Changing Raid Sizes, from Classic through to Wrath of the Lich King... and into Cataclysm

A few days ago we got to look into the crystal ball and see the future of raiding in World of Warcraft. Developers released this announcement which outlines how they intend raids and progression to work in Cataclysm. Most of the changes left me feeling pensive about Cataclysm – I can’t help but feel that all the things I love about raiding are slipping further out of my grasp.

I was happy to hear that they intend to release a lot of raid content out of the box and include more than one, mid-size, raid instance in the first raiding tier. Finally! Perhaps this time they might get the raid length/time commitment right.

I loved running Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep in the same lockout week. Naxxaramas with a quick jaunt off to kill Sartharion in Obsidian Sanctum always felt more like a diversion and hassle than a proper change of scenery. And Naxxramas just went on forever. Especially in a PuG group.

One raid ID per guild, per week

Keeva over at Tree Bark Jacket has the unique experience of having run a 25 man guild, and then having run a 10 man guild only to return to 25s, all during Wrath of the Lich King:

Some people are upset about “missing out” – ie if you choose to do 25s, you’ll “miss out” on 10s. You’re not missing out on something that doesn’t exist anymore (a second lockout). We never had parallel 10 and 25 raids in TBC. There were 10man raids, and there were 25s. We didn’t have the same instance for both sizes.

I think at first, it seemed like a good idea to be able to choose; it seemed like it would give people the choice to be a 10 or a 25man raider.

It’s true. Wrath of the Lich King gave us the ability to choose the format – 10 or 25 man. And by choosing one, you weren’t locked out of running the other format.

Unlike many 25 man raiders I never felt obliged to run both raid formats at the same time. I think the experience you gain by wiping on new bosses in both formats does help you learn, and defeat, encounters a bit faster. But I’m concerned that the method they are choosing will force raiding guilds to have one raid ID per raid zone per week. Sounds good at first, and it may slow down progression a bit which is good news for Blizzard, the content lasts longer, and good news for us as players, more anticipation and more thrill when you get that first kill.

But I think it could backfire. I think it could backfire because they’re giving 25 man guilds the opportunity to scale down to the 10 man format mid-week.  I can’t help but wonder what will happen if only 20 players arrive for the raid on the second raid night for the week – a common occurrence in many raiding guilds when players only turn up for “farm night” and mysteriously disappear when it’s time to wipe on progression content. In the proposed Cataclysm raiding model the guild has the option to switch down to 10 man mode on that exact same raid ID. So who get picked as the lucky 10 to raid that night when the numbers are low and who gets benched? That’s potentially 10-12 upset people, all saved to that raid ID but unable to raid for the night.

Furthermore, if the guild is struggling to recruit, or going through a poor attendance phase, with 22-24 players turning up night after night I can’t see many officers willing to keep going. They can pick and choose the best 10 players and turn it into a strong 10 man raiding guild.

Losing the “epic” experience

But giving us the choice steals some of the realism from the story environment. For me it cheapens the experience – loses some of that omg feeling you’re meant to get when you first see a boss.

Beru refers to it the “grandness” of 25 man raiding. Once when you’ve experienced the pure chaos of fighting Yogg-Saron with 24 other people -  brain linked, feared to hell and back, and screaming at each other when someone steals their portal – coming back the next night with a team of 9 and succeeding seems just a little bit sad.

I’m always a little disappointed. It makes the boss less impressive in my eyes and takes away some of the satisfaction and sense of achievement.

Being able to switch your guild’s Raid ID from a 10 man one night to a 25 man the next night isn’t going to “fix” the experience. It may help with raider burnout. But it’s not going to make us believe that our enemy is all powerful, and near-impossible to defeat. And that’s how I want to approach every new boss I come across in World of Warcraft.

1 vs 25 means that the boss you’re facing is 25 times more deadly than you are as an individual. How can the Lich King triumph over the entire Argent Crusade but be defeated by 10 people? 25 mans make the bosses feel more powerful, the encounter more overwhelming and ultimately more satisfying when you triumph.

The convenience of 10 mans

I do believe that handing out the same rewards, in terms of gear, will be the death of 25 man raiding. Why? The raid weekly quest. When was the last time you got 25 people together to do the raid weekly quest? Never. You always grab 10 people to do it, why not? It’s easier to organise and the loot isn’t a deciding factor.

Coordinating 25 people to all show up is one thing. Coordinating 25 people to all do the right thing at the right time, produce amazing DPS, heal and tank perfectly and run out of fire, run together for brain links/pacts is harder. It’s just plain harder.

Even though I really, really enjoy 25 mans I know that most of my team, and even myself to a certain extent, are motivated by gear. And I can’t see myself being able to convince 24 other skilled players to raid with me without the lure of loot.

The truth is, some guilds will not survive this. Sure, the more solid and well established guilds will likely continue on about their way, but for guilds that are already struggling for numbers and/or progress it’s likely the signature on their death sentence. I mean…why continue to struggle to field 25 people when you can more easily have 10? — Beru

I couldn’t agree more. I think of how many nights we struggle to get just one or two more players to round out our 25 man team. It’s almost become a joke that Vitare can only down bosses when we have 24 players in the raid – almost all our ICC progression kills seemed to be with 24 players.

I can only hope that if any 25 man raiding guilds survive in Cataclysm, it will be because the 25 people in the team truly enjoy the 25 man raiding experience like I do. And, fingers crossed, those 25 players will be as skilled as the team I currently play with.

I just hope that brand new World of Warcraft players will get the chance to experience 25 man raiding before they are drawn into a steady 10 man team. I want new players to get the chance to experience both raiding formats. I want to show new raiders the madness and awe-inspiring sight of a perfectly coordinated 25 man raiding team and the tight-knit 10 man team. Before they make up their minds and join a raiding guild.

We talk about making raiding accessible, but I think it’s important to make 25 man raiding accessible too. Is the only time I’m going to be part of a mob when we raid Crossroads? When we compete for PVP zones like Wintergrasp?

How did the default raid size shift to double that of your regular dungeon run – 2 x 5 players – away from a 40 man army?

Encounter Difficulty

Guess what people? 10 mans aren’t easy. Furthermore, I don’t believe that the reason 25 man raiding guilds snipe all the 10 man raiding achievements and realm firsts is because they have higher gear scores.

Last year Lathere and I completed A Tribute to Insanity while wearing 10 man gear. I can promise you, the reason we got that achievement without wiping had very, very little to do with our gear. We got that achievement because our 10 man team was good at working together. Most importantly, our 10 man team had an excellent group makeup, with a fantastic variation of all the classes, providing all the buffs you could want – including Heroism.

A part of why we were able to get the 10 man realm first is because we were running the instance in both 25 man and 10 man. A lot of what we’d learned about Anub’arak came from completing the encounter on 25 man, I’ll give you that. But we’d only cleared Anub’arak perhaps three or four times when we completed the 0 wipe achievement – that’s not that many attempts or wipes.

I don’t think 10 man raid teams are inferior. 10 man raiding is difficult. But from my experience most 25 man teams are run more strictly and raiders are held to higher standards than the pure 10 man guilds I’ve seen in action.

A 25 man raid has it’s own balance but because the number of spaces is bigger, you can actually get away with overlaps in the raid composition. Our current 25 man team is far from perfect: we have 2 Shadow Priests, 2 Moonkin, 3 Restoration Druids, 1 Shaman and no Feral Druid. We juggle where we can to get all the buffs – one of our Warlocks will usually volunteer to be the caster buff bot for the evening because we don’t have an Elemental Shaman.

My 10 man guild group has changed quite a lot from what it was last year in Trial of the Grand Crusader. Last week we we attempted Deathbringer Saurfang Heroic with 2 Prot Warriors, 1 DPS Warrior, 1 Rogue, 1 Enhance Shaman, 1 Warlock, 1 Shadow Priest (me), 2 Restoration Druids and 1 Discipline Priest. Certainly not an even mix of the classes!

We couldn’t get it. Oh we did very, very well considering. The Warlock and I both had our own fiends to kill and we juggled threat with our tanks, kiting them back and forth until they died. If we got hit once – if a tank’s taunt missed, or the Warlock’s Demonic Circle expired – we wiped. We tried all kinds of things and to the best of our ability, came up with a bit of a stun rotation to bring them down to nearly half health before they got out of melee distance. It wasn’t an ideal strategy, but it was all we had, and we pretty much perfected it. On our best attempt I think we got him down to perhaps 10% or 15%. We had a lot of blood power accumulating and several Marks of the Fallen Champion.

I spent the entire time wishing for a Death Knight’s Death Grip or a Hunter and their Distracting Shot and slowing traps. Or I would have happily traded in my Shadow Priest’s slow and steady DPS for a bit of Mage burst DPS. I know that our healers were crying out, wishing they could heal both tanks at once.

A well meaning guild member came on Vent to ask us how we were going. When we tried to explain how we were managing the adds they sounded bewildered “oh in our 10 man kill last week we just used Hand of Freedom and Blessing of Protection on the ranged DPS”. Yeah thanks for reminding us that we don’t have a Paladin either.

However, I’ve read a lot of comments on various blogs and the general consensus seems to be that 25 man aren’t difficult to play, they’re only difficult to organise. I disagree.

25 mans are difficult because 1 person in a 25 man can ruin things for the other 24 people. It’s harder to get 25 people working together, focused, playing perfectly as one cohesive whole. Even excellent players have off nights, or trouble with certain boss encounters. If 5 players are making mistakes in any given attempt it just means that killing the boss as a team is more difficult and challenging. You have to consider the group as a whole, as one entity.

25 mans are difficult because you don’t have as much room to maneuver. Positioning in 25 mans is often very strict because standing a couple yards away from the ideal spot can get both yourself and your friends killed. 10 mans are much more forgiving.

25 mans are difficult because you often have to share duties – you might have 4 people in charge of keeping Kinetic Bombs in the air and you need to coordinate and check with those other players throughout the fight – not stepping on toes, but coming forward and taking control if they’re struggling.

25 mans are difficult because it’s nearly impossible to improvise over Vent. Conversation between 25 people would be a nightmare. It’s nearly impossible to ask questions like “which Empowered Fanatic should we kill first?” in a 25 man raid. You usually just end up guessing, because you’d be talking over someone else coordinating a battle resurrection, or calling out a phase change. Yet in a 10 man I’d be much more likely to ask, or request that the priority target is marked. Improvisation can wrangle a successful kill out of what looks like a wipe in 10 man, improvisation hardly ever works in a 25 man.

Raid Composition Min/Maxing meet 10 Mans

I think we’re going to see a min/max attitude applied to 10 mans. I don’t believe in “Bring the Player, not the Class”. Yes, you want 10 equally skilled raiders in your team, but beyond that only through variety can you bring all the buffs and utility stuff to your group. That doesn’t change, no matter how much they like to share the buffs around between classes.

I think we’re going to see very specific recruiting as serious 10 man raiders build their raid teams with progression in mind: “Recruiting 1 Survival/MM Hunter for serious 10 man progression raiding”. I think we’re going to see every class – pure DPS too – really use their dual specialisation in order to approach each new boss fight with the strongest team they can muster.

I think variety is the key. I don’t believe that you’ll be able to waltz into a Cataclysm 10 man raid with the kind of group make up that we had for our 10 man – heavy on just a couple of the classes – and expect to defeat all the bosses. I think progression teams will be more likely to keep people in the wings to swap in and out per fight.

10 mans are made even harder if you’re trying to accommodate friends, letting them play whatever class/spec they desire, instead of playing with a group composition that really works well.

Incentives for 25 Man Teams

At the moment Blizzard are planning to entice raiders to run 25 mans instead of 10 man by offering up more Emblems and Gold to compensate them for the effort to coordinate the damn thing. Not going to work.

Unless the Emblem system changes dramatically you only need Emblems at the start of a raiding tier when new items are released. Even if you only earn Emblems of Frost by running a 10 man each week… well you’re going to get all the items you want sooner or later anyway. Being ahead of the curve by a week or two doesn’t really mean much to me. But I don’t like gear from Emblems anyway – I have no sentimentality or attachment to the item itself.

Gold is an even worse incentive. I can’t think of anyone in my guild who cuts corners (skipping Flasks, refusing to buy epic gems or the most expensive enchants) or worries about running out of gold. We even ask, as part of the recruitment process, if an applicant has a healthy gold balance and most applicants scoff at the question – they have more than enough gold to keep raiding.

What is a good incentive? I don’t know. I think the player to loot ratio needs to be higher. If 10 mans offer 1 piece of loot per 5 players for each boss kill, 25 mans need to offer about 1 piece of loot per 4 players. Perhaps even if only 1 Tier Token dropped in a 10 man and 3 dropped in a 25 man raid, that alone would be enough.

I think the only real incentive is to make sure that 25 mans are just a bit easier than 10 mans.

Read that again. I think 25 man boss kills should be easier for your average player. I think we’re going to lose so many players to 10 mans in Cataclysm – out of convenience, not because they prefer the experience – that the quality of players applying for 25 man guilds will be lower and I think the pool of applicants will be much smaller. Give us a chance: make the encounter more forgiving, just a bit easier, on 25 man setting. Tune it assuming only 20-23 players will be present.

The Dream

What I’d like to see is multiple raids – some only for 10 people, some only for 25 people, different content filling the same tier gear.

I’d like the content to dictate how many players you need to defeat the boss in question. Cataclysm Nasty Boss #1 should requite 25 people, Cataclysm Nasty Bosses #2-#5 should require 10 people – but all bosses 1-5 should drop the same item level gear. Why can’t there by a 25 man that drops Tier 11 that’s totally different content to a 10 man instance that drops the same Tier 11? Hell, let them drop the exact same Tier Tokens.

I want to see less flexibility – I don’t want to be able to change the raid size mid-week. I want to walk up to Deathwing and need the best 10, 20, 25, 40 … whatever… players I know to defeat him.

I hope that they give guilds flexibility by offering multiple raid lockouts per week by offering multiple raid instances per tier. I think that they’re trying to do this and I applaud them. Yes, this takes more time and effort to produce, but I’m not adverse to revisiting an existing zone in a later patch to take on a new “wing”.

For example, imagine that Ulduar – the zone in the north of Storm Peaks, not the raid instance – comprised of 3 raid instances. Halls of Stone (10 man, Tier 7) would contain 6 bosses and be released with Wrath of the Lich King, Ulduar (25 man, Tier 8 ) would contain 13 bosses and be released sometime later then perhaps we’d skip a whole patch cycle and eventually return for Halls of Lightning (10 man, Tier 10) to kill just 4 bosses. Remember that at each Tier level they would be other raids – a 25 man Tier 7, a 10 man Tier 8 and a 25 man Tier 10.

And, finally, I hope they bring back a 40 man world boss! Let’s not lose the Massively in MMORPG.

Ancient of War in Zangamarsh: The new Tree of Life?

OK it creeps me out a teeny bit when I write a post about how I personally envision things changing… and then I read a short paragraph from Blizzard that sounds eerily familiar.

Now all I need it my “Rampaging Tree Bash” spell and I’ll be a happy Elf.

ps. This is the third time (1 & 2) something we’ve suggested at HoTs and DoTs has become an official change – how freaky is that?!

How about this for the new Tree of Life artwork?

So I’ve calmed down a little bit since first reading that Blizzard intends to remove Tree of Life as a Druid shapeshift form. But a glimmer of hope still remains – there’s a small chance that the new version of Tree of Life might be even cooler than being a tree 100% of the time (ok, a very, very small hope glimmer).

Maybe Blizzard will manage to implement it in a totally cool and wonderful way that will make turning into a tree even more special than it is now. Perhaps there are ways to lose permanent Tree of Life form without totally sacrificing our identity as Restoration Druids.

I’m not the only one thinking about it either. As I was thinking about this topic Keeva, Beru and a veritable forest of trees have been writing on the same topic.

The Good

I’m not part of the Class Changes Department at Blizzard (or whatever it’s called) but I’ve come up with some ideas for the new Tree of Life. Pay attention Blizzard – here is some feedback from a Tree of Life devotee! The rules: must retain the essence of being a healer and a shapeshifting Druid.

By Chance

Tree of Life will be a visual effect – something to highlight a proc or event like Argent Defender or Eclipse. It would need to be tied to something that happens a lot during combat and something that’s not just a PVP or raid-only ability. Restoration Druids playing all different styles of gaming – PVP, Dungeons and Raids should get to experience the new Tree of Life.

A Bonus

When Tree of Life does kick in it needs to feel special and wonderful. In my mind I keep linking this to playing the Pokie Machines (I promise I’m not a gambler!). You know how exciting it feels when the machine starts ringing, the lights are flashing and the game screen pops up exclaiming: You’ve Won 10 Free Spins! Well that’s how Tree of Life should feel.

Perhaps even though the shapeshift is out of our control you’ll get a sudden increase in your healing output, haste or the like. How about the next five spells are guaranteed Critical Heals? I want the new Tree of Life form to feel exciting – like you’re winning a million 50 cent pieces at the Pokies. Whether it gives us extra healing, crit, haste I don’t care but I want it to feel special and FUN.

With Polish

The new improved art work for Tree of Life needs to be god damn awesome or as Barney Stinson would say…. LEGENDARY! I’ve been talking up for years the big cool trees hanging around Darnassus (see above). Perhaps we could shift into something more like that in Cataclysm?

Oh and Blizzard if you read this – I was very disappointed that you didn’t announce our new level 81 spell: “Tree Bash”

The Bad

The new Tree of Life will fail if Blizzard choose to implement it the way I’m expecting them to. And I’m putting it out there right now, if Blizzard choose to implement it like this, I’m switching my main in Cataclysm to either my Discipline Priest or my Mage. I’m that serious about it.

Tree of Life becomes a 5 minute cooldown spell that you, the Druid, choose to cast in anticipation of the “optimum” time to make best use of the buff/specialness it gives you.

If they do this, Tree of Life will simply be like Innervate – something you really love having but try not to ever rely on because, well it has a cooldown and you can’t trust it to be available just at that right moment. Before you know it the fights aren’t hard because you out-gear then by a couple of tiers and you never even consider clicking/press the button to activate it because, well why would you – you don’t need it.

If Blizzard do this then Tree of Life really deserves a funeral and a tombstone because it’s just a nice extra. It’s not really a defining part of what your class and spec is. Tree of Life has become no more than a glorified On Use trinket.

R.I.P
2006 – 2010

Tree of Life
(aka Wilted Broccoli)

Beloved Protector
Sadly Missed by the WoW Community

Tranquility and Cataclysm

Out of all the new spells released by the class previews, the one I’m most intrigued by is the Shaman level 83 spell – Healing Rain.

I can just envision its usefulness going off in the middle of Wintergrasp healing everyone of your faction within range. I can also see it being used to lightly top up not just 1 party in your 25 man raid team but your entireraid group.

I simply can’t believe that Blizzard would give this mechanic to just 1 type of healer in Cataclysm.

I’m taking a guess (read crossing my fingers and hoping) that Restoration Druids will have tranquility reworked into a similar style spell. A raid wide heal spell that has weaker throughput in exchange for hitting more targets? Yes please.

Useful for constant raid wide damage but the mana cost and heal throughput would obviously not as strong as current AOE healing spells Wild Growth and Circle of Healing which are limited to 5-6 raid members only.

A Bit of Marketing

I know that all these Class Previews have been released to drum up anticipation (and Sales) for Cataclysm. All the new abilities are meant to sound awesome and overpowered – that’s how they talk you into buying game copies! They won’t need to actually nerf everything down to scale until Patch 4.1 after all.

Let me just say that whoever is in charge of Shaman, Mage and Paladin marketing gets my thumbs up. Reading the class previews has definitely made me rethink what class I want to play in the next expansion. And considering that Paladins and Mages received a lot of attention and pats-on-the-back at the start of Wrath of the Lich King, too… well I think perhaps I might have more fun playing something else.

And whoever is in charge of Druid marketing? Not well done. Not well done at all. There’s still time. Read this article. Read what other die-hard Restoration Druid writers are blogging about and think carefully about how you approach Tree of Life.

Welcome to the future!

I read the Priest Class Changes for Cataclysm (MMO Champion link for when the Blizzard one breaks) right after they were released. I was standing at a target dummy in Stormwind messing with my UI and it was a quiet afternoon when a guildie asked me if I had read the post. I read it. I thought: oh well that’s not great, not too bad either. And went back to making my ForteXorcist Spell Timer match the exact width of Quartz.

I counted myself lucky when, a day later, Lathere totally freaked out that Tree form might be taken away from her. At least they weren’t removing Shadowform or something!

During last night’s server maintenance I started reading what all the blogging Priests, mostly healers, thought of our class changes. I never intended to post on the two or three Shadow Priest changes mentioned. I hate doing news pieces for the blog – I always feel like I’m under some tight deadline to get things out while its is still relevant. But after I left my 2nd lengthy comment I discovered that I actually had quite a lot to say.

And I felt that someone ought to comment on the Shadow Priest changes. And since there are only a couple of Shadow Priest blogs out there… here goes.

I know, not actually a Shadow Priest change. But I’m actually really happy to hear about this change.

I tend to bring abilities out onto my toolbar the moment I learn them, convinced, that at some point, in some situation that spell will the right one to use. The very first time I healed (well successfully) was when I reached level 40 something and healed an entire Zul’Farruk run using Lesser Heal and Renew.

I don’t understand the logic in teaching new players one spell only to introduce them to something else later under a completely different name. Sure you want your heals to become more powerful as you rack up the levels. Isn’t that what Spell Ranks are for?

The first Shadow Priest change announced. I know that a lot will change between now and the release of Cataclysm and I really truly hope that it’s the name of this spell. I am willing to pay. Otherwise I’m forever going to be hearing Lord Marrogar saying “stick around!” like some kind of catchy horrifying remix by Mr Voletron.

Also, I don’t think Blizzard took into account that the Shadow Priest abbreviation for Mind Spike “MS” is already taken. Have you ever tried to read an Arcane Mage theory crafting article when 70% of the Arcane spells all abbreviate to “AB”?!

I’m glad that the developers have correctly identified that Shadow Priesting is pretty miserable in instances. Especially when your party brings a truckload of DPS in the form of a Mage or Hunter or Shaman or Paladin or… well you get the picture.

A year ago I would have said “who cares” and that feeling weak in one situation – a dungeon/raid trash – is a fair sacrifice for being so fun to play in other parts of the game. However, if Cataclysm follows the trend set in Wrath of the Lich King we’ll be running the Cataclysm heroics for the entire expansion. And for many players who don’t want to raid, they’ll be spending all their play time in dungeons wondering why their alt Mage still wearing level 80 gear can out-DPS their Shadow Priest.

I don’t really like Blizzard’s solution to the problem here. Partly that’s because Shadow Priests have been promised a new, no cooldown, nuke for Cataclysm. Something that will replace our channeled Mind Flay (with its snare utility) as our go-to spell in Cataclysm. I was really, really, looking forward to replacing the channeled part of our rotation with a direct damage spell that’s not so fussy. No more worry about clipping the spell too soon or being hampered by unpredictable latency. I’m worried that Mind Spike will be this new spell. And that we’ll still be Mind Flaying during boss encounters.

I don’t want Shadow Priests, even with our annoyingly long ramp up time, to change into something we’re not: bursty, with front loaded damage and spammy, benefiting from casting one spell over and over again. I feel that Mind Spike will make it easier to play a Shadow Priest without thinking in a dungeon setting. But I don’t think anybody who chooses to play a Shadow Priest should be happy about that.

Perhaps this spell will be the one that makes all the Discipline and Holy Priests out there no longer hate Shadow spec for solo play? If so, they should have called it Mind Smite.

I just read this as a PVP version of Inner Fire.

Other bloggers are reading all kinds of amazing things into this spell but I think it’s more likely that raiding Shadow Priests will be totally unwilling to loose the spellpower boost even temporarily mid fight – or whatever Inner Fire will give if spellpower is gone – unless they’re in a phase when they cannot cast at all.

Be handy for something like swimming to the orbs in Dreamwalker. But that’s a healer senario.

Wait. I know exactly what I’ll be using this for. To pop while clearing trash. Yep, I’ll just pop Dispersion at the same time and laugh at the Hunters and Mages as I fly past. Now I’m excited.

A lot as been said about this spell already. My initial reaction to this was simple: it’ll never make it to live servers. At the moment it has a 45 second cooldown. I also expect that it will have a nasty mana cost or high threat component but make no mistake: it will come with a high cost so that you, as a Priest, are hesitant to cast it.

Alternatively, I believe it may become in PVE what a Death Knight’s Death Grip has become. Something that the Death Knight uses to help the raid, that everybody fervently wishes they just wouldn’t use it at all. Eventually the Raid Leader snaps and declares that nothing is to be Death Grip-ped in raid. The ability that, if you use it under your own initiative as a Raider Trial, will soon get you gkicked.

On a more serious note, I dislike the notion that a Priest should be that responsible for their raid members. Priests are not baby sitters and even if your raid members don’t expect you to become one, I feel that having an ability like this will slowly change our own thinking about ourselves and our raid. For example, having Hymn of Hope forced me to be aware of other players’ mana. Even once they take that spell away, I’m sure parts of my brain will still be sparking unnecessarily when I see our Holy Paladin get brezzed.

If it does come in I’m going to follow Amber’s advice on how to use Leap of Faith:

Yank some easily movement impaired class to you for no reason other than to fuck up their DPS.

Yank the melee to you after they blow their cooldowns.

This is actually my favourite change announced. I’d love to return to a time when Vampiric Touch was 15 seconds, Shadow Word: Pain was 18 seconds and Devouring Plague was 24 seconds. At the moment Haste is shortening those durations and this can throw off your rhythm a little bit.

Anything that gives us a smoother rotation and higher DoT uptime is something I really favor.

I’d be really curious to see how they manage to pull this off. For as long as I’ve been playing the Shadow Priest Shadow Word: Death has either been a steady part of the rotation (the Burning Crusade) or absolutely not a part of the rotation (Wrath of the Lich King). At no point as the decision to use Shadow Word: Death been affected by the health of the boss.

Quite amusing when you think about it actually.

I’m quite a fan of Shadow Word: Death as it stands right now. It’s an excellent spell to cast when you’re on the move. It has a small penalty so you do need to use a part of your brain before using it (killing yourself is as embarrassing now as it was years ago). It’s an excellent spell to strike down mobs in heroics. If it crits it can feel godlike. PVP-ers still claim that you can use the backlash to break out of CC but this obviously requires a hell of a lot more skill and timing than I can manage.

Perhaps they could do something like make the damage dealt by Shadow Word: Death inversely scaled to the health of the target – like if you cast it when the boss is at 90% it does 10th of its potential damage. Cast it at 20% and it does 80% of it’s potential damage. And I don’t think Shadow Word: Death should ever kill you, it should be capped to bring you down to like 10% or something, but never outright kill you. Getting to 10% health is pretty dangerous all on its own.

Oh yeah. And if you want us to use it, make sure it hits harder than Mind Flay.

Awesome! So far we’re down to 4 buffs instead of 5 (6 if you count Shadowform) on the pre-pull buff checklist. Can you make Vampiric Embrace, Shadowform and Inner Fire/Will persist through death?

Oh my. Do I even want to get started? Replenishment is offered by four classes. Nearly half the classes available in the game. I want to see these raids that don’t have Replenishment. And don’t tell me that your Hunter/Mage chooses not to spec into it, because that’s not our problem. That’s your Hunter/Mage being inflexible. And who doesn’t have a Retribution Paladin hanging around? They’re everywhere.

I’ll bet you’re thinking “of course Cassandri takes Replenishment for granted – she’s a Shadow Priest!”. Well you’re wrong. I don’t take Replenishment for granted. I’m not a healer but I need it all the same. My spell costs and abilities are all factored around the understanding that I’ll be getting mana back from Replenishment. When they nerfed Replenishment you can bet I noticed it.

I love that Replenishment is a buff provided by DPS classes – something that we can give back to our healers. Frankly if they’re going to nerf Replenishment further I wish they’d just remove it from the game. Why bother? I’d like something amazing for my effort, instead of something that forces me to cast Mind Blast on a Vampiric Touch-ed target to keep it up.

That’s what I figured the Mind Spike spell was all about – short fights. I hadn’t really noticed the problem with being locked out of Shadow spells. Must be a PVP thing because any PVE Shadow lock out that I can think of – Lord Jaraxxus and his mistresses? – is preventable.

I don’t really understand the Mastery thing and I’m quite happy to figure that out once I’m hitting level 81. It’s true – our Shadow talents are mostly boosts to our damage under certain conditions: when such and such spell is up, when you’re in Shadowform etc. I’d be really excited to see what else they have in mind.

I’m ambivalent about the Shadow Orbs mechanic that they’ve brought up here. I think of Earth, Water and Lighning Shields as very unique Shaman abilties. Very visual Shaman abilities. They are also really annoying when they lose charges and drop off while you’re busy doing something else.

I don’t mind the idea of having some spare charges lying around, but my primary concern/question is “what is this going look/animate like?”. I don’t want to see a Shadowpriest hovering in the back of the room with 3 black balls spinning around their body. Give us something that complements Shadowform and doesn’t look anything like a Shaman’s shield and I’ll be happy. Ideally they won’t be visual at all and might just be a resource system like a Death Knight’s rune system – something only the Death Knight user can really see and monitor.

I remember when Misery was a debuff that meant the target was susceptible to Shadow Damage from the party/raid. But I can’t find anything to back that up.

Nobody enjoys spending talents to buff +hit anyway. No problem, get rid of it. Now what are you going to give us that is awesome?

Further Reading

• Amber at I Like Bubbles has an absolutely excellent overview/response to the changes. And she doesn’t snub Shadow Spec either.
• Natarumah at Twisted Faith shares his thoughts on the Shadow Priests changes
• DuskNoir comments on the Priest changes announced from a Shadow Priest point of view. He also has a bit to say about the Dispel changes.

R.I.P Tree of Life

When Blizzard asked last year for feedback on the Tree of Life form I was really surprised at the number of Trees who gave it scathing commentary. Turning into a tree is one of my favorite things about being a Restoration Druid – its an identifier, unique and special.

I can’t say I’m surprised, the feedback thread alone make me expect changes were on the way, but I still feel its a hard hit to take.

Tree of Life is changing from a passive talent to a cooldown-based talent, similar to Metamorphosis. Mechanically, it feels unfair for a druid to have to give up so much offense and utility in order to be just as good at healing as the other classes who are not asked to make that trade.

We are exploring the exact benefit the druid gets from Tree of Life. It could strictly be better healing, or it could be that each heal behaves slightly different. You also will not be able to be banished in Tree of Life form (this will probably be true of Metamorphosis as well).

Additionally, we would like to update the Tree of Life model so that it feels more exciting when you do decide to go into that form. Our feeling is that druids rarely actually get to show off their armor, so it would be nice to have at least one spec that looked like a night elf or tauren (and soon troll or worgen) for most of the time.

Couple this with the fact that restoration druids are to receive no new spells makes me wish I’d never looked at the damned post in the first place.

So the rational part of me knows that being upset about it is silly -  Blizzard will make sure that us tree aficionados can adapt to this “hopping in and out of tree form” idea of theirs.

The irrational/emotional part of me feels as if they’ve chopped off my branches and I won’t be whole again. Just another squishy night elf who looks like everyone else.

For a full read of the Druid Class preview click here for the official forum post.

Oops, what have I signed up for?

I logged into my Battle.net account very very carefully yesterday. I actually logged in looking for some (any!) information about transferring Bind on Account gear between servers. I’ve read the blue posts that mention possible cross faction transfers between characters (same server assumed) but there doesn’t seem to be a definitive answer to whether these items can really be moved to a character on the same account but on another realm.

Surely the only way this could be handled is via Battle.net integration into the in-game mail system? If Battle.net is going to enable us to add players from other games and other servers onto our Friends list, I imagine that if cross realm mail is possible, it’d work in a similar manner. Or the alternative could be some kind of heirloom item management on the Battle.net website itself.

I noticed that there’s a link under Manage My Games on Battle.net that I never noticed before (remember, this is the first time I’ve logged into the service by choice – not to try and regain control over my hacked account or signing up because Blizzard made me). The link reads Beta Profile Settings.

Beta testing for Battle.net? They’re going to add more functionality into the account management? Sure, let’s sign up!

I downloaded the application (again, very carefully) and let it read my system information and register my account. Then Battle.net presented me with three options.

Which beta tests would you be interested in?

Diablo universe
Starcraft universe
Warcraft universe

Yep. I was totally wrong – nothing to do with Battle.net testing. This must be the place to register your interest in becoming a Beta Tester for Blizzard’s upcoming games and expansions. Like Cataclysm.

So I think I’ve registered. From memory, Blizzard randomly selected a portion of players to become Beta testers of Wrath of the Lich King in 2008 from a huge pool of interested parties. There’s no guarantee that by opt-ing in that you’ll be selected. I’m sure their selection criteria is based on choosing a wide variety of computer systems (it’s technical testing too) and then trying to include players with a long length of play time and players much newer to World of Wacraft, and of all ages and countries.

I’m not sure if I actually want to be selected. If you Beta test you can’t regain the time spent in Beta playing/leveling your character. It would be a fascinating to see what doesn’t work – and then thinking to yourself “thank god they changed that quest” when you get to the live servers. Perhaps it would feel like your own behind the scenes glimpse into the making of the game.

And of course you get to see it first. But I also believe that you’re marring the experience somewhat. There’s just something so mad about racing through the Dark Portal and jumping in as the Burning Legion attack your base camp or hopping that first boat to Northrend and squabbling over mobs in the early leveling zones that you only experience at the start of an expansion. And it’s the kind of experience I’d like to have with my friends.

Anyway now that I’ve opted in I’ll let it be decided by luck. Either I’m chosen or I’m not. Would you Beta test if you had the chance?

And why am I so interested in Bind on Account items? I’m thinking about leveling a new character before Cataclysm and, preferably, when things start winding down over the Christmas holidays. The problem is, Cassandri is swimming in Emblems and Stone Keepers Shards on Barthilas. Yet I have Bind on Account items (including 2 trinkets that I can reuse) on my Shaman on Caelestraesz. And I’d much prefer to level my new character on Caelestraesz where the leveling guilds are nice. I might even make some new friends.

I thought that perhaps I could just start running Heroics on Xata in order to buy a weapon and a chest item on Caelestraesz and roll my new character there, but then I calculated just how many Wintergrasp dailies I’d need to do to earn 320 Stone Keepers Shards and how many heroics it would take to earn 65 Emblems of Conquest. The answer was: too many.

It seems like a huge time investment on a character that I don’t intend to play in the future in order to benefit another character altogether!