringing, Blizzard is taking care of us. Instead of making it a value, based off strength and gear, it is becoming a flat 30%. Blizzard did mention that block chances will probably be lower, but Lore thinks it's time to rejoice for Paladins and Warriors.
Lore: The block change is ultimately good for the game. It's basically impossible to balance as it is; changing it to a percentage rather than a flat number will make it a much more reliable number, which will help the developers keep the tanks closer together in terms of survivability.
As for Warriors and Paladins becoming the premier tanks...
Lore: I don't think the change is going to make Paladins and Warriors overpowered, just easier to balance.
Mastery
Arguably the most misunderstood stat of the Cataclysm expansion, the stat on your gear is intended to ramp up your final mastery (presumably after you put 51+ points in a tree). What does this mean? No one is sure yet.
Lore: I'm honestly not sure what mastery is going to do; If I had to guess, I'd guess that the Final Mastery bonus will be threat related; we tanks have so many different survival stats to juggle and relatively few ways to increase threat.
Mastery may spell the end of freedom of tree tanking-wise for Death Knights.
Lore: I don't think that Death Knights will be Kiddy Cornered into a talent tree for tanking by Mastery; If they do, Blizzard will have tried everything in their arsenal to keep it from happening. They may end up doing something like Feral; You do more damage in Blood Presence, you have more health in Frost Presence, etc. If the Final mastery bonus is threat related, it makes it even more unlikely. We'll have to see.
Defense
As most have learned, Defense is going away. Through this change, we can estimate that the three plate wearing tanks will lose a good 13-14% (or possibly more) avoidance from miss and the added bonus of dodge and parry from defense. Before you scream "WHY BLIZZARD WHY?!?", there is a reason. Blizzard wants to reduce tank avoidance, and bring us back to a more...nostalgic era.
Lore: It's almost like Blizzard is bringing us back to Classic WoW; Large health pools compared to Boss damage, large amounts of efficient heals coming in, and if the tank's health gets low, he either avoids a hit (thus allowing the stream of heals to catch up) or the healers switch to an in-efficient big heal (and thus use more mana). The entire tanking and healing game is going to be put on its head.
Also, coming in tandem with this change is that in each tanking "stance" (Righteous Fury, Defensive Stance, Dire Bear, Frost Presence), there is a built in feature that reduces the chance to be critically hit (similar to the function of Survival of the Fittest). It's time for another toast, says Lore.
Lore: This change will help out tanks starting out a bunch. It will allow anyone to jump in and tank (similar to their original intent in Wrath) as long as they have correct gear and tree setup. Will this solve the tank drought? Maybe. Will this make it easier to gear up a brand new 85 for tanking? Absolutely.
Accuracy Stats (Hit and Expertise)
In Cataclysm, the accuracy stats (hit and expertise) will be changing so that more of each will be required as you progress; I.E. : You need 5% hit in Tier 11, 8% in Tier 12, etc. Time will tell if this is a blessing, or a curse.
Lore: At the early stages, specifically this expansion, in order to make any significant headway in the threat department, you would have to give up boatloads of survivability, and in Icecrown we're trying to figure out ways to get rid of hit. This change might not exactly solve the age old dilemma of threat generation in it's entirety, but it will fix several key aspects; you won't be sitting in the desert without any hit but you won't be drowning in it either.
Mage Tanks?
Lore: Unlikely.
That's it for now! Again, thanks to Lore for his comments and predictions. Next week, we go in depth with the Pally Tank.
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