World of Warcraft: Current Year

kaid_sl said:

I think one of the best models for a non DPS focused game play would be something like city of heroes. Their "healer" class the defenders often times did the healers job while using various forms of buffing or debuffing with only a couple options for direct healing. Then they also had the controller who had limited DPS options but high quality CC and defensive utility and buffs.

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I adored how CoH did their version of healing and crowd control. For people who never played it, they virtually eliminated direct heals, and instead used a combination of knockbacks/ups/downs, stuns, sleeps, and other control powers with buffs/debuffs to handle healing by avoiding damage. Tanks and DPS were largely left to use their self-healing powers and inspirations (basically one-time use potions) to heal directly. I'd love to see another game adopt CoH's combat system. It was awesome, and just the right mix of action and EQ-style hot buttons. There's no way WoW could implement anything like this, though, given how entrenched the healing aspect is and the way combat works.

It was also great because the two support archtypes were fun. People liked playing defenders and controllers because they got a lot of very interesting powers and were useful soloing as well as grouping.

In breaking the holy trinity of EQ most games fell into the power duo of a tank and a healer and in practice the tank winds up with so much responsibility for control/tanking/positioning few have the desire to do it and you have healers who are mostly playing the watch the green bar mini game. So you wind up with the majority of the population playing pure DPS specs and when you want to do any group content are stuck with long waits for the few people willing to queue as tanks or DPS.

In COH people played tanks not just to be the groups punching bag but because they were freaking tanks. You were powerful felt like a super human shrugging off most attacks and had a lot of big powerful attacks so you felt like you were doing great damage while you were working.

What do you mean you can't come up with a fun way to use a music class?

Healer and Damage Dealer.
Healers use flutes.
DDs use Strings or Percussion (drums). 3 Specs. Healer, Sustained Damage (PVE) and fast damage (PvP).

Now for spells, you would call them notes.
You "cast" by pressing your notes in succession. This you can call melody and could be your buff or whatever. Think Simon Says with Ocarina of Time influences.
Casting several related melodies (your combos) triggers a symphony that has some extra percent of buff (or enemy debuff).

Your raids would be performing your symphonies. Maybe at some point in the encounter you need to give folks the symphony of reduced damage, so you need to cast Melody B, Melody E and Melody L. Your next combo maybe its 15% to damage when lust is on. Etc. There are plenty of different phases that might require the Bard to cast a particular symphony.

The problem is moving while doing all of this so maybe they're mostly instant? I think there's fun stuff that can be done with that concept that I'm surprised Blizzard hasn't done it. If EQ had something "workable" Blizzard could easily come up with something good.

That sounds terrible.

Instead, you can just go play EQ2 and just do heroic opportunities all day.

Monks have some really cool mechanics. I love their dodge and jade totem or whatever it's called. Every spec should have something like that. Demo Locks, Boomkins (maybe even consider shamans totems too) etc. Everyone should have some kind of unique item/resource or whatever they get to use to make their class tick. They should go back and alter some of the older specs to add something interesting in there instead of just having plan old mana/combo points/rage. Give Paladins a mount that they use for some abilities or something I duno.

But yeah, Blizzard is capable of some interesting class concepts, I just wish it wasn't as rare or at least they keep things fresh with new designs with new expacs. God knows they change shit for the worse all the time (or at least according to people here).

Always play whatever new class they add in expansions, they start off well-put-together, OP, and super fun. Then, the Blizzard Patch Machine gets to work making them homogenized, dull, and annoying.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Bailing that water off the Titanic with buckets.

MMO-Champion - World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

Patch 6.2.3 Preview
Patch 6.2.3 is on the way, bringing some changes to hold us over until Legion:

• Cataclysm dungeons are getting Timewalking: Grim Batol, Stonecore, Lost City of Tol'vir, The Vortex Pinnacle, Throne of Tides, and End Time
• Pit of Saron and Magister's Terrace are also getting Timewalking.
• An Infinite Dragonflight mount (Infinite Timereaver) has a chance to drop from any Timewalking dungeon boss.
• Cross-Realm Mythic Raiding will be enabled.
• Valor has returned! IT is earned from Heroic and Mythic Dungeons, various Bonus Events, and your first Raid Finder run each week.
• Mythic dungeons will be the most lucrative source of Valor.
• Mythic dungeons can drop a Heirloom Trinket that will scale to level 110.
• Items can be upgraded by 10 item levels.
• Defeating Archimonde on Heroic difficulty or higher will reward the Grove Warden mount (for a limited time)!
• Mythic Warforged items can be even higher item level now, anywhere from 685 to 725 in five item-level increments.
• Baleful items can also be higher item level, anywhere from level 655 all the way to 695.
• Warlords Season 3 is coming, with Warmongering Aspirant gear at PvP item level 715, Warmongering Combatant gear at 730, and Warmongering Gladiator gear at 740.

Here are some more gems:

Valor for the Valorous
With the patch we'll be bringing back Valor as a currency. You'll will be able earn Valor once more by taking part in Heroic and Mythic Dungeons, from various Bonus Events, and via the first run through Raid Finder each week. To upgrade, visit your friendly neighborhood ethereal to upgrade gear up to five item levels at a time, up to two times per piece of gear.

We're expanding the range of item quality for players within Mythic Dungeons and Tanaan Jungle. Players who take part in Mythic Dungeons will have a chance to gain items up to item level 725, and players who receive Baleful items will now have a chance to gain items up to item level 695. Players in Mythic Dungeons will also now have a chance to loot a new Heirloom Trinket that will scale to level 110.

So not only do we have more different currencies than ever before, after they directly stated they had too many before, you can now get Mythic Hellfire Citadel gear from running Mythic Dungeons...because they fucking failed with Mythic dungeons and no one ever does them.

Like...fuck man. It actually HURTS me to watch the ship sink.

You would prefer they keep things the way they are instead of trying to improve them? They made mistakes and are trying to correct them, what is the problem?

Abefroman_sl said:

You would prefer they keep things the way they are instead of trying to improve them? They made mistakes and are trying to correct them, what is the problem?

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The only reason any of this shit is getting put in is to put a bandaid on their bleeding sub loss. This entire expansion has been nothing but a huge fuck you to players who have been playing this game for years and years.

The valor upgrade shit? Get the fuck out of here. It was stupid in MoP and it's fucking stupid now.

Mythic Hellfire gear dropping in Mythic Dungeons? Fuck all that bullshit. Mythic dungeons are a god damn joke.

Cross realm mythic raiding should have been a WoD launch feature.

More timewalking bullshit, which, also fucking sucks.

I drank too much coffee this morning.

Improving the game is now a negative.

Only two things I am not a fan of, I should be able to earn Valor by raiding. I should not have to do daily heroics or mythic dungeons.

and

Mythic level gear in mythic dungeons is indeed stupid.

Cataclysm timewalking is going to be quite amusing.

Have to assume post-Blizzcon. This is our bridge to Legion patch, which also means Legion is probably Q2 now.

Slaythe_sl said:

Seems silly to complain about much of that.

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Not really, bringing back item upgrades and valor (that you cannot earn from real raiding) along with second wing mythic ilevel gear in mythic dungeons flies in the face of Blizzard's design philosophies in WoD gear acquisition and raiding (which I have enjoyed). WoD has not required raiders to step out of raids for upgrades except to obtain three weekly seals. They took out all the annoying chores and hoops raiders had to jump through. Now, raiders are going to have to run mythic dungeons weekly plus other content (if required) in order to hit the valor cap and obtain upgrades to their gear.

The timewalking additions and H archimonde mount are both great. Easy and more powerful gear acquisition is great but it should not infringe on Mythic raiding territory. Cap the mythic dungeon gear at 715 (you can still upgrade to 725, i.e., second wing Mythic gear). Also, item upgrades are fine, but let raiders earn it from actually raiding.

It's just another way of nerfing the raids without actually nerfing them. The competition is long over and this gives lesser guilds a chance to complete more bosses by outgearing them. I do agree that Valor should be also gained by raiding for those who want nothing to do with dungeons.