Tier 11 Mini-Preview, Ghouls vs Peacebloom, Blue Posts

[Direknyte]

Is it just me, or do the T11 set bonuses seem really lackluster and weak across the board? I'm disappointed in them.

[Riboflavin]

Yea, I'm a bit fearful of the impending healing changes. I've done all 3 roles on my Paladin in the current raids of the time, and realized that as Holy I spend the most time staring at my raid UI instead of the actual game. As a tank or DPS, I at least have the ability to look at the environment without deadly consequences, but as a healer my time breaks up to about 70% Staring at Raid UI, 10% Running out of Raid Damage, 20% DPSing/Doing nothing because I don't need to heal (XT's heart phase, Icehowl's stun from charge, etc.). If I don't focus on the UI when just the tank is taking damage, he usually dies because I missed a heal by about 0.3 seconds. Yea, healing burns me out much faster than Tanking or DPSing. And when things go wrong, guess who gets blamed. DPS stands in fire? HEALER SHOULD HAVE HEALED ME! Tank doesn't pop cds when the boss uses a big attack? HEALERS SHOULD HAVE SAVED ME!

Maybe I'm just bitter but healers have always seemed to get the hardest job and the least amount of credit. A tank does superior tanking, he gets "good job". A dps does an incredible amount of damage, he gets "nice work". A healer saves the group from a wipe, he gets "Well if you healed better we wouldn't have even been in danger."

That's just what you learn to accept as a healer, even though you can link that X died from 2 40k attacks from the boss and there was no way to save them as that was more than their total hp. Hopefully healing assignments will make a return along with healer communication, which is something I've really missed in WOTLK. As it is now, healing assignments normally don't go out until the important people die a couple of times. In classic and TBC we had a healing channel for the raid in which we would discuss who was buffing which group, who was healing whom, and if it was an endurance fight we would set up a healing rotation so the healers would get time to regen. If there were problems it was discussed in the healing channel instead of some tirade in raid/vent.
A big downside to a possible return to complex healing is the return of tunnel vision aka Grid-lock, where you just see the raid ui of group members and don't really see what's going on around you. My best example of this is in classic and I got lost in MC as I had never really got to look around the place, just watch health bars.

As blizzard has put in many talents where the healer can dps and get mana, haste, heal someone for the damage of the smite etc, it makes me think there will be a few fights where healers can do some dps, or may even need to do dps in the case of talents that restore mana during a fight.

[Solstark]

Awesome, I'll be wasting a few moments on PvG

[Difuid]

The mage fire talent tree in wowtal is still messed up and has been for a while!

[Deleted]

.... I got lost in MC as I had never really got to look around the place, just watch health bars.....

That is to me the worst part of playing healer, you never get to see the awesome boss or the nifty graphics in his spells. A healer sees a bunch of green bars and thats it. For a healer wow could easier be a this.

[Devidose]

The DLC in-joke was a nice touch.

[brianem]

I beat the first couple of quests this morning for the plants vs zombie thing, pretty awesome. Got my ass kicked fighting the boss though...I'm going to blame it on bugs! <grin>

---------- Post added 2010-09-20 at 07:40 PM ----------

As blizzard has put in many talents where the healer can dps and get mana, haste, heal someone for the damage of the smite etc, it makes me think there will be a few fights where healers can do some dps, or may even need to do dps in the case of talents that restore mana during a fight.

Those talents are all fail. I've tried, and I cant hit anything on my resto shaman. Unless they want to go in and give us hit bonuses based on spirit or something (deep in healing trees), they're complete and total fail, you only waste more mana missing and not healing.

[Tricsun]

Humm, NE rogue camel toe. Strange design choice.

[Baz]

Plants vs Zombies is win.

[Riboflavin]

Humm, NE rogue camel toe. Strange design choice.

that's a blood elf, the peach toned skin is a dead give away.

[Priya-tan]

I really, REALLY don't get why people are getting their panties in a bunch over having TWO FEWER mounts... as if there weren't ENOUGH mounts in the game already. I really don't think it'll be THAT HARD to get the new mount whoring achievement.

People that are that upset should really be concerned for themselves :P I, for one, support the running wild. I think it's a really neat mechanic, and you DON'T HAVE TO USE IT IF YOU DON'T WANT TO. You can still ride other mounts, so I'm really just at a loss for words as to why people are so upset about it.

I'm not sure how much I'll use it on my druid after I faction change since I love my Raven Lord, but it'll definitely be fun to do when running around cities :] As long as they make it look good... I don't want to be a human mounted on a white worgen's arm...

[Scratchee]

I still think Dark Flight should have them run on all fours and give worgen a mount. I have mountain of mounts already but am still upset that we cannot get anything spiffy from gilneas rep. And it makes no sense to me why they don't want them to have their own mounts when they are able to use others.

[Katana Angel]

A big downside to a possible return to complex healing is the return of tunnel vision aka Grid-lock, where you just see the raid ui of group members and don't really see what's going on around you. My best example of this is in classic and I got lost in MC as I had never really got to look around the place, just watch health bars.

Yea, I'm a bit fearful of the impending healing changes. I've done all 3 roles on my Paladin in the current raids of the time, and realized that as Holy I spend the most time staring at my raid UI instead of the actual game. As a tank or DPS, I at least have the ability to look at the environment without deadly consequences, but as a healer my time breaks up to about 70% Staring at Raid UI, 10% Running out of Raid Damage, 20% DPSing/Doing nothing...

Zaerix, Riboflavin, I agree entirely with your sentiment. I know they have said in the past they wanted to "avoid" that healer tunnel-vision, but it's really... hard to do that, even with what changes they've added thus far with the UI (which is apparently just a now Grid-like interface).
I do like a challenge, so I will probably end up going back to healing once Cata raiding starts up. I just hope it isn't a ludicrous ramp-up from what I've been used to.

[Bogrim]

What does it seriously matter what other races than Worgen can get from their faction? The point of adding a new race isn't 5-6 mounts you'll never use because everyone already rides them, and achievements such as Mountain of Mounts is just a generic number. Furthermore, there's already tons of new cool mounts being added, such as that amazing lion and those cool reputation dragons.

Game feel is what matters. Worgens are werewolves. It's pretty darn awesome they can utilize their speed to run as fast as a mount. As an upcoming Worgen player, that's just something I'll be looking so much forward to - and that's what really matters.

[styopa]

Er, if each set has (2) and (4)-piece bonuses, and if we're all locked into a spec from the moment we plop in our first talent point, why have different sets per spec at all?

I mean, why not just have the Shammy gear get +X of primary stat, +Y of secondary stat, with X, Y, 2- and 4-piece bonuses all determined by what spec you are?

Kind of the armor-equivalent of the mastery bonus - it 'reads' your spec and grants you the bonus appropriate to you.

Seems a lot simpler than making umpteen sets of armor.

[xnickybx]

A rogue is an assassin class; who hides in the shadows with daggers/swords, ready to strike unsuspecting opponents. Dark colors with maybe some red has always suited this type of class. Instead we will get a tier that makes us look like a rainbow...

Combat rogue says hi.

An assassin is a rogue, but not all rogues are assassins.

I for one, welcome the change. It's hard to be a pirate when all they give you is ninja costumes.

[DrgnDancer]

Er, if each set has (2) and (4)-piece bonuses, and if we're all locked into a spec from the moment we plop in our first talent point, why have different sets per spec at all?

I mean, why not just have the Shammy gear get +X of primary stat, +Y of secondary stat, with X, Y, 2- and 4-piece bonuses all determined by what spec you are?

Kind of the armor-equivalent of the mastery bonus - it 'reads' your spec and grants you the bonus appropriate to you.

Seems a lot simpler than making umpteen sets of armor.

Well your choice of classes for your example answers your question. If we put, say, +Int and +Spi on Shammy gear, what will Enhance Shammies think?
It would be easy enough to tailor the bonuses that way, but primary stats won't work for "full" hybrids (Druids, Shamans, and Paladins). You couldn't even really fudge it by changing your "primary" and "secondary" stat based on spec. Casters really need to get Int, Spirit, and Stam on gear, Phys and Melee DPS want *either* Agi or Str (but not both), then Stam. There's not even the same number of stats to work with.

Edit: And *really* DPS casters would rather not have spirit, though it won't be awful for them if the plan to use it as hit proceeds. So there's even more differentiation there.

[Sevrid]

the druid tier 11 looks exactly like the zealot armor from warhammer online that came out years ago. They blatantly stole it.

[Blazzez]

goddamn blizzard keeps failing at making rogue tiers -.-
t6 was still best made rogue tier
rogue ar assasins not goddamn genie from a goddamn lamb -.- gief some real epix rogue look alike gear that says TERROR!

[Duster505]

Zaerix, Riboflavin, I agree entirely with your sentiment. I know they have said in the past they wanted to "avoid" that healer tunnel-vision, but it's really... hard to do that, even with what changes they've added thus far with the UI (which is apparently just a now Grid-like interface).
I do like a challenge, so I will probably end up going back to healing once Cata raiding starts up. I just hope it isn't a ludicrous ramp-up from what I've been used to.

You saying that dps and tanks are more challenging atm than healers? Cause they are not. Healing is more challenging in WOTLK than ever before in terms of staying focused. Do the wrong thing and a player dies. That is ... in a hard enough content. ATM the problem is that noone can die since some healing classes dont have the tools to handle it in 5 man (so they have to be extra easy). This ofc leads to AOE and no need for CC content that are even more easy for the AOE healers.

There is nothing hard or complicated about healing. It just takes much more out of ppl than tanking and damaging. Now Blizzard is focusing on making healing much more complicated for the sake of balancing the DIFFICULTY of the content. The progress of Cata is gonna be based soly on healing ability and it will lead to more ppl quitting healing than those that come back to it. We are no longer in Vanilla with 40 ppl raids. We are in 25 man raids and assigning healers sounds like smart idea for some content....exept that it doesn't work no more cause alot of movement and beeing out of range is now part and parcel of the game.

Blizzard really need to refocus their effort on healing and realise that watching bars 99% of the time is not fun. They havn't change that. Now they have just added one more bar that needs to be watched more than before - and thats the mana bar.

What happens if a DPS class runs out of mana? What happens if a Tank class runs out of mana (after 10 sec of fighting)? And... what happens if the healer runs out of mana? And who asks why the healer is running out of mana ? Maybe cause he needs to heal much more than he should have cause the dps and tank are taking more dmg than they should - IF they watched out for not taking extra dmg ?

Why not let the dps classes start watching the threat meters more ? Or tanks ? Holding treat now is like taking a pee... its effortless after you start (for most) - stealing threat is almost impossible... I dont see any dps classes having to watch their big dmg spells to prevent taking agro in 2 or 3 hits... Why not... Why is ALL the content balanced ONLY on the healers ?

WHat happens if a DPS class hits the wrong dmg button ? Absolutly nothing. What happens if the tank hits the wrong threat button ? Absolutoly nothing ? What happens if the healer hits the wrong healing button ? Everything....

Holding agro should be hard - doing dmg without pulling agro should be hard. Healing should not be any harder than those two. THIS was the reality in Vanilla. If ppl want to take healing back to Vanilla - then why on earth not punish everyone for hitting the wrong buttons ?