Pop quiz time! You're wearing plate leggings that have 1104 armor, 34 Str, 57 Sta, and 38 Haste Rating. You complete a quest and one of the reward options is a different set of plate leggings with the same item level, also 1104 armor, but this one has 22 Str, 45 Sta, and 53 Critical Strike Rating. Which set of pants should you wear for solo DPS? Will the answer still be the same when you gain your next level? How about if you respec?
In fairness, this situation is not unique to WoW's newest expansion. Combat Ratings were introduced in TBC as a way to keep players from amassing 100% crit, etc. Things have gotten more complicated in Wrath of the Lich King for several reasons.
Ratings are everywhere
The change to combat ratings has allowed much more gear to have these stats than previously; if level 60 gear was going to offer a crit bonus, it was 1%, 2%, or nothing. As a result, it was easier to get away with simply not caring what the ratings were worth until level 70, at which point you could memorize the 3-4 ratings that are relevant to your class. Ratings allow Blizzard to dole out small amounts of multiple stats on the same item, making it even harder to compare than my initial example.
There are more distinct ratings
The later tiers of TBC raiding (ZA and the Black Temple) awarded haste rating and armor penetration, two stats which were not widely used in prior content. These stats are now available on level 70 quest rewards in Wrath, where they join hit rating, crit rating, Attack Power (which can also be gained from pure stats, and is further split into Ranged and Non-Ranged flavors), and Expertise. (That's just the melee DPS stats, there are separate stats for spellcasting and defense.) It's one thing to remember that hit is best until you reach the hit cap (which, incidentally, is not documented in the game UI anywhere), and then you want crit or pure damage, but it's another to try and figure out how armor penetration (which is also going to be converted into a rating), haste rating, crit rating, and attack power compare to one another.
More talents mean more differences between specs
As the talent trees get taller and taller, the differences between two specs of the same classes get greater and greater. Maybe this spec now has talents that are especially dependent on getting critical hits to proc, while this other spec is plagued by slow attack/casting time and needs haste rating.
Ratings Degrade as you Level
If your gear has 50 attack power, it will still have 50 attack power next level, 5 levels, and 10 levels from now. By contrast, the ratings on your gear give your character less benefit per point every level you gain. The author of Rating Buster (a mod I view as nigh essential, which does the math for you on what percentage your ratings are worth at any given level) reports that ratings at level 80 will actually be worth as little as 50% of what they were at level 70. The result is that your non-rating based gear will age more gracefully as you level.
Ratings are worth comparatively less as you get more of them
I'm not entirely clear on all the theorycraft here myself (and I do love my theorycraft), but my limited understanding is that the way the attack table works in WoW means that 1% crit is worth more when you're starting from zero than it is when you're starting from 20%. I'm going to stop talking now before I say something wrong, but the point is that you can't even memorize one number and count on it to still be correct after you've been getting enough gear upgrades (or "downgrades" as a result of your existing rating decaying).
Gear upgrades come faster while leveling than at the cap
This is a temporary problem, but one I'm experiencing now. Once you've been at the cap for a while, you have time to get to know what kind of gear you're wearing and where your next potential upgrade is coming from. While leveling, upgrades come more frequently. You probably haven't taken the time to plan out your choices on every single minor quest reward, and you may not even know the current rating conversions for your level. Again, this is temporary, but it only serves to add to the confusion.
What can be done?
Well, the band-aid fix is to download Rating Buster and EQCompare (for reasons beyond my comprehension, Blizzard's default UI will not compare gear tooltips for items in your bags to what you're currently wearing, even though the UI does offer this option at vendors, quest reward windows, and the Auction House) and keep a spreadsheet on hand to crunch the numbers for your current level. You can also download a theorycrafting mod (such as Dr. Damage) that evaluates your spec and gear and determines what, for example, the average damage on your Frostbolt is going to be so you can compare it before and after equipping a new item. The numbers behind these mods are going to be debatable at times though (see previous discussion RE: crit procs vs speedier attacks), and need to be reverse engineered manually every patch. (Blizzard could, I suppose, cut out the middle man and add their own version of this to the default UI, but that's how the UI slowly gets more and more crowded over time.)
At the end of the day, though, this can only be changed at the design level. Blizzard apparently feels that the choice between various highly specialized ratings is worth the added complexity (but that actually making the numbers transparent so you'd stop stacking hit rating when you're capped would be too complicated). And maybe they're right. Ask again in the comments next year when I'm tearing my hair out trying to determine whether whupass rating is superior to coolness factor and boredom penetration.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Death Knight Update, Level 71 and a new beta build
The beta got a new build on Friday night, and Cheerydeth the Death Knight continues to progress towards level 70. A few updates:
More Minions, Fewer Minions
The bad news is that, since my last post on talent specs, they've nerfed the DK ghoul summoning to prevent you from having two ghouls out at once. (There are bugs in the build that cause your one ghoul not to despawn when his timer expires, and sometimes summon a total of eight ghouls for no good reason, but these will be fixed.) That said, Blizzard is planning a new mechanic for Deep Unholy specced DK's that will allow you to resummon your ghoul more rapidly. Among other neat tricks (e.g. Detonate), this would allow you to use Death Pact (which sacrifices your ghoul to heal you) more often. Death Pact could help the Unholy tree catch up a bit with the Blood tree in terms of healing (and thus reduced downtime). Well, that is, if they don't do anything foolish with the Blood tree anyway....
Too late. I called the previous form of Blood Worms, a talent which has a 30% chance of producing a swarm of worms who effectively heal you to full if you kill a diseased foe "hideously overpowered when it procs". Blizzard addressed this problem by allowing you to proc practically the same swarm of worms (the heal has been very slightly reduced) off a strike you can use at least twice every 10 seconds on foes you haven't killed yet, who need not be diseased (though the strike will also heal you for a substantial amount if they are, in addition to doing damage and having the 60% chance to proc the worms). And, as the picture illustrates, you can get more than one batch of 3-5 worms at a time (each of which heals you for just shy of 200 health every other second on top of your other healing abilities, the flurry of green numbers is astounding).
I actively force myself to spec out of this talent from time to time so I don't get too used to the sheer insanity. That said, I'm afraid that I'm not going to want to play a Death Knight when the game goes live, cause the final product is almost certain to be weaker than any of the versions I've been messing around with.
A new look?
Speaking of which, Death Knights now have their own undead-looking skin tones/faces etc. Don't panic yet, cause it's still a beta, but in the current build I was no longer able to give a new Death Knight pink hair at character creation. The Barber shop isn't really working at the moment, so I'm not able to prove whether or not you'll be able to dye your non-pink hair pink after creation (though I'm definitely not going to use poor Cheery as a guinea pig and not be able to get her hair back!). I'd never really considered the possibility that Cheery might have a unique look that will never again be seen on a Death Knight once the beta ends and she's wiped from the servers. Really, don't screen shots like the one below just scream "Death Knight" at you?
Beward of massive Nether Whelp.
How big is Northrend?
Blizzard has added the region levels for Northrend to the official site. Officially, both Borean Tundra and the Howling Fjord are supposed to be tuned for level 68-72. Realistically, I think most classes will have a hard time actually making progress solo at level 68 (though it's worth the brief trip to get one of the weapon upgrades from Northrend before going back to Outland), but otherwise their guess looks spot on. I have finished most of Howling Fjord (I think, it's hard to be certain since I keep finding new quests/followups) and something like half or a third of the Borean Tundra, and I've advanced from level 68 to 71 (70 -> 71 was about twice what 69 -> 70 was expwise), so it looks like I'll be able to hit 72 by the time I finish both zones, and players who start at 70 should not need to clear more than one of the zones before moving on.
The downside is that I'm about to have finished two of the ten zones in Northrend (which includes the optional PVP zone). Now it's possible that the exp curve will slow down drastically in the 77+ region; the list earmarks three PVE zones AND the optional PVP zone for levels 77-80. I've also been playing significantly more than I would normally have time for because my new job doesn't start until September. That said, if what I've seen is 15-20% of the expansion (remember, I'd invested 30ish hours /played on old content before starting Northrend due to my decision to roll Death Knight), this may end up feeling like a short expansion.
Quality is more important than quantity, and the quality is certainly here (I'd rate the two new zones as good or better than anything in Outland so far), but it would be nice not to be level 80 and out of content again a month or two after the expansion launches. I like Northrend. It's pretty, and I'd hate to find myself shipping out before my time.
More Minions, Fewer Minions
The bad news is that, since my last post on talent specs, they've nerfed the DK ghoul summoning to prevent you from having two ghouls out at once. (There are bugs in the build that cause your one ghoul not to despawn when his timer expires, and sometimes summon a total of eight ghouls for no good reason, but these will be fixed.) That said, Blizzard is planning a new mechanic for Deep Unholy specced DK's that will allow you to resummon your ghoul more rapidly. Among other neat tricks (e.g. Detonate), this would allow you to use Death Pact (which sacrifices your ghoul to heal you) more often. Death Pact could help the Unholy tree catch up a bit with the Blood tree in terms of healing (and thus reduced downtime). Well, that is, if they don't do anything foolish with the Blood tree anyway....
Too late. I called the previous form of Blood Worms, a talent which has a 30% chance of producing a swarm of worms who effectively heal you to full if you kill a diseased foe "hideously overpowered when it procs". Blizzard addressed this problem by allowing you to proc practically the same swarm of worms (the heal has been very slightly reduced) off a strike you can use at least twice every 10 seconds on foes you haven't killed yet, who need not be diseased (though the strike will also heal you for a substantial amount if they are, in addition to doing damage and having the 60% chance to proc the worms). And, as the picture illustrates, you can get more than one batch of 3-5 worms at a time (each of which heals you for just shy of 200 health every other second on top of your other healing abilities, the flurry of green numbers is astounding).
I actively force myself to spec out of this talent from time to time so I don't get too used to the sheer insanity. That said, I'm afraid that I'm not going to want to play a Death Knight when the game goes live, cause the final product is almost certain to be weaker than any of the versions I've been messing around with.
A new look?
Speaking of which, Death Knights now have their own undead-looking skin tones/faces etc. Don't panic yet, cause it's still a beta, but in the current build I was no longer able to give a new Death Knight pink hair at character creation. The Barber shop isn't really working at the moment, so I'm not able to prove whether or not you'll be able to dye your non-pink hair pink after creation (though I'm definitely not going to use poor Cheery as a guinea pig and not be able to get her hair back!). I'd never really considered the possibility that Cheery might have a unique look that will never again be seen on a Death Knight once the beta ends and she's wiped from the servers. Really, don't screen shots like the one below just scream "Death Knight" at you?
Beward of massive Nether Whelp.
How big is Northrend?
Blizzard has added the region levels for Northrend to the official site. Officially, both Borean Tundra and the Howling Fjord are supposed to be tuned for level 68-72. Realistically, I think most classes will have a hard time actually making progress solo at level 68 (though it's worth the brief trip to get one of the weapon upgrades from Northrend before going back to Outland), but otherwise their guess looks spot on. I have finished most of Howling Fjord (I think, it's hard to be certain since I keep finding new quests/followups) and something like half or a third of the Borean Tundra, and I've advanced from level 68 to 71 (70 -> 71 was about twice what 69 -> 70 was expwise), so it looks like I'll be able to hit 72 by the time I finish both zones, and players who start at 70 should not need to clear more than one of the zones before moving on.
The downside is that I'm about to have finished two of the ten zones in Northrend (which includes the optional PVP zone). Now it's possible that the exp curve will slow down drastically in the 77+ region; the list earmarks three PVE zones AND the optional PVP zone for levels 77-80. I've also been playing significantly more than I would normally have time for because my new job doesn't start until September. That said, if what I've seen is 15-20% of the expansion (remember, I'd invested 30ish hours /played on old content before starting Northrend due to my decision to roll Death Knight), this may end up feeling like a short expansion.
Quality is more important than quantity, and the quality is certainly here (I'd rate the two new zones as good or better than anything in Outland so far), but it would be nice not to be level 80 and out of content again a month or two after the expansion launches. I like Northrend. It's pretty, and I'd hate to find myself shipping out before my time.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Spirit of Competition misses the point of Competition
I've seen a few interesting posts regarding PVP of late, as Warhammer gears up for its launch. Tobold makes a clever analogy to Chess, in a post whose point is that PVP is un-fun largely because there are rarely, if ever, fair fights. Having the scales tip in your favor dilutes any sense of accomplishment from your victory, while having the deck stacked against you can result in a feeling of hopelessness. In other words, you don't really win much, and losing is generally not going to be fun.
This isn't the first time Tobold has written on the topic, I just picked this one for brevity (and because it's still on his front page). /random had a response to one of the previous editions, describing his own conversion to PVP in DAOC as a formerly PVE player. Basically, he argues that Mythic managed to make a much tighter realm community than exists amongst WoW's Alliance and Horde. The idea (which he believes will carry over to Warhammer), is that you form tighter bonds with players while leveling when it is both easy and rewarding to do so. Combine this with a system where it really matters which side is winning the battle between realms and you will actually have fun trying, even if you lose.
Well, fast forward to 08:08:08 PM local time in Beijing on 8/8/08 (apparently the number 8 is somehow lucky or fortuitous in China), and the opening of the 2008 Summer Olympics. Turns out that Blizzard somehow secretly slipped an Olympic-related event into World of Warcraft without having it turn up in data mining or on the PTR's. The Spirits of Competition will award you with a "Competitor's Tabard" for participating in any battleground PVP match (provided you stay til the end), and players on the winning side of any battleground have a chance to obtain a Chinese flying dragon minipet. Like with most WoW PVP, the latter entirely misses the point of competition.
The big flaw to WoW's PVP system is that Blizzard needs players to voluntarily spend time reusing content they patched in three years back, so they bribe us with "honor points" that are used to purchase gear. There is no spirit of competition; you zone into the battleground and either you win, or you go home with a fraction of the points you would have gotten if you hadn't lost. Because the battlegrounds are instanced and have no effect on the persistent world, there is zero bonding with your teammates (who might be from different servers, a necessary step to cut queues but an unfortunate one in terms of community-building). As a result, most players are just in it to end the pain as quickly as possible. This is where the motivation for AFK'ing, or simply ignoring the battleground objectives in favor of fighting to claim as much "honorable kill" honor as possible before your side loses, comes from. In short, exactly the opposite of the spirit of the Olympics, coming together to strive in a field where the competition matters as much as who wins or loses.
World Event Rewards: One dragon mini-pet and one tabard - note the four interlocking multi-colored rings that totally don't infringe on any trademarks involving five interlocking multi-colored rings.
In a Player Versus Developer sense, Blizzard won this round with their special event content. The prospect of a non-combat pet (remember, these won't take up bagspace anymore in Wrath) that will not be offered again until at least 2010 (or perhaps ever, if they implement a flying maple leaf or perhaps a moose for Vancouver in place of the Chinese dragon for Beijing) was enough to drag me back into the pain that is pug battlegrounds. The reward was enough to convince me to do content that I frankly did not want to do. I even went to the bother of obtaining/gemming/enchanting the blue PVP items I hadn't even bothered to purchase from the vendors to try to boost my performance a bit. I was fortunate; after four straight losses in various battlegrounds (none of which were even close contests), I decided to go back to Alterac Valley (even though I don't need their PVP marks for anything). The Alliance PUG somehow won, and I was lucky enough to get my pet.
In a broader sense, though, this just served to remind me how flawed the PVD decisions behind PVP in World of Warcraft really are. I really hope that Warhammer is a huge success. The genre could use some innovation on this particular front.
This isn't the first time Tobold has written on the topic, I just picked this one for brevity (and because it's still on his front page). /random had a response to one of the previous editions, describing his own conversion to PVP in DAOC as a formerly PVE player. Basically, he argues that Mythic managed to make a much tighter realm community than exists amongst WoW's Alliance and Horde. The idea (which he believes will carry over to Warhammer), is that you form tighter bonds with players while leveling when it is both easy and rewarding to do so. Combine this with a system where it really matters which side is winning the battle between realms and you will actually have fun trying, even if you lose.
Well, fast forward to 08:08:08 PM local time in Beijing on 8/8/08 (apparently the number 8 is somehow lucky or fortuitous in China), and the opening of the 2008 Summer Olympics. Turns out that Blizzard somehow secretly slipped an Olympic-related event into World of Warcraft without having it turn up in data mining or on the PTR's. The Spirits of Competition will award you with a "Competitor's Tabard" for participating in any battleground PVP match (provided you stay til the end), and players on the winning side of any battleground have a chance to obtain a Chinese flying dragon minipet. Like with most WoW PVP, the latter entirely misses the point of competition.
The big flaw to WoW's PVP system is that Blizzard needs players to voluntarily spend time reusing content they patched in three years back, so they bribe us with "honor points" that are used to purchase gear. There is no spirit of competition; you zone into the battleground and either you win, or you go home with a fraction of the points you would have gotten if you hadn't lost. Because the battlegrounds are instanced and have no effect on the persistent world, there is zero bonding with your teammates (who might be from different servers, a necessary step to cut queues but an unfortunate one in terms of community-building). As a result, most players are just in it to end the pain as quickly as possible. This is where the motivation for AFK'ing, or simply ignoring the battleground objectives in favor of fighting to claim as much "honorable kill" honor as possible before your side loses, comes from. In short, exactly the opposite of the spirit of the Olympics, coming together to strive in a field where the competition matters as much as who wins or loses.
World Event Rewards: One dragon mini-pet and one tabard - note the four interlocking multi-colored rings that totally don't infringe on any trademarks involving five interlocking multi-colored rings.
In a Player Versus Developer sense, Blizzard won this round with their special event content. The prospect of a non-combat pet (remember, these won't take up bagspace anymore in Wrath) that will not be offered again until at least 2010 (or perhaps ever, if they implement a flying maple leaf or perhaps a moose for Vancouver in place of the Chinese dragon for Beijing) was enough to drag me back into the pain that is pug battlegrounds. The reward was enough to convince me to do content that I frankly did not want to do. I even went to the bother of obtaining/gemming/enchanting the blue PVP items I hadn't even bothered to purchase from the vendors to try to boost my performance a bit. I was fortunate; after four straight losses in various battlegrounds (none of which were even close contests), I decided to go back to Alterac Valley (even though I don't need their PVP marks for anything). The Alliance PUG somehow won, and I was lucky enough to get my pet.
In a broader sense, though, this just served to remind me how flawed the PVD decisions behind PVP in World of Warcraft really are. I really hope that Warhammer is a huge success. The genre could use some innovation on this particular front.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Northrend's First Daily Quest?
I've moved onto the second quest hub in the Howling Fjord, and I've encountered what appears to be the earliest Alliance Daily Quest in Northrend.
The blimp flies in circles around the harbor. You wait for it to arrive, get on, and bomb the ships below. Quest complete.
At least in principle. This quest has a potentially fatal flaw in that, unlike the many bombing run quests in the game so far, it physically forces players to start their bombing runs at the same time (approximately every 5-6 minutes). This would be fine if you only had to hit like 2-3 targets on the whole run, but the actual number of required targets is so high that I have barely completed it on a single run with the help of a partner on the two occasions I've tried it so far. If the other people on the blimp aren't willing to group (or there are more than five of you), none of you are going to get enough kills on a single circuit.
So why would you attempt such a potentially drama-prone quest?
In the window, we see that I got 20K exp (out of approximately 700K for level 69->70), 4.7 gold, and 250 Valiance Expedition rep. The Valiance Expedition appears to be one of the main Alliance factions of the expansion, as they are present in both of the two starting zones of Northrend.
Historically, Blizzard has been loathe to award reputation all the way to exalted outside of instances. After all, reputation leads to loot, and the old school approach to WoW was that you had to group if you wanted to advance past your level cap quest reward greens. We had a partial shift when TBC went live, with several factions specifically designed to be soloed, but the five "dungeon" factions were sacrosanct. The repeatable world PVP quest in Hellfire Peninsula had its rep reward temporarily gutted to prevent players from hacking their way to exalted with Honor Hold/Thrallamar via PVP (the old value was subsequently reinstated as a daily quest, a big change from "as often as the flags change hands"). Of the five factions, only the Cenarion Expedition can be soloed to Revered (primarily via abusing Unidentified Plant Parts to Honored before you even think about questing), and one of them can't be gained at all outside of instances.
Then came patch 2.4. In the Shattered Sun Offensive, we have a reputation that IS tied to a dungeon, but solo players are actually allowed to get at the good rewards (indeed, it's possible to pull down 3000 rep per day, plus gold and other misc rewards). The question was whether this was an aberration, designed to help gear alts for the last 6-9 months of TBC, or a shift in policy.
Obviously, I have no way of knowing just yet if this rep continues through to exalted (I'm about 2/3 of the way from friendly -> honored now). For that matter, reputation rewards aren't itemized in beta, and it might turn out that the Valiance Expedition doesn't have anything worth grinding for anyway. However, the fact that this blimp quest, with its potential flaws, is a daily quest, suggests that Blizzard is at least considering allowing all players a shot at exalted.
If this is true, we're talking about a potentially major shift in the level 80 endgame. Solo players would have a form of level-capped progression beyond the last straggling questlines in place at launch. Players may potentially be able to gear up for low end PVP and instances instead of jumping into the game undergeared. This also might mean a larger jump in item quality between quested gear, level 80 rep rewards, and level 80 dungeon loot. Or, this could all mean that someone made a typo when they made this quest repeatable. ;) Time will tell....
The blimp flies in circles around the harbor. You wait for it to arrive, get on, and bomb the ships below. Quest complete.
At least in principle. This quest has a potentially fatal flaw in that, unlike the many bombing run quests in the game so far, it physically forces players to start their bombing runs at the same time (approximately every 5-6 minutes). This would be fine if you only had to hit like 2-3 targets on the whole run, but the actual number of required targets is so high that I have barely completed it on a single run with the help of a partner on the two occasions I've tried it so far. If the other people on the blimp aren't willing to group (or there are more than five of you), none of you are going to get enough kills on a single circuit.
So why would you attempt such a potentially drama-prone quest?
In the window, we see that I got 20K exp (out of approximately 700K for level 69->70), 4.7 gold, and 250 Valiance Expedition rep. The Valiance Expedition appears to be one of the main Alliance factions of the expansion, as they are present in both of the two starting zones of Northrend.
Historically, Blizzard has been loathe to award reputation all the way to exalted outside of instances. After all, reputation leads to loot, and the old school approach to WoW was that you had to group if you wanted to advance past your level cap quest reward greens. We had a partial shift when TBC went live, with several factions specifically designed to be soloed, but the five "dungeon" factions were sacrosanct. The repeatable world PVP quest in Hellfire Peninsula had its rep reward temporarily gutted to prevent players from hacking their way to exalted with Honor Hold/Thrallamar via PVP (the old value was subsequently reinstated as a daily quest, a big change from "as often as the flags change hands"). Of the five factions, only the Cenarion Expedition can be soloed to Revered (primarily via abusing Unidentified Plant Parts to Honored before you even think about questing), and one of them can't be gained at all outside of instances.
Then came patch 2.4. In the Shattered Sun Offensive, we have a reputation that IS tied to a dungeon, but solo players are actually allowed to get at the good rewards (indeed, it's possible to pull down 3000 rep per day, plus gold and other misc rewards). The question was whether this was an aberration, designed to help gear alts for the last 6-9 months of TBC, or a shift in policy.
Obviously, I have no way of knowing just yet if this rep continues through to exalted (I'm about 2/3 of the way from friendly -> honored now). For that matter, reputation rewards aren't itemized in beta, and it might turn out that the Valiance Expedition doesn't have anything worth grinding for anyway. However, the fact that this blimp quest, with its potential flaws, is a daily quest, suggests that Blizzard is at least considering allowing all players a shot at exalted.
If this is true, we're talking about a potentially major shift in the level 80 endgame. Solo players would have a form of level-capped progression beyond the last straggling questlines in place at launch. Players may potentially be able to gear up for low end PVP and instances instead of jumping into the game undergeared. This also might mean a larger jump in item quality between quested gear, level 80 rep rewards, and level 80 dungeon loot. Or, this could all mean that someone made a typo when they made this quest repeatable. ;) Time will tell....
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Minor Upgrade in Northrend
In case you can't read the tooltip, that's me trading in a 68 DPS weapon for a 110 DPS weapon, at level 68 in Northrend. The quest involved killing a total of six mobs, which could be pulled singly, in an area with friendly NPC's. In fairness, the mobs hit a lot harder than Outland level 68-69's, and I guess they really didn't want to have to try and balance Northrend around people being 40 DPS behind the curve.
(If anyone is wondering, it took about 12 hours for levels 65-67, I finished most of the quests in Terokkar and Blade's Edge, but I have not yet set foot in Nagrand, Netherstorm, or Shadowmoon. I left Outland with 410 Herbalism and revered with the Cenarion Expedition.)
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Death Knight talents in action
It's hard to offer good commentary on talents during a beta, simply because they're likely to change, sometimes repeatedly. Still, I love messing around with specs, Death Knights have a portal that leads straight to their trainers, and respecs cost a single copper to facilitate testing. As a result, I've taken most of the major talents for a spin, even if they're likely to change over time.
As I noted when I wrote up my first reactions to the class, Death Knights are required to use all three of their spell schools due to the rune system; you can swear off Frost if you really want to, but you'll be sitting on your tail waiting for your other runes to regenerate. This encourages a greater degree of hybrid specs than you might see in other classes. If you're going to have to use all your abilities, it makes sense to improve all of them. This is especially true with many abilities depending on the number of disease debuffs you've inflicted upon your target (often from a tree other than your main spec.
Here's what the trees have in them right now:
Blood: Heals. Lots and lots of heals. Blood spells also represent your bread and butter damage attacks if you're Unholy or Blood speced.
- Butchery, Rune Tap, and Vendetta: I group these talents together since they're all under 20 points and therefore available even if you're going pretty far down one of the other trees. Butchery generates runic power when you kill stuff and lets you passively earn more runic power while in combat. Rune Tap lets you use a blood rune to heal yourself for about 10% of your health, which is great for reducing downtime. Vendetta heals you when you kill stuff (which, in turn, stacks with other heals) and thus reduces your downtime even further. With apologies to Unholy Frost builds (if any), these talents are nigh essential for leveling.
-Abomination Strength: Gives you a moderately lengthy boost to strength every time you use Obliterate, a Frost attack that consumes all your diseases to do massive damage (but see the Frost tree below). It's a long enough buff to be usable in a pure blood build (i.e. you're probably finishing off the mob, but the buff will last through the next fight), but it really shines in a hybrid build with Frost.
-Bloodworms: This 3-point 30 point talent is the current pinacle of Blood tree healing. In its current form, it has a 30% chance to proc 3-5 worms each time you kill a diseased mob. This is hideously overpowered when it procs (and it can proc multiple times, I've had 8 worms up). The worms strike for 100-200 damage each every 2 seconds or so, and heal you for 100% of the damage they do. If you're fighting more than one mob, the worms will immediately spring into action and heal you to near full. Blizzard is changing this talent to be highly likely to produce a single worm from your Death Strike ability. This change will be interesting because it will let the DK choose between using those Unholy runes for more damage or for a reasonably good chance at self-heals.
- Heart Strike: No commentary on this one for now, because it's changing from the form it was in when last I tested it.
- Dancing Rune Weapon: You get a dancing rune weapon that greatly improves your damage... if you're fighting a stationary target that doesn't die. I'm sure this thing will be impressive in raids, but I didn't find much use for it solo; I kill stuff fast enough as is most times. Also, be warned that this thing will attack mobs you're not in combat with.
Frost: Crowd control. Frost has a lot of combo abilities that do additional damage to foes already afflicted with frost debuffs (like a frost mage).
-Annihilation: This talent effectively removes the major cost of the frost attack Obliterate. Untalented, the attack removes all your diseases from the target in exchange for large damage. Talented, the attack has a 90% chance not to remove the diseases, letting you spam it (and proc Abomination Strength, if you've got it, from the Blood Tree). This is a lot of damage, and even moreso if you use Deathchill, the 21 point frost ability, for a guaranteed crit. If you want to dual wield, you will be going this far down the frost tree anyway, so this is a no-brainer.
-Howling Blast: This is an AoE attack that currently does massive damage to frozen targets. Frost currently has 2 controllable freeze abilities (one a 51 point talent) and one proc, but the mechanic is being reworked down the line. This ability was a lot of fun the last time I took it for a spin, so I hope it remains so.
-Frost strike: The current 41 point frost talent does a small amount of damage that becomes large against frozen targets, but didn't impress me much since I already had Howling Blast for that. The new version will do more damage and not depend on frozen debuffs, which I think will be an improvement. Note, however, that at 41 points, this talent rules out the Bloodworms, and even Vendetta will not be available until the late 60's.
-Hungering Cold: I didn't test this thing much because sinking 51 points into Frost (and thus having almost none for Blood) made leveling painful. The spell is like an AOE hunter freezing trap, which made a lot of sense when Howling Blast and Frost Strike procced off of frozen targets and less sense now (it will still affect Howling Blast). I'm sure there are situations where this thing kicks some serious tail (if nothing else, at 100 runic power it lets you run ;)), but I don't see it being worth sinking this many points in the tree, especially now that frozen status doesn't matter for DK's.
Unholy: Pets and debuffs. If you go this route, you'll be inflicting more diseases on your foes and using the other two trees to take advantage of the additional diseases.
-Epidemic: This is a first tier talent that's moving down to tier two, and quite possibly a must-have. It extends the duration of your diseases, which means that you don't have to reapply them as often. That lets you focus your efforts on doing more damage.
-Corpse Explosion: Diablo II necromancers, rejoice. :) In its current form, Corpse Explosion consumes a lot of runic power (and, obviously, requires that your foes be standing near a corpse). The new form will consume an unholy rune, and will IMO be more usable as a result.
-Shadow of Death: This is possibly the most unique talent in the game. When you die, you come back as a ghoul for a limited time. You've got the ghoul's attacks instead of your own, but still, there's an amusement value for raising yourself from the dead. You will still get quest credit for anything you kill, but you'll need to make the corpse run to loot any quest items. (If you win the fight and want to start the corpse run now instead of waiting 30 seconds, click off the buff, or push the "explode" button.)
-Ravenous Dead, Ferocious Dead, and Master of Ghouls: I've grouped these talents together because they collectively all buff your raise dead spell. When the deed is done, the duration on your ghoul will be longer and the cooldown on the spell will be shorter, ensuring that you can always have a ghoul up at any given time (in fact, you can have two up at once for 90 seconds or so). Oh, and you get a freaking pet bar. That's right, this turns your ghoul from an uncontrollable DPS dump into a real live pet that does your bidding. He's got a spell interrupt, a stun, and another disease to boost the damage of Obliterate. This talent literally changes you into a melee pet class, and, at 26 points (27 if you also want Unholy Rune Mastery, which you might as well get for a single point), it's available with one of the other two 41-point talents.
-Summon Gargoyle: I didn't use this thing much when it sat at 41 points. At 21, it should become a nice fire-and-forget runic power dump. As always, beware of it going off to grab more enemies.
-Unholy Blight: An AoE disease generator. As with Hungering Cold, this limits your options, especially at lower levels, but I hear that there will be a substantial payoff for getting all of your diseases on a target at once.
If you haven't been able to tell, my favorite talents as of now are Bloodworms (31-33 Blood), Master of Ghouls (26 Unholy), and Howling Blast (31 Frost). The worms are a huge buff to healing, fully controllable ghouls are very very useful (and gives you the feeling of fighting side by side with your pet, slightly expendable though they may be), and the frost synergy reminds me of my Frost mage. Notice something in common? They're all low enough in their respective trees that you can have two of them at once before you hit Northrend. A level 80 characters can even have Howling Blast, Master of Ghouls AND still have enough points to make it as far down the blood tree as Rune Tap. If that's not a sign that Death Knights were meant to at least consider multi-tree specs, I don't know what is.
Cheerydeth, accompanied by a pair of ghouls, a netherwhelp, and an escort NPC. I actually felt bad for the groups of 2-3 mobs that spawned to try and stop us.
As I noted when I wrote up my first reactions to the class, Death Knights are required to use all three of their spell schools due to the rune system; you can swear off Frost if you really want to, but you'll be sitting on your tail waiting for your other runes to regenerate. This encourages a greater degree of hybrid specs than you might see in other classes. If you're going to have to use all your abilities, it makes sense to improve all of them. This is especially true with many abilities depending on the number of disease debuffs you've inflicted upon your target (often from a tree other than your main spec.
Here's what the trees have in them right now:
Blood: Heals. Lots and lots of heals. Blood spells also represent your bread and butter damage attacks if you're Unholy or Blood speced.
- Butchery, Rune Tap, and Vendetta: I group these talents together since they're all under 20 points and therefore available even if you're going pretty far down one of the other trees. Butchery generates runic power when you kill stuff and lets you passively earn more runic power while in combat. Rune Tap lets you use a blood rune to heal yourself for about 10% of your health, which is great for reducing downtime. Vendetta heals you when you kill stuff (which, in turn, stacks with other heals) and thus reduces your downtime even further. With apologies to Unholy Frost builds (if any), these talents are nigh essential for leveling.
-Abomination Strength: Gives you a moderately lengthy boost to strength every time you use Obliterate, a Frost attack that consumes all your diseases to do massive damage (but see the Frost tree below). It's a long enough buff to be usable in a pure blood build (i.e. you're probably finishing off the mob, but the buff will last through the next fight), but it really shines in a hybrid build with Frost.
-Bloodworms: This 3-point 30 point talent is the current pinacle of Blood tree healing. In its current form, it has a 30% chance to proc 3-5 worms each time you kill a diseased mob. This is hideously overpowered when it procs (and it can proc multiple times, I've had 8 worms up). The worms strike for 100-200 damage each every 2 seconds or so, and heal you for 100% of the damage they do. If you're fighting more than one mob, the worms will immediately spring into action and heal you to near full. Blizzard is changing this talent to be highly likely to produce a single worm from your Death Strike ability. This change will be interesting because it will let the DK choose between using those Unholy runes for more damage or for a reasonably good chance at self-heals.
- Heart Strike: No commentary on this one for now, because it's changing from the form it was in when last I tested it.
- Dancing Rune Weapon: You get a dancing rune weapon that greatly improves your damage... if you're fighting a stationary target that doesn't die. I'm sure this thing will be impressive in raids, but I didn't find much use for it solo; I kill stuff fast enough as is most times. Also, be warned that this thing will attack mobs you're not in combat with.
Frost: Crowd control. Frost has a lot of combo abilities that do additional damage to foes already afflicted with frost debuffs (like a frost mage).
-Annihilation: This talent effectively removes the major cost of the frost attack Obliterate. Untalented, the attack removes all your diseases from the target in exchange for large damage. Talented, the attack has a 90% chance not to remove the diseases, letting you spam it (and proc Abomination Strength, if you've got it, from the Blood Tree). This is a lot of damage, and even moreso if you use Deathchill, the 21 point frost ability, for a guaranteed crit. If you want to dual wield, you will be going this far down the frost tree anyway, so this is a no-brainer.
-Howling Blast: This is an AoE attack that currently does massive damage to frozen targets. Frost currently has 2 controllable freeze abilities (one a 51 point talent) and one proc, but the mechanic is being reworked down the line. This ability was a lot of fun the last time I took it for a spin, so I hope it remains so.
-Frost strike: The current 41 point frost talent does a small amount of damage that becomes large against frozen targets, but didn't impress me much since I already had Howling Blast for that. The new version will do more damage and not depend on frozen debuffs, which I think will be an improvement. Note, however, that at 41 points, this talent rules out the Bloodworms, and even Vendetta will not be available until the late 60's.
-Hungering Cold: I didn't test this thing much because sinking 51 points into Frost (and thus having almost none for Blood) made leveling painful. The spell is like an AOE hunter freezing trap, which made a lot of sense when Howling Blast and Frost Strike procced off of frozen targets and less sense now (it will still affect Howling Blast). I'm sure there are situations where this thing kicks some serious tail (if nothing else, at 100 runic power it lets you run ;)), but I don't see it being worth sinking this many points in the tree, especially now that frozen status doesn't matter for DK's.
Unholy: Pets and debuffs. If you go this route, you'll be inflicting more diseases on your foes and using the other two trees to take advantage of the additional diseases.
-Epidemic: This is a first tier talent that's moving down to tier two, and quite possibly a must-have. It extends the duration of your diseases, which means that you don't have to reapply them as often. That lets you focus your efforts on doing more damage.
-Corpse Explosion: Diablo II necromancers, rejoice. :) In its current form, Corpse Explosion consumes a lot of runic power (and, obviously, requires that your foes be standing near a corpse). The new form will consume an unholy rune, and will IMO be more usable as a result.
-Shadow of Death: This is possibly the most unique talent in the game. When you die, you come back as a ghoul for a limited time. You've got the ghoul's attacks instead of your own, but still, there's an amusement value for raising yourself from the dead. You will still get quest credit for anything you kill, but you'll need to make the corpse run to loot any quest items. (If you win the fight and want to start the corpse run now instead of waiting 30 seconds, click off the buff, or push the "explode" button.)
-Ravenous Dead, Ferocious Dead, and Master of Ghouls: I've grouped these talents together because they collectively all buff your raise dead spell. When the deed is done, the duration on your ghoul will be longer and the cooldown on the spell will be shorter, ensuring that you can always have a ghoul up at any given time (in fact, you can have two up at once for 90 seconds or so). Oh, and you get a freaking pet bar. That's right, this turns your ghoul from an uncontrollable DPS dump into a real live pet that does your bidding. He's got a spell interrupt, a stun, and another disease to boost the damage of Obliterate. This talent literally changes you into a melee pet class, and, at 26 points (27 if you also want Unholy Rune Mastery, which you might as well get for a single point), it's available with one of the other two 41-point talents.
-Summon Gargoyle: I didn't use this thing much when it sat at 41 points. At 21, it should become a nice fire-and-forget runic power dump. As always, beware of it going off to grab more enemies.
-Unholy Blight: An AoE disease generator. As with Hungering Cold, this limits your options, especially at lower levels, but I hear that there will be a substantial payoff for getting all of your diseases on a target at once.
If you haven't been able to tell, my favorite talents as of now are Bloodworms (31-33 Blood), Master of Ghouls (26 Unholy), and Howling Blast (31 Frost). The worms are a huge buff to healing, fully controllable ghouls are very very useful (and gives you the feeling of fighting side by side with your pet, slightly expendable though they may be), and the frost synergy reminds me of my Frost mage. Notice something in common? They're all low enough in their respective trees that you can have two of them at once before you hit Northrend. A level 80 characters can even have Howling Blast, Master of Ghouls AND still have enough points to make it as far down the blood tree as Rune Tap. If that's not a sign that Death Knights were meant to at least consider multi-tree specs, I don't know what is.
Cheerydeth, accompanied by a pair of ghouls, a netherwhelp, and an escort NPC. I actually felt bad for the groups of 2-3 mobs that spawned to try and stop us.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Death Knight to Level 65 Status Report
So I hit level 65 on the Death Knight, theoretically leaving me with only three more levels of old content before I start on Northrend. Here are some summary stats:
/Played: 1 Day, 8 hours, 45 minutes (includes time leveling herbalism, and a fair number of technically unnecessary trips to Northrend to see if there was anything new on the Inscription trainers)
Trade Skills: 401 Herbalism, 125 Inscription (just about the highest currently possible in beta), 375 First Aid
Weapon Skills (note: 270 is the starting level): 301 Axes, 316 Defense, 270 Polearms, 319 Swords, 272 2H Axes, 305 2H Swords
Reputations: Honored w/ Exodar (all Alliance reps started at friendly), Honored with Honor Hold, Honored with the Cenarion Expedition (copied over 360 plant parts from live), Honored with the Aldor (copied over rep items from live), Friendly with the Sha'tar (spillover rep from the Aldor), Friendly w/ Kurenai, Neutral w/ Sporeaggar
Achievements: 35 completed, for 350 points
Quests: Completed a total of 212 quests according to the achievement stat counter. Have not done any instances. Entered Outland at level 58 and cleared out almost every quest in Hellfire Peninsula and Zangarmarsh, as well as the Cenarion Thicket quest lines in Terokkar. Have not set foot in Nagrand, starting in on Blade's Edge next.
Gear: About half and half quest rewards (notably weapons) from Outland quests and gear from the DK starting quest line. I'm completing level 66-67ish quests in Blade's Edge currently, and there are quest rewards that may or may not be better than what I got from the DK starter line.
Progress towards Death Knight flight form: Working on it.
Disclaimer: There is not actually a Death Knight flight form. ;)
/Played: 1 Day, 8 hours, 45 minutes (includes time leveling herbalism, and a fair number of technically unnecessary trips to Northrend to see if there was anything new on the Inscription trainers)
Trade Skills: 401 Herbalism, 125 Inscription (just about the highest currently possible in beta), 375 First Aid
Weapon Skills (note: 270 is the starting level): 301 Axes, 316 Defense, 270 Polearms, 319 Swords, 272 2H Axes, 305 2H Swords
Reputations: Honored w/ Exodar (all Alliance reps started at friendly), Honored with Honor Hold, Honored with the Cenarion Expedition (copied over 360 plant parts from live), Honored with the Aldor (copied over rep items from live), Friendly with the Sha'tar (spillover rep from the Aldor), Friendly w/ Kurenai, Neutral w/ Sporeaggar
Achievements: 35 completed, for 350 points
Quests: Completed a total of 212 quests according to the achievement stat counter. Have not done any instances. Entered Outland at level 58 and cleared out almost every quest in Hellfire Peninsula and Zangarmarsh, as well as the Cenarion Thicket quest lines in Terokkar. Have not set foot in Nagrand, starting in on Blade's Edge next.
Gear: About half and half quest rewards (notably weapons) from Outland quests and gear from the DK starting quest line. I'm completing level 66-67ish quests in Blade's Edge currently, and there are quest rewards that may or may not be better than what I got from the DK starter line.
Progress towards Death Knight flight form: Working on it.
Disclaimer: There is not actually a Death Knight flight form. ;)
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