We wanted to give everyone a very early heads-up that, in response to player requests, we’re developing a new service for World of Warcraft that will allow players to change their faction from Alliance to Horde or Horde to Alliance. There’s still much work to do and many details to iron out, but the basic idea is that players will be able to use the service to transform an existing character into a roughly equivalent character of the opposing faction on the same realm. Players who ended up creating and leveling up characters on the opposite factions from their friends have been asking for this type of functionality for some time, and we’re pleased to be getting closer to being able to deliver it.

As with all of the features and services we offer, we intend to incorporate the faction-change service in a way that won’t disrupt the gameplay experience on the realms, and there will be some rules involved with when and how the service can be used. The number of variables involved increases the complexity of implementing this service, but we plan to take the time needed to ensure that it lives up to expectations before officially rolling it out. We’ll go into much more detail on all of this here at http://www.WorldofWarcraft.com as development progresses. In the meantime, we wanted to let you know that because this type of functionality requires extensive internal testing well in advance of release, you may be seeing bits and pieces of the service in the test builds we use for the public test realms moving forward.

After playing this game on and off, from hardcore to casual and back full circle, I’ve come to notice trends and get a feel for where things are at. I want to talk about where things are right now, and what future the game has from my perspective.

New MMOs, Waiting for the WoW Killer?

With a lot of new mmo’s coming up, a lot of people seem to be waiting for the next “wow killer”; the next big replacement. At the moment, although a lot of people see a lot of potential in Aion, I don’t think that will be a game that can really compete in the same market as WoW. The new final fantasy mmo and TOR both have potential, but I think they will aim at a different market, and they are both some time away.   It really says something about blizzard’s strength in the mmo market when the next game I see really ending wow’s reign likely being Diablo 3. Even though it’s not really an mmo, I think it captures the same player base that WoW currently holds, and has the production value and polish that WoW players have come to expect.

Why the Current Slump?

So where does that leave WoW? I think it’s pretty clear that right now, things are in a slump. When I say slump I’m reffering to general interest for endgame players. It’s no surprise as these slumps to happen fairly frequently, at least once a year. Think back to the period in BC before 3.0 landed, or even when it did. With Sunwell cleared and the gear being moot due to the looming expansion, a lot of people took a break and lost interest. Similar slumps happened in the month or so before Ulduar, in the time directly before BC, and generally every time that nothing seemed new.

What else is currently causing this slump in interest? Well first off, WOTLK PvP leaves a lot to be desired. Although it seems to be gradually finding some balance, and hopefully the resilience and other pvp changes of 3.2, WOTLK pvp is far too centered around 3v3 arena. A lot of people backed Blizzard when they made the decision to focus on arena, and more specifically 3s, but the problem here lies in that how often can you 3v3? How often does every team member have time to play?

The potential of each player as an individual has just gradually plummeted since WoW’s release, and although people are quick to say “this is an mmo, you should need others to enjoy it”, I think the days in which your potential as a solo player was greater gave a lot more motivation to spend time playing and building your character. Why build perfect sets when the majority of the result of PvP comes from the actions and decisions of the people you play with?

Another problem (read more…)

Here are the new pve rogue armor sets for 3.2

Heroic 25

Normal 25

Normal 10

Here are the set bonuses:

• Rogue T9 2P Bonus (Rupture) (Class: Rogue) — Your Rupture ability has a chance each time it deals damage to reduce the cost of your next ability by 40 energy.
• Rogue T9 4P Bonus (Hemorrhage, Sinister Strike, Backstab, and Mutilate) (Class: Rogue) — Increases the critical strike chance of your Hemorrhage, Sinister Strike, Backstab, and Mutilate abilities by 5%.

Clearly they have PvE in mind with these sets, and the set bonuses are clear on that, simply because how often do you keep a steady rupture rotation in pvp. The 4 piece is nice all around, simple but good, especially as mut with both hands gaining 5 percent crit on a mutilate.

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The full patch notes can be found here.

The Resilience Changes

Resilience: No longer reduces the amount of damage done by damage over time spells, but instead reduces the amount of all damage done by players by the same proportion. The other effects of resilience (reducing critical chance, critical damage and mana drain effects) have not changed.

Well this is easily the biggest PvP change in this expansion thus far. I see what Blizzard is trying to do here. Their idea is that players do not have enough survivability in arena, people get bursted too easily. Unfortunately, I feel their solution is mediocre at  best, and will be greatly detrimental to rogues in their current state. Here’s why.

The problem with WOTLK isn’t just damage, its also healing burst. One insanely fast heal (that you have to guess to interrupt) already heals way too hard. On good healers, you have to guess if the healer is faking or not at this stage of wow to try to get an interrupt on the vast majority of heals, and penance is a complete guess because even if they fake it they can use two huge ticks for a full health bar. One heal should not bring a target to full every single time it goes off, especially when they have become so easy to get off. Nerfing damage without nerfing this will have a huge effect on the game’s structure and balance.

This resilience change is great in that it solves the problem of damage in PvP. Yes, it was too high, and this will probably put damage on a full resil target right about where it should be. But why not instead adjust stamina levels by 10-15 percent rather than resilience? Buffing resilience buffs healers and classes that can last an extremely long time (warriors, warlocks) and don’t rely on a quick slurry of burst and cooldowns. This change is going to see healing dominate this game , there will be no more double dps success (and I know this is already a non-factor but triple dps will be completely gone as well). Strong healing and survivability goes best with classes that last like warriors and support dps that never goes oom like warlocks or dks. Rogues are the MS class that will struggle the most with these changes because at the moment we have the least longevity as fights go longer when compared against the other ms classes.

We considered the idea that resilience acts like a debuff for heals, but we’re not happy with what that might do to the game. You’d be in a situaiton where sometimes you might not want extra resilience since it lowers your healing. Resilience is already something of a trade-off since it often comes at the expense of other stats (though hopfully less after these changes).

There is a possibility that if fights go on for too long that dps casters may run OOM more than they should. That is something we may have to adjust, but we don’t think it’s simple to math out what kind of buff casters should be given at the moment. Note that the intent is not to turn every Arena match into a 20 minute slog. The intent is to have fewer 30 second matches.

I do see some people saying that healers were already in god mode and this will only buff them. Just realize that player perceptions or intentions are different. For one person, a healer in a 2 vs. 2 shouldn’t be able to keep their partner up alone. For another, having a 1 healer, 4 dps team in a 5 should be perfectly viable.

So what I take from that response is that they are aware that healers are already incredibly strong and are only going to get stronger. I don’t know how to respond to this specifically but it is bad news for rogues as they stand at the moment. Adjusting stamina would have been a much, MUCH more balanced and obvious statistic to buff to balance the game rather than resilience. At least we can say blizz is aware of the problems and has the right goal in mind, but where are these 30 second games they’re talking about? In 3s, yes things are slightly too bursty but games aren’t that fast. I really hope that their vision for arena is some kind of balance where people will die without ooming the opposition.

Shadowdance Change

Shadow Dance: Cooldown reduced to 1 minute. Now lasts 6 seconds, down from 10 seconds.

This change follows the sentiment of trying to make the games longer. Shadowdance, as it stands, is only good for its (read more…)

Warcraftmovies Link

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Mostly rogue+mage / rogue+mage+priest arena, a few duels. Most of the 2v2 and 3v3 recorded around 2500. Teammates are Massive and Aeias.

Music

Pryda – Ironman
Pryda vs Deadmau5 – Armed Contact
Manilla Rising – Beyond the Stars
Buckethead – Jordan
Armin van Buuren Feat. Aquanuts – Deep Sea
Oceanlab - Satellite (Above & Beyond Remix)

For more on the music and a playlist I put together – click here

Rogue Mage Strategy Links:

Druid + Plate – click here

Healer+ Ret Pally – click here

Spec

I play the standard mutilate prep, which can be found on our spec page here.

Gear

I use as much PvE gear as possible (I think 70 resil) for 2v2. I use about 500 resil, 3600 ap 31 crit for 3s. I go max resil for 5s (I have about 850). If you want to know why I use PvE gear here is why.

Edited using Sony Vegas 8.0 and Fraps.

If you have questions, I’m not answering in game tells. Send me an email at feedback@roguerogue.com, and I will get back to you when I can (I’ll be out of town for a couple of days so don’t worry if I don’t answer right away).

Thanks as always for watching.