Skip to content

“Don’t stand in the fire” – Killing raid members since 2004

Watching the Alagon fight videos this week I was some what disheartened to see that after 5 years “Don’t stand in the fire”(DSITF) is still a core boss mechanic.
Just how prevalent is it and where did it begin though?

To being let me be clear in what I mean by DSITF. I’m referring to any boss encounter ability that causes damage to the player if they fail to move out of its area within a short period of time.

52860.jpg

Ignoring the early leveling 5 mans where boss fights were trivial the 1st time players encounter this is in Upper Blackrock spire.  General Drakkisath, the final boss in the zone has a Flame Strike ability similar to that of a mage.

This encounter was introduced to the game over 4 years ago! Even with the change to vehicles and “hard mode” encounters this basic game mechanic is still being used today.

Whilst initial versions of this mechanic simply involved the player taking a bit of extra damage, Blizzard have now changed it so that (in some fights) it is basically “you have 2 seconds to move or die”.
Although they do try and mix it up a little bit. In the Razorscale encounter they try and trick players with this effect. Not only does he have the classic version of this but he also has a similar ability which looks like DSITF but just does damage to the player (No on going effect). The result is players either move when they don’t have to, or get so used to being “hit” by the effect that when a real DSITF hits them they dont move. Sneaky!

So come on blizzard, how about some new mechanics? What about making healers have to “heal” the boss to do damage. “My rolling lifebloom did 600dps!” or making dps classes have to stand in the fire, i.e. if they stay at 100% health for more than a few seconds they explode (See what I did there?)

New Legendary Mace comming in patch 3.1

Wowinsider is reporting that the “Fragment of Val’anyr‘ has been found on the PTR.  It appears to be a mace with a class restriction for Paladins, Priests, Shamans and Druids.

Given the class limitations it is most likely a healing orientated mace however with universal spell power now shadow priests, boomkins and elemental shamans will also want a piece of it.

I know my Elemental shaman will :)

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Some old world Instance changes released

Blizzard poster Daelo has announced a couple of changes to old world instances to aide those that want to complete them on their lonesome.

We’ve made some changes to several dungeons to allow easier access for players in the upcoming patch.

The ritual objects that used to require 3 players to activate in Blackrock Spire and Uldaman now only require 1.
You no longer need quintessence to summon Majordomo Executus.
You no longer need the Scepter of Celebras to teleport to the final section of Maraudon.
You no longer need the Mallet of Zul’Farrak to summon Gahz’rilla.

The Scepter and Mallet both turn into actual weapons.

Thread here.

Patch 3.0.8 PTR Notes

Public test realm is up and both WowInsider and mmo-champion have a list of all documented and undocumented changes in the build.

Highlights include:

  • Players may now create death knights on any realm once they reach level 55.
    Racial restrictions on mounts have now been lifted. Night elves on mechanostriders? Tauren on raptors? You’re not seeing things.
  • Tapping: All player spells which cause a creature to become aggressive to you will now also immediately cause the creature to be tapped.
  • All flasks no longer require an alchemy lab to create.
  • The Obsidian Sanctum: Players will now be affected by Twilight Residue when they leave the Twilight Realm. Twilight Residue grants immunity to Fire and Shadow damage for a few seconds.
  • The Wintergrasp Aura should now properly update in all instances, transferring the buff when the zone control changes.

You can read the full listing here or here.

Paid character customisation on its way.

Mmo-champion has come across an interesting FAQ article on blizzards support site.

Customisation will cost $15 and does not include race or class it does however include the characters name. So in effect instead of just changing the name of a character now, you can also change the race and facial features.

More details in the FAQ here.

Upcoming Death Knight and Mage Changes

Various sites are reporting on a couple of posts from Blizzard poster Ghostcrawler on both the Death Knight and Mage classes.

Ghostcrawler explains the philosophy behind the DK changes as:

* Making tanking still rely on cooldowns, but rely on them a little less.
* Make Blood a more attractive spec, and particularly for tanking.
* Chill out some of the defensive capabilities all DKs have in PvP.
* Avoid having to use Death and Decay as an out-of-combat runic power generator.

You can read the full list of planned changes here.

Blizzard poster Nerimash explains that the Mage changes:

are designed primarily to make Arcane more competitive with Fire / Frostfire builds in PvE. Because they could end up buffing Arcane in PvP, we are prepared to adjust the damage of say Arcane Barrage if needed, but we want to see these in action on the PTR first.

Highlights include:

Evocation – cooldown reduced to 4 min.
• Arcane Flows – now also reduces the cooldown of Evocation by an additional 1 / 2 min.
• Arcane Blast – overhauled. Will now increase the damage of your next Arcane spell by 30%. However using Arcane Blast itself does not consume the charge, but instead increases the mana of your next Arcane Blast, up to a maximum of 3 stacks. You can alternate Blast and Barrage to keep buffing Barrage, or you can build Blast up higher for a heavy mana cost.
• Torment the Weak – now works with Arcane Blast and does bonus damage to targets afflicted by any kind of slowing effect (e.g. Thunder Clap).
• Elemental Precision – renamed Precision and now works on all spells.
• Improved Blizzard – snaring effect reduced to 20/40/50%.

Official Mage post is here.

Official Death Knight post is here.

Heroic Loatheb 2-manned by Die Uberspitzen

WowInsider is reporting that European guild Die Uberspitzen has successfully killed him using just a Pally and Warrior.

You can watch the video and read wow insiders take on the encounter here.

New WoW swag released by Jinx

Kotaku is reporting that Jinx have just released some more WoW related merchandise.

Now on offer are “talking plush murlocs” along with a stack of new t-shirts.

You can check out the full range here.

Wowinsider guide to farming eternals

Wowinsider have just put up an excellent article on where to get the equivalent of BC motes/primals.

You can read it here.

Hunters hit with the nerf bat

Blizzard poster Ghostcrawler has made a rather detailed post on the official forums today listing upcoming changes to the Hunter class.

Hunters of all specs, and particularly Beastmaster, are doing too much damage in PvE.

We tested this a lot internally in beta and knew hunters were high but we hoped other classes would be able to catch up in a way they have as yet been unable to do.

He then goes on to list some of the proposed changes to the class:

1) Steady Shot – now only gains 10% of attack power as damage (down from 20%).
2) Volley – reduced the damage by about 30% for all ranks. Note that AE damage from many classes is very high right now and we are looking at all of them. Volley in particular had reached the point where some hunters were using it to the exclusion of most other attacks.
3) Readiness – no longer affects the cooldown of Bestial Wrath.
4) Deterrence – has been completely overhauled. It now allows you to deflect 100% of incoming melee or spell damage for 5 seconds, but prevents you from attacking while active. You still must be facing the attacker to deflect the damage (this is a limitation we are trying and might end up removing). 60 sec cooldown.
5) Kill Shot – cooldown reduced to 15 sec (from 35 sec).
6) Kindred Spirits – now only grants 3/6/9/12/15% pet damage.
7) Serpent’s Swiftness – now only grants 2/4/6/8/10% bonus attack speed to pet. (EDIT: Still grants the current bonus to the hunter.)
8) All hunter pet abilities with a cooldown longer than 30 sec have been moved off the global cooldown.
9) Growl— threat generation increased by 20% (same for Voidwalker Torment).
10) Call of the Wild – now benefits only the hunter and his or her pet.
11) Rake and Scorpid Poison – slightly nerfed to bring them into line with other pet abilities.
12) Spirit Strike – reduced the period on the dot so it will work better with Longevity.
Improved Tracking – now benefits damage to all included creature types as long as you are tracking one of them. You don’t have to swap around what you are tracking as much.
13) Aspect of the Wild – now raid-wide.

More details and 37 pages of QQ here.