Leaked 1.12 patch notes; maybe fake

[Fabricated]

WoW is the most fun MMORPG I've ever played 1-60, and even up to the endgame 5-man dungeons and the one piddly 10-man, level 60 is pretty fun.

The fun however seems to be subject to dramatic change via patches when you get to Tigole and Furor's "Let's make this EQ 1.5" 40-man raids that outside of bugfixes, never get altered to suit talent changes and buffs/nerfs.

The 20-mans however I admit are fun with clueful people. Mostly because it's much easier to get 20 people who aren't fuckups together than 40.

[Paelos]

It's much easier to get 20 ppl together who aren't absolute lootwhoring dickheads as well.

[Simond]

BTW, here's Blizzard's official responses to the crippling Horde PvE nerf in 1.12:

Crezax: "There won't be any major balance changes between Paladins and Shamans in the near future. It will however be looked at again after the release of the expansion to see if things need to be changed."
Drokthul: " Posting about class concerns in General will only serve to get your thread deleted, and your posting privileges revoked."

Wonder how bad the A:H population ratio will have to slip before Blizzard figure out the Horde is screwed in PvE? 5:1? 10:1? 100:1?

[Jeff Kelly]

Wonder how bad the A:H population ratio will have to slip before Blizzard figure out the Horde is screwed in PvE? 5:1? 10:1? 100:1?

Horde faction is already constantly losing players. Less people to start with means less people raiding or collecting and manufacturing goods. That means less recruits for raiding guilds and less mats for tries.

Less recruits means that many of the horde raids I know are on the constant brink of collapse due to people quitting/rerolling alliance/burning out and no readily available replacements. That means gearing up new recruits in MC or BWL which will burn out even more people that are already bored with MC.

Now not only people quit horde and reroll alliance but whole guilds quit and reroll alliance which just speeds things up. A real vicious cycle. On my server there are only two raids left that are even able to do BWL because we have so few players. Nobody has set foot in Naxx and of that two guilds not one has been able to kill two emps in AQ.

And still every week more people quit horde. If the trend continues then, at least on my server, there will be no horde left in a few months.

[Simond]

Yeah, the numbers are going to get worse before (if?) they get better - and naturally any changes to bring Horde PvE up to speed is going to unleash a storm of whining from short-sighted Alliance players (aka the ones who whine now about how overpowered the Horde is in one breath, and then whine about the BG queues in another).

BTW, I missed one of the stock Blizzard answers - "Wait until after the expansion and see if there's still a problem"

Now, the way I see it there's only four possible explanations for this stance:
1) Horde are getting some serious upgrades with TBC.
2) Alliance are getting some serious nerfs with TBC.
3) Blood elf paladins + draenai shaman
or, of course...
4) Blizzard have not one clue what's really going on with their game, and will only react about six months after the situation has become utterly untenable for Horde.

[Merusk]

5) They believe the problem is one of population, not class balance and expect Blood Elves and the Expansion to breathe new life into the Horde along with returning players who had previously cancelled.

Whines about Horde over-poweredness always pertain to PvP.  Only an idiot would scream about them in large-group PvE. (Though some folks seem to think that Shaman trivialize some ZG bosses.  No idea how that's supposed to work, though.)

[bhodi]

Horde 1-60 is less polished than alliance. I was shocked at how much less polished it was. Barrens would have made me quit the game had I gone horde first instead of alliance. It's so bad they made fun of it in the fake april fools patch notes.

There are specific situations that help horde conquer specific bosses much easier than alliance; totems on razorgore for slow and on princess to absorb the poison. Unfortunately, most of these are patched because (?) it seems to give the horde an undue advantage.

Horde in general have more coordiation end-game and can play through content with better teamwork and less zerging. This is due solely to player skll and dedication, not game mechanics.

Paladins are clearly better than shaman in a raiding aspect, most noteably becuase paladins can effectively buff outside their own party. On paper, the buffs are generally the same strength.

Population is already severely weighted to alliance on most servers. Cross-server battlegrounds is not going to help.

There's really no reason to play horde for the end game, and this latest windfury patch fucks them hardcore.

[Paelos]

Ok as I understand it, the windfury totem gives a party buff that grants an extra hit to all melee people 20% of the time, and that hit gets a large AP buff. So, basically Horde gets 6 hits for every 5 they lay in. Now, what they've done is nerf it so that it's off of normal melee swings instead of instant attacks. So basically, it makes it more a damage over time thing than dependent on how many attacks you can do in a fight with your abilities. Is that correct?

Also, hamstring was triggering the totem? Were warriors spamming hamstrings in order to grab the extra huge attack? That sounds pretty stupid to me as a warrior, and I can understand if that was triggering it, it shouldn't be. However, nerfing it whole hog down to just normal melee seems equally as stupid. MS is a normal attack, just instant and part of a high talent build. Why shouldn't it trigger?

Is there a post describing the math on this? How much dps was this granting to melee before and after?

[Xanthippe]

Horde in general have more coordiation end-game and can play through content with better teamwork and less zerging. This is due solely to player skll and dedication, not game mechanics.

You're kidding, right?  You don't seriously believe that Horde players are better than Alliance?

[Fabricated]

Horde 1-60 is less polished than alliance. I was shocked at how much less polished it was. Barrens would have made me quit the game had I gone horde first instead of alliance. It's so bad they made fun of it in the fake april fools patch notes.

This is why I can never stick with my horde toons. I visit a fair amount of online communities and every. single. fucking. one. has to play Horde for some reason...and usually on a PVP server.

I've tried so hard to get a horde toon past 30 and I just can't do it. The Barrens, Stonetalon Mountains, and all the surrounding zones are just painfully, painfully boring compared to the alliance ones.

[Merusk]

Alliance zones in the 30s can be pretty sucktastic, too.  Stranglethorn is the least-sucky of them and it just goes on and on and on and on.  Doing any of them on a PvP server, however, is an execrise in masochism and why I quit trying.

[Xanthippe]

Alliance zones in the 30s can be pretty sucktastic, too.  Stranglethorn is the least-sucky of them and it just goes on and on and on and on.  Doing any of them on a PvP server, however, is an execrise in masochism and why I quit trying.

See, I just find the pve servers totally boring.  I guess I enjoy looking over my shoulder.  Kind of funny too, because I usually do not attack people unless they attack me first, or they're harvesting the same thing I am. 

But then, I do have alts to play if one area gets obnoxious.  I'm not a "stick-with-one-toon" type of gal.  I'd probably play a pve server if I was.

[Merusk]

No, watching over my shoulder was fine with me.  I was on Emerald Dream with F13 when we tried there and even had a nice rivalry going with one or two other rogues in my level range.  We were leving up at the same rate and kept encountering each other in STV or Alterac, etc.  It was a case of who found who first that day.

  However, when the bored L60s and 50s started corpse camping me I decided I'd had enough.  It's one thing to have a rivalry and know you can be ganked, and another to be held in place by something you can do absolutly nothing about.  Even ganging-up on folks I can somewhat tolerate, so long as I know I can find the fuckers later and take my revenge. (which is why I still hang out in EVE). 

[Simond]

You're kidding, right?  You don't seriously believe that Horde players are better than Alliance?

Horde guilds have to work harder to achieve the same results.

Oh, and someone hit Blizzard with the clue bat:

I've spoken with the developers and they let me know that they're not satisfied with the impact the windfury totem change is having on current end-game content balance, and plan to undo the change. Please remember that the testing phase of any patch is precisely to test such changes and evaluate their possible impact on the game, whether or not they eventually go into the final release build.

In short, no change to Windfury Totem is planned at this time.

Mighty quick testing.... 

[Jayce]

  However, when the bored L60s and 50s started corpse camping me I decided I'd had enough. 

I usually res enough times to ensure they are going to expect me to stick around, then go afk for about 15-30 mins.  It make me giggle thinking someone is wasting their life waiting for me to res while I'm enjoying a nice conversation with my wife or soda on my porch.

It's also fun to greif them in whatever little ways possible, like ghosting them until they are distracted and ressing just long enough to fear or something.

[Modern Angel]

Translation of Blizzard statement: we're completely oblivious to the fact that our games are made of math. That led us to have no fucking clue how bad the nerf was. We visited some sites that actually understand the math and it looks like we fucked up. Sorry. Correct us again in two patches.

[Tale]

What's a Horde? Everyone on my server (Proudmoore) plays Alliance.

[Fabricated]

What's a Horde? Everyone on my server (Proudmoore) plays Alliance.

Well, now anyway. The biggest horde guilds transferred off our shithole.

[bhodi]

HAHAHAHAHAH YOU FUCKING CALLED IT!!!!!!!! This deserves it's own thread. I'm making one.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6154421.html

So what does all this background mean in terms of gameplay? Simply put: In The Burning Crusade, Alliance players can play as Draenei shamans, while Horde players can play as Blood Elf paladins. Previously, players on either side weren't able to access those character classes: paladins were exclusive to the Alliance, while shamans were exclusive to the Horde.

[Hoax]

Horde = jobbed now.

[Zane0]

Just read it.  Probably for the best.  I guess they could balance them properly instead, but we all know how well that tends to turn out.

A Lot of uber guilds will be wanting a few of these guys- even alliance would love a windfury totem, or whatever else that comes along in the expansion.

Want a really easy tag into a good guild?  Level an Alliance Shaman / Horde Pally.

[bhodi]

Of course we fucking want a few. BoK + BoM + WF? BoW + Manatide?

It does sort of fuck the paladins/druids, becuase now shamans are going to be fighting for spots.