WoW: Warlords of Draenor

[bilateralrope]

If you're going to make the races that similar, why not just go all the way and make the races mechanically identical ?

Is there any benefit to mechanical differences between races ?

[TheFeniX]

I'm not too big on identical races, nor races that offer ridiculously useful buffs over other races. I think, at the least, a CC break needs to be a part of every class (not race) with possible rare exceptions. And racials should likely be of a much more vanity variety. Unfortunately, minor glyphs seem to be the emphasis in that department.

EMFH is way to useful of a PvE ability, even though it doesn't always work, to not give to everyone. It's basically a "I fucked up, here's my one Get of of Jail Free card" to help you not need to waste an actual cooldown. But really, that's just nitpicking. Horde racials are so overtuned right now in both PvE and PvP it makes faction selection for serious raiders/pvpers a joke and the rollercoaster that is WoW racials has facilitated numerous faction changes (all free money for Blizz) over the years.

I don't know how to fix racials without making the game more bland, but I do know something should be done. I've watched EMFH bounce up and down so much over the years and it's all due to PvP bullshit. It's getting quite tiresome. I don't think any one ability has received so much scrutiny over the years and as good as it is, it really isn't a clutch ability like people seem to think it is. I'd trade it right now on my pally for berserking and I'm talking PvE content as I don't PvP anymore. The only people it really matters for are those few pushing the 2200 ratings and there's more than enough Horde in that category to make the argument moot.

[Civil War Man]

If you're going to make the races that similar, why not just go all the way and make the races mechanically identical ?

Is there any benefit to mechanical differences between races ?

Flavour? It's possible to argue either way. Species in TOR is entirely cosmetic, which definitely is the ideal solution balance-wise. Blizzard's stance, on the other hand, is that race selection in WoW should have more meaning behind it than just aesthetics. My suggestion was a way to help maintain balance between the races under the assumption that Blizzard still holds onto that belief.

There's a big difference between the ideas that race selection should be meaningful and there being objectively incorrect decisions, particularly at the levels that currently exist in game. It's actually at the point where if you wanted to DPS heroic raids for example, you are going to do noticeably less damage as a Tauren or Night Elf than if you had rolled Orc or Troll.

[TheFeniX]

10-man normal SoO is now x-realm. There's still the same lockout system and I haven't raided with any pugs, but it's a start. My off raid group, who is generally pissed at me when I don't show up as I have little time for gaming what with the new house, pulled me in to tank a failed attempt at Normal Garrosh. I was top DPS as tank all but one time, and usually 2nd in heals (we were 3 healing it, likely one of our bigger issues with wiping) and generally just having a blast watching my vengeance hit over 300,000.

In our primary raid group, the Enh Shammy we run with is almost as geared as me and is now out DPSing me a lot of the time. He asked if I was slacking due to limited play-time.... that's cute. I don't think he understands how shitty DKs are and how awesome Shammies are when geared.

Finally got my Shadowmourne. Going crazy and decided to work for the Argent Charger because vanity. Kyle wants the Ulduar legendary so we're farming Ulduar now (ugh). 27+36 Ragnaros kills, no eye, Sulfuron Hammer collecting dust in my bank. Almost got the mats for another one. Debating whether to sell Tabard of the Lightbringer for ~250k gold, or keep for more vanity!

Still considering whether or not to pre-order WoD for the free 90. Wouldn't mind a shaman what with the choice between having an actual ranged class and the option to swap over to OP melee DPS. I could level one to 60 with heirlooms, pick up engineering (the one prof I don't have maxed) and another tailor to make more Royal Satchels. Don't know. I'll have to see how life pans out. Everyone seems to be going dark in preparation for August (or whenever) for WoD launch. Still want that Garrosh kill though.

[Civil War Man]

So, Blizzard released their Alpha patch notes. In predictable fashion, it has set the forums aflame, since a huge section of the notes involve what they've removed from the game. Seriously, someone counted, and the phrase "has been removed" apparently appears 79 times, and that does not include the phrase "Ability X is now only available to Spec Y".

A few highlights that I found funny in some way:
The Druid ability Symbiosis, the Paladin ability Blinding Light, the Rogue ability Shadow Blades, the Priest ability Void Shift, and the Warrior ability Skull Banner have all been removed. The reason I found these funny was that all of these abilities are the high-level abilities given to those classes in Mists of Pandaria, so they've all lasted exactly one expansion before being removed.

For Death Knights, Blood and Frost no longer have Raise Dead, and Frost and Unholy no longer have Army of the Dead. This means that Unholy Death Knights cannot summon multiple ghouls, Blood Death Knights can only summon multiple ghouls, and Frost Death Knights can't create any kind of undead minion.

From the Shaman section:

For Warlords of Draenor, we're pulling back on the ability for many casters to deal damage while moving, and that includes Elemental. They will still have some ability to deal damage while moving, through Shocks, Unleash Weapon, and instant Lava Bursts.

(getting to class-specific changes, less than one paragraph later)

Unleash Flame no longer deals direct damage, but now increases the damage of the Shaman’s next Fire spell by 40% (up from 30%).
Unleash Frost no longer deals direct damage, but now always snares the target by 70% (rather than only when the target is already snared by a Frost spell).
Unleash Wind no longer deals direct damage, but now increases attack speed by 60% (up from 50%).

[TheFeniX]

Oh man, reading that was great. I only bothered with the melee classes (because that's all I play) and it's pretty much nothing interesting for DKs and pallies (because they're garbage at endgame right now), but I can't think of any way to slice the changes for rogues and warriors as anything but solid nerfs to their endgame abilities like you said.

But my buddy and I were joking around tonight about random shit. "Hey Kyle, I love my new ability 'path not found." "You mean, Heroic Leap?" "Yea, that." "They should fix that by buffing Mages again." We just ran Black Temple and some other old content saying stupid shit like "Fucking warglaive didn't drop, Blizzard should buff mages." I really can't see any changes to the Mage class that don't just make it even easier to play. I wish to god I could stand playing a caster.

Looking at just the PvP CC nerfs, it's pretty telling. It's also amazingly sad DKs don't even need a mention. Oh wait, they're gutting Necrotic Strike... again. At least Hunters will be less annoying to kill.

You know, I could always boost a mage to 90.... that might work.

[Darmalus]

You know, I could always boost a mage to 90.... that might work.

You might be better off as melee. From the looks of it, we're gonna turrets with 2-3 buttons and no self heals.

Why they even made ranged classes if they want to ensure everyone is always in melee range is beyond me.

Edit:
In profession news, no more combat bonuses and engineering perks will be sellable.

[TheFeniX]

That turret with 2-3 buttons will always be viable though. Blizzard will make sure of that. Throughout every expansion, Mages have no issues in any aspect of endgame. They may lose out 5% of DPS against DKs before the gear scaling takes over at end of expansion and makes them godly, but they are about as easy to play as a Frost DK and have loads of utility on top. My Bres and 100% uptime and mobile cleaves are my only real game changers. But other classes can cleave better and Locks and Druids bring more to the table than just a Bres.

Even during mid-cata where Blizzard's changes to tanking mechanics made Frost DKs way overtuned in PvP, the dumbest Frost Mage was still a major threat. Meanwhile, I could stand in front of anything aside from a geared Fury Warrior and Death Strike my way to victory. When that became a problem in PvP, Blizzard reacted punitively in one patch and literally knocked Frost and Blood into the bottom of the barrel and made Unholy a pressure spec and the only truly viable PvP spec outside of a flag-carrier or necrotic strike bot. Just their hilarity with hot-patching Avenger's Shield multiple times around the same time shows how much they prefer casters over melee: How many fucking prot pallies do you see in PvP? Like, none except AV, yet a procing interrupt/silence was too much for them to handle. For over a month, I couldn't tell you on a given day if my AS would interrupt a mob during dungeons. It was really annoying.

Frost Mages (and now Fire is in on the action after being neigh useless after LK) has been top-tier in PvP (and now PvE) and Blizzard is just looking to re-tuned them a little. If the forums and the few PvPers in our guild are to be believed, the only real threat to a Mage right now is a Hunter. And Hunters are getting pruned heavily in WoD. So, there's probably more Mage shenanigans to come.

But at this point, I've decided to level a Shaman to 60 with Engineering and Tailoring (more bags), then boost to 90 with the pre-order bonus to max both profs. Then I'll likely use my Scroll bonus and boost a Mage to 80 just for the ports and other awesome-sauce stuff (my buddy is doing the same, except with leveling a Mage to 60 and he hasn't decided what he wants to boost to 80).

Supposedly, Blizzard decided that Army of the Dead was too iconic of a DK ability to remove from most specs. It's back now and instant-cast, but it's likely to still take the damage nerf. Honestly, I thought it'd be cool if instead each auto-attack, or whatever, had an X% chance to summon a random ghoul. Also, after killing a mob, you could use RP to raise enemy corpses as suicide bombers for a bit of extra DPS. Seems like something DKs would do. I've been killing the Black Knight in ToC daily lately, so I might be biased.

[TheFeniX]

Details concerning the new Tauren Male model are out. There's an update to Thrall out there as well which has more than a few Horde players butthurt on the forums, for reasons I can't begin to fathom. There's also the idea bouncing around that Vol'Jin, and the Horde in general, is going to get pushed to the curb this next expansion with the emphasis being on the Iron Horde and Thrall's "Mod Squad" doing all the heavy lifting. Said heavy lifting will be done by the mostly neutral NPCs and the player characters with the factions themselves being left out. I cannot find the original link with all the tears.

It seem like it may end up like the Operation Shieldwall stuff in MoP. I got in late, but it seems like it was a shot for Blizzard to continue the faction war with a blended PvP/PvE system (like Isle of Thunder) that will eventually get lost in the scheme of the overall story. I'm assuming Garrisons will end up in the same boat.

That said, and this will never happen, I would love for all my characters I'm not logged in as to wander around my Garrison. Would be cool for immersion. I did something like this with custom NPCs for Skyrim. It was a motherfucker to implement, but was nice for added flavor.

I have to say, I'm digging all the over-blown animations and expressions, granting that we finally get a damned /facepalm emote. I've always found Warcraft doing well to dance a line between serious and cartoonish that a lot of the playerbase stuck around "rar grimdark" doesn't like. But they can go play WH40k if that's what they want.

The new Velen model and textures look slick as well. I'm hoping the updated model and textures for Dranaei will silence a lot of the hate they get as it is by far my favorite race/gender combination. Combined with the DK reverb, they sound awesome and, aside from DW specials, look awesome in motion.

[Highlord Laan]

Said heavy lifting will be done by the mostly neutral NPCs and the player characters with the factions themselves being left out. I cannot find the original link with all the tears.

Holy shit. Serious? The horde is finally going to have an Alliance-style game experience? Amazing.

[Lord Revan]

The new Velen model and textures look slick as well. I'm hoping the updated model and textures for Dranaei will silence a lot of the hate they get as it is by far my favorite race/gender combination. Combined with the DK reverb, they sound awesome and, aside from DW specials, look awesome in motion.

it does look suitably demonic without being in your face about it (Eredar and by extension the Draenei are based on Arabic depiction of demons.)

my one complaint about the Draenei too look was that they didn't look quite close enough to the way the Eredar looked sure you could see the similarities but there was no risk of mistaking one for the other even when Eredar were not 30 ft. tall.

[Darmalus]

Said heavy lifting will be done by the mostly neutral NPCs and the player characters with the factions themselves being left out. I cannot find the original link with all the tears.

Holy shit. Serious? The horde is finally going to have an Alliance-style game experience? Amazing.

Isn't this pretty standard? Neutral factions do the heavy lifting ever expansion and the H/A flail around looking like jackasses. Or did I imagine the Shattered Sun Offensive, Argent Dawn, Argent Crusade, Argent Argent Do Dargent, Earthen Ring, Hyjal Defenders Avengers and Pretenders, Shado-Pan and all the rest?

I just don't get what the crying is about. So Maraad and Yrel gets to make pre-boss raid speeches no one will like instead of Thrall or whoever. Big whoop.

[TheFeniX]

It's still a matter of agency, or the lack thereof. Most content dealt with by neutral factions has them with all the agency. Player Characters, by nature of the game, almost always lack agency, otherwise this wouldn't be a theme-park MMO. However, in issues concerning Faction agency: if the Alliance is proactive, so is the Horde. But the Horde is constatly proactive while the Alliance sits on it's hand.

Just looking at the Scenarios added in MoP: There is exactly 1 "Alliance Only" Scenario that doesn't involved the Horde: Blood in the Snow. But the entire Scenario exists because the Zandalari somehow found themselves at the gates of Ironforge and you have to stop them before they kill everyone. Meanwhile, there's more than a few Scenarios that are "Horde Only" where the scenario exists because of drama between the Horde and the Horde Rebels. Alliance have 0 involvement and these scenarios are directly advancing the plot of the expansion.

I don't know how it works for the Horde, but the Operation Shieldwall questline for the Alliance is one massive game of catch-up. I don't think I've done a single quest for it that isn't wholly reactive. It's "Garrosh is doing X, we must stop him/beat him to the punch."

[Civil War Man]

So I don't have the links because Blizzard issued a takedown request to the people who posted them, but apparently when the Iron Horde invades Azeroth, Dreadmaul Hold defects and joins them while Nethergarde Keep gets razed to the ground.

So, if true, we open with the Alliance getting its ass handed to it while its Horde counterparts turn into villains. That's, what, the third expansion in a row now?

[Darmalus]

Well, Dreadmaul was also on fire in those pictures. So it could either be Dreadmaul defected or Dreadmaul got conquered. Both would make sense.

Any force that could wipe out Nethergarde could smash the glorified watch post called Dreadmaul out effortlessly. So either they fled the moment they saw Nethergarde get exploded or they defected, any resistance would have turned them into a crater before they could finish yelling "For the Horde!"

On a side note, none of the Horde outposts south of the Thandol Span ever made any sense to me. It would be like the USSR openly running an airforce base in Kansas in 1980.

[Lord Revan]

most of the horde outposts south of Thandol span are in the middle of nowhere, essentially pre-war they weren't important enough to be crushed and during the alliance/horde war they got entrenched.

[Civil War Man]

Well, Dreadmaul was also on fire in those pictures. So it could either be Dreadmaul defected or Dreadmaul got conquered. Both would make sense.

Any force that could wipe out Nethergarde could smash the glorified watch post called Dreadmaul out effortlessly. So either they fled the moment they saw Nethergarde get exploded or they defected, any resistance would have turned them into a crater before they could finish yelling "For the Horde!"

Apparently Okrilla (the leader of Dreadmaul Hold) was datamined as one of the elite rare spawns, making it likely that some, if not all, of the hold defected.

Still, I mostly pointed it out because I found it amusing that we are continuing the tradition of how the different factions lose stuff. The Alliance loses stuff by having it razed to the ground like Theramore or Southshore, or by having it go neutral like Malfurion in Cataclysm, Khadgar in BC, or the entire Silver Hand if the Ultimate Visual Guide is to be believed. The Horde, meanwhile, more often loses stuff by having it join up with the villains, like Kael'thas, Zul'jin, Garrosh, and the assortment of Orgrimmar NPCs who became raid bosses in the Siege. The only exceptions that come to mind are Archbishop Benedictus turning evil and Thrall being technically neutral during Cataclysm.

[Darmalus]

Apparently Okrilla (the leader of Dreadmaul Hold) was datamined as one of the elite rare spawns, making it likely that some, if not all, of the hold defected.

Still, I mostly pointed it out because I found it amusing that we are continuing the tradition of how the different factions lose stuff. The Alliance loses stuff by having it razed to the ground like Theramore or Southshore, or by having it go neutral like Malfurion in Cataclysm, Khadgar in BC, or the entire Silver Hand if the Ultimate Visual Guide is to be believed. The Horde, meanwhile, more often loses stuff by having it join up with the villains, like Kael'thas, Zul'jin, Garrosh, and the assortment of Orgrimmar NPCs who became raid bosses in the Siege. The only exceptions that come to mind are Archbishop Benedictus turning evil and Thrall being technically neutral during Cataclysm.

Ah, hadn't heard about Okrilla. Makes it likely that most or all the orcs defected and we'll get the backstory and quests from the non-orc survivors who escaped.

And I agree on how factions lose stuff. I get the feeling that Blizzard would really rather use the Horde as villains but can't since they aren't a NPC faction so they keep making knock-offs (Fel, True, Iron, pick your flavor).

The real Draenei female art thing came out. Looks basically the same, which is to be expected. For TBC+ models the real improvements will be in the animation department.

[Lord Revan]

At this moment you essentially have 4 generations of models as far as playable races go

1. Vanilla race
2. TBC races
3. Cata races
4. The Pandaren

what Blizzard is doing is essentially updating the first 2 generations to same level as Pandaren, just since going from vanilla to TBC was already a major jump the difference between TBC models and the upgrade isn't as obvious.

[TheFeniX]

And I agree on how factions lose stuff. I get the feeling that Blizzard would really rather use the Horde as villains but can't since they aren't a NPC faction so they keep making knock-offs (Fel, True, Iron, pick your flavor).

Star Wars MMOs didn't have too much of an issue with it. SWTOR could get hella stupid with trying to play a Good character in a faction that was mostly Lawful to Chaotic Stupid (I mean Evil), but it is possible. But the Horde playerbase is way to entrenched in the current "misunderstood" view of the Horde to make that possible. It just makes it hard to take the Horde seriously as a relevant faction. Are there really so many loyal Orcs that the Horde can still stay relevant after large chunks of it's army just up and quit every year or so or worse: erupt into rebellion?

The real Draenei female art thing came out. Looks basically the same, which is to be expected. For TBC+ models the real improvements will be in the animation department.

Yea, they just cleaned them up a bit. I hope they removed the ridiculous butt wiggle they had. It's my only complaint with my new Shaman Alt. Should have gone Dorf man... should have gone Dorf, but I want a Dorf pally and I'm not leveling another one nor paying monies for a race change.

Anyways, if they can clean up the Male Dranaei about the same way, I'd be pretty happy. They're not any less detailed than the human models really, it's just that they suffer from some interesting anatomy that wasn't 100% fleshed out and the textures really weren't tailored well for the model.

@ Lord Revan: yea, BC was later than classic. But it was still 2006. The Belfs haven't aged as terribly because they don't suffer from strange anatomy and your mind can fill in the blanks. That said, the textures for them are just as bad as the Space Goats. They just don't stand out as much since they lack horns, hooves, squid beards, etc.

[Lord Revan]

sure it's 2006 but compared to the vanilla models even the Draenei had much higher detail textures and animation certain problems aside obviously meaning there isn't as much in your face difference as there's with the vanilla model and I liked the butt wiggle.

[TheFeniX]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but all the races have seen texture updates over the years. That really isn't the issue as I'm pretty sure it wasn't until Cata that we actually saw new models with higher poly counts and more detailed skeletons. The Dranaei/Belfs weren't that much of a leap concering what we saw from them to Worgen/Goblins. They have actual fingers and toes. No models before them had those. So the Dranaei/Belfs are in just as big a need of an update as the classic models.

Just for a quick glance, run Trial of the Crusader/Champion and look at the stark difference between the updated Garrosh model and the old Thrall model (they must have created a completely new Thrall NPC for post-LK content). They don't even look like they belong in the same game and very little of that is actually to do with the textures.

Then again, as a mostly plate wearer, that isn't a huge deal for me. Also, my DK has hooves. Which is hilarious if you get stuck with Greaves of Sublime Superiority and don't mog them.

Also, I love me some wiggle as well, but it's way over the top and makes the DranF run animation awkward looking.

[Lord Revan]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but all the races have seen texture updates over the years. That really isn't the issue as I'm pretty sure it wasn't until Cata that we actually saw new models with higher poly counts and more detailed skeletons. The Dranaei/Belfs weren't that much of a leap concering what we saw from them to Worgen/Goblins. They have actual fingers and toes. No models before them had those. So the Dranaei/Belfs are in just as big a need of an update as the classic models.

Just for a quick glance, run Trial of the Crusader/Champion and look at the stark difference between the updated Garrosh model and the old Thrall model (they must have created a completely new Thrall NPC for post-LK content). They don't even look like they belong in the same game and very little of that is actually to do with the textures.

Then again, as a mostly plate wearer, that isn't a huge deal for me. Also, my DK has hooves. Which is hilarious if you get stuck with Greaves of Sublime Superiority and don't mog them.

Also, I love me some wiggle as well, but it's way over the top and makes the DranF run animation awkward looking.

pre-cata Thrall was a generic orc model with unique texture (thought there's certain player skins that come close), where as Thrall is a completely unique model from cata onwards and I agree that TBC were in dire need of updating I'm just saying since they're higher quality then vanilla the change isn't as obvious (and yes TBC models are better quality it was even one of the selling points).

As for texture updates for older models IIRC there was a lot of talk about doing that but nothing came of it, but since armor textures did improve it's easy to overlook the character textures.

[Civil War Man]

And I agree on how factions lose stuff. I get the feeling that Blizzard would really rather use the Horde as villains but can't since they aren't a NPC faction so they keep making knock-offs (Fel, True, Iron, pick your flavor).

I sometimes get the feeling that Blizzard regrets a lot of what they've put in the game. Particularly putting Night Elves in the Alliance and Blood Elves in the Horde, since it seems like Night Elves have been getting increasingly written as generic fantasy elves. Hell, Blizzard's even come out and said that Night Elves are no longer nocturnal because of reasons.

I also think they regret putting Worgen in the Alliance. They seem to be shoehorning them into a role better filled by the Furbolg, because the Worgen's only other story hook cannot be adequately resolved without the Forsaken experiencing a rather crushing defeat.

[Kuja]

Half the problem is Dave Kosak, the lead quest designer since Cata. Apart from being a dishonest shitweasel he hates the night elves with a passion and will unabashedly write them as helpless tree-huggers and kick the shit out of them at every opportunity - as an example, the Shieldwall questline was originally supposed to include the Horde using the sha bell to wreck Darnassus. In case you've ever wondered why Jaina suddenly flips her shit when she gets to Dalaran? Yeah, she was originally supposed to be coming back from seeing the Horde destroy another city. However, the immense amount of backlash this plot twist generated caused it to be pulled from beta. He's also a massive Forsaken fanboy, which is why Cata beta might as well have been called Forsaken beta with the amount of time and energy devoted to rewriting quests to suit Forsaken player complaints while Gilneas languished and went live literally unfinished.