Through the storm we reach the shore

Shout out to Dammy, who stopped by the 'hoof last night. Sadly, I was the only one on, but we chatted while Unbound was knee deep in allies at WSG. (and put his char in the guild... now to lure beo here as well!)

"Damn, they got the flag back."

"Hold on... healin now"

"K, we won."

Says dammy, "that was fast!"

"Ima just that good."

8 min win. I hadda prot warrior with 17k life runnin flag. Unbound has 1900 +healz. We pretty much ran through 5 allies three times in short succession, while rest of team cept em from gettin our flag.

It work the same damn way... I'd keep prot warrior up, earthbind, then the snared allies would give up on catchin the flag, and just gank me. I'd rez just in time to catch the warrior comin outta silverwing keep with the flag again.

I'm just sayin... in BG's... you do as much damage to the enemies' minds as to their health. And they really, really, really can't resist a helpless target, no matter how long it takes to kill.

So... ripper went mental. We gotta get this boy into the expansion before he completely loses it. And dammy... ripper has had a lotta stuff on mages.

The decay of the mage class has been a sore point for us fer quite some time. The expansion holds a great deal of promise... and heartbreak. So, since I've been asked... my take on what pain we can expect with "ECHOES OF DOOM!"

/ominous music

Look. Class balance is wow is a tricky damn thing. I remember the original Magic the card game. The idea with old school magic was... common cards. useful. Uncommon cards... more powerful, but moar a niche thing. Rare cards... uberpowerful.

Noone ever saw the possibility of people buyin so damn many cards that they would be able to make decks of nothing but rare cards. And.. well, itsa game. You gotta make it so skill counts SOMETHING. Not just who can afford the most best stuff.

Wow suffers the same blindspots. Like elemental shammies. Yeah, let me put 7 points into fire totem talents, then give me an top tier talent that makes it all useless. Which is why I HATE elemental shammies.

(Kinda like the lock demonology thing. Yeah, 25 points makin yuir pet better... now get rid of it for yuir 51st point talent.)

Pet classes... yeah, end content is fun, but you'll never see it cuz yuir pet dies 1.73 seconds into the raid. How long did it take them to fix this?

K.. when judging a new talent tree... you gotta look fer synergy. Do the talents hang together? Or do they contradict each other? Like herk's complaint about the current idea for arms... in order to use everything... you need to be in battle stance to take advantage of execute. Which completely screws pvp arms, since all the anti fear crap and burst is in fury.

Cept for the new bladestorm, which is so dysfunctional it aughta be a Lohan.

Which is why I like what's happening with Mages. True... they completely and utterly screwed arcane blast. Arcane got gutted lika Bantha in harshest winter. But well... fire is gonna be great fun in BG's. And... not half bad fer arena. At least until people start stackin 450 resil again. And frost got more of what makes frost fun. Control and damage. And even arcane might not be so bad...

What is a mage after all but ranged version of a rogue? Stick and move... stick and move. Moar instacast spells... moar control... can only help mages in pvp whatever spec. Even arcane is justa unnerf to arcane blast from bein an awesome raidin spec.

As fer hunters... I REALLY like the top BM talent. Look, people. There are those that play the game for reasons other than pvp or pve. Anda lotta of these play hunters. Finally... a talent for them. "Exotic" pets issa great idea. The worst thing blizz ever did was standardize all pets... I remember huntin uniques for their extra abilities... shadow damage, extra resists, uber attack speed, etc. It doesn't hurt the game to have people who live for the easter eggs. Since blizzard wont go back to unique pets... this issa nice bone to throw us.

Now if only critters were their own exotic family, and we could wtfpwn n00bs with squirrels and rabbits.

For 70 level talent builds... I kinda wanna see what I can do with a devilsaur 51/10 build. Orcs get 5% moar pet damage. I think I could really... abuse this with the right ferocity pet.

Survival looks interesting as well. There is simply so damn much +crit talents in that tree that a 0/11/50 build would really rock. Instant aimed shot on something inna frost trap? Oh lord.

However... I have to agree with those that think explosive shot and chimera shots are in the wrong damn trees. Explosive shot adds nothing to the talents already in survival. How can you have imp volley and explosive shots mutually exclusive? I mean, really... is the idea of an aoe hunter that unbalanced? Meanwhile both imp stings and chimera should both be moved to surv.

And then there's the scatter shot factor. Without that...MM is dead in pvp. Period. No moar hunters on drain teams. You wont be able to keep them alive. Readiness? You gotta be kiddin me. All the damn trap skills are in the other damn tree...

Again, my theme. Talents that reinforce each other should be available to a single build. What are we gonna see? BRK hit the nail on the head. 50/21 BM builds with double bestial wrath. (which will get nerfed the same way prep/ar rogue builds got nerfed... BLIZZARD NEVER LEARNS). This build will dominate Hunter dps builds fer quite some time.

And survival builds with MM at least to readiness. Double wyvern sting, scatter shot, traps... harder to kill than freddy kruger, and so damn much crit frost mages will look upon our works and despair...

And witha nerf to aspect of the viper... Surv will work very very well with certain healing builds. So.. two decent pvp/pve builds... and MM becomes to hunters what arcane has been to mages all this time. Spare freaking parts.

Last.. shammies.

Enhance got... doggies. Maelstrom weapon keeps gettin nerfed cuz... well lets face it. The only thing you can do to enhance enhance (as it were) is integrate physical damage more evenly with spell damage. The problem... enhance shammies already have burst damage that makes mages green with envy. Give them auto crit insta cast lava bursts... and you gotta nother ret pally sized balance problem.

So what does enhance get? Freaking toys. Puppies. A change to earthbind totem that acts like a band-aid to shammy mobility issues. Kinda like givin a fool a helmet and sendin them up against someone wieldin .45 colt.

"Pray for the head shot!"

What does elemental get? Not a goddamn thing. A get outta rogue stunlock free card (only usable if you aint stunned.) Less damage. Early reports of elemental dps in raids are... discouraging at best.

This leave resto. And it looks, to me, like resto won the anti-nerf lottery. And insta cast heal witha hot element? C'mon. A buff to earth shield? No.. doan lead me on... an AI heal effect offa heal crit?

I mean... look. Healing in wow is disfunctional. The mechanics make no godddam sense. A healing crit is either useless over healing, orra sign that the tank is overgeared. Improved healing way is one of the most idiotic talents in the game... if it lasted like, 30 seconds, it might be worthwhile. As it is... well, this would take a longer discussion. It simply is useful so few times...

Now blizzard is gettin orginal. Remember... due to imp chain heal... past a certain +heal level, its actually more mana efficient to use chain heal on a tank than to use healing wave. And if there's more than one target... well, massive no brainer. And past a certain +heal... you an idiot to use healing wave instead of lesser healing wave onna non tank.

So what do we have now? A talent that makes lesser healing wave and chain heal even moar useful, and healing wave even moar useless. A heal crit gives a 40% heal to the person in raid who most needs it. I mean really.. I crit my healing wave for 7.5k. This would make it a 10.5 heal. Absolutely wasted.

What does this benefit? Rapid cast heals (moar crits, moar even bonus healin distributed...) Chain healz (three shots atta crit).. and remember the bonus riptide gives to chain heal.

What gets left out? Healing wave.

Heal spell rotation? Keep earth shield up. Riptide for the hot. Lesser heal, lesser heal... chain heal as riptide's hot expires for the bonus. Rinse, wash, repeat. Should keep up a main tank, and splash enough bonus healz around (as well as chain heals) to keep everyone up. Even if they stand on the goddamn burning earth like absolute idiots.

And for pvp? Cmon. An insta cast heal/hot. Earth shield with 20% moar healin and extra charges. "Ghost heals" when you crit, so you get 40% moar healz on the rapid healz that doan get interrupted. Resto shammies are the new resto druids. Cept we can do *real* damage. I expect a biker gang with nerf bats to pull up outside any moment.

Fer pvp... stack crit lika fool, and rely on totems and water shield to keep your mana up.

Fer pve... you still gonna need crit lika pally... but moar +mp5. Possibly swap out +spell power to balance crit and mp5.

Anyway... that's my thoughts so far... Ima still stackin herbage fer the great inscription run. (At this point, ima just gonna sell a ton of it. Runnin outta space now tho...) Still grindin honor on Unbound. (I'll start playin the mage again after the xpansion hits...)

Still tormentin Melvin. He still thinks hunters are gonna get to have two pets out. I've been doin the double devilsaur thing on him. (That so sounds like the ultimate in kink. "Double devilsaur.") Told him that his enchanter will finally be able to enchant his alt's gear (via new inscription scrolls...)

His question... "Will my enchanter have to have the inscription skill as well?"

I mean... its not a bad question. Except... who the hell thinks like this?