Healing Rain radius has been increased to 12 yards, up from 10 yards.
Glyph of Chaining now increases the cooldown on Chain Heal by 2 seconds, down from a 4 second increase.
Glyph of Riptide reduces the initial direct healing of Riptide by 75%, down from a 90% reduction to healing.
Riptide mana cost has been reduced by 25%.

Except for the Healing Rain buff (which is OK, but won’t help much, except for that guy – Dessa, I’m looking at you – who always stand just outside the blue circle. Maybe he’ll stand inside it now… Maybe), the rest doesn’t feel good. It seems like they’re trying to use glyphs to solves our problems, which is in total contradiction with what Blizzard want the glyph systems to be (glyph aren’t mandatory, and that’s why every advantage is either minor or come with a trade-off).

Anyway, I could write about that for a long time, but that’s not what I wanted to write about today (if you’re interested, I already wrote a post about it on eu forums). I know that this is only early PTR, blahblahblah, but if we don’t tell what we think early, then its to late. I also saw many shaman stating that Blizzard has absolutely no clue how to fix our problems. So, if it’s true, here are the best of the suggestion I read (plus the ideas that sprouted in my own brain after reading some).

I’m pretty sure Blizzard staff doesn’t read this blog, so if you like these suggestions, share this post everywhere ! Also I wanted to apologize to people making some of these suggestions in the first place, as I don’t remember where I read these, so if you have a link, let me know in a comment and I’ll be happy to gives you credit.

What’s the problem with resto shaman healing ?

1. Resto shaman miss a spread healing tool. Chain Heal has too short a range, too long a cast, and needs to be casted on a Riptide target (most often, on of the tanks) to heal for a significant amount. In many cases, the spell isn’t even usable in a 10 man raid as it can’t hit 3 target because of insufficient range. On most bosses, you need the glyph for Chain Heal to jump from tank to melees (Base Chain Heal should do that in my opinion, the glyph, if it has to exist, should only add the ability to jump from melees to ranged). Even when Chain Heal is usable, the long cast time prevents it to being competitive with other healer spells : Wild Growth, Circle of Heal, Light of down, Holy Radiance, Prayer of Healing, Uplift, Spinning Crane Kick and even some Priest, Monk and Paladin talents :  all (can) have shorter cast time and will land before Chain Heal, resulting in a big potential for overhealing. Range for all these ability are at least comparable and often far superior to non-glyphed Chain Heal range. Because of all these limitation, the only viable solution for spread healing as a shaman is often to spot heal with single target spells. 
2. Resto shaman aren’t better than other healers when in their niche (as Ghostcrawler himself stated). Or : other healers are just as strong as resto shaman in this situation, because their spread healing tools also work on a stacked raid. Problem is, resto shaman mastery only get balanced with other healer mastery when people have less than 48% health, which never happens when all healers are comfortable at healing a stacked raid. So, to be able to shine in their niche, shaman would need other healers to not be as good as they currently are at healing a stacked raid, or damage on stacked phases should be a lot higher, which would emphasize raid cooldowns.
3. Resto shaman are very potent in PVP thanks to their mastery empowering their single target spells. Riptide direct heal is also a powerful tool for PVP healing. Thus, you can’t really improve resto shaman mastery or Riptide direct heal without creating PVP balance issues. Chain Heal and Healing Rain are rarely used in PVP, and are as such safe bets for improving the shaman issues.

TL;DR : Resto Shaman are very bad in spread healing situations, and not as good as intended in their niche. They need a better spread healing tool, but it seems ok if their stacked healing tools get a small buff in the process.

At the moment, Healing Rain is our stacked healing tool. Chain Heal can either be our burst stacked healing filler, or take part in our spread healing rotation (if glyphed), but it doesn’t seem very potent as it is and has a lot of restrictions. Chain Heal, our signature spell, could be improved to fill our spread healing niche, and could still be used in burst stacked healing. It should allow use to shine more often in our niche, and to achieve decent spread healing.

Step 0 : Solve the “But Chain Heal will be overpowered again” problem

During BC, shaman didn’t cast anything except Chain Heal. A lot of people are afraid that buffing Chain Heal might bring this problem back. So first, Chain Heal should be slightly modified so that it doesn’t occur.

Chain Heal has a great potential to fill our spread Healing needs; it only needs a few buffs for that. But it shouldn’t be buffed to the point that it becomes better than our single target spells when only one person needs healing.

Right now, the first Chain Heal hit is the biggest, and the healing done is reduced by 30% each. Such the last heal is almost insignificant, and the big first heal has a high overhealing chance (if you target the lowest health person, or the riptide tank, there’s a big change other healers will have healed him during the 2+ seconds cast time of your Chain Heal). Plus, if you buff Chain heal, it may be interesting to use it even if there are only 1-2 people needing heals, as the first hits accounts for the biggest part of the healing done.

It’d be easy to change Chain Heal so that the first heal is the smallest, and the healing increase at each jump. This would encourage the use of Chain Heal to heal the most people, and harshly discourage its use to only heal one or two persons. That single and relatively simple change would allow to greatly buff Chain Heal without risking abusing usage of the spell.

Potential issue : it may need adjustment to work well with the smart healing AI. Ex : if the spell choose the lowest health character for the second jump, then this person won’t be healed by as much as you’d like, whereas the 3rd person will receive a bigger heal, while being at a higher health level.

Potential positive side-effect : it could rehabilitate Conductivity talent. This talent that’s almost never chosen by resto shaman could now fill a niche. Right now, when you want to heal a tank with splash healing in melee, you Chain Heal through the tank. With this proposed new version of Chain Heal, you couldn’t provide enough healing on tank that way, and Chain Heal would only be used to aoe heal the melees. Conductivity could then be chosen  for fight when there is a need for sustained tank healing + splash healing on melee.

Idea #1 : Chain heal glyph should be baseline, with no CD

Other healers’ AOE spells either have a cast time with no CD or are instant with a CD, never both. Most of these abilities have a 30 yards range. We could have an interesting new Chain Heal glyph instead :

• Chain heal is now instant but has a 4 second cooldown : great for heavy movement fights, as shaman currently only have Riptide as instant spell, which makes Ancestral Swiftness almost mandatory.
• Chain heal now jump to one more target  but mana cost is increased

Idea #2 : Make Tidal waves our secondary ressource

I love the Tidal Waves mechanism, it makes our healing dynamic. I think it could get some more love. Someone suggested somewhere that Tidal Waves could be our secondary resource. The idea was along these lines, but I’m pretty sure there are different solutions to implement that :

• Max number of Tidal Waves stacks is 3
• Riptide award 2 stacks, Unleash Element award 1 stacks, small chance on Riptide ticks to gain a stack
• Chain heal consume Tidal Waves stacks to get a reduced cast time (just like Greater Healing Wave)

Idea #3 : Spread the love with Chain Heal

I really don’t like how the Riptide/Chain Heal currently works. It isn’t a bonus anymore, it’s a constraint. You can have up to 3 Riptide rolling at all time, assuming you’re very good at casting it as soon as the cooldown ends. I’m not very good at it (and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this case), so generally I only have 2 Riptide rolling. 2 of these Riptide are for the tank. You know, for our awesome utility buff Ancestral Healing. So if you’re not very good at rolling Riptide on CD, you just keep Riptide on tanks, and your only possibility is now to cast Riptide off the tank. Off the Earth shielded tank, for the extra 20% buff. So if you’re the only resto shaman you have to plan your earth shield on the tank that will be best positioned for your Chain Heal needs.

If you can manage to roll Riptide on more people, lucky you, you now have a choice. You can plan ahead and have Riptide rolling on someone you’ll want to cast Chain Heal off later. Don’t plan too long though, otherwise Riptide may fall off the tank before the cooldown is ready.

Another problem is that sometimes, Riptide cd is available, still rolling on both tanks, but no other person needs the healing in the raid. So what ? sit on the CD or cast it on a random person for your eventual future Chain heal needs ? That sounds like an awkward design for me.

Sometimes, you want to cast Chain heal on a non-tank, and Riptide CD is available. So, you happily cast Riptide on your premeditated target before casting Chain Heal. The problem is, with the Riptide direct heal and other healers contribution for the 3+ seconds you need to cast Chain Heal, the target has a great chance of being at 100% hp the moment Chain heal land. Again, fail design (although this would not be as worst with the Step 0 change to chain heal).

So, casting Chain Heal off the Riptide target is a head ache. Earth Shield already is a big incentive to cast Riptide on the tank. Casting Chain Heal off someone who has neither Earth Shield nor Riptide is too harsh a penalty. So, either Riptide and Chain Heal interrations have to go, or it have to change.

One of the solution would be that Chain heal spread the love hots. I see 3 possibilities for that :

• If Chain Heal is cast on a Riptide target, each jump has a 50% chance to spread Riptide. For balancing issues, the spread Riptide could heal for less or has a shorter duration (I’d prefer the full duration myself)
• If Chain Heal is cast on a Riptide target, the chance for each jump to proc Earthliving is increased by xx%.
• If Chain Heal is cast on a Riptide target, Chain Heal heal for 25% more and Riptide is refreshed to its full duration on the target. Very nice, as it would allow us to keep Riptide rolling on tanks and use our CD on other raid members when needed

Idea #4 : Improve our lackluster talents

In my opinion there currently are many lackluster talents in our tree. Some aren’t barely ever taken by resto shaman : Elemental Blast and Conductivity. Some other are overly chosen : Healing Tide Totem and Ancestral Swiftness. Here are some ideas to improve things :

Tier 5 is unbalanced

Healing Tide totem is by far the better choice in its tier for almost all situations, exception being for the fights where a 2 minutes CD better fits the damage pattern. Spirit Link totem, on the other hand, is a very situational CD. For dps specs, it’s the contrary : Healing Tide Totem is rarely chosen. If Healing Tide Totem were a resto spell and Spirit Link Totem a talent, the tier would be more balanced. Right now, you can choose between 2 burst CD and a steady splash healing tool for stacked players. Between both burst CD, there will only be a better and a worse option : theorycrafting tells us what to choose. But if you got to choose between a defensive CD, a burst healing CD, and a steady stacked healing tool, then you can choose on a fight per fight basis the best talent for your raid strategy. (Although Conductivity might remain lackluster for resto shaman, because we already depends a lot on our Healing Rain, and the talent would remain very situational.)

Elemental Blast is completely useless for a resto shaman

Spending 2 seconds on a spell that do 0 heal only to get a very short and random secondary stat buff is a big no no. It should be changed to do some healing as well at the current damage (like priest talents), or to act differently depending on spec (like druid talents). I don’t know for Enhancement, but this talent fits perfectly in Elemental rotation. It should be possible to make it fits with restoration gameplay too :

• Make it heal the tank for restoration shamans (do xx damage and heal the target’s target for xx). I find restoration damage pretty low to begin with, have Elemental blast do current damage + decent healing (at least as much as Healing Wave) + a buff should be ok for balance purposes.
• Tie it with Riptide : Elemental Blast also applies Riptide to the target’s target. Nice to solve some of the Riptide + Chain Heal problems above, as it typically allow use to now have Riptide rolling on up to 5 targets (current tanks + 3 other targets). It isn’t overpowered in PVP as the additional Riptides have a 2 second cast time.
• Tie it with Tidal Waves : Elemental Blast adds 2 Tidal Waves stacks. (Works better if Tidal Waves is improved as in Idea #2)
• Elemental Blast replace Healing Rain and now also damage all the enemies standing within the Healing Rain for a total of xx over xx seconds. (not ideal for resto shaman though, as it reinforce our dependency upon Healing Rain)
• Make it our spread healing tool : Heals up to 3-4 allies within 30 yards of the shaman. Consume a Tidal Waves stack to heal 1-2 more allies (instead doing damage to the target).

Conductivity is underused

Conductivity seems to have great symbiosis with the Enhancement Glyph of Healing Storm, but it’s difficult to use in Restoration and Elemental specs. For Elemental, the cast time of Healing Rain is the main obstacle. For restoration, it’s the placement constraint of Healing Rain. When we’re able to use Healing Rain to its full potential, we don’t need the additional healing of Conductivity. When we can’t, the CD is useless while our healing is already greatly hurt (Healing Rain can contribute up to 30-40% of our healing). For resto shaman, Conductivity could be a talent that help us when we can’t use Healing Rain. Here are some ideas, but they’re still missing some polish :

• Tie it with Chain Heal in addition Healing Rain : when you heal someone with Chain Heal, allies within 10 yards share healing equal to 30% of the initial healing done (the damage part could stay as is for dps spec and to allow for atonement style lighting bolting as a filler in stacked healing phases) (with this talent I’d be willing to concede the 2 second CD on Chain Heal!).
• Tie it with Earth Shield : When you heal your Earth Shield target with Healing Wave, Greater Healing Wave or Healing Surge, allies within 30 yards share healing equal to 30% of the initial healing done (kind of reversed Beacon of Light).

Unleash Fury is meh

It seems like some resto shaman like Unleash Elements. Not me. I only use the spell to buff my Healing Rains (which feels awkward because of the difference on cooldowns). I don’t like using it for single target heals. So you can understand that I don’t use Unleash Fury. I also tend to think that a 80% buff on a single target heal is not very useful, especially as you need to waste a cdg to do that. If it was like priests’ Inner Focus, it’ll be nice ! But as is, it demands some building time, so you can’t use it as an emergency heal. You need to be able to precisely predict the damage to use it effectively with single target heals. But then, I think a 30% bigger heal (plus mastery, because you’d better hope the tank won’t be at 100% health when your heal will land) would be enough for these situations where you can predict the big hit. And if you plan on using Unleash Fury after using Unleash Element + Healing Rain, it’s pretty restricting as the buff is on your target, not you.

But I think this talent has some potential. It could improve Unleash Fury in other ways : 

• Unleash Life could make our next heal instant. Great mobility talent. Also it would make it easier for resto shaman to NOT take Anscestral Swiftness (because the other talents in the tier may be appealing, but an instant heal for Oh’$#{& moments seems essential for me. Our only instant spells is on a 6 second CD and doesn’t heal for much)
• Unleash life could proc a hybrid effect for 5-10 seconds from one (or many) of the arm imbues you’re NOT currently using :
  Flametongue : Increase spell damage
  Windfury : Increase melee haste
  Rockbiter : reduce damage taken
  Forstbrand : increase run speed
  Earthliving : increase healing

These were the best ideas I read/had to fix shaman healing. I love these because they focus on our signature spells and existing shaman mechanism, instead of trying to copy other healer spells. Most ideas would also encourage shamans to use a variety of spells depending on the situation, and that’s something from the resto shaman gameplay I like. Not all of these suggestion could be implemented of course, but some can have great synergies and should be associated !

© Zahia for One More Alt, 2013. | Permalink | Make a comment ! | Add to del.icio.us

As you might already know, I’m not quite happy with the resto shaman toolkit this expansion. The spec isn’t in a great shape in 10 man, and especially in all these ToT fights where the raid needs to spread out. People asked me : “Why do you keep raiding as a resto shaman, if it’s that bad ?” At first, I didn’t know why, but I knew I didn’t want to play something else.

Healer spec score for 10 man normal (all parses)

At some time, I tried a few raids with my disc priest. But it didn’t ticks. I didn’t know what it was at first, but I didn’t love it as much as I loved my shaman. As I didn’t have the time nor desire to gear 2 characters, I just let my priest aside and kept raiding on my shaman. And I began practicing auto-persuasion so that I don’t feel useless because I barely healed more than tanks. So I looked for what I can bring to the table, and how I can prevent people from dying.

Because in the end, healing isn’t about numbers, it’s about preventing people from dying.

So I revisited my gearing, talent and healing strategy with this aim in mind. I first thought at what I can bring to the raid :

• Huuuge raid healing cooldowns. Ascendance doesn’t always provide big numbers (you won’t make full use of it unless you’re able to cast freely and have Healing Rain ticking on a few people). But in 99% of cases, the raid can’t die if I can use Healing Tide Totem ! (Well except for the tank, who could be stomped before I can hit the button, but that’s not the most recurrent cause of deaths in current raids). Spirit Link Totem is quite tricky to use to it’s full potential, but when the stars align it is amazing. 
• Life saving direct heals. Healing Surge criting for 200k + 60k Ancestral Awakening on a low health raid member is quite huge.

And of course, I already knew my weakness too well : I don’t have any tool to efficiently heal a spread raid.

Work for realistic goals, and trust your team mates for what you can’t do.

Now, I knew what I could and couldn’t achieve in a raid. Trying to heal everyone when obviously it isn’t possible (or when my healer team mates are way better at it) won’t help, and it will only make me feel bad for not being able to do it. Healing that one person who needs it the most will help a lot. That’s what I can do, as a resto shaman, to contribute to the raid. So I abandoned haste completely, because the 0.1 seconds reduced cast time is more useful to snipe heals than to save people, and the extra ticks on hots and totem are just numbers, not critical lifesaving heals. I picked Ancestral Swiftness, because this instant big heal is a potential avoided death every 1.5 minutes. And I focused my attention at saving people.

For example, healing in low-damage phases isn’t important, even if it’s a big part of what shows in healing meters. You could argue that using big or fast heals to get bigger numbers during these periods might save mana from the other healers, but really if they’re wasting mana in low-damage phases, that’s their problem, not mine.

Healing is not about getting bigger numbers than your team mates. It’s about working together, as a team, to save people. And what’s the most important thing when working as a team ? Trust. You have to trust your healer teammates. You have to trust them when you need to heal a lot of damage together, but you also have to trust them when there isn’t a lot of damage going on. What’s the matter in using costly spells to snipe all this non-vital healing ? Instead, each healer could use a smaller efficient heal, and the job would be done just as well. Even better, because then when the high damage phase will hit, all the healer will be able to respond to it, because they still have mana and big spells available. 

Healing more isn’t always the best way to save people.

So, in low damage phase, I don’t bother anymore spending CDs or mana that could be more useful later.

Another example : Healing Stream Totem is one of the bigger contributors to my healing numbers. But it doesn’t really provides life saving heals. Yes, it’s a smart hot that will always target the lowest raid member at each tick. But it only heals for about 20k / tick. It’s a nice buffer, but it won’t prevent someone from dying. What’s more important though, this totem can give a 10% elemental damage reduction to the people it healed. That may be way more useful, if timed with high damage phases ! I learned that sometimes, unlike the most common advise you’ll find in shaman guides, it’s most useful to NOT cast Healing Stream Totem as soon as it’s available. Yes, you’ll get worse numbers. But you’ll provide more utility to the raid by getting the 10% damage reduction buff on the raid when it’s useful (Tortos stomp is a good usage for this strategy).

Lives saved doesn’t show on meters

Now, when I analyse what I did to contribute to the team effort after a fight, I don’t look at the same things. I try to remember when I saved people. I you tend to be a meter junky (after Dragon Soul and LFR fests, who wouldn’t ?) it can be hard at first. During the fight, look at these health bars. Look how one or many of these went from near death to full health when you just healed them. Keep that in your mind, it’s your reward for contributing to the raid. After a while, you’ll just feel it at the end of the fight : “I did a good job this time !”

You can also see the you accomplished your duty by looking at logs, although it requires a bit a training. When I look at my logs, I look at my spell usage, and especially at how much overhealing I did. If I casted big heals that did a lot of overhealing, I didn’t make useful healing. It may be because I didn’t choose the better heal for the situation, or because my heals and/or my fingers are slower than the other healers, or simply because there wasn’t enough healing to be done (you know this is the case when the paladin did >40% of his healing with Illuminated Healing !) But if I used a majority of big heals, and they did low overhealing (that is, less than 30%), I know I was doing it right. These heals landed on people who needed them, and with my mastery I know a critical Healing Surge that did 0% overheal contributed quite a bit at preventing a death (even better if it was Healing Tide Totem, you just prevented 5 or more deaths)! A good example of a great contribution despite seemingly bad overall numbers is this log of Durumu ¹

Keep your bomb to kill the dragon, don’t waste it to kill a fly.

Another example of things that can nerf your numbers but help the raid, is your CD usage. If you want to optimize your Skada numbers, you need to use your CDs as much as possible for each fight. Most often, that means you’ll know in advance when you’re going to use each one to maximize the number of casts. This is great for some bosses abilities like Tortos stomp of Megaera Rampage, because you can almost have 100% CD uptime in the periods where most of the bursty damage concentrates, and using your CD earlier mean it’ll be available for the next time you need it.

But in a lot of fights, that isn’t always the best choice. Sometimes it’s better to sit on your cooldowns, in case you’d need them later. If you used your cooldown at a time where you could have kept the raid in a healthy state without it (and without using so much mana that you’d miss it later), then you just wasted your cooldown. This is especially true for Healing Tide Totem, because it can save the raid from a certain death in almost every situation. Only use it if you don’t have another tool that could be just as well for this  maybe not-so-desperate situation, or you’re sure you won’t need it later. Healing Tide totem is like the raid’s emergency parachute. Don’t use it if you could just have restarted the plane’s engine instead.

TL;DR

Now that I trained myself to not wait for meters to tell me that I healed well a lot, I noticed what I love about Shaman healing. Back in BC, I had a raid leader ² in Serpentshrine Cavern that almost had an orgasm each time he saw a Chain Heal. Because he knew, when he saw the golden beams, that 3 people just got healed.That’s how I feel right now. Each time I see a health bar go up, I know I just contributed, and I feel good about my healing.

I didn’t get that sweet feeling while healing on my disc priest, now I know why. And I know I couldn’t get it with other healer spec either.

Many shaman despise our Deep Healing mastery on forums, because it’s a reason we’re not getting some PVE buffs. But like Ghostcrawler said on twitter, I now know that resto shaman mastery is “pretty good” amazing. I wouldn’t change it for anything. Too bad raid mechanisms, our lack of spread healing tools and the current disc/pala/monk strengths don’t allow it to shine more often…

______________

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But I don’t think this is enough. The solution would be to remove PVP gear from the game altogether.

No more PVE vs PVP gear : welcome “good for everything” gear.

Each piece of available gear should have all the stats needed for each activities. PVP power and resilience could become primary stats, or they could be removed from the gear and build in a PVP zone buff. With one single type of gear, it’d be easier than ever to go from one activity to another. Mainly PVE player ? You can do your Saturday night horde slaying in your hard-earned PVE gear. Mainly PVP player ? You can get your PVE achievement with your PVP gear. No more gear grinding for an activity you only want to do once in a while. But as it becomes easier to step in and out of each activity, you may want to alternate more often too! You could also choose to do both at a time. Like taking part in world PVP while doing dailies, and being equally efficient for both. No longer need to choose between being one-shotted by the first PVPer passing by or killing monsters quickly.

Choose the activity, not the reward !

Imagine that you can do BGs to farm your valor points instead of dailies and heroics… Don’t know you, but I would certainly like it. Welcome a new game where there only is one type of currencies, that you can get from any activity you’d like to practice in-game. When winning a PVP game, you could get a chance at some loot, be it using the LFR loot system for normal BGs, or with a looting system that allow for master loot in rated PVP.

For example, after winning a Warsong match Alliance side, you could be ported to an instanced Darnassus to get your reward directly from Tyrande Whisperwind, as a thank you for taking part in the victory.

Each BG or arena could have its own loot table, like PVE bosses. It’d be quite simple to balance the rhythm of loot acquisition between PVE or PVP activities by tweaking drop rates or amount of currencies you can get for each activity. And in case it weren’t quite balanced, don’t panic, it won’t affect your open world pvp activities :

PVP should be about skill…

… Not about who have the bigger sword. All the gear should be leveled out in BGs and arenas, like it is in challenge modes. The reference ilvl could increase at each patch though, so that you get bigger number when you advance in the expansion. Getting new gear would allow you to optimize your secondary stat distributions, or to show off your new set, and of course you’d do better in PVE and open world PVP.

The equalization could also help balance healing vs damage vs avoidance, by increasing some stat more than other. For example, you could have spell power at 100% of the reference, while healing power is only at 80%.

And many more benefits

One of the other benefit I can preview, is that Blizzard wouldn’t need to design so many different gear sets at each patch. Ok having different-looking gear is nice, but with 8 year of transmogable gear available, do you really need 2 different set at each patch? One a these you probably won’t obtain until the next patch… if you ever get it. Not that you did choose the one you’d get first because of look.

Of course, there are cons to this method. PVPers might not feel compelled to grind BG if the gear doesn’t matter. But they might also discover that because of not needing to grind gear, they can enjoy other activities too. And grinding random BGs shouldn’t become the new catch up mechanism (which would happen if you could drop gear equivalent to current LFR tier in normal BGs)

This system may also induce some inconveniences which would need to be addressed. For example, it would be nice to be able to preview what your stats will be like in PVP without being in there to be able to choose your gear and reforge accordingly. Also, it would be harder to design set bonus that are balanced and equally desirable for PVE and PVP. But I’m pretty confident Blizzard could come up with an elegant solution for that. For example, you could get a set with a pvp bonus from PVP activities, and a set with a PVE bonus from raids. Or the bonuses could be equally valuable for each activity.

PS : the way honor is gained during BG should also change, but that is another story. You shouldn’t get points for being around when an enemy is killed. You should get Honor points by taking part in the battle for victory. If you can’t imagine another way to attribute honor points for contribution, just look at SWTOR system here. You can earn the equivalent of honor points by completing a variety of objectives, called medals.

© Zahia for One More Alt, 2013. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Back in WotLK, Disc Priest tended to use a single single-target spell to blanket the whole raid with shields. Blizzard decided it wasn’t a great design choice and improved the disc priest toolbox. They now have many efficient multi-targets spells, each with different goals, being effectively healing the raid or creating preventive shields on many characters.

Back in WotlK, Resto Druids spammed a single-target hot to heal the whole raid. Blizzard decided it wasn’t a great design choice, so they forced the druids using a variety of spells to benefit from their mastery, while providing them new spells to deal with different damage patterns.

Back in BC, Resto Shamans used 2 to 3 different ranks of the same spell (needing different buttons on their action bars) to heal different damage patterns on the tank or stacked people. Shaman were also the only class capable of efficiently healing aoe damage, and thus surpassed all other classes for this purpose. Blizzard decided it wasn’t a great design choice and made Chain Heal less efficient to bring Shaman in the other healers range. They also gave shaman new tools to respond to their single target and stacked healing needs. Today, shaman are stuck using an inefficient single target spell (Healing Surge, mostly) to heal raid wide damage when the raid isn’t stacked (that is, at least one on two fights).

Note : This post is based from my current knowledge and remembrance of other healing classes. I didn’t make research just for it. So it may not be exactly accurate. However, its aim is to be an overview of the situation. Also, I didn’t talk about Holy priests because back in Vanilla/BC they were the most versatile healer, even if they’re not in as a good shape today (again, compared to other healers).

The morale of the story

Overall, Blizzard did a great job at designing healers over time. I remember a day when if you wanted to do timed Shattered Halls (needed for Tempest Keep raid attunement) as a resto shaman, your best chance was to go there with a paladin tank. Now you can do about any content with any spec.

But I’m pretty sure everyone out there is afraid of shaman becoming OP again as they were in Sunwell, and are afraid of making them better than other healers, even in their niche : stacked aoe healing. Since then, shaman were more in range of the other healers, occasionally dipping way below when the fights required a lot of spreading (mainly Ulduar, Firelands and Throne of Thunder).

In MoP, up until today, our emblematic spell, Chain Heal, was our worse spell. It healed for just as much as Greater Healing Wave, for about the same mana cost, had a longer cast time (as CH doesn’t benefit from Tidal Waves), and ran a high risk of only hitting a single target, reducing healing done by the spell by 60% (a lot of bosses hit boxes are so big that a Chain Heal doesn’t jump from the tank to the melees)

Today shamans’ main aoe healing spells were improved. This improvement may make shamans extremely good at healing a stacked raid (the 20% Healing Rain buff is pretty huge on an already strong spell, it may all be Sunwell again : shaman very powerfull in their niche but stuck in there). I understand why these improvements were chosen right now instead of more complex changes. But these don’t solve the true problem : shamans doesn’t have any suited spell for spread raid healing. They are forced burning their mana using an inefficient single target spell (Healing Surge) to aoe heal, or helplessly watching the other healers do the job. This isn’t fun. Healing should be about using the right spell for the right job. For a shaman healing a spread raid, our only right spell is a 3 minutes CD talent (Healing Tide Totem). We need something to fill this hole, be it via a new spell, a glyph or a revamped talent (Elemental Blast, I’m looking at you !). I just hope it comes in 5.3…

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But you can’t always make your way through the game while just healing. Sometimes you have to actually KILL things, be it for dailies, prove your worth in the Brawler’s Guild, or simply because that boss only requires 2 healers.

My guild’s got 5 available healers. And sometimes it’s my turn to try to do a bit of damage. The problem is, I’m not good at dpssing. But fortunately, I have a secret!

This isn’t something that’ll make you become that awesome damage dealer who tops the chart on each and every fight while also taking no damage and doing his part on the CC and kitting jobs. It’s more a “DPS for the noobs” thing.

The trick is to use Weak Aura as a reminder for your entire rotation.

It’s very helpful when you don’t master your dps spec enough to be able to play it blindfolded and with your toes. At each second it’ll show you what you should cast next, so that you can focus on the environment and other jobs without getting lost with your rotation.

So, how do you do it ?

1. Go to some resource site like Elitist Jerks, or MMO Melting Pot, or whatever your favorite class site is and pick your ideal rotation or priority list.
2. Download Weak Aura
3. Create a new dynamic group
4. For each spell on your priority list, create a new icon, put it in the dynamic group you just created, and translate the conditions in which you should use the ability into as many triggers as you need.
5. Make sure the icons appear in your priority order within your dynamic group.

And voilà !

For example, I found this priority list for my Elemental Shaman on Totemspot:

1. Cast Flame Shock IF the DoT has expired or has 1 tick remaining.
2. IF you have the L90 talent Unleashed Fury, cast Unleash Elements
3. Cast Lava Burst IF it is off cooldown AND Flame Shock is on the target
4. IF you have the L90 talent Elemental Blast, cast Elemental Blast
5. Cast Earth Shock IF Lightning Shield is at 6-7 charges. Note: It is possible to pre-cast this with 3 or more charges if you need to recast Flame Shock shortly (ie: the dot has more than 5 seconds remaining). For more information on Earth Shock use, see the advanced section.
6. Use Fire Elemental Totem IF the cooldown has expired
7. Drop Searing Totem IF you have no active fire totem AND Fire Elemental Totem cooldown has more than 15 seconds remaining
8. Cast Lightning Bolt

As Elemental is my second spec, I chose to simplify the rotation as much as possible and didn’t pick Unleashed Fury nor Elemental Blast, so I don’t care about points 2 and 4. I didn’t choose to pre-cast Earth Shock either as it adds complexity for a minor dps gain, so step 5 is simple. And as I’m the kind of people who forgot to use his cooldowns, I added them to the rotation, so that I clearly see when they’re available.

So here is the final result in Weak Auras :

My Elemental priority list on Weak Aura

1. Flame Shock, static icon. Show when Action usable (trigger 1) and the dot has less than 4 seconds remaining on the target (trigger 2)
2. Flame Shock, spinning icon. Show when Action usable (trigger 1) and the dot isn’t on the target.
3. Lava Burst, static icon. Show when Action usable (trigger 1) and Flame Shock has more than 1.3 seconds remaining on the target (trigger 2), and I don’t have the Lava Surge buff (trigger 3).
4. Lava Burst, spinning icon. Idem #3 but with Lava Surge buff.
5. Earth Shock, static icon. Show when action usable (trigger 2) and Lighting Shield is at 6 stacks (trigger 1).
6. Earth Shock, spinning icon. Idem #5 but with 7 stacks.
7. Fire Elemental Totem. Show when action usable
8. Searing Totem. Show when no active fire totem (trigger 1) and Fire Elemental Totem cooldown has more than 15 seconds remaining (trigger 2)
9. Ascendance. Show when action usable. (So that I don’t forget to cast it in fights when I don’t always use it in conjunction with Fire Elemental Totem)

Note : depending on your triggers, you may want to force the displayed icon (in my case I had to do that for Searing Totem, as none of the trigger is about Searing Totem, and to be able to show Lighting Shield stacks on Earth Shock icon). You can choose that in the display menu. Uncheck “Automatic icon”, and search for the spell you want to use the icon.

During a fight, only actions that you should use soon are shown. In my case, I have to cast Lighting Bolt when there’s no icons. Here’s a random combat screenshot :

Cast Lava Burst NOW !

Here is the Weak Aura import for my Elemental priority list :
da0tDaqjrfKrHesCkKqs3suP2fsiggL4yIILjv5zirttu6AsW2Kk13Kqnoi4CsfnprfW9qc1(evOdkQAHq0dLQYfLq2OGyKqOoPuvntuKBkQKDQQ(jeYqfuTuPsEQYuL0vrrzUIkAVK)kWGfuomQwmL0JrPjlrxgSzK0NvLrJcNgQvlQG61ibZwKBdPDJ43sz4i1XfvGwUqpxLPt11Py7ukFhfvJxQW5PuTEKqQ9liTYOQgxv5ANwgkswksXuee0q1k1kvvRderL6bUcPyeYyPZEiKTq39OSylfqquZD2cAr4HBKQDAqR0oHJIzFXMHwZoIOs9axHuOZmw6KYmf6otVcwqit3IAUZwSg0bnNucLYQgUuBm4OCsOHvucq1oirn8gM4AvefUgZXLod9P0IgXGwJ43dIN(z0ya4hdxHuWcLzOS7cfNTqHIPebeqquZD2SAPgVuvTylbQQHAsowv5YLlxJvv9ZOQwhiIk1dCfsHc9OSZSz7vSLSD3RZIrquZD2cAEe)EquvTsWQHk1QDAqdX57kxHWmM0IaQwwndb7Aop(axRXCcIij7cPgydiUwEwh3iHggZoU1eOr4OWPQ(z0cjXrHqdBmASuqUM5GUauHuZCqWrdP0NJccPM5Gadb7cP2rdP0NJc6BrlcOiIgICVf1Yb0meWgqCnUXBASMZBObmWLGMJrHs5Ama8JHRpLw0snEPQAMdcyt87esTylbQQHAsowv5Y1mheq4OGSQzoi4ObwHuZCqaBd1k3fsTJgyvv7WKxc0pJCn2e)ov1om5LaTH485k)xUCTi8Wns1onOHzBenCPwijokmgnwkOvIVCydH1X2azvJB8MSQXllXoUr4PapIFpiEQQFgv18i(9GOQAUDAq7CUBondbSbexJB8MgydiUwEwh3iHggZoU1eODgRGnG4HhbQ4o0w4fXetAMdcoAiL(Cuqi1meSRrN42HOM5Gadb7cP2zSc2aIpdvQ4o0c6l)QbRMVRQ2rdP0NJc6JGLcwKRziEe)EquvTJgsPphf0hblfSixUCnMJlDg6tPfn7iIk1dCfsU7U4cfYAHYIPSBl9O0swlIAUZ2TgXGwJ43dIN(90kXhDIBVF2grRFIdrQCwiN9Z2ixohnKsbHGJqqijokmgnwkix)EQQzhruPEGRqYD3fxOqwluwmLDBPhLwYAruZD2U18i(9GOQASMZBObmWLGMJrHsTiGQLv7OHu6Zrb9TOzoiWqWUqQ1yobrKKDHudSbexlpRJBKqdJzh3Ac0meSR584dCnchfov1pJwijokeAyJrJLcY1mheC0qk95OGqQHj2G4bcPweqrene5ElQLdOziGnG4ACJ30kbRgQuR2PbneNVRCfcZysUgda)y46tPfTuJxQQM5GachfKvTylbQQHAsowv5Y1mheWM43jKAMdcoAGvi1yt87uv7WKxc0gIZNR8F5AMdcyBOw5UqQD0aRQAhM8sG(zKlxlcpCJuTtdAy2grJtWOCh3iQQHYXev1C70GgDeoW1OJWbU2rJjYLRXllXoUr4PapIFpiEQQFgv18i(9GOQAUDAq7CUBondbSbexJB8MgydiUwEwh3iHggZoU1eODgRGnG4HhbQ4o0w4fXetAMdcoAiL(Cuqi1meSRrN42HOM5Gadb7cP2zSc2aIpdvQ4o0c6l)QbRMVRQ2rdP0NJc6JGLcwKRziEe)EquvTJgsPphf0hblfSixUCToqevQh4kKcf6rzNzZ2Rylz7UxNfJGOM7Sf04gVjRAL4lh2qyDSnqw1WLAHK4OWy0yPqOHXTEAmhx6m0NslAedAnIFpiE63tReF0jU9(zBeT(joePYzHC2pBJC5C0qkfecocbHK4OWy0yPGC9PuvnpIFpiQQMBNg0oN7MtdSbexlpRJBKqdJzh3Ac0oAiL(Cuq)czkyPGM5GGJgsPphfesnZbbgc2fsndbSbexJB8MgR58gAadCjO5yuOuUgDS9IWDHhbw8HBe9TOXaWpgU(uArl14LQQzoiGnXVti1ITeOQgQj5yvLlxZCqaHJcYQM5GGJgyfsn2e)ov1om5LaTH485k)xUM5Ga2gQvUlKAhnWQQ2HjVeOFg5Y1kXhDIBFoNLcNwoeTweE4gPANg0WSnIgUuJjUnost8CnMJlDg6tPfndXJ43dIQQD0qk95OG(fYuWsb5A8YsSJBeEkWJ43dINQ6NrvnpIFpiQQMBNg04Mix7mwbBaXNHkvChAb9LF1GvZ3vvRXCcIij7cPgydiUgIbEYzODgRGnG4HhbQ4o0w4fXetAMd6cqfsTiGQLHIuqlcOiIgICVf1YrkwJWrHtv9ZOfsIJcHg2y0yPGCndb7Aop(axReSAOsTANg0qC(UYvimJj5AgIhXVhevvUC97PQMhXVhevv7mwbBaXdpcuXDOTWlIjM0C70Gg3e5AyIniEGqQDgRGnG4ZqLkUdTG(YVAWQ57QQziyxJoXTdrnchfov1pJgtCB8qdBM4dKRb2aIRHyGNCgALGvdvQv70GgIlIPWdHzmjxZq8i(9GOQYLlxJyqRr87bXtFk1oNZsHl8gM4A9v0VwuxY1pRQACcgL74grvnuoMOQMBNg0OJWbUgDeoW1oAmrUCnpIFpiQQMBNg0oN7MtdSbexlpRJBKqdJzh3Ac0mheC0qk95OGqQXAoVHgWaxcAogfk1meWgqCnUXBAMdcmeSlKAhnKsFokOFHmfSuqUgDS9IWDHhbw8HBe9TOXaWpgU(uArl14LQQzoiGWrbzvl2sGQAOMKJvvUCnZbbSj(DcPM5GGJgyfsTJgyvv7WKxc0pJCn2e)ov1om5LaTH485k)xUM5Ga2gQvUlKY1kXhDIBFoNLcNwoeTweE4gPANg0WSnIgVSe74gHNc8i(9G4PQ(zuvZJ43dIQQfbuTmuKcANXkydi(muPI7qlOV8RgSA(UQAnMtqejzxi1aBaX1qmWtodTZyfSbep8iqf3H2cViMysReSAOsTANg0qC(UYvimJjndb7Aop(axlcOiIgICVf1YrkwJWrHtv9ZOfsIJcHg2y0yPGCn3onOXnrUM5GUauHuUMH4r87brvLlx)EQQ5r87brv1C70Gg3e5ALGvdvQv70GgIlIPWdHzmPDgRGnG4ZqLkUdTG(YVAWQ57QQziyxJoXTdrnchfov1pJgtCB8qdBM4dKRb2aIRHyGNCgANXkydiE4rGkUdTfErmXKCndXJ43dIQkxUCndXJ43dIQQD0qk95OG(fYuWsb5Amhx6m0NslAedAnIFpiE6tPgUuJjUnost88qddtoNtCTZ5Su4cVHjUwFf9Rf1LC9lOQMH4r87brv1oAiL(CuqFeSKTNCnpIFpiQQMHa2aIRXnEtJTzioIOHi3BrnkMI1mheyiyxi1aBaX1YZ64gj0Wy2XTManchfov1pJgt4hdNGjVqdBmWqQuUM5G(AgIlKAMdcoAiL(Cuqi1yBgIR1TgR58gAadCjO5yuOu7OHu6Zrb9rWs2EY1ya4hdxFkTOLA8sv1mheWM43jKAXwcuvd1KCSQYLRzoiGWrbzvZCqWrdScP2rdSQQDyYlb6NrUgBIFNQAhM8sG2qC(CL)lxZCqaBd1k3fs5AuBeFykAq)Ez1IWd3iv70GgMTr04gVjRA8YsSJBeEkWJ43dINQ6NrvnpIFpiQQMBNg0oN7MtZCqGZJpW7cYbn4iukKAGnG4A5zDCJeAym74wtG2zSc2aIhEeOI7qBHxetmPzoi4OHu6ZrbHuZqaBaX14gVPziyxJoXTdrnZbbgc2fsTZyfSbeFgQuXDOf0x(vdwnFxvTJgsPphf0hblz7jxZq8i(9GOQAhnKsFokOpcwY2tUC5Amhx6m0NslAedAnIFpiE63tdxQvep6mgJglf0kXhDIBVF2grRFIdrQCwiN9Z2ixohnKsbFUBIqqr8OZymASuq7ColfUWByIR1xr)ArDP5qhEFTulQQ(zuiiuCHo7mBpeSKT7mwqilcIAUluq)EkKczloBNDNTxHEiGqMIlUtrn3fOuUC97wvndXJ43dIQQD0qk95OG(iyjBp5ACcgL74grvnuoMOQMBNg0OJWbUgDeoW1oAmrUCnpIFpiQQ2rdP0NJc6JGLS90meWgqCnUXBASndXrene5ElQrXuSM5Gadb7cPgR58gAadCjO5yuOuZCqFndXfsn2MH4AfRzoi4OHu6ZrbHuJWrHtv9ZOXe(XWjyYl0WgdmKkLRb2aIRLN1XnsOHXSJBnbY1ya4hdxFkTOLA8sv1mheq4OGSQfBjqvnutYXQkxUM5Ga2e)oHuZCqWrdScPM5Ga2gQvUlKAhnWQQ2HjVeOFg5ASj(DQQDyYlbAdX5Zv(VC5AuBeFykAq)Ez1IWd3iv70GgMTr0WLAfXJoJXOXsHqdRynUXBYQgVSe74gHNc8i(9G4PQ(zuvZJ43dIQQ52PbTZ5U50meWgqCnUXBAGnG4A5zDCJeAym74wtG2zSc2aIhEeOI7qBHxetmPzoi4OHu6ZrbHuZCqGZJpW7cYbn4iukKANXkydi(muPI7qlOV8RgSA(UQAMdcmeSlKAgc21OtC7qu7OHu6Zrb9rWs2EY1mepIFpiQQ2rdP0NJc6JGLS9KlxUgZXLod9P0IgXGwJ43dIN(90kXhDIBVF2grRFIdrQCwiN9Z2ixohnKsbFUBIqqr8OZymASuq7ColfUWByIR1xr)ArDP5qhEFTulQQ(zuiiuCHo7mBpeSKT7mwqilcIAUluq)EkKczloBNDNTxHEiGqMIlUtrn3fOuUC9lwvndXJ43dIQQD0qk95OG(9qOZSY18i(9GOQAUDAq7CUBoTJgsPphf0VhcDMvZqaBaX14gVPX2mehr0qK7TOwosXAMdcmeSlKASMZBObmWLGMJrHsnZb91mexi1yBgIR1TM5GGJgsPphfesnchfov1pJgt4hdNGjVqdBmWqQuUgydiUwEwh3iHggZoU1eixJbGFmC9P0IwQXlvvZCqaHJcYQwSLav1qnjhRQC5AMdcyt87esnZ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And in case you’d want to make a dynamic group for your own priority list, I’d be happy to help. Just ask in a comment below or send me an e-mail : zahia at one more alt dot com.

© Zahia for One More Alt, 2013. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Well, this depends of what are your expectations concerning Legendaries. If your main definition of Legendary is rare, then effectively, the Wrathion quest is hardly legendary as anyone can complete it.

Although, if you look at the quest reward, these become scarcer. Of course, it’s easy to get your Sha-touched gem. But then ? Not really useful if you don’t have the associated weapon. So yeah, I suppose a lot of players have actually equipped the gem in the most advanced guilds, but if you’re hoping to get your Sha-touched weapon in LFR, it suddenly gets a legendary touch !

But Legendary isn’t just “rare” for me. It’s also epic, fabulous. And what would you call a gigantic questline that’ll keep you involved during a whole expansion ? In this quest you’ll have to do raids (all of them, as it seems), daily quests, battlegrounds, and maybe heroics, challenge modes or scenarios to get your 6000 valor points.

Of course, this can’t replace the legendary items for top-notch guilds (and I hope Blizzard will continue to introduce legendary weapon in future patches). But for the others ? For all the players out there who know in advance that they won’t be able to get the new legendary weapon because they aren’t part of a hardcore raiding guild ? Well, for all these players, the Wrathion questline really have a legendary fell in my opinion.

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• Level capped players will now have a chance to earn Lesser Charms of Good Fortune after winning a pet battle versus a pet within 5 levels of the highest level pet on their team. Higher-level pets will offer a better chance to earn a charm.
• Winning a pet battle versus a team within 5 levels of the player’s highest-level pet will now award player experience.

This nice little addition will certainly make pet battles more appealing for a lot of us. When I encounter high level pets I sometimes wish I could engage them in a battle. But  unfortunately my battle pets have been sitting at level 7 for a few months. Leveling your battle pets can feel like a long grind, and getting nothing out of it doesn’t help. Now you can get experience or Charms of Good Fortune out of it. Nice change for when you get bored or when you’re in a raid group waiting for LFR or for your guild raid to begin.

© Zahia for One More Alt, 2013. | Permalink | Make a comment ! | Add to del.icio.us

So sometimes, when I am short on ideas, I just let the blog sink in the internet limbo. But then I remember when I was a child and I played journalist with my sister. We tried writing a magazine but we generally only manage to write half an issue. Writing as always been a dream for me, but I never dedicate myself to it.

Anyway, hope this post will not be another vain attempt to come back and keep the blog alive. Today I’m well motivated to keep this blog going. Because it’s so much harder to write in English when I don’t blog regularly, because I never know how to start when I didn’t blog for a while, because it’s nice to have this place to express myself, and because this blog is some kind of achievement to me.

Anyway, I digress. What I wanted to talk about in this post is my come back to wow. About a year ago, I quit wow for Swtor. During this year I also played Diablo, Skyrim and Guild Wars 2. And now, I’m back to Wow. I didn’t intend to buy Pandaria in the first time and wasn’t particularly excited by this extension. But I ended buying it anyway. And I’m not the only one in this case. Each time there’s a new MMO going out, many players leave wow for the new game. I’ve seen people leave for Age of Conan, for Rift, for Swtor… And a few months ago, most of them came back to wow.

Why do everyone come back ? I played Rift, Swtor and Guild Wars 2 and these games were fine. They all had some things working better than wow. All of them could have been serious concurrent for WOW.But in the end, everyone come back to wow.

What does have WOW that other game can’t have? What is it that make wow a better MMO, no matter how other game’s mechanisms are interesting or compelling ?

WoW has a community. A large and old community. When you leave wow for another game, a few friends might follow you, but most of them will keep playing wow. After a few month, you start missing some friends, or just your whole community. The fact that your friend list is full of people you can talk to or play with.

A feature I’d love to see in the future of MMOs, is some simple inter-games communication system. Like Battle.net, but working with all games. Something that’ll let you see who is online on which game, and let’s you talk to your friends from other games. Imagine the scenario. You log in wow on a Saturday night but the guild chat is empty. You say hello the inter-game chat you created with your friend. Someone invites you to a World vs World session on Guild Wars 2. You just transformed a dull farming or solo-LFR night into a kill fest with friends.

This is possible. Rift tried to do that by integrating Twitter directly into the game chat. But unfortunately, as long as WoW is the uncontested leader of the genre, Blizzard has no interest whatsoever to implement something better than their Battle.net chat.

So, that’s what I missed when playing other games, and that’s what made me come back. That and the farm! What is WoW biggest advantage to you? What are you missing the most when you play other games?

© Zahia for One More Alt, 2013. | Permalink | Make a comment ! | Add to del.icio.us

1. Class story. If there was one thing every MMO to come should have, it’s that. Your character have a story. In Swtor you won’t be going from planet to planet because you want to be level 50 as fast as possible, but because “what happens now ??” As a Bounty Hunter, each planet has a feel of “Finally, I killed the Lich King!” in Wrath, except on a shorter time-line.
2. Quest cinematics are just great. No more dubious reading, and yet you know why you’re killing ten rats. And is a perfect complement to the class story to make the leveling experience compelling.
3. You can have BSOCK with your companions, or, even better, with complete strangers !
4. You can have your companions do the farming for you
5. Light Side / Dark Side choices. This system allow you to give your character a real personality.
6. You have a droid which says “It’s a pleasure to work for you mistress” each time it sees you.
7. You can have a slave and torture her as you wish (or you can make her free if that’s your thing, but, seriously, who would do that ???)
8. Your character will look badass.
9. You have a ship of your own, and you can do space combat with it
10. And last but not least : you can try SWTOR for free !

© Zahia for One More Alt, 2012. | Permalink | Make a comment ! | Add to del.icio.us

3 months after launch, SWTOR seems to be a solid MMO. Solid enough that it may be the first MMO causing trouble to WOW. But it seems like it took Bioware a lot of time to create their game, and they didn’t take into account the latest advances of the genre. Look at the skill tree : don’t you find they look just like the Burning Crusade ?

Anyway, back in the time when MMO used the latest technology available, servers where a physical barrier, and it was already a great thing to be able to play with a few hundreds of players. But now ? Every player who played MMOs for a couple years met a lot of people, and we can’t imagine these players and all their friends and the friends of  their friends all sticking to the same server. Thus, you can’t limit players to a single server anymore.

People want to be able to talk and play with their friends, be it via inter-server chat and gaming, or at least by being able to play different characters on different servers without being penalized.

Blizzard got it, and introduced Battle.net. It was probably the better way, given their old servers, to allow players to play with all of their friends. They did some mistakes (like, linking battle.net account with real name), but overall the feature do the job. Now players are able to talk and play in groups, raids and battlegrounds with their inter-server friends.

Rift had another approach, and instead of an integrated tool, they allowed players to use their twitter account while logged-in. You can then easily communicate with your friends or inform them of your achievements. It’s not as great as Battle.net when it comes to actually playing with your friends, but it has it’s own advantage. For example, it can be very useful if you and your friends are playing 2 different games.

In SWTOR ? Nothing, nada, rien, Villepin¹ ! And worse, now they introduce the new legacy feature, which is limited on a single server. That is, not only there is absolutely nothing that helps you playing with inter-server friends but if you ever wanted to play alts with some of your friends, you’re penalized as you don’t benefit (nor gain Legacy experience) from your main Legacy. Of course you can create a new Legacy, but you’ll have to start again from scratch, and you can’t unlock Legacy before level 30 or so.

So please, Bioware, do something about those stupid server limitations that don’t allow me to enjoy playing SWTOR with my friends.

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© Zahia for One More Alt, 2012. | Permalink | Make a comment ! | Add to del.icio.us