Lore Musings: Old Gods

Ah, the old gods. one of the most mysterious groups in the lore of Warcraft, even more so than the titans in my opinion. The old gods are one of the tings every lore nerd tries to wrap their head around. Currently the "Star Theory" is some what prevalent. The theory itself is intriguing, for me, in a sense the prisons of old gods rest at 5 points on azeroth and if you connect all of the point it creates a star with the maelstrom at the center. Now like all hypothesi and speculation there are flaws. Of note two of the points, Ahn'Qiraj and Ulduar are the only one with confirmed old gods. Of the two only one is actually a prison (Ulduar). However the theory has some interesting threads to be untangled.

1. Two points possess know old god's, Ulduar in Northrend and Ahn'Qiraj in Southern Kalimdor.
2. A third possess a probable old god, the Master's Glaive in Northern Kalimdor.
3. The other two points are places of noted points in lore. Lorderon, Tirisfal is noted for to have cause similar effect as seen in Northrend saronite mines in the Founding of Quel'Thalas. Southern Azeroth, locations of Kharazhan and Duskwood are points with magical and maddening effects associated with them.

Now here's where my own speculation comes into play.

• Near each of these points is a great tree (Ashenvale, Feralas, Hinterlands, Duskwood, and Crystalsong Forest), four of which contain portals to the emerald dream, the fifth is located in Northrend and was added to the game at a point where blizzard has moved away from world bosses. Each of these could be strategic access point for green flight to quickly reach the points from while monitoring them from the Emerald Dream.
• Tirisfal and Kharazhan are both locations associated with the Guardians thus marking them of significance magically.
• Two conflicting statements say that either three of four old gods were imprisoned by the titans, however if one follows the four prisoner model, it could be that like Frostmourne kept the Lich King locked away, until Arthas claimed it, the same could be done by the Master's Glaive, it even could have been enchanted to become a magical prison all it's own.
• Near the locations of the two confirmed old gods are homes of dragon flights, Caverns of Time (Bronze) in Tanaris and Nexus (Blue) in Borean Tundra. Red, Green, and Black flight homes are unknown at the moment, and could be located near the other three points.
• Moonglade is located near a Great Tree and Master's Glaive, it remained untouched by the Legion's first invasion even though nearby felwood was completely corrupted, and was chosen as the place for druids to enter the emerald dream. Considering the connection it could correspond to the home of the greenflight within the emerald dream. Close proximity to the dream would remove the need for portals and make it easier for druid to enter. Assuming this only red and black locations are missing with two possible old god locations.
• We know that the Titans knew they could not kill the old gods, that being said we are told C'thun was assumed to be dead. Knowing this we cannot assume the titans didn't know where he was. The Bronze Flight could have been placed nearby to keep watch on the supposed dead old god, the same can be said at the master's glaive.
• Like Ragnaros, Hakkar the Soulflayer is said to be and old god. Since Trolls are presumably a non-titanic race (i.e. not Human/Vrykul, Dwarf, or Gnome) and have worshiped Loa for most of their history Loa spirits are probably nearly as old as Elemental Lords, and could easily be as powerful, while not being old gods.
• The old god in the maelstrom depicted in War of the Ancients does not have to have been there physically. We know that even in their prisons the power's of the old gods are still powerful. An old god of magic could have the power, amplified by the well, to manifest some sort of form near the well, so it is not necessary for an old god to be imprisoned near the well.
• If there was a sixth major old god the reason for placing him near the well would have to be to power his prison, otherwise it's a dangerous place for him to be located.
• The Dragonflights have been assaulted one by one, starting with the Blackflight, through them the blues. It is suspected that Nozdormu is in fact responsible for the Infinite Dragonflight, and the greens are under attack from the Nightmare. The first two are directly related to the Old Gods, the second two are likely to be the result of Old God influence. This could be systematic weakening of their prisons making it easier to free themselves.

Although there is still a lot of unknown info, we have yet to see much of the South Sea Isles and the Master's Glaive-esc Hiji island which could very well be a sixth old god, (six point star?). With the event's in Cataclysm damaging Darkshore so much we may very well see our next old god content patch located there, much the way Zul'Aman was placed in the Ghostlands. Of course similar points could be made in eastern kingdoms. Either way the only people who really have any real idea are Metzen and his team, but even that is subject to change.

Dev Chat: Gimme, gimme moar slotz!

Twitter dev chat yesterday give some nice info and two particular things came out for hunters

Q. Are hunters likely to see more stable slots for their pets in the future? With the current variety of pets, the amount they have right now seems too small.
A. Arm-waving here, but a model I would love to see is dramatically expanded slots (so you can store all those Spirit Beasts) but have a smaller number of "active" pets, like 3. You could summon an active pet from anywhere in the world, when outside of combat. You would swap a pet from active to the stable at the Stable Masters.

This is AWESOME GIMME GIMME GIMME! This is a fantastic idea DO IT!

Q. The Hunter class has many odd and situational abilities such as Mongoose Bite and Aspect of the Beast - are there any plans for changes to these types of abilities?
A. Mongoose Bite is most likely a goner. Let us weep. We think Aspect of the Beast could have some cool uses for Beastmaster hunters.

I've got mixed feeling on this one, mostly because i like Mongoose Bite, since I hold on to dreams of melee hunters, but it good go and have little to know effect on hunter game play. The Aspect of the Beast idea has potential with one particular change. Aspect of the beast is one of the aspects not covered by aspect mastery. Personally every aspect should have some effect on every like no stun on cheetah. Cheetah/Pack, Wild, and Beast need to be included as part of the talent before I hop on the bandwagon, I'd I'm a fan of Beast. All and all some good potential, hopefully the stream of cata info will start coming in soon

Synchro Shot: BM Signature Shot

In my never ending quest to think of ways to buff BM I've hit a point of inspiration that strangely I never had before. The recent the discussions on BM raiding have presented a few interesting points. BM's two button rotation isn't something Devs wanna promote (though it's perfectly fine for arcane but if it ain't broke don't fix it, and I don't thing Blizzard wants to break the leading Mage DPS spec so late in the expansion). Secondly they don't want to buff the pet because that essentially turns it into the greatest dot in the game. They want BM to be at a 35-40% pet damage state, but not much higher. Unfortunately these are the are the the simplest ways to buff BM without affecting the other to specs to much. BM is also is the only spec with out a signature shot. SV has xplosive, MM has Chimera. Looking at the trees two of BM's single point talents (Normally reserved for talented spell), are passive auras, Aspect Mastery and Beast Master, the other is a modification to another ability, Beast Within. Not saying these abilities are bad, but BM hunters get essentially two talented spells, Intimidation, which isn't really a raiding ability and Bestial Wrath. Honestly if Intimidation wasn't a prerequisite for Bestial Wrath i suspect most raiders would skip it. Mind you the passive talents are potent buffs, it's easy to see why BM has a two shot rotation. I've tried this in the past with Primal Shot, but with the referencing of the hunter pet as a dot I suddenly made a comparison that I'd never made before. Beast Master's in D&D don't have this problem. In 4e D&D controlling the pet is essential to the Ranger's effectiveness. Furthermore their abilities often consist of combined attacks with the hunter and the pet. There are no combined attacks from the hunter and the pet in wow. Yes they can attack at the same time, but for the most part pet abilities are on auto-cast and they go independently of the hunter's abilities. This ability is a new version of primal shot, essential it does the same thing a nature damage shot that provides a short buff, however this new version has a hunter portion and a pet portion. The hunter portion is the nature damage, while the pet portion is a buffed up focus dump. The idea of the buff makes more sense now than ever, since the hunter and the pet are in sych now they do more damage. If necessary the damage could be divided as physical and nature damage, but the idea of it using magical damage decreases the appeal of armor pen for a build that could care less about it anyway. As a bottom tier talent this could not only improve DPS but add another spell to the rotation.

Geomancer - Races

If the geomancer class came to exist in WoW it would cover a significant number of races across both sides the class essential comes in two parts the geomancer and the arcane warrior this distinction works much the same way priest do, though all the spells in game reference the holy light each races use priestly magic in their own ways. Unlike shaman the arcane portion of the classes inspiration opens it up to countless new classes so let take a look at how the class would fit with every race, any race with mages and warriors or shamans is a potential geomancer

Alliance

Humans - Humans would fit well with the Battlemage, characters like Rhonin who are capable swordsmen as well as skilled wizards (war mage) are good points of intrest, though they lean more towards the caster end than the melee. Humans would have learned the art from high elves. Their close relationship with the dwarves also means they could have learned rune-magic making the runemaster a viable option as well.

Draenei - For draenei geomany would have broken off from shamanism at some point. Like shamans geomancers power comes from the nature spirits, but channeled through the body. The other option could be an ancient magical order from argus that fell out of favor due to links to the legion. Though the spiritual choice would fit better with the devout draenei

Dwarves - Dwarves created the runemaster class, nuff said.

Night Elves - Though night elves have a powerful connection to magic it does not come from the spirits, making the geomancer end fit less, however the arcane tradition for night elves is arguably the the longest in existence and with the coming of night elf mages the resurgence of the night elf battlemages would come as well.

Gnomes - Gnomes are arguable the most skilled spellcaster's in the alliance, as such they could have easily combined magical and martial arts to create battlemages, however it seems less likely that a gnome would practice this combined art over focusing on one or the other, but that's just opinion.

Worgen - Worgen were once human thus have the same leaning in class as humans do furthermore there new feral nature would give them a greater desire to be in the thick of battle even as mages

My Picks - Humans, Dwarves, Draenei, Worgen - Humans and Worgen would follow the Battlemage end lorewise, with some runemaster. Dwarves are runemasters, period. Draenei would follow the geomancer path. Though Night Elves and Gnomes have strong arcane traditions the class is less fitting for them lore wise. though as a hero class it would most likely be open to every race.

Horde

Orcs - Orcs could easily follow either the geomancer or the runemaster styles. Both would have come from the tauren.

Trolls - troll geomancers would draw on the power of the Loa gods essentially being a melee shadow hunter.

Tauren - Tauren have learned rune magic from the dwarves and have taken to it well. Geomancy would also come naturally to tauren.

Forsaken - as they were once human, forsaken have the same sort lending towards classes humans have.

Blood Elves - Blood Elves created spell breakers, and battlemages.

Goblin - having both mages and shaman goblins could easily have the geomancer class, but they would lean more towards the battlemage version of the class.

My picks - Orcs, Tauren, Blood Elves, Forsaken - The races with the strongest shamanistic and arcane tradtions win out. Trolls get the cut simply because they would get shadow hunters instead, and goblins lose out for the same reasons gnomes do. The strong shamanistsic connection of the races in the horde makes them easier to mark as geomancers.

Also another race that would make great geomancer are Pandaren. In fact the name for the class comes from the pandaren geomancer, and the shodo-pan was strong inspiration for the class design. Panderen would be horde in my opinion, for a few reasons. First they would serve a great mentors for orcs, and trolls, much like the tauren. They could also help check Forsaken and Blood Elves. Secondly, panderen were created by Samwise, who is hall horde and the lead singer of L80ETC, and in an interview during the release of the Chen Stormsnout figure he said pandaren for the horde. But what do the alliance get, something knew that nobody expects kinda like the draenei in BC

Homemade Class: Geomancer - Battlemage/Runemaster/Spell Breaker

So Blizzard has stated that they don't thing they could add a new class every expansion, maybe every other though. We pretty much know that the next hero class will be a healer, and it's either gonna wear mail or leather since there are three plate, and three cloth classes but only two for leather and mail. There's not much debate going on about it, right now we're just giddy over Cataclysm and even more so up coming patches 3.3.3 and 5, but i'm always thinking and lot of the time it's about WoW. I'm a lore nerd so when i think of stuff I try to place it lorewise, but more importantly I think of thins so they fit in game, and are not copies of what already exists. Of course this includes classes. Now one of my favorite fantasy archetypes is the Swordmage, the spell caster who uses his magic to enhance his prowess in melee combat. Its why I like Enh Shamans, and to a lesser extend retadins, but wow lacks in my opinion a true melee spell caster. In keeping with the pattern of the death knight this class will be able to spec into either role no matter which tree the choose. The idea was to take some classes that already exist in lore and mesh them up, mix them with some things from existing classes in game, and shape them into a whole new experience. This will not create a list of talents and powers but it will have example of ones that would fit and play styles and mechanics of the different trees. It will also discuss the ideas behind the class. So let's begin.

Geomancer Armor: Up to MailWeapons: Axes, Swords, Two-Handed Axes, Two-Handed Swords, One-handed Maces, Two-Handed Maces, Daggers, Fist Weapons, Shields, Relics (Focus)Resource: Aether (Mana), QuintessenceRoles: Healer, DPSTalent Trees: Martial, Runic, BreakingA commonality amongst classes in WoW to fill multiple lore classes with one in-game class. The Shaman class mixes witch-doctor, spirit walker, far seer, shadow hunter, and shaman units to create the class, for example. in this case the lore classes of Runemaster, Battlemage, Shodo-Pan, and Spell Breaker. With some similarities to Enh Shaman, Ret Paladins, Dis Priests, Death Knights, and Arms Warriors in game. The true uniqueness of the class comes from it focus on melee. Each build will feature a different healing and combat style but they will all need to melee in order to heal potently. This comes from the Enh/Resto healing that use Maelstrom procs, and warhammer. The need for the player to be attacking in order to heal will make them play differently from other healers, what will keep this from being over powered will be the resources. Like Death Knights they will use a twin resource system where Runes and Runic Power are a sort of Energy/Rage set up where one regenerates at a set rate while the other is generated through combat. Geomancers will use Aether (basically Mana) and Quintessence (like Rage). There will be staple spells that use mana, primarily offensive attacks and standard healing wave type heals. More potent attacks and most defensive abilities will use quintessence. Auto-attacks and mana using abilities will generate quintessence. The class will feature stances called Channels which will grant various effects, lower levels will pertain to particular element while higher levels will focus on. They will also have a special class profession called Warpainting which allows them to place warpaint on themselves and their weapons, (arpaint on the body will be treated as an enchant on a neck slot item) the warpaint will be similar to runeforging and will require a specific location to be prepared but multiple warpaints can be prepared in advance and applied while out of combat but it places a cooldown on the removed warpaint preventing it from being applied for a period of time. The talent trees will focus your style in a specific way so players who prefer one type of healing over the other will have options.

Martial (or Martial Magic) tree will draw from the Battle Mage and Shodo-Pan lorewise. The Battle Mage and Shodo-Pan are warriors who have fused martial prowess with magical ability (this is true for the Shadow Hunter as well but they're a ranged class and will be used in a later article) allowing them to improve their potency in combat. In combat they can use a two hander of dual-wield having both dual-wield and two-handed specializations. They will also have a special talent called Spell Swordsman which allows them to treat main-hand caster weapons as one-hand weapons so they can be dual-wielded. For dual-wield it will emphasize greater spell damage so it will be essential for spell damage increase. Two-Handers will focus more on physical damage, but will have a bonus to spell power from attacks. The overall style of play will be essentially the same, just a matter of taste and a spell or two. Offensve spells will be balanced in that physical and magical portions of the attacks hit for equal amounts normally specing one way or the other will shift the balance as such. Dual-Wielding will be the healing standard since staffs cannot be used, though off-hand items and shields are options. Healing in Martial will be normal style healing with better AOE ability than other specs. Energy Channeling will cause auto-attacks to deal additional Nature, Fire, or Arcane damage based on the targets resistance and increase healing of single target heals by and amount.

Breaking (or Breaking Magic) comes from Elven Spell Breakers. They will have abilities that absorb magic and reduce magical damage much like unholy DKs. For DPS they will want to focus on two handers and will resemble a combination of and arms warrior and an enh shaman. They will be able to dispel buff and debuffs better than the other specs and will have abilities that drain resources, silence, and do extra damage by dispelling a buff and a spell steal like attack that transfers a buff from the enemy to the player. For healing they will use a Dis Priest like method focusing on bubbling to reduce damage taken. They will use spell shields and have talents that convert block to spell power and such as well as shield abilities to generate extra quintessence or mana. Their channeling of choice will be a spec specific one called Enemy Channeling which causes damage done by the shielded target to increase the amount absorbed by the shield by a portion of damage done and the player's attacks to drain mana.

Runic (or Runic Magic) is based of the runemaster. The Warpaint comes directly from this build and it will have talents to improve the effects of warpaint. They will also focus on dual wielding fist-weapons or maces and will have talents to improve them. Runemaster will have potent buff both for self and for party members, and will have attack that grant temporary buffs or refresh current ones. Active buffs will generate quintessence so they will have a more steady flow of it than the other specs, but the buffs are also the basic for their healing. Runic spec'd geomancers will gain an ability called Tap, which will reduce the duration of the lowest duration buff and heal the person effected. More than others they will need to be in combat in order to keep temporary buffs on the target to save the more potent long term buffs abilities. As healers they gain abilities that transfer a portion of damage dealt as health to the lowest ally or focus target and buff will go to a focus target or the target who gains the greatest benefit. This combination of buffs and healing will make them great tank healers. Healing mace and off-hand item will be standard, unless off-speced into martial for the Spell Swordsman talent. Channel Earth with reduce the chances that your buff can be dispelled and give a chance for tap not to reduce the duration of a buff, and increase physical damage done.

For DPS players there will be potent abilities called Wardances. Since they have less reliance on Quintessence (Q) wardances will act as a Q dump using large amounts of it and acting similar to bladestorm in that activate then and remain active for a time while the player can still use other abilities. While healers will have exteremly potent heals, for example Full Release for Runic will remove all you buffs from your target healing them to full health and healing nearby allies for x amount, on a long cooldown that starts after leaving combat. The class will add an additional healer to the game and create a whole new way of healing in WoW.

Next time around we'll look at a class that adds a second physical DPS to the game and once Cataclysm drops will harken back to the hunters of old.

Well Why The Heck Not: Classes and Weapons

If you've read my blog before you know that I spend my time talking about the things I wish were in my favorite game WoW. Unlike a pen and paper game like D&D or a single player game like Dragon Age: Origins, there must be limits on what a player can do customization wise, this is because they must avoid making anyone clash extremely overpowered compared to another. With a constantly changing game like WoW this means a shitload of programming for Blizzard's team. A way of limiting this is by controlling the weapons and armor characters can equip. In doing this it makes it so they can tailor one specific group of weapons or armor towards a specific group of similar classes limiting the amount of work needed. Since rogues and hunters don't where plate they don't have to make agility plate and balance around the new survivability for these high damage classes. True, they could create limiting circumstances for wearing them like the fatigue increase in DA:O but that still means more balancing and rebalancing every time something changes. However there are some points where things don't quite make sense. Sometimes this gets changed, like rogues not being able to use axes, other times it doesn't, like shamans not being able to use spears. Sometimes there's a lore reason other times its a mechanics one. So I'll take a look at the different classes and the weapons they can and can't use. Originally this was gonna be one huge post with all the classes but I got burned out working on it so instead I'll each class idividually.

Death Knights

Armor: Up to Plate

Weapons: Axes, Polearms, Swords, Two-Handed Axes, Two-Handed Swords, One-handed Maces, Two-Handed Maces, Relics (Sigils)

WoW's first Hero Class came on to the scene with an unholy explosion. Extremely overpowered at first things have leveled out and DK's are now prominent tanks and dps in end-game. Essentially the Anti-Paladin Lore-wise and the Caster Killer Mechanics-wise Death Knights were made unique in that they could DPS or Tank in with any Talent Tree, much the same way Feral Druids are but with 3 years of design experience behind it. Given that they are nights Plate is a given, while short of staves and daggers they can use pretty much any weapon. Death Knights were the first plate tanking class to go with out a shield, this is partially due to them being the anti-paladin. Less protect allies and you more you can't no matter what you do style of tanking. In this they are capable of dual-wield tanking particularly in frost. Basically they'd rather parry or dodge than block. The problem here comes that traditionally a parrying dagger or other short blade was used for this purpose. So why can't Death Knights use daggers, mechanics, there are no defense daggers. One thing about blizzard is they don't like dropping items only one class can use. I suspect that if that had to chose between having only hunter use guns and not having hunters hunters would have disappeared with dwarf mages in alpha. So parrying swords were the better way to go, since they were essentially normal tanking weapons.

Pistols: Who says their only for hunters?

So when it comes to Blizzard and Weapons the more people who can use them the better. The idea of having a weapon that only one class can use doesn't work for them, because that means more drops being sharded or more emblem items (which means fewer choices), Druids got to steal our spears because the itemization between Feral Druids and Hunters (and Enh Shamans for that matter) is pretty much the same, so yeah this meant people snatching real hunter weapons from us, (polearms was the only place were were really uncontested for when it came to melee weapon stat sticks) but it also meant more polearm drops for us, so in truth it's more of a benefit than a loss. Enh Shaman complaining about Axe drops, boom rogues get axes, sure there's now a crap load of useless fast axes but there are now more axes with agility which is good news. But what does this have to do with pistols? Well any hunter worth his bow religiously checks at least 4 blogs to stay up to day (i've got 20+) so you know that recently Raid Warning had a the Wild Shots hunter round table (which was awesome btw). During which the question of pistols came up and the big issue is the idea that it would be hunters only which would be great, but also means it would never happen, but why just us? True we are awesome, but we are also humble and will willingly share are gifts with the rest of the heroes around us (hence Trueshot Aura, Ferocious Inspiration, Hunting Party)so why wouldn't we share are pistols? But who would we share them with, personally i'd love to share them with are nature friendly brethren the Shamans and the Druids, but that doesn't make much sense, (cats can't hold guns and shamans with pistols just sound wrong)that leaves one final and yet oh so perfect choice, Rogues. Yes their dirty and selfish, and yes my little brother is among their ranks (which means he's not a hunter ftw) but the itemization wise and thematically it just so right. In D&D 4e the hand crossbow and dagger is a possible combination for rogues and favorable for drow ones.(the hand crossbow being the D&D equivalent to pistols) pistols are easily concealed and can be dual wielded. abilities like Rupture and Sap could just as easily be from a well placed pistol shot, or good pistol whip. The pistol would still be considered a melee weapon, but for us hunters let it be effected by Hawk Eye or some other talent to give us a bit more range. Pistols could also be a valid choice for Warriors and Death Knights though they'd require different itemization, but hey there are strength guns. If not for the changes coming in Cata pistols with decent attack power and armor pen would be great for them even with the agility on them. With them being considered melee weapons it would give hunters a reason to gain a bit of expertise, which means expertise on mail, let all enh shamans rejoice at the thought. Of course, once again a talent to help us get a closer to the cap with less of the stat which will still be fairly useless as a ranged class would be great. Once again i'm thinking Hawk Eye: Increases the range of your ranged weapons and pistols by 6 yards also decreases the chance your attacks will be dodged or parried with pistols by x%. Pistol would be awesome, from a lore and expanded universe standing they already exist, even in game pistols pop up every so often and if implemented right they stand to help not only hunters but a number of other classes in the process.