Power Auras Effect, Welcome the Machine, Blue Posts

[Zadoc]

Another day, another shot deleted from a Class armoury. Yes, I know, QQ. At the start of Beta, I thought Blizzard had a pretty clear view of what they wanted from the various class make-overs, but now I'm not so sure. In the post-talent-massacre world, most changes now seem to consist of "what shall we delete today" rather than tweaking them imaginatively, or changing them for something more appropriate to the class. We have seen what Blizzard can do when they use their imaginations, but this rather smacks of an easy way out.

I could see why the removal of Mana was a good idea, it never made much sense for hunters to use it (I have two Lv80 hunters) but nor am I sure the way they use Focus is brilliant either. It isn't logical that when a hunter runs out of Focus, they can't do anything except wait for regen, or fire a Focus generating shot. I think an exponential fatigue mechanism would have been better, perhaps affecting Haste, Hit, Crit etc. That is by the by though, I can't see them changing now. It isn't massively different to how my Retadin plays with Mana anyway, so no big deal.

Volley did feel wrong with guns, yet a perfectly natural thing with bows. After all, it is the shot that was used most by real archers when fighting a real enemy army. Even then, a real archer could loose off 1 round a second, so there's no reason why in Azeroth they couldn't shoot a cluster at a similar rate. If Blizzard are to remove it simply because the animation looks rubbish then that is an Art Department problem. If I were running the hunter makeover, I would ask the developers to come up with a machine gun effect for bullets instead (perhaps with smoking muzzle and red glow from the barrel). Most of the hunter shots don't make much sense with a gun anyway.

Let us face it, Volley is mostly used against trash. The filler that Blizzard put in between bosses to make things both slower and (theoretically) more interesting. Mana regen is rarely good enough in boss fights that Volley would be effective to use more than occasionally. They keep going on about how they want it to be fun, personally I find it more fun getting past the trash quickly so we can get on with the meat of the raid.

I'm absolutely sure Hunter DPS will be fine when Cataclysm arrives, if anything they will err on the side of caution initially simply because 99% of players won't get anywhere their current efficiency levels for a few weeks. How Blizz go about it is a different matter, at the moment it just feels like they don't have any Focus on the issue (oh the irony).

Apologies if this is a bit QQ, I just want to see Blizzard using their imaginations a bit instead of a sequence of deletions.

Mike (not so much a TotalBiscuit as a slightly nibbled HobNob)



"Bother" thought Pooh as he remembered something he was going to say: I hope the Auras come with selectable sound effects, I generally have too much to look at on screen in a fight as it is, and Power Aura's sound effects are very useful indeed.

[Dustdevil]

Best quest is still the Rambo chain quest in Redridge.

[Alayea]

No need to apologize. It was also partly my fault for confusing CC for over-gearing in your argument, so I apologize if I came off a little nerd-rage-y.

Glad to know the confusion is cleared up.

My hope is that with Cataclysm Blizzard will find the middle ground somewhere were ST DPS is still king, tanks are in real danger, healers have to worry about both mana and output, and both AoE and CC are valuable tools that you can make use of when necessary without either one becoming so overwhelming as to be the defining factor of play in the expansion.

I'm hoping Blizzard finds that middle ground too. (Although I still would like to cause genuine, massive death from time to time, mwahahaha.)

[Second]

Another day, another shot deleted from a Class armoury .............

.... hope the Auras come with selectable sound effects

I must disagree. I am pretty content with the changes made to hunters generally. I do agree that the reason for removing volley is fail one - i would totally be satisfied with "it didnt fit our view of hunter" instead of visual, or what can/cant be done in fantasy world.

With Cata presumed shift back to more single target dps thrash (or cc) i dont see much problem of such move. Bear in mind we have another aoe - 30s cd, unmovable, need launcher cd but hey - explosive trap(snake trap) and multishot. If they felt like volley was kicking multishot out of bars for such mobs, either buff or nerf would need to be ensued to one and we would end in same position (A>B). Removing is kinda radical thing but it opens some possibilities (i am very vague here - be it talent/glyph affecting multi,dmg buff, more targets affected, ...).
In shine of things like giving swipe cd, making consecrate cd and such, i can see reason for removal of volley. Question is what will happen to other aoe - will it be heavy mana(or other resources) dependent so you cant/wont use it until really big pack comes into play ? Thats the question.

On power auras : I will stay with my PAC, but i can see the use for new chars/leveling usage.
I like the customization i can do to my notifiers (even sounds), but there is no need to use cannon for killing a bird.

[njdss4]

"Welcome to the Machine" is an awesome quest. I wish they'd make it a chain where you could actually help the noob "Dumass" become a better player somehow. Make you feel like you actually did something good as a quest giver. Maybe next they'll let us be a graveyard resurrection spirit and rez "Dumass" a few times due to his complete inability to play the game! "I CANT DO THE QUEST YOU GAVE ME FOR SCARLET MONASTERY. SHOULD I ASK OTHER PPL TO HELP ME" indicating he was trying to solo an 5-man or something to that effect.

Also, the new ingame PowerAuras look amazing. I can't wait to see the rest of them (Lava Surge, please?).

[bulkhead]

After watching the clip I made an account just to say this:

THE QUESTS ARE NOW DIAMONDS!

sorry if anyone else already said it :P