WoW

Changes Coming (Pre-Legion)

stargrace June 18, 2016 0Comment

Last week I finally got into the Legion beta, after trying to get in since I heard about it. I eagerly downloaded the beta server and then was promptly unable to play because of some technical difficulties with a patch they had just rolled out. Such is my luck. Eventually later on in the day I was able to log in without facing a multitude of disconnects and lag, and what grabbed me right off the bat was not any of the proposed changes coming in Legion, but the changes coming before Legion hits. The ones that are now on the PTR for testing (with no live date in sight, but with Legion only months away, it’s only a matter of time).

Of these changes my absolute favourite is the changes to the transmog system. Instead of carting around appearance gear or storing it forever in void storage (which has a hefty fee if you ever want to remove the item from void storage) there’s a slick new interface that’s account wide. I absolutely LOVE this change, and I think it will really make a difference in how often I get to change my characters appearance from their typical gear. Not only does it take armour into consideration but things like tabards and shirts will also be account wide. The changes to this single feature (so far) outweigh everything else I’ve seen. In true blizzard fashion they’ve taken a system that’s already around in other games (Diablo3, GW2) and added their own design features and perfected it for World of Warcraft.

One of the changes that leaves me with a less than happy taste in my mouth is the changes (and removal) of glyphs. A few are still around, but characters no longer have a glyph panel and instead these are built into your spells. The problem I have is that it doesn’t seem that Blizzard has thought it through as far as the inscription craft class goes which of course I just swapped my 2nd main character to. Instead of making glyphs, inscription will make a consumable item that’s used by players once a week to help do more DPS to a specific boss.

Eh?

Of course I’ll reserve my overall judgement for when it all goes live (nothing is set in stone) but it leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth. I guess there was some heavy debate over scribes making too much money with their glyphs and this is some sort of retribution and balance to that. Perfectly understandable but I’m still kicking myself for having just picked up the profession. On the other hand, I have enough alts that I have pretty much one of everything, so it’s not a huge deal.

I’m very excited to experience the rest of the changes, I think it’s going to be a great time for gaming in World of Warcraft.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Why I Highly Recommend Jumping into PvP Pet Battles

stargrace May 26, 2016 0Comment

I don’t enjoy confrontation, and I’ve never been a huge fan of PVP though I do partake (it’s probably because I’m constantly doubting my skills or lack there of). Where that doesn’t seem to matter at all because of the method in which battles have been implemented in is in World of Warcraft’s pet battles.

At the start I was pretty intimidated. My first attempt at doing pet battles (in a pvp sense) was during pet week when there’s a bonus to the experience earned. You get a token that instantly boosts a pet of your choosing to 25, and that’s a pretty awesome thing to have. I figured how bad can it be to win 5 matches.

The very first thing I realized is that there’s a lot LESS pressure than I thought because the whole thing is anonymous. You have no idea who the player is that you’re up against. There’s no names, there’s no chatting. It’s just like you’re fighting NPC except they’ve got a different way of doing things.

I started learning a lot about my pet set ups and thinking outside of the box as to what team would be best suited for random battles where I had no idea what I would be up against. The team switches from week to week, but for now I’ve settled on the unborn Val’kyr, anubisath idol, and soul of the forge.

I open with curse of doom, and follow up with haunt. This kills the val’kyr but only temporarily until haunt triggers 4 turns later. This gives my opponents a false sense of security, they think “hey, one pet already down!” – then I sandstorm. I try to time my deflection when their biggest moves are up, and crush in between. I swap pets and repeat the process when the unborn val’kyr is back in play, and spam flamethrower, and deep burn on the soul of forge while keeping extra plating up where possible.

Do I win every fight? No, of course not. But I win enough to earn a few achievements and to earn the quested token that lets me boost another pet to 25. It’s fun, stress free, and if you’ve been avoiding it because you’re not sure how the pvp aspect of it would be I highly suggest diving right in.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Countdown to Legion

stargrace May 20, 2016 0Comment

Legion is right around the corner, and with all of the hype going on lately I’ve wandered back in game to play around with my level 100 characters and perhaps get another one (or two) to 100 before the expansion. I’m pretty sure I’ll be playing my priest when legion hits, but there’s always a chance I’ll decide on someone else instead. Priest is just what I’m most comfortable with, and the character I’ve dedicated the most time to (achievements and what not, even though I know those are account wide).

Even though I’ve had multiple level 100s for quite a while now, I still hadn’t gathered the courage to defeat Kazzak in Tanaan Jungle. Today I decided it was most certainly time. I got a nice cloak upgrade and a few felblight for crafting. Plus the achievement for defeating him. Before that I had been going through the LFRaid groups looking for ones that would reward me the goodie bags for queuing as a healer. I got a neat empowered apexis fragment from that which I’ll probably pass down to an alt to use so they can have a piece of nice gear too. My main is just slightly shy of 700 ilevel, and I couldn’t be more tickled about that.

Having fun in a game that I’ve played (off and on) for years now is important to me and I’m glad I can still get that same sort of joy from it. If you want to add me to battlenet, I’m Stargrace#1783 and while you’ll typically see me wandering through Azeroth there are times I take a dip into Diablo3 and other Blizzard games too (Overwatch maybe?) in time.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!