World of Warcraft

[Inigima]

Just tanked VoA 10 for the first time, including the new boss, yay

[Weak With The Dawn]

I did that once. I was pretty sure it wouldn't be an upgrade, but I wanted it in case (Rawr confirmed it wasn't, though not by much; both my trinkets are level 200 right now, and I'm a few pieces away from getting the haste trinket), but the main reason was to dick over some rogue. I can't recall why I wanted to dick him over specifically, but in my opinion at the time, he deserved it.

I think Blizzard is getting rid of Armor Pen not just because of how misunderstood it is, but because it's a complication. Most specs do well with it. Basically all but one plate dps spec at least likes it, if doesn't consider it #1 or #2, but the Ret paladin considers it the weakest real dps stat (discounting Int and Spellpower). When my warrior was Arms it was king, now that he's Fury I gather it's probably #2. My DK it's #2 unless I've reached enough strength for it to be #1...

They way I saw them explain it was that their only getting rid of it on base gear items. I can't find it but I believe they said it would still be on trinkets and rings, and in an example on "Mastery" for the rogue talent trees X amount of Arpen was included in the mastery. So we may still have to deal with it.

Mutilate rogues see Arpen the same way Ret pally do, unfortunately it's still a big stat for Combat, so we're screwed into losing a bit of stat budget towards it on a few items. I can't wait for the stat modifying skill coming with Cataclysm.

[Shryke]

It's not gonna be on items. Not directly anyway.

Basically, there will be a Mastery Stat on gear and each talent tree will have mastery bonuses.

So Arms Warriors, for example, will have Armor Penetration as a Mastery Bonus on the Arms tree. The more points you put in the arms tree, the more Armor Pen you get per point of the Mastery stat.

Each tree will have it's own specific Mastery Bonuses that are increased by the Mastery Stat.

[Kalbear]

They're going to get rid of it entirely. It's almost certainly not going to be part of any mastery stat for the same reason that they're getting rid of it: it's a complex variable that ends up increasing physical damage. They'd rather simply make mastery give you +x% more damage; it's easier to nerf, it's easier to scale, and it's easier to understand.

ETA: more here:

http://www.wow.com/2009/08/22/blizzcon-2009-mastery-system-and-talent-trees/

And yes, I know they use armor pen there - but it's not armor pen rating, it's simply a flat reduction, which is at least a little bit easier to understand. And I suspect they'll strongly change this to simply read 10% more physical damage instead.

[Weak With The Dawn]

They're going to get rid of it entirely. It's almost certainly not going to be part of any mastery stat for the same reason that they're getting rid of it: it's a complex variable that ends up increasing physical damage. They'd rather simply make mastery give you +x% more damage; it's easier to nerf, it's easier to scale, and it's easier to understand.

ETA: more here:

http://www.wow.com/2...d-talent-trees/

And yes, I know they use armor pen there - but it's not armor pen rating, it's simply a flat reduction, which is at least a little bit easier to understand. And I suspect they'll strongly change this to simply read 10% more physical damage instead.

That's actually a more comprehensive screenshot then the few I had seen. Thanks for that.

Found something interesting on the WoW Forums:

http://www.ugo.com/the-goods/world-of-warcraft-orc-warrior-garrosh-hellscream

It's a Garrosh figurine but he's most certainly not the same model we've encountered in game. It's to be released in a set of official figurines coming out October of this year and theirs a lot of assumption going towards this being his Cataclysm model. This could be a decent heads up to a cata release date, a bit of a tease pre-cata, or just some hoax, either way I think the figuring looks pretty cool.

[Poobah]

Looks like he's holding Gorehowl, Grom's Axe.

Unfortunately it doesn't look like Thrall or Saurfang is about to take it from him and split his stupid little skull open with it.

[RaceBannon42]

Looks like he's holding Gorehowl, Grom's Axe.

Unfortunately it doesn't look like Thrall or Saurfang is about to take it from him and split his stupid little skull open with it.

BS!

I've got Gorehowl sitting in my bank, and I'm not giving it to that whiney git Garrosh.

[Poobah]

We got 10 man LK down.

On the end bosses, on normal mode of course - no hardmode experience yet - I think they are all pretty easy once you know what to do. All three are a matter of good execution of the strategy necessary to bring them down. All three are also a matter of avoiding avoidable damage and surviving.

[Kalbear]

I don't think Yogg0 will ever be easy. Even if we did it every week we could easily spend a couple hours in there. Stupid things like a DC at the wrong time or a skull fucking up or malady deciding to be a bitch.

Anub isn't like that at all; it's very repeatable and not hard once folks know what the hell they're supposed to do. But that whole 'dealing with ice patches thing' alone is long.

From what I've seen, LK doesn't look too bad. A lot of people really like the fight, and it has nice transitions. It reminds me quite a bit of Illidan, and that's a good thing.

I'm really disappointed in the hard modes for ICC though; there's only one that significantly changes the strategies involved (Rotface). Deathwhisper possibly. The rest though are essentially 'don't fuck up as much'. On some I can't really tell what the difference is; anyone know how Valithria actually changed on hard mode? Otherwise...it's like they're not trying. Festergut has PP throwing malleable goo on you. That's it. Blood princes makes you pay for moving. Marrowgar has spikes during the bone storm. The gunship knocks you back on the rocket hits - off the boat...but you teleport right back up. Saurfang's adds one-shot you if they hit you and he does more marks, but that's it. BQL does more AoE damage and has more health. Sindragosa explodes the casters.

Nothing like Freya 3 or Mimiron hard or Yogg hard or Anub hard. Hopefully LK is different.

[Shryke]

I don't think Yogg0 will ever be easy. Even if we did it every week we could easily spend a couple hours in there. Stupid things like a DC at the wrong time or a skull fucking up or malady deciding to be a bitch.

Anub isn't like that at all; it's very repeatable and not hard once folks know what the hell they're supposed to do. But that whole 'dealing with ice patches thing' alone is long.

From what I've seen, LK doesn't look too bad. A lot of people really like the fight, and it has nice transitions. It reminds me quite a bit of Illidan, and that's a good thing.

I'm really disappointed in the hard modes for ICC though; there's only one that significantly changes the strategies involved (Rotface). Deathwhisper possibly. The rest though are essentially 'don't fuck up as much'. On some I can't really tell what the difference is; anyone know how Valithria actually changed on hard mode? Otherwise...it's like they're not trying. Festergut has PP throwing malleable goo on you. That's it. Blood princes makes you pay for moving. Marrowgar has spikes during the bone storm. The gunship knocks you back on the rocket hits - off the boat...but you teleport right back up. Saurfang's adds one-shot you if they hit you and he does more marks, but that's it. BQL does more AoE damage and has more health. Sindragosa explodes the casters.

Nothing like Freya 3 or Mimiron hard or Yogg hard or Anub hard. Hopefully LK is different.

I think that's the idea. They are actual Hard Modes. Same fight you just have to execute it better. No fuck ups, no shortcuts.

[Kalbear]

I think that's the idea. They are actual Hard Modes. Same fight you just have to execute it better. No fuck ups, no shortcuts

Then they got it wrong, because people regularly fucked up the hard modes in the videos I saw and still did them just fine. It's not no fuck ups - it's simply 'less fuck ups than facerolling it before'. But the muscle memory, the strategy, the coordination, all of that is exactly the same. And it means that unlike the really hard fights, you can simply get better gear and outgear the bastard.

Which means that the hard modes aren't really that interesting. Certainly not compared to Sarth3D or Anub or Yogg0 or Firefighter or Freya or Steelbreaker or XT, even. They're just more of the same fight. Meh.

[Shryke]

Sarth 3D is a DPS zerg and has been for ages now. We all outgeared it eventually.

And your complaint boils down to "it still allows a couple of fuck ups". I don't see the problem.

It's the same fight, harder. Not a different fight.

[Kalbear]

Sarth 3D is a DPS zerg and has been for ages now. We all outgeared it eventually.

You can zerg it on 25-man easily? I know top-50 guilds have done it, but they all stated it was harder than doing it the normal way. It's a pretty steep DPS check unless you get a very unbalanced raid.

But you still can't zerg yogg0, or anub, or Freya3.

And your complaint boils down to "it still allows a couple of fuck ups". I don't see the problem.

It's the same fight, harder. Not a different fight.

Sarth3D was very, very different than Sarth0. You didn't have to worry about rotating tank cooldowns or dealing with the evil debuffs or anything like that. Similarly, Anub is very different when leech is an actual issue, add management becomes insane and you have to deal with multiple ice patches. Yogg0 is a completely different fight; having to deal with immortal guardians being...immortal changes one whole phase of the fight completely. XT's mechanics required completely different strategies for dealing with the debuffs that had nothing to do with the normal phases.

The difference between Anub Hard and (for example) Hodir Hard is that Hodir hard doesn't change mechanically; you just have to execute better. Do more DPS, do it faster, don't need as much healing. That's simply a 'do it better' fight, and has fewer fuckups. Basically every single hard mode in ICC that is known so far is of this kind.

That's not that interesting to me. It means you're not changing how you do the fight or figuring out strategies or learning to execute those strategies. You're just doing the same thing you've been doing for weeks and hoping everyone else does it better too.

I mean...have you even done these things? Do you know what I'm talking about?

[Shryke]

I know what you are talking about. I'm saying THAT'S THE POINT.

It's Hard Mode. Same fight, now just do it better with less fuck ups.

I think they probably design the Hard Modes first as the "normal" fight and then remove certain features on normal mode so that PUGs can play sloppy and still beat the fight.

[Kalbear]

Okay. If that's what they've always wanted - hard modes to be completely unchanged in mechanics or only slightly changed in mechanics but have a higher DPS/heal/tank requirement on gear - then that sucks. And it's not what they've done for their most memorable encounters in this expansion.

If that's their design path for Cataclysm, it's going to piss the raiders who were looking forward to hard modes right off.

[Shryke]

Okay. If that's what they've always wanted - hard modes to be completely unchanged in mechanics or only slightly changed in mechanics but have a higher DPS/heal/tank requirement on gear - then that sucks. And it's not what they've done for their most memorable encounters in this expansion.

If that's their design path for Cataclysm, it's going to piss the raiders who were looking forward to hard modes right off.

Except it's not just gear requirements, it's execution requirements.

And sometimes that ends up being the same in a few tiers, but such is the march of MMO progress. Eventually, you outgear shit.

The stuff you don't is the stuff with some sort of mechanic that doesn't depend on your ability to execute your classes function. (sanity for instance)

[Kalbear]

Except it's not just gear requirements, it's execution requirements.

That's my point; the fights in ICC don't have any different execution requirements than they did when they started. Literally. Nothing has changed. Nothing's different. You don't have to execute better than you did before. That's why so many guilds are just one-shotting these hard modes as soon as they see them; nothing's changed and they don't have to do any better.

The stuff you don't is the stuff with some sort of mechanic that doesn't depend on your ability to execute your classes function. (sanity for instance)

Okay, then we're talking about degrees. I like the hard modes that require execution that goes away in 3 or more tiers of content. Things like Felmyst or Kil'jaeden were like this; these were hard fights even after the 30% nerf. If you nerfed Yogg0 or Algalon or Anub hard or Freya it would be the same thing; it'd still be a hard fight even after a 30% nerf.

ICC hard mode difficulties for execution go away in the same tier of content. In other words, once you've farmed a decent amount of ICC normal gear you can do the hard modes without significant difficulties. And that's disappointing.

It's also disappointing from the perspective of doing the fights over and over. It's just the same fight. You're not experiencing something new or different. That's kind of boring to me. Perhaps you're different.

[Shryke]

That's my point; the fights in ICC don't have any different execution requirements than they did when they started. Literally. Nothing has changed. Nothing's different. You don't have to execute better than you did before. That's why so many guilds are just one-shotting these hard modes as soon as they see them; nothing's changed and they don't have to do any better.

Yeah, you do.

The thing is, if you were already competent, you were already executing them above what you needed to beat the encounter.

Just look at Marrowgar. Same exact fight except now you have to actually be better at avoiding damage from flame/bone storm and at getting people off spikes. You can't half-ass it.

[Kalbear]

Just look at Marrowgar. Same exact fight except now you have to actually be better at avoiding damage from flame/bone storm and at getting people off spikes. You can't half-ass it.

Most groups that killed him half-assed it.

[Shryke]

Most groups that killed him half-assed it.

Not as much as you can on normal mode.