Quests should just be Quests

We do not need Weekly, Daily, Group 5, Group 2/3, Raid and or what ever other types of quests there are. Quests should be completable no matter what group/raid you are in. So if you are in a raid waiting in Queue or for a few more from LFG channel you can still go about your normal business until it is time to get in the instance.

It really does not get more simple or complicated than this. Could some conceivably exploit this to get a 40 man raid and burn through some kill/collect quests? Yes. but who cares? We need to start bringing groups of players together to work cooperatively if they choose rather than penalize them for trying to group up.

Now don’t get me wrong weekly/daily quests are a cool idea and are cool-down timer or something is fine it is just that quests should be doable regardless of group size.

1. Mouse Over Button -> Key Press -> Auto Binding Mode
2. Movable Default UI Bars

Ultimately the functionality that I am referring to here can be provided by Dominos or Bartender 4 addons. I have used something like them for years and I know of many other players that use them. Not a complete replacement like NuUI and some other compilations but never the less just a couple of very useful mods to let you arrange your bars how you want them.

Really all that needs to be done is to turn off the default UI bar frame graphic and then make the different sets of button bars movable actually exactly like Bartender4 does it. Now even though these 2 mods allow you to customize each bar into a bar of X by Y rows and columns I would just be happing with the ability to move the default 5/6 bars currently showing and be able to break bars 1-6 out of the paging system that the default UI has.

Like some of the “new” features added in WotLK, the Equipment Manager, the ability to preview talent specs before committing, and the entire quest tracking system this would be a very basic enhancement to the default ui to make it a little more customizable without having to resort to a replacement mod.

The other advantage would be that the Vehicle bars would not randomly break on release of a new patch due to a conflict with one of the custom bar mods. We would not have to use custom bars if the default ones were configurable, and I mean more than just Show/Hide.

Well enough of a rant for now. Nothing major to mention but the new Guild UI got me thinking of other aspects of the default UI that could use some attention. One that the users have had to make their own mods to fix.

Given this arrangement my Balance Druid utterly destroyed my feral leveling, when I was actually questing and not just doing dungeon murder sprees with an 80 and a tow cable. I went from 29-30 in about 20-25 minutes by running SM:Cathedral 3 times with an SM:Armory run in the middle some where. I would do SM:C in 3 mass pulls, lower Courtyard, Upper Courtyard and then the Cathedral proper in 1 pull with bosses. I have to say that is fun as hell when I remember the normal hell it is at level.

One of my favorite rotations before getting starfire I ended up making the following macro.

*subject to change, doing this off the top of my head at the moment.

/castsequence reset=target/10/shift Wrath, Entangling Roots, Moonfire


Most of the time my roots would break on Wrath anyway so 80% of the time I would need to recast it anyway. But from 15 – 20 I was using this on mobs 1-3 levels higher than I was and utterly destroying them with taking little damage. Now I was drinking after every other 2/3 pulls but they went so quickly that it really did not matter.

My new one that I am not using as much at the moment is the following.

/castsequence reset=target/10/shift Starfire, Entangling Roots, Moonfire, Wrath


Most of the time the roots will break between Wrath and Starfire but will always break after a Moon/Wrath/Star sequence.

Anyway I will most likely be giving this feedback to Lissanna just in time for everything to change with Cataclysm. I hope I get into Beta given my familiarity with every class now and having leveled so many toons I could give good feedback on the leveling experience. The xp/quest ratio was one of my larger complaints when in WotLK beta.

I will also add the actual macros to my useful druid macro section when I get a chance in the next day or so.

For example this new holy power mechanic that is being added to Paladins is to some extent how combo points need to work. The combo points for Rogues and Feral Druids needs to accumulate on the character and not the target. This will make for smoother game play in the end. Also to prevent the accumulation of a full 5 combo points, waiting a little bit and then opening with a large finisher on a different target put a gradual decay on either an individual combo point or all current stacks of combo points.

Individual Combo Point Decay
After X# of seconds 1 combo point decays, most likely longer than 2 seconds but less than 6 seconds so a full stack of 5 takes about 30 seconds to decay.
Timer is reset by melee attacks, like divine plea.

All Stack Decay
After X# of seconds all combo points decay, most likely somewhere between 15-30 seconds for this. It needs to be long enough that while dodging AoE in boss fights they will not loose their stack if they are careful. However it will prevent them from hoarding a large amount at the end of trash to open up on a boss or new PvP target with.

Actually for the same reasons as listed above the new Holy Power mechanic for Paladins will also need a decay like what I am suggesting here for Combo Points. The main reason I think this needs fixed for Rogues and Feral Druids is the new ability Rogues are getting to shift all combo points to a new target but not giving something like that to feral druids that use the same resource and mechanic. If it is good enough to rig a pseudo fix for one class then it is good enough for all that share the same core mechanic or just fix what is broken.

Now that the dam has broken there should be plenty to talk about until the release of Cataclysm.

We’re continuing to refine the raid progression paths in Cataclysm, and we’d like to share some of those changes with you today. Please enjoy!

The first of the refinements being made is that we’re combining all raid sizes and difficulties into a single lockout. Unlike today, 10- and 25-player modes of a single raid will share the same lockout. You can defeat each raid boss once per week per character. In other words, if you wanted to do both a 10- and 25-person raid in a single week, you’d need to do so on two different characters. Normal versus Heroic mode will be chosen on a per-boss basis in Cataclysm raids, the same way it works in Icecrown Citadel. Obviously the raid lockout change doesn’t apply in pure Icecrown terms though, as this change goes hand-in-hand with a few other changes to raid progression in Cataclysm.

We’re designing and balancing raids so that the difficulty between 10- and 25-player versions of each difficulty will be as close as possible to each other as we can achieve. That closeness in difficulty also means that we’ll have bosses dropping the same items in 10- and 25-player raids of each difficulty. They’ll have the same name and same stats; they are in fact the exact same items. Choosing Heroic mode will drop a scaled-up version of those items. Our hope is that players will be able to associate bosses with their loot tables and even associate specific artwork with specific item names to a far greater extent than today.

Dungeon Difficulty and Rewards
10- and 25-player (normal difficulty) — Very similar to one another in difficulty; drop the exact same items as each other.
10- and 25-player (Heroic difficulty) — Very similar to one another in difficulty; drop more powerful versions of the normal-difficulty items.

We of course recognize the logistical realities of organizing larger groups of people, so while the loot quality will not change, 25-player versions will drop a higher quantity of loot per player (items, but also badges, and even gold), making it a more efficient route if you’re able to gather the people. The raid designers are designing encounters with these changes in mind, and the class designers are making class changes to help make 10-person groups easier to build. Running 25-player raids will be a bit more lucrative, as should be expected, but if for a week or two you need to do 10s because half the guild is away on vacation, you can do that and not suffer a dramatic loss to your ability to get the items you want.

We recognize that very long raids can be a barrier for some players, but we also want to provide enough encounters for the experience to feel epic. For the first few raid tiers, our plan is to provide multiple smaller raids. Instead of one raid with eleven bosses, you might have a five-boss raid as well as a six-boss raid. All of these bosses would drop the same item level gear, but the dungeons themselves being different environments will provide some variety in location and visual style, as well as separate raid lockouts. Think of how you could raid Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep separately, but you might still want to hit both every week.

We do like how gating bosses over time allows the community to focus on individual encounters instead of just racing to the end boss, so we’re likely to keep that design moving forward. We don’t plan to impose attempt limitations again though, except maybe in cases of rare optional bosses (like Algalon). Heroic mode may not be open from day one, but will become available after defeating normal mode perhaps as little as once or twice.

In terms of tuning, we want groups to be able to jump into the first raids pretty quickly, but we also don’t want them to overshadow the Heroic 5-player dungeons and more powerful quest rewards. We’ll be designing the first few raid zones assuming that players have accumulated some blue gear from dungeons, crafted equipment, or quest rewards. In general, we want you and your guild members to participate in and enjoy the level up experience.

We design our raids to be accessible to a broad spectrum of players, so we want groups to be able to make the decision about whether to attempt the normal or Heroic versions of raids pretty quickly. The goal with all of these changes is to make it as much of a choice or effect of circumstance whether you raid as a group of 10 or as a group of 25 as possible. Whether you’re a big guild or a small guild the choice won’t be dependent on what items drop, but instead on what you enjoy the most.

We realize that with any changes to progression pathways there are going to be questions. We’re eagerly awaiting any that we may have left unanswered. To the comments!

In all honesty most of these changes I have been hoping for for a very long time. I have one very important problem with these changes however.

10 and 25 should not have the same lock out if not then lockouts need to change and not be tied to a particular character. This change totally screws over anyone not able to or chosen to go in the main guild run. It is a giant FU to the entire concept of having a flexible gaming environment. No 25 man guilds can no longer have the “main run” and have several 10 man runs for alts and gearing up under geared members.

This is just one more piss poor implementation on a design of failure that is the raid lock out system. I say let the people that can not pace themselves burn themselves out. Let us play and run the content on our terms not yours.

Additionally hard modes should be available from day one, not after any or the first clear.

Also make sure there is scaling in the hard modes and not the pathetic binary difficulty bullshit that has been a plague on the content after Ulduar. OS and Ulduar were the best designs for hard modes in how they worked, not necessarily how to activate them.

I am sure I will have more to say on this at some point. The only other thing I can say is the Rated BGs are looking better and better all the time if they don’t screw up the “time risk” versus “reward” there. I have a separate post that I have been working about my concerns for the future of PvP, it is not done yet however.

So here is what happened I am already in the SC2 beta from Blizzcon 08. I pre-ordered SC2 from Amazon.com and received an email from Amazon with a Beta key in it from pre-ordering the collector’s edition. I wanted the Thor in game WoW pet. But I now have a Beta key and no one to give it to.

For a chance at the key post in the comments section of this post your idea/opinion/concept of one way to improve the economy in World of Warcraft. Oh and getting rid of gold selling spam which should already be done does not count. Out of the acceptable ideas I will enter the email addresses into a spread sheet and either /roll in game or roll some actual dice to randomize it. So please enter a valid email address that will reach you when the form asks for an email address. This will run until Midnight Friday 4/23 as in 00:00 4/24 EST.

Combo points need to stack on the Rogue or Druid and not their target. I realize for PvP purposes this will need to be looked at closely but the new ability of Rogues Redirect (81) looks really cool but lets be honest this is an ability that should not even need to exist and if it is needed then it is something that rogues should have from about level 10/20 on.  It is something that should be available for use while leveling.  Furthermore no Cat equivalent was mentioned, however this is another area where it could simplify the “John Madden” effect that was mentioned when dealing with the Feral Cat rotation or should I say management system.

If we are worried about having too much burst from having combo points stack on the Rogue/Cat then also change combo points to stack from 1-5 to 1-10.  This will add additional tweak points and granularity for damage and buffs.  You could have points 1-5 scale linearly and 6-8 by powers and for real fun and burst 9-10 exponential.  But the time required to get 9-10 combo points will be about 2X if we keep the current combo point generation rate.  But even if 1-9 was linear with an extra boost at 10 for flair would not be uncalled for.

Now if Druids get another ability to equal Redirect for Rogues then that would be acceptable, not ideal but necessary.  The real problem with the Druid class as a whole with the exception of Resto is all 3 other spec flavors directly parallel another class.  This is actually OK because it is the nature of the Druid to be able to shift and therefore change what they are emulating relatively easily.  This is less the case with Bears.  Unless you time something perfectly you are not going to be able to shift out of Bear while a boss is wailing on you to do something in Caster or Cat form.

However here is the thing if Blizzard does not want the paralleled classes to play like their brethren then they need to create completely unique mechanics and resources for each flavor of Druid.  This in the end is insane from a development standpoint let alone class balance.  So in the end Cat and Bear need to have at least 50% of the tools that Protection Warriors and Rogues have access to including fundamental role and mechanical abilities, just not the flavor abilities.

Things not to copy:

• Vanish, even though we want it.
• Cloak of Shadows
• Shadow Dance
• Essentially most 41 and 51 point abilities.

Things that are copied or need to be:

• Last Stand
• Shield Wall
• Hunger for Blood
• Redirect(81), if it is implemented.

Anyway I will beat the horse one more time, to sum this all up, since combo points are here to stay then they need to be on the player and not the target.

Getting it at level 11 was just outside the scope of my normal expectations that I decided to post about it with screen shot of course or it did not happen.

Now I have read the Stormrage book and one of the pivotal moments described a really cool concept for future druid possibilities.  I would call this ability Dream Cast, I don’t think they named it in the book if they did, I missed it.  Now that I have seen the Shaman preview, all I can say is well crap.  I initially envisioned an effect that is now very similar to the Elemental Overlord effect from the elemental tree, which is currently a talent Lightning Overlord.

So what I was initially envisioning would be a talent that when activated for the next  say 12 seconds every spell you cast a dream version of yourself would also casts it at the same time with the same buffs ect, and deals x% of damage of the base cast regardless of whether you normally hit or miss.  The lore perspective would be your dream version in the Emerald dream is casting at the same target as you are.  It would be a mix of Elemental Overlord/ and Mirror Image.

Ways to tweak this further would be to change duration and what spells it effects.  Initially I thought all spells would be duplicated but upon thinking about it further I think it should be like the old Elemental shaman talent Lightning Overlord.  It would only affect Wrath and other Nature based Damage spells maybe even including Dream Treants, which would look cool.  The dream form should show up as an effect but not be targetable given the short duration.  But the benefits and considerations are all tweak points.

Well given the release of the Druid information coming Friday this idea/concept is probably a bit too late but I thought still worth mentioning and maybe starting some discussion somewhere.