The Long Road Back

In Which the

DWARVEN BATTLE MEDIC

Attempts to Reconcile

CERTAIN LAMENTABLE EVENTS 

and Makes a 

FATEFUL DECISION.

For reasons that I cannot quite understand, this expansion hasn't really caught my imagination. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of really great things about this expansion; I'm really impressed with the levelling experience, for example, and the visuals are spectacular—probably the best that WoW has ever done. Mists of Pandaria has humour, great stories and a lot of things to do. But it just hasn't captured me: I like Pandaria, but I'm not really excited about Pandaria. And I don't know why.

Actually, I think I can make a guess. I think it has something to do with the fact that I have no goal to achieve this expansion.

Once I hit 90 I simply felt lost. Run a few heroics, get some decent gear, start running LFR. Once that was done, then what? Dailies? To what end? What is the point of gearing up a character if not to raid? It becomes rather like a girl dressing up in her best ballgown, twirling in front of her mirror night after night because she knows she's never going to get the chance to go to the dance.

At the risk of beating the same old dead horse and paraphrasing real-life Forsaken zombie James Carville, "IT'S THE RAIDING, STUPID".

Since January when some tumultuous real-life changes hit the Battle Medic household, I have essentially been taking a sabbatical from my Paladin. I've spent very little time playing WoW since then, and the vast majority of it has been on various different Alts on various different servers. Alt levelling, low level PVP, dipping my foot in the dark side of Horde levelling. Basically anything other than logging onto my main.

THE LOW POINT

So imagine my surprise when I finally do log in only to discover that my guild has transferred servers. And they went Horde as well. Double whammy.

It was a surprise, to say the least. The letter that is automatically sent from Blizzard is a terse slap in the face as far as notifications go. In fairness to the guild, I wasn't around so it's certainly not their fault that I didn't know—the website had plenty of info and I'm sure it was discussed at length in Mumble. So I don't blame them and wish them all the best on Mal'Ganis as damned, dirty Hordies.

But it did leave me feeling rather abandoned and alone. And it got me wondering whether or not I still enjoy this game enough to be paying my fifteen bucks a month for the privilege.

Blues just ain't gonna cut it anymore.

As it turns out, fuck yeah! I do.

Time to get back to work and start gearing in preparation for raiding. I'm way behind and I've got a long way to go, but damn, I'm looking forward to the challenge. I've just joined up with a new guild that has a late-night raid team that should work around the Dwarfling's schedule, and importantly, seem like fun people to be around. A fresh start, so to speak.

Look for more from Battle Medic in the very near future. I'm certain I'm going to have a lot to talk about.

The Lament for Theramore

Thee Theramore! O sadly lost!
Alliance lament frae coast to coast.
Now war grips, the barking host
May kill us a';
For noble Jaina's fabl'd post,
Is ta'en awa'.
Dwarvish Lament for Theramore *

It is the worst kept secret in the World of Warcraft that Theramore is going to be destroyed in the pre-expansion event leading up to the release of the Mists of Pandaria expansion. The details are still unknown, but the destruction of the city will change the Alliance's position in Kalimdor drastically. At this point it's unclear as to whether Theramore will be in Alliance or Horde hands, whether it will remain a quest hub or become an instanced scenario of some kind, or just be left as a smoking, purple glowing crater in the ground.

And while others (ahem, Rades) have speculated on what the destruction of will mean to the Alliance from a lore perspective, I want to talk about what it's going to mean from my perspective as a life-long Alliance player.

What brought this topic to mind is that I was watching this video of what Theramore will look like after the Horde have their way with it. It broke my heart a little bit.

DUSTWALLOW MARSH

Even the name isn't really evocative of a place you'd choose to go willingly, and certainly Dustwallow Marsh isn't exactly a vacation spot. It's not pretty or scenic. In fact, it's downright dreary and just plain creepy; the sort of place you'd expect a spider to drop down out of the trees at any moment as you're walking through it. As a player, I get an ominous feeling when adventuring in Dustwallow, particularly in places like the Wyrmbog with it's wandering Dragonkin, Witch Hill and the spirits that eternally haunt it, and Darkmist Cavern with it's endless supply of eight-legged beasties.

In stark contrast to the impenetrable depths of the Swamp stands proud Theramore, a small but gleaming (relative to the rest of the marsh, at least) Alliance city perched precariously on an island. Compared to the rest of Dustwallow and Southern Kalimdor, to the Alliance player Theramore seemed like a bright shining beacon of civilization jutting out of the literal middle of nowhere. It was the essential travel hub for an Alliance player looking to get anywhere on Kalimdor since the only other town with connections to the Eastern Kingdoms was in Auberdine (now Lor'danel) and trying to get to some of the more far-flung areas (I'm looking at you, Gadgetzan) could result in a half-hour long hippogriff ride and a good chance to catch up on some reading.

Theramore was also the main quest hub for Dustwallow, and for a lot of players like myself it was the first time setting foot on the Kalimdor continent after following a breadcrumb quest from a bloke eternally standing on the Menethil dock asking whomever walks by to deliver something to the Inn there.

Now, I can't really speak to how other people level their characters, but I always made a point to go through Dustwallow with my characters. It just seemed a more natural and interesting place to go after the Wetlands than Arathi Highlands or the Badlands. I always liked the stories that were told in Dustwallow during it's first iteration. The Shady Rest Inn storyline was particularly moving, with a great emotional pay-off at the end. I've always liked the chain of quests at Swamplight Manor to cleanse "Swamp Eye" Jarl. And of course who can forget setting the raptors loose on the unsuspecting Grimtotem?

It's a zone that reminds me a lot of one of my other other favourite zones, Duskwood. It has the same kind of creepy, foreboding atmosphere to it that I like so much. And both zones had an insane amount of running back and forth before they were mercifully streamlined in Cataclysm. And all of those great memories started in poor, doomed Theramore.


THE COMING DOOM

With the impending destruction of Theramore there is a lot of uncertainty about the future of Dustwallow as it continues it's transition from sleepy, moody swamp that felt very insignificant in the grand scheme of the world to the front lines of an all-out war with the Horde. What will become of the small stories? Who's going to take the time to cleanse Jarl of his demonic possession in the middle of a battlefield? Is someone going to walk "Stinky" Ignatz home with Horde siege engines laying waste to the landscape?

But all that having been said, why do a lot of Alliance players lament the loss of this town so much?

Well, it's been talked about to death, but during the early stages of the War (represented by the Cataclysm expansion) the Alliance has been getting the hell kicked out of it. Southshore lost, massive horde incursions into the Night Elf homelands of Ashenvale and minor ones in Darkshore, the loss of Andorhol after the Scourge were finally defeated, and our new allies in Gilneas turned to homeless refugees forced to live in a tree by the Forsaken war machine. To the Alliance player, Cataclysm has been one iron-booted kick in the nuts after another.

Now we're losing Theramore. Whump. That's gonna sting the ol' Dwarf Potatoes.

I think that for me, at least, losing Theramore is going to make Kalimdor feel a lot less friendly and much more foreign. It's hostile enemy territory now, with no real safe havens worth mentioning for the Alliance. Go away, Dwarves, you are not welcome here.

But in all honesty, the real reason that people are complaining about the loss of Theramore has nothing to do with the game and everything to do with human psychology: People embrace the familiar and fear the unknown. Things that we know are comforting. And in this terrifying new world of conflict, destruction and all-out factional war that MoP is bringing with it people are naturally going to cling to those things that remind us of a simpler, better time of relative peace.

You know, when all we had to worry about was an innumerable, unstoppable undead army that was going to take over the entire world and suck out our brains. The good ol' days.

* Adapted from Robert Burns' poem Old Scotch Drink.

On Raiding Disappointment: An Open Letter to Blizzard

When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure - Peter Marshall

Dear Blizzard,

As a subscriber who came to World of Warcraft with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, Cataclysm represented my first true opportunity to get in on the ground floor of new content. For the first time I felt as if I wasn't lagging behind everyone else and was finally experiencing content the way it was meant to be experienced. I greeted the new expansion with a lot of anticipation and enthusiasm.

Cataclysm introduced many controversial changes, many of which were not received terribly enthusiastically by the community. I, on the other hand (being an avid Kool-Aid drinker), was thrilled with a lot of the changes, and incredibly excited to see the new content, experience the new levelling experience and, most importantly, to progress through the new raids. I understood the need to make the game more accessible, and supported the changes.

In fact, I was very frustrated with a lot of the complaining and the griping coming from the WoW community. Back in March I wrote a post critizing the community for having a "Doom and Gloom" outlook on the current state of the game, saying that people come and go, but the game itself was in a good place.

This week, you proved me wrong, Blizzard. I now feel compelled to add my voice to the chorous of the discontented.


Lord Rhyolith: Call me Admiral McROFLStompyPants



And it's because this week saw the introduction of significant nerfs to the Firelands bosses, crippling each boss - in both normal and heroic modes - anywhere from 15 to 25 percent in damage done and health, as well as simplifying several of the more difficult mechanics. This was done in an unprecedentedly brief time period since the raid was released.

Regardless of what your intention is, the significance of this change is instantly and universally understood by your player base: If you didn't clear Firelands before this nerf, you failed. Here are your free charity epics.

This is the exact same message that was sent regarding Tier 11 when Tier 12 came out. Didn't clear it before? No problem, let me hold your hand and walk you through it. Don't worry, the Internet Dragons are toothless now, so you won't get hurt. Just try to stay awake, okay?

At least back then we had a new, full-difficulty raid tier to busy ourselves with. Reducing the difficulty on previous tier content in order to allow more people to see it makes sense, at least. And it worked; raids were able to go back into Tier 11 and cut through the bosses like a they were barely there, and mechanics that were previously raid killers became irrelevant.

These changes to the current tier are completely inexplicable and inexcusable. They go too far, much too soon.

I mean, it's not as if people were complaining that the Firelands bosses were too hard. Quite the reverse, really; early on a lot of people were complaining that Firelands was decidedly too easy and that Raid Teams were blowing through it far too quickly. And it wasn't just the elite raiding guilds that were expressing this opinion, either.

Our raid team, for instance, is not at the cutting edge of progression. We are never likely to compete for a Realm First but neither are we at the bottom end of progression. We are probably the poster children of your average raiders; a casually-oriented guild that raids 6-8 hours a week. We expect to tackle the encounters, learn them and defeat them as they were originally designed.

Why aren't you giving us the time to do this?

My guild and I have been raiding Firelands from the day it was released. We were a new guild then, still gelling as a team, but we went in and got things done. Some of the encounters were really challenging and tested us; we wiped more than a few times on some of these bosses, which made downing them that much sweeter. I don't cheer out loud - causing my wife to give me strange looks - when we down an easy encounter. No, that is saved for when we overcome a significant obstacle that has stood in our path blocking our progression like an obstinate traffic cop. I like cheering, Blizzard, but where are the obstacles?

Wednesday night we went through Firelands after the nerfs and did six bosses. The difference in the level of difficulty is painfully obvious. It's actually invasive. Bosses that previously required precise play, good communication and teamwork even at good gear levels are now simplistic and easy. Lord Rhyolith, for example, lasted less than 10 seconds into Phase 2. I didn't even have time to get into position before he died. The burn phases of Shannox and Beth'tilac, which were previously heavy-damage phases that required the use of healer and tank cooldowns as well as skillful play to get through, are similarly laughable. As a healer, it seemed like Health Bars barely moved in those phases.

There is no thrill or enjoyment in beating up crippled children, Blizzard, and that's what you've turned these raid bosses into. You might as well give Fandral Staghelm a wool cap and a cane and rename him Tiny Tim. I actually felt sorry for Rageface the other night because he died so quickly, and his whole purpose for living - to Rage on Faces - was no more painful than a puppy dog licking ice cream off your toes. It does not qualify as something to be concerned about any longer. PETA will be hearing about this.

I think that in the pursuit of the noble goal of making the game more accessible to a larger variety of people a large chunk of the challenge of World of Warcraft has been removed. Many aspects of the game have fallen victim to this, with the endgame being the most notable and most damning, but even levelling is now so quick and painless that there is no sense of danger left in the game. Even without heirlooms, enemies fall over dead with little more than a mere glance, and there is a distinct lack of worry that something is actually dangerous. Low level dungeons are, even with poor gear, ridiculously easy, which is especially obvious when the vast majority of boss fights last under 30 seconds.

In fact, there is so little challenge left in WoW that your players are taking it upon themselves to make the game more difficult. Your very intelligent and creative players are coming up with things like the WoW Ironman Challenge and the Naked Dungeon Challenge just so that they have something to do that doesn't involve one-shotting the poor denizens of Dun Morogh on yet another overpowered Alt.

Thomas Paine said, "What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value", and I think that is a lesson that has been forgotten. There is a benefit to difficulties, a benefit of failure. Overcoming adversity is how people learn and improve, and it's how fierce emotional attachments are created. Raiders who raided Molten Core don't look back on the gear that they got with such love and devotion because getting it was easy, but rather because the blood, sweat and sheer red-hot effort that they expended to get it has branded it into their souls.

I think it's time to put the challenge back into the World.

BALANCING ACT

I understand that balancing the many different types of players and trying to make everyone happy is a difficult, if not impossible task. I can't think of a more thankless job that trying to please eleven million people, all of whom want something different, and at the same time trying to feed the corporate overlord's insatiable lust for profits.

I know that there are quite a number of people who are happy with these changes to the raids because it gives them a chance to finally see the content. But I think that there is a difference between seeing the content and experiencing the content.  The idea of merely seeing the content reminds me of a tourist: Someone who comes to visit and see the sights, but wants to have a good, relaxing time and not really get their hands dirty. While experiencing the content implies slogging through the worst that the raid can throw at you and working through the inevitable failures and hardships. These are two very different types of players who want two completely different types of gaming experiences.

However, nerfing current content when there is no alternative, higher-end content available means turning everyone into the Tourist.

I know that Patch 4.3 is brings us the Raid Finder tool and a new difficulty level that caters to the Tourists, PUGers and people who just want to see the content but are, for whatever reason, unable to raid at the normal difficulty levels. I'm sure it's your hope that this elmininates the need for nerfs such as these, and I'm optimistic that it will work very well. But that doesn't change the fact that in this patch, on this raid, you took away my challenge.

We're going into Firelands to kill Ragnaros for the first time this week. Last week it was an exciting prospect, now it's just something to do on a Sunday. Oh, we'll get the achievement, but the accomplishment has been made lesser. Like Roger Maris, I will forever have an asterisk next to my 7/7 achievement.

Sincerely,

Fannon

Dwarven Battle Medic and Dissatisfied Raider.



Ragnaros: Still tough, but 25% less satisfying.

 
 

Day Twenty: Denouement

This post is part of a series "20 Days of... WoW Blogging Challenge", a blogging challenge suggested by Saga at Spellbound. She proposes twenty questions to be answered in twenty days. This post marks the final chapter in the saga.


DAY TWENTY: THE FINAL DAY OF WOW

“So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their ending.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

I have been a gamer for a long time, and the games that have hooked me have been many and varied. The Civilization series, Subspace, Counter-Strike, Command and Conquer, Dune 2, Quake 2 & 3 have all, at one point or another, been the focus of my gaming affections. World of Warcraft is merely the latest. It will not be the last.

WoW is different in one major way, however. There will come a day when I make the conscious decision to stop paying for it, which will mark a fairly definitive end for me.

With all the other games, which were free to play once you owned them, my interest would fade from a bright, burning desire to a cool ember over time - sometimes a period of months or years - and the time I spent playing the game would ebb and diminish along with it. With WoW, however, a month spent not playing the game is $15 wasted, so I suspect the disinterest period in the game will be much more abrupt.

WoW has been a part of my life for a long time - and I don't really even want to think about how much time has been spent wandering the wilds of Azeroth - so I imagine that there will be a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth before I finally pull the plug on it. Once the decision is made, however, there is no "popping back on" for a quick game or for nostalgia's sake, because that requires resubscribing.

I wonder if this Blog is going to keep me playing longer, or contribute to and accelerate the Burn Out process? I love writing for this blog; it has reignited a long-dormant passion in me, but will the pressure that I put on myself to keep churning out content make me feel less like playing? Already I find that there are times I have to choose between playing the game or writing about it. And as the demands of the Dwarfling continue to grow, it may feel easier to sit down with my laptop and grind out a post than it would be to log into the game and get something accomplished.

My final day playing WoW will be sad, but I think my final blog post will be even more emotional. As brilliant as the game is, it is a story written by someone else that I'm experiencing, while this blog is my own voice; my own story that I get to tell.

But as with all things, old things wither and die and are replaced with something new and vibrant. So it will eventually be with WoW and with Battle Medic. I can't wait to see what will come along that is amazing enough to top this game.


DENOUEMENT

The Dwarf stood on the shoulder of the mountain and gazed over the white, snow-draped landscape as the sun slowly sank behind the western mountains. The last, red streams of the dying sun bathed the ridge where he stood in light and beneath it, the the tops of the spruce trees were lit with fiery brilliance like a thousand flaming torches swaying slowly in the gentle breeze.

In the valley below a horn sounded, mournful and pressing, calling the Dwarves of Ironforge to yet another battle against impossible odds and implacable foes.

The Dwarf scowled, the deep lines etched on his face hardening. Numerous vicious scars marred his visage, telling the tale of a hard life of heroic adventure. Under his bushy, white eyebrows his steel grey eyes were set with a grim look and yet the sagging sides and craggy wrinkles around them betrayed his age.

In the valley below, the troops of young dwarves efficiently formed themselves into their battle ranks. Faintly, the barking orders of the commanders could be heard, as the dwarven soldiers prepared themselves for the long journey to the battlefield.

The Dwarf let out a long, slow exhale, his breath crystallizing in the air in front of him, and let his shoulders relax. He reached up, his fingers stiff from the cold, and unfastened the clasp of his bulky shoulder armour and let it fall to the snow, landing with a muffled thump. He then grasped his great staff with both hands and plunged it's end into the frozen ground at the edge of the shear precipice.

In the valley below, the dwarven troops stomped their boots and clashed their axes on their shields in unison as they made their final preparations to depart. The din echoed and reverberated ominously throughout the valley. Then, a short, piercing bark from the commander and the troops began to move as one, marching off to war.

The Dwarf stared at the sun until it dipped behind the distant peaks, casting the valley and the mountainside into shadows. He closed his eyes - still burning from the brilliance of the sunset - and a tear lazily slid down his large, pitted nose, finally freezing on the end before it could drip off. To his deathbed, he would always claim that it came from the pain of the intense sunlight and nothing else.

In the valley below the dwarven formation began singing a traditional marching song, perfectly matched to the cadence of their precise footfalls. Their voices, lifted high with youthful vigour and excitement, rang clearly. In what seemed like mere moments, the soldiers moved through a pass between two peaks and out of sight, their song fading until the valley was quiet and peaceful again.

The Dwarf looked out over the dark, silent valley that has been his home for so long and thought about the hardships and sacrifices that he had made to protect it. A part of him - a very dwarvish part - longed to summon his trusted ram and race down the mountain to join the war effort. To once again fight with ferocious determination. To be a hero again.

In the house behind where the Dwarf stood, a piercing cry cut the crisp night air and pulled him out of his daydreams. He turned and picked up his now sodden shoulder armour and walked back to the house, leaving a trail of footprints from the staff that remained, watching over the valley.

Yesterday: DAY NINETEEN: STUFF IN THE VIRTUAL ATTIC

  

The Death of WoW and the Circle of Life

It is safe to say that World of Warcraft is going through something of a transition these days. The change to Cataclysm's new style of play has not been easy for a lot of people – particularly people who have been playing this game for a long time.

Evidence of this is all around us. Every time someone gives up healing or tanking because it's too hard, there it is. Whenever we hear that a long time WoW player has dropped his subscription we're reminded of it. Every time that a player drops WoW for Rift and starts spamming Twitter with an incessant stream of achievement spam, we can't help but notice. Whenever a beloved, long-time WoW blogger closes up shop, a flagrantly obvious fact is right there in your face like a village full of murlocs:

WoW isn't the same game that you fell in love with six years ago.

Over the past couple of months, many notable WoW bloggers have decided to retire their blogs. Tam at Righteous Orbs, for instance, and most recently Larisa at Pink Pigtail Inn has called it a day. Many others have quietly faded into oblivion without so much as a 'farewell' post - their blogs going dark, leaving their readership to wonder. There is no question that the WoW blogging community is smaller and less brilliant because of their loss of these voices that we were so accustomed to hearing, but as Vidalya at Manalicious so elegantly put it, "other's endings are not my endings".

Being plugged into Twitter and the Blogosphere means that it's impossible to not hear grumbling and griping about all sorts of things and very rarely do we hear someone mentioning how great something is. We bloggers are, if nothing else, champion complainers - and it's not a hard stretch to imagine that hearing all the doom and gloom would affect our opinion of our game and our community to the point where we would begin to believe that it's dying.

I'm curious how a WoW player who isn't active in the community feels about this game and it's health. Do they look at their guild and the competition for a raid spot and feel that the game is hemorrhaging people? Do they think that losing a long time guild member means that there is something wrong with the game? Or do they look at it as the natural way of these things?


IT'S NATURAL

With any game that sticks around for a long time, it's natural for people to come and go as their level of interest waivers. I'm not sure how anyone could play the same game for five or six years - or any length of time for that matter - without losing interest or feeling burnout at some point.

Before I started playing WoW, my game of choice was Counter-strike, and I played it for a long time. I ran my own large clan of players, operated my own public server, a private server and Ventrilo server and even competed in organized league play. I was as involved in that game as it was possible to be. Over time, the game became much less fun and the only thing keeping me coming back was the relationships I had with my clanmates. Eventually I quit, disbanded the clan and moved on. It was a very tough decision.

I see the same thing happening with WoW. I know that when I left Counter-strike the game continued on just fine without me, and the same is true when someone from the WoW community leaves. This game is bigger than any of us and will soldier on as we leave.


CHA-CHA-CHA-CHA-CHANGES

For better or for worse is still a point of great debate, but there is no question that World of Warcraft has changed a lot in the past six years.  And whenever change happens there are going to be people who don't agree with or like the changes. There is no way to please twelve million people, and as I mentioned in my 2010 Peevie Awards, it's the definition of insanity to try.

The people who are most likely to be left out in the cold when change happens are the people who have been around the longest. These are your raid leaders, guild officers and respected, pillars-of-the-community types. And in the blogosphere, they are the ones that have become institutions.  "Oh, [Popular Blogger] could never leave, he's been here forever and he's too good to ever quit." Of course, it doesn't work that way. Quite the opposite; they are the most likely to drift away to something else.

Losing one of these bloggers or guild members is hard, but it says nothing about the game or the community or your guild as a whole. The health of any community is determined by the strength of the people involved, and as someone leaves for other things inevitably someone else will come forward to take their place. New raid leaders will step up, a guild will pick a new leader with new ideas, and new bloggers will begin writing to fill the void.


THE CIRCLE OF LIFE

In the past few months since Cataclysm several high profile blogs have shut down, but even more new bloggers have taken up the blogging challenge. These blogs aren't high profile yet, and they don't have the readership numbers of the blogs that have quit, but they are providing fresh new voices for the community to listen to. Different styles, new opinions and formats are being injected into the community everyday.

That's what tells me that our game and our community are doing just fine. This community and game are far from stagnant, as the new and vibrant voices are showing in every corner of the blogosphere.

The circle of life continues.


NEW VOICES

Vidalya issued a challenge in her post: Introduce and link to a new blogger.  I love this idea, and even as a new, post-cataclysm writer myself, here is a list of recent blog starts that have caught my attention. All of these blogs were started around the time that Cataclysm launched, although I'm using this criteria fairly loosely.

Muradin Musings by Janyaa

Unleashed Rage by Bloody Gneisha.

Ask a Salty by SaltySlainte

Mortigan the Lock by Mortigan

Zwingli's Blog by Zwingli (An older blog that has recently returned from the ether.)

Beer Bacon Brawling by Beerbelly.

Healer Aggro by Ttrinity

The Casual Raider by Jack

Rants of a Priest by Morituri

Elfi's World by Elfindale

Cleansing Waters by Mylindara

Specced for Drama by Ama (Who turns out to have been around longer than I thought... her blogspot blog has only been around since November, tho!)

Stand in the Blue Circle by Alacran

Word of Glory by Lynesta

Heavy Wool Bandage by Glorwynn

Healbot by Gina

And more!  I'm quite certain I've missed a bunch of people, and I'm sorry for forgetting you! If you have a newish blog and would like it listed here, leave me a comment and I'll include it.

Light of Fizzle - Stealth Nerf in 4.0.6a

UPDATE:  It appears that this change has been reverted.  Check out my latest post for more.


Oh, those sneaky Blizzard folks are at it again.

They snuck in a small patch last night, 4.0.6a, with a few more untested and surprise changes to the classes.  This was quite unexpected, considering that they had close to a month to test this patch on the PTR.

But the change of interest to the Holy Paladins is a big one:

Beacon of Light no longer triggers from Light of Dawn.

This is very interesting, actually.  This is now the second time that they have stealthily nerfed Light of Dawn for being too good.  I talked about the first round of nerfs in my Tower of Fizzle post, in which I suggested that instead of removing Holy Light's synergy with Tower of Radiance, preventing Light of Dawn from transferring through the Beacon of Light was a better way to go.

I'm gratified that Blizzard seems to be listening to me, but, err, I didn't mean for you to do both!

As of right now, Light of Dawn is a very small heal.  It's tiny, in fact.  So much so that the only compelling reason to cast is was the fact that it transferred 50% of it's heals to the Beacon target.  It turns out that one-half of five or six little heals adds up to one big heal on the Beacon, which apparently is unbalanced.

What makes this truly intriguing is that in response the the outcry after the first round of nerfs,  Nethaera posted on the official forums (I think it was Nethaera on this thread, but I'll have to check later.  Sadly, the official forums are blocked at work. Look for an update later today) saying that it is specifically intended that Light of Dawn transfer through the Beacon.

This means that, with this most recent change, Blizzard has reversed a fundamental design philosophy of Paladin healing, more than likely due to it being too mana efficient.  This change is one more nail in the coffin of the whole Holy Power experiment, which in my opinion is a complete and utter failure.  I'm not sure how Blizzard expected giving Paladins free heals not to lead to mana efficiency.  Isn't that the whole point of a free heal in the first place?  It seems to me that the Holy Power concept has caused more grief and problems for the Holy spec than it has solved, and with this change Paladin healing simply has no synergy whatsoever.  It is now just a random collection of spells that you can cast, and you should keep a Post-It note on your screen with a list of what does and does not transfer to the Beacon or generate Holy Power.

Not that Holy Power is all that useful anymore.

You know what?  I think I'm okay with this change.  A zen-like feeling of calm and peace is washing away the nerdrage that I was feeling last night when I heard of this change.  I've entered a chakra-like state of bliss and serenity.  It's okay, honestly.  Blizzard has spoken from on high and said, "You know that whole 'Paladin raid-healing' thing we were playing around with?  Yeah, just forget about it".

Holy Paladins are single target healers again.  It's official.

We're all back in our old comfort zone.  You'll hear a lot of raid leaders again saying:

"Holy Paladin in the raid?  Just stick him on the tanks.  They're not as good as they used to be, but they are good tank healers. 

And it's not like they can do anything else anyway."

Tower of Fizzle

Update:  In addition to the Tower of Radiance nerf, Blizzard also reduced the healing from Light of Dawn by 40%.  Full details of the patch are found on the Official WOW Blog.

This blue post on the official forums from Nethaera confirms that a hotfix was implemented today that nerfs Tower of Radiance to no longer generate Holy Power when casting Holy Light on your Beacon of Light target.

The reasoning is that by using Holy Light (an ultra-efficient, low output heal) to generate 3 Holy Power and then casting Light of Dawn was far too efficient and that many Holy Paladins were being too successful in casting only those two spells.  HL, HL, HL, LoD equals massive healing on your Beacon target.

Ok, I get that.  That makes sense.  I am not looking to have my Paladin overpowered with regards to mana efficiency.  What bugs me about this is that it is not just a nerf to our mana efficiency, but it’s also a nerf to our total healing output.  With Holy Power being generated up to three times more slowly (2 Holy Lights + 1 Holy Shock equals approximately 4 seconds vs. 3 Holy Shocks with a 6 second cooldown equals 12 seconds), we no longer get to use two of our biggest heals nearly as often without decimating our mana pool resulting in a drop to our potential healing output.

I think a simpler solution would have been to change Light of Dawn itself.  By simply changing it to no longer transfer it’s healing I think this problem goes away.  As Light of Dawn is not a terribly strong heal by itself, this change removes the temptation to cast nothing but Light of Dawn while still leaving the ability to build up Holy Power through Holy Light, which is was an excellent strategy when damage is coming in slowly.  If a free heal is causing the problem then change the free heal, not the underlying class healing mechanics.

Netaera goes on to say that the purpose of Tower of Radiance is to make direct healing the beacon target less punitive.  Now it seems like casting Holy Light itself is punitive and not worth the global cooldown nor the cast time.  It certainly doesn’t heal for much, nor is it quick enough to be worth spamming during heavy damage.  Previously, during moments of slow damage you could cast three HLs on your beacon target to get full on Holy Power and have an instant heal available for when the damage started to come fast again.  Now that you can’t do that, it seems like the only purpose for Holy Light is to make yourself look busy so that the DPSers don’t call you a slacker.

The whole concept of Holy Power seems to really be forced onto the Holy Paladin healing style.  It works reasonably well with Retribution because you have a lot of different ways to get Holy Power and you have several different ways of using it.  With Holy, it just doesn’t seem to work.  Adding the mechanic was supposed to add complexity to the spec and introduce some interesting choices with your spell selection.  I don’t think it accomplished this.  I fear that with this change they have removed what little synergy that existed between the spells entirely leaving us with many spells, none of which really work together well.  We have a bigger tool box than we did before Cataclysm, but is our class more fun or interesting to play?

Full text of the Blue Post after the break.