Misc
SWTOR Beta Impressions
0I figure this may be of interest to some people. I’ve written an article on my impressions of the SWTOR beta at the new blog. Head on over and have a read, if you want!
Gold Farming Changes
0The gold amounts on the following encounters have been substantially reduced: Flame Leviathan, Magtheridon, Gruul the Dragonkiller, Doom Lord Kazzak, and all encounters in Karazhan.
I understand the nerfs to FL, Mags and DLK (though I note Doomwalker is missing from this list). These were all encounters that were far too easy to solo at 85 for them to be dropping heaps of cash (several hundred gold for between five and twenty minutes of work).
But Karazhan still takes a considerable amount of time, and 30 to 40 gold per boss isn’t much at all. The time you spend in Karazhan you could be spending doing two sets of dailies to make roughly the same amount of gold in the same amount of time. Furthermore, it does not come close to the profitability of herbing and mining, and you can only clear Karazhan once per week. So there really is no reason to nerf the gold drops there, epecially since the philanthropists were already nerfed in WotLK.
Just pointing that out. I don’t think it’s wise for Blizzard to overdo these changes, as people do have their preferences for farming gold and find some options more enjoyable than others.
Moonkin Nerf?
2Moonfury (Balance druid mastery) is being changed from 15% to 6% Arcane and Nature damage.
…
In [the cases of balance druids, shadow priests and fury warriors] we’ve been closely monitoring performance since the patch and all 3 specs are currently doing too much damage in PvE. (Source)
Balance druids were doing too much damage with starfall the way it was before it was hotfixed on Thursday, and this was only on multi-target fights to begin with (Valiona and Theralion, Ascendant Council, etc.). With the reversion of starfall to worse than its original state, this change is unnecessary.
Starfall Bugs
0This isn’t a comment about starfall being reverted back to its original speed. I really don’t care about that. It was probably doing more damage than it should have (especially in PvP). What I do care about is how absolutely buggy the spell is when it comes to avoiding mobs that are “out of combat,” which is its new feature.
The problem is that it picks a target for each star. However, if the target it picks doesn’t have an aggro table, or is not in combat, that star doesn’t hit anything at all. So if my starfall tries to hit ten targets that are in combat, and then ten that are out of combat, only ten stars will fall. This is compared to the twenty stars it is supposed to land on two or more targets.
To compound this problem, any mob that doesn’t have an aggro table (such as Magmaw’s head or XT’s heart) won’t be a valid target for starfall at all. This was much to my annoyance last night on Magmaw.
I understand Blizzard’s intention with this change, but this new feature has caused more bugs than problems it has fixed. I’m hoping Blizzard will hotfix the spell back to its original version until they can implement a well-designed and properly tested version of the spell.
One Problem with Real ID
0I like the concept of being able to add people to see all of their characters and when they are on other Battle.net games. However, what I don’t like is this:
Real ID friends can also see who’s on each other’s Real ID friends list, making it easy for players to connect with other people they know.
I realize I can decline to add people who add me after spotting me on a friend’s list. But I don’t want to be subjected to people asking me why I haven’t added them, because I only like to chat with close friends when I’m playing other games.
I am willing to bet there’s a ton of people in the same boat.
