Cataclysm

I have deliberately been holding back on writing too much about this particular title, with the reason being I hate hype and it does not feel all that relevant at the moment. However, after some exhaustive deliberation, figured was time to put some of my thoughts more firmly down. All and all, like everyone, I am very excited about this expansion.

However, my main excitement is because the expansion has the mandate to fix some of the big issues that World of Warcraft currently has. Of course we have all sorts of cool updates coming, like new races, professions, level cap, etc. but still for me, the other changes, specifically to older content, are more important.

First and foremost, Azeroth, the old zones of vanilla WoW are getting a thorough make over. Why is this such good news? Because the old content is hopelessly out of date. There is no saving it and is one of the most painful things to play through. Sadly, it still represents of 48% of the game's content. Not to mention, simply the content that we spend most of our time leveling through.

Dungeons design, quest organization, gear drops are all things that continue to plague this part of the content, making it unappealing and dry. So much has changed and Blizzard's design team itself has grown since those times that makes looking at Northrend and vanilla like day and night. But no more. We are getting two new races, starting to zones, new zones, and the old areas are updated. Awesome, is what I say.

Second most wanted on my list is a revamp of the character stats, a subject that keeps hindering the game a lot. Simply put, it is just too complicated. Aside from hardcore players, most do not know, or even want to spend hours calculating. Yes, looking at new gear, checking and planning how to get the best results has its appeal and is part of the fun but also distracts you from the game itself.

Especially, when you have to judge items on the fly, with less time to make up your mind than you would reserve for peeing. This is immanent on a lot of raid loot, where e.g. a weapon might drop, that has a lot less attack power than your current weapon, but than again it has useful stats like expertise and armor penetration on it, so is it actually better or not?

This is all going to get streamlined in Cataclysm and I for one, will be happy to see them go.

Spell Power: Will be removed and instead, intellect will provide both mana and SP at the same time. Just makes you wonder why the game did not work this way to begin with.

MP5: Will also be removed and replaced by spirit. To compensate, healers will also gain a meditation-like ability to help them regain mana more efficiently.

Armor Penetration: Aye, this one is on the boot-list and I am happy to see it go. Looking at the ArP history, it either never worked, was over-powered, or just downright confusing. Rest in peace.

Defense: Is going to be replaced by talents that provide tanks with the uncrittable status. It, essentially, is not a confusing stat, up until you begin to wonder how much benefit you are truly getting from stacking more than the necessary cap limit. All around better though, will make gearing for tanking a lot easier.

Attack Power: The same way as SP, this is going to be removed and replaced by agility and strength, for leather/mail and plate wearers respectively.

In general, more weight is shifting to emphasize the importance of the basic stats, like intellect, strength, etc. While currently, the two different groups of stats are locked in a struggle for dominance. It will be clearer and simpler in my opinion. A much desired change.

There are a myriad of changes to the game in cataclysm. Too many to be listed here. For more information, I would starts with the official site, and work your way through wow.com and the mmo-champion.

Preparing for PvP

This morning I finally wrote and posted my humble review on PvP Leveling in World of Warcraft; a very viable and interesting way to level a character. I have personally had a lot of fun tackling horde, stealing flags, and laying waste blizzard and fireball. However, I believe my success so far has been largely thanks to the preparation I did before hand, or during my pvp career.

Here are some very simple steps I suggest everyone considers for themselves, when making the decision to level using battlegrounds.

Heirlooms

I cannot stress it enough, how important these are for you. When you level mostly using battlegrounds, you will be short on both gold and gear from instances. Sure, you can run a few instances on the side, but it will not make up for the difference much. Heirlooms act as blues of their equivalent level and improve the same time your level increases, so they will always be up to date.

There are enough heirlooms available to give any class you choose, a weapon, two trinkets, and two pieces of armor. In order of priority, the items go armor, weapon, and trinkets. The armor is first because each gives a 10% increase to all experience gained from quests and the killing of a target or monster that yields honor. In case you are wondering, they stack.

In patch 3.3, we hear from wow.com that there might be new heirlooms available, for data mining has shown that there is an item or spell that provides a 5% experience increase; A little extra XP bonus.

The weapon is important, for obvious reasons, as they are often the most important and sought after items that relate to your dps. Some classes can choose from different weapons even, as is the case of the rogue, depending if you are going for combat or assassination specs.

In my case, I chose the following for my mage;

Tattered Dreadmist Robe

Exquisite Sunderseer Mantle

Grand Staff of Jordan

Discerning Eye of the Beast

Inherited Insignia of the Alliance

Notice the fact that three of the listed items are pvp in nature. They are available, not from the Dalaran heirloom vendor, but from within the Wintergrasp fortress, for pvp badges. The rest of the slots for my gear, I mostly buy from the AH or get a high level to quickly run me through a low level instance.

If there is one item I suggest everyone buys, it is the last, pvp trinket that frees you from movement impairing effects. It is an absolute must have for every pvp player and will save you from a whole bunch of grief, since playing pvp is half struggle for control and it is achieved through stuns, roots, etc.

Professions

Every player should level his or her First-Aid skill, as high as their current level allows. It is true, you can buy bandages but for me, it is essential that I can create them myself. There is never a shortage of cloth at the AH, and if you level like most do, with quests on the side of BGs, you will also gather some yourself.

As items, bandages are a lifesaver in any battleground match, particularly when short on healers (and you always will be); head to head matches often leave, even if you survive, starving for health, and though you are still standing, the next opponent only needs one arrow or spell, or stinking breath, to put you down.

There are a variety of professions that can be useful to you, particularly crafting professions that allow you to easily put together the best craftable items, to supplement your heirloom gear. However, I decided to choose herbalism and alchemy.

Healing and mana potions, the first more than the second, are crucial for me. The two professions allow me to both gather and prepare my own potions, as well as gain Lifeblood. It has saved me more than once when out running the horde, their flag in hand.

Class Capabilities

It is very important to learn and understand the capabilities of your class. Particularly how they play in pvp, since when going head to head with other players, the game changes drastically. Few, if any of the skills you had in pve, will apply on battlegrounds. Some abilities are only useful in pvp situations learning what your class can do is the only way to shine.

Also do not let anyone gouge you into picking some select, so called "best" classes. Personally, I enjoy playing less obvious choices and it bores me to tears when I check the match roster and realize five from ten in the enemy team are rogues or hunters. Particularly on certain levels, like the 10-19 branch is infested with players of those classes, since they are the obvious, strongest contestants.

For my mage, I was told to be a poor choice for battlegrounds and that I will be ganked by rogues and warriors of lower level than I am. However, so far, I find rogues less imbalanced and more just annoying, who are incapable of anything else except stealth, backstab, and try kill you before the stun wears off.

If it doesn't, or if I can reveal the rogue with an aoe, the rogue better pray for quick reinforcements before he becomes a jar on my mantle piece.

The Battlegrounds

Just like knowing your class, knowing the terrain and purpose of the battlegrounds you play is equally important. It is not a rare sight, to see people wonder aimlessly on arathi basin, not fully understanding how the battleground works, or know the best ways to infiltrate the enemy base in warsong gulch.

Game Mates

Finding people to play battlegrounds with can cut a lot of frustrations from the road ahead. Pugs by nature are chaotic and usually only go with the one tactics; which is to say, they don't have any. Basically, just zerg the enemies, while trying to accomplish the battleground objectives. After you take part in a match, with clear strategies and roles, you realize how much of success depends on people who are willing to communicate and evolve strategies.

And even if you cannot find any pvp guilds to join, just grouping with a friend or two takes you a long way.

PvP Leveling

Everybody knows me as not the best friend of PvP, nor the best skilled in its arts even. However, since battlegrounds now award its participants with experience, since patch 3.2, I simultaneously the subject merited investigation. Naturally, in my typical nature I was not going to with any easy class, e.g. hunters and rogues, like say 90% of the pvp populations. Instead I finally adopted a mage character.

True to my assumption, mages are rare, at least on most low level battlegrounds, which makes playing them all the more interesting. Particularly facing less experienced players, who are used to ganking other rogues and shamans, a mage produces a lot of pleasure when you can kite a pack of hordies around in a circle, literally forever.

Many people think mages are far from the best class for battlegrounds and it is true that the class is far from being dominant, the same way that hunters and rogues are. But where we lack the raw power of a hunter, mages make up in finesse and control, and that is where the class truly shines; sheep, frost nova, frostbolt, to name a few are some of the mage's best tools.

So what is the verdict; is fighting on battlegrounds a viable leveling method? I believe it is. As a show case, I give my gnome mage, now a level 29 fire and frost hybrid. The moment I hit level 10, I started pvping and refused questing in all forms until two days and 24 levels laters. For a leveling pace, that is not bad at all.

The experience is gained, as per quote from Blizzard "for completing objectives and actions that yield honor (honorable kills not included)." This makes it all very straight forward. Think capturing flags on Warsong Gulch, conquering contested points of resources on Arathi Basin, and so on. So, of course, the side that wins, gains the most experience as well.

However, there is a catch to leveling on battlegrounds, which is true to all team efforts; you can only do as good as your team as a whole. So whether you like it or not, your success is in the hands of your teammates. In fact, now since twinks have been pushed to their separate battlegrounds, away from us casual folk, the encounters consist of a wide variety of people, of all levels and experience.

Also, if you do as I did, leveled using only battlegrounds, be prepared for heavy-handed ganking on the lower tiers of your level bracket. The horde, and without a doubt the alliance as well, enjoy nothing more than jumping on a level 11 or 14 just for the fun of it. They will, in fact go through lengthy trouble to kill you.

Personally, I spent over five minutes, running across the field of Warsong Gulch twice, from my base, to their base, away from the base, zig zagging tree trunks and stomps, while three horde players chased on my heels. Quite ridiculous actually, which was made only more hilarious when I lead them straight into an armada of blood-thirsty allies.

But still, if surrounded by reasonably skilled players, not outnumbered or -geared by higher level players, leveling with battlegrounds can be efficient and a whole lot of fun. However, if this has peaked your interest, I suggest you come prepared. There is much you can personally do, to optimize your game play. After all, the same rules apply to battlegrounds, as apply to raiding; you are not alone, you are part of a team, and if you stink, the rest of your comrades will also pay for it.

Since this post will already be quite long, I will leave some of the means I used to prepare, for my next blog post. So stay tuned.