Tag Archives: gear

The solution to the PVP gear problem

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5.3 will introduce big changes to the PVP gear : players will no longer need PVP gear to have enough resilience to survive, and there will be an ilvl limitation in BGs. These changes aim to make stepping into PVP easier for new or PVE players, while also inciting players to prefer PVP gear instead of higher ilvl PVE gear for BGs, like you can read on the last MMO-Champion news.

But I don’t think this is enough. The solution would be to remove PVP gear from the game altogether.

No more PVE vs PVP gear : welcome “good for everything” gear.

Each piece of available gear should have all the stats needed for each activities. PVP power and resilience could become primary stats, or they could be removed from the gear and build in a PVP zone buff. With one single type of gear, it’d be easier than ever to go from one activity to another. Mainly PVE player ? You can do your Saturday night horde slaying in your hard-earned PVE gear. Mainly PVP player ? You can get your PVE achievement with your PVP gear. No more gear grinding for an activity you only want to do once in a while. But as it becomes easier to step in and out of each activity, you may want to alternate more often too! You could also choose to do both at a time. Like taking part in world PVP while doing dailies, and being equally efficient for both. No longer need to choose between being one-shotted by the first PVPer passing by or killing monsters quickly.

Choose the activity, not the reward !

Imagine that you can do BGs to farm your valor points instead of dailies and heroics… Don’t know you, but I would certainly like it. Welcome a new game where there only is one type of currencies, that you can get from any activity you’d like to practice in-game. When winning a PVP game, you could get a chance at some loot, be it using the LFR loot system for normal BGs, or with a looting system that allow for master loot in rated PVP.

For example, after winning a Warsong match Alliance side, you could be ported to an instanced Darnassus to get your reward directly from Tyrande Whisperwind, as a thank you for taking part in the victory.

Each BG or arena could have its own loot table, like PVE bosses. It’d be quite simple to balance the rhythm of loot acquisition between PVE or PVP activities by tweaking drop rates or amount of currencies you can get for each activity. And in case it weren’t quite balanced, don’t panic, it won’t affect your open world pvp activities :

PVP should be about skill…

… Not about who have the bigger sword. All the gear should be leveled out in BGs and arenas, like it is in challenge modes. The reference ilvl could increase at each patch though, so that you get bigger number when you advance in the expansion. Getting new gear would allow you to optimize your secondary stat distributions, or to show off your new set, and of course you’d do better in PVE and open world PVP.

The equalization could also help balance healing vs damage vs avoidance, by increasing some stat more than other. For example, you could have spell power at 100% of the reference, while healing power is only at 80%.

And many more benefits

One of the other benefit I can preview, is that Blizzard wouldn’t need to design so many different gear sets at each patch. Ok having different-looking gear is nice, but with 8 year of transmogable gear available, do you really need 2 different set at each patch? One a these you probably won’t obtain until the next patch… if you ever get it. Not that you did choose the one you’d get first because of look.

Of course, there are cons to this method. PVPers might not feel compelled to grind BG if the gear doesn’t matter. But they might also discover that because of not needing to grind gear, they can enjoy other activities too. And grinding random BGs shouldn’t become the new catch up mechanism (which would happen if you could drop gear equivalent to current LFR tier in normal BGs)

This system may also induce some inconveniences which would need to be addressed. For example, it would be nice to be able to preview what your stats will be like in PVP without being in there to be able to choose your gear and reforge accordingly. Also, it would be harder to design set bonus that are balanced and equally desirable for PVE and PVP. But I’m pretty confident Blizzard could come up with an elegant solution for that. For example, you could get a set with a pvp bonus from PVP activities, and a set with a PVE bonus from raids. Or the bonuses could be equally valuable for each activity.

PS : the way honor is gained during BG should also change, but that is another story. You shouldn’t get points for being around when an enemy is killed. You should get Honor points by taking part in the battle for victory. If you can’t imagine another way to attribute honor points for contribution, just look at SWTOR system here. You can earn the equivalent of honor points by completing a variety of objectives, called medals.

Entering PVP the easy way

Step 1: Sabotage !

After reading Cynwise post about Disposable Heroes, I levelled a few characters up to 10 and geared them with a full enchanted heirloom and Hand-Me-Down set. This was a lot of fun. You find yourself in a battleground with people having 2 to 4 times less hp than you, and you happen to kill about anyone within 2 GCDs, even as a healer !

As Cynwise predicted, this is a great way to begin PVP. It allows for a lot of error and you can actually progress, something that’s hardly possible if you’re the one dying in 2 GCDs.

Step 2: Twinking is easy… and fun

After trying shaman, mage, rogue and priest, I decided to level the priest up to 19 and try non-xp battleground. It was fun too. It feels like rated battleground: most of the group is on vent, and there is an actual strategy. Except that if you have heirlooms and enough gold (I used between 500-1000 gold to buy lqe gear, enchant/tailoring mats and enough ore to level mining up to 225) it is really fast to have a close to optimized gear. The only difficulty is the Arena Grand Master trinket, but being on a PVE realm there wasn’t so much competition for it, and I often was the only one in the Gurubashi Arena (it has of course more chances to happen at 9 a.m on a weekday than 9 p.m during weekend!).

Playing Warsong games in this organized way was a lot of fun, up until the night were I was shout at 3 games in a row by some excessively exited 12 year old (based on his high pitched voice), because I was the only healer and he wasn’t being healed. THAT was not fun. I PVP because I find that relaxing (really, more on that later), and because you know what ? It’s the only way to get better at it (and at my general awareness in the same time), not because I liked to be shouted at. I may go back to my priest later, but I needed a small break. So I began a new project.

Putting a foot in the twink community, I learned there was level 70 guilds out there. Guilds doing BC raids, Battlegrounds and arena. I really begin playing at the beginning of BC (my first character was level 60 just before BC launch), and this is a time I loved a lot. Returning to these raids at the appropriate level appealed to me. Plus, a bit like level 19 twinks, it’s really easy to get more than decent gear. You can have a full S4 gear (including weapons and off-set items) for about 2k honor, something you can have with about 20 battlegrounds, depending on the level you do these. So I began leveling a new resto shaman on a new server where there was level 70 guilds. Unfortunately, she’s stuck at 54 for now, as I’m not in the mood of leveling her while I don’t know if I’ll still be playing (and how much) in a few weeks.

Step 3: Where I finally find out that I can actually appreciate PVP

So, while I’m wondering about my WoW future, I created a new baby rogue (If you didn’t understand why I choose this blog title until now, I hope you do know!). This rogue is on the same server than my baby shaman, so no heirloom or overpowered enchants for her. I entered Warsong as soon as I had a few green items. If you wish to do that, you need to be prepared : you’re going to die A LOT, and it may not be a lot of fun. Most people will have twice as much health as you do, and do much more damage (with standard non enchanted heirloom gear). You’d better choose your class with a lot of attention (I suggest rogue or hunter). As a rogue, I can at least choose to not commits suicide with my partners and instead remains stealthed when needed to focus on more interesting challenges. If you’re (very) well geared in a low level battleground, you can play to win the game and almost bring victory to your faction alone. If you only have what you can get from quests, you’d better not always try to play for the victory, or you may become frustrated within a few minutes. I you just try to focus on what achievable, you can have fun too. Like, I once managed to kill the flag carrier and his geared healer on my own. You can learn to make inventive use of your limited toolbox too. As a blood elf rogue, I learned that if I want to kill a mage, I need to use Arcane Torrent just after Ambush so that they can’t use their nova. I was surprised after my first Warsong to find out I actually appreciated the challenge. I may block her xp at level 20 for a time, as this seems to be an active bracket with F2P accounts, and it should allow me to grind a base gear with quests and dungeons. Unfortunately the leveling curve is so fast now that even without heirloom you don’t have the time for quests AND dungeons AND battlegrounds!

Step 4: Enjoy !

Anyway, PVP used to be a very stressful experience for me. I don’t know if I just changed or if it’s the fact I now entered battlegrounds the easy way (instead of going there with PVE gear, hoping to get appropriate PVP gear in the end), but it’s not the case anymore. I don’t shout about everything anymore while doing battlegrounds. (I only shout about my stupid totems bindings once in a while, because if you want to bind all your stupid totems, you have to use stupid bindings, and you have to remember these too!). I don’t rage because my team partner are obviously not wishing to win the game. If I loose a few games in a row and I’m not in a mood for that ? Ok, maybe I should just log out and try again later, it’s not a big deal after all, I’m not here to grind these stupid honor points but to enjoy myself.

With all this renewed interest for PVP, I did a few BG with Zahia too. It was interesting to notice all the differences between a level 10-14 Warsong where I completely overgear the content, a level 19 twink Warsong and a level 85 Warsong. I learned interesting stuff while researching about it. Did you know that if you have glyph of Stoneclaw totem, the shield is a personal buff, so that you keep it even if you replace another earth totem asap ? I also learned to use Healing Surge, and I now use this spell much more appropriately in raids.

If you’re interested in PVP but find it stressful or are easily frustrated, you should give it a try the easy way. You can learn a lot about your character and improve your gameplay. And it’s a nice change if you’re looking for new WoW projects !

About badges and the death of Naxxramas.

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The new badges system for Cataclysm has been revealed. It’ll be a lot like the current badges system, except that there will always be only 2 different “badges”. It’s simplier than our current emblems, but in my opinion it’s still faulty…

If you didn’t read the blue post about the new badges system, here is how it’ll look like. We won’t have emblems anymore, but only points. There will be 2 type of points:

Valor points, that you’ll get from higher tier of content and daily/weekly quests
Hero points, that you’ll get from all the lower content, including heroic instances

Each time a new tier of content is released, your Valor points will be converted to Hero points.

This system has many advantage compared to the current one. First you won’t have to change you’re emblems of Triumph into Conquest into Valor into Heroic so you can buy a new heirloom for your baby hunter. But, most importantly, your Hero points will never be lost! At the moment, you probably have a few of lower tier emblems, and until you’re an altoholic and often buy heirloom you’ll certainly have them forever, without being able to use them on something usefull.

But it’s still faulty. Look at the current content you could raid: Naxxramas, Malygos, Sartharion, Ulduar, Trial of the Crusader, and of course Icecrow. Which one are you doing more than once every 3 months? I mean, which one do you REALLY do. Doing only the “BigBadBoss must die” quest doesn’t count. I suppose you’re often doing ICC, and sometimes ToC. Did you try to do Naxxramas raid since ToC is out? I did try. After a few evenings spamming trade channel and convincing my hubby to come and heal, I finally manage to have 10 people ready to go. Well. This wasn’t glorious.We didn’t pass Gluth. Kiting zombies is apparently too hard. Of course, at the first wipe, half of the raid leaved. And this was before the new random dungeon tool.

Poor lonely Sapphiron!

Why would people bother doing a raid, where you could wipe, when you can get better gear by just doing a few heroics? Especially now that you just have to hit a button to be insta ported into an instance with 4 other people.

I’m not saying Naxxramas is the best raid ever (Ulduar is a great raid!), but it is actually nice to do something else than always the same bosses, in the same monotonous decor. Back in TBC, I remember doing Karazhan very often. With my alts, to gear them, but sometimes with my main too, to help friends gearing their alts. And I loved it.

It would be great if the Cataclysm badge system would encourage people doing old raids, and not just the higher tier raid and the fast random heroic. The current system make the older raids deserted. I’d like to do Ulduar with my shaman, but I know it’ll be almost impossible to find 9 people with adequate gear and experience wishing to go past the weekly quest.

There could be something simple to have players still wishing to do older raids : make 3 type of badges instead of 2. Heroic instances would give you poor badges, Higher tier raid would give you great badges, and all the other raids would give you medium badges. Imagine that today : if you’d want some T9, you’d have to do some raid, be it Sarthartion, Ulduar or ToC. I know most people would choose ToC but still, it’d be better than nothing. If you’d only want to do random heroics, you could still get T8 gear with your poor badges. And really, with the Citadel zone buff updated to 15%, T8 is enough to do some pick up ICC 10.

Single Abstract Noun

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I joined for a week now the blogging community guild created by Kumquat alias the The Artist Formerly Known as Tamarind from Righteous Orbs.

At first, I didn’t know what class to choose. I already have at least one alt of each class. Finally, I choose a troll shaman, Zahiou (Zahia was already taken grrr !)

Did you know you could jump directly from the Valley of Trials to Ratchet ?

My first impression when I joined is that the guild is actually very nice. Each time I log in many members are online, and most of them are very chatty. As i often level my alts in ghost guilds, having actually an active guild chat is nice ! Even if I don’t participate a lot in the chat yet. It’s my first time on an English server, and it’s like discovering the wow language again. It’s a bit awkward not knowing anymore how to say “Hello” or “Good bye” to the guild. In my french guild I’d often say “Plop” (or even “poulpe”¹) and “A +”, but I’m not sure you’d understand.

Levelling a new alt on a new server is a kind of new experience too. Money-wise it’s ok (thanks to the bags from the guild bank !). But levelling without any Bind on Account gear is another story. I thought levelling had became easy since a few patches, but the awesome Bind on Account gear had a lot to do with this impression.

Despite my full grey set and having found myself at 1% xp from level 10 with only one red quest left, I managed to hit level 12, and went to the Ghostland to get the awesome gear you find there. But yesterday, I finally transferred a forgotten alt who had Bind on Account Shoulders (shame on me !) and could craft Mooncloth Bags.

⁽¹⁾ Poulpe is the french word for octopus. In french servers we sometimes use french words that have about the same pronunciation as the specific wow or English name (but generally a completely different meaning). Like for example Poule (= chicken) instead of Pull, or Boeuf (= cow) instead of buff. Here Poulpe is used to replace plop.

Mourning Priest T10 4 pieces bonus