The next round of Classic WoW beta stress tests is coming around, and I've been thinking about what I want to test during the time I have to (hopefully) play on the beta servers. Since I am so interested in playing a protection paladin, I'm interested in how Seal of Righteousness interacts with different one handed weapons.
I learned during the last test that the spell deals more damage with a two handed weapon equipped, and I'm interested in seeing how the damage works with weapons of different speeds. My guess is that a faster weapon will be ideal for threat generation as more weapon hits mean more holy damage applications of the Seal. I'm also interested in testing whether the Seal's damage will apply if I'm unarmed (in case that's faster, and because some mobs do disarm). With the faster weapon being ideal, I am wondering how advantageous it might be to use the Skinning Knife while tanking (at least early on) since it's weapon speed is 1.6 seconds, which is considerably faster than any sword or mace I could find.
The tradeoff I'm wondering about with using a fast weapon is that the white hits will be low. So even with a lot of holy damage the low white hit damage might still mean lower threat. I'm going to try to farm enough mobs to vendor enough items to afford to buy weapon training and different weapons with different speeds to see how the damage of Seal of the Righteousness scales.
This may not yield anything very interested or illuminating, but it'll give me a better idea of what I will be testing when I start tanking my first instances. Just like I plan on test different talent builds, I'm interested in seeing what the best weapon/seal combo is to be an effective tank.
I always hear about how the game is 15 years old and everything has already been theory crafted, but it isn't 15 years old to me and I haven't theory crafted everything out. Having started playing so close to the release of Burning Crusade, I didn't get a chance to play as much Vanilla as I would have liked, and now I'll get that chance. So I'm going to try and figure out as much as I can.
What are you interested in learning (or relearning) as you dive back into the game?
Update: I got to play some of the stress test today and last night, and I found out that the faster Skinning Knife did not reduce the holy damage from Seal of Righteousness. So I'm going to give it a try tanking to see how it does while tanking dungeons. I imagine that it might be particularly useful at the start of fights, and if I can get a decent enchant on it, it could be worth until I can find a fast enough weapon with Intellect or plus Spell Damage stats.
Friday, June 14, 2019
Tuesday, June 4, 2019
Paladin Tanking in Classic WoW
One of my favorite features from the former versions of World of Warcraft is the talent specialization trees. I enjoy earning a talent point every level, and playing around with the structure to see what kind of combinations of abilities I could find that might work well together. As a paladin player for the vast majority of my time playing WoW, I have tried out countless combinations of talent builds to theorize the perfect arrangement of points for my desired play style.
Thankfully there are plenty of sites available for classic talent trees and I have contributed a significant amount of traffic just playing around with the paladin. Because the paladin has a hybrid set of skills, there is a lot of variability with how one decides to play the class. You could select for mostly damage points with some off healing, mostly damage with pvp oriented talents, mostly healing with some damage talents for soloing, mostly healing with some pvp talents, most tanking with some off healing, or mostly tanking with some damage. That’s a broad overview, as there are tons of slight variations that players will make, but you get the idea.
My goal in classic it to try my hand at tanking dungeons on a paladin while having some utility when soloing quests and pvp. I will play two paladins, one by myself and one in a group. Both will try to tank primarily, but the one going solo will have more Retribution take ya to help with killing things quicker.
Paladins are fine tanks but they have some weaknesses. They have armor and self heals plus a plethora of buffs to support their group. However, they lack a taunt, and because mana is their primary resource maintains threat over longer fights is a struggle. With that in mind, I have an idea for a spec that aims to alleviate some of the mana and threat struggles that the tanking paladin faces.
https://classicdb.ch/?talent#syVz0MZV0xhZVfe00bo
Going down the Holy side of the talent tree, I opted for Divine Intellect 5/5 and Divine Strength 4/5. The bonus to intellect will help my mana pool, and the bonus to strength will improve my block value. The 4/5 in the Divine Strength is to move down the rest of the tree to pick up the Improved Blessing of Wisdom 2/2. I anticipate using Wisdom as my primary blessing to help with mana regeneration. Consecration is an obvious choice as it does holy damage over an area which will make tanking three or more mobs a lot easier. Improved Seal of Righteousness 5/5 is also desirable as it will increase the holy damage I deal, which is where my threat generation will come from.
Moving to the Protection portion of the tree, I am picking up a surprisingly low amount of talents considering I'm trying to tank, and I've debated about what to focus on here. Should I focus more on damage mitigation or hit rating. I've opted for the damage mitigation, which is why I'm going with Toughness 5/5 to increase my armor contribution. I've also picked up Redoubt 5/5 to increase my block chance after receiving a critical hit, and those ten points will unlock the Improved Righteous Fury 3/3 to increase threat generated from holy spells.
To build on the threat from holy damage and to help manage the mana I use, I went with Benediction 5/5 to reduce the mana cost of my Judgement and Seal spells. Moving down, I've got Deflection 5/5 for the parry chance to help mitigate damage, as well as Improved Judgement 2/2 and Improved Seal of the Crusader 3/3. Being able to Judge more often plus increasing the holy damage a target takes by an additional 15% should both be useful in helping my threat, especially on a boss fight. I'm going to opt not to pick up Seal of Command even though it is one of my favorite spells in the game because it's not really useful while tanking. This also frees up a point to spend in Vindication 3/3, which will help reduce the damage I take. I'm then getting Improved Retribution Aura 2/2 for the increased holy damage taken by attackers. This opens up one point that I can put into Sanctity Aura which increases the holy damage done by another 10%.
Between the increased damage from Improved Seal of Righteousness, Improved Seal of the Crusader, plus Sanctity Aura, by holy damage from Seals and Judgement alone will be a bunch of bonus holy damage not including Consecrate. My planned rotation on a boss fight is to start with Retribution Aura. Since the boss will probably be hitting me before I'm able to start hitting him this will be some initial holy damage. Once I Judge with Seal of the Crusader, I'll swap auras to Sanctity and cast Consecrate followed by Seal of Righteousness. Then I'll be Judging on cooldown, and using lower ranks of Consecrate throughout the fight if I need to. On trash pulls I plan on using Retribution Aura and not worrying about Seal of the Crusader since it will use more mana without very much yield since the fights will be shorter. Consecrate will be my go to with more than two mobs, and lower ranks will be used after the initial pull.
The key to all of this working as I have planned is that the damage players give me some time to get the initial threat built up on boss fights, and I'll be using markers to prioritize kills on trash to help ensure they are attacking the same target that I am. Consecrate and Ret Aura should produce enough ambient threat to keep mobs on me even if I'm not attacking them. I still plan on tab targeting to get a couple of melee swings with Seal of Righteousness up to ensure that they ancillary mobs are taking holy damage, but I think this set up will work well.
If it doesn't, I'll be swapping to a more conventional tanking spec. My main concerns are that I will be squishy since I won't have the bonus shield block, I won't have Blessing of Sanctuary, and I won't have Holy Shield which all provide added mitigation. Gear wise, I'll try to accumulate a mix of spell damage through rings, trinkets, and weapons, while maintaining a solid amount of stamina and armor. I'm excited to see how this build works out, and I'll keep updating on how the spec is progressing through leveling and eventual end game.
https://classicdb.ch/?talent#syVz0MZV0xhZVfe00bo
Going down the Holy side of the talent tree, I opted for Divine Intellect 5/5 and Divine Strength 4/5. The bonus to intellect will help my mana pool, and the bonus to strength will improve my block value. The 4/5 in the Divine Strength is to move down the rest of the tree to pick up the Improved Blessing of Wisdom 2/2. I anticipate using Wisdom as my primary blessing to help with mana regeneration. Consecration is an obvious choice as it does holy damage over an area which will make tanking three or more mobs a lot easier. Improved Seal of Righteousness 5/5 is also desirable as it will increase the holy damage I deal, which is where my threat generation will come from.
Moving to the Protection portion of the tree, I am picking up a surprisingly low amount of talents considering I'm trying to tank, and I've debated about what to focus on here. Should I focus more on damage mitigation or hit rating. I've opted for the damage mitigation, which is why I'm going with Toughness 5/5 to increase my armor contribution. I've also picked up Redoubt 5/5 to increase my block chance after receiving a critical hit, and those ten points will unlock the Improved Righteous Fury 3/3 to increase threat generated from holy spells.
To build on the threat from holy damage and to help manage the mana I use, I went with Benediction 5/5 to reduce the mana cost of my Judgement and Seal spells. Moving down, I've got Deflection 5/5 for the parry chance to help mitigate damage, as well as Improved Judgement 2/2 and Improved Seal of the Crusader 3/3. Being able to Judge more often plus increasing the holy damage a target takes by an additional 15% should both be useful in helping my threat, especially on a boss fight. I'm going to opt not to pick up Seal of Command even though it is one of my favorite spells in the game because it's not really useful while tanking. This also frees up a point to spend in Vindication 3/3, which will help reduce the damage I take. I'm then getting Improved Retribution Aura 2/2 for the increased holy damage taken by attackers. This opens up one point that I can put into Sanctity Aura which increases the holy damage done by another 10%.
Between the increased damage from Improved Seal of Righteousness, Improved Seal of the Crusader, plus Sanctity Aura, by holy damage from Seals and Judgement alone will be a bunch of bonus holy damage not including Consecrate. My planned rotation on a boss fight is to start with Retribution Aura. Since the boss will probably be hitting me before I'm able to start hitting him this will be some initial holy damage. Once I Judge with Seal of the Crusader, I'll swap auras to Sanctity and cast Consecrate followed by Seal of Righteousness. Then I'll be Judging on cooldown, and using lower ranks of Consecrate throughout the fight if I need to. On trash pulls I plan on using Retribution Aura and not worrying about Seal of the Crusader since it will use more mana without very much yield since the fights will be shorter. Consecrate will be my go to with more than two mobs, and lower ranks will be used after the initial pull.
The key to all of this working as I have planned is that the damage players give me some time to get the initial threat built up on boss fights, and I'll be using markers to prioritize kills on trash to help ensure they are attacking the same target that I am. Consecrate and Ret Aura should produce enough ambient threat to keep mobs on me even if I'm not attacking them. I still plan on tab targeting to get a couple of melee swings with Seal of Righteousness up to ensure that they ancillary mobs are taking holy damage, but I think this set up will work well.
If it doesn't, I'll be swapping to a more conventional tanking spec. My main concerns are that I will be squishy since I won't have the bonus shield block, I won't have Blessing of Sanctuary, and I won't have Holy Shield which all provide added mitigation. Gear wise, I'll try to accumulate a mix of spell damage through rings, trinkets, and weapons, while maintaining a solid amount of stamina and armor. I'm excited to see how this build works out, and I'll keep updating on how the spec is progressing through leveling and eventual end game.
Sunday, June 2, 2019
Questing in Darkshore Contd.
This morning I continued to work on the Darkshore zones on my Void Elf warlock. The quests I focused on are taking me to the north to investigate the activity of the Shatterspear trolls who have been increasingly antagonistic to the local night elves.
After meeting up with the Sentinels who were already in that area, there seems to be just some laboring trolls digging away at the highborne ruins for artifacts. Upon killing a patrolling Overseer, I Ickes up a latter that suggests some cooperation between the Shatterspear Trolls and the Horde. I’m then sent to dispatch the horde camp off the northern coast. While there I come across a prisoner who has information about the leader of the Shatterspear that will help us ensure his defeat. The mission then shifts toward gathering the amulets from the troll shamans to craft an arrow that can break the trill leaders defenses. After gathering the material and taking out some lieutenants the attack on the troll camp commenced. Once in the heart of their territory I got to pilot an ancient to dispatch a large number of the trolls which set the stage for the final encounter.
The leader of the sentinels were there, and together we took down the leader and lifted a missive from the horde warcheif outlining their coordination to assault the night elves.
All in all this part of the story was interesting to see how the horde is reaching out to new allies to go on the offensive against the Alliance. The later part of the zone did have a nice ramp up and feeling of epicness as we sought to take out the troll leader, especially piloting the ancient to take out masses of trolls. I'll be interested to see what happens in the southern part of the zone.
After meeting up with the Sentinels who were already in that area, there seems to be just some laboring trolls digging away at the highborne ruins for artifacts. Upon killing a patrolling Overseer, I Ickes up a latter that suggests some cooperation between the Shatterspear Trolls and the Horde. I’m then sent to dispatch the horde camp off the northern coast. While there I come across a prisoner who has information about the leader of the Shatterspear that will help us ensure his defeat. The mission then shifts toward gathering the amulets from the troll shamans to craft an arrow that can break the trill leaders defenses. After gathering the material and taking out some lieutenants the attack on the troll camp commenced. Once in the heart of their territory I got to pilot an ancient to dispatch a large number of the trolls which set the stage for the final encounter.
The leader of the sentinels were there, and together we took down the leader and lifted a missive from the horde warcheif outlining their coordination to assault the night elves.
All in all this part of the story was interesting to see how the horde is reaching out to new allies to go on the offensive against the Alliance. The later part of the zone did have a nice ramp up and feeling of epicness as we sought to take out the troll leader, especially piloting the ancient to take out masses of trolls. I'll be interested to see what happens in the southern part of the zone.
Saturday, June 1, 2019
Classic WoW vs. Retail WoW
As a frequent purveyor of the World of Warcraft community through the respective subreddits, twitch streams, youtube videos, and related podcasts, I've been reading and hearing a lot of opinions about what people are excited and not so excited about with regards to the release of Classic WoW later this summer. Some people are thrilled to be able to run around with their gray armor, and no mount until level 40, while others have enjoyed the quality of life improvements that retail wow has brought. From these preferences there has been a natural discussion about which version of the game is better. With all of this discussion, I've come down on the side that both games are great, they're just different and serving different audiences.
Classic WoW is a more social game with systems that facilitate grouping up and cooperating with your faction to take the upper hand against the enemy. Your character starts off very weak. The majority of the armor available for almost 20 levels has no bonus stats, and the creatures in the world are often grouped and difficult to take down. Because mobs could be tagged by other players, it was advantageous to group together. Interacting with one another and grouping with new people meant meeting new people. Maybe you liked playing together, and wanted to do more group content. Maybe you had a quest that led to a difficult dungeon. You'd need to find more people to fill out your group. Dungeons were places where you would assemble your group to take down a syndicate boss, or a powerful warlock. You needed to discuss strategy and coordinate your efforts to use crowd control, snare mobs that ran away, or interrupt spell casters. The pace was dictated by the mana of the group, and it felt rewarding to complete because of the trials and tribulations along the way. All of these interactions were side effects of the game's design. It was all a product of making content difficult enough to make grouping more rewarding.
Retail WoW is more of a single player RPG with group content for more prestigious rewards. Currently, I can level for over two hours in a zone and not see another player. The quests are not as difficult because the player is stronger. With the advent of heirloom items, I never have to worry about upgrading my armor because the armor levels with me. The quests have leave markers on your maps to make it easier to find where you're going, and often times you don't even have to read the quest to know what to do. If you feel like doing a dungeon, the main mechanics involve pulling a group, and AoEing them down. Rarely needing to wait for mana to regenerate, and rarely saying a word to each other because the content is pretty easy to complete. With my heirloom items, I can just about solo dungeons at my level, so with a group of four other people of similar power, the danger of defeat isn't really present. If you want harder content that needs to be strategized for it's available through mythic dungeons and raids, and that's the key. While much of the game has become easier to complete, there is still plenty of opportunities for challenging content for players who want to play at the highest levels.
Both games have plenty to do outside of the PVE content, whether it be PVP in the world or in a battleground. In classic you could duel people outside of major cities, or someone could organize dueling tournaments for that 1v1 show of skill. In retail there are rated battlegounds, and arena matches that players can compete in. The rating is based on your skill so you're always matched with comparable opponents.
Both games have professions and secondary skills that can be leveled. They have their grinds and rewards. In classic you can farm mats and sell them for a profit on the auction house, you can hoard patterns and be the go to person on your server to craft a powerful item, or you could level your fishing and cooking to help your group get all the buffs they need for the raid night. In retail you can craft items for low level characters or for transmogrification, you can farm for mats to craft gear at the highest levels of end game content, or you can run through old raids for unique appearances and achievements, there are pet battles, and the Brawler's Guild, World Quests, Island Expeditions, Warfronts, and just so many options of how to spend your time in the game to advance your character.
Both versions of the game will serve the audience that prefers the kinds of features they offer. If you like getting online and doing quick bit sized pieces of content, maybe you'll like retail more. If you like content at a little slower pace with people you may not have met before, maybe classic appeals to you. There are preferences and differences, and I can't say that one is objectively better because I can find so much fun to be had in both.
I hope both games continue to be successful and serve the audiences that want them. I don't want either to fail because World of Warcraft can be for anyone, and with the release of classic it can bring back the old school people who left while maintaining the retail serves that millions continue to enjoy.
Classic WoW is a more social game with systems that facilitate grouping up and cooperating with your faction to take the upper hand against the enemy. Your character starts off very weak. The majority of the armor available for almost 20 levels has no bonus stats, and the creatures in the world are often grouped and difficult to take down. Because mobs could be tagged by other players, it was advantageous to group together. Interacting with one another and grouping with new people meant meeting new people. Maybe you liked playing together, and wanted to do more group content. Maybe you had a quest that led to a difficult dungeon. You'd need to find more people to fill out your group. Dungeons were places where you would assemble your group to take down a syndicate boss, or a powerful warlock. You needed to discuss strategy and coordinate your efforts to use crowd control, snare mobs that ran away, or interrupt spell casters. The pace was dictated by the mana of the group, and it felt rewarding to complete because of the trials and tribulations along the way. All of these interactions were side effects of the game's design. It was all a product of making content difficult enough to make grouping more rewarding.
Retail WoW is more of a single player RPG with group content for more prestigious rewards. Currently, I can level for over two hours in a zone and not see another player. The quests are not as difficult because the player is stronger. With the advent of heirloom items, I never have to worry about upgrading my armor because the armor levels with me. The quests have leave markers on your maps to make it easier to find where you're going, and often times you don't even have to read the quest to know what to do. If you feel like doing a dungeon, the main mechanics involve pulling a group, and AoEing them down. Rarely needing to wait for mana to regenerate, and rarely saying a word to each other because the content is pretty easy to complete. With my heirloom items, I can just about solo dungeons at my level, so with a group of four other people of similar power, the danger of defeat isn't really present. If you want harder content that needs to be strategized for it's available through mythic dungeons and raids, and that's the key. While much of the game has become easier to complete, there is still plenty of opportunities for challenging content for players who want to play at the highest levels.
Both games have plenty to do outside of the PVE content, whether it be PVP in the world or in a battleground. In classic you could duel people outside of major cities, or someone could organize dueling tournaments for that 1v1 show of skill. In retail there are rated battlegounds, and arena matches that players can compete in. The rating is based on your skill so you're always matched with comparable opponents.
Both games have professions and secondary skills that can be leveled. They have their grinds and rewards. In classic you can farm mats and sell them for a profit on the auction house, you can hoard patterns and be the go to person on your server to craft a powerful item, or you could level your fishing and cooking to help your group get all the buffs they need for the raid night. In retail you can craft items for low level characters or for transmogrification, you can farm for mats to craft gear at the highest levels of end game content, or you can run through old raids for unique appearances and achievements, there are pet battles, and the Brawler's Guild, World Quests, Island Expeditions, Warfronts, and just so many options of how to spend your time in the game to advance your character.
Both versions of the game will serve the audience that prefers the kinds of features they offer. If you like getting online and doing quick bit sized pieces of content, maybe you'll like retail more. If you like content at a little slower pace with people you may not have met before, maybe classic appeals to you. There are preferences and differences, and I can't say that one is objectively better because I can find so much fun to be had in both.
I hope both games continue to be successful and serve the audiences that want them. I don't want either to fail because World of Warcraft can be for anyone, and with the release of classic it can bring back the old school people who left while maintaining the retail serves that millions continue to enjoy.
A Day of Firsts
Today I started questing through Darkshore for the first time on a Warlock for the first time. I'm working on getting the Loremaster of Kalimdor achievement, and since I have to do all of the zones, I figured I should start with the former kin of my void elf.
I started by being notified that survivors had washed up along the shore. These must've been survivors from events from the Cataclysm, and my guess is that there are quests in Teldrasil that connect what's going on.
One of the survivors was concerned about his pet Grimclaw, and I'm later sent to find Grimclaw to reunite the two. Unfortunately shortly after being reunited, the night elf, Volcor, dies from the toxins inflicted by the water elementals. A really sad end, but at least Grimclaw made it back to him before he died.
There was also a quest to learn about the wild like through the Buzzboxes throughout the woods. I had never quested in Darkshore before, but I had seen guides that mention the Buzzbox quests. The investigation led to a cave with a satyr who was infecting the wildlife in the area to disrupt the forest with his foul magics. While in the cave, I rescued some of the caged wildlife, and stumbled upon a forsaken apothecary seeking to use the satyr's magic for his on nefarious purposes. There is some follow up to that story I still need to do.
One of the night elfs who escaped the infection sent me to find his wife who was not so lucky at the Ruins of Bashal'Aran. He wanted me to release her spirit, and while there I released some other haunting spirits. Nearby I found Grimclaw and a keeper who wanted me to gather some items from the nearby wildlife to help him heal Grimclaw. I plucked some whiskers off of some sleeping nightstalkers, tuffed some fur from feasting bears, and snagged some hair from the the nearby does while the stags weren't looking. After completing this ritual I was able to commune with the animal spirits and game one of their blessings. I chose to gain the nightstalker cat's blessing, which grants me increased casting speed within Darkshore, so that's pretty nice.
I'm enjoying the zone very much, and I'm looking forward to continuing to learn more about the night elven story. Also, the kittens I'm fostering make an appearance while I'm questing, so that's a bonus.
I started by being notified that survivors had washed up along the shore. These must've been survivors from events from the Cataclysm, and my guess is that there are quests in Teldrasil that connect what's going on.
One of the survivors was concerned about his pet Grimclaw, and I'm later sent to find Grimclaw to reunite the two. Unfortunately shortly after being reunited, the night elf, Volcor, dies from the toxins inflicted by the water elementals. A really sad end, but at least Grimclaw made it back to him before he died.
There was also a quest to learn about the wild like through the Buzzboxes throughout the woods. I had never quested in Darkshore before, but I had seen guides that mention the Buzzbox quests. The investigation led to a cave with a satyr who was infecting the wildlife in the area to disrupt the forest with his foul magics. While in the cave, I rescued some of the caged wildlife, and stumbled upon a forsaken apothecary seeking to use the satyr's magic for his on nefarious purposes. There is some follow up to that story I still need to do.
One of the night elfs who escaped the infection sent me to find his wife who was not so lucky at the Ruins of Bashal'Aran. He wanted me to release her spirit, and while there I released some other haunting spirits. Nearby I found Grimclaw and a keeper who wanted me to gather some items from the nearby wildlife to help him heal Grimclaw. I plucked some whiskers off of some sleeping nightstalkers, tuffed some fur from feasting bears, and snagged some hair from the the nearby does while the stags weren't looking. After completing this ritual I was able to commune with the animal spirits and game one of their blessings. I chose to gain the nightstalker cat's blessing, which grants me increased casting speed within Darkshore, so that's pretty nice.
I'm enjoying the zone very much, and I'm looking forward to continuing to learn more about the night elven story. Also, the kittens I'm fostering make an appearance while I'm questing, so that's a bonus.
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