Paid Character Customization

Or as Blizzard calls it, Re-Customization:

Character Re-Customization is a paid service that lets you change an existing character's gender, face, skin color, and other cosmetic features determined by his or her race and gender combination. When you perform a Character Re-Customization, you may also change the character's hair color and hair style (similar to the in-game barbershop) and select a new name, if desired.

I dunno, I don't think I would pay $15 to change my character's gender. But then again, it's better than leveling a brand new character. I know some people who really regretted making their character a specific gender, and I guess they would be happy with this.

Does this count as RMT? It sort of is, and it sort of isn't. To be honest, more than anything else, I think the price for this, name changes, and server transfers is to offer the service to players who really want it, but keep the demand low.

Storm Peaks and Icecrown

I finished Storm Peaks and Icecrown over the weekend.[1] Both were very good zones. In particular, the first set of quests with the Argent Crusade was great. For the first time, the world changed with you as you accomplished goals.

I was stuck at 139/140 quests for Icecrown for the longest time. I could not find any other quests, and normally Blizzard gives you a little leeway in the quest count for the achievement. Finally after looking up the quests on Wowhead, I found I had missed one questline that started from a drop. I had just never killed that mob type before.

There are two things that disappointed in Icecrown. First, it doesn't come to an end. It's like the first book in a trilogy. All the other zones told a full story. I guess we'll have to wait for a later patch to finish the story. Second, Blizzard stopped doing voiceovers for the Lich King quest cutscenes. I think the Lich King voiceovers really added something to those scenes when they occurred in previous zones, and hopefully they put them in at some point.

I do have to give Blizzard credit for putting the Arthas front and center for this expansion, and really integrating him with the questing. It's a very refreshing change from trend of major storylines which only occur in raids.

So questing is pretty much done for me, and now I have to turn my attention to the other parts of the game. I still haven't decided what to do yet.

Also, where are all the breadcrumb quests that lead into the high end dungeons and raids? Isn't there a quest which sends you to Naxx? It might be deliberate, to allow non-raiders a true sense of completion, rather than having quests in the log which they will never be able to do. If this is the case, I'm not really sure how I feel about that. I can see the advantages, but it also seems wrong somehow.

[1] Technically I have one quest left in Icecrown. But on Skywall it's been bugged for the last few days. Hopefully it will get fixed during the server reset.

QBar

I've been trying the mod QBar recently.

It's a very simple mod that automatically puts usable quest items on a bar for you. It makes questing easier, as the button for the whatever items you need to use is always in the same place. No need to dig through bags, or try and keep some regular bar space free. No need to worry about cleaning up unused icons after the quest.

It's a great small mod that does one thing, but does it very well.

Questing Updates

The trouble with talking about the next few zones in Wrath is that they are chock-full of spoilers. Especially Dragonblight. Dragonblight is spoiler-city.

Since my last update, I've done Dragonblight, Grizzly Hills, Zul'Drak and Sholazar Basin. The rule of two levels per zone held very well. All the zones are very good, with lots of interesting quests.

I strongly recommend doing Grizzly Hills before Zul'Drak. There is a major questline in Grizzly Hills which sets up Zul'Drak.

I also felt that the rate of gaining gear upgrades was perfect. I was in mostly T4, and I was slowly replacing epics with good blues, starting at around level 74. It was a very gradual process, and felt just right to me. I didn't replace an epic with a green until Storm Peaks. (Technically, I'm also wearing green boots, but that's because I accidentally disenchanted my blue Retribution boots.)

I also did the dungeons Azjol-Nerub, Old Kingdom, Drak'Tharon, and Gundrak. They're solid dungeons. The last fight in Old Kingdom is spectacularly awesome, with an elegant and seamless use of phasing.

Phasing in general is used more and more. In particular, Dragonblight contains the first use of permanent phasing. After a quest, one area of the world is permanently changed. This is very interesting, and I'm looking forward to seeing what Blizzard does when they become comfortable with this technology.

Sacred Shield is really nice for Ret soloing. It doesn't seem to improve with Sheath of Light, but the extra crit chance on FoL means you can keep Sheathed FoLs ticking on you all the time. Sacred Shield -> Art of War -> Instant critical FoL with ticking Sheath HoT. It's very useful for soloing elites. Plus even 500 damage reduction is nothing to sneeze at in solo content.

Two more zones of questing to go, and then I'll have to figure out what to do for endgame. I also have an odd desire to go Holy and heal some instances. Retribution is fun for soloing, but it's sort of boring in instances.

Normalize Illumination

In addition to taking a look at crit talents, perhaps it is time that Illumination got normalized. Currently its effect varies wildly with the spell. With Flash of Light, a crit will restore 123 mana/sec. With Holy Light, a crit will restore 306 mana/sec.

Essentially, Illumination is almost three times as good with Holy Light than it is with Flash of Light.

I think Blizzard does not have an issue with paladins having really high crit rates on Flash of Light. Witness Sacred Shield, which gives the paladin an occasional 50% bonus to FoL crit rates. However, when Holy Light gets really high crit rates, things go crazy.

What I would suggest is weighting Illumination in favor of Flash of Light. Something like a FoL or Holy Shock crit returns 75% of the cost (153 mana/sec), but a HL crit only returns 30% of the cost (153 mana/sec).

(Numbers can be adjusted for balance. This is just a demonstration.)

Of course, Sanctified Illumination would be really bad, so that talent will have to be replaced. But the crit talents need to be looked at anyways.

Incoming Holy Nerf?

Sometimes I feel sorry for Ghostcrawler. It's looking like he'll have to nerf Holy Paladins again, and I don't think they're going to take it well.

Essentially, in T7 content, paladins are able to reach around 70% crit rate on Holy Light. With Illumination, that works out to max rank Holy Lights that are 42% cheaper, and thus can be spammed. Remember that this is the first level of raid content, and it's only going to get worse.

I wonder what form the nerf will take. Another hit to Illumination? Making the Retribution crit talents only work with melee attacks? Maybe lower the intercept on the crit rating equation so that it starts very negative, but still increases at the current rate.

In my opinion, what really needs to happen is for the +crit talents in Holy, along with Divine Favor and Divine Illumination, to be removed and replaced with new talents. There is too much of an emphasis on saving mana in the Holy tree, and so far, it always ends badly. The talents really need to encourage the paladin to spend mana. Of course, I doubt a Holy tree revamp is coming anytime soon.

80!

Warhammer Online: Contribution Shocker!

According to Wizards & Wenches, Warhammer players have figured out how contribution in public quests and keep sieges is measured:

Now we know how contribution is calculated. It’s so shockingly simple, so obvious we wonder why we didn’t figure it out a long time ago. It isn’t.

See, instead of actually measuring all the data players do during Public Quests to find out who contributes the most every player is making a roll when they enter a zone, and that roll is your contribution that appear. It doesn’t weight all your healing, all your damage, all your buffing, or everything that make you more worthy of a reward than a player standing AFK in a corner. It’s just random. The roll remains until you zone so you will get the same contribution in both Keeps unless you relog or someone with higher roll enters the PQ area.

Wow. Honestly, I'm speechless. What do you say to something like that? The evidence presented in threads on the discussion forums looks solid to me.

This is a blunder on par with Age of Conan's "females do less dps than males because their animations are slower" bug.

Quick Taunt Macro

Quick macro idea to handle both Hand of Judgement and Righteous Defense:

/cast [harm] Hand of Judgment; [mod:shift][help] Righteous Defense

It casts the single target taunt if you are targeting an enemy, and Righteous Defense otherwise. If you press the Shift key, it should always cast Righteous Defense.

Hand of Judgement

From Ghostcrawler:

7) Hand of Judgement - All paladins receive a single-target, 30 yard taunt on an 8 sec cooldown. This spell also does minor Holy damage in order to break CC and the like for pulling ease.

First off, the name is terrible. Hand spells are minor buffs cast on friendly allies. This is not a Hand spell. Naming a taunt "Hand of Judgement" makes as much sense as naming it "Blessing of Judgement". Also, Judgement is a poor word to use, as Judgement already has a very specific paladin use. This is just going to be confusing. Name it "Condemn" or "Rebuke" or anything interesting. Heck, name it "Crusader's Defense" and let it match the other taunt.

To be honest, Blizzard is really overusing the words "Divine", "Judge", and "Righteousness" when it comes to paladin ability names.

Second, I have no problem with the taunt part. I can see the argument there, even if I think the cases where RD fails can be worked around.

Third, this is an opinion that is not going to be popular with most paladins, but I think the ranged pull part is a mistake. Back in 2006, I wrote a post called Restrictions are Good, and it covers most of my arguments.

Weaknesses are important in design, and one important paladin weakness is that we don't get a baseline ranged pull. We have to learn to compensate for that, to learn how to body-pull, to fight multiple mobs at a time, to use our cooldowns to reset the fight.

Not having a ranged pull makes the paladin gameplay different from the other classes. Especially the solo experience. It makes us value different tactics, to identify spots where we can catch flying mobs. Weaknesses make the game interesting.

And to be honest, I think having a ranged pull is unnecessary. Blizzard cannot make a mob that has to be fought at range, because there are multiple classes that cannot kill it (Warrior, Rogue, Paladin, and maybe Deathknight). Every mob must close to melee range to be killable. If a flying mob can close to melee range after the pull, it can also path close to melee range during its normal patrol.

As well, Blizzard can always add a quest item to help. Consider one of the very first quests in Borean Tundra, where you use a net to knock a Scourge flyer out of the sky. The very few cases where a ranged pull is absolutely necessary can be worked around.

Maybe it is inconvenient. But it makes for a different experience than the other classes, and that difference is worth preserving.

Of course, now that Ghostcrawler has announced the ability, he cannot pull it or he will torn to shreds by paladins on the forums. Regardless, it is my opinion that giving paladins a baseline ranged pull is a mistake.

Divine Shield and Avenging Wrath

Blizzard's solution to the interaction between Divine Shield and Avenging Wrath is very clunky. I'm going to present a solution that I believe is far more elegant and simple.

First, as always, let's take a step back. Exactly what are the problems here. I think there are two problems here.

Problem 1: Chaining Immunities

Paladins have three immunity spells (going to list the upcoming versions):

1. Divine Protection - 50% less damage taken for 12 sec, 100% damage dealt
2. Divine Shield - 100% less damage taken for 12 sec, 50% damage dealt
3. Hand of Protection - 100% less physical damage taken, 0% physical damage dealt and melee attacks

Basically, casting these abilities back-to-back is overpowered, especially the case where multiple HoPs are tossed on a mage or warlock.

Forbearance is a good solution for this, and should be kept. Personally, I think a 1 min Forebearance is more than long enough, as the real concern is an immunity immediately coming after another immunity.

Problem 2: Burst Damage Dealt While Immune

Generally, a paladin should not be able to completely kill someone while immune. Blizzard has made a good start by making the immunities have a flat reduction. However, Avenging Wrath increases the paladin's burst damage, hence the effort to make Avenging Wrath mutually exclusive with the Immunities.

However, AW does not necessarily have to be absolutely exclusive. The combination just has to be weak enough such that the paladin cannot deal enough damage to burst someone down.

A better solution would be to increase the damage penalty of Divine Protection and Divine Shield slightly. (Hand of Protection is fine, as you can't make physical attacks.) Divine Protection should reduce the damage the paladin deals by 20% and Divine Shield by 60%. 80% of total damage is still enough for Prot to maintain a decent threat output, and is a small price to pay for the damage reduction. And really, for Divine Shield, the paladin doing 40% or 50% damage is not a big difference for a primarily defensive ability.

But if you add AW into the picture, a paladin with Divine Protection does 0.8 * 1.2 = 96% damage. With Divine Shield, she does 0.4 * 1.2 = 48% damage. Note that both of these numbers are less than the proposed official versions. If the proposed version is correctly balanced, the new version cannot be overpowered.

This solution is clean and simple. Avenging Wrath is completely separate from the Immunities. You can use it whenever you want, without having to worry about Forbearance. Each problem has it's own separate solution, and there are no clunky and complex cooldowns to worry about.

Edit: Oops, Divine Shield, not Divine Storm.

Upcoming Paladin Changes

Ghostcrawler posted some changes coming to the paladin class. Here they are, slightly out of order, with some commentary:

1) Divine Protection no longer causes an attack penalty. Divine Shield's penalty was changed to 50% less damage done by the paladin.

2) Sacred Duty: This Protection talent no longer affects the attack penalty of Divine Shield and Divine Protection, but grants additional bonus Stamina.

Good, though obvious, changes. Did we need additional stamina? I doubt the Prot paladins will complain though. It's kind of odd though, we spent TBC as high Avoidance due to uncrushable, and have now morphed to extreme Mitigation tanks.

4) Judgement of Wisdom now returns a percentage of base mana instead of a percentage of max mana.

5) All mana drain effects now return a percentage of max enemy mana (making mana drains less punishing to paladins and other characters without large mana pools.)

This is a good change for a world where a few mana-using classes have stopped using Intellect.

6) Judgements of the Pure: This Holy talent now increases the damage done by Seals and Judgements.

Of course, rather than actually fixing the botch job they did on the Seals, Blizzard puts a band-aid on it and calls it a day.

Still, beggars can't be choosers, and Holy is definitely going begging these days.

7) All paladins receive a single-target taunt (name TBD) as a base ability.

My suggestion for a name was "Guardian's Challenge". However, on maintankadin, someone suggested "Rebuke" and I really like that. It's short, snappy, slightly exotic, and has great religious connotations.

3) Avenging Wrath, Divine Shield, Divine Protection, and Hand of Protection have a shared, 30-second cooldown. The Forbearance effect is no longer triggered by Avenging Wrath.

Sigh. I really wish Blizzard would put some more thought into their paladin fixes. Locking out a Hand which we primarily cast on other people is not a good move.

Second, this solution doesn't fix AW + HoP if the HoP is cast by a second paladin. Though given that you cannot attack, it may not be such a big issue. And Forbearance still prevents back-to-back immunities.

I think HoP could be removed from this shared cooldown without much harm. Still, the whole situation with cooldowns and forbearance seems very jury-rigged to me. I'm sure there's a better, simpler solution.

Edit: Ghostcrawler clarifies:

You can use Hand of Protection during the internal cooldown, just not on yourself. The idea is to prevent the paladin from being able to combo damage immunity. We want you to still be able to use it on others.

I don't really understand how this is going to work.

Ask Coriel: Help With Healing Heroics

Jinkadink of Mannoroth asks:

I decided to spec holy to get in groups. I was wondering if you had any guidelines in terms of what stats to shoot for, for heroics. Right now I'm about 1100 +spell, 15% crit, 115 mp5 (without BoW). From what I've read on EJ I should be stacking int wherever possible, but I feel like my mp5 is really low. Although I have so much mana (13k unbuffed) I'm not sure running out is an issue, unless the fight goes beyond 5 minutes.

I did manage to heal heroic UK with two early wipes due mostly to my newbness (remembering to use Lay of Hands would have prevented both). I just got the feeling that I was undergeared while running it because I was really struggling to keep up with the tank on most pulls and I rarely ever had time to heal anyone else taking damage.

I haven't really healed with the new 3.0 talents, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

EJ focuses on Int because both Replenishment and Divine Plea work of 'Total' Mana. So if you increase your Total Mana, you regenerate more. Add to that the extra spellpower and crit, and you can see why EJ is promoting Int over Mp5. Now, in a heroic, you might not have Replenishment, and you might not use Divine Plea as often, since the fights are shorter. So the value of Int is less.

However, looking at your stats, I think you need more +healing. EJ kind of takes it for granted that you are trying to stack as much +heal as possible, even if they don't explicitly mention it. 1100 seems rather low for an 80 attempting heroics. I would really focus on +heal, and not worry about regen as much.

As for the situation you are having trouble with, that's what Beacon of Light was made for. It's a new tool, so it will require practice. But try and keep it on the tank as much as you can, especially in boss fights. It will allow you to heal the other party members and still keep the tank up.

Remember to Judge (use a focus macro) to keep the Haste bonus up.

/cast [target=focus] Judgement of Light

(You can set your focus with the /focus command, or bind it to a key in the Options menu.)

Also, I would advise using the glyphed Seal of Light, as that would make your spells more powerful. You sound to me like you are fine with managing your mana, but you need your heals to be more powerful, to do more healing-per-second. The cure for that is more +heal, and to a lesser extent, more +haste.

Howling Fjord

I finished off Howling Fjord a couple days ago, hitting 74 in the process. Thus far I'm pacing about 2 levels a zone, which is a pretty good rate.

Howling Fjord is a really good zone. Borean Tundra was a good zone too, but in a lot of ways Borean Tundra represents "pop culture" WoW. There were a lot of fun quests, and in-jokes with D.E.H.T.A. and the gnomes. Heck, there was a quest to make wolves poop. The magic quests are closer to the "technological" feel of Warcraft magic, rather than the mythic feel (very shields and sensors sort of imagery). Even the regular quests were very much in line with WoW 1.0, but superbly polished. There's nothing wrong with Borean Tundra, but it's very much the WoW we know.

Howling Fjord, on the other hand, "echoes" a bit more. The Vrykul storyline touches a lot of real world mythologies, from the obvious Norse flavour to King Arthur (the sleeping king) to the Nephilim of the Judeo-Christian tradition. In particular, the quests to go into the spirit world and see history are superb, especially the way the Lich King is integrated into the first one.

The story is more martial, and there are fewer pop culture jokes. There is a greater sense of wilderness, especially with the homesteaders in Fort Wildervar. As well, Howling Fjord throws you into the fight as soon as you arrive, and that makes everything seem more immediate. The music is awesome, and perfect for the zone.

Plus, there were pirates. And Tuskarr. I love the Tuskarr, their voices are just perfect. The quest to get the reef cows to mate (after you kill Big Roy) is hilarious. The pirate quests were very funny, especially the elf-loving pirate and his girlfriend. But even the pirate and Tuskarr quests had that strand of death and loss running through their quests.

Blizzard did a superb job with Howling Fjord.

As an aside, you ever notice that dwarf quest-givers are crazy? It's sort of unexpected, because you expect them to be level-headed and down to earth. You see a gnome with a quest, you know it's going to get really weird. Humans will give you solid, traditional quests, and Night Elves will give you hippie save-the-whales or deeply tragic quests.

But dwarves give you quests that start out normal and sensible, and yet somehow you end up like this:

Dwarf Lieutenant (after several perfectly reasonable Vrykul quests): Navigating the steep bluffs of Howling Fjord can be nerve-racking! I've come up with a solution to ease that burden by utilizing vrykul technology and dwarven ingenuity.

Me: Umm.


Guard Captain Zorek: You are insane, Coriel! What kind of degenerate would actually launch themselves from a harpoon gun as a method of travel?

Me: I blame the dwarf.

Retribution Tanking

Judd W asked for some tips on tanking as Retribution. So here are some. Retribution tanking works pretty well in 5-mans, as Protection armor now has a fair amount of strength on it. Your biggest problem is that you are missing most of the mitigation talents, so your healer has to be prepared.

1. Make sure Righteous Fury is always up. Because Ret has extra threat reduction from Fanaticism, keeping RF up is crucial. I refresh RF if it goes below 10 minutes.


2. Wear Protection Armor and a high-DPS 1-hander. Stamina, Defense, and Strength are your key stats. I've found that good tanking gear usually comes from instances, though there is a little bit as quest rewards. There are also some decent crafted pieces.


3. Pulling can be hard. Pull with Repentance if you can. Otherwise body-pull if it is safe, or get another class to pull for you, and drop a Consecration to pick up the mobs.


4. I prefer using Seal of Vengeance as you can switch targets while the Vengeance stack ticks away. You'll have to switch targets a bit more often than Protection.


5. Ability preference is something like: Consecration, Judgement, Divine Storm, Crusade. Emphasis on Holy damage that can hit multiple targets.


6. Don't forget about Divine Protection. It's really powerful now for reducing damage at crucial points, especially early on large pulls, where you have multiple mobs beating on you.


7. Righteous Defense is actually pretty useful with the new threat display. As soon as one of your teammates highlights in red, you can select them and RD. You don't have to find the mob that is actually attacking them. This is invaluable on larger, more chaotic pulls.


8. Unlike Protection, a lot of your threat comes from active abilities, not reactive abilities. As well, you have Judgements of the Wise, so you don't need healing to regenerate mana through Spiritual Attunement. This means that you and your teammates can use stuns liberally, and still maintain high levels of threat.

Realistically, tanking as Retribution is not a whole lot different than tanking as Protection for 5-mans. Make sure your healer knows that you might be a bit squishier than normal so she is prepared. Tab around a bit more to maintain threat on multiple mobs. Stun early, stun often.

I personally wouldn't advertise myself as a tank. But I would offer it as an option if the group is having trouble finding one.

Repentance

I forgot to mention that the new Repentance is very useful, especially when tanking as Retribution.

It gives you a ranged pull that's also Crowd Control. It's like sheep-pulling, only the mobs run towards the tank instead of the mage.

I'm so used to Repentance being mediocre in PvE that I didn't even have it on my bar and was just body-pulling. Then there was a pull where I could not get close, and I remembered Repentance had been changed, so I pulled it out and it worked beautifully. I used it a lot for the rest of the instance.

Borean Tundra and Initial Notes

I finished up Borean Tundra today. Coriel is now 72. I did take a brief detour to Howling Fjord and did the first few quests so that I could do Utgarde Keep. I've done both Utgarde Keep and Nexus now, tanking as Retribution (in protection gear).

Tanking as Retribution isn't too bad, but you're definitely squishier, and sometimes your health can drop very fast. I'm thinking about switching to Protection, but I like Ret for general solo questing.

One thing about Retribution soloing is that it is much easier with Seal of Command. Seal of Blood does more damage, but the recoil means you have to keep healing yourself, and if you're not paying careful attention, your health can drop to dangerous levels. I skipped SoC at level 70, and I'd be questing, and then I'd look at my health and be below 20% for some reason (probably serveral SoB/JoB crits in a row). I picked up SoC at 71 and it's been much smoother.

The quests in Borean Tundra are well done. I especially liked the D.E.H.T.A. quests, especially the one where you free trapped mammoth calves, and they trumpet at you. (Also, the quest reward [G.E.H.T.A.] was hilarious.) The big cutscene quests were very well done, with a really nice integration of lore in regular questing.

I also really liked how the different camps had different flying options. The drakes from Coldarra, and especially the planes from the Fizzcrank Airbase.

The only negative was the torture quest in Amber Ledge.

Other than that, it was a great entry zone, and I'm looking forward to Howling Fjord, which is where I'm headed next.

Torture Quests

The quest The Art of Persuasion in Borean Tundra was a bad call on Blizzard's part.

I was okay with the Death Knight torture quest because it fit the Death Knight thematically. But this one is just out of place. Especially ironic considering the quest giver states, "You see, the Kirin Tor code of conduct frowns upon our taking certain 'extreme' measures - even in desperate times such as these" as the reason he is handing the prisoner over to you to be tortured.

My immediate thought was, "Hello, paladin here!"

It's especially annoying because it's on the main line to Coldarra and the Nexus. If you don't do this quest, you pretty much miss out on the entire Malygos conflict.

As I said before in Stories, Wrong Choices and Death Knights, there is a difference between single-player Western RPGs and MMOs. MMOs must have a shared reality and thus our choices are dictated by the quest designer. The quest designer therefore has the responsibility of making sure our actions are at least somewhat acceptable.

This quest crosses that line, and is a failure on the part of the quest designer.

(Also, you'd think mages would have a spell to force people to tell the truth. That seems like a very common spell in fantasy.)

Regarding First to 80

Dear people on General Chat/Forums,

Ever notice how anyone who plays more than you has no life? And anyone who plays less than you is not dedicated enough to deserve epics?

It's amazing how you managed to hit that perfect balance.

First Day in Wrath

I picked up Wrath at lunch today. After installing I logged on to an 800-person queue for Sargeras. I quickly switched to Skywall, which only had an 80-person queue. I took my hunter to Howling Fjord and did a few of the quests. Then I realized that I really wanted to play my paladin first, so I went back to Sargeras. By this time the queue had grown to 1300 people.

A long time later, I logged in with Coriel and started doing the Borean Tundra quests. Borean Tundra is a bit more crowded than Howling Fjord, but not too bad.

For now, I've decided to go with Retribution and mostly solo. I've decided not to rush to 80, but take my time. To that end, I've turned off Instant Quest Text. It actually does make a difference in immersion, I find. With Instant Quest Text, I barely read the quest, but having the text fade in forces me to slow down, to actually read the backstory behind the quest.