Thread: World of Warcraft

DKs have gotten nerfed quite a bit since Cainun made that comment. Back at release, they were absurdly overpowered, as were Ret paladins.

Considering how DKs were supposed to be the first Hero Class of the game, I'd expect them to be OP compared to other classes, otherwise they would not be a Hero Class.

Blizzard made a huge mistake though in calling them a Hero Class or releasing them as the only Hero Class. If they wanted to release the new class fine, just don't name it a Hero Class as it won't be in order to balance the game at all as it sounds like they have now done. If they wanted it to be a true Hero Class though, then they should have released at least 2 new classes, both called Hero Classes to counter each other. If the DK is more melee based, make the other class a caster or even a ranged class in general (like a supped up hunter type of class I duno) to at least have something to try to give them balance against each other and not have the servers be flooded with a single Hero class that is insanely OP because they are considered a Hero Class.

It is just very disappointing to see some of the changes they have made to the game since launch. At least it sounds like the Paladin now has a full functionality instead of a lame back up healer/tank/gimp DPS.

I never said it'd be a perfect balance. As you said, it would cause massive issues no matter how you look at it. The whole thing of it being a "Hero" class because it starts at lvl 55 instead of lvl 1 is just lame. Blizzard did a poor job with the whole concept in general though and at this point it sounds like it would be impossible to fix completely.

The best thing to do would be to make it so the DKs are just a new class and leave it at that. Nothing special to make them a "Hero" Class because when I think Hero Class, I think of the epic bad asses from WC3 that were hard to kill once they lvled up enough. For some reason though it seems like they did not want to take this route though and really fucked things up for themselves.

I never said it'd be a perfect balance. As you said, it would cause massive issues no matter how you look at it. The whole thing of it being a "Hero" class because it starts at lvl 55 instead of lvl 1 is just lame. Blizzard did a poor job with the whole concept in general though and at this point it sounds like it would be impossible to fix completely.

DKs are veteran's of Arthas' Scourge army - they're the generals running around leading the little skeletons and ghouls and zombies and shit.

It wouldn't make sense for them to break free of his control, run off to Elwynn Forest, and start running around killing wolves and kobolds for some random dude who's too lazy to do it himself.

As far as launch goes? I'm about 98% certain DKs were deliberately allowed to be that overpowered at launch to encourage new players to play the game, and veteran players to re-subscribe and buy the expansion.

Same thing with Ret paladins - people were wanting the spec to be useful for a long time, so Blizzard gave em what they wanted for a few months, then started bringing them back in line with where they should be, like what they did with DKs.

As far as Pallies go, all of the specs are viable in PvE, though Ret is a bit of a joke in PvP again (Prot does more damage, has better survivability, and also has better utility.)

Originally Posted by PizzaSHARK!

I never said it'd be a perfect balance. As you said, it would cause massive issues no matter how you look at it. The whole thing of it being a "Hero" class because it starts at lvl 55 instead of lvl 1 is just lame. Blizzard did a poor job with the whole concept in general though and at this point it sounds like it would be impossible to fix completely.

DKs are veteran's of Arthas' Scourge army - they're the generals running around leading the little skeletons and ghouls and zombies and shit.

It wouldn't make sense for them to break free of his control, run off to Elwynn Forest, and start running around killing wolves and kobolds for some random dude who's too lazy to do it himself.

No one said they would have to start in Elwynn Forest or any of the classic starting zones. They could start the DKs out as a grunt working their way up to their veteran/general status. Make it so that they you are playing under Arthas for the first X amount of levels.

I duno. It just seems poorly done in theory. What do I know though? I'm not a developer of a game with millions of subscribers/players. I have just heard a lot of negative things about the game, including the whole concept of the DKs in general.

Originally Posted by Keiron

Originally Posted by PizzaSHARK!

I never said it'd be a perfect balance. As you said, it would cause massive issues no matter how you look at it. The whole thing of it being a "Hero" class because it starts at lvl 55 instead of lvl 1 is just lame. Blizzard did a poor job with the whole concept in general though and at this point it sounds like it would be impossible to fix completely.

DKs are veteran's of Arthas' Scourge army - they're the generals running around leading the little skeletons and ghouls and zombies and shit.

It wouldn't make sense for them to break free of his control, run off to Elwynn Forest, and start running around killing wolves and kobolds for some random dude who's too lazy to do it himself.

No one said they would have to start in Elwynn Forest or any of the classic starting zones. They could start the DKs out as a grunt working their way up to their veteran/general status. Make it so that they you are playing under Arthas for the first X amount of levels.

I duno. It just seems poorly done in theory. What do I know though? I'm not a developer of a game with millions of subscribers/players. I have just heard a lot of negative things about the game, including the whole concept of the DKs in general.

The lore nerds seem satisfied. I guess that's good enough for me.

I don't think the game really needed battlemages (that's exactly what DKs are - mages that wear plate and have some special melee attacks), but I guess the development team disagreed. I would have rather seen a new kind of combo-based spellcaster - especially a healing spellcaster.

But then again, they're still having issues convincing enough people to tank and/or heal instead of DPS - it's one of the major reasons they've spent so much time invested in developing a cross-server LFG tool for 3.3. It's damned hard finding healers and tanks, even on high-pop servers... you can almost always find one, but then spend 30 minutes trying to find the opposite need so you can get the show on the road. The best part? You got a bunch of pricks playing classes that CAN tank or CAN heal (or both!) and they simply WON'T tank or heal... and then they bitch about not being able to find a healer/tank!

Originally Posted by PizzaSHARK!

The lore nerds seem satisfied. I guess that's good enough for me.

I don't think the game really needed battlemages (that's exactly what DKs are - mages that wear plate and have some special melee attacks), but I guess the development team disagreed. I would have rather seen a new kind of combo-based spellcaster - especially a healing spellcaster.

But then again, they're still having issues convincing enough people to tank and/or heal instead of DPS - it's one of the major reasons they've spent so much time invested in developing a cross-server LFG tool for 3.3. It's damned hard finding healers and tanks, even on high-pop servers... you can almost always find one, but then spend 30 minutes trying to find the opposite need so you can get the show on the road. The best part? You got a bunch of pricks playing classes that CAN tank or CAN heal (or both!) and they simply WON'T tank or heal... and then they bitch about not being able to find a healer/tank!

Guess since I haven't played it and just read/hear about it, I can't make an accurate discussion on that part.

That last part is so true though. That seems to be a major issue in most MMOs in general. If you get a tank, you can't get a healer. If you get a healer, you can't get a tank. Which is why I have now just played one or the other if not both. It is easier to fake a tank though so I can usually go healer since the heals are crucial to survival more so than a tank at times, but both are vital. A class that can tank but isn't geared/specced for it can still tank, just not as well, hence the "fake" tanks. Not really the same for heals though unless you have a lot of potions or a tank who can take a lot of dmg to keep up with your DPS.

Which is also why, if it is available, I like the hybrid classes that can tank and/or heal well. Looking at the specs now for WoW, I'd most definitely play a Paladin or a Druid so I could tank or heal as needed since both are supposed to be very effective at each now. Solves the problem of needing to find one or another but still leads to the problem of finding both sometimes I'm sure since they are the most needed classes/specs.

Originally Posted by vectus

I loved healing in this game. The DPS was just way too easy for me. Healing kept me on top of my game for a bit, but quickly got repetitive. I recently picked up Age of Conan again and the healing in that game was far less "stare at the health bars and spam heals."

So did I, loved the healing. Lvl 1 - 60 as a pure Disc NE Priest in WoW. Got to love always being able to find a group and get into guild raids. But it could get repetitive. I was harder during the raids to keep an eye on your mana without depleting it all while still getting enough heals off to not cause a wipe.

Aaaaand.... 3.3 has officially arrived, and with it several new goodies. Just a brief list:

- Three new 5-man dungeons: The Forge of Souls, the Pit of Saron, and the Halls of Reflection. These three dungeons are in a linear order (forge, then pit, then halls) and must be completed in order to unlock the next one in the chain. You must complete these three dungeons to unlock the Icecrown Citadel raid dungeon. I'm assuming it has to be done on heroic, but I really don't know, since I don't follow PvE crap much. The three dungeons are, honestly, pretty fucking badass - they're effectively the Magister's Terrace for Wrath of the Lich King and Blizzard did a very good job with making the bosses and even the trash relatively entertaining. There's also a fair bit of story advancement along the way, which is why it's required before you can get into Icecrown Citadel. The short answer is that you escort either Jaina Proudmoore or Sylvanas Windrunner (depending on faction) through the three dungeons, eventually ending in the Halls of Reflection, where Frostmourne is kept. You, predictably, encounter Arthas there, and go from there. The third dungeon in the series, Halls of Reflection, is actually fairly difficult right now, and your group will need to be in decent gear to do it safely... on heroic, anyway.

- Tied into the new 5-man dungeons is a long, convoluted quest chain for the apparently ancient sword Quel'Delar. Anyway, you can find the hilt as a random drop off of any monster in the heroic versions of the dungeons and it begins a quest that has you running all over Dalaran, Northrend, and even sends you back to Quel'Danas to visit the Sunwell. At the end of it, you get a shiny new epic ilvl 251 weapon, and they have several varieties. The only one conspicuously missing is a tanking weapon (though some of the two-handers look like they could be used for tanking for DKs/Druids), but there are two new ilvl 232 tanking weapons out of the heroic dungeons, so it's not a big deal. At any rate, it's a (relatively) simple way of getting a pretty damn nice weapon for yourself without ever setting foot into a raid instance (the Sunwell bit doesn't involve the actual Sunwell raid, it's something different.)

- The new raid dungeon is being released in segments. Right now, you can only access the first four bosses. Blizzard said they plan on opening up the next three bosses in a few weeks (I think January 5th was the date people were mentioning), and will open up the next bosses a little while after that, all the way up to Arthas. I don't know much about the raid other than you'll finally deal with Arthas, and there's a new faction associated with it that seems to work a lot like the Violet Eye did for Karazhan - you even get a purple ring you can upgrade as you improve your standing with them. Also, you get prints for new bullets and arrows at Honored - yay engineering.

- There's a new cross-server Looking For Group tool, and it's fucking badass. If you're doing the daily random heroic, expect to be looking for a group for less than three minutes. If you're looking for specific dungeons, it's usually less than ten. Badass.

- The previous daily heroic dungeon quest in Dalaran has been replaced by a weekly raid quest, which requires you kill a specific raid boss in any WotLK raid. It's Razorscale in Ulduar for Scilla this week, it seems. Killing this boss rewards 5 emblems of frost (the new emblem type), 5 emblems of triumph, and a bunch of gold. The daily heroic dungeon has been replaced with a random heroic dungeon via the new LFG tool - simply queue up for "random heroic dungeon", finish the dungeon, and get your 2 emblems of frost and 27 gold as soon as you kill the last boss in the dungeon. All bosses in heroics, Naxx, Ulduar, and TOTC now drop emblems of triumph, so it's much easier to gear up for Icecrown now.

- The existing daily battleground quest now also awards 25 arena points in addition to the honor and gold it already gives you, so you can now get an extra 150 arena points a week just for doing your BG dailies. 150 points isn't a lot, but it adds up over time, and you won't have to deal with that maddening frustration if you end up 60 points shy of your item come Tuesday... anyone who's had this happen to them knows what I'm talking about.

- There's a new Looking for Raid tool as well, to help make the weekly raid quest easier to take care of. I haven't messed with it yet, but I'd assume it functions a lot like the LFG tool does.