Editor’s Warning: This post is long. If you don’t like em long you can skip straight to the good stuff here.

I’ve been the acting guild and raid leader for <Specced for Awesome> since the mid-TBC era. We started out as an extremely casual guild and delved headfirst into Karazhan with our motley crew of 10 or so raiders. Most of us had never raided before (that one time where I lolcleansed a ZG pug in vanilla doesn’t count). We dabbled in 5-mans here and there but Kara was that first hit of the hard stuff. We were hooked.

Months later we were clearing the entirety of Kara in one night. So what next? We naturally attempted to jump right in to Zul’Aman where the Amani trolls proceeded to have their way with us. ZA was challenging to say the least. Kara was (and still is) a great instance but it wasn’t really giving us the fix we needed. We really had no choice but to head into Gruul’s Lair and Magtheridon’s Keep if we wanted to progress. There was just one problem: we were a 10-man guild and these raids required 25.

So we did what we had to, we upped our recruitment efforts. We recruited pugs from heroics and Kara runs, we advertised in trade, solicited the unguilded and even braved the dreaded realm forums. It took a guild merger/acquisition but we finally got the numbers we needed.

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If you haven’t heard or seen the announcement yet…

Quote from: Zarhym (Source)
She has lurked in her lair and done battle with the many brave adventurers who travelled to that familiar location over the years. Now, in honor of the World of Warcraft 5-year anniversary, the dreaded brood mother Onyxia is being revamped to make a return to the forefront of Azeroth, as part of our big plans for the upcoming 3.2.2 content patch.

This permanent update to Onyxia will convert the dungeon into 10- and 25-player modes. We will be adding new items to Onyxia’s loot table that have the same model as some of the classic loot from this dungeon, like Tier 2 helms, with stats updated to match the current level of content. There will be a special new item too: a normal drake-sized 310% speed flying mount modeled after Onyxia herself called an Onyxia Broodling. We will also be updating the encounter mechanics to be more fitting for modern raiding, but we can guarantee players will get to experience the frightening horror of deep breaths once again.

Then for a limited time, after the 5-year anniversary event officially begins in November, anybody who logs in will receive an Onyxia Brood Whelpling pet.

We’re very excited to bring this classic encounter back to provide a fun new experience for both new and veteran players. Further details will be available in the near future, and we will be setting up the Public Test Realms soon to help test out this fight along with all the new content we have planned for the patch. Keep an eye on the forums for updates!

I never got to experience Onyxia until I was able to 5-man her at level 70 so this is awesome news! The new rewards (woot another Judgement Crown) and the Onyxia Broodling mount are just icing on the cake.

Now based on Zarhyms description and the fact that they’re revamping and retuning the encounter for level 80 leads me to believe that the entire dungeon as it exists in the game right now will cease to exist (a la Naxxramas) Unfortunate news for those old-school raiders that like to relive the glory days. I’m guessing the original achievement will be given the Feat of Strength treatment.

I know this is a special occasion with it being WoW’s 5-year anniversary (have I really been playing this game that long?), but I really hope that they take this approach with some of the other content.

Update: Looks like Bornakk confirmed that the old version will get nyxed.

Jeeves is awesome, but they should’ve added a MOLL-E to the mats list and given him the ability to handle your mail. Seems like a butlerish thing to do, no? And why isn’t he sporting a tuxedo?

Dear Blizzard Dev Team,

I’d like to present to you a wish-list of things that I’d like to see in the upcoming expansion:

Race Switch – It seems far fetched but with you already announcing plans to allow faction traversal at some point in the future I don’t think it’s beyond the realm of possibility. You can already change servers, rename your character, change its appearance and even its gender.

The only non-cosmetic difference between the races right now are a handful of racial abilities that continue to be nerfed and homogenized. I could see the human’s diplomacy being an attraction for rep grinding but you could deter opportunists with a super long race-change cooldown. I’d also recommend that they continue to enforce the class restrictions* (ie: you could switch to a Draenei but not a Human if you were currently a Night Elf Hunter).

I really don’t see a reason why you shouldn’t allow this. Plus I secretly wish my pally was a dwarf.

Class Restrictions Begone – I changed my mind. Class restrictions at this point are silly. Lore be damned. There’s no reason why a Tauren dedicated to embracing the darkness shouldn’t be allowed to be a warlock. A human hunter perhaps? Hell, if you’re going to let Blood Elves be paladins, you could let the trolls and the night elves devote themselves to the Light as well.

This is another silly restriction that does nothing to enhance the game at this point. I understand that it might take some extra effort to see this one implemented, such as adding class specific starter quests to other zones (although they did put a shaman trainer outside of Stormwind).

You also made sure every piece of gear works for every class already.

Worgen and Goblin Races – by no means an original concept, but with all the attention to the “leaked” mask situation I really feel like this would be an awesome direction for Bizzard to go in. Entirely feasible and I’d almost be willing to bet gold on it (if it wasn’t against the EULA).

Worgen would naturally make a great Alliance race as we’re really lacking in the beastial department. Horde could also use a smaller race to round out their lineup. As far as classes go, I’m sure we’ll see some typical combos like warrior and rogue on both sides. Not sure about the caster classes for Goblin but at least warlocks seem fitting for the Worgen. Although you could just use my previous suggestion and let us choose any class we want. Worgenadin ftw.

Increased Max on Characters per Realm – I’m sure that quite a few of you have already hit the 10-character max on a realm or two. If Blizzard does end up adding additional races then some of us are going to be making some hard decisions about who gets to stick around when its time to make a wolfman err wolfwoman.

Sortable Character Screen (and more) - I just want to change the order of my characters on the login screen damnit. Who else hates having their bank alt higher on the list than their main? While you’re at it, overhaul the character screen completely. Show me my current talentspec(s), hearth cooldown, rested xp percentage, gold on-hand, unread mail, total time played and time since last logoff. On second thought, forget about those last two.

More multi-passenger mounts – my favorite part of my chopper (and that of many a guildmate) is definitely the sidecar. Two-person flying mounts (rolfcopter 2.0) or even a 5-man siege tank would be awesome. Underwater mounts? How about a multi-person submersible (a la The Life Aquatic)? Talk about a money sink eh? Bah dum tsss!

More Ulduar – Ulduar is a great instance. Sexy aesthetics aside, I love the difficulity. I love the layout. I love the teleporting between sections. I love the perfect amount of trash mobs. Ulduar has eeked out Karazhan as my favorite instance and I hope that there are more Ulduaresque raids to come.

Less mail drops though plx.

Lumberjacking Profession – I’m actually surprised that this isn’t in the game already. Collecting wood is such a staple of Warcraft that it boggles the mind that we haven’t seen this implemented yet. I know I’m not the only one that thinks this would be an awesome idea. Naturally we’d need a woodcrafter profession to go along with it. Staves anyone?

Guild Housing Ships - as cool as a guild hall would be where you could fly your own colors, hire vendors and show off your spoils of war in a trophy case, a freakin pirate ship with the aforementioned would be infinitely cooler. If we are indeed heading out to sea to visit the Maelstrom then this would be a perfect fit.

You probably wouldn’t want everyone and their 3 person guild piloting a massive frigate, but you could setup ship tiers that you could upgrade to. Start out with a dinghy and work your way up to a steam-powered icebreaker. Better yet, let us upgrade to dirigibles with the highest tier being your very own gunship. /drool

A guild ship would definitely be a significant investment. Plus it would give those lumberjacks something to do. Of course I’d have to name ours the Belafonte.

Heroic Old-World Instances - you can’t deny it, the old world instances are dead. Deadmines (no pun intended), still one of the best 5-man dungeons in the game, gets unfortunately passed over by most fledgeling Alliance these days. I’m sure the early Horde instances suffer a similar fate.

The not-so simple solution: set the instance to heroic and bam, your level and gear scale down to meet the dungeon’s intended range. Or put in dungeon-wide aura that removes a percentage of your stats, much like ressurection sickness. Now you can run dungeons with your lowbie friends or their alts and it won’t be a complete joke.

But what’s in it for the senior that’s bringing themselves down to nubville? Besides the experience of revisiting some of the games awesome dungeon content of course? Well, why don’t we let them use tabards to build faction rep? How about letting them gain some sort of mentor rep that can be applied for separate rewards. Orrr, maybe the bosses drop emblems of heirloomism (yeah, I’ made that up) for BtA gear?

You kow you could just throw some mentor achievements in there and go home early.

So Blizzard, I hope that you’ll take some of my ideas into consideration. Please feel free to implement all of the awesome recommendations stated above without any fear of recourse regarding your originality.

Regards,

Jon Roach

Oh yeah, one more thing…

15-man Raids – I’m actually working on an entire separate post letter as to the reason why I think this would be one of the best changes to the game since the addition of dualspec. Keep an eye out for this controversial submission.

A few days ago I switched my Paladin from Ret to Prot, as 66 seemed to be the level of choice to do so. Now I’m happily tanking. I’ve noticed that sometimes I have to drop defense gear so that I take enough damage, and in one fight I considered getting my 2h sword out again, just so that the hits would hurt more.

These were 60-62 instances – so is that pretty normal if you’re doing a lower instance. eg. At 70 will I be doing the same in the 68-69 Instances?

As I was writing my response in the comments I figured I’d go ahead and make it a full-fledged post.

Paladins are a unique breed in that our rage bar just happens to be blue. We use our mana to generate threat and provide other utility like our taunt and the occasional hammer-stun. When we tank, we rely on our healers to provide a healthy stream of mana by way of our passive Spiritual Attunement.

For every heal that we successfully receive, SA rewards us with 10% (at level 66) of the healed amount in mana with one very important caveat: if we’re at full health, we get no mana. This can be extremely problematic as in Nathan’s situation where one isn’t actually losing enough health to keep their mana levels up.

I often joke about taking my gear off as we run through 5-man trash as I burn through mana at an extremely fast pace but stay relatively topped off in the health department due to my superior defense. What you will find as you progress through content as a tanking pally is that you will need to acquire (and keep with you at all times) at least 2 (if not more) sets of gear.

The first set is probably closest to what you’ve acquired thus far if you’re new to the prot scene and that is high spell dmg, high int, mp5 gear. These pieces will come in handy when burning through instance trash, and even on some boss battles that favor staying power over damage reduction. If you’re still not taking enough damage, feel free to slip into some caster cloth or pull out the ole’ zweihander.

The second set is what you will be working on for raid content with a focus on tanking stats. Get yourself to 490 defense to become virtually uncrittable and work on 102.4% for uncrushability. With these goals in mind, you will still probably want to hang on to most any tanking piece you come across as different stats will be better suited for different scenarios. Some gear will have have a focus on mitigation (reducing the damage taken) while other items will provide more stamina (allowing you to take more damage) or avoidance (not taking any damage at all). Which stat to build over the other is still a topic of huge debate among players. My preferred solution is to have them all and switch them out as needed.

So to answer your question Andrew, yes, it is entirely normal and you will still be tweaking your equipment on the fly throughout runs at 70 in not only the dungeons but I can only assume well into the raid progression as well. With so many different encounter types, increasing the ability to excel at your role by adjusting your stats through gear is crucial to the success of any player, especially the tank.

When we downed Murmur, I was fortunate enough to receive the Silent Slippers of Meditation. These were definitely an upgrade for me.. but at what cost? I spent days farming gold and primals to make my Shadow’s Embrace, only to give it up at the first blue that came along.

I could have had a flying mount by now!

I’ve only ran a couple of instances as the frontman.. err frontlady. Mana tombs at level 70 was relatively easy, but Shattered Halls in Hellfire Citadel gave us a decent challenge. We made the huge mistake of attempting the heroic version of SH prior to our regular run… we couldn’t make it past the first pull. A definite reality(gear)-check. We made it through the normal Shattered Halls without too much trouble. Learned a few valuable lessons, laughed, cried, killed and plundered.

The actual tanking play-style requires a high degree of micromanagement. I rarely find myself spamming a single spell over and over *cough*healading*cough* but rather I’m constantly trying to manage my timing, cooldowns, and buff/debuff durations to maximize both my threat and my survivability. The key is being able to not just have a tried and true cycle of skills but being able to adjust them based on the circumstances. In one scenario, i might not be taking enough damage to require consistent healspamming, which ultimately affects my mana pool as I won’t be getting much of a bonus from spiritual attunement, so i’ll bust out my seal/judgement of wisdom. On the other hand, a hardhitting boss or an unfortunately large trash pull will result in seal of light to help ease the job of the healer. There’s also times where i’ll need to throw on my wings or pop a spell-damage trinket to keep up with the threat from a hard-dotting lock or a crithappy boomkin.

So with my newfound role comes a desire to master it. I’ve found the Maintankadin Forum to be an invaluable resource for a newb prot pally such as myself. The other part of the equation of course is gear. Much like a warrior, paladins have to maximize mitigation and staying power through typical stats like defense, dodge, parry and block but there’s also a need to maintain a certain level of spelldamage as that’s where the majority of our threat comes from. This stat juggling turns gearing up a paladin into a fine science.

This science is made infinitely more convenient with addons like Rating Buster and TankPoints as well as awesome theorycrafting tools like warcrafter.net. Warcrafter allows you to import your character from the Armory (or start from scratch with a blank template), and switch out any piece of gear imaginable to see its effect on your overall stats. It also includes the ability to add various enchants and gems and calculates for further fine-tuning. I highly recommend checking it out. I’ve saved my current gear wish-list at http://www.warcrafter.net/sandbox/16972. It’s probably not the most efficient or definitely not the best gear arrangement possible, but it does offer a good mix of what I would consider obtainable items over the next month or so and gets me over 490 defense (uncrittable by bosses) and close to 102.4% total avoidance (uncrushable) with holy shield up.

Time to go tank another instance. =)

I do think that it would take a significant amount of effort to implement such a system in WoW but Blizzard has already got a couple of things in place:

First, if you’re a resourceful engineer or a friend of the Cenarion Expedition you have the ability to call upon the aid of combat-capable pet or ally. Even though they help for merely a few seconds, my Mithril Mechanical Dragonling has been the difference between a successful kill and a long corpse run on more than one occasion.

Second, although I hate escort quests due to their annoying pace, they at least provide the foundation and basic proof of concept for having a functional AI party member. Most of the escorted NPCs walk annoyingly slow yet charge every mob they come in range of and never wait when you’re low on health or OOM. But is this really any different than that warrior in your PUG that wears the +intellect ring and employs the same tactics?

At least you don’t have to compete with the NPC for loot right? Let’s see, how much should a hired mercenary cost? If the price is too low then you’ll trivialize the concept of grouping all together. If you make the price too high, the only people that could afford it would be the mains that are leveling (or twinking) an alt. At a minimum the merc would take its share of the coin drops much like a normal player would. You could supplement this with either extra cash upfront or some sort of lootshare or percentage of the spoils.

There would obviously need to be some constraints. Would you restrict mercenaries to one per group or let up to four tag along? Would you give them a time limit? Keep them an instance-only feature? How would they work on a PVE versus PVP realm? What happens when the group wipes? Does the henchman die for good or make the corpse run with you?

Mercenaries could come in different flavors. For the most part you’ll probably want a healer, a tank, or a combination of the two. If you’re masochistic enough to try level as a tank your healer yourself, then a damage dealer would be the way to go. And how would you control said mercenary? An added action bar seems to work great for locks and hunters but you could also make the NPC semi-smart and respond to /emotes or text commands. There at least needs to be a way to prevent your hired help from pulling a Leeroy Jenkins.

What are your thoughts?

Update:

Thank you all for your comments. Some very excellent points were made. I think that for all intents and purposes, the current 1-58 (and arguably 1-69) game is a singe-player affair. Yeah there are a few instances here and there but I know that its difficult to get a group together even in the higher levels. Henchman that were available only to assist in PVE instances seems like it would be an ideal solution that wouldn’t break existing game balance. You’re basically just replacing a potential party member with an AI controlled character.

Besides finding a group to run an instance with, my biggest setback is the inability to devote a chunk of uninterrupted time for even the shortest of instance runs. “Sorry guys /afk diaper change” is not something I want to drop on any fellow players when we’re in the middle of a boss fight.

I’ve been known to dual box with my laptop and Shelbi’s lock to get one of my many alts through an instance. How awesome would it be if you could bring one of your alts online to run around with you in henchman mode? Effectively leveling up both characters and giving you the versatility of both classes. There could be a quite-worth-it imo XP penalty or even an extra subscription cost involved to appease the higher-ups at Actiblizzion.