Team Tactics

Hello, Seems to be my week for asking questions about blessings. I'm trying to wrap my head around this and I've been googling. Sifting through WoWheadomments. Looking bk a few pages here. Ian't seem to find aolusive answer. I'm leveling retribution on my sond paladin and just hit 68. I'm playing mostly solo with the casional instae group Ian manage to get into. In this situation, not raiding, no heros. Whh is overall better for a ret paladin? Improved might or Kings (full 5 points)? I'm starting to think divine strength + kings would have ne synergy but overall would I be doing better dam...

These things are coming faster than we have time to post them. :) So this is the second entry in the class Q&A, series, this one about mages. Ghostcrawler answers some interesting questions, and some uninteresting ones, and gives us some clues about the future of the mage class. For those of you who play mages鈥攁nd maybe those of you who don't鈥攔ead on! The text of the interview is after the break. Community Team: Joining us today to shed some light on the many questions we鈥檝e fielded from players within the mage community is the Lead Systems Designer for World of Warcraft, Ghostcrawler, who has enlisted the assistance of several members of our class design team to provide the most thorough answers possible. We鈥檇 like to begin by exploring the perceived role of the mage class. A lot has changed since the days when the 鈥済lass cannon鈥?description was applied. Where do mages fit in the current scope of things, and where do you see them from this point going forward? Ghostcrawler: The mage is the iconic caster -- a ranged class that wants to stay at range in order to focus on dealing damage. They can do single-target damage, area of effect damage (AoE), or crowd control. Every group should want a mage because they are reliable, powerful and flexible. Most of the mage鈥檚 spells have a cast time and a lot of the gameplay involved in improving your mage revolves around minimizing the limitations of the cast time, whether it鈥檚 lowering cast time through talents and gear, getting away from enemies so you have an opportunity to cast, or using the occasional ability to make a spell instant. While all three of the mage talent trees focus on dealing damage, we are pleased with the different feel between Fire, Frost, and Arcane. Arguably mages even have a fourth potential style now that focuses around Frostfire Bolt. We know the stylistic differences work because there are Frost mages who just love Frost and want to see it work in Player vs. Environment (PvE) and Fire mages who want to play Fire in Player vs. Player (PvP). They prefer a play style within the same class over a different play style that would be arguably more effective within a particular aspect of the game. While understandably frustrating for those players, it also points out a success in the class design. We used to call the mage the master of AoE damage, but we鈥檝e since decided that鈥檚 not a great niche for anyone. The 鈥淎oE class鈥?feels mandatory in situations where you do have large crowds of enemies to contend with, but then the AoE class gets bored when everyone else is maximizing their single-target damage on a boss. Now we try and give AoE tools to all damage-dealing specializations (specs), though we will always make extra effort to make sure mages stay good in that department. Players sometimes wonder why the mage class has seen fewer changes than some of the other classes during Lich King. We think that鈥檚 because by and large, the class works. That鈥檚 not to say there aren鈥檛 areas we can improve, but we think the mage has all the right tools to live up to its reputation. What is it that makes them unique when compared to other classes? Ghostcrawler: All of the mage specs, though less-so Arcane, focus on a single spell such as Fireball. At first glance, and especially to non-mages, this might make the class appear overly simple to play, but really you can have a lot going on. There are chance-on-hit abilities (procs) such as Hot Streak and Firestarter to contend with. Mages have some great tools, like Presence of Mind and Arcane Power, to really kick up their damage on demand. Frost PvP in particular requires a lot of finesse to get the Water Elemental鈥檚 Frost Nova at the right time for a Shatter combo. Mages are fragile though (just ask a healer), so they have to make sure they鈥檙e staying alive as well and using the tools they have to do so. Even though most of their damage comes from one spell, mages have a lot going on. The damage per second (DPS) difference between a skilled and less-skilled mage with the same gear can be pronounced. Mages still are a glass cannon when compared to priests and warlocks. While all have their armor spells, the mages also have escape mechanisms from Polymorph to Frost Nova to Iceblock to Blink. Mages should never feel 鈥渢anky鈥?in a PvP environment. The biggest risk for homogenization occurs with the mage and the warlock, but in this case we think the mage is in a good place and it鈥檚 the warlock that we want to move slightly farther away. We鈥檒l talk more about the locks soon, but we need to focus them even more on mechanics like shards and demons. Mages also retain some unique tools, such as the town portals and the (ahem) food and beverage service. Their crowd control is still among the most powerful, if not the most powerful, in the game. Community Team: A lot of initial questions and concerns we received from mages around the world were concerning itemization. In particular, a lot of the newer PvE and PvP mage or caster items seem to favor Fire spec and, to a lesser extent, Arcane. Do you feel as though mages are being forced to focus too much on critical strike rating (crit) over stacking more haste, spell power, and intellect, stats that are much more beneficial to the Frost mage? Ghostcrawler: It isn鈥檛 in our best interest as designers to have Frost want very different stats than Fire. In a world where we already must add so many new items to the game with every new raid tier / Arena season, we just don鈥檛 want to dabble too much with 鈥渢his piece is attractive to the Fire mage, but not the Frost mage.鈥?We think the value of different stats has just crept too far apart for different specs of the same class. It鈥檚 just never going to feel right when one stat is worth double or more of the value of another stat. We鈥檙e making a big pass at all of the talent trees and item stats to try and get this a little closer for everyone. Ideally you might be comparing two pieces of cloth and have to decide whether the haste or crit is more valuable to you, and not just write off everything without crit as junk. So to answer the question succinctly, yes mages are being asked to focus too much on some stats. We also understand there are some items in Naxxramas that are superior to items in Ulduar. This isn鈥檛 ideal, but is partially fallout from our decision to not have the final boss of Ulduar drop better loot than the rest of the instance, which is a design change from the previous tier. We are looking at the items on a case by case basis as the feedback...

Massively is proud to host a brand new five-part developer journal from the Fallen Earth team which will explore various levels in Fallen Earth, their storylines and how they make the player experience richer. This second one takes us through Hoffa Bunker, and was written by Wes Platt, Content Team Lead for Fallen Earth.In the rugged hills of Toro Bend, far north in the Plateau region of the Grand Canyon Province, slouches a fenced town called Trailer Park. It's comprised of big-rig trailers and cargo containers left over from before the Fall. The inhabitants are mostly castoffs who can't fit in anywhere else – and in a mad world after the apocalypse, that's saying a lot.Billy Bob Swayhill, a shopkeeper in town, talks a great deal. However, not much of it makes much sense. Beyond preaching the glory of soup, Swayhill mostly rants about the treasures waiting to be found in the Hoffa Bunker. He claims that's the final resting place of the treasures owned by Jimmy Hoffa, an assassinated President of the United States, who managed to get his hands on Al Capone's cash, the gold from Fort Knox, and Andy Warhol's soup supply.History gets lost in the translation of time for some people. The truth about the Hoffa Bunker is this: It's the GlobalTech equivalent of a giant panic room, where corporate executives fled to survive the end of the world as they knew it. Now, the sprawling subterranean complex is full of throwbacks, underdwellers, and other hostile mutants. Design began on the Hoffa Bunker in 2006, early in the content development process. T...

Ford Motor (F)Reiterates 3 STARS (hold)Analyst: Efraim Levy, CFAWe are encouraged by the preliminary acceptance by 38,000 union employees of Ford's buyout offer. Greater-than-expected employee count reduction should facilitate a faster reduction of overhead costs, including facility closings, as the automaker shrinks production capacity to reflect expected lower sales volume. Like its larger crosstown competitor General Motors (GM), the company must be careful that the elimination of more than 40% of its hourly workforce does not create costly production difficulties during the transition. Ford's recently announced financing plans should help cover buyout costs.Comcast Corp. (CMCSA)Maintains 4 STARS (buy)Analyst: Tuna Amobi, CPA and CFA Comcast names Michael Angelakis, currently a managing director at private equity firm Providence Equity Partners, as CFO. The hire is billed first to replace retiring co-CFO Lawrence Smith effective 3/28/07, then to become sole CFO upon planned retirement of John Alchin at 2007 end. While unfamiliar with Angelakis's background, we think Comcast's move signals strategic shift from acquisitions (post Adelphia) to new a skill set encompassing expertise with building portfolio of new media investments. We are not surprised by the move to consolidate CFO functions to one executive. Walt Disney Co. (DIS)Maintains 5 STARS (strong buy) Analyst: Tuna Amobi, CPA and CFAWalt Disney hikes its annual payout by 15% to $0.31 a share, payable 1/12/07 to record 12/15/06. We think Disney alluded to the possible dividend hike at its early Nov. call. We see sustainable 0.9% yield on a strong balance sheet and...

The MTV Multiplayer blog has posted an early preview of the upcoming World of Warcraft comic, as well as an interview with writer and acclaimed industry figure Walt Simonson.Writing the comic turned out be hard work, according to Simonson, whose research included reading all the novels and manga comics, spending time on websites such as WoWWiki and being in touch with Blizzard directly. Family and friends who are World of Warcraft players have also helped. "I have a friend nearby who is a Warcraft player," Simonson said. "He has played the game almost from t...

Japanese and Oriental style furniture have been people choice as the number one furniture style with each characteristics attached. In general, Japanese furniture trademark designs features simple, clean, often boxy lines. Oriental furniture has its own style with the bold painted designs which often feature reds, gold and black. Oriental furniture, typically made of rosewood, is heavily lacquered to cover skillfully painted scenes.Recently, European and North American people have switched the perspective of furniture style from the Far East origin to South East furniture style. It happened as they were looking for fresh and kick off design and the craftsmanship. This somewhat called a new trend has been started from many years ago and ongoing process. The South Asia furniture style is different...

World of Warcraft Gold Farming is easy so there is no need to envy those players in WoW who seem to find gold everywhere they look. If you are trying your best to be successful in the game, this probably catches your interest, and you find yourself trying to figure out how these players can collect so much gold in this popular role playing game. What you need is to find the secrets used by more experienced players to farm gold. It has been said that experience is the best teacher?even online in the World of Warcraft. So, why not give yourself the opportunity to learn from the experience of others and use a legitimate strategy guide? WoW Gold Farming Guides Knowing how to farm gold will ensure your success in World of Warcraft. The easiest way to get started is to purchase a legitimate WoW gold farming guide. Go ahead and set up your character, and choose what you want. No matter what you choose, you will find you need gold. WoW gold farming guides will give you the skills you need to collect as much gold as possible in a brief amount of time. You'll discover several areas with lots of gold for the picking that are virtually unknown to those who do not use a guide. While there are several good gold farming guides on the market, some suggest strategies that are considered to be "cheats" by Blizzard Entertainment. Steer clear of these, as they will put your game account in jeopardy. Look for guides that offer legitimate methods of farming gold. Valkor's Gold Making Guide is a prime example of a good gold farming guide. This gu...

Achievements Update Quote from: Thundgot (Source) In an effort to improve performance, in the next minor patch, we will be removing the ��Attributes�� section found under ��Character�� of the ��Statistics�� tab found in the Achievement system. While this could be made available again at some point in the future, there are currently no plans to do so. We apologise for any inconvenience that this may cause, and we appreciate your understanding. Retribution nerfs in the latest beta build - Part I & II Ghostcrawler made 2 posts regarding the retribution nerfs introduced by the build 9138. Quote from: Ghostcrawler (Source) Hello paladins, Sorry we didn't get a chance to pre-announce these changes before the data were pushed to the beta. I won't try to sugarcoat it -- these are nerfs. As I tried to explain before, we concluded a couple of weeks ago that Retribution was doing too much damage in PvP. We tried to nerf the burst damage through the previous changes to Divine Storm etc. Unfortunately, those changes didn't prove sufficient. Not only were paladins still destroying other classes in PvP, but we also found their PvE damage, even at level 80, was too high. Many classes were concluding they were too weak based on comparing their numbers to paladin numbers (and to be fair, hunters and in some cases mages and warriors). Here are the new changes: 1) Judgements of the Wise: Mana gained reduced from 33% to 15% of base mana. We spent many hours arriving at this number. For example, we did a lot of Patchwerk fights, watch...

wow...ne wall of text. I want to read replies not novels. I have a 70 lk. I pvp alot. I've seen lks with no busy pvping do quite well just due to the feardot mhan. Yes skill is going to play a part and I agree with you there but skill is going to play mh less a part than it would in mostlasses. The mostomplatedlass to play? Mage. Just bause you know how to hit your autopilot button faster than most lks doesn't mean you don't have an autopilot button. Ian has instas? Maybe heshe's thinking of pom...? e lae, FB, Aane Exp., Frost Nova, , DB, Frost Barrier, e Blk, Water e...

yeah sorry my abbreviations mightould have used a bit more explanation. I was just trying to see where heould possibly beoming from Poldarn. The wall of text laid out before me seemed somewhatlose to a rant and devoid of logal warlk (let alone mage) thought presses. To get bk to the OP a mage will shine in AOE grinding. In quk (but worrisome) levels and in dent, albeit, highly skillgear fused pvp. A warlk will shine in being mh easier to pk up. After you get your voidwalker and fear...people tend to get aomplex : P Deeps will be very high. Lks have a ne versatility where, unlike mages, all talent trees won't look the same in the end. I love both my lk and my mage. Iame bk to the game after a long absee and you know what the first thing I wanted to pk up was? That is where a mage will shine IMHOIn early raids like kara and magtheridon, warlks provide solidC, mageC is inexistent in there. In normal instaes, I think sheep has the upper hand. Butome on, who tually still does 5 mans after kara started dropping badges? In raids, warlks and mages are all about straight forward dps. Mages put less strain on healers bause of mana gems andan e blk when they get in trouble. Warlksan l...