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I tend to write about one thing at a time, but sometimes there’s too little to be said about far too many things, so here’s a post with - can you guess - random stuff.

• Warlock Tier 7 is leaked! You know the post I made awhile back with a video of Tier 7 - I got no idea if that really is T7 or not, but we still have no reason to believe it’s not. The image attached was sent to me by IM so I got no idea who made it, but it would be a sin not to share it anyway. Click the image for a bit larger view.
• Kalgan rerolled a paladin, which explains the extreme amounts of damage they deal in Wrath beta. There’s a whole bunch of similar videos, so if this one amuses you just keep watching responses and related vids.
• Three Druid Noob has a couple of posts about multiboxing macros. Although I’m not a big fan of multiboxing, this explains a few things.
• Less PewPew more QQ or something like that posted a video of the reworked hunter ability Disengage. It now leaps the hunter 13 yards backwards, and has a 30 second cooldown. Talk about yet another ability to keep people at bay. How about making our Soulshatter do the same? Self knockback ftw!
• Wrath of the Lich King cinematic trailer released. I hear Blizz has 80 employees who’s only job is to make these awesome movies. I’m a big fan of Blizzard’s vids ever since I played Diablo 2; in terms of quality, this is probably their best one yet.
• A Dwarf Priest is trying to save the whales. An excellent summary of shadow priest issues and interesting advice about fixing them. There’s also a useful recent post about priest tricks to which I’d like to add a couple of things, but let this be an advice to you: the worst thing you can do for your blog is not enable anonymous comments. There’s plenty of Wordpress plugins available to fight spam.
• Saresa takes a giant leap for Wowkind and delves into something new. I’ll probably be banned from her site after saying this, but she’s pretty hot.
• The asshat scale from Unpack Your Adjectives one of the best reads lately.
• I haven’t seen this much math since… ever. If you’re wondering whether HoTs are still hot, click the link and try not to feint. I wish my readers gave me beta keys…
• Siha has the what now dilemma. If you’re bored and need motivation to play till Wrath, that post and the comments might give you a few ideas.
• If you still haven’t seen Road to Blizzcon, you don’t know what you’re missing. When I saw #7 (wood floats!) and #9 (faster Doodles, faster!) I totally laughed my ass off. The only critique is there should be more Mr. Horns (see #14), and it should be me! If anyone’s connected, can you hook me up?

From the beta

Although I try to avoid writing about beta changes as much as possible, there’s some interesting ones in the latest build. Here’s a few highlights from Mmo-champion.

• Mace Specialization changed for both rogues and warriors. I’m sure many people will be happy about it, since it no longer stuns. Rogue’s new version increases critical strike damage bonus when using maces by 10% - that’s kinda contrary to what resilience does but we’ll see how it works out. Warrior’s version now has a chance to generate 10 rage.
• New PvP trinkets with *drumroll* 84 resilience
• Warriors are getting some talent revamps, including a passive ‘mortal strike’ effect, and some good changes to the fury tree - it might actually be pretty viable for PvP. Titan’s Grip penalty is removed, and Heroic Leap is moved to tier 9. With the recent change in cooldown to their currently 30 minute CD oh-shit abilities, they will surely be even a bigger menace.
• Warlock glyphs are in the house, but I’ll talk about that in the next post.

Site stuff

• Smatter broke a record with 37 comments on his latest post
• WoW Search has over 300 various blogs and websites at the moment (if you don’t know what it is read more here). If I forgot to add your site be sure to let me know, it’s hard to keep track of all.
• Not that you care, but there’s a bit over 400 RSS subscribers now. If you’re still refreshing this site all the time like a noob it’s time for you to learn more about RSS and subscribe to the feed.

We Warlocks cannot have nice things for one reason only: everyone else is getting nice things. The recent train of Hunter and Mage changes has instilled jealousy in some members of the Warlock community, especially yours truly.

Allow me to clarify: when I say “nice things” I mean abilities that are both fun and practical (this means ignore all usefulness/damage efficiency/mana efficiency/etc.). Take for example, the following spells:

Ignoring all damage and mana components, these spells have one thing in common: a knockback effect. This angers me because Mages (our mortal enemies) and Shamans are getting something that I’ve wanted ever since the introduction of hardpacked snowballs some two years ago. I simply love knockback. No ability in the entire game is more entertaining to me than it (even on the receiving end).

Knockback is my favorite ability because of the sheer enjoyment I get from seeing players go flying—more specifically, the enjoyment I get from seeing players go flying off of ledges. As a result, knockback earns itself the title of “badass” in my book.

Take Alterac Valley for example: you’ve died too early into the battle and have been sent back to Dun Baldar. From here it will be very difficult for you to return to offense as the Horde is probably nearing your location. Therefore, you are forced to defend. The Horde offense usually bottlenecks at the bridge to Dun Baldar. Now, suppose you have one of the four spells above—do you see where I’m going with this?

World of Warcraft is not a job and is not a chore—it is a game. Games are supposed to be fun. Entertaining abilities such as knockback enrich the gaming experience for me; it allows me to look past the endless grinds and character development and have some good old-fashioned fun.

Why should Mages, Boomkins, and Elemental Shaman have all this fun? Surely,  an ability so sinister should belong to the most sinister class of all, right? Here’s why:

Currently, we do not know a damned thing about Demonic Circle; that is, we only know the concept and have seen the tooltips. Along with this lack of knowledge, there is plenty of room for doubt. For example: Will it obey line of sight (if it does not, you can expect a nerf somewhere between patches 3.0 and 3.1)? Will the teleport function remove movement impairing effects? We do, however, know that Blizzard has resolved that Warlocks need some kind of melee defense. I do believe Horns explained his Demonic Circle gripes this better than I did.

Yet, there is a solution to both my need for fun and Warlocks’ need for escape: give us some knockback. I wouldn’t mind if they took Demonic Circle in exchange. I know this may be asking for much, but I do feel that Warlocks deserve some compensation for the past nerfs and current pet scaling issues. C’mon Blizzard, don’t you think we’ve earned it?

I know such a blessing will probably never happen. Yet, until this matter comes to some resolution, I’m just going to level a Death Knight so I can Death Grip Mages, Boomkins, and Shamans off edges with me. It’s nice to dream.

Tyveris from ArenaJunkies.com recently posted a gladiator breakdown by class for arena seasons 1-3. The numbers are limited and only represent players registered on AJ forums, but it’s still a great sample and most likely not far from the true numbers.

It’s interesting to see a historical breakdown of all classes and their success in high end arenas. I thought it would be worth going into a further analysis and figure out the reasons behind class representation. I’m not going to post the patch notes for each season here because that would be a mess, but if you’re interested you can always check it here.

The graph shows the number of gladiators for each class, but numbers can only tell one side of the story.

Season 1

In season 1, warlocks are clearly overpowered the winners with 17,96% of total gladiators, closely followed by priests and warriors. Back then, warlocks and (shadow) priests were dominating the 2v2 bracket, and it wasn’t unusual for warriors to team up with paladins. Druids, shaman and hunters have the lowest number of gladiators; all three classes combined have only 2% more gladiators more than warlocks.

Season 2

At the end of season two, we can see a rise in the number of druids and rogues, close to 4% for each class. Priests and shaman are holding steady, and the decrease of paladins is most likely caused by changes to druids which made them the preferred choice for small bracket arena. Despite the near death of lock + priest combo, these classes are still holding the first two places, which is incredible considering how much warlocks were nerfed (dot coefficients, resilience affecting dots, drain life nerf, shadow embrace nerf, CCs down to ten seconds, …).

Season 3

Season 3 ended clearly in favor of rogues and warriors, with druids as the best choice for a healer (and the trend still continues now in S4). Warriors haven’t received many changes during Burning Crusade, but this clearly shows it wasn’t necesarry: a smooth rise in their numbers goes well with gear scaling. Introduction of armor penetration was clearly not a significant buff for them as it was for rogues, who continue to rock the charts. After the welcomed nerf of HARP spec, subtlety was buffed to oblivion and rogue numbers skyrocket to the point where there’s more vengeful rogues than gladiator warlocks (0,04% but it’s still more!). Druids rised by 6% despite the nerfs to Cyclone and 4/5 set bonus. Paladins continue to tumble down the rabbit hole, and despite the tons of buffs to hunters they are still far from the wonderland. Nerfs to warlocks continue even during S2, to the point where we’re the 5th most represented class with a huge drop. RMP is a strong combo to this day, but mages still continue to drop.

Season 4

Since it’s highly unlikely there will be any more class balancing till Wrath of the Lich King, things are bound to stay almost exact as at the end of S3. Warrior + Druid and Warrior + Rogue are currently the top two comps in 2v2 bracket, and it’s unlikely it will change - the two melee classes can only get stronger with more Brutal gear. In 3v3, RMP is still the winner, followed not so closely by WLD. Although I think Warr + Retribution + Rshaman is a seriously strong comp, their numbers are quite low for now. Warlocks will probably see a small increase in the number of gladiators, and undispellable armor helped. Rogues are and will continue to dominate regardless of the Cheat Death nerf - that should be obvious to anyone. Priests will continue to fall in numbers just as they did before S4, and I doubt we’ll see any significant surprises concerning other classes.

And another graph if you’re curious: this one shows how many players obtained gladiator ranks all three seasons. Remind me to make a post again at the end of S4 so we can laugh how there’s twice as many rogues as there are locks.

You probably heard already downranking spells has been significantly changed in Wrath beta. If not, once you finish reading more about it here, you’re welcome to come back here and read my rant how this will affect warlocks, as well as other classes.

I’ll let others who are much better at math figure out how this will affect raid healers, but as far as PvP goes, downranking is serious business and this change will be a major blow to all classes (except, you guess, warriors and rogues, and deathknights).

I did mention a few spells warlocks can downrank to save mana in one of my older (but still useful) post about warlocks tricks, but there’s a lot more:

• Drain Soul - an extremely cheap way of making Soul Shards. Max rank costs 305 more mana, and still does terribad damage.
• Corruption - rank 1 was useful for two things: making dispellers waste mana, and cheap Nightfall procs
• Curse of Recklessness - PvE here, used for the infamous fear bouncing. Rank 1 is (was) a cheap way to break Fear without increasing mob’s AP too much. Other curses are also great if that druid or mage keeps removing them and wasting mana.
• Rain of Fire - terrible for DPS, but useful for breaking rogue’s stealth
• Hellfire - probably one of the worst spells in lock’s arsenal, besides Firestones (for now). But only one tick is enough to trigger Prayer of Mending.
• Life Tap - using lower ranks like 4-5 when you’re low on health but desperate for mana.

Although I don’t use as many downranked spells on my druid, there’s still a few:

• Moonfire - destroying shaman totems, or forcing dispels (Insect Swarm for the latter as well). Even used for a simple task such as keeping opponents in combat during arena matches.
• Faerie Fire - 90 mana cheaper than max rank, and still prevents rogues (or night elves in general) from stealthing.
• Rejuvenation - again, forcing dispels, but more important if you’re trying to kill Anzu.
• Entangling Roots & Hibernate - since it lasts no longer than ten seconds in PvP, there’s no reason to use max ranks.

I won’t get into other classes, but I’m pretty sure each caster has their own uses for downranked spells. Mages use R1 Frostbolt to snare or Arcane Explosion for rogues, shaman use R1 shocks… they will feel the pain also, especially enhancement ones. The point is, as you can see, raid healers are not the only ones who will suffer from this change. Yeah, casters got buffed with the spell pushback change, but downranking nerf outweights it by a longshot.

Recently, Wowhead added two new types of firestone and spellstone as per beta files:

What this means for Warlocks:

First and foremost, the devs are looking at our currently useless spells (took them long enough). I seriously wonder how useless talents/spells sit on the back burner for many classes. Does Blizzard not want a well-polished game? Thankfully, these changes would allow Warlocks to obtain a little more utility and thus bring them a little closer to the class’ original intention (leather armor too?). Also, it’s a tell-tale sign that Koraa’s not bluffing.

What this means in numerical terms:

• At least a 1% DPS increase for both affliction and destruction.
• The firestone grants an addition 2.2% chance to crit.
• The spellstone grants a 3.8% increased casting speed.

Other Thoughts:

Do these stack with weapon oils? If not, I could see them being near-useless again, as I have yet to see the higher levels of the oils. If Blizzard really want us these to be useful, they will allow these buffs to stack with oils; I don’t see a reason why they should not. Moreover, if Blizzard is feeling really good, they will allow us to apply these to other players’ weapons. This would be an incentive to bring warlocks to raids (or a least have them wait outside by the summoning stone to apply the buffs).

What would these changes mean for the Master Conjuror talent? For two talent points, a 30% increase in the effectiveness of these items would be nice and possibly push them beyond the usefulness of weapon oils. Methinks that constitutes a “good investment.” After all, if they do not stack with oils, you can save some gold/time/effort in acquiring them.

Overall, these changes would be major improvements for two of our many seldomly-used skills. The only loss we would suffer for this buff would be the loss of the current spellstone’s dispel mechanic. This dispel has proven to be very useful in PvP for some; I know it has saved me many times.

Nevertheless, I’m glad to see that some attention is being payed to the outcrys of the Warlock community. Unfortunately, however, we don’t know if these will be implemented in beta and if they will even make it live.

What are your thoughts on these possible fixes? Do you think these changes for better or for worse? Is the loss of the spellstone’s dispel justification for these changes?

Hello glorious YAWN community!

I am yet another new blogger. Currently, my main is a Level 70 Human Warlock on the server Black Dragonflight (infamous for its delightfully crippled hardware). I’ve recently stepped out of the raiding scene due to a work-schedule conflict and am now flying solo, if you will. I spend most of my WoW hours PvPing, arenaing for minimum points, and preparing for the expansion.

I’ve played the Warlock class since my first day of WoW some three years ago; I am, and always will be, a loyal Warlock. The class has had its ups and downs, and I’ve held on tightly to my demonic roots. Other classes just do not entertain me as much; I like the complexity and varity that Warlocks provide. As a result, I am angry when trolls claim all Warlocks do is “DOT FEAR DOT FEAR.”

Anyway, when I’m not playing WoW and browsing WoW-related blogs and forums, I enjoy writing and rocking out to my collection of Rolling Stones music.

Finally, I have a treat for you all. Two years ago, back in high school, I wrote a little sestina as per a creative writing assignment. Essentially, I took a bunch of Warlock spells and talents and used them for the endwords of my poem. I had a case of writers block, and I needed this assignment done. However, I also needed to reach level 70. Bear in mind this is two years old and was a rushed piece:

THE INNER DEMON

Within all of us dwells a demon,
Whose contempt brings about all misery
Of victims harmed with malice.
The demon, teeming with corruption,
Takes umbrage in humanity’s ruin;
The demon is existence’s bane.

But why does life’s bane
Come from our demon?
What power within man causes ruin,
Chaos, and discontent in our misery?
Can we halt our creeping corruption?
Or shall we be defined by our malice?

But what if we prevent our spite and malice
From becoming our world’s bane?
Perhaps we can outlast corruption
Through salvation, in spite of our demon,
To dispel the shroud of misery,
Which suspends our looming ruin.

Fate determines our time of ruin,
And unleashes humanity’s malice,
Whose grasp inflicts misery
As the harbinger of our bane.
This evil frees our demon
And compels us to spread corruption.

Hatred nurtures the seed of corruption,
Which causes physical and mental ruin.
The seed will burst and release the demon,
Who exists only in malice.
It will be the bane
Of human kind, condemned to misery.

Yet, we ward off our misery
By resisting our inner call to corruption,
And save ourselves from the bane
Of the noble who live in ruin.
Nevertheless, we swell with ceaseless malice
And heed the call of the demon.

Ruin will be birthed in the malice of our demon,
Whose core is misery—the bane and corruption of the mortal soul.
And so the seed stirs.

My teacher loved it, but only one of my classmates could truly appreciate that one; he plays WoW too.

I’m looking forward to sharing my thoughts with all of you in the near future. Let’s make this one helluva good time.

After the recent heated debate about spell pushback on WI and Wrath forums, it seems the change got pushed through. I was going to post my thoughts about that too but there’s been too much negative rant here lately (do you know how hard it is not to flame comments like this one?).

The latest beta patch notes revealed an interesting change to this mechanic:

Spell casting and spell channeling pushback has been changed to the following:

When casting a spell:

• The first and second hit will add .5 secs each to the cast time.
• All hits after the second will have no effect.

When channeling a spell:

• The first and second hit reduces current duration by 25% of total duration each.
• All hits after the second will have no effect.

What does it mean

At most we’ll be getting a one second longer cast on any of our spells. Channeled spells like Drain Life will be pushed back by 50%, or 2.5 seconds.

Will it help

Yes and no. If you’re fighting against melee, there’s plenty of silences and interrupts and you still have to be extra careful with casting. If you combine random mace stuns and pushback, sometimes it’s near impossible to get a cast off even when your opponents interrupt is on cooldown. It’s a bit easier now for mages since they can keep their target at range, but priests and warlocks still suffer a lot from it (and I already mentioned Demonic Circle won’t help). Mages and Elemental Shaman should be thrilled about this since they will finally be able to cast a Frostbolt/Lightning Bolt against hunters, which is definitely good. In PvE, it’s without a doubt a good change and I can’t think of any negative consequences.

Why not get rid of pushback completely

Because that would be extremely overpowered. Currently, it would mean a serious increase in caster DPS which would by far outshine any melee. Beta is still beta, and things can change - I’m sure melee vs. caster damage will be balanced accordingly.

The game evolved in the last two years from oneshotting players to the point where some classes are unkillable, but it still suffers from outdated mechanics, and spell pushback is one of those. Melee classes are only limited with their range, and with the myriad of abilities available to keep us at bay they are hardly as limited as they used to be.

Now, if we could only pushback that warrior’s melee swing… just to hear them cry about it.

Really, we’re not overpowered.

Props to Wowinsider for another amusing find!

According to various forums and sites, achievements are one of the most anticipated features in Wrath. I must admit it puzzles me - what the heck are you all looking forward to?

There’s always something you never did in the game, a boss to kill, an item to replace, a pattern to loot or reputation to grind. That’s the beauty of this game, there’s always something to do even when you’re bored as hell. Most of the time we don’t care about small things - so what if I’m not exalted with Sporeggar? Achievements might change our way of thinking. That hellish achievements interface will always be there to remind us of the things we never did, and things we never thought of doing. The game is addictive enough as it is, and giving me more reasons to play it might do the opposite (reverse psychology anyone?).

Worst of all, you can compare your own achievements with other players, which will serve as another reminder.

Sure Horns, you don’t have to complete the achievements if you don’t want to. Well that’s true, but then again that’s my point, why are they there in the first place? There’s currently over 500 different achievements (here’s a list), some of them reasonable and even fun, while some are pure grinds.

I do welcome the statistics type achievements, for example:

• Average gold earned per day
• Number of auction purchases
• Total auctions posted
• Total gold looted/spent on flight/respecs etc.
• Total talent tree respecs
• Largest critical hit

You get the idea. The following purely cosmetic or vanity achievements are complete bull and serve no purpose other than boosting your epeen:

• Fall 65 yards without dying.
• Collect 25 unique vanity pets.
• Collect 25 unique tabards
• Complete 2000 quests
• Complete 140 quests in Boren Tundra.
• Explore (insert every zone here)
• And about 400 more.

It’s similar to daily quests - we all pretend to like them, but only because it’s the easiest way to make gold in WoW; other than that, they are primarily designed to slow your progress gaining reputations, and give you another reason to log on every day. Achievements are nothing else than a well-thought plan of making you play the game more. It’s impossible to complete them all, and serve no purpose other than displaying everyone how much time you wasted on this game. What we need is real content in this game, not recycled instances, repetitive grinds or shady mechanics which make us hate ourselves even more.

Please share your thoughts: do you really think achievements will benefit this game? Can you honestly tell me that’s something you’re looking forward to?