My feed may be all a-Twitter (/wrists) with debate, discussion and fury about the Cataclysm beta, but I’m not particularly interested in Cataclysm. Call me a luddite, but the massive overhaul of the talent system and the merging of a lot of stats is a little too… Cataclysmic (I’m just full of them, aren’t I?) for my tastes.

Instead, my beta attentions have been focused on FFXIV, having managed to get in the last few days of closed beta, and poke around the open beta.. I’ve been rather looking forward to FFXIV since it was announced last year, hoping that SE would have learned from the mistakes of FFXI – namely, the crippling difficulty in doing anything without a party, the iffy controls and the clunky UI – and produce an MMO that would be fun and easy to play. I’m not sure why I got my hopes up.  I’m not saying it’s a total trainwreck, but it’s far from great. Let’s look at each area, and score it out of 10.

Story

Pros

I’ve finished the intro section of story for each of the three City States, and found all the stories to be pretty intriguing, enough that if I do pick up the final release, I’m no longer sure just which city I’ll start in. Also of interest is that it seems the storylines of the three city states will come together at some point – each intro involves at least one character with a strange pair of tattoos on their neck, suggesting there’s some sort of overarching plot to the game.

Cons

Emote quests. As the intro story basically serves as a tutorial to the game, there’s a small bit in each city state where you have to emote at an NPC. In Limsa-Lominsa, this quests was merely a bit boring and time consuming – it was pretty clear which emote you had to use. In Ul’dah, it was significantly less clear which emote you had to use, and, critically, in what order. In Gridania, you seriously begin to wonder if it’d be possible to repeal child cruelty laws, because there is very little explanation given of what emotes to use, and the Children don’t even use the right actions. It’s just fortunate you only have to do that once.

Score: 8

Aesthetics

Pros

Character models are excellent – if I looked half as good as my character, I’d be gettin’ all the girls (I’m just sayin’!) Plenty of options for customisation, and very detailed. Monster models are also pretty detailed – assuming you’re fighting something that isn’t basically a balloon animal, a la the mole a bit below.

The cities each have their own distinct feel, and look pretty good.

Cons

The starting areas are pretty large expanses of… sameness. They look kinda pretty, but they aren’t all that detailed in actual fact, and they seem the drag on and on forever.

Score: 7

Combat System

Pros

The combat system in FFXIV is pretty good – when compared to FFXI, at any rate. In FFXI, most melee classes were simply about auto-attacking enemies until you had enough TP to fire off a weaponskill, repeated ad nauseum. If you were a lucky class like THF, you might have had an ability or two you could use every minute, which was highly exciting in comparison.

Firstly, there’s no auto-attack option in FFXIV – you instead have to press a key for your basic attack. This has recieved some criticism, but I don’t see it as a particularly bad thing – it makes it seem (very slightly) more like an Action RPG than your usual MMO. In addition, while the level of additional abilities in no way approaches the level of WoW for melee classes, you do get a good few buttons to press, and TP is far easier to generate than in FFXI (and is not all used up in one attack), so if you have multiple weaponskills equipped you can often fire two or three in quick succession for massive damage.

The ability to fuse abilities from one class with another is effectively a much improved subjob system, and allows for at least a degree of customisation on your character.

Cons

Occasional difficulty in targeting an enemy – more than once I’ve targeted an enemy right in front of me, only to be told “you are not facing the target.” This has cost me a couple of battles against aggressive mobs. Likewise, you cannot attack enemies that are, say, on a small ledge (less than a couple of feet high) above you, even if you happen to be an Archer, which is pretty pathetic.

Score: 8

Synthesis System

Pros

Cool animations during crafting – if you are a blacksmith, you do it at a little anvil, a carpenter has a workbench, a weaver has… that… circular thingy with cloth on it that people use for embroidery. It’s a nice little touch. Synthesis actually involves active pressing of options – allowing (in theory) you to chose between making high quality items, at significant risk of failure, or making them quickly and efficiently, but the resulting goods being of poor quality.

Cons

You’re told to watch what your synthesis is doing to determine what actions to use, but that’s rather cryptic. The only way to find recipes in game seems to be to be told them after local guildleves, of which you are lucky to get three in a two day period. There’s community involvement, then there is forcing people to use time they want to be playing the game to use that time to find recipes.

Even early, basic component recipes often need full crystals, rather than the shards which you will obtain easily from killing mobs. I had plenty of materials on blacksmith to make a few bronze nuggets, and from the nuggets, some other items – but I needed Fire Crystals to make said nuggets. There had better be an auction house in the final release, otherwise obtaining crystals and materials is going to be ridiculously difficult.

Score: 6

Gathering System

Pros

I haven’t tried Fishing or Harvesting, but I did give mining a shot for a good while, to gather some materials for smithing. Gathering at a point starts a simple mini game, so that the gathering process is a bit more involved than “find node, auto hit node, find next node.” Gathering is never likely to be exciting, but it is, at the very least, not boring.

Cons

Only real con is a small niggle with the gathering interface, which is simply one problem within the gigantic problem that is the UI. Basically, why do I have to press the menu button labelled “Strike” when they could either make it automatically start the minigame, or the first click in the minigame wheel would start it.

Gathering: 7

Levelling

Pros

Guildleves are relatively easy, able to tailor them to group size if solo isn’t your thing, and provide a source of gil and the occasional piece of gear.

Cons

Hoo boy. Here’s the first big criticism section.

There simply aren’t enough Guildleves. People were optimistic during closed Beta on this score – “Oh, well, there may not be many Guildleves, but they won’t be the only way of leveling, who knows what other aspects of the game will be revealed in Open Beta!”

The answer, of course, was absolutely bugger all. When you are out of Guildleves, suddenly you are back in FFXI and you have to grind mobs for EXP. In a modern MMO, that is just ridiculous. You are able to get through the first five Battlecraft leves in the space of about half an hour, and after that… you’re somewhat at a loss. Their stated aim with FFXIV is to attract more casual players – but it seems, to me, that this has went so far past “casual” they are almost approaching “hardcore” from the opposite end. Honestly, how little time are we meant to be playing a day? Fifteen minutes? Yeah, right.

Grinding mobs, quite aside from not really being any fun, is also highly inefficient due to the absolutely stupid way you level up. You have your “Physical Level” which affects your stats (STR, DEX etc) and elemental resistances, and then you have your “Rank” which is effectively your level for whatever class your playing. Mobs give far too much Physical experience relative to Rank experience. Given that we are being encouraged to play multiple classes to mix and match their abilities, the fact your Physical level goes up far quicker than your Rank is ridiculous.

The reason it goes up so much faster than your rank is that mobs give set physical EXP. However, to rank up, you are reliant on getting class skill increases during combat, which are then awarded at the end of combat. With guildleve mobs, the contrast is stark – you may be fighting a bug that takes two or three hits to kill, thus providing little opportunity for skillups, but it then gives you something ridiculous like 900 Physical Exp. Even in longer fights, sometimes you get a good run of them, other times you are lucky to get one skillup of 40 in an entire battle.

The speed of Physical levelling itself is not a problem to me – it’s just a problem when compared to how much your rank lags behind, given you are encouraged to rank up multiple classes. It’s disheartening to be 3-4 Physical levels above your Rank when you haven’t even tried other classes yet.

Score: 4

Controls

Pros

Uhhh… If you played FFXI you might not have a huge amount of bother? That’s not really a pro, is it? No, FFXIV loyalist community, it most certainly is not. Movement isn’t too bad, as it’s standard WASD. That’s not really a pro either, it’s only a pro when compared to FFXI.

Cons

Mouse controls still pretty awful. No actual hardware mouse, so movement is laggy, targeting sometimes iffy, and there’s a distinct lack of hotkeys. There is a map hotkey, praise be, but no hotkeys for anything else – given how absolutely dire the UI is, some hotkeys to go straight to menus would be appreciated.

Score: 2

UI

Pros

Nothing.

Cons

Everything.

The UI is absolutely god awful. It makes me want to cry bitter, bitter tears. Absolutely nothing learned from FFXI in this department, it seems. First of all, takes way too many menus to do anything. For example, let’s take changing your weapon. You need to go through the following shenanigans;

1. Open main menu, either via Home Key or clicking menu button.
2. Open the Attributes and Gear submenu.
3. Click the main hand slot.
4. Find the weapon you want to equip, click it.
5. Press the “equip” button.

In this day and age, that’s far too much in the way of buttons. I really could not care a fig they are releasing this for PS3 at somepoint, and that’s the kind of menu a console game is limited to. This is the frickin’ PC version, I expect a UI tailored for a PC gamer. Seriously.

Interacting with objects is also a huge pain in the butt. You approach an object, a bouncing ! sign appears on your screen. You press this button and, rather than take you straight to a list of interactions for that object, it takes you to the main menu. Where you then click the button with the ! next to it, and then you are taken to the interaction list. What? That is just totally uneccessary. Skip the main menu, take me straight to the action list. In fact, skip the having to click the ! button that’s in the corner of the screen – allow me to click the damn object. Why does it have to be so hard?

The Synthesis interface is fine once you actually start the crafting process, but getting to that point requires much clicking and picking. Much to my amusement, people on FFXIV community forums have been deriding the “recipe list” of WoW crafting, but given the extremely clunky UI and control system, I’d much rather press “synthesis” and then pick an item to make from a list, rather than pressing synthesis, then choosing which hand to use, then picking ingredients (one at a frickin’ time) to use for crafting, then that brings up a list of what can be made with those items, then you have to confirm the item you are making, and finally you are told what crystals it needs to be made. Too. Many. Fricking. Hoops.

Score: 0

Other Stuff that’s probably terrible but I haven’t experienced

Repair system; requires that players do it if you want repairs anything past 50%, which is pretty sucky. Better than an EXP loss system, but why do NPCs only do it to 50%? That’s penalising people for either not having that craft themselves, or for not seeking crafters out. Instead of a 50% durability penalty, how about a bonus for people who DO get a player to do it? Maybe their gear can be repaired to 120% durability?

“Surplus” system; I may think you get too much Physical experience right now, but a system of gradually reducing EXP is not cool. It’s also not the answer to balancing “casual” and “hardcore” players – it’s just gonna piss people off. Again, like the repair thing, this is punishing people for the sake of balance. Why not give players who don’t play often some sort of EXP bonus, rather than inflict an EXP penalty on those that do? You should never punish players for playing.

Overall

Averaging out the scores I allocated above, FFXIV gets a score of  5.25/10. Yikes.

I really, really want to enjoy FFXIV, as in many ways it is a much improved version of FFXI, which I played for many years,  and there are large parts of the game I do like – but the problems with controls, the UI and levelling are so fundamental to playing the game that unless those are resolved for release, I’m not going to be playing FFXIV. If I’m feeling faithful in SE in a weeks time, I will leave me pre-order, get the game, and give it at least a good go for a month. If, by then, these issues haven’t been resolved to my satisfaction, SE won’t be recieving a subscription from me, unless someone comes to me in a few months and tells me that everything has been fixed and the game is wonderful.

Yeah, right.

It never ceases to bug me how little people know about Scotland. Of course, I totally understand that people can’t know everything about every country in the world, but admit it – you’d get a bit bothered if people constantly got your history so very, very wrong, right?

So, for what little good it will do, I’m gonna clear up some common misconceptions about Scotland and the United Kingdom here.

The United Kingdom

Sometimes, people, particularly in the US, are a bit confused as to exactly what the UK consists of. The UK is Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The rest of Ireland (the lighter green part of the island) is it’s own, independent country. Sometimes people think it’s part of the UK – it’s not, so be careful with that!

Basically, each country in the UK is like an American State (well, except England… it’s complex.) – The UK as a whole is governed by the British Parliament in Westminster, London. However, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each have their own “devolved parliaments”, with certain powers over their countries – somewhat like the Federal and State division in the US. However, England does not have it’s own government, and is represented solely by Westminster.

While I say the situation is somewhat akin to American states, I think it’s worth pointing out that, unlike American states, as they exist today, with the states beyond the original 13 all having been settled by Americans with the intention of the new lands joining America, the Countries that make up the United Kingdom all have long histories as independent states –thus, each have distinct national cultures that are probably far greater than the differences between, say, an inhabitant of California and an inhabitant of Maine, despite the greater physical distance in the latter case. In fact, Scotland, Ireland and Wales all have native, Celtic languages, totally unrelated to the Germanic English language, though, in Scotland, Gaelic is spoken by a small minority.

To make matters even more complicated, there are substantial, though not in the majority, groups in Scotland, Wales, and particularly Northern Ireland (which has suffered greatly over the years over the issue of being in the Union) who advocate seceding from the UK. Thus, while “British” is a catch all term for people living in the UK, you may find that people prefer to be called by their “proper” nationality.

For example, and here’s where I may stir things up politically with any British readers, I support Scottish independence. I bear no ill will to any of the other countries in the UK, I just feel we should be independent, and as such, I object to being called “British” instead of “Scottish.” It doesn’t offend me, I just don’t consider myself to be British, as such. However, calling me “English” does offend me – because I feel that shows a great deal of ignorance about how the UK works.

Scotland

Firstly, and most importantly – Braveheart is not an entirely accurate portrayal of Scottish history. I know, I know, it’s hard to believe – but there’s a lot wrong with it, historically. It’s a fantastic film, however – don’t let inaccuracy spoil it for you.

The most standout one, in a way, is also the least important. You know how they are all wearing blue face paint (woad) and kilts? Well, those are both anachronisms. Woad was utilised by the Picts, who were the original, inhabitants of Scotland. It was most certainly not used in the 13th-14th centuries. And in the other direction, kilts, especially not of the style in the film, were not actually worn by Scots until much later!

Also, perhaps influenced by Braveheart, there are misconceptions about William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, and how Scotland came to join with England.

William Wallace

William Wallace was “Guardian of Scotland” – he was not, at any point, in the running for King of Scotland. Basically, he was a general.

Robert the Bruce

The Scottish Monarchy did not end with The Bruce. While the Bruce dynasty was short lived, Scotland continued to have it’s own Kings and Queens from the mid 1300’s, when the wars of Independence finally came to a close, until the 17th Century, when the Scottish Monarch also became the English Monarch.

The Union of Scotland and England

I rarely see this, but I do see it often enough for it to make me /facepalm. The Union of Scotland and England was entirely peaceful. There was no war involved. Some people seem to think we were put to the sword and made to join – not quite. As stated above, the two countries started sharing a monarch in the 17th century. In the early 18th Century – 1707 to be exact – the two countries joined together to form Great Britain. While the Union was peaceful, it was also incredibly unpopular in Scotland at the time.

Silly things

As much as we like to tease foreigners about it, and Scottish readers will be so cross with me for unveiling our great lie – Haggis is not a real animal. We do not chase it round mountains. It’s just meat in a sheep gut. No, I have never tried it, and I do not intend to.

Similarly, The Loch Ness Monster doesn’t exist. Well, to the best of my knowledge. Who can really say? I mean, it’s a pretty murky Loch, and very deep… If there’s something there though, it’s damn well not a plesiosaur. Seriously people.

We do not wear kilts all the time. I have worn a kilt once in my life, for my high school leavers Ceilidh and the only time I anticipate wearing one again is if I get married.

We most certainly do not all sound like Groundskeeper Willie! See here for an example of how I speak. Nothing alike!

-

There we go! The more you know!

Dis wasn’t quite what I meant!

Ya say to wan Blood Elf that "I’ve always wanted a raptor, ever since I was a little chil’”, an’ a few days latah, da courier shows up at Razor Hill wit a strange box, containin’ dis little fella!

He is kinda cute, though… I tink I’ll be keepin’ him!

Anyways, a few seasons latah, an’ here I be – now wit’ my own riding raptor! ‘E’s quite fond of de little wan – dey get on like a hut on fiah!*

-

When they added those Raptors in 3.2, I looked at them and thought about how much I’d like one… Well, I figured, what better character to get one for than my baby Shaman, to complement the riding raptor she’d get later? So, I looked into them all on WoWhead, and the Razormaw Hatchling looked easiest to get. I’d been in those caves a number of times whilst leveling mining on Faulsey, and I’d killed the Matriarch a few times. She’s apparently on a 5 hour or so respawn timer, but, well, when you go into a remote cave on a PvP realm at 3.30 AM, you’re quite likely to get lucky!

I immediately sent her off to Eisla, though the temptation to sell it on the AH for 750g was quite high. The Agamaggan incarnation of Faulsey is a Skinner/Leatherworker, and Eisla is a Herbalist/Alchemist, which means the only source of cash is Cloth and random Greens, so I’m much poorer on those characters than I would normally be.

However, I had a stroke of luck when the recipe for Savoury Deviate Delight dropped in the Barrens. I knew it was quite rare and popular, but I thought it would sell for about 200g. Wrong! A tasty 1k! Well, up to 1.5k, but I was in no mood for waiting ages for the other recipes to sell, and 1k is quite enough for little Eisla!

Whilst levelling, I also got a group for Ragefire Chasm, which I’d never been inside before. It was kinda fun doing a low level instance properly, but it wasn’t fun when, on both runs, people left before I was able to kill a final quest mob – he isn’t worth killing if you don’t have the quest, as he doesn’t drop a blue. Gah.

Now that she’s 20, it’s out into the wide PvP realm, though I won’t be playing her a huge amount now that I’ve reached my first goal of getting a Raptor. Maybe I’ll leave her till Cataclysm – who knows!

Uhm, Cataclysm. I said I’d probably not be playing, but, unless FFXIV is out, and is fantastic, I’ve decided I will be playing casually, to experience the new world. I have my level 10 Warrior to test the new Barrens with, Eisla for the rest of Horde-Azeroth, and my Mage and Paladin for Alliance-Azeroth.

* The big raptor totally kicks the small one in the face, actually.

With the flurry of Cataclysm information unleashed by Blizzcon, most people are looking ahead to the future of WoW. However, as someone who doesn’t expect to be playing WoW when Cataclysm is released, I’ve been looking to the past.

Though it hasn’t be obvious, I’m sure, I’ve kind of lost interest with WoW recently. Actually, I’m amazed at how long it held my interest! Back when I played FFXI, I had a sort of 3-4 month on, same off way of playing… I kept burning myself out. But with WoW, I played regularly from August last year, when that blasted fool Kazura sucked me back into it, until the start of June this year – ten months!

Can’t deny I enjoyed myself during that time – I experienced the wonders of Northrend with friends, discovered my true love of Shamanism, and met some fantastic people in raiding guilds. But if I’m truly honest, the best time was when I was a newbie, when everything was totally fresh and new.

One of the strong points of WoW, in my opinion, is how the game begins. Compared to FFXI, my previous MMO, rolling a character for the first time really feels exciting. In FFXI, you get a brief intro scene, some random citizens of your nation give you a quick hint about something, and then you are deposited in a random section of the city, without any real idea of what you should do first.

In WoW, you get that lovely little intro, sweeping across your starter area, with a brief history of your people as a voiceover.

Once that is complete, you are immediately faced with the famed Golden Exclamation for your first quest, giving you an immediate goal in the game. Over the new few hours, you quickly grow from the small starting village, into a larger town, before finally, around level 10 for most new players, wandering into your capital with a sense of awe. That build up – village, town, city – is much more fun, to me, than being dropped slap in the middle of a city!

Before you know it, you’re leaving the familiar surroundings of Mulgore, or Teldrassil, or wherever, taking your first steps into the wider world of Azeroth. As you grow, there’s that sense of anticipation, wondering what the next area will look like, what creatures will live there, and what jobs you’ll be able to do, and as you enter zones like Thousand Needles or Nagrand, there’s a sense of awe.

(My very first character, pictured here with an earlier incarnation of my beloved Erethia, on the famed Wetlands run. While the link straight to Stormwind saves a lot of headaching, it’s almost a shame to have lost such a rite of passage.)

(While not my first time –in- Ashenvale, it wasn’t until I go a full account and my Hunter into the 20’s that I truly experienced the zone, and I loved it. If I do play at some point during Cataclysm, it’s going to be so sad seeing the zone deforested!)

Of course, being an MMO, a huge part of the appeal is that you can experience this with your friends. Kazura, an RL friend, makes for a pretty good WoW companion… I guess. –grin- We had our fair share of adventures adventures as we made a push to Outlands (and beyond!), including the classic “OH SHIT A DEVILSAUR RUN!” moment.

But when you reach the level cap, the game is never the same – at least, not for the rest of that expansion. I don’t ever get the same sense of awe on seeing new raid zones and bosses as I did on that first night in Northrend, taking the turtle boat from the Borean Tundra right over to the Howling Fjord. In a way, expansions make everyone a newbie again, returning them to the excitement they had on first starting the game.

Unfortunately, that very quickly wears off. The places may be new, but it’s still the same game. Boredom creeps back into it. Though, in a way, that could make Cataclysm a very successful expansion – quite aside from the new zones, and updated old zones, classes like Hunter and Warlock are getting huge overhauls, as is the talent system – a core and almost unchanged aspect of the game. If I am playing, Cataclysm may revive some of my love for the game…

But you know what I’m really looking forward to? FFXIV. I want a fresh world! Azeroth’s history is interesting and fun, but I really do love the idea of going into a vast new world without any preconceptions, like I did with WoW (though that is part of the appeal for others – being able to truly explore the world of Azeroth they grew to love in the RTS games.)

Hopefully FFXIV learns a little from WoW, when it comes to being a newbie. I don’t want to be dropped right into the middle of civilisation – I want to start somewhere remote, somewhere it’ll feel right to start my adventure. I’m also looking forward to a new style of play – unfamiliar combat systems, different classes – though I’m kinda worried at the moment about FFXIV’s class system – there seems to be a distinct Physical / Caster split… But I want to be a Close Combat Caster, like I am in WoW as an Enhancement Shaman!

Hmmm.. Being new will be exciting. Hey, SE, WTB FFXIV now, PST.

What about you guys? Do you miss being new? Or is endgame what you live for – do bosses give you more of a thrill than they do me?

Due to my recent hiatus from WoW, I’d not really been keeping up with the changes due in 3.2, beyond the big stuff like omgdruidforms and omgmountchanges. I’ve only just taken a proper look at the details. I don’t want to just regurgitate patch notes, but I’m gonna give my opinion on some of the things that look to be going into the PTR. Certainly not an exhaustive list, even of Shaman changes, because there’s not much exciting to be said about combining Cure Poison and Cure Disease, for example.

Emblems:

• Any dungeons that previously dropped Emblems of Heroism or Valor, such as Naxxramas or Heroic Halls of Stone, will now drop Emblems of Conquest instead. Emblems of Conquest can still be converted to Valor or Heroism.

This has been divisive. From “amagad nubs can get teh gud gear!” to “Oh, this’ll make it so much easier for late comers to catch up,” there’s been a wide range of reactions to this change.

Personally, I think they might have went a bit far. Instead of bumping everything up to Conquest, I think they could instead bump everything up a level – Heroics and Naxx10 dropping Valor, Naxx25 and Uld10 dropping Conquest, etc. Allows people to progress through content quicker, but without allowing people to almost skip straight through tiers. But hey, whatever.

Also, Heroic daily is meant to give two of the new Emblems coming in 3.2. Now, Blizzard, if you’d kindly make a Totem available with those emblems, instead of insisting on making us rely on one damn drop, that would be greatly appreciated. If you can give axes to Rogues (see later) because previously that had made drop tables so unfair, then you can bloody well cut Relics out of drop tables and make them Emblem only, since Relic drops are ridiculously specific.

Mounts:

Basically:

• Travel Form, Ghost Wolf, Aspect of the Cheetah at 16.
• Ground mount at 20.
• Epic ground mount at 40.
• Flight at 60, and also boosted to 150% speed.
• Past that, same as previously.

Again, there was uproar. “Great, now we’re going to have people not knowing how to play their class.”

I’d like to quote Jezriyah’s response to that statement on twitter. “Since when was running a class skill?” Seriously people. As far as player skill is concerned, you will be doing exactly the same amount of quests and mob killing as before, it’s just easier to move between quests and mobs. This will have no effect on people learning to play a class – learning when to use CC is almost an exception, but you’ll still learn than from the inevitable adds you’ll still get.

Shaman Stuff:

• Mana Regeneration: All items that provide “X mana per five seconds” have had the amount of mana they regenerate increased by approximately 25%.

Ok, that’s not just for Shaman, but Restoration Shaman piles on the most MP5 out of any caster, so this is totally awesome for them. I really can’t see myself going OOM as a Resto when this change goes through.

• After much quiet contemplation, rogues now possess the ability to learn how to use one-handed axes.

Nothing directly to do with Shaman, but fucking what?! Putting aside the fact that Axes just don’t scream “Rogue!” to me, this is just taking the idea of making sure as many classes as possible can use items too far. There has to be some sort of distinction. I tell you this now, if I ever get to Yogg-Saron, and a Rogue ever rolls on this, there will be blood. Unless I’ve missed something, Shaman aren’t getting the ability to use Swords, so this is just totally unfair, in my opinion.

Of course, I’m just irritated with Ulduar 10 weapon itemisation anyway. Would you believe that axe is the only normal mode weapon that’s actually perfectly suited to an Enhancement Shaman, and we’d need two of them? I’m pretty sure Rogues have at least a couple of items they can get before the last boss, depending on spec. Urgh.

• A customizable totem bar will now be available for shaman allowing the storing of 4 different totems. These totems can be placed on the ground at once in one global cooldown for the combined mana cost of all 4 totems.

Yes yes yes yes YES YES YES.

It’s hardly revolutionary – none of this totem pole nonsense for transporting totems, but it makes dropping them at the start of fights, refreshing them, or moving them into much less of a chore. Finally!

By 80, we’ll have three abilities that will place a different set of totems per ability – Call of Fire, Water and Wind – giving us much faster, easier totem placement, and the ability to keep the quick placement flexible. For example, I can have Call of Fire set to drop Strength of Earth, Windfury, Mana Spring and Magma Totem. But, if there’s a DK in the group with Improved Icy Talons, I can use Call of Water to drop a Wrath of Air totem instead, whilst keeping the other totems the same! Very handy.

Also, for leveling Enhancement Shaman, this ability, combined with use of Water Shield and Improved Stormstrike should make placing totems more viable. I actually stopped dropping totems by around 60 – dropping even one generally wasn’t worth it, as they really sucked up mana.

• Shamanistic Rage: Cooldown is now 1 minute, down from 2 minutes. Successful melee attacks now have a chance to generate mana equal to 15% of the shaman’s attack power, down from 30%.

Hmm. They’ve given similar treatment to a Druids Innervate – halved both the effect and the cooldown. It’s just a case of training myself to use this earlier than I do now, which is when I’m running almost totally dry.

In PvE, this is used mainly for the mana regen aspect, but now that it’s on a much shorter cooldown, the damage reduction aspect could be taken advantage of, without fear of having wasted a cooldown.

Druid Forms:

I’m basically refusing to play my Druid until 3.2 hits. Firstly, knowing that I’m going to be able to travel faster in 3.2 has just put me off him, as the normal mount seems unbearably slow with that in mind. Second, I really, really want to level with the new forms.

Pretty darn snazzy, I think. Admittedly, I think the Tauren Bear Form is twice as awesome as the Night Elf form, and I’ll have a kind of silly pink hairdo as a Cat, but a vast improvement over what’s currently available. First port of call after the patch will be the barbers, get that unruly blue mop of my Druids turned white.

Edit: Oh, I didn’t notice this was my 200th post. Geez, I could have done something vaguely interesting if I’d realised. Oh well. Yay, 200 posts!

In part because I was listening to the music, and in part due to discussions with Samodean on twitter… I’m really missing FFXI. Brief hopes of giving it another shot were, well, shot when I found the only way to recover my password was via contacting their Info Centre, via Phone (from UK to US? Pass.) or Web Chat (lengthy wait, poor support – went through this recovering the account after it was hacked).

Besides, playing FFXI now would mean a break from WoW blogging, until I was bored of frustrated enough with the game to return to WoW. Not to mention I’m starting University in about three months – University Course + Part Time Job + ~Hour long commute each way + Hopeful socialising = very little time for MMOs in general!

But I’m feeling nostalgic, and with the announcement of FFXIV for release as early as next year, I feel like doing a post that blends fond memories with wishes for how they’ll do things in FFXIV.

Solo vs Group Play

In FFXI, beyond around level 15, to do any real leveling you needed to party, unless you were a Beastmaster, or skilled at a select few other classes. When I first started playing (Imported US version a few months before EU release, which was still unannounced – I wish I’d waited!) new players like myself were common – partying to level was easy and fun!

However, I was the FFXI equivalent of an Altoholic. You could play any class on one character, free to change whenever – and so I did! I leveled my main class, Ranger, at a truly glacial pace – thus, as I leveled, it became harder and harder to find people my level to party with.

That was just plain stupid. Whether that decision was a misguided idea that MMO = group play all the time, or the general preference of Japanese players, it simply wasn’t a great idea.

In FFXIV, I’d expect that you at least have the option of soloing – sure, parties could be (slightly – don’t want to be forced into doing so) more efficient for levelling, but it should be entirely possible to go from level 1 to the cap by yourself.

I was perfectly fine with major storyline Missions requiring parties – makes sense!

Class Playstyle – Physical DPS

Comparing FFXI with WoW, the melee classes and Ranger were dull, dull, dull. Most classes had two or three abilities (earned very slowly) that were on, by WoW standards, long cooldowns of a few minutes, that had pretty specific uses. Otherwise, your damage was auto attack and the occasional weapon skill.

As Ranger, a class which did a lot of damage per hit, battles were even worse! Wait for aggro… Fire a shot. Wait for aggro… Fire a shot. Repeat until you have 100%+TP and the mob has low enough health that Sidewinder (A very, very powerful weaponskill) would take them out in one shot, and use it – if it doesn’t kill it, aggro time! Occasionally use Barrage (4~5 shots at once) in the same situation for the same reason.

Thief was slightly better – it’s two main abilities, Sneak Attack (major damage when striking the opponent from behind) and Trick Attack (slight damage boost and “misdirect” effect if used with another player between them and the mob) were on a “mere” 1 minute cooldown, allowing for semi regular use, and could be combined with each other and weapon skills for huge damage at no threat cost.

In FFXIV, classes really should be given more abilities like in WoW – things you can use fairly often. Hell, even a couple of abilities on ten second cooldowns would be such a huge improvement.

Other Roles

Healing is much as it is in WoW, though with less class abilities to augment it, so slightly more boring.

Tanking was class dependent – Ninja (my preferred tanking class) was absolutely insane after 40 – constantly watching your shadows, whilst simultaneously keeping up debuffs and the “elemental wheel” on the target. Paladin was more “take a few hits, self heal, repeat” in playstyle.

Caster DPS was perhaps as varied as it is in WoW, as far as pure DPS spells are concerned – abilities to enhance those were lacking.

Then we get to the truly good stuff – classes I would love to see in FFXIV – perhaps not identical, but very similar.

Bard

Bard was an interesting support class. Bards could play songs that had effects from Refresh (Replenish, basically) to boosting attack power, to putting the foe to sleep. For parties, two songs could be active per person per bard – thus, the bard had to move around and make sure to give the mages and melee different songs.

Blue Mage

Blue Mage, introduced in the third expansion, was a fun melee/caster hybrid. Those familiar with the FF series will know that Blue Mages cast spells learned from their enemies. In order to learn a spell, the BLU had to see the opponent cast it, be within a few levels of said opponent and the spell level, and have a great deal of luck. Once you had the spells, you could set a few of them (limited number of spells at a time) – certain combinations would even bestow traits upon you, like Regen or Attack Bonus! BLU spells could be incredibly powerful, and combined with the traits they could bestow, allowed BLU to be one of the few solo-capable classes.

The sheer power of BLU, along with the fun of turning a creatures own abilities against it, makes me really want to see this in FFXIV.

Corsair

Corsair, also from the third expansion, was another support class, though with greater DPS capabilities than Bard. Like Bards, Corsairs used “Rolls” (one for each class, with an effect suiting the class) to boost their parties power – again, making sure to give the right rolls to Melee and Mages. It’s not as simple as that, though. When you rolled, aside from the totally awesome card animation, you’d get a number between one and six. Every 15 seconds for 45 after you rolled, you could “double up” – rolling again, to increase the effect of the roll.

Generally, the aim would be to get to 11, or as close as possible – rolling over 12 would result in a Bust effect, preventing a roll from being added for 5 minutes. Two busts would result in no rolls being able to be used! But it’s not as simple as that! Whilst generally 1 gave the weakest effect, and 11 gave the greatest, each roll had a lucky (high) or unlucky (low) number, that would be almost as good/bad as an 11 or 1, respectively. Thus, reaching the lucky number usually meant not needing to double up, whilst the unlucky number would definitely require a roll.

For me, the fun of this class was if you were sitting on an 8 – doubling up was a 50/50 chance of going bust. At least when I played it, most people would settle on 8’s. I’d roll on them – take the risk! It was somewhat thrilling – would you get a boosted effect, or would you go bust? – and it was a lot of fun, even if my parties hated it. –grin-

(Why yes, I really, really love the concept of Corsair – I would LOVE to see a class like this in FFXIV!)

Scholar

Scholar, one of the classes added in the fourth expansion, was another fun class. Like Red Mage, Scholars were proficient in both White and Black magic, though not to the degree that White and Black mages were. Unlike RDM, which was always operating at “maximum power” for those spells, Scholar worked best when specialising in a school – a specialisation they could change almost at will (cooldown allowing) with a pair of spells – Light Arts and Dark Arts. Specialising in one would incur a cast time and mana cost penalty on the other school – so the class really needed careful thought.

In addition, if they planned on staying in one art for a prolonged period of time, they could use “Stratagems” (charges on a relatively long cooldown) to gain access to further spells in their current school, or as one-time buffs to the next spell, with effects such as reducing mana cost. And that was just at low levels! (I never got beyond 13, thanks to the fateful hacking, the long recovery from which sent me to WoW)

At higher levels, Scholars could even create localised weather effects around themselves and party members, boosting the power of spells that matched the weather – I imagine with this, Black Mages would have been truly terrifying. For themselves, at higher levels, they can learn “Helix” spells – DoTs that do much more damage based on the weather.

(Again, I really liked Scholar – it was like Red Mage, my very first class, but with a greater focus on strategy and forward thinking. Want in FFXIV!)

Open, to a degree, to modding – or at the very least, greater variation in equipment!

You think Wrath had a general lack of armour models before Ulduar? Try FFXI. Things are recycled a lot – doublets at level

~10, ~25, ~30 and ~35 were all exactly the same – not even minor recolours!

However, in FFXI, if you had the tools, it was relatively easy to change armour and weapon skins, and in fact, even creature skins. I wasn’t much good at anything beyond recolours – though I spent weeks perfecting a remodelling of some high level BLM gear to look somewhat rangery, which was fairly complex – but others were capable of some really awesome changes.

(Me with a recoloured, armourised chocobo, plus slightly recoloured armour and weapons.)

If you’ve played the game and have a keen eye, you might spot a few in the above screenshots. The most prominent example I can point out is if you look at the very first Screenshot, then the Blue Mage one. In both, my character is wearing a “Lizard Jerkin.” The top picture is the standard model. The second is a reskin by someone else, made to actually look like lizard skin.

I’d love to see it being similarly easy to change item models in FFXIV, and even for it to be supported! It was a pretty shady practice in FFXI, to be honest. I can understand that the artists would not be pleased at this, though, in which case I’d like to see a general increase in quality, even of low level gear, for FFXIV. The example given, the Lizard Armour, shows just how easy it would be to make equipment look the part.

I can only hope…

Really, I hope that FFXIV turns out well. If it had even a couple of the classes, or ones pretty similar, that I enjoyed, and capability of solo leveling, I’d definitely pick it up. WoW is indeed an incredible MMO, and I thoroughly enjoy it, but I’ve a greater attachment to the Final Fantasy series than the Warcraft, even if in recent years I’ve had a “bleh JRPG” reaction to the series. Love stories and androgynous leads bug me!

Go build a time machine to a couple years ago, and level a DPS class in FFXI if you want levelling to be a challenge. I’d normally say “Go play FFXI it’s ridiculously hard,” but apparently Level Sync has made levelling relatively easy.

Me, I’m going to revel in the fact I can actually play other classes beyond my Shaman, Hunter and Druid without getting so very frustrated at how slow levelling in “Old Azeroth” is. I’ve seen about 98% of the content there by now, when I level an alt, I want to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.

This change will make that so much easier. Standard mount at 20? Hah! Fuck you, Ashenvale! Epic Ground at 40? Kiss my ass, Tanaris! Flying at 60, with a significant increase to flying speed? Suck it, Hellfire!

Assuming they make sure to drop Druid Flight Form to 58/60 (partly because I want to save the cash, but mostly because I don’t want to ride a Gryphon), patch 3.2 is going to be the best thing ever for my little druid – some fantastic new Feral Forms* and speedier flight will make things that much more awesome.

*On the subject of the new Feral Forms… I likes ‘em. No, they still don’t scale with gear – a level 10 White Bear will be identical to level 80 White Bear – but these are such a huge improvement over the old models. Bring on 3.2!

The original Laser Heal – none of yer wannabe Energy Ball Heals.

At the limits of my patience with Keristrasza and her stupid mace, I decided I wanted to try and heal Naxxramas, with or without it.

As luck would have it, Kiaara was putting together a group for Naxx10, so I joined up with them to put my lazurz to the test. Patchwerk was already down, so we started with Grobbulus. It was kind of a sloppy kill, but we downed his fat ass, and as a reward for not destroying WoW due to Keri’s stinginess, he dropped a shiny Infection Repulser. Hurrah! –strokes his lovely mace-

Due to raid makeup, we decided not to try Gluth, and instead doubled back to Spider. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you will know that PUG + Me + Anub’Rekhan = fail. We failed twice, then we had success! For the “easiest” boss in the place, he’s always given me the most trouble!

Faerlina was totally uneventful. We wiped once on Maexxna – at 2% no less! We had four druids, and I swear not a one was using Abolish Poison! (Kia, you are allowed to not due to being Feral, but what was the tree’s excuse?!) I wasn’t in the main tanks group, so my Cleansing Totem wouldn’t affect him. We squished her the second time, though.

Moved onto Noth, and despite copious amounts of decursers, you betcha, I was the only person decursing. I was technically the raider healer, so I had the most time to do it, but still. Mneh.

Heigan was hilarious fail. Everyone but me (who was cheating and had my Enhancement boots with a run speed enchant equipped) and the tank died on the first dance phase. I was so tempted just to keep on going till Heigan was dead, but figured that might take quite some time, and the tank wanted to die, so we wiped and called it.

For my first raid healing experience, I’d say it was fairly successful. When I finally looked at the meters at the end of the raid (I’m a strong believer in basing your healers performance on “Did anyone die that you could have saved?” rather than LULZGAIZIDIDTHEMOSTHEALZ!) I had done the most overall healing, with (surprisingly) the least overheal (still like 28% or something).

On the other hand, healing assignments were kind of… loose. Whilst we had said that the Priest was on Main Tank, Druid on Off Tank, and me on raid, the other two were doing a lot of raid healing (probably why they were ending up sucked dry of mana when I still had 60%), and for my part I was doing a lot of panic heals on the tanks.

Contrary to somewhat popular belief re: shaman healing, no, chain heal was not all I used. There were some chain heal-tastic times, such as when a whole group of people were impaled on Anub’Rekhan, but most of my healing was actually in the form of Healing Wave (kinda surprised at that myself), though Chain Heal was very close behind.

Things I think I need to improve upon:

1. Clever use of Riptide. Riptide is a decent instant heal with a snazzy HoT component, and it will boost the next chain heal on that target by 25% (if they are the first target), consuming the HoT. I rarely used Riptide for this – it was used mostly for the HoT component (particularly on Maexxna, where every little HoT helps!) or as a quick heal if I had to keep moving (on myself at Heigan )
2. More use of Lesser Healing Wave. I love the Riptide animation and sound so much that I used it as my quick patch-up spell in Heroics. Raids do not really allow for it to be used like this, so I tried to use LHW more, but wasn’t really successful.
3. Sticking to my assigned role. The other two healers weren’t great about this either, but I found myself throwing panic heals at the tank far too often, possibly sniping other heals (though I would interrupt casting if I saw another heal going through)

Overall, it was pretty fun for my first attempt at healing in a Raid. I’d much rather be up there doing the pewpew, but still, I won’t be too miffed to switch over to healing on the rare occasions that I need to.

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S’been a while since my last update, so here’s some random stuff.

Little montage of my recent achievements (pre that Naxx run). Basically all self explanatory, except Orbital Bombardment. We left the Flame Tower up, which was kinda fun in an “omg I can’t move I’m surrounded by walls of fire eeek” way. It may have been a better idea to do something else – perhaps Storm tower? –shrugs- In any case, I got to be a chopper driver!

Hells yeah. Unfortunately, I was somewhat limited by game mechanics, but in my head, Ella was firing off lightning bolts and bursts of lava as she weaved in between dwarves and the legs of iron giants. She also tried to hook an iron dwarf on her claw as she drove by, but being made of metal, all that achieved was a nasty bend on her claw.

I’ve been putting together a wish list of what I want from there, and I realised, hey, I might as well put it into a blog post, so I can easily find it, and it might help others.

It’s worth pointing out, for any Hunters that may be reading this (if I didn’t make you all run off in disgust when I turned traitor and mained my Shaman!) most of the gear is good for you guys, too. Exceptions are Weapons, Tier Gear (No, Duh?) and anything that has Expertise on it. Expertise is not for Hunters! –shakes fist-

This list is –not- going to tell you what is “best in slot” for this content, as I find that a rather ephemeral concept. It’s all well and good to say “Oh, those boots are best in slot!” – but what if they are loaded with crit, and are replacing some boots with expertise on them? Then the issue gets murky. Use your own judgement here – if you need the Hit Rating, grab some hit rating gear. If your hit is fine, feel free to roll on that haste-ilicious pair of gloves!

This list also assumes you are doing 10 Man Progression – not that you are going into 10 man Ulduar from 25 man Naxx.

A quick note on stats:

So that you know what you are aiming for, here are some caps:

Melee Special Hit Cap: 8% total. 2% hit from gear, or 1% for a Draenei Shaman. 6% will come from your Dual Wield Specialisation talent. This will ensure that Stormstrike, Lava Lash and Windfury procs will never miss the target. There is no reason you should not be able to reach this cap.

Expertise Cap: 26 Expertise total. 9 Expertise will come from Unleashed Rage, leaving you to make up the remaining 17 Expertise – which is roughly 140 Expertise Rating. Reaching this means that when attacking the boss from behind (as you should be) they will be unable to dodge any of your attacks.

Spell Hit Cap: 17% (446 Rating) total, or 16% (420) for a Draenei. Unfortunately, the Dual Wield talent only affects melee hit, so you need to make this number up entirely from gear, unless you have a Moonkin Druid with Improved Faerie Fire or a Shadow Priest with Misery in your raid group.

Weapons:

I’d like to point something out here – There are far, far more Ranged Weapons available in Ulduar than there are Enhancement Shaman itemised weapons*. I counted four Normal Mode Ranged weapons suited to Hunters – two bows, a crossbow, and a gun. You want to know how many Enhancement Shaman weapons I found from normal modes? One. An axe from Yogg-Saron. I’m sorry, but what the hell, Blizzard? At the very least, we get an iLevel 213 Main Hand from Kel’Thuzad, but we’re left high and dry in terms of off hands unless we get two items from Yoggy!

* The ideal Enhancement weapon should have a speed no lower than 2.5. This is because Windfury + Flametongue do more damage with slower weapons, and slow weapons have a greater chance of proccing Maelstrom Weapon (An Enhancement Shaman should have a lot of melee haste from Windfury Totem, so slow weapons will proc Maelstrom rather quicker than you might expect)

That aside, let’s look at our slim pickings;

Kinetic Ripper – Off Hand Fist, Flame Leviathan (Normal)

This is not a great weapon for an Enhancer, due to the extremely fast attack speed. However, you may find the white DPS boost over Greed or The Stray pulls it ahead. If I get a hold of this, I’ll test it and let you know how it compares. It’s basically your only 10 man Off Hand option with an iLevel higher than 200 until…

Touch of Madness – One Hand Axe, Yogg-Saron (Normal)

Orc Shamans everywhere – rejoice! Everyone else, you are allowed a woot. This fine edge is not just our only decent 10 man Ulduar off hand choice, it’s also one handed and not unique-equipped, allowing you to potentially have two of these babies! For normal modes only, this’ll be your only real option.

The Masticator – Main Hand Fist, Iron Council (Hard)

Ah, another beauty. Aside from the fun name, this is simply amazing weapon for us Enhancers. If you can do IC10 on Hard Mode for this, it’ll be well worth the effort.

Headgear:

Circlet of True Sight – Iron Council (Normal)

If you are lacking on hit, look no further than this piece of forehead finery and its lovely red LED.

Valorous Worldbreaker Faceguard – Mimiron (Token Drop, Normal)

If, however, you aren’t in need of hit, here’s a tasty piece of Tier-8 gear, complete with added lolwut laser gem! C’mon, Blizzard, what’s up with the slightly ridiculous Shaman headgear, eh?

Neck:

Choker of the Abyss – General Vezax (Normal)

Seed of  Budding Carnage – Freya (Hard Mode)

A hard mode drop that may be quite difficult to get, but certainly worth it. Ridiculous stats and a gem slot perfect for some Expertise or Agility.

Shoulders:

Ironaya’s Discarded Mantle – Auriaya (Normal)

Ol’ Ironaya had some good stuff back in the day, eh? Must have left it in Ulduar before she got herself locked in that tiny room in Uldaman!

Valorous Worldbreaker Shoulderguards – (Token Drop, Thorim)

Tier gear – one of the few places you’ll be seeing Expertise on your gear. I’d definitely try and grab these, even if you have Ironaya’s Mantle.

Cloaks:

Shawl of the Shattered Giant – Kologarn (Normal)

Cloak of Mastery’s more refined older brother. Abandons the awesome skull motif for some bizarre modern art.

Winter’s Frigid Embrace – Thorim (Normal)

If you don’t need the hit, the haste on this will do you good.

Chest:

Chestguard of the Lasher – Freya (Normal)

For hitting hard, fast and accurately!

Valorous Worldbreaker Chestguard – Yogg-Saron (Token Drop, Normal)

If you could possibly need any more hit rating on one piece of gear, along comes this with the potential for a whopping 92 Hit rating, if you need that much!

This has, in my opinion, the unfortunate attribute of being a robe. Wha-what? Our War Kilt (see Legs section) is a pair of Trousers, and our Chestguard provides the actual kilt? Lern2notfail at armour design, Blizzard!

Bracers:

Bracers of the Smothering Inferno – Razorscale (Normal)

More of that delicious hit rating, with a side helping of Armor Penetration. These are BoE, so if you are having awful luck getting Razorscale to drop them, you could buy them from the AH for an arm and a leg – and then you’re gonna have an excess bracer!

Hands:

Gloves of the Taut Grip – XT-002 Deconstructor (Normal)

I wouldn’t say no to these, but I’d much rather have these…

Valorous Worldbreaker Grips – Freya (Token drop, Normal)

Precious expertise and more attack power, though less Mana and Armor Penetration. You can’t really go wrong with either.

Waist:

Belt of the Blood Pit – Thorim (Normal)

Legs:

Leggings of the Insatiable – Yogg-Saron (Normal)

Hit rating and haste galore, with a generous helping of raw attack power. Toss up between this and…

Valorous Worldbreaker’s War-Kilt – Hodir (Token Drop, Normal)

More hit and haste, plus gem slots for your Expertise needs, or just plain Agility gems. However, these have a lot less raw attack power, less crit from Agility, and less mana. If you are aiming for the Tier Bonus, or maybe need some extra expertise, go for these.

Feet:

Boots of Unsettled Prey – Trash Drop!

These are our only iLevel 219 option – may be somewhat a pain to get to drop. These are BoP, too, so you can’t even buy them up from another guild! Good luck!

If you can’t get these, the Pack-Ice Striders (iLevel 213) for 40 Emblems of Valor are pretty good too, especially if you are still in need of extra hit rating.

Rings:

Band of Draconic Guile – Razorscale (Normal)

Pretty decent ring for pure damage – but I personally find Ring slots a good place to grab some Hit or Expertise.

Loop of the Agile – Iron Council (Hard)

While this has the same lack of Hit/Expertise as the Band, as this is from a hard mode, it’s an iLevel 226, and comes with a gem slot. Certainly wouldn’t say no to this!

Trinkets:

Pyrite Infuser – Flame Leviathan (Normal)

An insane amount of hit rating, combined with a Mirror of Truth-esque proc (which will stack with your mirror!) make this a nice Enhancement Trinket.

Elemental Focus Stone – Auriaya (Normal)

Kinda interesting item – while Enhancement is a “Melee” class, we are not a purely “physical” class – we’re close combat, physical/caster hybrids – Earth Shocks and Lightning Bolts make up a lot of our damage output. We’ll have quite a good chance at proccing this, and haste is one of the better stats for an Enhancer.

Given it is a “caster” item, I’d suggest you let typical ranged casters have this. If none of them want/need it, or you just have none with you, I’d snap this one up.

Totems:

There aren’t actually any totems (or other relics) available from bosses in 10 man Ulduar – instead, the 25 Man Naxx relics have been made available for 25 Emblems of Valor.

Totem of Dueling

This is the actual Enhancement totem. Since haste was boosted a bit for us in 3.1, this is looking pretty good these days. However…

Totem of Hex

It was suggested that the Elemental Totem was actually better for us in 3.0, so this may also be a worthwhile investment. I’m really not very sure on this matter – but you can’t go far wrong with either of these.

Totem of Splintering

This is actually the 15 Emblems of Heroism totem. I’m mentioning it here because, despite my having it equipped (I haven’t go another Totem at the moment, thanks to not doing my research before I bought this one) this totem does not work. It’s not worth the Emblems. The comments on Wowhead for the Dueling totem suggest that this was a 400 DPS boost over that totem.

I have no idea where they got that number from, because in my tests, there was a miniscule difference between having the totem equipped and having nothing there. I’m talking about a 5 damage difference.

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Hopefully, this list will help give you an idea of what you’re looking for in U10. If I’ve missed anything (I have a feeling I might be missing some hard mode drops), just leave me a comment and I’ll be sure to include it.

This is an idea you’ve no doubt seen bandied about before – reworking the Vanilla / Burning Crusade raids and instances to a Heroic level. Most recently, @Bytorsnowdog mentioned it on Twitter, and I thought it would make a good blog post.

Heroic old content; Why?

There are a few reasons people would like to see such a thing.

Firstly, nostalgia. People who have been playing since release may have fond (ish) memories of old world dungeons, and would love to relive those. While it’s true that those dungeons are still there and open for anyone to enter, people are often not keen on doing so if they already have the achievement, and even when you do get people together, they may not really present much of a challenge. Even people who only played BC are aching for Karazhan – I’m looking at you, Pike!

Another reason is that newer players, like me, haven’t seen many of these old things – I, for one, would love to go and see Karazhan, and having at a real difficulty level would make it that much more fun.

A final reason is that Blizzard put a lot of work into a lot of these places, that now see very little action – by tweaking the mobs inside, they could keep these places current and fun, for people to enjoy.

Why not?

Of course, there has to be a catch.

For one thing, it’s probably not as simple as adjusting the level of the mobs within; Dungeons would have to be rebalanced around Replenishment and the presence of Death Knights. It would take a huge amount of work to take every old instance, every old raid and bring them up to level 80 standards.

And then, after they’ve put in all this work rebalancing the place, there’s the issue of gear.

People like myself would be more than content just to do such dungeons for the sake of enjoyment – the bosses could drop 10 copper, and I’d still give it a shot.

But what about everyone else? Let’s be frank here – for lots of people, their motivation for raiding is to get the best gear, so they can be the best they can be. So these people would have no interest in doing a loot-less Raid that was just as difficult as one that did drop loot – and if a large number of people aren’t experiencing the content, then what’s the point? All that hard work Blizzard did in rebalancing the place – wasted!

On the other hand, say they did make these Heroics drop loot on par with current level content – that would make things far, far too complex! In addition to their Wrath content, people would also be progressing through Heroic old content for gear – Personally, the idea of having even four raid areas that gave equivalent levels of gear I find overwhelming.

Complexity aside, we again return to the issue of people experiencing content – all the Wrath content that most of the work should be going into could end up getting neglected in favour of rehashed old content! I think we can all agree it’s much better to focus on improving recent and creating new content.

So… as usual, a good idea that’s not so good?

Yeah, that’s kind of a theme with these posts, isn’t it?

As fun as it might be to see heroic versions of old content favourites, it’s really not practical.

But who knows – maybe there could be a compromise. Maybe just take the most popular raid from Vanilla (I dunno – MC? ZG?) and BC (Kara, surely?) and give them the CoT treatment.

Edit: The Naxxramas Experiment

As Keladria noted in the comments, Blizzard have already given this a shot – Naxxramas, the only full length raid to go live with Wrath, is an upgraded version of the original level 60 Raid. Of course, being entirely new to raiding and Naxx, it just slipped my mind that it had existed before its Wrath incarnation. A Failsey moment!

Blizzard’s justification for bringing back Naxx was that it had been a highly creative instance, then unfortunately very few people had experienced when it was new, due to the extreme difficulty. So, they revived it and made it WotLK’s entry level raid.

Opinions differ as to the relative success of this move. Personally, I liked it. Contrary to widespread “Naxx is easymode you can pug it no problem!” sentiment, it was actually still a very challenging raid for people new to it (I.E. 80% of my pugs!) but the bosses were good fun.

On the other hand, I have to admit that Naxxramas lacks a bit of “polish.” I go into Ulduar, and I’m immediately awed by just how huge the place is, and how impressive the bosses are. Naxxramas? Not quite so much. It’s cramped, but doesn’t feel even the slightest bit scary, after you get over the Thaddius screams. Apart from Sapphiron and his impressive entrance, most of the bosses are pretty dull and unassuming looking.

The key difference between Naxxramas and the Heroic Old Content idea is that Naxxramas was basically the only real raid for months after the release of the expansion, whereas Heroic old content should not take the place of new content.

In a way, I think that may have been the biggest problem with Naxxramas – it was old, we knew it was old, and we wanted something new and fresh, even if Naxx did work fairly well.

-blinks- Hmm. 2:40 AM edit is rambling. In any case, Naxx is perhaps a good excuse both for and against reviving old content. It allowed people who never got the chance to see the content to do it, but it also left us hungering for more raids.