News and Opinion

General news and opinion about WoW.

Seven Ways to Your Raid Leader’s Heart

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I was having a discussion with a fellow officer last night after our raid. We had just completed ToC 25, Ony 25 and VoA 25, with relatively few speed bumps. My friend and I were talking about what makes me happy from a leadership perspective in a raid. I decided to type out the list I came up with as what I look for from my raiders.

Sign up! – One of the biggest problems any raid leader or anyone who organizes a raid is knowing peoples availability. My guild is very raid oriented and we do have raid sign-up sheets as well as a section for people to post when they are out of town ahead of time so we know who is available and when. We also ask our raiders if they can’t show to sign up on the list as not available. There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to track down people to make a raid happen. There has been many a time my guild leader has sent me a text asking where certain people are. The end result is both of us (more him than me due to my work schedule) scrambling to find people to fill gaps so that everyone else who signed up isn’t left in the cold without a raid.

Bring Consumables! – My guild supplies flasks, food and elixirs to raiders. We have officers and raiders that are potion and elixir specced so even if you don’t have access to the raider tab of the guild bank, you can get your consumables made. Often times us crafty types won’t even need all the mats, usually I just need the Frost Lotus and I can whip up a ton of flasks. We also have raiders who bring a ton of fish feasts so there’s always food buffs available as well. There’s very few things as frustrating durring a raid as waiting for people to buff up with flask and food or to hear someone didn’t bring any. If you need flasks, ask before the raid!

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Have Your Gear Ready! – Before showing up to a raid make sure you’re gear is properly enchanted and gemmed. If you have that shiny new piece of gear you want to wear to the raid that is fine and dandy, but make sure it’s ready to use! It’s incredibly frustrating to see a raider show up with empty sockets or no enchants. I know in my guild, we supply Abyss Crystal’s for guildies to use on enchants, and enchanters will supply the rest of the mats 9/10 times. JC’s are always available and we stagger patterns for the most part so there is always someone who can cut a gem that you will need.

Make sure your gear is repaired before starting the raid. One boss in it’s not fun to hear some one’s gear is in the red. Also make sure you’re using the right gear. Some people will fish or cook before the raid and sometimes forget to take off their fishing pole before heading off to the run (*cough*fishingpoleZabos*cough*) and then do part of the instance in the wrong gear.

Know The Fights! – Most raid leaders will have the information readily available and posted for you to view well before the raid begins. I make it a point to sticky all the boss strategies and videos at the top of the thread aptly named “Raider Forums”. With the Internet around and sites like bosskillers, tankspot and our own little space here at WoM there is a plethora of information available on most if not all fights in the game. At least have a general idea of what is going to happen, it makes our job a little easier when we’re explaining what we need you to do and it helps keep the pace of the raid up.

Don’t Ninja AFK! – Having players afk or ninja off of ventrillo without saying a peep to anyone is very annoying. Calling out for someone to do something over vent and get no response is not fun, nor is waiting for someone to get back from the afk before a pull. While I used ventrillo as an example, this holds true to raid chat, party chat. Basically just pay attention to communications. If you need an afk break just send a tell to the raid leader and say “afk 2 min” just let us know!

Mind Your Attitude! – This is a very social game. In a group or raid you are interacting with 4, 9 or 24 other people all with the goal of having fun in mind. We all understand that real life happens and things outside of your control will affect your mood, but when you’re in such a dour mood that you’re bringing everyone around you down or you’re spending more time kvetching rather than raiding, it might be time to take a break for the night. Getting snippy, pitching fits or the like is non conducive and counterproductive to a raid. You need to be able to check the baggage at the door and unwind and have fun for a little while with a group of people.

To quote Matt “Either leave it at the door or just leave”.

Don’t Stand in the Fire!!! – Since the dawn of raiding, players have been drawn to standing in the fire. It’s warm cozy effect lulls them into a sense of security and happiness. As a raid leader there is nothing more frustrating than watching someone stand in the fire / void zone / thunderstorm / aoe damage and just die instead of moving. It is the bane of all raid leaders! Yes sometimes things happen like lag or graphics bugs. But as I told one raider last night, if you don’t see a spell effect and your health is going down maybe move a couple feet to the left or right and see if it stops! Help us help you stay alive! Remember you can’t DPS if you’re dead!

Leading a raid is often times thankless and almost always a very frustrating job. We see to the happiness and well being of a multitude of people and try to make sure the raids happen in such a way that people are still having fun rather than feeling more worn down at the end of the night. We appreciate any help we can get in making things go smoothly. When your raiders come prepared and happy it makes things so much easier not only on the leaders, but the raid as a whole. My raiders do the things above and I can honestly say I love raiding with my guild because of it. It lets us goof off and have a good time enjoying the game together and less time worrying about making sure everyone is ready. Yes hiccups happen but for the most part they are all on the ball, and that makes me very happy.

What about you? What do you do to help make raids and groups easier?

P.S.

A total non sequitur here but like matt I too have my own projects I work on when I’m not writing for WoM. If I could I’d like to take a second to plug my latest project (Thanks matt for the go ahead to plug =D).

Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know this but for those who don’t I’ve recently started co-hosting a podcast about gaming with two other “gentlemen”. Rodger / @wowdawgs from www.wowdawgs.com and Enrique / @spoonwolf from www.spooncraft.com. Our podcast is For The Lore and is available free for download from iTunes. Direct links can be found at Forthelore.com. Join us for all things surrounding story driven gaming. We stream live on mondays through ustream with pre show starting at 6:45pm est. We cover all games with a story there as well as our own works of fiction writing and game design. We do cover WoW but not exclusively!

That’s all I have for today. Until next time, Happy Healing!

Sig

Image from druidheal.com

Raiding 10 v. 25: Which is better?

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Since Blizzard implemented the 10 man raid I’ve been hearing debates between players on which is the better raid format, 10 or 25 man raids. I find myself drawing parallels between the debate of 25 v 40 raids. Lets look at some of the virtues of both shall we?

10 Man Raid

Easier to organize

Easier to coordinate raider movement

Less vent / teamspeak chatter

Easier to spot problems

More individual responsibility

Less margin for error

Lower gear leve than25 man

Allows smaller guilds and pugs to experience end game content

25 Man raid

More room for error

Higher Gear level than10 man

More drops per boss and zone than 10 man

Less people have to be “benched”

Bigger sense of accomplishment after defeating a boss

Looking at the points in both I see a lot of the same arguments from 40 man raids to 25 man raids. I’ve had the fortune to experience 40 man, 25 man, 20 man and 10 man raiding and I’d like to offer up my opinion on it. They are all fun.

40 man raids were a pain in the rear to organize and in many cases required you to carry a certain number of a class in order to succeed (Princess huhuran needed at least 4 hunters for tranqshot rotation and such). It was a pain in the ass that required a good hierarchy in order to do successfully. This involved raid leaders, officers, class leaders and such. In a 40 man raid it was very possible for five people to hold a raid hostage and cause all sorts of mayhem.

With that said I loved the content of the 40 player raids, they felt epic. Zones like Molten Core, Black Wing Lair and AQ40 were large and just amazingly well done. Problem was you needed a full group or mostly full group to do these end game raids. Many smaller guilds would form raid alliances and venture forth into the end game content.

20 man raids were introduced with the instance Zul’Gurub. It was a well designed zone and forced you to pick a smaller team to proceed. There was less margin for error but it was easier to grab 19 other players and go in rather than hunting down enough players for Molten Core. The zone was smaller than other end game raids at the time, but offered an opportunity for greater emphasis on fight mechanics than 40 man raiding did. It was a wildly popular raid and showed that the smaller format could be successful.

25 man raids made things a lot easier. Guilds would have a better time getting together enough raiders and wouldn’t have to enter as frequently into raid alliances in order to see the end game content. This was partially helped along by the success of ZG. At this point players for the most part had embraced the smaller format. It offered greater raid accountability on the raiders and easier coordination of the group for the raid leaders. One person could wrangle 24 others without the aid of officers and class leaders if they needed to. Fights could be explained faster than 40 man and it was easier to spot mistakes. This was hailed as a large success on the raiding scene. In 25 man raids though it was still easy to hide behind the skirts of a better healer or DPS just like in the old 40 man raids

When 25 man raids were new and successful, Blizzard also introduced the 10 man raid. Karazhan was for many people their first full raid. It was big and epic in both zone size and scope of what it set out to do. Fight mechanics were interesting and fresh and easier to implement than they were in 25 man. Fights like Netherspite lended itself well to the 10 man raid size as it was much easier to coordinate, but still gave players jobs to do other than just sit and dps or sit and heal. With 25 man raiding though there was still the problem of smaller guilds still needing to enter into raid alliances or pug raider spots if they couldn’t show up with 25 people ready to go see the endgame.

After a full expansion of 25 man raids, Blizzard announced that in Wrath of the Lich King you’d be able to toggle difficulty on all raids between 10 and 25 man. This news sent waves throughout the community. People called it both genius and folly. It allowed you to really take your raid and simplify it. You could take 10 raiders and do all the same raids that the 25 player content was providing and it allowed content to be more accessible to a wider variety of players. Allowing raids to be done at a 10 man level also allowed for greater accountability. If you messed up in kara back in the day, you noticed. It was a lot easier to see what you were doing wrong. It’s much much harder to look at 24 other people and catch problems before they cause wipes. You have much more personal responsibility in a 10 man than you do in a 25 and as a result you are a more integral part of the team. Some fights are inherently harder in 10 man version than they are in 25 man, and some vice verse. You have options now to be able to see all of the games content.

Lodur’s opinion:

Personally I like both formats a lot. I love 25 man raids because at the end of the night I feel accomplished. Being able to help lead 24 other people to a successful boss kill and hear the screams of joy when we get through a particularly hard boss(vent the night of the first Yogg kill was electrifying awesome) is priceless to me. At the same token herding 24 other players even with assistance is grueling and can wear you down. In 25 mans I find myself constantly watching the raid trying to find and stop problems quickly before they cause wipes. I love being able to take the vast majority of my raiders into a zone as well so not everyone is sitting idle.

I love 10 mans because of the intimacy of them. Recently due to some raiders being out, my guild split into two 10 man groups for the night. We ran ToC 10. I lead one group, the GM lead another. I had with me some very good people and a rather nice setup. I also had two people that have had problems in the past staying focused or people I like to refer to as “Fire Huggers”. I was able to coach those two players and get an absolutely phenomenal performance out of them on the fly. Especially when we got to the Faction Champions (pre nerf). This fight was the hardest in the zone (IMO) and lots of people were caught cutting their teeth on it for a while. We wiped once, I saw what was going wrong pretty quickly and was able to change tactics and issue commands on the fly much easier than in 25 man raids and we were able to adapt and overcome the encounter quickly. 10 mans are much easier to coordinate and I didn’t feel nearly the same pressure that I do when I’m thrust into leading a 25 man.

Bottom line, I love both formats just for different reasons. I think they are both solid and offer everything raiders could want.  I also think there shouldn’t be a debate between which format is better. They both work, and they both work pretty damn well (loot distribution aside *shakes fist at blizzard for putting all the good spell shields in 10 man hard modes*).

So how about you? What do you prefer 10 or 25? Why do you like that format?

Well that is all I have for today. Until next time, Happy Healing!

Sig

Image courtesy of www.edinphoto.org.uk

Raider Nostalgia: Patch 3.2.2

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As most of you have heard today patch 3.2.2 is going live. With it marks the triumphant return of the Brood Mother and her many whelps. So what’s in store for us?

The Brood Mother Returns
After years of lurking in her lair battling the many brave adventurers who travelled from afar to challenge her, Onyxia returns stronger than before to commemorate World of Warcraft’s five-year anniversary.

  • Onyxia has been scaled to offer new challenges to level 80 players and is now available in 10- and 25-player modes.
  • Adjusted for modern raiding, but with the fundamental experience of fighting the Brood Mother still in effect, including the horrors of her Deep Breaths!
  • Onyxia will now drop level 80 item versions of some classic loot items from the level 60 encounter.
  • Brood of Onyxia, a very rare 310%-speed mount modeled after Onyxia herself will be available for the luckiest of challengers

This has gotten me very excited. For many of us, Ony was our first real raid experience. I know it was for me. I had done some molten core, but my first real raid with my guild (same one I’m still with today) was Onyxia. Of course my first ony raid tale is a little bit different then most. I happened to have participated in this raid from a bar. My then girlfriend worked at a bar that happened to have really good wireless Internet. I hoped on my laptop while waiting for her to get out of work and wound up getting invited to an Ony raid. We killed the Brood Mother, I got a shiny new helm and I did this while having a frosty cold pint. When we heard that they were updating her for the anniversary at Blizzcon, I definitely joined in screaming at the top of my lungs in excitement. Along with this announcement also came the news that in Cataclysm Rangnaros, Nefarian and a few others will be back again! This announcement even got me to dust off my hunter and level her to 80.  This type of boss is something that many of us remember fondly and I think it was a good call on their part to update her to level 80 and bring us back some favorite loot updated for level 80 as well.

Let’s not forget this is a patch though, so some things are changing for classes and abilities. Healers this patch are largely untouched. Shamans however get a nerf of sorts, not as bad as it could be but bad enough.

Shaman

Cleansing Totem: No longer purges instantly when dropped

Like I said could be much worse, this change will require Shaman to change tactics slightly. On fights like the Faction Champions in ToC, dropping a cleansing totem was a great way to get 5 people cleaned from poisons and diseases very quickly. Now we have to use this totem more proactively rather then reactively as once you drop it you have a good 3 seconds to wait before it starts doing it’s thing. Complete Patch notes can be seen HERE

More Patch Notes

Dungeons & Raids

  • Shadowfang Keep
    • Wailing Guardsman: Screams of the Past will no longer have multiple applications on a target. Recast time has been increased.
  • Ulduar
    • Increased the cooldown on Immortal Guardians’ Drain Life ability in the Yogg-Saron encounter.

Achievements

  • The Achievement “Iron, Dwarf Medium Rare (25 player)” now requires 25 kills, down from 50.
  • The Frostwolf Howler and Stormpike Battle Charger Achievements will now be awarded when a player learns the respective mount spells.

Professions

  • The blacksmiths of Orgrimmar grew tired of running to the rear of the city to craft items and have installed a new anvil & forge at the General Store in the Valley of Strength.
  • Engineering
    • The Mind Amplification Dish no longer changes the appearance of your helmet.
  • Inscription
    • Added a recipe for Runescroll of Fortitude. This item grants a stamina buff equal to the highest rank of Power Word: Fortitude (untalented) to all players in the raid. The effect of this runescroll is exclusive with other stamina scrolls and Power Word: Fortitude.
  • Leatherworking
    • Added a recipe for Drums of Forgotten Kings. These drums increase all stats by 8% for all players in a raid. The effect of these drums is exclusive with Blessing of Kings.
    • Added a recipe for Drums of the Wild. These drums grant a buff equal to the highest rank of Mark of the Wild (untalented) to all players in a raid. The effect of these drums is exclusive with Mark of the Wild.

Items

  • The Black Heart: This item’s animation has been changed and no longer resembles Hand of Protection.
  • Death Knight Tier-9 Tanking 4-Piece Set Bonus: Now decreases the cooldown on Vampiric Blood, Unbreakable Armor, and Bone Shield by 10 seconds instead of 20.
  • Druid Tier-8 Healer 4-Piece Set Bonus: The amount of healing this set bonus grants on the initial cast of Rejuvenation has been reduced by 50%. In addition, this set bonus no longer has strange interactions with Harold’s Rejuvenating Broach.
  • Glyphs
    • Glyph of Bone Shield: This glyph now grants 1 additional charge instead of 2.
    • Glyph of Flame Shock: Redesigned. This glyph now makes Flame Shock periodic damage able to be critical strikes.
    • Glyph of Mind Flay: This glyph no longer reduces the magnitude of the movement reduction on the Mind Flay victim.
    • Glyph of Scourge Strike: Redesigned. This glyph now causes Scourge Strike to extend the duration of Frost Fever and Blood Plague by 3 seconds each time Scourge Strike is used on a target, up to a maximum of 9 seconds.
    • Glyph of Typhoon: This glyph now increases the range on Typhoon by 10 yards in addition to its current effects.
    • Glyph of Unbreakable Armor: Now increases the armor gained from Unbreakable Armor by 20%.
    • Glyph of Vampiric Blood: The glyph now increases the duration of Vampiric Blood by 5 seconds instead of 10.
  • Libram of Obstruction: The buff to block value from this relic is now exclusive with the buff to block value from Libram of the Sacred Shield; it is impossible to have both buffs at once.
  • Libram of the Sacred Shield: The block value buff from this relic has been increased to match its item level.
  • Relics: All buffs provided by relics (idols, librams, totems and sigils) now share an exclusive category such that gaining a buff from one of these items will remove all other buffs gained from items in this category.
  • Totem of Quaking Earth: Attack power value increased to 400.

User Interface

  • Battleground Queuing
    • Players may now only queue for no more than two Battlegrounds at a time.
    • The dialog box for entering a Battleground match has been changed to reflect the following options: “Enter Battle,” “Leave Queue,” and “Minimize.”
    • The time a player has to enter a battle when selected has been reduced to 40 seconds when not already in a Battleground and 20 seconds when in a Battleground.
    • Players already in a Battleground can now choose “Enter Battle” for a new Battleground under any circumstance (i.e. while dead, in combat, falling, etc.).
    • A new Battleground will not launch until the maximum number of players on each side are in the queue (i.e. 40 players per side for Alterac Valley).
  • The size of the Focus Frame can now be adjusted via the Interface Options menu.
  • Mail System Auto-Complete Feature
    • The inline auto-complete feature for the mail system has been added back into the game. The mail system will now have both the pre- and post-3.2.0 auto-complete features available.
    • Added a label to notify players that the Tab key will allow players to navigate through the character names listed via the auto-complete feature.
  • For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros forum.

Bug Fixes

  • Death Knight
    • Rune of Razorice: The frost vulnerability granted by this enchantment will now increase the damage done by Frost Fever as intended.
  • Druid
    • Balance of Power: Misleading tooltip reworded. The tooltip previously reported an incorrect value for the increased chance to hit with spells. The actual benefit of the talent is unchanged.
  • Hunter
    • Master’s Call: This ability now correctly removes the snaring component of Infected Wounds, Frostfire Bolt, and Slow.
    • Trap Mastery’s (Survival) tooltip now states the correct amount of snakes summoned.
  • Mage
    • Arcane Missiles: Ranks 12 and 13 will now properly cause players to enter combat.
  • Paladin
    • Hand of Freedom: This ability now correctly removes the snaring component of Infected Wounds and Frostfire Bolt.
  • Priest
    • Divine Aegis: Ranks 1 and 2 will now work with Holy Nova.
    • Glyph of Power Word: Shield now correctly uses the Priest’s spell critical chance instead of the target’s.
  • Rogue
    • Vanish: This ability now correctly removes the snaring component of Frostfire Bolt.
    • Honor Among Thieves: This talent will now work properly again if two rogues with different ranks of the talent are in the same party.
  • Shaman
    • Grounding Totem will now properly protect against the Death Grip spell.
    • Lava Burst can no longer deal critical damage to targets who are immune to critical strikes (due to, e.g. Roar of Sacrifice, Blessed Resilience).
    • Lightning Shield: This spell will no longer set off some trinkets when it is cast.
    • Stoneclaw Totem’s pulses will no longer break stealth on nearby hostile units.
    • Thunderstorm and Shamanistic Rage can no longer be used while Frozen, Cycloned, Sapped, or Incapacitated.
  • Warlock
    • Demonic Circle: This ability now correctly removes the snaring component of Frostfire Bolt.
    • Fel Armor: This spell was unable to set off trinkets and other effects. That has been corrected.
    • When using Shadowbolt or Incinerate while having Backlash and Backdraft active, only Backlash will now be properly consumed.
  • Coliseum Trinkets: Some spells that should have triggered these trinkets will now trigger them (such as Holy Nova and Fel Armor).
  • Death Knight Tier-9 DPS 4-Piece Set Bonus: Now grants the correct chance for disease damage ticks to be critical strikes.
  • Hunter Tier-9 2-Piece Set Bonus: Critical damage from Serpent Sting will now work properly with the Mortal Shots and Expose Weakness talents.
  • Lightweave Embroidery: This tailoring item enhancement will no longer trigger from the periodic healing granted by the warlock spell Fel Armor.
  • Mote of Flame: Corrected a typo in the tooltip.
  • Paladin Tier-9 DPS 2-Piece Set Bonus: Now grants the correct chance for Righteous Vengeance ticks to be critical strikes.
  • Shard of Flame: Corrected a typo in the tooltip.
  • Val’anyr, Hammer of The Ancient Kings: Healing from Prayer of Mending now triggers the shield from this item. In addition, a bug was corrected which would cause the shield points to be overwritten rather than stack up as intended.

So, how do you feel about the patch? Excited or angry that it seems like it came too soon? Does it make you think back on your time in early raiding? What was your first raid? Any other bosses you want to see ramped up to 80?

Until next time, Happy Healing!

Sig

Image from pewpewlazers.wordpress.com

Guild Talent Point Wishlist

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The guild talent point system is an upcoming feature in Cataclysm that will allow guilds to invest points into certain special abilities. It’s the same idea when it comes to our individual classes. The only difference is the fact that guild talents will either give your guild some cool abilities or passive perks.

So Blizzard! My birthday is coming up shortly in another week and 2 days. I know you’re hard at work on Cataclysm and Icecrown. One of the biggest features I’m waiting for is the new upcoming Guild talent point system.

I’m aware you’ve included example talents like extra gold on mobs, reduced repair costs, mass resurrect and the ability to summon everyone to a certain point. I’m no game designer and I doubt I’ll ever make a good one. As a guildmaster, I have my own wishlist of guild talents I’d like to see. If you have time, I’d very much appreciate it if you could look it over. I don’t expect you to use any of them but I hope something on my list might inspire your talent designers.

  • Cauldron of Enlightenment: Alchemists are able to create a Cauldron of Enlightenment which is able to produce 25 Flasks of Enlightenment. Flask increases your highest individual stat by 40. (Remember, this is when spell power and mp5 and such gets compressed down to base stats).
  • Bug out: Immediately renders a player immune to fires on the ground… by teleporting them out of the instance, removing them from raid, and from guild.
  • Overdrive: Haste of all members in raid increased by 25%. Does not stack with Heroism or Bloodlust. Causes Exhaustion. Only usable by the Guild Leader.
  • Skilled Negotiator: All faction discounts increased by an additional 5%.
  • Asylum: The 10 yard radius around you is instantly converted into a sanctuary. You cannot attack opposite faction members and opposite faction members cannot attack you. Lasts 30 seconds. Not usable in PvP.
  • Let’s be pals: Reputation gains increased by 5/10/15% (Okay, that’s too much. I guess a realistic number would be 2/4/6%)
  • Slavedriver: All crafting professions create items 10/20/30% faster.

What about you, the rest of my readers? What type of guild talents would you like to see? Remember, the rule is that you cannot include any ability that could aversely affect PvE or PvP. So no class damage modifiers. I only included the pseudo-heroism for guilds that might not have a Shaman.

Faction and Race Changing, Lodur’s Thoughts

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As I’m sure you know by now, one of the long awaited features has been implemented. Faction Change is here! I know a lot of people who were waiting for this for a long time. A few of my guildies had high level horde toons that they are swapping over to alliance and bringing into the guild. I also know a lot of people that I follow on Twitter have gone through the switch or are considering it as we speak. I also know a lot of people who have been dreading it, afraid that faction balances would be blown away or that guild ninja looting will skyrocket. Others are using it a point of recruitment. Trying to get their real life friends to swap factions and join their raid groups.

So I’m here to offer my opinion on this one, first though lets take a look at the facts.

Faction change is a one way change to the opposite faction

You can only choose a race that your current class is available to (example Horde Shaman hopping over to alliance will have to be a Draenei)

  1. Can only faction change one toon at a time
  2. Character has to be minimum level of 10
  3. PVP real restrictions do not apply
  4. Can faction change once every 60 days.
  5. Every time you want to faction change, you have to pony up the $30 bucks.

There’s several more, hit the FAQ page for all the details, these are just the “highlights” if you will.

Personally I like the idea of faction changing, I mean with the technology they are implementing it makes perfect sense. If I can change my gender why not my faction? It’s all just shifting pixels and databases around. I think people who fear it are unfounded. Honestly the argument of “what is going to prevent them from joining my guild, looting the bank and then faction changing?” is kinda moot. People have been doing that for a long time before faction changing, you can always hot foot it over to wow.com and their guild watch articles to see that for certain. If people are going to do it, they are going to do it, regardless of faction change. I look at the faction change as a chance for people to start fresh, but also as a chance for people to bring favored toons with them to play with their friends. I have a good friend who plays horde side, we’ve been talking about the faction change for a while and I would love to have him come over to alliance on my server so we can both enjoy the game.

Now for the real meat of this article, race change. People have been asking for this since Burning Crusade. The ability to change your race, but keep your class and faction. With the announcement of the new class race combination, there was renewed interest (there was a pretty big roar when Gnome Priest was confirmed). Me personally, I want to make my blueberry a Dwarf Shaman when Cataclysm comes out (or 4.0 if they do it then). I made my toon a female back when it was first offered because I kept getting stuck under the platform for The Lurker Below, and well… I got tired of it. Enter sex change and no more getting stuck on terrain. Being a Dwarf though would fit me more, and would fit my naming scheme better. Basically I’d be a happier Shaman. My interest in this sparked a conversation with the officers of my guild. Swapping your character race could have an impact on your raid. I’ll use myself as an example here.

Draenei currently have a few racials that are beneficial to a raid. First on the list is Heroic Presence. This racial grants all players in the group with the Draenei a 1% hit bonus. This might not seem like a lot but when you are hovering around the hit cap, that 1% can make all the difference in the world. Second on the list is Gift of the Naaru. This is a free Heal over Time that all Draenei get. The amount healed increased with attack power or spell power values. On fights like Vezaxx where watching your mana consumption is critical, this spell can help save the day. It costs no mana, has a 3 minute cooldown. So, if I race change to a Dwarf, my raid loses 1% hit for one group and a free heal. That 1% hit can be a bit of a bitch to lose, but in my opinion a raid shouldn’t be dependant on it. If I’m not on for a raid the raid doesn’t have that 1% hit anyways. So why gear expecting it? Yes it makes things easier on that one group, but still. I think this holds true for all the races. I don’t feel the vast majority of the racials are make or break for a raid, and with the potential revamp of racials coming (confirmed by the devs at blizzcon) there may be other more beneficial racials available soon.

In the end I don’t think either will have such a large impact on the game as a whole, I do however think that it will have a huge impact on individual player experience. It’s kind of like work, a happy employee is a productive employee. I don’t really think it should matter if a player wants to play a different race or swap factions as long as they are happy.

What do you think? Are you pro or con faction change? Pro or con race change? Do you think it will be largely game impacting? What are your concerns or the something you look forward too the most? Any racials you think a raid relies on?

That’s all I have for today. Until next time, Happy healing

Sig

Image courtesy of Marvel.com