31 May, 2006

The Drought Has Ended!

A blue has FINALLY posted in the Paladin forums (aside from the bug fix submission update). Say hello to Coreiel. He says:
In the interest of fairness, Tonic has asked that I come socialize with you as well as the Shamans, which I'm glad to do.

I'm not a CM, nor do I have any impact on your talents or how you play (though I absolutely love adventuring with you - Devotion Aura is possibly my favorite spell to have on me in the game), but I'd love to simply give you a little blue love for the time being.

Your CMs are busy as bees, and you'll hear from them in due course. For now, though, thank you for being so patient.

~Feathers
He's also locked a couple obnoxious threads. On the whole, though, I'm still giving Blizzard an F in communication.

26 May, 2006

Soulforge vs. Redoubt

Click the title to visit my fuller post in the Paladin forums.

Here's my summary of the sets. Bear in mind that the PvP set is only 6 pieces, so there's room for further stat boost with the belt/bracers.

Soulforge:
4036 Armor (with full set bonus)
+98 STR
+106 STA
+104 INT
+44 SPI
94 Spell Power (set bonus - chance for 95 more)
1% Spell Crit
2% Melee Crit
12 MP/5
+8 all resists (set bonus)
40 Attack Power (set bonus)

Redoubt:
3375 Armor
+91 STR
+113 STA (with full set bonus)
+56 INT
134 Spell Power (with set bonus)
1% Melee Crit
JoCr +10
HoJ -10 sec cooldown (set bonus)

Personally, I don't know if I want to grind up to rank 10 again. I've been raiding a lot more lately since joining a new guild. I have 6/8 Soulforge and just need to kill Lord Valthalak to complete the chain and get the other 2 epic pieces. I'll certainly buy the pieces of the PvP set that I have the rank for. The 2-piece set bonus is +23 healing/spell damage, so you can really boost your spell power there. I already have the old blue PvP set for the cool look, though, so my aesthetic senses are pacified. There's also the matter of my lvl 60 hunter, and the incredible buffage to their new blue PvP set. It's more likely I'll try and rank her up to 10.

For those not so far along the Soulforge chain, the new Paladin PvP set is definitely worth the time in my opinion. You get a ton of spell damage, so if nothing else it'll actually be useful in PvE. Those that enjoy a more balanced playstyle in PvP and incorporate more holy damage will also find the new set a great boost to their effectiveness I think.

23 May, 2006

Forums Down, Fun with PSP

Reading the Paladin forums over the past few days has made me want to bash my head against a mason block wall. I can't believe the amount of crying by some over the upgrades to our blue PvP set. In many of the posts, they seem to believe that they will be stuck with the new gear stats in the next patch. Personally, I wish this were the case - or at least that I could go in and repurchase it even after letting my rank slip. I'm now going to have to grind a couple ranks again to get the updated gear. Don't get me wrong - I'm currently ret-specced, Vengeance and all. I understand the value of crit % as well as anyone. I also understand, though, that it's not the end-all and be-all of our class. To that end, I've summed up my recent sentiments thusly:

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22 May, 2006

Eyonix Quotes Deluxe

Etherel does a slam dunk thread on it. Pop your popcorn.

21 May, 2006

Relevant Eyonix Quotes

This thread on 1.11 has links some good Eyonix quotes (at 3/19/2006 6:28:30 PM PST):
I met with the class designers late Friday, just before my WSG match on the test realms. We discussed a number of items which were gathered directly from this forum over the last few weeks. Right now, the Mage review is taking precedence, however, once those changes are locked down their time will free up and they'll be able to focus more closely on improving certain aspects of your class.

I don't really have anything new to say, only to reiterate that the plan moving forward is still to take another pass at the Protection tree, to ensure that it's as attractive as we intend. As I've also stated we plan to explore ways in which we can improve the Paladin's overall interactivity in raids, as well as tank.
And another one (at 3/12/2006 8:14:33 PM PST):
I was out sick most of last week (nasty flu/cold) and the couple of days that I was present towards the latter part, were spent catching up on a hundred or so plus items. I plan to discuss a number of items with the class designers at some point this coming week, and hopefully I'll have some feedback to provide concerning the direction of patch 1.11 and 1.12 as it pertains to the Paladin.
Okay. While he wasn't technically stating that our changes would definitely come in 1.11, it definitely sounded like it would be that way, especially after the Mages. Although I can agree that by putting the Shaman and Mage review in the same patch, they might've put our changes on hold for the time being.

20 May, 2006

PvP Set Updates Rule

Ever since Blizzard made us more mana-dependent, many have asked why our PvP set was not changed. Well, now it has - and what a change. Some are lamenting the loss of some +crit. Personally, I love the changes. It rivals Soulforge. Thanks to Aelic for posting this on the Paladin forums.

Knight-Lieutenant's Lamellar Gauntlets
+12 STR
+13 STA
Equip: Increases the Holy damage bonus of your Judgement of the Crusader by 20.
Equip: Improves your chance to get a critical strike by 1%.

Knight-Lieutenant's Lamellar Sabatons
+12 STR
+12 STA
+12 INT
Equip: Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 15.

Knight-Captain's Lamellar Breastplate
+17 STR
+18 STA
+12 INT
Equip: Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 25.

Knight-Captain's Lamellar Leggings
+18 STR
+17 STA
+12 INT
Equip: Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 25.

Lieutenant Commander's Lamellar Shoulders
+14 STR
+14 STA
+8 INT
Equip: Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 20.

Lieutenant Commander's Lamellar Headguard
+18 STR
+19 STA
+12 INT
Equip: Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 26.

Set bonuses:
2 - Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 23.
4 - Reduces the cooldown of your Hammer of Justice by 10 sec.
6 - +20 Stamina.

Links to the upgraded Field Marshal's Aegis are all showing overloaded bandwidth at the moment. I'll update this post when I find one that works again.

This is a joke... Where's the rest of our promised review?

Thanks Blizzard. Two patches and we still have a tree made out of purified manure:

1. You took the junk that didn't appeal to people from the other trees (Imp. Concentration, Anticipation, Precision) and just slammed it in there.

2. Didn't touch the first tier throughout the entire review. Improved Devotion sucks ass. Redoubt licks balls if you use a two-hander - but ironically still remains the talent of choice for them anyway just because Improved Devotion sucks so much ass.

3. Compared to the other trees, you spent minimal time with Protection. All focus was on Retribution and Holy, who arguably were the most appealing trees to begin with. Removing Repentance from Protection was the death touch. It killed the tree.

4. And by moving Holy Shield to the top tier, it became a slam dunk. You officially made it the worst tree. Since Holy Shield has such limited use anyway, it's just not worth it to spend the talent points all the way up to the to it. Trust me: you're gimping yourself to becoming very situational (= tanking when there's not a warrior or druid around). Most Paladins realize that the points are better spent elsewhere.

5. And you wrapped things up, went over to review the Priests and haven't done anything since then.

1.9 was 2/3 of a talent review, get that?

How can you leave a talent review unfinished for two patches? It's been over six months since you probably even began with the Paladin review. You know the tree is crap. Everyone knows the Protection tree is crap. Where's the rest of our talent review?

There's all this talk about Paladin love. There's all this talk about how horribly the relations with the Paladin community is cared of. Why all the talk of that and no results? It's been over six months.

Edit: In retrospect I am very harsh in my choice of words. But sorry, I just had to vent this stuff out.

1.11 PTR is UP - Pallies get ZIP

See the full notes here.

The pertinent bit (complete with my caustic comments):
Paladins
- Benediction: This talent will no longer incorrectly provide a double discount to Seal of Justice.
- Blessing of Light: It is no longer possible for a target to appear to have multiple ranks of Blessing of Light. These multiple auras had no beneficial effect, merely causing confusion. Problems with targeting the spell when the caster has Blessing of Light effect on them have also been fixed. Weren't they supposed to fix this in the last patch?
- Divine Favor: It is no longer possible to cast this immediately after a healing spell and "retroactively" make it a critical hit. Never knew you could do this. Don't have the latency to pull it off anyway. Won't matter now.
- Illumination: When several critical effect healing spells are cast very quickly, you will now receive the correct mana refund for each one.
- Judgement of Command: Now consumes a charge of the Zandalarian Hero Charm. In addition, when this spell is resisted it will no longer erroneously still do damage. Great - so not only can it be blocked/dodged/parried/sidestepped/point-laughed-at, it can now also be resisted.
- Judgement of Righteousness: Now consumes a charge of the Zandalarian Hero Charm.
- Seal of Command: Clarified tooltip.
- Vengeance: Seal of Command critical hits can now trigger this ability. I thought they were supposed to. In fact, I thought they were already.
- Vindication: This effect will no longer be absorbed by Grounding Totem.

On the bright side, it appears the PvP sets are getting buffed/upgraded.
Other cool things - ZG class-specific armor rewards are now much easier to get, requiring only the Primal Hakkari drop and the necessary rep level. If I'm reading the notes correctly, it also indicates that they've all been upgraded to epic quality.

19 May, 2006

PTR "Soon"?

Drysc says the 1.11 PTR will be up "Soon". A big sign pointing at this is that they just cleansed the official PTR realm forum today. They only do that when they're about to release it.

Does this mean that it might be this weekend? OMG!

But.. It kind of sucks, because we haven't gotten any information on what changes we're getting in the patch. It'll be just like 1.9 over again; we have to level ourselves up (maybe) just to know what changes we are getting.

But hot diggity damn I can't wait to see our Protection tree changes! The tree is pretty much junk, so pretty much anything will make me happy.

Edit: Getting late right now, looks like it won't happen this weekend. I guess next week then.

Edit 2: OMG! It's up!

17 May, 2006

Preview of Healadin Deluxe

Blizzard has updated their dungeon set viewer. So you can go now and view the Tier 3 Paladin set right now.

16 May, 2006

Please please please...

...please please please please please let us have some 1.11 Pally info this week. Even if it's just relic stuff.

15 May, 2006

Metzen's Lore

Chris Metzen's comments on the lore conflicts were published today. Here's an excerpt:
Right To be totally up-front with you guys, it's my bad, straight up. The obvious lore contradiction with Sargeras and his encounter with the eredar was clearly documented in the Warcraft III manual. I wrote those bits about four years ago, and to be totally honest, I simply forgot. Genius, right?
And he details more stuff. Very cool read if you're in to this (I am a bit -- just not super-dedicated towards it). Nice to see that Metzen admits his mistakes and decides to take it like a man. Props to him for that. His rep meter for me just bumped from honored to revered.

14 May, 2006

Quote of the day, 06/13/05

Theras:
Our Paladins don't wear any equipment, we sharded it all so we could more rapidly enchant our Warriors' armour. For progression.

12 May, 2006

Blood Elf in Tier 2


Canyoubelieveit? It's an NPC. Swiped off my guild forum.

11 May, 2006

Pally Rally Riot

Look guys, I'm all for calling on Blizzard when they deserve it. But doing the same stuff the Warriors did about a year ago is not the way to do it. It'll just piss them off. Bruiseweed is trying to organize a rally on Lightbringer this Saturday, but... I just can't support that. Sorry. It'll just cause problems for players who have nothing to do with this. We have our opinions but we shouldn't hurt others in the process.

A better idea would be to organize a rally that doesn't involve trying to bring down servers and diminish the gametime from other players. Look: if we want our opinions to get respected by organizing ourselves and staging protests, we have to do it in a legitimate way so that Blizzard takes it the right way.

For example a more effective way would be to pick a date and make it"the non-Pally day" where all Paladins are on strike (similar to what Mexican immigrants did earlier this month on May Day). If we can do it and organize it efficiently enough and carry it out properly, it could possibly get media coverage (and it's attention we want).

I've tried to take part in establishing a pro-Paladin network that will aid our cause by crafting this blog. Working for the cause is a lot harder than just trying to create a character and crash a server. It takes time, it takes work. If we get more dedicated people to continue to shape a network of ideas, information sharing and mobalization techniques, we can accomplish a lot of things.

E3 Buzz

Decoy says:
Some of the buzz on the floor atm regarding paladins is that there will be good news regarding some changes to the Protection and Retribution trees in 1.11. Apparently we will find out more post E3, sooner rather than later.

Unofficially it seems the paladin review fiasco which is now being used as a template going forward of what not to do when reviewing a class, particularly in regards to communication, is going to be addressed also.

Maybe Blizzard just started this rumor to silence the Paladins at the event, who knows. We can only hope, as most of us still playing the paladin class only know to well:)
Interesting stuff! That Protection and Retribution were going to get changes have been confirmed earlier. That along with increased raiding utility, whatever that means.

Edit: As anonymous pointed out, when Eyonix came back to do damage control he admitted about the poor communication. What's nice to hear is that there's *still* chatter on the handling during the review. It surely doesn't make the Paladin community look like the crazy conspirators that we're often pictured as.

10 May, 2006

Tier 3 Set pics

IGN has screenshots of the Tier 3-sets. The pic of our new set, Redemption,is found here. Friggin sweet last set bonus ><

Draenei's devotion to the Light explained

Worldofwar.net has a video interview with one of WoW's producers Scott Mercer. When on the question about their racials -- he gives the details that one of them is a heal over time self-spell, further explaining the reason for this is that at one point of time they met the race of Naru. The Naaru race gave them "insight to the Light" and the mystical force that for example Paladins use. Now the Draenei are infused with the light and attuned with it so much that they can heal themselves.

Update: The FAQ details this better.

That's pretty much it.

Update: Skip to about 20 minutes in to the video and they actually speak about the Paladin and the Paladin community. Scott's theory as to why we are so famously "whiny" is cause all of us have a different conception of what the class is: some of us want to do damage, some of us want to tank, some of us want to heal. He actually says that with 1.11, our Protection tree will see a makeover (of some sort). Update: forgot that Warrior's had a Protection tree too!

Jeff Kaplan: "... I hate Paladins"

The quote in context, from the same NY Times interview in the previous post:
Q. (Seth Schiesel) Describe the different play styles that are supposed to be represented by the Paladin and Shaman and how they are supposed to balance each other out.

A. (Jeff Kaplan) I don’t think that paladins and shamans are supposed to explicitly balance each other out. They are supposed to be different, and frankly at some perverse level I think it’s good that there’s this animosity. It adds to the immersiveness because the Horde are supposed to have a special hatred for paladins and the Alliance is supposed to really hate shamans. The paladin was always supposed to be this holy warrior in plate armor, very much a support class, though one that could tank in a pinch, and they most certainly can. The shaman is a more offensive caster who wears chain armor, centered around his totems. But when I play Horde I hate paladins. It’s like I could never kill them and it seems so futile.
(emphases mine)

So it's official. A lead Blizzard designer admits to playing Horde and hating the Paladin class. He also admits he doesn't think the Paladin and Shaman class are not supposed to explicitly balance each other. I call bull-pucky, and here's why:

The only time Horde and Alliance meet up and faction balance comes into play is in PvP. Both the Horde and Alliance have exactly the same classes if you ignore the Paladin and Shaman. On this basis alone, I could make a case that the Horde still have an advantage in PvP thanks to their superior racial abilities in this capacity. Then we bring the Paladin and Shaman class back in. Shamans in PvP are superior battle healers with their Lesser Healing Wave (LHW Healing-Per-Second destroys Flash of Light), and deal far more damage. They also have the advantage of more than one spell school. If they get counterspelled midway through a healing cast, they can still lash out with a fire or frost spell. If a Paladin gets counterspelled, he's completely shut down. Paladin survivability means jack squat if you get crowd controlled and saved for last.

As for this being "tanks in a pinch" business, that's also crap. Holy Shield does absolutely no good for holding aggro if the mob isn't beating on you in the first place. With no effective means to grab snap aggro (other than Holy Shock+ Righteous Fury, but you can't have Holy Shield with Holy Shock), the Protection tree is completely impotent on the deep end. This interview only reenforced my notion that Blizzard as a whole prefers PvP, the Horde faction, and the Shaman class, with some harboring actual dislike for the Alliance counterpart.

New York Times spills the beans. New race can be Pallies.

Update: It's confirmed... The new race can be Paladins. More below.

Of course they had to be the ones... New York Times article on the expansion is up. Here are some pieces:
...Blizzard Entertainment ... plans to announce that in the expansion, to be called The Burning Crusade, players will be able to join an otherworldly species called the Draenei.

In a twist, the Draenei are descended from the same demonic race, the Eredar, that produced some of Warcraft’s most fearsome foes, like the demon Archimonde.

“Lots of players have wanted to play demons, and Draenei are the closest you can get to looking like an Eredar,” Jeff Kaplan, one of the game’s top designers, said in an interview. “They have these cool forehead features, and one of the customization features is switching around these facial features and the tendrils hanging beneath the chin and so on.”
Ugh. So Draenei was true after all. This stinks. Both Blood Elves and them were hot contenders from the very beginning that we knew there would be new races in the expansion pack.

They also have a trailer for the game up for view. Guess what you clearly see there? A friggin' Draenei with a pair of friggin' Lightforge shoulders! I'm not kidding.

Want to be able to be a Paladin demon? Looks like so!



Ahh... Lightforge shoulders... Makes it possible to spot a Pally thousand miles away.

Update: Thanks Suicidal Zebra, didn't notice the Q&A with the developers they also had.
Q. What classes will be available to the Draenei?

A. Warrior, Priest, Paladin, Mage and Hunter. We might change that, however, maybe add or remove a class.

New Alliance Race - Here It Is

whataboutpp.com has uncovered it at last - Eredar in body, Night Elf in spirit.

http://www.malicesb.net/wapnew/alliance-race.php

Be wary, the website is under a lot of (understandable) strain, so it may load slowly.


Update: It's fan fiction.

Also featured, taken from the official Chinese website - keyrings. Judging by the pictures, it seems they will be a built-in feature of the UI and not even take up a single bag slot. Check it out.

http://www.malicesb.net/wapnew/key-ring.php

Shaman review vs Paladin review analysis

Fibble has written quite an extensive analysis of the Paladin review versus the Shaman review. Go here to read it. Nice work!

09 May, 2006

Eredar... Paladins?

You be the judge. Found this on the General forums - it's sure to be deleted quickly.

http://img506.imageshack.us/my.php?image=11472062531519sa.jpg

Live-Action Warcraft movie announced

Ordinn mentions it on the forum and points to the official press release.

As long as Uwe Boll isn't involved I'm interested in seeing it, of course. Will it be a good movie? We don't know. Could be a pretty damn good one. But Blizzard can also very well screw it up and make a horrible movie. Movies aren't computer games and more often than not, transition between them two have been horrible.

Tier 3 Paladin Set revealed

Is called Savior or Salvation, according to a Chinese WoW website. New Hydraxian and Argent Dawn reputation recipies that seem to be focused on frost resistance.

I will add link, hopefully a pic and stats later as they pop up (can't find them right now).

The New Race is has been revealed...

Spoiler Alert!

Gamespy describes them: (link will probably break soon)
The video, which runs about two minutes, shows off a huge race about the size of Taurens. They have bluish skin (although as with the other races, this could be customizable) and small mindflayer-like tentacles hanging from their chin. They also have a large tail (maybe scaled) and what look like hooves.
They believe it's the Draeni. Idiocy. It's not them... Just wishful thinking. Anyways, how do they know it's the new race?
In talking about the two races, the video shows a representative of the [new alliance race] being introduced in a huge meeting between the kings of the Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes and Night Elves. It also shows the same for the Blood Elves: They are introduced to a war council of the Orcs, Trolls, Taurens and Undead.
It the video is real... Well, then we know what race it is.

Get ready:

It's freakin' the Eredar! Read the description again above and then check this picture out.

Tentacles on face. Huge tail. Hooves. PERFECT MATCH!

You know what this implies? The Eredar are the most friggin' evil race in the entire universe. They're the most bad-ass out of the most bad. They're pure evil. They were the ones who corrupted Sargeras and made him create the Burning Legion, basically establishing the entire storyline of World of Warcraft.

And now they are in the Alliance race. What the hell?

Gratulations on Blizzard on creating a pretty damn cool race that spin lore around and makes you go batcrap insane on wondering what the heck is going on.

I Was This Close |-----| of Getting Sulfuras Today

Three weeks ago we downed Ragnaros and the Eye of Sulfuras dropped. People were screaming over that. Finally... Our guild could craft our first legendary weapon. It was a testament to our guild and what we've achieved (we're a casual raid guild). Majordomo went easily. Like five belts dropped for us on the way to him (and like, five belts for our Horde side who was doing MC at the same time too!). It was an odd run, to say the least.

When we spawned Ragnaros, we prepared to do him like any other week. Down him under 50%, handle sons, down him more and kill him. For some reason, we wiped. So we rezzed up and tried again. We wiped a second time. What the hell was going on? Worst part of all, we didn't have wipe protection (first time ever on Rag). So we had to release and run back. Things were shaky -- would we get to Ragnaros before he would despawn?

On our third attempt, things turned out to be quite a surprise. We finally did things perfectly. Minimal deaths and handled the sons nicely.

And then Ragnaros died.

And then we saw that he had the Eye of Sulfuras on him.

It was the Second Eye of Sulfuras to drop within such a short amount of time for us. Like -- three weeks or so. What are the odds?

People freaked out! My raid was going crazy on Ventrilo.

Our raid leader began accepting tells. I sent a tell with just for the heck of it. Whoever hasn't wanted a Sulfuras? This was my slim chance to get one. After five-ten minutes of waiting and suspense, the people who were it up for grabs were revealed. It was up to me and my friend Althor.

I freaked out because I didn't expect it. My hands were shaking. Seriously. I said that I'd pass it to him since our first one went to a Pally (and many were upset about that). But, then I learned that it'd just cause other complications because other people would be within the treshhold. So I took the choice to gamble (and lose) to just skip the beuarocracy. I mean, how hard could it be to lose? I had just had a lucky-streak earlier this week.

On the first roll, both me and Althor rolled 72.

People freaked out like heck. Ventrilo was friggin' insane! Screams. Bursts of laughter. My hands were shaking real bad. How can it be so close?

After things cooled down, the reroll commenced... The raid leader said it was time to roll.

Althor rolled 3.

The odds of me winning was HEAVILY in my favor.

I mean... It's friggin' 97% chance that I win it.

What do I do?

I roll a 1.


_ .. . - gRaTuLaTiOnS tO aLtHoR! - . .. _

Shaman Changes Released

Gasp. Eyonix spills the beans. Looks much more extensive than the Mage review, certainly. Haven't scouted the boards yet to see what everyone thinks about it. It'll certainly be interesting...

By just skimming through their changes, I noticed that their Shield Specialization talent now also increases block chance by 5%: this is for the non-plate class that's not dependant on the conflict between trying to hoard up on +defense gear and rely on a proc-on-being-critted talent to increase our blockrate.

Ugh. I really, really, really hope that our Protection tree review is extensive.

07 May, 2006

How to Fix the Paladin Dilemma

We still, as yet, have not received an adequate response from Blizzard regarding the fact that our role changes more drastically than any other class in endgame raiding. Though we still wear plate, we find ourselves standing at the back of raids thanks to the fact that our heals are efficient and generate little aggro, and we have nothing comparable to offer on the front lines. Here is what I would do to change that:

Make Consecration as it is now a trainable ability.

Move Holy Shock to the end of the Protection Tree as a second ability requiring 30 points in Protection. Remove its healing element and replace it with a threat generation modifier like Holy Shield has - say 20%.

In the place of Holy Shock, put Improved Consecration - requiring 30 points in the Holy Tree. Improved Consecration would cost the same amount of mana, but heal friendlies within the area of effect for 1.5 times the amount it deals as damage to enemies. At the top rank, that's 576 health over 8 seconds.

Move Repentance to the Holy Tree as a second talent requiring 30 points in Holy. In its place in Retribution, put a new aura - Haste Aura - that would burn 200 mana per tick to increase melee attack speed by 20% and casting speedy by 10% of all party members within 20 yards. If the Shaman class gets Bloodlust in some form, the addition of something like this to the Paladin class would become absolutely necessary for faction balance.

These changes would help to put Paladins back in their proper places on the front lines. Holy Paladins could stay up front casting Improved Consecration. Protection Paladins would have a more reliable means of grabbing aggro quickly and holding onto it if something gets loose. Retributions would be highly desireable in DPS groups up front, and actually get to beat on things and put talents like Vengeance to use.

04 May, 2006

Mage Talents Released

Click on the title to visit the IGN story listing the new mage talents. To all my mage friends out there - welcome to the land of crappy talent reviews. They at least got evocation converted to a trainable ability, and some of their points freed up with an number of previous 5-point progressions converted to 2 or 3.

Where's the silver lining in this? We can hope that the Shaman review slated for the same patch is equally as lackluster, with maybe even a nerf or two. I expect a number of totem changes to make Shamans less of a headache in PvE, but that's about it. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

Update: It turns out, IGN originally had misrepresented the Shatter talent. It has been corrected and now no longer appears as a huge nerf. Overall, it's a very toned-down review befitting a class in less need of major changes.

03 May, 2006

An Eyonix blurb

Thanks Ghmou for sending me an email about this. A guy in the Generals forum was complaining about Eyonix lack of updates for the Pally lately, so he responds with:
There hasn't been any design changes discussed among the class designers concerning the Paladin since my last post in the Paladin forum. We've been focused on other areas of the game. When news of changes comes my way, I'll deliver it as a message on your boards.
Now, I know what your initial reaction is going to be. However, that he hasn't heard anything doesn't mean anything. The developers still could have done changes for us without letting Eyonix know about it. I mean, E3 isn't that far off -- we'll probably knnow for sure soon.

02 May, 2006

Druids got a major buff in 1.11

Eyonix says:
When patch 1.11 releases, Innervate will become a base ability for all Druids, trainable at level 40. Once the patch is live, any Druid who formerly had the Innervate talent will instead have the "Swiftmend" talent, which has been added to the Druid Restoration tree, replacing Innervate as the 31 point talent. This new ability will consume a Rejuvenation or Regrowth effect to produce an instant heal.
Doesn't this just blow your mind? I heard that this change might have been motivated in part by that Mages Evocation is also becoming a trained skill.

What I find interesting is that they have stepped to such lengths to really alter a class in such a way. Makes you think what's in store for us in 1.11, eh?

Bonfire Bonanza!

Happy May Day! Time to get liquored up and demonstrate!

Good news everyone! We've got some success! Tseric is informing the developers about our issue with Eye of the Beast. Woot!

Funniest post in a long time: a guy lambasting on how Chris Metzen must be a super-nerd as the worlds of Starcraft and Warcraft are so complicated. Ever seen his drawings of Jim Raynor from Starcraft? Pretty much a self-portrait. Anyways, Tseric responds to this as well. Funny.