The Art of War(craft Class Design) and an Open Letter

So Warlords has been out for a while. I've levelled to 100, done some garrison shenanigans, some PvP, some PvE, and I'm still left with a bitter taste in my mouth. This is mainly down to one thing.

Ignorance.

The situation is this:

• Arms Warriors are actually the most braindead class in the game with no procs, no engaging aspects to the spec, and mindless AoE burst where you just stack all your talented cooldowns.
• Fury Warriors are in the early-xpac woes of having not enough crit from their gear to keep them competitive with pretty much most DPS classes. Not to mention they're also a clusterfuck and a spamfest in order to come close to doing respectable dps, which is stretching it.
• Gladiator Stance has been a tremendous success. If you count "success" as being a better DPS than the two actual DPS specs for Warrior, taking less damage and requiring less gear to do so. To be honest the only downsides to it that I notice constantly are that it doesn't have Rallying Cry or a Mortal Wounds debuff.

So where do I stand on this entire mountain of WTF?

Right at the top, wondering what on earth the Developers are doing to my class.

Normally, I try my hardest to keep a cool head and look at changes objectively, as any sensible game designer should, and try and see how they fit into the overall picture. That of course requires changes to be made, of which there are none to see for the despicable state of Arms and Fury's spec dynamic, if you can even call it a dynamic in the case of Arms. In all my time playing Warrior (Since 4.2, in case you were wondering), I've never seen such an outcry of "Blizzard, what are you doing?" until Warlords of Draenor rolled around.

Warriors were taken from their pedastal at the end of Mists of Pandaria and told that they had lived enough life of luxury and needed to go back to their roots (pun intended on multiple levels). The issue here is that nobody asked for change. What's funnier is that Celestalon himself said that Fury only needed "a bit of change".

So, I'd like to end this very short article with a request and a fairly open letter:

Dear Blizzard, and more specifically the World of Warcraft Class Design Team.

Listen to the Warrior community. Nobody wanted drastic change and you forced it on us. Nobody wanted to return to Vanilla and you forced it on us. Nobody wanted the eerie silence that we received during Alpha and Beta testing, but we got it.

Every single Warrior plays Warrior for a reason. Because it's fun? Because it looks cool? It doesn't matter.

What matters is that you don't become the reason that they stop playing Warrior.

This class has endured change after change after change from all those years ago until today, and never before has there been an outcry this large for you to change it. While we might scream, shout, and stamp our feet, understand that we just want the best for our class, just like you do.

Work with us, not against us.

You know where we are when you want to talk.

Yours sincerely,

Exhil

An Overdue Farewell - D.N.R

It's 23:27 on the 14th of October 2014. In about half an hour the servers are going to start going down in Europe to apply the 6.0.2 prepatch for Warlords of Draenor. I'm sat here with a nice glass of Disaronno, chilling to some music and sat staring at this amazing view:

Mists of Pandaria has been full of ups and downs, from the fiasco of Taste for Blood in 5.0, to the stale period inbetween, and then the peak of the expansion and the reign of Fury Warriors in 5.4. I've made friends, hopped servers, peaked out in terms of my performance as a Warrior and still not satisfied. This is the first time I've felt this way since Serpentshrine Cavern, where I absolutely trashed everyone on Kalithress somehow. I've reached a point in my WoW "career" where I can actually just sit and enjoy the game for what it is, rather than having to constantly improve and improve and improve to keep up with others. This is the first time I've been able to truly enjoy this game since I was 14 years old.

World of Warcraft is just that, a world. It's filled with people you'd never thought you'd meet, it's full of people you wished you'd never met, and everyone inbetween. It's full of memories, of fun times, of dark times, of raid end times. I did this a while back but I feel that it needs to be done again because of reasons.

To Contingency on Tarren Mill EU - I joined this guild on July 18th as a Trial in a spot that was never guaranteed and under a bit more scrutiny than most due to the state of my logs. Apparently I passed. I've had some awesome times with you guys and I hope that real life doesn't get in the way so that I can continue to play with you guys in Warlords of Draenor.

To my old friends on Argent Dawn - You're all crazy, sort your server prices out. Team Raft need to carry you back to some form of glory.

To HeroicStrike.Org - You nutcases, you left me out of all the fun. Don't do that shit again.

To the Devs - Part of me is still holding out that you've got an ace up your sleeve. Even if that ace is a redesign for expansion 6, make sure to bring it out someday.

I feel a special mention should go out to Archimtiros, because I very much doubt that I wouldn't be even half the Warrior I am today without the desire to kick his ass on ranks one day. See you in the pit.

It's now 23:48, the servers are going down in 12 minutes, I doubt very many people will miss MoP, but it will always have a place in my heart as the place where I fell in love with my Warrior and when I started writing this blog.

That's it. Time of death, 23:51, October 14th, 2014. Patient gave the order to not resuscitate in the event of death. Inform the family.
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You didn't think a Doctor quits just because one patient dies, did you?

Nurse, bring in my next patient.

The Weapons Master(y)

Since my last article, I've had a few messages about "what I honestly thought" about the Warrior changes, primarily due to the fact that I go from periods of explosive rage on the MMO-Champion Forums or Twitter to being calm when I write here. I'd just like to take a minute to say that to say that the most accurate version of what I feel about a change usually gets documented here. Most of the time when I go full-out ragemode on something, it's because the initial reaction to a change is pretty bad, but then after about 10-20 minutes I've had enough time to weigh up all sides of the change and post something somewhat respectable here.

Today's plight is unfortunately just that I'm tired. I'm tired of asking, in some cases begging, that the Developers take feedback and use it appropriately. The case in point is the new Mastery for Arms Warrior, where it just increases the damage of your abilities by X%. There were two things that were wrong with this Mastery.

1) It wasn't good enough to be an even remotely valuable stat. It was beaten by Crit, Multistrike and Haste at every turn.

2) It doesn't scale with any AoE we do, at all.

Tackling Issue #1 isn't just a case of "Throw numbers at it 'til they like it" like Windwalkers got with Fists of Fury, it needs to actually be a stat that you look at and go "That's good". And you should want to. Blizzard clearly want the Spec Blurb to match your perception of the spec (See: Fury Warrior) and Arms is supposedly "A battle-hardened master of two-handed weapons" so you should look at mastery and the little RP box inside your head should go "I'm a weapon master, I should value Mastery over anything else". The issue of this of course is that Blizzard has been told numerous times and instead of tinkering with individual values and making sure they added the right amount of flavour/damage to it, they just buffed it by 40% and called it a day. Except this doesn't solve the problem because Crit is still better.

Amusingly, solving Issue #2 might indirectly solve Issue #1. Nerf Whirlwind appropriately (it's already hitting 40% harder than it's meant to) and then make it scale with Mastery. The simple fact that our main AoE ability doesn't scale with our supposed "best stat" is mind-boggling. To me, something is the best stat if it makes everything do more damage overall, regardless of whether that more damage is obvious or not (Haste Breakpoints and Colossus Smash spring to mind) Mastery right now makes Colossus Smash, Mortal Strike, and Execute do Mastery% more damage. Pretty unintuitive, though you can see that as "Oh it makes me do more damage, sweet!" Except that on AoE, it seems like we're balanced around obviously having Ravager and Dragon Roar and Whirlwind Spam (I'm not even going to count Bladestorm here as it's so horribly tuned currently). Obviously if they make Whirlwind scale with Mastery, our AoE in the next raid tier is probably going to dwarf anyone else's.

It's a double-edged sword. Don't change the Mastery and it stays worse than Crit and they may as well make our Attunement Passive into 5% Crit rather than 5% Mastery. Change the Mastery to make it scale with WW and watch as our AoE slowly spirals out of control, in which case it gets nerfed 6 months down the line.

I'd love to say that one solution is better than the other, but I can't. Each has their ups and downs, and for every thing that you fix, two more are almost guaranteed to break. I guess all I can do is hope that Warriors get a redesign for either 6.1 or the next expansion, so that we finally get the treatment we deserve after this sham of a Beta test.

Doctor's Report: Anger Management

Okay so I'll get it off my chest right now. I'm angry. And no this post won't be about the talent Anger Management, it's going to be about me.

I've been playing Warrior full-time since (roughly) 4.2, and I've been playing DPS full-time since 5.3, and this is the first change I've had to deal with that has actually infuriated me

Click to zoom!

So yea, Colossus Smash is going to peace out and stick to Arms. Now some of you may be wondering why this has made me mad, and I'll be happy to explain because it's probably angering me in a way you wouldn't think of. I'm not mad because it's gone, I'm mad because nothing is replacing it.

Fury has always had this concept of being a Berserker that lets his Rage out in bursts, annihilating a target's defenses and then giving him both barrels while he's vulnerable, except in Warlords, that idea is gone in favour of "Oh you're just furious, just keep hitting him with whatever you have handy". Even ignoring the actual concept of the class, Colossus Smash was the only serious mechanic the spec had in it's rotation, obviously it has Enrage and Raging Blow to track, but Colossus Smash was the mechanic that kept you on your toes, always thinking about your RB charges, your Enrage, your BT cooldown, your Rage levels, your cooldowns, your trinkets. It was the core spec mechanic, and now it's gone.

I really hope that Blizzard realises that the "bandaids" that they were going to apply in small changes are not going to help this class ascend to it's former glory. Now, if you want a spec that rewards correct play and correct use of it's complexity, you're forced to play Gladiator, which means you lose out on Rallying Cry and situational use of Defensive Stance, making you and your raid worse off as a result.

Right now, what the class definitely needs is an overhaul, a complete redesign from the ground up, and I think I'll be one in a very long line of people willing to fly/walk/drive to Irvine to help Blizzard redesign one of the most iconic classes of any RPG universe every created.

For the time being, looks like Gladiator is the only way forward, and I don't want to be this harsh, but I'm sincerely hoping they don't fuck that up as well. 

Doctor's Report: Mr A. Warrior

So, I decided to do another Doctor's Report, this time looking into a class, rather than ongoing surgery on a boss, a mechanic style, or something similar, as I main a Warrior, I'll use this as a preface to say that this might be similar to some other posts by Stoic over at Stoic But Not Silent or by Archimtiros over at SentryTotem.com, but I like to provide a little bit of a critical overview of the situation so that people are encouraged to think up their own suggestions.

Without further ado: Nurse, scalpel please.

THE ANATOMY OF A WARRIOR

Warriors like big weapons and big armour and generally things being big and then having the Warrior chop them into reasonable sized pieces for pansy wizards to deal with. That's more or less the history of every RPG Warrior class ever. They jump in, kill everything, jump out. With WoW there's more facets to this killing machine as you've got Protection, Arms and Fury. The Guardian, Weaponmaster, and Frothing Berserker respectively.

So with each spec, comes a certain identity. Protection Warriors specialize in big shields, heavy armour, and are all about just being a human (or Orc... or Gnome if you're that way inclined) tank. Soaking up all the damage and smashing stuff in the face as all Warriors do. Arms Warriors are the masters of two-handed weaponry, carving man and monster into nice neat piles with devastating attacks. Fury is the rabid wolf, choosing to sacrifice personal safety to guarantee that if something will lose one limb, it'll lose them all, carving it's way through armour like a hot knife through butter.

The issue here is that of course, these are -my- visualisations of the specs. Much like how you might have your own image of a Fury or Arms Warrior, I have mine, and the Devs have theirs. So lets look at what we'll have to deal with in this unexplored land of Draenor.

DOC, JUST TELL ME. IS IT BAD?

Naturally, many will dislike the changes because nobody really likes change. When you get used to something, it becomes a difficult task to adapt to a new way of doing it. I'm guilty of this myself. I was well prepared for a "slow and boring" Arms Warrior rotation on Beta, but threw myself into it thinking it couldn't be that bad, and while I'm used to the slowed down pace now, it was a definite shock at first, especially when my fingers are twitching because they need to be pressing buttons after a year of playing Fury in MoP.

But it's just that, it's a need to be pressing buttons. Nobody wants to play a game where they only press one button every few seconds, it would get boring too much. So we need to think about what we could do to it to make it better, while still cutting down a lot of the buttons we don't need.

These are my bars currently on live (I know, not using ElvUI, how could I?!) and the square box is where I have Shift Modifiers to swap the first 3 abilities to Battle, Defensive and Berserker Stance respectively, and the Taunt swaps to Spell Reflect. Arguments could be made to say "Oh you don't need to bind Int Shout or Disarm, and you can click potions from your bags" etc etc, but my point is that this is what I use and it functions perfectly. I understand that stackable defensive CDs need to disappear to prevent someone going from perfectly killable to invulnerable for 8 seconds, so Shield Wall disappears and DbtS gets buffed. Banner and Reck are merged and Battle/Commanding Shout are turned into buffs so they can get shifted to a second action bar, and of course our beloved Heroic Strike is gone too.

Some of this ability culling makes sense, and in other cases it's a case of "Why was that removed? It was fine". What you need to do is put yourself in the mind of the developers and ask if it's fine now, and is it fine in Warlords, where what we're basically experiencing is Vanilla anew.

While there's arguments for both sides, let's look at some of the positives of this triple-actionbar-bypass surgery.

W-WILL I MAKE IT THROUGH THE NIGHT?

Of course you will, and with some changes that you might find refreshing.

First off, Recklessness and Skull Banner are merged now, but only for you. There's no need to have to min-max when you drop SB for maximum raid DPS benefit, you can just go nuts with CDs whenever you want.

Secondly, Battle Shout and Commanding Shout are buffs. While many liked the on-demand rage during the (small periods of) downtime, I personally would have rather been hitting buttons. Not sad to see it go, though I'd like to know why they weren't merged into one button like what happened with Monks' Legacy of the Emperor/White Tiger buffs.

Thirdly, Demo Banner is gone. Now while many will immediately say "Demo Banner was great, we could intervene to it and it was another raid cooldown and...and...and..." I really don't care because it was an extra we got that won't be needed in Warlords. Raid utility is being cut down and reassigned across the board and we already have (in my opinion) the strongest raid utility cooldown with Rallying Cry, so I'm not going to cry about losing a 10% damage reduction CD.

Finally, while many are opposed to the "I have to learn my class all over again" scenario that happens to crop up with Warriors, I'm actually looking forward to it. Consider it a Leaderboard Reset if you will. All of the top players, middle players and bottom players now get a fresh chance at the class and get to pick a spec they might not play in Mists and run with it. World of Warcraft has been out for 10 years, if you've not played Warrior yet, you might find that despite a lot of the negative feedback, you'll like the class after all.

POST-OPERATION RECOMMENDATIONS

Firstly, make sure to drink plenty of water to prevent overheating. Secondly, give the game a chance. While you may not agree with what the Devs want for the game, the only way for the game to advance forward and be better than what it was is for the Devs and the Community to communicate. Everyone is guilty of ranting when they see a change they deem ridiculous, including myself, but when you see something that looks out of place, take a step back and think about why the change was made, and if you can't figure out why, ask. Watcher, Celestalon, Holinka et al are all on twitter and can be asked basically any question pertinent to design of classes. Granted you may not get a response, but better to ask and get a late response than to never ask and to never find out.

That said, the same principle needs to be understood by the Devs themselves. Nobody wants to be playing a game that isn't fun. When large groups of players see a change and all come to the same conclusion and react the same way, quite often that reaction is justified. The players get given the opportunity to interact and help pave the future of WoW by the Devs. That means both parties are responsible for how the game turns out.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my readers for sticking around, this blog started off as a rant page for stupid changes and it's matured somewhat over the year and a half or so that I've had it, and I'd like to think it's changed for the better. Nearly 3000 views and 37 posts later (make this 38), CSTK has come a long way. Though with the release of Warlords of Draenor, I'll probably split my time equally between Warrior and Windwalker, meaning some of these posts will be relevant to one, the other, or just melee as a whole.

Warlords of Draenor will mark the 10th year of World of Warcraft's existence, 10 years of developing the community, the game, it's creators, it's haters and it's lovers. 10 years of my life have been spent playing this amazing game, and I'd like to think it's worth something. If you're like me, take the new expansion with a pinch of salt and dive in. Don't pretend it's like Mists of Pandaria for a second. Pretend that you've never played WoW before and just play. Enjoy yourself.

Rhaid cropian cyn cerdded.*

Exhil.


[* - Learn to crawl before you start walking]

Warlords of Draenor Beta: First Look

So I finally got access to the beta thanks to an awesome friend of mine, and I decided to get some first-hand experience with what the Warrior has become.

Arms

So I was dreading this and yet was excited for it. I'm a massive lover of Arms, the aesthetic, the actual playstyle, the whole shabang. So I just bound everything to where it usually is and already noticed that I was using 2/3 the buttons I usually have bound. Shouldn't complain because I knew that was coming, but it was still a shock to get used to while running around killing wolves for 10 minutes getting used to the standard UI again.

It's good. And when I say good don't think "OMG Exhil! Arms is terrible and slow and you spend time doing nothing, you're bad OMG!". I've had some time to come to terms with the fact that the Devs have a vision for Arms and nothing the players can or will say will change that, so I tried to go into the spec pretty open-minded.

Rend isn't that bad, strange having back after not having it for two years, but I'll live.

Mortal Strike consuming rage doesn't bother me considering it hits pretty damn hard.

Colossus Smash consuming rage doesn't bother me considering it hits like a truck.

In fact, the only thing I've had to get used to was pressing Whirlwind as a filler instead of Slam, and that was pretty easy to do. The game, to me at least, does feel better. Actions are more responsive, and at least now it does feel like Mortal Strike is an actual attack, rather than just something I press on cooldown.

If I rate live Arms as a 6/10, I'd give this an 8/10, though could still be improved upon a lot.

Fury

So basically Fury was mutilated compared to live and it just feels horrible. Spamming Bloodthirst is the only playstyle that's even legitimate due to the massive nerfs to Bloodthirst's crit chance at higher levels and slight buffs at lower levels of gear. Due to this playstyle, it literally doesn't matter if you don't proc Enrage, because you can just press Bloodthirst again and the spec does actually turn into a slot machine of annoyance. Wild Strike is still the ability that nobody wants to press, still sounds like crap, and currently (I might be slightly off with this one so I'll correct if neccessary) is actually doing less DPR than Whirlwind.

So that's both DPS specs using Whirlwind as a filler/rage dump. Yay.

In other news, Enrage lasts 8 seconds and Colossus Smash is extended by Raging Blow! But that doesn't matter seen as Raging Blow only costs 10 rage so you still rage cap while using it because Wild Strike is trash and literally does nothing besides dump a lot of rage at once. BUT OH WAIT it doesn't do that all the time because the spec has a proc which makes your rage-dumping ability completely free. Yes. Marvellous. Lets completely ignore this bad design and just go into a numbers tuning pass where we'll just throw damage onto the spec until people want to play it.

Awesome, thanks.

Live Fury I'd actually say is a very solid 9, and a 10/10 in some cases, in which case, I'd give beta Fury a 4/10.

All in all I'm really not impressed with either of these specs. Blizzard in the past has been very open to feedback in regards to whether something is bad design or not, even having some of the best Warlocks in the world help them redesign Warlocks when they got a rework. This time around it feels like they just wanted to have their way with Warriors and disregard any feedback that was constructive, and even feedback that might not have been constructive, but was still relevant. Many of the more prominent Warrior Theorycrafters, Forum-Posters, and some of the best players in the world have all been more-or-less ignored by the class designers, and in some cases have even been told "give it a chance, you'll like it".

They've then tried it, disliked it, and still been ignored anyway.

Warlords of Draenor has so many aspects to it that could very well make it the best expansion we've seen since (in my opinion) Burning Crusade, and yet the biggest letdown is how much the Devs are actually listening to the people who play their game.

If anyone from Blizzard reads this, I'd like to hope that I've opened your eyes. Warriors are sad that we have to deal with this gnarled up corpse of a class that we've enjoyed for so many years now. I just hope that we'll see some intensive care to deal with the burns we've received during Alpha and Beta testing.

Until then, I guess I'll just get back to gearing my Windwalker, because that's so much more fun to play compared to Arms and Fury on Beta.

10 Years, 10 Questions.

So, it's very rare for me to write a post that's not explicitly about Warriors in some way, shape or form, however I've had the distinct pleasure of talking with a certain fairy godmother of the community that many of you may know by the name AlternativeChat. I had read her blog a few times during some of my research for articles with PVP Live, and even had the honour of trying to reformat one of her posts to fit our site (as I recall it was about Pet Battles having more PvP options available).

So without further adieu, I give you my 10 Years and 10 Questions. A little bit of background on the idiot that writes this blog.
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1. Why did you start playing Warcraft?

I started playing Warcraft back in Vanilla Beta, a friend of mine from school had been a massive Warcraft 3 fan and he mentioned that his brother had access to the beta for "World of Warcraft" and I was immediately drooling. I was so used to games like Warcraft 3, Starcraft, Pharoah, that a different genre of game interesting me was a new experience. I went around to his house one evening and we prodded his brother until he gave us a mess around on his Beta account and I was immediately in thrall of this game. I'd never experienced anything like it, and I think even back then I had a feeling that I'd be playing this game for a long time.

My sub history has been a bit of a rollercoaster, as I was unsubbed for a lot of Wrath of the Lich King in order to actually focus on school, but I've been actively playing for about 8 years, give or take a few months.

2. What was the first ever character you rolled?

The first character I ever rolled was actually a Night Elf Warrior though I played it until level 10 or so then realised I didn't actually like it at the time and opted to try something different, an Orc Warlock, which ended up being my main from the start of the game until the first time I was forced to quit.

3. Which factors determined your faction choice in game?

Factions never really bothered me that much originally, it was just a case of Red vs Blue and I was used to that anyway, I was more interested in the races themselves. Being a bit of a Dungeons and Dragons nerd Night Elves had that Dark Elf grim, magical edge to their appearance and I liked that about them. Horde however just ended up being the best fit in terms of symbolic aesthetic attraction (try saying that with your mouth full).

4. What has been your most memorable moment in Warcraft and why?

Oddly enough it was going through Ashenvale on that very Orc Warlock that I mentioned. I was just wandering around exploring when I was a higher level and noticed a place that I had never seen before with a load of demons there. I saw this big clickable rock and went for a look and read the inscription on Grom's grave. 

Now, bearing in mind Orcs were my favourite race in Warcraft 3, I loved the story, the look, the angst but drive for salvation feel around them, so the cutscene where Grom sacrificed himself to try and get rid of his own Blood Curse and then in his last seconds finding out that he's actually saved everyone just by being who he is, was probably the most emotional I've ever been in a video game. 
Looking back, I think I cried at that inscription.

"Here lies Grommash Hellscream, Chieftain of the Warsong Clan.

In many ways, the curse of our people began and ended with Grom. His name meant "Giant's Heart" in our ancient tongue. He earned that name a hundred-fold as he stood alone before the demon Mannoroth - and won our freedom with his blood.

Lok'Tar Ogar, Big Brother, may the Warsong never fade.
- Thrall, Warchief of the Horde"

5. What is your favourite aspect of the game and has this always been the case?

My favourite aspect of the game is and will always be raiding. There's something just so cool about being the guy that goes and slays big monsters for a living. A list of my other favourite games includes Monster Hunter and Darksiders in first and second place respectively. I sense a pattern here.

6. Do you have an area in game that you always return to?

Links back to question 3. At the back end of Orgrimmar there's a very tall cliff with almost a circular area on top of it that overlooks Orgrimmar on one side and Demon Fall Canyon on the other. If I'm lurking in Orgrimmar waiting for something, I'll be there.

7. How long have you /played and has that been continuous?

On my Main at the moment, my Warrior:

Total time played: 190 days, 7 hours, 45 minutes, 32 seconds

Time played this level: 148 days, 15 hours, 28 minutes, 16 seconds


I have only had this character since 4.2, hence the ridiculous amount of time spent at level 90. Honestly I think it'll be the only character I actually care for as I no longer have my original Warlock.

8. Admit it: do you read quest text or not?

I do if it's something I have an interest in, I'll probably read a lot of it in Warlords of Draenor as it's the core of my love for Warcraft. Orcish History. Mmmmmmmm.

[Drooling Intensifies]

9. Are there any regrets from your time in game?

My single regret is deleting my only two characters on my account when I quit the game near the end of Burning Crusade. I had too many memories on those characters that I'll never get back now and I kick myself for it every day.

10. What effect has Warcraft had on your life outside gaming?

It enabled me to get my position in PVP Live, made me meet some amazing people, and have some of the most hilarious moments of my life so far.

I honestly don't know where I would be if not for this amazing game. As much as I might rag on at the Developers for design decisions, they've still made the game that I've been playing for close to half my life, and for that they deserve my respect.

The Current State of Warriors: Part 2 - Arms

Warning: Lots of opinion beyond this point, please ensure your pinch of salt is ready for use. Also, I'm writing this assuming that the reader (that is, you) know relevant details that I may mention.
Continuing on from yesterday, I'd like to go into Arms Warriors on Beta, and why Gastropods are petitioning Blizzard to have their speed reduced to compensate. Arms in Mists has been a bit of a rollercoaster, from the Taste for Blood fiasco in 5.0, to Slam being a truck with spikes on in PvP in 5.4, to the kind of "meh" period in the middle where everyone played Fury anyway.

Arms in Warlords is a completely different beast. Gone are the multitudes of attacks from Opportunity Strikes, fast Overpowers and Deep Wounds ticking all the while. Gone are the days of proccing multiple CS resets and being able to have Colossus Smash rolling for an entire Bloodlust. Instead, you have Mortal Strike, Colossus Smash, Rend and Whirlwind. Riveting isn't it?

Obviously there's talents and whatnot to fill this out but is that what Warriors have been reduced to now? Talents are meant to be a cool extra, something that provides some flavour or adds something to your rotation. They shouldn't be there to either:

A) Turn your rotation from boring to engaging.
B) Add spells to your rotation so that you actually have something to press when you play like trash and waste resources.
C) Be a bandaid fix to a core class issue.

Unfortunately, this is the current deal with the Level 45 Talents for Arms in Warlords of Draenor. Lets go a bit into detail here.

Taste For Blood - Gives you 3 Rage per tick of Rend. Does what it says on the tin, amazingly boring, ensures that you can press Whirlwind a bit more than you were before. Makes Rend rage neutral after 9-12 seconds of being on the target and generates you 8 Rage total if it runs it's full duration.

Sudden Death - Lets you Execute people above 20% health. This was recently nerfed so that it doesn't consume any extra rage to deal damage, meaning it's a 120% WDmg attack. It's 1/3rd of a Mortal Strike for free, very meh.

Slam - The new Slam is Arcane Blast for Warriors except the buff is 2 seconds long which means you have to keep Slamming to maintain the buff, as of yet Theorycrafters haven't worked out if it's worth keeping the aura or just using a /cancelaura macro on Slam to make sure it never hits 2 stacks. Fantastic, already working against the idea of the talent itself to make it good.

This is a major issue, and one that again, the developers seem to either be ignoring or unable to process why the players don't like these talents. I understand that they're trying to cut the game right back and then add flavour to it, but replacing a utility tier of talents for these is amazingly bad. We lost an AoE snare (Fury happens to keep Piercing Howl for some reason) an AoE Root, and an AoE Interrupt in favor of 3 pretty bad talents.

I've seen the idea thrown around somewhere (if it was you, let me know and I'll edit the article) that these talents should actually all just be baked into Arms and the utility tree brought back, and honestly I think that would be a very good idea. No class should have utility options removed in order to make room for bandaid fixes that should have been dealt with in the initial stages of a class rework. If they wanted to rework Warriors a la Warlocks then they should have contacted a few prominent Warriors for each spec and worked with them to redesign each spec. Not this half-assed monstrosity that now Warriors are going to have to deal with until either:

A) An actual rework arrives.
B) We get bandaided throughout all of the next Expansion.

I hope that someone at Blizzard gets a copy of these two blogs that I've written from Warriors because while I normally don't like to be rude to people who are doing things for me, I honestly don't have a bloody clue what they were thinking with these Warrior changes. To reiterate from the last blog, Warriors did not need sweeping changes. They needed small QoL changes and then they'd be fine. They spent a lot of Mists working on getting Arms to a state where it was enjoyable, competitive and not overpowered, and while they might not have gotten there, the time spent working on the spec for Warlords could have done that.

Here's a list of stuff I would have changed, had I been in the Developer's Chair:

1) Visualize what I wanted Arms to be - Here I agree with the Devs, Arms should be this tactical master of weapons that carves his way through enemies with big meaty hits from a two-handed weapon.
2) Ask myself what doesn't fit this vision - That would be the 1.0s GCD Overpower which hits like a noodle, and the Mastery.
3) Implement any potential changes necessary to evolve the old spec, cut down on button bloat and still fit the vision - Merge Slam and Overpower into one button, bring back Sudden Death Executes as baseline, change the Mastery to increase damage of Overpower, Mortal Strike, Execute and Sweeping Strikes. Make Deep Wounds only apply on Mortal Strike Critical Hits, remove Enrage from Arms. Tune accordingly post-change.

These changes would then, in theory, remove 1 button (slam), add a bit more flavour to the spec with Sudden Death proccing Execute rather than Colossus Smash, which then adds value to CS, the Execute proc, and your Rage management. I haven't even done anything to the talents, and I think that this would play better than what Arms is currently Beta.

I want to say more about something but unfortunately I'm drawing a blank. Something something no beta something something.

Again, I'll take any feedback that anyone offers about my articles, you can contact me in-game via BattleTag (Exhil#2759) on Twitter @ExhilMD or by email at exhilmd@gmail.com. Alternatively, talk because I like talking about Warriors and/or I don't bite. I'm bad at Feral.

The Current State of Warriors: Part 1 - Fury

Warning: Lots of opinion beyond this point, please ensure your pinch of salt is ready for use. Also, I'm writing this assuming that the reader (that is, you) know relevant details that I may mention.

So, Warriors.

Warriors are in a particularly messed up state right now on Beta, and that's fact, rather than opinion. Fury is in a gnarled, twisted imitation of what it was purely by chance, and Arms is amazingly boring with little to no depth whatsoever, just press buttons if you have Rage and they're off cooldown. Fantastic gameplay, if you like either carpal tunnel or naps while raiding.

I don't have access currently, and I'm honestly not even sure if that's a bad thing. Normally I love to dive into Betas for WoW, see what's what, what's changed, and provide feedback either directly, or to people that can word it a lot better than I can so that they end up inadvertently posting my feedback along with theirs. However this time I feel that there's no point in justifying this, and I shouldn't feel this way at all.

When a game goes into Beta and it's Devs tell the people on the Beta to provide them with feedback so that they can make appropriate changes, you'd expect them to react to lots of people saying the same thing, however this doesn't seem to be the case with Warriors whatsoever. Right now on the Live Servers, I don't know a single person (Emphasis on me not knowing them, I know there are exceptions) that dislikes how Fury is designed, and all of the Warriors I know in Heroic Raiding guilds like how Fury plays right now. In my own opinion, Fury is perfect, it does not need any serious change. A few things could be changed as QoL issues but they're not drastic, sweeping changes.

Drastic, sweeping changes is exactly what Fury got. It was unfairly gutted, despite the cries of Fury Warriors the world over asking the Devs what they were doing with Fury. Apparently the idea was to make Fury more "furious", and instead only succeeded in making the people behind the keyboards furious instead. I mentioned earlier that Fury on beta was a gnarled and twisted imitation, and I wish I was joking. Spamming Bloodthirst (Via Unquenchable Thirst talent) for tonnes of Enrage uptime and Raging Blow procs and dumping any excess Rage with Ignite Weapon, which for some reason is a thing even though they were insistent that Heroic Strike was a bad ability and needed to go, is some of the worst decision making I've seen in a long time in regards to class design. To evolve what Warriors are on live, they need either minor tweaks or a solid overhaul that should have been done before even entering a tuning pass.

What we have now for Fury is a nasty mix of MoP Fury and this... thing in the corner that I don't want to talk about. It's the elephant in the room that everyone can see except the developers. I really don't even want to go into Wild Strike because I'll start to get annoyed somehow, but  almost -all- the Warriors I've seen tweeting say they don't like it and that it needs to be changed is ignored, and Celestalon retweets the one guy who says he likes it, even though that guy mains a healer. I think that's a pretty bad way to go about the situation. Sure the Devs can say "No this is better, trust us, you'll like it this way!" and yes, this is their game to do with as they please, but when you have a majority of players saying that it's bad design and it's not fun, not engaging, and in some cases possibly health affecting (bit extreme, but possible) that's just an idiotic way of going about it.

I shouldn't go on and on about it, because at the same time, these are the Devs that brought us MoP Fury, they designed the brutal beast that smashes bosses in the face and takes names for a living. They designed the spec that is cruel and calculating and destroys enemies during Colossus Smash windows with use of abilities and weaving in Heroic Strikes to manage it's resource.

I'd honestly love to get a detained response explaining why they have made every single change to Fury, but I know I probably won't get one. None of the other Warriors asking before me got one, and none of the hundreds of Warriors with Beta access who know how this new Fury works inside out, who have played it to see if it can be even the slightest bit fun, who understand that while "change is good" this change is frustratingly horrible, are probably going to get a response either.

Blizzard have made their minds up, and the Warrior player base right now is up in arms about it (no pun intended). Until we get a solid response for all of the changes, it looks like Fury can sit on the backburner until it's worthy of picking up it's sword and fighting for a place in our hearts again.

Heroic Strike

I shouldn't have to say this, but give it back.

http://www.heroicstrike.org/

Please Blizzard, listen to the Warrior community.

The Warrior

(Disclaimer - I may seem like I'm ranting at some parts, but rest assured that I'm writing this while I'm calm, even if I wasn't calm when I first discovered some of these things)

So while I usually talk about changes to the class, possible suggestions for new ideas or mechanics, I'd like to actually take a step back and look at this amazing class that I play for a second and really get down to what defines a Warrior in most fantasy worlds, as well as our own.

The Warrior. Undoubtedly the most "realistic" of any fantasy game's class portfolio. Warriors have existed from the dawn of time across a myriad of species, from Ants to Beetles, and from Lions and Tigers to Humans. There's a certain archetype that keeps cropping up of this strong, ruthless individual that destroys anything in the way of them and their goals. The diversification goes further if we just look at our own species, we've had the Shogun and the Samurai, we've had Vikings and Crusaders, and Warrior hero symbolism from Genghis Khan to Charlemagne. Being a Warrior (to an extent) is in the blood of our species, and it's easy to identify with Warriors in games for a lot of people because they're so real.

Transfer this to a video game. Darksiders, Warcraft, Borderlands, Fable, God of War, Warframe, Monster Hunter, Dark Souls. All of these games I just reeled off like it was nothing. You can pick up a big weapon (Melee or Ranged) and mash, carve and saw a path through any amount of enemies in your way. The "final form" of the Warrior, so to speak. And while a core part of the Warrior is to chop their opponent into Meaty Bits™, they're also a stalwart defender of their allies, regardless of whether they defend their friends with a shield or just by killing whoever is threatening them. My point here is that Warriors aren't just one or the other, they're versatile and can/will do whatever the situation requires of them.

Now here's where a lot of people will probably stop reading. I don't think what Carbine Studios have called a Warrior is a Warrior at all. One of the main things that irks me about Wildstar is that you are limited to 8 abilities, you can't use more, but you can use less if you want. This, to me, is irritating to no end. Like I mentioned earlier, I feel that Warriors are versatile and can do whatever the situation demands of them regardless of their primary role, whether they're normally a Tank-style Warrior that puts on his big-boy boots and stomps some faces, or a DPS-style Warrior that throws on an aggro modifier (see: Defensive Stance or Stance: Juggernaut) to save one of their allies. To be blunt, Wildstar Warriors don't have this flexibility in my opinion.

People might read that and say "But you can use any ability you have in a situation, just put it in your Limited Action Set". And yes, while you can use any ability you have for any situation, you have to give up something else in return. The most powerful argument I could possibly have here is for Power Link and Smackdown, which I'll explain for people that don't play a Warrior in Wildstar.

*deep breath*

Power Link is an instant cast spell with a 25 second cooldown and a Range of 20.0m, it requires at least Level 18 and throwing all your AMP points (think pre-MoP talents) into Utility, rather than Assault (DPS) or Support (Tank). It grants you and 4 party members (chosen at random if there's more people) an Empower, increasing all their damage dealt by 18% (baseline) for 10 seconds. At maximum rank, it increases damage dealt by 25.3%, and adds an extra effect that gives you a stack of Storing Power every time you land a direct attack (stacks to 3), after the Power Link expires, it combines 14.63% of your Assault Power and Support Power together, and deals that as Technology Damage to 5 foes within 10m.

*breathes*

And Smackdown, for all intents and purposes is basically an instant cast Shattering Throw. That hits 5 targets. On a 10 second cooldown. And the effect lasts 10 seconds. ~100% uptime, AoE, Shattering Throw. Okay then.

Now you can probably see where I'm going with this argument. In terms of any kind of 5m+ group content, why would you not run with these two abilities? They're undoubtedly idiotically strong and so even without wanting to, Warriors get to be the class that has the two amazing buffs that everyone needs, at the cost of less damage coming from the Warrior than anyone else *cough* Tier 14 *cough*. Why at the cost of personal damage you say? Well because that's two abilities that you will have to take. That means you only have 6 abilities left for yourself. If we say that this Warrior is a tank, then he also has to have a taunt, lowering his abilities to 5, and in a raiding situation, there's probably no reason to ever not have Defense Grid (AoE 25% damage reduction, Shield restore every 2 seconds and 2.5% Deflect chance), so that drops our humble Warrior tank down to 4 abilities. Now I don't know about you, but I'd like to have more choice than 4 abilities when I'm tanking.

Some won't like this, but let me just compare this to a Warrior Tank in Warcraft as of right now (Patch 5.4.3), I'll try and use what I consider the equivalent abilities in WoW as what I've listed above:

• Has Skull Banner
• Has Shattering Throw 
• Has Rallying Cry
• Has Taunt
• Has more than 4 buttons left to press

I'm one of the few that doesn't mind how many buttons my class currently has, I don't mind having (roughly) 36 buttons bound, because it's neat on my screen (12x3) but that's just my opinion. The main issue I have is that I have all these cool abilities on Wildstar like Defense Grid and Breaching Strikes and Grapple and Leap and Augmented Blade... But I can't use them all whenever I want to, and I wish the game had been designed so that I could. Warriors are masters of all weaponry and all tactics, whether they choose to become a human/monster/alien battering ram, or protect their allies against one.

Needless to say, it's kind of ironic that Warriors are one of the classes that are getting the 3% Versatility buff in 6.0. Many people would class a Hybrid as a Tank/Healer or a DPS/Healer, but Warriors are probably the best Hybrid DPS/Tank in the game (excluding Druids with Heart of the Wild). Fury Warriors have the second highest non-tank health in the game (Beaten by, of course, Warlocks), have one of the best defensive abilities to tank a boss with (Die by the Sword) and can abuse the fact that they're tanking something in order to do more damage (Berserker Stance). I think Collision previously simmed out that sitting in Defensive Stance for a Patchwerk-style fight as Fury barely dropped our DPS at all.

"He's kind of a nuclear-powered Swiss Army Knife, attached to a... pro wrestler." - Warrior Devspeak for Wildstar

I'll agree with this statement for one reason only: Have you ever tried using more than one part of a Swiss Army Knife at the same time? Doesn't work, probably never will.

And why would you want that in a class? I tend to play more supportively than most other Warrior players, and I'd rather use my defensives to keep someone else alive (when I'm not tanking), and I'd rather line up my Skull Banner/Shattering Throw with other people's cooldowns to get the most benefit out of them. I like being able to support my group and help them do better than they would have if I wasn't there. Many would then ask why I don't like the "Support Warrior" that Wildstar could maybe offer?

I don't like it because I can either support, or do lots of damage myself, and never both. I don't like it because I can either DPS or Tank, but never really both. You have to commit yourself to specific roles for every encounter, whether that's "Oh we need your Defense Grid for this fight" or "Oh there's burst AoE so you have to throw 8 Tiers into Power Link". If you want to play half tank and half DPS you can, but at a crippling cost of DPS for the sake of a bit more survivability. If I wanted to play a true Hybrid I'd stick to WoW and main a Druid.

Why can't I just commit to being a Warrior? With WoW you pick a Specialisation, what you specialise in. That doesn't prevent you from doing anything outside of it, it just means you'll do it worse than someone who specialises in that area of the class. Imagine a Fire Mage never being able to use Mirror Images or Time Warp because those are Arcane Spells, imagine a Frost Death Knight never being able to use Raise Dead or Death Strike because those are Unholy and Blood spells. Your class and your skill with that class should define what you can pull off with it. I played Fury when I was progressing on Lei Shen during 5.2, and being able to solo soak a Static Shock by jumping into Defensive Stance and popping Shield Wall to prevent the other people in my quarter taking any damage at all is supportive gameplay from a pure DPS spec. Something that I feel Wildstar needs to learn from.

I know Wildstar is young and in its Vanilla stages and I sure as hell know that Vanilla wasn't nearly this good when it was first released due to bugs and whatnot, but if Wildstar wanted to have Warriors be true Warriors, I feel that they should be able to be tanky, do some meaty damage if they want to and still be able to help their allies, rather than only picking one of them. Many won't like the fact that I compared Wildstar Warriors to WoW Warriors, but they should be comparable.

They're both called Warriors, aren't they?

I love to hear feedback on anything I write, so feel free to leave a comment below or on my Twitter at @CM_Exhil.

Alpha Changes, and The Direction of Arms Warrior

I guess I need to preface this article with a disclaimer of:

• All of the following is based on the latest Alpha build as of June 19th, 2014.
• I do not have Alpha Access, so a lot of my data is either napkin math, given to me by Warriors with Alpha Access, or just pulled out of my ass in context.
• Bear with me, I will make sense eventually.

So there were some changes to Warriors in the Alpha notes, and while there was a short note above the Warrior section saying that " Arms is still undergoing heavy revision and additional information will be made available later." it still doesn't quite add up. Let's look at sources of Arms' damage on the Live servers, in no particular order:

• Mortal Strike
• Slam
• Colossus Smash
• Overpower
• Deep Wounds
• Strikes of Opportunity (Mastery)
• Bladestorm (No other T60 Talent Choice)
• Heroic Strike
• Thunder Clap
• Sweeping Strikes (Regular + Slam-Cleave)
• Auto Attacks
• Execute

So as we can see, we've got a fair few sources of damage, but the rotations/priorities for Single Target and AoE DPS are a bit different. However, based on the recent changes to the Alpha notes, what we're probably going to look at is:

• Mortal Strike
• Colossus Smash
• Whirlwind
• T60 Talent
• T90 Talent (If you pick Bladestorm)
• T100 Talent (Assuming Ravager or Ignite Weapon)
• Auto Attacks
• Sweeping Strikes
• Execute

So straight off the bat (unless I've missed anything) we've already dropped 6 sources of damage from Live (Slam, Overpower, Deep Wounds, Strikes of Opportunity, Heroic Strike, Thunder Clap), 4 of which required us to press the button to do anything anyway. But what have we gained in return?

The Tier 60 Talent of choice, more often than not, is probably going to be Storm Bolt unless Dragon Roar is significantly better than it is on Live, simply because Storm Bolt's weapon damage component will keep getting better as we get better gear, where as Dragon Roar's burst seems very reliant on "can I line it up with my enchant proc, trinket procs and Skull Banner". On top of this, due to it not scaling at all with Critical Strike, I think it's going to be debatable whether we use it at all with Recklessness active in Warlords (Reckless and Skull Banner are baked together, meaning we can't split the two for Dragon Roar's use). It might be worth considering that Dragon Roar is changed to scale with Crit like Chaos Bolt does, but this might make it a bit too cookie-cutter when everyone is decked out in full T19 Mythic gear and has 40%+ Crit on top of their other stats. Moving on!

The Tier 90 Talent is going to shift around. Assuming they're all balanced and have their niche, it'll be Avatar for tight burst windows where you just need raw damage, Bloodbath when you need that extra kick of sustained ST/AoE DPS, and Bladestorm when you need reliable burst AoE. Unfortunately that pigeonholes us into specific talents, but then again I guess Blizzard want us to use different talents for different situations. That fits the mould so I'll accept it and move on.

The Tier 100 Talents are our new toys, and we get two choices if we want an actual ability, these are Ravager and Ignite Weapon (again, as of the latest Alpha Build).

As you can see, the choices are interesting. We either get a Single Target ability that then buffs our Single Target damage (via ignoring armour), or we get targeted burst AoE damage + Defensive Cooldown all baked into one nice package. In regards to the Ignite Weapon tooltip, it doesn't actually replace Heroic Strike for Arms, as Arms no longer has access to Heroic Strike. I feel like one of these two abilities is going to end up being mandatory for any kind of competitive DPS simply because of what Celestalon has tweeted is the intended rotation as of this Alpha Build, but we'll get onto that later.

So now we get onto possibly the most thought provoking source of damage in the Warlords of Draenor Arms Warrior rotation.

Whirlwind. No I am not joking.

And honestly, I wish I was. I wasn't playing a Warrior when Whirlwind was in the rotation for Single Target, and I'm kind of glad on that part. If I was to visualise a Warrior carving someone up in true Warrior style, it would be strange to watch them drive a sword through their chest, only to pull it out and start spinning around. If I take the flavour text from the Arms spec:

A battle-hardened master of two-handed weapons, using mobility and overpowering attacks to strike opponents down.

I know the first thing that would pop into your head is "why not have Overpower back instead of Whirlwind?". On the Live servers, I'd disagree completely, I really don't like Overpower as an ability, it's quick, doesn't hit very hard, and it's only gimmick is that it can't be dodged or parried. However, in Warlords we have the option to change bad things about the spec, and take good ideas and run with them before they eventually land in 6.0. Whirlwind is -not- a Single-Target damage ability. It is an AoE ability. If I wanted to be an AoE machine I would take Bladestorm, Ravager and Dragon Roar and jump into a crowd of enemies and chop them into bits. I don't want to be using Whirlwind against one target, it doesn't feel very Warrior-like to me, and I know some people might disagree.

The removal of Deep Wounds is also something that's confusing to me, especially with the consideration (and then removal) of Rend. Warriors won't have a Bleed/DoT. I'm pretty sure that'll make them the only class in the game without a DoT effect (barring Bloodbath of course), which means that they are going to need a lot of compensation in their autoattacks and abilities, causing serious problems for PvP and PvE. In PvP it means that all their abilities will be hitting considerably harder than other classes simply because they have to in order to be balanced against having no DoT effect, Warriors might end up just being able to global someone because that's how they'll be balanced, at least with a DoT effect you can take some damage away from the abilities to prevent crazy burst scenarios. In PvE it means that if they are out of melee range of any target they are worth exactly 0. They will be doing no damage at all, and if there's any "Stand Away From Boss Or Die" moments (Empowered Whirling Corruption says hello) then Warriors are going to be as useful as a chocolate teapot in a raid.

I'm going to throw down a suggestion here for possible sources of damage, and I will implore you to give me a response, whether that's here in the comments or on twitter (@CM_Exhil). I won't add weapon damage percentages or attack power numbers because that's not my job, my job in this scenario is to give feedback, not tune the game.

Mortal Strike - Costs Rage, has a cooldown, does damage and applies Deep Wounds (yes I'd like it back).
Colossus Smash - Costs more Rage, has a longer cooldown and hits a lot harder than Mortal Strike, makes all your other abilities ignore armour.
Overpower - Merge current Slam and Overpower, does damage, costs Rage, can't be dodged/parried, no CD, no Charges.
Execute - Does what it says on the tin, costs Rage, does a lot of damage, usable sub-20%.
Sudden Death - Your attacks have a % chance of allowing you to Execute the target at any % of health. If the target is under 20%, increases the Crit Chance of your next Execute by 50%

Now the next part is something that I feel should be part of the spec, but I can't decide what it should be. I'd like a passive for Arms called Unrelenting Assault that isn't the old version as honestly, it doesn't fit with the overarching meta-game for Warcraft any more. I've asked a few Warriors what they thought it should be and I've had some interesting responses, such as:

It has to be slow and hit hard for Arms, I always liked the idea of taking a resource risk - like spend all you've got for massive damage, but risk losing a lot of Rage. 

I want it to be iconic. If you pick any spec in the game there's always one thing that sumarises that spec. Whether it's Raging Blow for Fury, Killing Machine for Frost DKs, Combustion for Fire Mages or Chaos Bolt for Destro Warlocks, every spec has something that just screams "I am X". For Arms, I feel it should be exactly what it says it is, something that makes you progressively smash a target into the ground, so I'd like to propose the following (you'll immediately know where the idea comes from).

Unrelenting Assault - Every time you Overpower a target, increase the damage of your next Rage-consuming ability by X%, and the Rage cost by Y%.
If this effect is consumed by Overpower, it's damage is increased by (2xX)% and the Rage cost is increased by Y%.

Now I know this might freak some people out, but this is a discussion, I want to know what you all think of ideas like this, and if people in the community think up a better design for the spec they need to voice it and get it shown to Blizzard.

The entire point of an Alpha/Beta testing phase of a game is that people provide feedback on things. Whether they're good things, bad things, or things that are just okay. If something is bad, you need to stand up and say "I think this is a bad design, and here's why", rather than just saying "Oh it's alpha, it'll change before launch". The Devs can't iterate on a design when everybody is assuming it'll change on it's own, it needs feedback, and as such, I'm here providing feedback.

Thank you all for reading, and again if you have any thoughts or suggestions about what I've written, leave a comment below or send me a tweet (@CM_Exhil).

Progression Raiding, and How To Get Started

Long time no see. I know I probably should have kept writing here to give myself something to do in my spare time, but I could never think of anything interesting to say until a few days ago when I committed to getting myself back into a Hardcore Progression environment, and subsequently had a few people asking me what the difference is between that and regular raiding. So this article is for you if you happen to want to get yourself started on the ladder, or even just to satisfy your curiosity.

So I started raiding probably a month after the launch of Vanilla, it was the only aspect of the game that interested me at the time (I was very young and slaying dragons is always going to be cool). I had got to level 60, looked around and thought that getting epic loot and killing massive monsters was definitely the way forward. Needless to say that it was a lot more involved than I ever give it credit for, but I think that's something that, in some way, shape, or form, always carried through with hardcore raiding. On the surface it can look very similar to your Average Joe guild that wants a few bosses dead before the end of a content patch, but it's a lot more than that. I feel like I should list a few things that are different straight off the bat:

1. Time
2. Effort
3. Mindset

I only wrote three because I think if I wrote any more down people would wonder "isn't point X the same as point Y?", but I'll go over what I feel each one means.

The Time Investment

Hardcore Progression raiding takes a lot of time, and not just the time you spend actually killing the bosses. It's preparation time, minimizing downtime, maximizing uptime, theorycrafting, simming/optimizing, the amount of days you're actually spending killing whatever raid tier you're killing. There's a lot of time that gets spent actually playing or planning for the raids, and that's something that not everyone can or will put into a video game.

Effort Required

This point links in with the above, but I'd consider it as a separate point. To fully commit to hardcore or progression raiding requires a lot of effort, and whether this effort is going the extra mile to make sure you're playing at the bleeding edge and the peak of your capabilities, or contributing to your guild/team's strategies for killing a boss, dealing with a mechanic, or best use of utilizing raid cooldowns. u need to get it into your head that a lot will be expected of you, so start making a habit of going into a new fight understanding how you personally will deal with anything that gets thrown at you, and then deal with anyone else as and when appropriate. This also links into my next point:

The Mindset

You may have noticed at some point that hardcore raiders have a very different approach to things compared to a more casual player. The casual player might get a mechanic thrown at them, immediately panic, and only be able to get to grips with that mechanic after a few tries of it being solely their responsibility (again, not saying all casual players will do this, but a lot of them might). The hardcore raider might be in the same scenario, but will have a timer/countdown for when that ability is going to land, will have popped a defensive cooldown a second or two in advance if necessary and will have communicated this on some level to the team (via addon or voice communications), and transitioned from State A to B back to A smoothly and flawlessly. Now I know this might sound like I'm glorifying hardcore raiders, and I don't mean to be because they're not perfect and probably will never claim to be. What they do is get themselves into a mindset of being prepared for every eventuality, so that on the off-chance that they do have to deal with something unexpected, it's not 100% unexpected and it doesn't break down into chaos.

I've probably made some confusing statements, and knowing how I usually go off on one I've contradicted myself at least once, but the main point to get across is that Hardcore raiding requires a very specific set of skills, and to be honest, not everyone has these skills. There are players that have been playing for 10 years who don't have the spark, and I personally know a few that have been playing for less than a year who do have it. You can train yourself to do it or it can come naturally, in the end it won't matter because it comes down to one simple point.

You have to want to do it.

Some players will go the extra mile in a regular raid environment simply because it's what they're used to, but they won't expect others to do it all the time and others will be in a super hardcore raid and put in the bare minimum because they only enjoy the raid itself, not the preparation. I've raided with both types of people and sometimes it's those people that make you want to push forward and strive to be the absolute best you can be. In a perfect world I'd be able to push anyone I wanted into hardcore raiding with me because I know some absolutely amazing people who I know would be amazing raiders if they had the opportunity, but the truth is that they don't have that opportunity.

Hardcore raiding is just that, hardcore. There's so much that you need to do in order to maintain the levels of dedication and not everyone can do that, whether that's because of a job, school, family life, or any other commitments. The main thing to remember is that hardcore raiding will never be for everyone, it doesn't cater to specific individuals, it's there and there are some people that push themselves to levels that a lot of players can't do. This doesn't mean that the players who can't do it are better or worse off than the hardcore players. I've raided with players who considered themselves the best at their spec on the server, only to subsequently get trashed by a trial raider on an alt (Yes this has happened to me).

There's high and low points to this article, and at times it probably seems like I'm saying that you shouldn't get into progression raiding, but if there's anything you should take away from it, it's that the moment you have the option to push yourself to the next level, I heavily recommend you should, even if it's your first foray into this level of raiding, as the old adage goes; don't knock it 'til you've tried it.

I figure if I get any questions in the comments or responses on any kind of social media I'll either address them there or I'll just write a new blog post about it. Otherwise, I'm going to get back to fawning over the new Warrior details and theorycrafting for Warlords of Draenor. Seeya next time!

Future Plans

Before people think this is shameless advertising, I'd like to get one thing straight. This is all just my thoughts and experiences, nothing more, nothing less. With that out of the way, on with the show!

As I've mentioned a few times, I'm part of the community over at http://pvp-live.com/. For a few months now I've been active on their forums, trying to keep things active, promoting discussion on the news posts, and things like that, I even got myself a new twitter account to keep tabs on gaming things, a few friends, and to keep track on, and retweet, anything that PvP Live dug up and reported on.

A friend of mine, Davis (@notoriousMWI), mentioned that he worked for PvP Live as one of their bloggers, so naturally I inquired about what it was like, how long has he been working for them, the usual questions. I liked what I heard, so I asked if they needed any help with anything, and submitted a makeshift résumé for a position as a Forum Moderator. I was welcomed with pretty much open arms, and I genuinely felt like I could do something to help out the team and it's community. Since then my role has been expanded to being on the blogging team for them, and getting out regular articles as and when we get news (which is always pretty slow on weekends).

In the 3 months or so that I've known about and been part of PvP Live. It's been the most enjoyable experience I've ever had playing World of Warcraft, and if I ever had any reasons to quit, the team swept them all up and dumped them in some corner somewhere. They're some of the most passionate people I've ever had the good graces to talk to, and it's really admiral how much work they put in to make PvP Live a fun community to be part of.

I know I said I'd end up posting two blogs a week, but as this is a personal blog, I think I can drop this one to being written on Sundays, so apologies for that. If you ever want to read any of my (technically professional) articles, then keep an eye on our site @ http://pvp-live.com/ for any articles written by Exhil, though I will continue to post things on this blog at least once a week, work permitting.

For the foreseeable future I'll be working with the team at PVP Live, but I'd like to thank you all for reading my posts here at CSTK If it wasn't for writing my thoughts down for a change instead of just  It still gets me hyped knowing that people read my thoughts, even if you don't always agree with them. Until next Sunday:

Seeya!

Season 15 Confirmed, Hotfixes, Buffs, It's All Kicking Off This Week!

As I'm typing this, I'm busy being happy that Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas has joined twitter. He's long been an advocate of avoiding it as he had the opinion that 140 characters wasn't enough to communicate his thoughts properly, however as I've read today...

Anyway, on with the show!

Holinka let a cannon off earlier this week with the announcement of a new PvP season in Patch 5.4. This surprised some, and didn't surprise others as expected. There's a first time for everything, and this is the first time that Blizzard have released two arena seasons in one tier of content. The gear has been datamined previously, clocking in at iLevel 540 (Flexible level gear, non-upgraded), and the achievements have been in place since 5.4's launch, though it was suggested by the Blues that the achievements were only there "just in case" a new season was needed.

For the most part, I don't have an issue with this. 5.4 is dragging a bit now and content is stale, people will of course need something new to keep them on their toes. I do, however, have an issue with it pushing back the Warlords of Draenor Beta, and subsequent release date. I've cleared Siege of Orgrimmar on Normal mode, killed a few bosses on Heroic too, got my 100 3v3 wins Skeletal Warhorse, grinded out the 27k Conquest for the Grievous Gladiator achievement. Realistically I am done with this patch, but if Blizzard add in a new season, it's more content which, personally, I will happily chew up. I'm probably always going to be playing this game until it's completely broken or way too easy for my tastes, but as long as Blizzard keeps supplying me with content, I'm perfectly happy to shell out the £8.99 a month subscription fee.

In a similar vein, a few hotfixes have come through this week, with changes to Hunters, Shadow Priests, Boomkins, Elemental Shamans and Death Knights, which are as follows:

Here's where I start getting ranty.

First, why in the name of all that is sacred are Hunters getting a damage buff. Please someone explain to me why. It was perfectly possible for a Marksmanship Hunter to kill 150-200k of your health in the opener due to lining up Chimaera Shot and Aimed Shot, providing they both crit. Now they're going to do even more damage. I've seen screenshots of Orc Deathknights with 100k attack power selfbuffed + trinkets + racial since this hotfix. These are changes that should not be suddenly dropped on people. Much like the change that got dropped onto Mortal Strike, giving it a bonus 25% damage, less than 24 hours before Patch 5.4 went live. These changes need time to tweak on PTR before being shipped to live, else what is the PTR even for?

The changes to Shadow Priest and Balance are, in my opinion, needed. Playing a Warrior, it's remarkably easy to kill a Shadow Priest or Boomkin that doesn't know what they're doing. You jump on them, pop your cooldowns, stun them, and Slam them into their graveyard. Against one that knows what they're doing, they'll survive, but still not for long in a game where the current meta seems to revolve around burst damage and burst healing. You either heal yourself for 20%+, or you die. No middle ground. I believe (no testing done yet) that this change will be useful to aid the survivability of these two classes, though in the case of Balance Druids, they need to have their healing toned down in one way or another. It's still way too strong for a non-healer class.


It does seem to me that I'm going to end up writing two blog posts a week, as apparently I've slipped into a Thursday/Monday rhythm. Provided there is something to talk about, I'll do my best to entertain you all, but until next time, seeya!

Exhil MD.

Visual Updates, Both Near And Far!

I know this one is a few days earlier than normal, but I'm happy having it written and published anyway. Sue me. In other news...

...As you can see, I decided to give the blog a little makeover, and I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out. 2014 is going to be a big year and I wanted to make sure I'm keeping on top of everything, from my blog here, my online life, my offline life, and my work with PvP-Live. Giving this place a spring clean in preparation for the year is just something small I could do in the early hours of the morning, so I figured I may as well.

Continuing on with the theme of updates, I decided to make a post about Blizzard's character design updates. As you can see in the above picture, Chris Robinson (Senior Art Director at Blizzard Entertainment for World of Warcraft) announced last Friday that they are looking to get the next new character model available for viewing in the next week or two. Based on popular opinions, it's looking to be either Night Elves, Humans, or Trolls (regardless of gender). I'm really quite excited for these three for a fair few reasons:

1. Night Elves in HD, hopefully without the irritating jiggle/bounce/thing that they do while you're standing still.
2. Humans that actually have a decent running animation.
3. Facial options that don't look ridiculous unless you have a beard for Human Male.
4. Trolls with beards? (Vol'jin has one)
5. More naturally flowing hair for all 3 of them.

Graphically, this will be a tonne more pleasing on the eye, and it will at least help me if I end up using my free Level 90 Boost to make a Warrior on Alliance on my server. However, for the time being, I'll be happy enough looking at this lovely chap:

Obviously with a few extra bits thrown on top.

Really looking forward to what Robinson and the rest of the art team are putting together for all of the new models. I absolutely love what they've done with Dwarves and Orcs so far (never been a massive fan of Gnomes anyway) and with that standard in mind, the rest of the new models are going to be spectacular.

Would appreciate any thoughts you guys have on the new character models, so feel free to send me a message on http://pvp-live.com/ to the account "Exhil", or if you use twitter, tweet me @DrExhilMD.

Until next week guys, seeya!

Exhil MD.

Happy New Year!

Well, this'll mark my 24th blog post on CSTK, and the first of many in 2014. And apparently as my first act of craziness for this year, I'll be making a return to Protection for PvE in Warlords of Draenor with a few friends. Feels like I never quit tanking. On a separate note, I've had a load of stuff happen to me and my friends over the Xmas holidays, and though some of it was a bit unneeded, I broke into 2014 with a smile on my face. I've got a feeling that it's going to be a very good year.

Just as a quick shout-out section (first time for everything) I'd like to give a fair few people that made 2013 a bearable year a pat on the back:

The Undecided/Orb Of Souls (Argent Dawn EU) and Solace/Elusive (Aerie Peak) - Mah boys. Been a blast raiding with all of you this year, made some really good friends, had some good times doing random stuff and slaying dragons together.

All of the team at PVP Live - It's a real honour to be able to work/be in contact with such an amazing bunch of people who are so passionate about the game and its design. 2014 is going to be a really big year for us all, so be sure to keep an eye on @PVPLive if you use twitter!

My Inspirations - There's always players that, regardless of class, make me happy to be part of Warcraft, ranging from IRL friends to professional players. Bajheera, Klinda, Hotted, Sodapoppin, Thugonomicz, Jah, Cobrak, Mike Preach/Ghost. Always entertaining to watch and have always provided something to cheer me up if I feel something is a -bit- too wrong with the game.

Nox, Mwi, Feels, and the rest of the rest of the guys from Bad Manner. The Maximum Overwelsh + 2 (Santern and Thalgun) on the Unit Fourteen mumble channel. Ducky, Tash, Ally, Josh, Jack, Mj, and any other friends I've made from IRL or in-game. Hangart, Conine, Lince, Lamelime, Scarodorne Clayton, Phalek, Khris, and all my other Warrior brothers. All of these people give me reasons to keep playing every day, even if it's just to log on and laugh while sitting around in Shrine or Orgrimmar.


As I said before, 2014 is going to be a good year. Warlords is looking to be the best expansion Blizzard have ever released, Hearthstone is being released, Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls is being released, The Elder Scrolls Online is being released, Godzilla 2014 is being released. And this isn't even counting any plans I have with my amazing girlfriend who reminded me that I'm meant to be writing my blog on Thursdays (Thanks Laura!).

That's all for this week, unfortunately Blizzard still haven't dropped any more info about Warlords of Draenor's PvP aspects (Ashran, Trial of the Gladiator) for me to comment on more than I already have, so I shall bid you adieu and see you next week!

Exhil MD.