Welcome
to
the latest World of Warcraft newsletter from Ten Ton Hammer.
The Overpull, where we gather most of the things we should and
a
few we probably shouldn't.
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alt="Now on Farm or That's a Wipe">
In this section
we'll look at the hits and misses taking
place in the
game.
My parents downloaded
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/68844">Patch
3.1.3 and all
I got was this lousy T-Shirt. And that shirt would say "Not much new
but you can take a day off from playing WoW and we'll give you a free
day of service to make up for it." Those hardware upgrades must be a
royal pain, I can't imagine working in the IT department of Blizzard. I
bet the water cooler chat is cool though, "Yeah everything worked in
the lab, but we didn't anticipate 4 million logins simultaneously."
SK Gaming takes home the crown at
href="http://www.mlgpro.com/live/event/2009/columbus">MLG
Columbus.
Taking home $9,000 is good, but beating all the other invite-only teams
is great. More discussion on Rogue-Mage-Priest dominance in a bit.
The first
href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=46017">Val'anyr,
Hammer of the Ancient Kings has
been assembled by
the Avant Garde Guild. There is an incredibly excited Druid that goes
by
the fearsome name of
href="http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Kil%27jaeden&cn=Snuggleme&gn=Avant+Garde">Snuggleme
on the Kil'Jaeden server in the U.S. It's so fresh I got a tooltip
error on the armory, maybe Blizzard didn't prepare for it's arrival
this soon.
New Druid forms keep rolling out of the WoW Art department. This week
is crazy cat lady week as we get to view both the
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/69319">Night
Elf Cats and
the
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/68840">Tauren
Cow-Kitties.
Not playing a Druid since early on in Burning Crusade, I have to say
this is more ho hum than whoopee do.
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alt="Caverns of Time">
Looking back at...the impending doom of healers.
I was reading about the upcoming
href="http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=17617973243&pageNo=1&sid=1#17">changes
to Holy Paladins (which
Ghostcrawler says will arrive in Patch 3.2
but won't be known until we get closer to launch) as well as the
continuing regen changes. These forum mob gatherings got me
thinking back on all of the changes to healing we've seen.
When WoW launched and into the first two years,
UI modders could make addons that became smart healing buttons -
picking the target most in need of heals based on priority, percentage
of life or a combination thereof and essentially auto-cast the heal.
Just prior to Burning Crusade, Blizzard brought about the much
ballywhood slaughter of UI Mods that
made healing too easy. The restrictive changes in allowable LUA code
broke those mods. At the
same
time, Cleansing/Decursing took a big whack when one button couldn't do
it all. Many people wailed about
the certain demise of the healing classes.
Here we are two years down the road and not only are healers tearing it
up, Blizzard is still trying to determine how to nerf the overall power
of healers. Healing still needs some revamping, but remember this tale
of not-so-woe before jumping off the ledge declaring healing as a dead
endeavor.
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alt="Medeor's Mishaps and Mayhem">
As
mentioned above, SK Gaming is the team to beat currently in WoW 3v3.
They beat the second place team 9 games to 4 over the bracket-finals
and overall-finals. SK used the tried and true Rogue-Mage-Priest (RMP)
setup and set aside a lot of the favorites. Fnatic and Ensidia both
exited earlier than anticipated and eMG was the talk of the town for at
least a day. All kinds of combintions were used from RMP to RM-Druid,
Rogue-Warlock-Shaman, Death Knight-Hunter-Paladin, and even Death
Knight-Warlock-Druid. And while it wasn't just a RMP king of the
mountain battle, this contest shows that the venerable combination can
still pack a punch.
Another Paladin hot-fix is in the works today according to Bornakk:
are in the process of completing a hotfix that could go live as
early as this afternoon that will make the Paladin talent Vindication
no longer reduce Intelligence or Stamina from the target it is applied
to. The talent will continue to reduce Agility, Spirit, and Strength as
it currently does. We felt this change will help balance the ability
out, especially in the lower arena brackets where they are very
prominent, while not being a negative impact on a Retribution
Paladin’s
PvE dps.
As a follow up Bornakk says the reason for a hotfix instead of waiting
for the next content patch:
it felt like someone playing against a Ret-Pally really
only had 60% of their health bar because Vindication took away 20% from
the start and then Hammer of Wrath kicked in when they had 20% left.
This change was something we could confidently hotfix and would have a
minimal to no impact on the PvE side of things.
As a Paladin, I don't see the problem with my foes being able to use
60% of their health bar, but what do I know. As a PvE-centric Paladin
this really has no bearing on my playstyle, but I can imagine the
PvPers are feeling the sting of the
href="http://www.crispygamer.com/comics/experiencepoints/experiencepoints-2009-06-02.aspx">nerf
bat.
Speaking of nerfs and all out class changes, it appears that the dust
is starting to settle and we shouldn't expect any major class-changing
in the upcoming patches, This is a welcome respite after months and
months of class overhauls. It's almost time to start talking about the
next hero class. Almost, but maybe not quite. What the heck, I believe
it's going to be a healer since the first hero class can fill
a DPS or
tank slot. Of course the
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/69403">Death
Knight's reign might be over but
they are still a massive force in the game. The question is, what kind
of healer will the next hero class be?
The hero healer can't wear plate, that is a given. No way is Blizzard
going to add yet another plate wearer to the mix are they? So a healer
in sub-plate gear. Mail armor? Probably not. Leather? If some reports
of a Malfurion-borne hero are to be believed, then an epic Druid-like
healer in the form of a Cenarius or Malfurion off-shoot could happen
and that would definitely be a leather-wearer. Cloth armor is the
obvious choice, but that armor is already hotly contested, why add yet
another caster to the fray trying to scramble for it?
All of this future talk makes me think about Blizzcon and how we
*should* be learning the new expansion at this August's
conference. If
the hero class is going to be a Malfurion-esque class, then something
surrounding the Sundering could be the expansion. What was created by
the Sundering? The Maelstrom (I believe, I need some lore help here
people!). If that is the case, then it all fits together nicely. Which
can mean only one thing. It probably isn't going to happen as I've laid
it out.
Did you tune in this last weekend to watch SK Gaming take the crown
in Columbus? Does the Paladin nerf hit you in the tender spot? Is the
next hero going to be a leather-wearing healer? All kinds of questions
this week,
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=43490">what
are your thoughts?
Until next
week, have fun and thanks for reading,
Medeor
href="http://wow.tentonhammer.com/">
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