Monday 25 August 2014

Warlords of Draenor Beta: First Look

So I finally got access to the beta thanks to an awesome friend of mine, and I decided to get some first-hand experience with what the Warrior has become.

Arms

So I was dreading this and yet was excited for it. I'm a massive lover of Arms, the aesthetic, the actual playstyle, the whole shabang. So I just bound everything to where it usually is and already noticed that I was using 2/3 the buttons I usually have bound. Shouldn't complain because I knew that was coming, but it was still a shock to get used to while running around killing wolves for 10 minutes getting used to the standard UI again.

It's good. And when I say good don't think "OMG Exhil! Arms is terrible and slow and you spend time doing nothing, you're bad OMG!". I've had some time to come to terms with the fact that the Devs have a vision for Arms and nothing the players can or will say will change that, so I tried to go into the spec pretty open-minded.

Rend isn't that bad, strange having back after not having it for two years, but I'll live.

Mortal Strike consuming rage doesn't bother me considering it hits pretty damn hard.

Colossus Smash consuming rage doesn't bother me considering it hits like a truck.

In fact, the only thing I've had to get used to was pressing Whirlwind as a filler instead of Slam, and that was pretty easy to do. The game, to me at least, does feel better. Actions are more responsive, and at least now it does feel like Mortal Strike is an actual attack, rather than just something I press on cooldown.

If I rate live Arms as a 6/10, I'd give this an 8/10, though could still be improved upon a lot.

Fury

So basically Fury was mutilated compared to live and it just feels horrible. Spamming Bloodthirst is the only playstyle that's even legitimate due to the massive nerfs to Bloodthirst's crit chance at higher levels and slight buffs at lower levels of gear. Due to this playstyle, it literally doesn't matter if you don't proc Enrage, because you can just press Bloodthirst again and the spec does actually turn into a slot machine of annoyance. Wild Strike is still the ability that nobody wants to press, still sounds like crap, and currently (I might be slightly off with this one so I'll correct if neccessary) is actually doing less DPR than Whirlwind.

So that's both DPS specs using Whirlwind as a filler/rage dump. Yay.

In other news, Enrage lasts 8 seconds and Colossus Smash is extended by Raging Blow! But that doesn't matter seen as Raging Blow only costs 10 rage so you still rage cap while using it because Wild Strike is trash and literally does nothing besides dump a lot of rage at once. BUT OH WAIT it doesn't do that all the time because the spec has a proc which makes your rage-dumping ability completely free. Yes. Marvellous. Lets completely ignore this bad design and just go into a numbers tuning pass where we'll just throw damage onto the spec until people want to play it.

Awesome, thanks.

Live Fury I'd actually say is a very solid 9, and a 10/10 in some cases, in which case, I'd give beta Fury a 4/10.

All in all I'm really not impressed with either of these specs. Blizzard in the past has been very open to feedback in regards to whether something is bad design or not, even having some of the best Warlocks in the world help them redesign Warlocks when they got a rework. This time around it feels like they just wanted to have their way with Warriors and disregard any feedback that was constructive, and even feedback that might not have been constructive, but was still relevant. Many of the more prominent Warrior Theorycrafters, Forum-Posters, and some of the best players in the world have all been more-or-less ignored by the class designers, and in some cases have even been told "give it a chance, you'll like it".

They've then tried it, disliked it, and still been ignored anyway.

Warlords of Draenor has so many aspects to it that could very well make it the best expansion we've seen since (in my opinion) Burning Crusade, and yet the biggest letdown is how much the Devs are actually listening to the people who play their game.

If anyone from Blizzard reads this, I'd like to hope that I've opened your eyes. Warriors are sad that we have to deal with this gnarled up corpse of a class that we've enjoyed for so many years now. I just hope that we'll see some intensive care to deal with the burns we've received during Alpha and Beta testing.

Until then, I guess I'll just get back to gearing my Windwalker, because that's so much more fun to play compared to Arms and Fury on Beta.

Sunday 10 August 2014

10 Years, 10 Questions.

So, it's very rare for me to write a post that's not explicitly about Warriors in some way, shape or form, however I've had the distinct pleasure of talking with a certain fairy godmother of the community that many of you may know by the name AlternativeChat. I had read her blog a few times during some of my research for articles with PVP Live, and even had the honour of trying to reformat one of her posts to fit our site (as I recall it was about Pet Battles having more PvP options available).

So without further adieu, I give you my 10 Years and 10 Questions. A little bit of background on the idiot that writes this blog.
______________________________________________________________________________

1. Why did you start playing Warcraft?

I started playing Warcraft back in Vanilla Beta, a friend of mine from school had been a massive Warcraft 3 fan and he mentioned that his brother had access to the beta for "World of Warcraft" and I was immediately drooling. I was so used to games like Warcraft 3, Starcraft, Pharoah, that a different genre of game interesting me was a new experience. I went around to his house one evening and we prodded his brother until he gave us a mess around on his Beta account and I was immediately in thrall of this game. I'd never experienced anything like it, and I think even back then I had a feeling that I'd be playing this game for a long time.

My sub history has been a bit of a rollercoaster, as I was unsubbed for a lot of Wrath of the Lich King in order to actually focus on school, but I've been actively playing for about 8 years, give or take a few months.

2. What was the first ever character you rolled?

The first character I ever rolled was actually a Night Elf Warrior though I played it until level 10 or so then realised I didn't actually like it at the time and opted to try something different, an Orc Warlock, which ended up being my main from the start of the game until the first time I was forced to quit.

3. Which factors determined your faction choice in game?

Factions never really bothered me that much originally, it was just a case of Red vs Blue and I was used to that anyway, I was more interested in the races themselves. Being a bit of a Dungeons and Dragons nerd Night Elves had that Dark Elf grim, magical edge to their appearance and I liked that about them. Horde however just ended up being the best fit in terms of symbolic aesthetic attraction (try saying that with your mouth full).

4. What has been your most memorable moment in Warcraft and why?

Oddly enough it was going through Ashenvale on that very Orc Warlock that I mentioned. I was just wandering around exploring when I was a higher level and noticed a place that I had never seen before with a load of demons there. I saw this big clickable rock and went for a look and read the inscription on Grom's grave. 

Now, bearing in mind Orcs were my favourite race in Warcraft 3, I loved the story, the look, the angst but drive for salvation feel around them, so the cutscene where Grom sacrificed himself to try and get rid of his own Blood Curse and then in his last seconds finding out that he's actually saved everyone just by being who he is, was probably the most emotional I've ever been in a video game. 
Looking back, I think I cried at that inscription.

"Here lies Grommash Hellscream, Chieftain of the Warsong Clan.

In many ways, the curse of our people began and ended with Grom. His name meant "Giant's Heart" in our ancient tongue. He earned that name a hundred-fold as he stood alone before the demon Mannoroth - and won our freedom with his blood.

Lok'Tar Ogar, Big Brother, may the Warsong never fade.
- Thrall, Warchief of the Horde"

5. What is your favourite aspect of the game and has this always been the case?

My favourite aspect of the game is and will always be raiding. There's something just so cool about being the guy that goes and slays big monsters for a living. A list of my other favourite games includes Monster Hunter and Darksiders in first and second place respectively. I sense a pattern here.

6. Do you have an area in game that you always return to?

Links back to question 3. At the back end of Orgrimmar there's a very tall cliff with almost a circular area on top of it that overlooks Orgrimmar on one side and Demon Fall Canyon on the other. If I'm lurking in Orgrimmar waiting for something, I'll be there.

7. How long have you /played and has that been continuous?

On my Main at the moment, my Warrior:

Total time played: 190 days, 7 hours, 45 minutes, 32 seconds

Time played this level: 148 days, 15 hours, 28 minutes, 16 seconds


I have only had this character since 4.2, hence the ridiculous amount of time spent at level 90. Honestly I think it'll be the only character I actually care for as I no longer have my original Warlock.

8. Admit it: do you read quest text or not?

I do if it's something I have an interest in, I'll probably read a lot of it in Warlords of Draenor as it's the core of my love for Warcraft. Orcish History. Mmmmmmmm.

[Drooling Intensifies]

9. Are there any regrets from your time in game?

My single regret is deleting my only two characters on my account when I quit the game near the end of Burning Crusade. I had too many memories on those characters that I'll never get back now and I kick myself for it every day.

10. What effect has Warcraft had on your life outside gaming?

It enabled me to get my position in PVP Live, made me meet some amazing people, and have some of the most hilarious moments of my life so far.

I honestly don't know where I would be if not for this amazing game. As much as I might rag on at the Developers for design decisions, they've still made the game that I've been playing for close to half my life, and for that they deserve my respect.

Friday 8 August 2014

The Current State of Warriors: Part 2 - Arms

Warning: Lots of opinion beyond this point, please ensure your pinch of salt is ready for use. Also, I'm writing this assuming that the reader (that is, you) know relevant details that I may mention.
Continuing on from yesterday, I'd like to go into Arms Warriors on Beta, and why Gastropods are petitioning Blizzard to have their speed reduced to compensate. Arms in Mists has been a bit of a rollercoaster, from the Taste for Blood fiasco in 5.0, to Slam being a truck with spikes on in PvP in 5.4, to the kind of "meh" period in the middle where everyone played Fury anyway.

Arms in Warlords is a completely different beast. Gone are the multitudes of attacks from Opportunity Strikes, fast Overpowers and Deep Wounds ticking all the while. Gone are the days of proccing multiple CS resets and being able to have Colossus Smash rolling for an entire Bloodlust. Instead, you have Mortal Strike, Colossus Smash, Rend and Whirlwind. Riveting isn't it?

Obviously there's talents and whatnot to fill this out but is that what Warriors have been reduced to now? Talents are meant to be a cool extra, something that provides some flavour or adds something to your rotation. They shouldn't be there to either:

A) Turn your rotation from boring to engaging.
B) Add spells to your rotation so that you actually have something to press when you play like trash and waste resources.
C) Be a bandaid fix to a core class issue.

Unfortunately, this is the current deal with the Level 45 Talents for Arms in Warlords of Draenor. Lets go a bit into detail here.

Taste For Blood - Gives you 3 Rage per tick of Rend. Does what it says on the tin, amazingly boring, ensures that you can press Whirlwind a bit more than you were before. Makes Rend rage neutral after 9-12 seconds of being on the target and generates you 8 Rage total if it runs it's full duration.

Sudden Death - Lets you Execute people above 20% health. This was recently nerfed so that it doesn't consume any extra rage to deal damage, meaning it's a 120% WDmg attack. It's 1/3rd of a Mortal Strike for free, very meh.

Slam - The new Slam is Arcane Blast for Warriors except the buff is 2 seconds long which means you have to keep Slamming to maintain the buff, as of yet Theorycrafters haven't worked out if it's worth keeping the aura or just using a /cancelaura macro on Slam to make sure it never hits 2 stacks. Fantastic, already working against the idea of the talent itself to make it good.

This is a major issue, and one that again, the developers seem to either be ignoring or unable to process why the players don't like these talents. I understand that they're trying to cut the game right back and then add flavour to it, but replacing a utility tier of talents for these is amazingly bad. We lost an AoE snare (Fury happens to keep Piercing Howl for some reason) an AoE Root, and an AoE Interrupt in favor of 3 pretty bad talents.

I've seen the idea thrown around somewhere (if it was you, let me know and I'll edit the article) that these talents should actually all just be baked into Arms and the utility tree brought back, and honestly I think that would be a very good idea. No class should have utility options removed in order to make room for bandaid fixes that should have been dealt with in the initial stages of a class rework. If they wanted to rework Warriors a la Warlocks then they should have contacted a few prominent Warriors for each spec and worked with them to redesign each spec. Not this half-assed monstrosity that now Warriors are going to have to deal with until either:

A) An actual rework arrives.
B) We get bandaided throughout all of the next Expansion.

I hope that someone at Blizzard gets a copy of these two blogs that I've written from Warriors because while I normally don't like to be rude to people who are doing things for me, I honestly don't have a bloody clue what they were thinking with these Warrior changes. To reiterate from the last blog, Warriors did not need sweeping changes. They needed small QoL changes and then they'd be fine. They spent a lot of Mists working on getting Arms to a state where it was enjoyable, competitive and not overpowered, and while they might not have gotten there, the time spent working on the spec for Warlords could have done that.

Here's a list of stuff I would have changed, had I been in the Developer's Chair:

1) Visualize what I wanted Arms to be - Here I agree with the Devs, Arms should be this tactical master of weapons that carves his way through enemies with big meaty hits from a two-handed weapon.
2) Ask myself what doesn't fit this vision - That would be the 1.0s GCD Overpower which hits like a noodle, and the Mastery.
3) Implement any potential changes necessary to evolve the old spec, cut down on button bloat and still fit the vision - Merge Slam and Overpower into one button, bring back Sudden Death Executes as baseline, change the Mastery to increase damage of Overpower, Mortal Strike, Execute and Sweeping Strikes. Make Deep Wounds only apply on Mortal Strike Critical Hits, remove Enrage from Arms. Tune accordingly post-change.

These changes would then, in theory, remove 1 button (slam), add a bit more flavour to the spec with Sudden Death proccing Execute rather than Colossus Smash, which then adds value to CS, the Execute proc, and your Rage management. I haven't even done anything to the talents, and I think that this would play better than what Arms is currently Beta.

I want to say more about something but unfortunately I'm drawing a blank. Something something no beta something something.

Again, I'll take any feedback that anyone offers about my articles, you can contact me in-game via BattleTag (Exhil#2759) on Twitter @ExhilMD or by email at exhilmd@gmail.com. Alternatively, talk because I like talking about Warriors and/or I don't bite. I'm bad at Feral.

Thursday 7 August 2014

The Current State of Warriors: Part 1 - Fury

Warning: Lots of opinion beyond this point, please ensure your pinch of salt is ready for use. Also, I'm writing this assuming that the reader (that is, you) know relevant details that I may mention.

So, Warriors.

Warriors are in a particularly messed up state right now on Beta, and that's fact, rather than opinion. Fury is in a gnarled, twisted imitation of what it was purely by chance, and Arms is amazingly boring with little to no depth whatsoever, just press buttons if you have Rage and they're off cooldown. Fantastic gameplay, if you like either carpal tunnel or naps while raiding.

I don't have access currently, and I'm honestly not even sure if that's a bad thing. Normally I love to dive into Betas for WoW, see what's what, what's changed, and provide feedback either directly, or to people that can word it a lot better than I can so that they end up inadvertently posting my feedback along with theirs. However this time I feel that there's no point in justifying this, and I shouldn't feel this way at all.

When a game goes into Beta and it's Devs tell the people on the Beta to provide them with feedback so that they can make appropriate changes, you'd expect them to react to lots of people saying the same thing, however this doesn't seem to be the case with Warriors whatsoever. Right now on the Live Servers, I don't know a single person (Emphasis on me not knowing them, I know there are exceptions) that dislikes how Fury is designed, and all of the Warriors I know in Heroic Raiding guilds like how Fury plays right now. In my own opinion, Fury is perfect, it does not need any serious change. A few things could be changed as QoL issues but they're not drastic, sweeping changes.

Drastic, sweeping changes is exactly what Fury got. It was unfairly gutted, despite the cries of Fury Warriors the world over asking the Devs what they were doing with Fury. Apparently the idea was to make Fury more "furious", and instead only succeeded in making the people behind the keyboards furious instead. I mentioned earlier that Fury on beta was a gnarled and twisted imitation, and I wish I was joking. Spamming Bloodthirst (Via Unquenchable Thirst talent) for tonnes of Enrage uptime and Raging Blow procs and dumping any excess Rage with Ignite Weapon, which for some reason is a thing even though they were insistent that Heroic Strike was a bad ability and needed to go, is some of the worst decision making I've seen in a long time in regards to class design. To evolve what Warriors are on live, they need either minor tweaks or a solid overhaul that should have been done before even entering a tuning pass.

What we have now for Fury is a nasty mix of MoP Fury and this... thing in the corner that I don't want to talk about. It's the elephant in the room that everyone can see except the developers. I really don't even want to go into Wild Strike because I'll start to get annoyed somehow, but  almost -all- the Warriors I've seen tweeting say they don't like it and that it needs to be changed is ignored, and Celestalon retweets the one guy who says he likes it, even though that guy mains a healer. I think that's a pretty bad way to go about the situation. Sure the Devs can say "No this is better, trust us, you'll like it this way!" and yes, this is their game to do with as they please, but when you have a majority of players saying that it's bad design and it's not fun, not engaging, and in some cases possibly health affecting (bit extreme, but possible) that's just an idiotic way of going about it.

I shouldn't go on and on about it, because at the same time, these are the Devs that brought us MoP Fury, they designed the brutal beast that smashes bosses in the face and takes names for a living. They designed the spec that is cruel and calculating and destroys enemies during Colossus Smash windows with use of abilities and weaving in Heroic Strikes to manage it's resource.

I'd honestly love to get a detained response explaining why they have made every single change to Fury, but I know I probably won't get one. None of the other Warriors asking before me got one, and none of the hundreds of Warriors with Beta access who know how this new Fury works inside out, who have played it to see if it can be even the slightest bit fun, who understand that while "change is good" this change is frustratingly horrible, are probably going to get a response either.

Blizzard have made their minds up, and the Warrior player base right now is up in arms about it (no pun intended). Until we get a solid response for all of the changes, it looks like Fury can sit on the backburner until it's worthy of picking up it's sword and fighting for a place in our hearts again.