This morning I went over to WoWJutsu to check out my guild’s progression, now that we have our first bear mount.  It’s not that I expect us to be ranked crazy high or anything, but I was just curious.  Well, we are ranked 31st on the server, which all things considered isn’t half bad.  Keep in mind that we rarely run 25 mans in house (our last 25 man was probably 2 months ago) and we are most definitely a casual guild. 

While I was there, I took a look at the big time raiding guilds that are on top on my server.  We don’t have any guilds that have cleared SWP, but of course we do have our share that are running it.  Still, there are many guilds FAR more progressed than ours.  Just for giggles, I decided to look into how those higher up raiding guilds do recruitment, and see what kind of commitments they require.

I did this with NO PLANS to ever try to apply to such a guild, just as an academic exercise.  What does it take to be in the top 10 guilds on our server?

Well, what I found showed me that I will never, ever, EVER be a part of any of them, and here is why.

First of all, I STILL don’t meet many of their gear requirements, and I like to think I’m doing pretty well.  I don’t have ALL the good badge gear or anything, but I have the best pants and healy mace.  (Frankly, it’s dang near impossible for me to farm badges regularly.  When I log on at 10 pm, it can be hard to find a decent heroic run, in guild or not.)  I also have a smattering of gear from ZA, SSC, and one of the best pair of healing boots in the game.  (My armory, for the curious.) 

From the looks of it, all I really have to do is farm the 230 or so badges to get the rest of the 2.4 badge gear.   

Yeah, right.

Of course, I could also get lucky with a couple more drops, like the helm from Jan’alai in ZA and the T6 gloves from Azgalor, should I get lucky and be high enough on the SK list to grab them.  Still, it would take considerably more time, unless I got REALLY lucky.

Ok, gear aside, what about the time investment?

Well, most guilds I looked at raid 4 or 5 nights a week, for more than 3 hours each night, and expect 80% attendance.  So I’d have to raid 3 or 4 nights a week, 3 or more hours each night.  And that doesn’t include time farming for consumables and the like.  I play roughly 10 hours a week now, as a raider I’d have to put in at least 5 more by my calculations.

Add to that fact I’d have to raid Monday, Wednesday and Thursday nights in most cases.

Again, yeah, right.

The only way that would happen is if I went through the Big D, and I don’t mean Dallas.  Now, I know there are those out there who have sacrificed their relationships for WoW, but I am not one of them.

I don’t have the gear, I don’t have the time.

So I sighed, realizing my lot in this game.  There is only so far I can go. 

Let me ask you this, though, why don’t raiding guilds value skill MORE highly than attendance and a few holes in gear?  Yes, they do all have a trial period or other skill-based "audition" for the guild, but that comes AFTER they see you can make 80% of the raids and you’re already decked out in T6.

I am POSITIVE that if they gave me some kind of audition, maybe a run with them through Heroic MagT or something, they will see I’m no slouch. 

Oh well, those are the breaks.  That’s the sacrifice I make, or rather don’t make.  WoW is a past time for me, and I have no intention of "clocking in" three or four nights a week.  This has made me even more appreciative that I do have a raiding outlet given my time restrictions.  I can only go once a week, but when I sign up, they always take me.  I like to think I’m one of the better healers in my raiding alliance, and I can be happy with that.

Maybe Wrath will change the way things are done.  We shall see.

Briefly, I want to give a shout out to my guild for nabbing its first Bear mount from ZA on Sunday.  I wasn’t there personally, but it’s awesome that they got it done.  They have been working on it diligently for a couple of weeks now, and I’m ecstatic that their work paid off.  That’s one more check mark for my casual guild before Wrath hits!

As you know from some of my recent posts, my guild has been making an effort to get a bear mount or two before the big patch hits.  While we are close to success, I thought I’d use the mouthpiece of my blog to try to dredge up some extra tips and advice from my readers.

First, 3 questions:

• What kind of group do you take?
• Do you use any fancy tricks or shortcuts to cut time?
• Is there a particular use of trinkets or other tools that you consider necessary to a successful Bear run?

By way of example, here is the general group make-up we have been using.  All members have some or most of their 2.4 badge gear.  They represent most of the best our guild has to offer.

Tanks:

• Warrior
• Pally

Healers:

• Tree
• CoH Priest

DPS:

• Elemental Shammy
• Elemental Shammy
• Boomkin
• Mage
• Rogue
• Hunter

We also have a VERY well geared Lock that often comes along for one of the DPS spots.

There you have it.  I don’t need to get any further into details, the rest of this post is up to you guys.  Let’s hear it!

I’ll freely admit it.  I let my emotions get the best of me in a few guild issues over the last couple of weeks.  I said/posted some things I probably shouldn’t have, and ended up ruffling some feathers that didn’t deserve ruffling.  I am guilty as charged, and I’m here to apologize.  The problem?  It all boiled down to communication, or the lack thereof.  So first, let me say I apologize publicly to those involved, and I hope this post can be an olive branch to mend the torn fences.  (On a side note, this paragraph may have the most cliches per capita of any post in Part Time Druid history.)

In a nutshell, here’s the story.  The names have been omitted to protect the innocent.  A few weeks back, I started to ask around in guild if we had any intentions of trying for a Bear mount.  I knew that they would be going the way of the dodo soon, and I wanted to see our guild accomplish the task.  We are a casual guild, so we can’t often achieve challenges that are easy for other guilds.  Getting all four chests in ZA is one such challenge. 

I made some posts on our boards, I spoke to a couple of key guild members through PMs and in game, and I even made a couple weak attempts at organizing Bear runs.  About a week or so after my failed attempts to get it going, I got an invite by one of our Raid Leaders to go along on a Bear Mount attempt.  I told him I would see if I could "get the night off" from the wife to go along.  I did.  We were pushing for at least the first three chests, and wanted to see how we could do going for the fourth. 

We didn’t get it done, but overall did fairly well.  The healing setup was not ideal, as we went with myself and a Holy Pally.  We lost a good deal of time on the Dragonhawk when we had a hard time keeping up with the raid damage.  I wasn’t surprised, as I would wager a Pally/Druid combo is one of the worst combos for such an attempt. 

Anyhow, I had a lot of fun that night, and mentioned that I would like to keep trying.  I said I would have to change my raiding schedule, shelving my T6 raiding temporarily, so I could come along once a week, but that I did want to go again. 

I wasn’t clear enough.  My failure to communicate was that I thought mentioning it off-hand would be good enough. In retrospect, I should have talked directly to the raid leader.  I should have said, "I’d like to come to this every Thursday, will I be able to go if I do clear it?"

But I didn’t.  I made assumptions, and jumped to conclusions.

So when the next Thursday rolled around, and I was in flight to Ghostlands thinking I would be coming along, I got emotional when I saw a group zoning into the instance without me.  I flew off the handle a little bit, and considered some very untoward actions.  I did manage to cool myself down, knowing in my heart that it wasn’t anything personal, but I still felt slighted.

At the time, I didn’t know that the Raid Leaders had actually been planning to start these attempts soon.  I don’t have access to those message boards to know what’s going on.

Honestly though, I should have known better.  I should have communicated better.  I should not have assumed that I was a big catalyst for these starting, or that other people understood the lengths I would have to go to in order to "clear" a night for ZA.  I think it speaks to our general tendencies to see things with blinders on, to think of things from our personal perspective and not those of others.

I fault myself for this, and I’m a little embarrassed of some of the things I said because of it.    So I hope some of the parties involved read this and understand that I did screw up a little bit.  If I had waited until the next morning, I would have been better off.

Now I’ll just cheer largely from the sidelines and hope they can get it done.  I know time is running short, and maybe I’ll be able to come along again before time runs out.  Honestly, I don’t even really want a bear for myself, but I do want to be part of the team that GETS IT DONE!

Ok, not directly. 

On a side note, wouldn’t it be kind of interesting if Blizz worked occasional national disasters into the game?  It’d be tough to get a boat from Menethil to Theramore if there was a hurricane off the coast!

But I digress.  Hurricane Ike did have a direct affect on my raiding alliance.  The main raid leader for the alliance and quite a few other members live in the Austin, TX area.  They were without power for about 10 days.

And our alliance has been without a raid for longer than that.  This brings me to the real point of this post.  I have found what I believe to be a major fault in our guild raiding alliance.

When the main Raid Leader is out, people don’t show up.  It’s not like we don’t have other experienced raid leaders, either.  We have a co-raid leader who is there for EVERY SINGLE RAID. 

But when the big guy is away, we struggle to get them off the ground.  I suppose people are used to his style, and used to the success we have when he is leading.  The problem with that argument, though, is this:  How are we going to have success with another raid leader if we can’t get people to show?

Oh well.  It doesn’t matter much to PTD in the end. I had already decided to suspend my 25 man raiding in order to help my guild try to get a bear mount before 3.0 hits.  I can only raid one night a week, so if it’s between 25 mans that will still be there after 3.0 and a bear mount that won’t, I’m going for the bear.

I’ll keep you posted as far as how it goes, I’ll be in the attempt again Thursday night — Hopefully!

I’ll come right out and admit it.  PTD is in a little bit of flux right now.  There is a chance, I won’t say how big, that I won’t keep playing a Restoration Druid when Wrath hits.  That throws off the whole blog title and all, but hey, it’s my blog!  Again, it’s only a chance, but it’s there.  You see, way back when I switched Pummra over to a healy Druid, my guild was struggling a little bit in terms of healing numbers.  The team player I am, I offered to help fill the gap by changing my talent spec from Feral to Resto.

Now, with Wrath coming, things are a lot different in my guild.  Healers have popped up everywhere, and now we are positively awash in healers.  Paladins, Priests, Shaman, Druids, we have them all.

So I’ve been asking myself, “will I actually be better off leveling a DPS class, given my part-time tendencies?”

I don’t know yet.  I do have a fairly well-equipped and well-traveled level 70 hunter sitting around.  And I’ll admit, I’m a lot more excited by the Hunter changes than the Resto Druid changes.  (Yeah, an OOC rez is awesome, a group heal is great, but come on…I can tame a COREHOUND??)  Heck, this is strange to say, but there is more than a decent chance that if I DO elect to level my Hunter, he’ll go Survival.  That talent tree in Wrath actually looks…REALLY….good!

If you really get down to brass tacks and think about it, isn’t the release of a “vertical” (ie, more levels to grind) expansion the perfect time to switch around your focus?

Yes, yes it is.  I’ll tell you why.

No Gear Reset, But Still Some Nice Gear

Wrath isn’t like BC where you’ll drop your T6 gloves for a pair of green gloves off the first mob you kill, but if you have a character who’s only recently 70, and hasn’t gone through the epic equipment grind, you’ll find some nice gear quickly.  My take on the early quest rewards is that you can largely ignore them if you’re wearing Kara or T4 equivalent gear, but they are nice upgrades if you are wearing anything less.  Hell, I took a look at the ranged weapon quest reward, and almost took it.  My hunter has epically bad luck when it comes to ranged weapon drops, and he’s still using the Wrathtide Longbow from Heroic SV, even though he’s seen Kara many, many times.

Heck, even your T6 will someday go the way of the dodo, so don’t let the purply glow suck you in.  Sure, T6 should last a good while for leveling, but at some point you’ll get rid of it.  In the not too distant future you’ll be decked out in your T7 on your NEW main, and you’ll wonder why you hesitated to make the switch.

Anyhow, if it turns out you have a BRAND NEW level 70, Wrath is the perfect time, gear-wise, to make them your new main!  You’ll actually get some real nice benefit from early quest rewards AND early crafted items.  Which brings me to my next point.

Finally Level That Tradeskill

Let’s face it, it can be fantastically painful to max out some tradeskills right now.  Heck, outside of gathering and cooking, it’s downright horrible to level most past 350.  Well, you don’t have to do it now.  Hold off and wait for Wrath.  The tradeskills that I have looked at are all giving new patterns that start at 350 skill.  These new recipes/patterns also require MUCH easier to obtain mats, and you should be able to finish off that Leather working or Tailoring skill without much trouble while you level.

I know I’m ecstatic to finish off Tailoring and Enchanting without breaking the bank, so to speak.

Talent Trees are A’Changin Anyway

I’ll admit it.  I haven’t even looked closely at the Resto Druid talent tree in Wrath.  If the other trees I have looked at are any indication, though, there are a lot of changes.  I know Feral and Balance have a lot of changes, and the Hunter talent trees are totally reworked, and of course there are the new PET trees to learn.  The point of all this is that you are going to have to relearn a lot of stuff anyhow.  Why not do it with that other class that you’ve always WANTED to play, but couldn’t stomach abandoning your shinily epiced out Main to the Nether.

Conclusion

There is no better time than now.  You aren’t going to be left behind due to gear, as everyone will be busy leveling.  Even seasoned players will have to learn new tricks and new encounters.  Sure, if you want to continue to be the best healer or Warrior or whatever you can be, you are more than welcome to continue on your present path.  But if you’ve always wanted to ditch the Priest for a Fire Ballin’ Mage, don’t hesitate.  Now is the time.  Heck, I might do it, and I have a blog and it’s title to worry about!

This post comes to you courtesy of the mailbag.

I read your excellent posts in http://parttimedruid.com/category/casual-play/ and I really enjoyed them.
I’d like to look at it from a slightly different angle though. What advice would you give to someone looking to form a Casual Raiding Guild.
For this discussion, let us assume our CRG is a 9 hour a week guild.

This is something that I’ve kinda sorta covered before, though not in terms of guild formation.  Well, it got PTD’s old gears humming, and I’ll do my best to share my thoughts on building a casual raiding guild.  I initially planned to do a “how-to” kind of post, detailing it step by step, but I soon realized that what would really help were a few key points to focus on.  Without further adieu, here they are.

Key #1: Strong Leadership

The first thing you’ll need for a casual raiding guild is strength at the top.  Casual players have a whole host of wants and needs, and you’re going to need a Mother Brain that can keep everyone fed and happy.  “Casual Raiding” can be a bit of a contradiction in terms.  The raiding environment is more naturally suited to the hardcore player, but that doesn’t mean casual raiding can’t work.  In order to MAKE it work, however, you need determined leadership.

The leader of a casual raiding guild must be flexible.  You are basically living in two separate worlds, one focusing on raid progression with the other focused on alts and keeping things fun for the non-raiding contingent.  Let’s face it, even in a casual raiding guild you will HAVE to have a portion of your membership that doesn’t really raid, at least not much.  How else will you gear up new toons, if there is nobody willing to run Heroic Mechanar while the guild at large is busy in SSC?

This is important because as a casual raiding guild, you might need a larger overall membership to make sure you can fill those 25 man runs.  Hardcore raiding guilds can recruit to fill specific class slots in specific time periods, you most likely will not be able to function that way.  You will have to continually reinforce your raiding contingent from within.  Having a guild that can focus both on raiding progression and leveling new toons is ideal.

Key #2: A Reliable Core

In a casual raiding guild, your raiding roster will no doubt be fairly fluid.  People will be attracted to your guild because they want to raid without being “required” to be there 4 nights a week.  You will attract a lot of people that can only raid one night a week.  Don’t turn them down.  You need all the help you can get.  You might end up with 4 Resto Druids, for instance, but they all can only attend a different night.

So what do I mean by a reliable core?  Well, you’ll still need a STARTING point for all your raids.  You’ll need, for 25 mans at least, a dozen or so dedicated players who DO make most or all of your raiding nights.  This reliable core will also ideally encompass many “key” classes.  A couple of tanks, a couple strong healers, some of your best DPSers.  And, of course at least a couple of people to lead those raids.  Raids don’t lead themselves, you know.  You’ll want a main raid leader and probably an assistant who helps call out orders throughout the night.  You could also employ healing leads, DPS leads, or a variety of other things, but you can get by with two strong raid leaders.

Most importantly, you want to start with a good amount of reliable members.  You don’t want to start any raid night saying, “Need 18 more for SSC.”

Key #3: A Narrow Focus

You will have your share of challenges raiding casually.  The last thing you want to do is try to go in too many directions at once.  Keep a narrow focus, at least at the beginning.  What this means is, don’t run TK for 3 hours one night, SSC for 3 hours the next, then ZA for 3 hours.  My specific recommendation, at least at the beginning, is do one 3-hour run in Kara, and then spend the other 2 nights on ONE 25 man instance.  You could start with SSC, depending on the strength of your raiders, but it might help to start with Gruul’s Lair, as it is short and gives you a good primer on 25 man coordination.  If you clear Gruul’s in one night, try Magtheridon the next.

Another element of focus that could help is make sure the guild at LARGE is focused.  By that I mean post and discuss strategies for the bosses you plan to attempt in the near future.  Because at least some of your raid will be fairly fluid, you need to make sure everyone is on the same page.  Set up some message boards and USE them to be sure this is the case.  If you plan to work on Lurker in the coming weeks, make a post about it on your boards in advance.  Make sure everyone takes a look at videos and reads the strategies.  You need your members to be OVER prepared for boss encounters.

Key #4: Flexible Scheduling

Hopefully, you already realize this.  You have to set your raiding schedule a little differently than a more serious raiding guild.  You can’t raid every Thursday, Friday and Tuesday from 7-10.  A schedule set in stone will likely lock out too many people.  You’ll need a greater degree of scheduling variance to give the majority of your guild access to raiding.  Perhaps a 2 week rotation would work.  Raid Tues, Thurs nights and Saturday during the day one week, then Wednesday, Friday night and Sunday day the next.  You have to give your members options.  If you find you can set up a hard schedule, chances are you aren’t really a casual raiding guild.  Be aware when setting up your schedule when the various raid instances reset, of course.  (You could also use this to your advantage early on, setting up Kara on successive nights.)

Key #5: A Casual Loot System

This could be the most difficult decision you have to make.  People raid for fun, but they also raid for loot.  If you have members that don’t see any shot at getting drops, they won’t bother signing up.  A DKP system, for instance, could favor the members that can make most raid nights over those that can only come once a week.  This is not acceptable in a casual raiding environment.  You need a system that will NOT punish people who can only get there once a week.

Now, I can already hear the arguments from those who think constant raid attendance means they deserve more.  In my experience, there is one element that contingent always seems to forget.  If you’re making every raid, your chances at loot are already MUCH MUCH better than those who only come once a week.  Honest.  In a month you might see SSC 12 times to the more casual player’s 4 times.  That’s a huge advantage already.

The system that has worked well for my casual raiding alliance is Suicide Kings.  It’s simple, constant attendance does HELP, but erratic attendance doesn’t kill you either.  I’m sure there are other systems out there, but I frankly don’t know much about them.    We have always used SK, dating back to Molten Core, and have never had any real issues.

Conclusion

Admittedly, I wasn’t even really aware of how and when our “casual raiding” alliance was formed.  At the time I didn’t see myself running Molten Core anytime soon, so I didn’t think much of it or pay attention.  I don’t know what decisions were made, or how every thing was hashed out.  I do know, however, the ways in which what we do, well, works.  My raiding alliance has been around a LONG time, and we were never in any real danger of it dissolving.  We got it done before Burning Crusade in Onyxia’s Lair, Molten Core, and Blackwing Lair.  Now we’ve accomplished quite a bit in every 25 man short of Sunwell.  I know that technically my alliance is not a casual raiding “guild” per se, but I think its philosophies can be easily translated to a single guild.

I hope this article didn’t ramble too much for you, but its a rather large topic to try to tackle.  If I had to try to sum it up in very few words, I would say this:  a successful casual raiding guild needs strong leadership along with great flexibility.  Remember that, and you’ll do just fine.  Thanks for reading!

I’m not going to write some meta piece about how there is no WoW killer, though I do agree with that sentiment.  WoW has become the McDonald’s of MMOs, the best competitors can hope for is to become Wendy’s or Burger King.  They aren’t going to topple World of Warcraft.

I will address my history with MMOs, and how that history makes me believe that Warhammer Online (WAR) may pull a small portion of WoW’s subscriber base, it won’t be a significant part.  The history I am talking about is with Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC), Mythic’s previous MMO entry.

PTD’s Dark Past

WoW is far from my first MMO.  That mantle goes to Asheron’s Call (AC).  I played AC for about 2 and a half years, starting in 1999.  I still have fond memories of the game, and I’m glad to see that they recently had their 100th game update. 

Anyhow, the next major stop for PTD was Mythic’s Dark Age of Camelot.  I remember being blown away by the game from the very start.  AC had fairly dated graphics at the time, and the look and feel of DAoC was leaps and bounds beyond AC.  The character models were far prettier, the spell and other animations were beautiful, and it had a huge number of classes to choose from.  (AC, different from most MMOs now, was a skill-based system.  You chose a race, you chose skills.  There really weren’t what you would consider "classes.")

Most of those differences, though, were on the surface.  The real differences were under the hood.  The real key difference was DAoC’s focus on what they called Realm vs Realm warfare.  There were a number of dungeons, many quests, and the common trappings of a PvE game in order to make leveling interesting, but in the end it was ALL about RvR.  The idea was to get to max level, and hit the battlefield.

The RvR had amazing potential.  There were many outposts and gates to take control of, massive keeps to siege, and even ancient relics to try to steal from opposing realms.  On paper, it was a fabulous system. 

In reality, though, in this author’s humble opinion, it never really worked.

Success in RvR too often rested on two different factors.  The dedication of the RvR players involved (ie, whether they were very hardcore players, tricked out in the best of everything) and sheer numbers.  I played on an "underdog" realm on my server, where we never had any real hope of challenging the might of the Midgardian players.  It wasn’t due to skill, but rather to the fact that they outnumbered us sometimes as much as 10 to 1. 

The imbalance was kicked into overdrive with the release of the Trials of Atlantic expansion, which essentially awarded the hardest of the hardcore with abilities and equipment less dedicated players couldn’t hope to achieve.

In a nutshell, that’s how DAoC failed for me.  I always felt it COULD have been great, but it never materialized.

WoW vs WAR

That’s all good and fine, but we aren’t talking about WoW vs DAoC.  Fast forward to today, and let’s talk a little bit about WAR.

Much of WAR looks and plays like WoW does today.  Cartoony graphics, ease of introductory play, a lot of quests to help you along and so forth.  Mythic was smart enough to recognize a lot of the things that made WoW a success and implement them in their own game.

And no, I don’t call this "stealing features."  Isn’t every game in a particular genre in some way derivative of those that came before?  Ok, back on topic.

Don’t let the similar paint job fool you.  At its core, WAR is quite a different game from WoW.  The focus of WoW has always been and always will be the PvE game.  The majority of their time is focused on instances, raids and so forth.  PvP was added to WoW almost as an afterthought. 

WAR is exactly the opposite.  The PvE leveling game will be fun and keep you interested, but in the end MOST goals in the game revolved around PvP.  Mythic built WAR around PvP, not the other way around.  You can start the PvP game right from the start, and jump into the various early scenarios (think battlegrounds) that are available.  And while there will be end game PvE, it will not and will never compare to that of WoW.  

Conversely, PvP in WoW will never compare to PvP in WAR.  I’m sure of it.  As I said when I discussed DAoC, Mythic’s PvP system had a LOT of potential, it simply never fulfilled it.  This time around they have hopefully learned their lessons about balance.  I still fear that there will be population imbalances, but perhaps they will come up with something to control it.

In the End

So PTD, enough blathering, what the heck are you talking about?

Well, WoW will lose a good number of players to WAR in the beginning. It is inevitable.  The apathy that I spoke of months ago has only grown stronger.  People are tired of BC and are itching for new content and in some cases a totally new experience.  They now have their opportunity with WAR. 

But hear me now and believe me later, many, many of them will be back with Wrath.  A good number of them will never be back, particularly those interested in PvP, but I believe the majority will find the PvE game only lasts so long with WAR. 

I should add that I do NOT think WAR is a bad game.  (For the sake of comparison, I DO think Age of Conan is a bad game!)  I know that Mythic was close to getting PvP right before, and I can only hope they get it right now.  I have played the game, and it is similar to WoW in many good ways, especially at the beginning.  Their Public Quest system is also very, very well done.  I don’t think you would be making any kind of mistake if you elected to jump ship for WAR, at least for now.

But if you love PvE and raiding in WoW, you won’t find quite the same experience in WAR.  And for me at least, PvP is never more than a brief diversion.  PTD is all about the PvE.

I’ve gotten a fair amount of feedback regarding my post on this boss fight.  Some people agreed with me that that fight is just plain wrong, others enjoyed the challenge and found it reasonable. 

One of the arguments was that this is the Black Temple, which at one time was the very last and presumably toughest 25 man raid in the game.  I can see that argument, I really can.  I can understand the necessity to make the Black Temple difficult. 

It’s not the difficulty that gets me.

It’s the way that this type of encounter doesn’t make sense in the broader game environment.

World of Warcraft is a tactical game.  Not a shooter.  Not a twitchy adventure game.  WoW is a game of numbers and strategy. 

Think about some other difficult encounters in the game. 

To take down the Lurker in SSC, for instance, you have to learn how to avoid the spout, and how to deal with the adds.  To do so you need a strategy, not a fast ping time. 

To take down Hydross, you need to manage the phase changes from Poison to Frost.  This has nothing to do with how fast you can click your mouse.

The encounter that closest resembles the Teron fight comes in the form of Leotheras the Blind.  Individual raid members MUST be able to defeat their inner demons.  But even this event is NOT about twitch, it’s about proper gearing and proper strategy.  Prot warriors might need to have some DPS gear.  Healers have to know which offensive spells do the most damage.

Teron, on the other hand, is all about twitch and targeting.  Blizzard may has well have put you in first person mode with a gun and cross-hairs.  You can’t gear for it.  The strategy for taking down the constructs is simple at best. 

So why is there First Person shooting in my tactical role playing game? 

Would Mario fans be miffed if the last stage of the game required you to ditch your platforming skills in lieu of a jimmied together strategy RPG mini game?

Would GTA fans lose it if progression in the game depended on building a base and deploying troops strategy game style?

The answer to the last two questions is yes.  So why are we so accepting of the FPS injection in WoW?

At this point in the beta, I’ve been through most of the starter quests in the Howling Fjord.  I’m now at the point that it’s starting to direct me further out, to the next quest hub.  My exact plans for the beta are unclear at this point.  I certainly don’t plan to do any intense leveling, as I’d rather save that for when my levels will stick around, rather than do it now and have to do it all over again.  I do plan to play around with different specs as well as mess around in the early 5 man dungeons that are available.

The other night, I decided to try out the Death Knight.  I had no intentions of rolling a DK when Wrath hits.  Will my experimentation with the class change my mind?  Let’s take a look.

The DK Intro Events

I’m not sure exactly what to call this, but what I’m referring to is the set of quests that introduces you to the class.  This isn’t like starting out in Northshire Abbey as a human, with a few scattered quests and the option to leave for greener pastures whenever you like.  This is a very specific, lore heavy quest chain that introduces you to how the class plays.

The story arc that you play through to begin your life as a Death Knight is very, very well done.  Some have suggested that Blizzard stole this idea from the first 20 levels in Age of Conan.  I never played AoC, thankfully, so I can’t comment on whether or not I see it as "theft."  Regardless, I was very happy with what Blizzard put together.  The storyline is both robust and interesting, and kept me playing well past my allotted time for the evening.  I don’t believe they have set this up to challenge the player, but rather to hold their hand a little while so they can get a hang of the new class.

On a side note, though I took many screen shots, I am electing not to share them with you.  In this case, I really don’t want to ruin anything for any of my readers, as I really think that this Death Knight starter chain is something everyone should try — whether you plan to play a DK long term or not.  Trust me, it’s well worth it.

The quest chain also gives you an opportunity to explore your dark side a bit.  You’ll be stealing, plundering, bombing and outright wreaking havoc on innocent villagers left and right.  The quests range from the standard "Kill X of X" to more interesting bombing runs and stealthy, devious type quests.  If the DK quests are any indication of the future of WoW questing, I can’t wait to see where we go from here.

Overall, the little intro story arc is some of the most fun I’ve had in the game in four years.  Some of this may be due to its newness, but just as much is probably related to quality design.

DK Talents and Play Style

When you start out you have no talent points.  Zilch.  Zero.  Basically, you are awarded anywhere between 1 and 5 or so talent points for most quests.  Rather than overwhelm you with 40 some talent points to spend out of the gate, Blizzard has elected to leak them to you a little at a time.  I am personally thankful for this decision, as I was overwhelmed by the new DRUID trees, and I’ve been playing a druid for a LONG time.  This way I was able to focus on one talent tier at a time.  I really have no clue about Death Knight talents, but from what I understand the Blood tree is the steady DPS tree, so that’s the way I went.

In all honesty, I was generally a little confused by the DK and how it played.  A lot of the skills and talents you get function differently or are more powerful depending on how many diseases were on the target.  I only saw one attack that inflicted a disease, so I basically led off most combat cycles with that.  Then I went through my other fancy little tricks that relied on the target being diseased or whatnot. 

I did NOT get a good grasp at all about how a DK should be played.  My first impression of the class is that it is VERY complex.  You have a number of different attacks to use, and I found myself a little lost as to how best to use them.  I think part of the problem is that the starting quests are overall very easy.  I think I only died perhaps once the entire time, and even that was a little fluky, as I got a few too many wandering adds hammering on me.  For the most part I just plowed through the quest mobs I had to deal with.  My guess is that I wouldn’t really get a feel for the class until the Outlands.

DK Gear

Fortunately, you get a nice leg up gear wise as well.  I’m sure you’ve heard by now, but you start with a set of matching green gear, and every few quests or so award you with a blue upgrade.  By the time you complete the quests and find yourself in regular old Azeroth, you have a complete set of matching Blue gear and a nice blue two handed sword or axe.  It’s almost like getting a full set of Tier 0.5 armor for free.  Nice!  I’m sure glad new DKs won’t be forced to compete on the AH for any plate they can find, that’s stuff already overpriced!

In addition to the nice gear and weapons, you’ll also get a leg up with a nice looking Death Charger for a mount.  The quest for it comes fairly quickly in the chain, and like the other quests it is quite easy but also quite dark.  I’ve always wanted a pally/lock style mount, and I finally got to see just how cool they were.

Conclusion

It’s hard to say how I feel about the CLASS overall at this point, as I think it will take some more time to explore how they play in the more difficult Outlands areas.  I am excited to take a look at the different trees, and see how the class actually pans out as a tank.  I will say that after playing through the DK starting arc, I am much more inclined to give them a try at release.  I have always wanted a dedicated tank, and starting an alt at 55 is very, very nice.  Also, by the time I finished the starting arc, I hit level 58 and was ready for Hellfire Peninsula, with a nice set of gear, a mount and a fair amount of gold. Not bad at all!  In the end, I’ll give the story arc a big A+, but give the class an incomplete.  I had fun playing it, to be sure, but I have no idea how it will play long term.