Here comes the next content patch (3.2)

[bhodi]

Shadowpriests need a serious buff, unfortunately blizzard doesn't see an issue with shadow DPS.

This is in the coming patch:

    * Twisted Faith now increases your spell power by 4/6/8/12/16/20%. (Up from 2/4/6/8/10%)
    * Improved Spirit Tap effect changed to : Your Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death critical strikes have a 100% chance and your Mind Flay critical strikes have a 50% chance to increase your total Spirit by 10%. Mana regeneration effect remains unchanged.

Which rough EJ math estimates to be about a +100 dps increase all told. It's kind of a buff, I guess, just not anywhere near what's needed - at the top tier, shadowpriests are about 1k dps behind the other replenishment classes. They still have a hideous rampup.


Also, NONE of the classes are at all balanced or even considered for balance while leveling up, as far as I can tell. I've been leveling a paladin, and as my 5th high level character I feel I've got a good feel for difficulties.  shaman < priest < mage < rogue < druid <<<<<<< paladin . Paladin isn't even CLOSE. Yes, things are easier now with riding @ 20, epic @ 40, flying @ 60, but still - playing a paladin is completely over the top overpowered compared to any of the other classes. The shaman was so bad I stopped leveling him at 30. Supposedly it gets better at 40 but I wasn't willing to slam my hand in a door for 10 levels. Paladin, on the other hand, is a dream to play. Run into 4 even level mobs, they are dead 4 or 5 GCDs later. No downtime. All your abilities are instant cast including your "pull" damage spell so the mob continues to take damage from both your abilities and your autoattack.

Bite off too much? No problem, you have a free total heal once every 20 minutes and a "take no damage for 6 seconds" button every 5. It's stupid. It makes me angry just realizing how overpowered it was and how I should have just caved and rolled a paladin a long time ago - it's one of the "favored" classes. Though, in all fairness, before they reworked retribution, apparently leveling a paladin in the olden days was pain incarnate.

[K9]

How do you manage paladin? I'm so bored out of my mind with mine it's abandoned in the early 20s. Shamans get good when they get dual-wield, and I found mine easier to level than my priest, but a LOT has changed since I levelled my priest.

Hunter is still levelling easymode though.

[Mattemeo]

The message you're being sent by Blizzard is that if you want to do dps, roll a dps class. 

Feral & Balance Druids. Enhance and Elemental Shaman. Retribution Paladins. Shadow Priests. There's a pattern here, see if you can spot it! 

[K9]

My Elemental shaman could pull 2K DPS in quest rewards straight at dinging 80. Unfortunately we don't scale very well compared to other classes.

There is nothing in a video game that can't be botted. Nothing.  

Just hopping in to say bullshit. There are some games where there's simply no such thing as an effective bot. I'll agree that everything can be botted poorly, but WoW could be botted fairly perfectly with minimal effort. Nearly every MMOG could.

So what is this mythical game that is only able to be played Human vs Human because no AI exists for it?

Go. The space of all possible moves is too large for existing computers to search through; whereas you can brute-force Chess, the number of moves and future moves in Go is many orders of magnitudes greater. As such, for the time being, good human Go players will beat AI players more often than not.

Seriously, faction champions are not hard. Protip: dont ALWAYS kill the healers first.  My guild finds killing the resto druid first helps because the hots are a pain, have rogues sit on the other cast time healers while we burn down one of the heavy hitters warrior/ret pally/rogue.  the holy pally is zero threat from a healing standpoint. he may dispel a little but he's a joke.

You assume we have a rogue, heh. Faction champs is hard if you don't carry the few classes that make it doable, or you don't have great balance. My ten man for example is:

3 Warriors, 3 druids, shaman, priest, hunter, pally.

Have you tried pulling the NPCs with cyclones on the back row and nuking the most threatening DPS down under heroism and mortal strike while your priest dispels and fears the healers as soon as Cyclone drops? There's really nothing in that group comp that limits you.

[Nebu]

Shamen get stupid easy to level IF you go enhance spec and get down the dual weild line.  Right now I'd agree that priests are the worst to level pre-40 as I'm in the middle of leveling one myself.  I've leveled a warrior, shaman, mage, hunter, druid, rogue, and warlock all past 70.  

Easiest: hunter >>  warlock >>  rogue > shaman > druid > mage > warrior > priest.  

A lot could depend on playstyle as I am impatient as hell and rapidly give up on classes that have to eat/drink often.  I also need to give DK a try.  I've heard they are in the hunter - warlock level of stupid easy.  I also downgrade druids a bit because switchign forms all the time irritates the shit out of me.  Rogues are also a * because their ease is dependant on gear and because my rogue was an alchemist.  Lots of tools + pots made things trivial.

Playing my level 80 hunter is so trivially easy that it's boring.  I swear that I can pull 10 level 80 mobs and still not really struggle so long as none of them are casters that snare my bear.  

[Nebu]

Feral & Balance Druids. Enhance and Elemental Shaman. Retribution Paladins. Shadow Priests. There's a pattern here, see if you can spot it! 

They are dps trees for healing classes.  All are inferior to warlocks, mages, rogues, and hunters in dps output.  Those are the classes putting out high dps in low level gear.  Isn't that what he was complaining about?  Toons being able to do 2k dps in crap gear? 

[bhodi]

Easy.

Step one: Get a bloodied arcanite reaper with crusader. This thing is a godsend until level 40 or so. Also get the chest and shoudlers for +20% exp if you feel like it. The trinkets (one of each) help as well, but to a lesser degree.

1-16: BOOOOOORRRINNNGGG. Run up, judgement of light, autoattack. Fortunately, you kill everything in 2 hits.
16-41: A bit less boring. Use Reckoning to pull, judgement of light, autoattack until dead. Fortunately, you still kill everything in 2 hits.
41-44: You open up your chief things here, Judgments of the Wise (Infinite Mana) and The Art of War (Proc on crit, instant cast heal or exorcism). Exorcism does about 40-60% of a mob's life, and infinite mana means you can cast concecration all you like (it's too expensive until this point)
45-50: You can add concecration to your rotation. Reckoning->Concecration->Judgement of Light, When art of war procs, throw an exorcism. Autoattack until dead. Often, your second autoattack swing will finish them off. You can also start to seriously AoE 2-3 mobs down at once for more efficient killing.
50-60: Crusader strike. Annoyed if your 2nd autoattack swing misses and you can't use your GCD every cooldown? Be annoyed no longer! It's a instant cast 90% weapon damage attack. Even though everything dies in 2 hits, this still speeds things up.
60: Divine Storm. Tired of pulling 3-4 mobs and not having them die fast enough? Tired no more! This is a 110% damage attack that hits 4 mobs AND heals you for 25% of the damage dealt.

Optimally, you run through two mobs, Reckoning a third, Concecration->judgement->Divine Storm->(switch targets since that is now at 25% life)->crusader strike->exorcism(it has surely procc'd)->(switch again to the third mob)->judgement->Divine storm they are all dead. In under 10 seconds. With careful use of your 6 second invincibility and in a pinch lay on hands, you can AoE down up to 6 even level mobs.

It REALLY sucks until you get reckoning at 16, and kind of sucks until 40, but unlike the shaman, you have 0 chance of dying, everything you have is an instant cast so you can cast on the run, and everything dies by your second autoattack swing. I'm only 70, but my 'rotation' hasn't changed since level 60. Not that it matters. I'm scything through content. I can count the number of times I have had to stop and drink on one hand.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Yes, paladins suck for levelling until around 30 and then they take off.

Personally I find consecration will tap me out of mana unless i use blessing of wisdom.  imo it's much faster to just use might and ignore consecration for all but multiple pulls.

[Musashi]

Though, in all fairness, before they reworked retribution, apparently leveling a paladin in the olden days was pain incarnate.

Speaking as someone who both leveled a Paladin to 60 in vanilla, and just got a second one to 80 yesterday, I can say that it is by far easier now.  It's not even close.  The changes to Ret make it so easy to level it's not even funny.  In the old days there was nothing past Seal of Command (a lower tier talent) that increased your DPS at all.  So essentially, you got to sit around hoping for SoC procs and swapping out Wisdom or Light depending on what you were short.  You didn't die very often, because you still had all the oh shit buttons.  But you just couldn't kill anything.  Even when I got Destiny at like 50 or whatever (a fast purple two handed weapon that increased the effectiveness of the old Paly Judgement system) it was still slow.

The only class that's perhaps easier is a DK.  Maybe a hunter if you know what you're doing.  Paladins are meant to be the easiest class to play.  It's just that for the longest time they were the most boring to level.  I also recently gave up on a Shaman until I could get him some twink stuff.

[Fabricated]

Thing about faction champs is that you can give all the advice you want but it doesn't really matter because it's literally different for every group makeup. The only thing that seems to be a constant is dispelling like crazy.

Pray for the following if you want an easy group:
-The disc priest
-no warrior

The warrior is the only major DPS they can have that can literally not be controlled for long periods of time due to bladestorm (also he can't be snared or slowed during it), and he can rage out of fears. He's a fucking prick and needs nerfed hard.

The Disc priest is pathetic unless allowed to heal with impunity, which is obvious. He can easily be locked down by a single rogue or prot warrior but if you get him, just target him first because he has less HP than any of the other healers and nearly no armor. With sunder stacks and good melee he disappears something like 7 seconds into the fight.

[Selby]

I've leveled a mage, priest, and druid to 80.  Leveling a shaman to 73, a warlock to 60, and a DK to 66 so far at the moment.  Once you find out what specifically works for a class, it is pretty simple to level effectively.  The shaman is slow to kill mobs early on, but with water shield and a shield to block with, you can keep healing yourself even with multiple mobs smacking you around.  Things just die... really... slowly... until you hit 40 and get dual wield, which is a complete class play change.  Elemental and restoration shaman have a better chance of getting into raids and heroics for some reason.  The priest wasn't bad after about 20 and was improved after 40 with shadowform and a joke once you get Vampiric Touch at 50 or so (drinking\eating downtime goes away).  The higher in level a priest gets, the easier it is.  But once you hit 80, better have dual spec for healing talents as rarely will groups take a shadowpriest.  Druid is also pretty easy as you can heal, tank, and DPS all from the same character.  Same thing at 80 as a priest, better heal or have a hard time finding groups as feral unless you can effectively tank.  Warlock has been easy, if a bit slow.  Felguard makes a nice pet to level with.  The DK has been facerollingly easy.  How can you tell you are fighting an elite mob?  They take 20s to die instead of 5.  You seriously have to force yourself to die with this class as most mobs are not going to be up to the task of taking you down.

I've leveled a paladin to 16 and got bored with it very easily.  I might go back to it one day, but there are no plans for it =)  My warrior and rogue suffer the same fate of being 13 and 25 and not interested in being played right now, but that may be because I really don't want to deal with the old-world content from 20-30 and STV again...  The only class I haven't played is a hunter, and that was because of back in vanilla WoW how terribly bad most hunters were and how no one ever took one in a group or raid, so unless you were incredibly talented, you weren't going to see much end-game content.  Now that their DPS is quite boosted, things are different.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Of all the characters i've levelled, even paladins don't come close to the cheese that is a DK. That elite comment isn't even a joke, i was doing quests in outland when a rare orc elite popped up. I didn't even realize it was elite until I got an achievement for killing it.

[Merusk]

I tried leveling my pally as Ret a few days ago and hated it.  Threw back on my protadin gear and ran around in godmode again.      Nearly got killed by one of those elite walking mountains in Borean Tundra but then that "You don't die" instant-heal kicked in and I was at 30% health while it was at 10%.. dead mountain.

[Shrike]

The only thing holding protection pallies back is lack of mana regen. Divine plea is nice, but it's nowhere near what ret has available. But, yeah, prot pallies are damned near unkillable as long as there's some blue in the bar.

My own ret pally is still stuck at 59 (keep meaning to hit the BGs, but never get around to it). However, she's a steamroller, no doubt about it (TBC lvl57 gear--enchanted--BoA sword and shoulders, and alot of JC stuff courtesy of my shaman). It's sick. Real sick.

However, the cheese award does go to DKs. Mine basically walked out of Archerus and leveled to 68 without changing a thing, except for the green sword from Hala at 66. Crushed everything in her path. Level 68 in Northrend was a bit slow initially, but lvl70 and full tempered cobalt turned her into death incarnate and it only got better until lvl79 when I froze her experience to frolic in the BGs--and that's a whole 'nother story in sick, sick, truly sick nerf-worthy performance. Huge pulls? No problemo. Elites? Surely, you jest. Class needs nuclear grade nerfing. 

[schild]

There is nothing in a video game that can't be botted. Nothing. 

Just hopping in to say bullshit. There are some games where there's simply no such thing as an effective bot. I'll agree that everything can be botted poorly, but WoW could be botted fairly perfectly with minimal effort. Nearly every MMOG could.

So what is this mythical game that is only able to be played Human vs Human because no AI exists for it?

No EFFECTIVE AI? As in meaningful?

Let's start with Team Fortress 2 and work our way from there. I'd say most RTS games have such crap for an AI that they need to cheat in terms of resource growth. I know the Ensemble and BHG games did this. Wouldn't be surprised if the Blizzard stuff did also. Any team based shooter (like TF2) has no bot system worth playing against as teamwork is rudimentary at best. It's a matter of synergy and timing more than WoW's simple system of if/then triggers.

[K9]

I think we're mixing hypotheticals here.

[SurfD]

Of all the characters i've levelled, even paladins don't come close to the cheese that is a DK. That elite comment isn't even a joke, i was doing quests in outland when a rare orc elite popped up. I didn't even realize it was elite until I got an achievement for killing it.

Meh, the rare outland "elites" are not as "elite" as they used to be.  I remember when you needed a group of 3+ level 68-70 people to kill the Rare Elites in Shadowmoon or Netherstorm.  Then they did one of their "balance and leveling speed" passes and suddenly my level 71 balance druid could kill them without breaking a sweat.

[Phunked]

There is nothing in a video game that can't be botted. Nothing. 

Just hopping in to say bullshit. There are some games where there's simply no such thing as an effective bot. I'll agree that everything can be botted poorly, but WoW could be botted fairly perfectly with minimal effort. Nearly every MMOG could.

So what is this mythical game that is only able to be played Human vs Human because no AI exists for it?

No EFFECTIVE AI? As in meaningful?

Let's start with Team Fortress 2 and work our way from there. I'd say most RTS games have such crap for an AI that they need to cheat in terms of resource growth. I know the Ensemble and BHG games did this. Wouldn't be surprised if the Blizzard stuff did also. Any team based shooter (like TF2) has no bot system worth playing against as teamwork is rudimentary at best. It's a matter of synergy and timing more than WoW's simple system of if/then triggers.

WOW is very bottable  for precisely these reasons - the entire game revolves around basic situational awareness and spreadsheet DPS. Tanking and healing are similarly reducible to cooldown/ability usage.

Hell, even faction champions, which has it's own very basic AI (intentionally so), is pretty powerful. I'd imagine that team could get 2000k+ on any BG if they just run 5v5 with their AI triggers and appropriate gear/hp/whatever. That's not to suggest that the fight is difficult, but merely that WoW does not have nearly as big a focus on synergy and timing (beyond cooldowns) as does even something like TF2.

[Gobbeldygook]

The creator of Pirox has said he's confident he could create an unbeatable arena bot, but he doesn't do so because it would take Pirox from a nuisance to Blizzard's #1 priority.

[Signe]

I hadn't played Alliance or a paladin before, so this time I chose a ret paladin to give it ago.  It's so easy you don't even have to pay attention.  In fact, it's kind of hard to pay attention.  Paladin has to be about the least interesting I've played so far.  I'll probably end up abandoning it.  At least I know what not to choose when making a character!  I've died a couple of times, but only because I fell asleep.

[WindupAtheist]

Frankly they probably need to get rid of bubble and give us some actual interesting tools. The eleven-year-old rogue kiddies who sit there in battlegrounds trying to DPS through my bubble while steam shoots out of their ears will still die and fill the forums with poorly spelled tears about how everyone who isn't a stunlockable clothy is overpowered, but at least I'll have something better to say when kited than "I run 15% faster, I'll catch you eventually, unless perhaps you have some manner of crowd control!"

[Hawkbit]

It can be said about all classes, but being on the receiving end of a well-played/geared ret pally is almost embarrassing.  They can drop a long stun and then all I see are 4-5000s drop in a matter of seconds.  Then I'm dead. 

[Ingmar]

3.2.2 live today, patch notes are at MMO-Champ.

[Nebu]

3.2.2 live today, patch notes are at MMO-Champ.

ANy chance you could link this for those of us too lazy to search for it at work?

[Ingmar]

www.mmo-champion.com

It is probably worth bookmarking, it is the best site for news/speculation on patch notes, PTR changes, and such.

[WindupAtheist]

It can be said about all classes, but being on the receiving end of a well-played/geared ret pally is almost embarrassing.  They can drop a long stun and then all I see are 4-5000s drop in a matter of seconds.  Then I'm dead.

If they're dropping you full-to-zero in the span of one HoJ, they don't have to be particularly well-played. You're outgeared by such an order of magnitude that the fight was over the moment they noticed you.

[Fordel]

It can be said about all classes, but being on the receiving end of a well-played/geared ret pally is almost embarrassing.  They can drop a long stun and then all I see are 4-5000s drop in a matter of seconds.  Then I'm dead.

If they're dropping you full-to-zero in the span of one HoJ, they don't have to be particularly well-played. You're outgeared by such an order of magnitude that the fight was over the moment they noticed you.

Before the Ret nerfs, it didn't matter how much gear you had compared to the Paladin. They were just that obscene for the first 2/3rds of the expansion.

These days, they need a top tier ugly stick from high rated Arena or the latest 25 man. To get those kinds of results.

[Sheepherder]

Ret burn sequences are indeed dead except for those who reek of catass.  I'm finding it's a lot easier to just outlast most classes via mana returns and Sacred Shield + AoW procs.

[Zetor]

And now for something completely different...

any word on how puggable the new Onyxia is? I did the 'original' back in vanilla, but that was like 4 years ago and whatnot. I saw ilevel245 stuff on her loot table, so the encounter is probably tuned out of reach for most groups... or is it?

[Morat20]

Hey! They made my Big Red Kitty into a 10-second Big Red Kitty. I'm not sure I like that, but since I can't remember how long Bestial Wrath lasts -- and I get a permanent 10% damage boost out of the nerf -- I think it's a wash. Maybe a net plus.

[Lantyssa]

For me it's a big Plus as I never remember to use it, or I always save it "for an emergency".  I prefer passives over abilities with significant cool downs since I get more use out of them in the long run.

On a different note, Doomhammer's world server has gone down several times today.

[Ingmar]

Ah, patch day. We should really stop raiding on Tuesdays. 

[Merusk]

Ah, patch day. We should really stop raiding on Tuesdays. 

I keep saying this, too. Only one guild has listened to me so far, as if somehow Tuesday is a Magical day and killing bosses THAT DAY makes them more special.   Of course, I feel the same way about the stupidity of East Coast servers catering to PST players and running raids from 10pm to 1am EST.

[Sjofn]

For us, for whatever reason, Tuesdays and Thursdays have the best attendance. I would love to stop raiding on Tuesdays, but we never do. :(

[Rasix]

Ah, patch day. We should really stop raiding on Tuesdays. 

I keep saying this, too. Only one guild has listened to me so far, as if somehow Tuesday is a Magical day and killing bosses THAT DAY makes them more special.   Of course, I feel the same way about the stupidity of East Coast servers catering to PST players and running raids from 10pm to 1am EST.

I'm on a PST server and the top guild on the server runs from 5:30 pm onwards.  And they often wonder why they have a hard time poaching from the various lesser horde guilds. Of course, since the invention of faction transfers, they just poached all of the earlier raiders from alliance and promptly closed recruiting.