[PC] World of Warcraft

Originally Posted by Captain Desu

apparently kostaki is also a member of that specific guild, so i'll message him when i get my cd-key.

Anywho i'm thinking of rolling a BE pally, because my god priest is kinda hard to level when your having massive lags (i don't know why but my ISP is acting bad, i have called them too)

Oh and about purchasing gold online? Is it recommended?

I mean i would love to make a BE with a little heads up in terms of gold.

Yeah, the guild is mine (I'm not the guild leader at the moment due to some real life circumstances, but it was handed down to me from my real life friends) he's been in the guild for a couple of years at least.

and no, buying gold is illegal for WoW.

How ya doing, buddy?

Well is it easy to get caught?

Darn i really wanted to get a heads up, if i ever roll a BE pally.

Casters aren't that great when you get lag, ;_;

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

A few posters and I are making a guild on Dark Iron for GFF. It's been done before, but who cares.

Anyway, we're looking for guild name suggestions: any ideas?

FELIPE NO

I liked the Reservoir Worgs idea someone threw out yesterday.

And yes me and my gf are in. Horde lyfe bitchez!

How ya doing, buddy?

I have a 45 Blood Elf Rogue now and still can't get used to playing horde. I find myself running to defend alliance bases in AB only to end up getting gang rapped..

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I have a 30 BE Rogue on Duskwood and I too can't seem to get used to playing Horde. Either I can't play rogue class for life or I'm just under-geared. In BGs, my Rogue is either doing patty-cake attacks or stealthing around and being useless, waiting for that one good chance to use Ambush.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Captain Desu

Well is it easy to get caught?

Darn i really wanted to get a heads up, if i ever roll a BE pally.

Casters aren't that great when you get lag, ;_;

Though I've never tried it, I would say yes. Blizzard has added many background measures to track gold selling transactions. Unless you don't mind buying the game again and have another credit card I wouldn't do it.

If you want a good money making character, roll a hunter, take two gathering profs (like skinning and mining), and spec Beast Mastery as you level.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

when is wrath of the lich king supposed to drop, 'cause i got a 70 rogue just chillin' for the boat to northrend. first place i'm going.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

They haven't set a release date yet. It's not in beta yet, either, so I'd say that at the rate it's going, it won't be until June/July '08, as the most optimistic estimate I could think of.

also lol resto shamans get nerfed into uselessness in 2.3.2.

"Hey blizzard! Blizzard! My earth shield is dispelled all the time! Can you do something to stop this?"
"It'll be on a 30-second cooldown now."
"Nyoro~n"

I was speaking idiomatically.

So why isn't everyone at least throw a re-roll on Dark Iron (PVP)? Even if you don't play it all the time. All us GFFers need to DRAMA IT UP in our own guild. Toolin' around gankin folks in large quantities. You know you want to.

Dark Iron server. Let's go, everyone hop aboard. Don't make me make another thread just for this.

(I'll be there under Reynova if anyone wishes to contact [omg a/s/l?!])

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Quote:

"Hey blizzard! Blizzard! My earth shield is dispelled all the time! Can you do something to stop this?"
"It'll be on a 30-second cooldown now."
"Nyoro~n"

On an unrelated note, I got one of the WoW figures today (UD Warlock), and it is freaking awesome, so worth $20.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Kurado

A few posters and I are making a guild on Dark Iron for GFF. It's been done before, but who cares.

Anyway, we're looking for guild name suggestions: any ideas?

We named the guild "Aperture Science" by the way. =p
So far it's me, aaron, nova, dev, and maybe ed and zeal.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by SuperNova

So why isn't everyone at least throw a re-roll on Dark Iron (PVP)?

Sorry Nova, I found out back at release that PVP servers simply aren't my thing when the first GFF guild was on Laughing Skull (man that feels like ages ago). That and I already have so many characters that I'm leveling up already. Zinc complained about having too many 70s? Well I'm the exact opposite in that I don't have enough (not even one!)

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by The_Griffin

They haven't set a release date yet. It's not in beta yet, either, so I'd say that at the rate it's going, it won't be until June/July '08, as the most optimistic estimate I could think of.

also lol resto shamans get nerfed into uselessness in 2.3.2.

"Hey blizzard! Blizzard! My earth shield is dispelled all the time! Can you do something to stop this?"
"It'll be on a 30-second cooldown now."
"Nyoro~n"

Eh, you're right about PvP usefulness, as Resto Shamans are the least useful of the four healers, but on the raid scene, they are healing gods, that no other class can compare to, especially with the new Lifebloom nerf.

My guild brings as many Resto Shamans as possible to nearly every encounter, typically that has been 3, but on situations that they could pull it off, there have been 4 of us. This is in ADDITION to the enhancement and elemental shaman also in the raid. So, 4-5 Shaman every week.

Lets face it, Chain Heal is a godly spell that scales unbelievably well, Earth Shield is a required buff for any tanks, the buffs totems provide to your group are among the best in the game (only competing with Paladin, which our guild prefers 2 of per raid) and everyone's favorite spell, Bloodlust, which just makes about every fight in the game so much easier for each shaman you can cram in (some fights, our melee group will recieve all 5 bloodlusts, other encounters 2-3 dps groups get them).

I'm not trying to downplay Shaman PvP issues, but just to remind people that there are other aspects of the game that Shaman happen to thrive in ATM.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Earth Shield is nice for tanks and AOE situations (slap it on that 'lock and go to town), but it's hardly necessary. Resto shamans are good raid healers, yes. However, their single-target heals are comparatively weak (Lesser Healing Wave is insanely mana inefficient, and Healing Wave has the lowest base healing out of any class), and before Water Shield they had nothing but Mana Tide/Spring for mana regen (and Mana Spring pre 2.3 required half of its duration just to return the mana cost).

Yeah, totems are good buffs, but they've got a lotta problems too. It takes 6 seconds to fully buff up a group, and you have to buff again every 2 minutes, no matter your spec. For elemental shamans, this is a big loss of DPS. For Resto, it's lost spirit regen. The only one that isn't all that chuffed about it is Enhancement, because they have several free GCDs in their spell rotation (which I believe is Flame Shock, Storm Strike, Earth Shock, Earth Shock, repeat), and their godly mana efficiency means they can afford to not only drop totems, but also twist totems by using a macro to drop Windfury for the 9-second buff, then dropping Grace of Air and dropping Windfury again when the buff expires.

But yeah, I was pretty much talking about PVP when I mentioned Resto being useless. Which is pretty big, since the days of raiders steamrolling anything that moves are long gone.

Put bluntly, if you want to be a good arena healer, you roll a druid for 2v2 and 5v5 4-DPS teams, priest for 3v3 and 2345 5v5 teams (AKA Elemental Shaman, Frost Mage, MS Warrior, Holy Paladin, Disc. Priest), and paladin for 3v3 and 5v5 (and decent 2v2). Resto shaman have all the weaknesses of a holy paladin (incredibly vulnerable to interrupts, easy to keep in melee), without the mana efficiency and utility.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by The_Griffin

Earth Shield is nice for tanks and AOE situations (slap it on that 'lock and go to town), but it's hardly necessary. Resto shamans are good raid healers, yes. However, their single-target heals are comparatively weak (Lesser Healing Wave is insanely mana inefficient, and Healing Wave has the lowest base healing out of any class), and before Water Shield they had nothing but Mana Tide/Spring for mana regen (and Mana Spring pre 2.3 required half of its duration just to return the mana cost).

Yeah, totems are good buffs, but they've got a lotta problems too. It takes 6 seconds to fully buff up a group, and you have to buff again every 2 minutes, no matter your spec. For elemental shamans, this is a big loss of DPS. For Resto, it's lost spirit regen. The only one that isn't all that chuffed about it is Enhancement, because they have several free GCDs in their spell rotation (which I believe is Flame Shock, Storm Strike, Earth Shock, Earth Shock, repeat), and their godly mana efficiency means they can afford to not only drop totems, but also twist totems by using a macro to drop Windfury for the 9-second buff, then dropping Grace of Air and dropping Windfury again when the buff expires.

But yeah, I was pretty much talking about PVP when I mentioned Resto being useless. Which is pretty big, since the days of raiders steamrolling anything that moves are long gone.

Put bluntly, if you want to be a good arena healer, you roll a druid for 2v2 and 5v5 4-DPS teams, priest for 3v3 and 2345 5v5 teams (AKA Elemental Shaman, Frost Mage, MS Warrior, Holy Paladin, Disc. Priest), and paladin for 3v3 and 5v5 (and decent 2v2). Resto shaman have all the weaknesses of a holy paladin (incredibly vulnerable to interrupts, easy to keep in melee), without the mana efficiency and utility.

Oh trust me, as a shaman for over two years now, I'm well versed in our weaknesses, and I agree with many of your points. I just think that not only is Resto is a pretty overpowered PvE spec, but the other two are doing just fine in that particular area of the game. That being said, I stopped PvPing altogether on my Shaman when my 3s team broke up halfway through season 2, and I'm now rolling a Druid on another server with PvP aspirations.

It may just be my style and personal preference, but aside from doing a little enhancement farming, I feel underpowered as ele or enh compared to Resto, and have trouble playing either spec for any extended period of time.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Does anyone else notice that Bonus Spell Damage does not work on some spells/abilities?

I mainly play a Warlock and Death Coil never inflicts more damage than its tooltip says. If it says it'll heal me for 475 health while hurting the target for 475 damage, then that's exactly what it does while ignoring my Bonus Spell Damage.

I've searched the worldofwarcraft.com site and looked at the previous patch updates. Not a single one lists a change that introduces these sort of "hinderances" to my Warlock spells. I also suspect that there are other oddities with other caster classes, especially healing ones like Paladin and Priest.

Also, there's a section that explains how Bonus Spell Damage is supposed to work. And it's dependent on the spell's rank, when the spell/rank is first available to be learned, and the character's current level.
-This is the formula they use: [(spell level)+6]/(player level)
--Spell level = when the spell is available to learn, but at it's full potential level. Example: a level 22 spell can reach it's full potential at level 27. Meaning, as the character levels up to 27 from 22, the spell's tooltip should update with each level up with a new amount. This is all done on whatever rank the spell is. Same thing will occur on the next rank.
-- +6 = the "slack" the game's system provides until any penalty to Bonus Spell Damage is introduced.
--Player level is the player's current level.

Now, using the formula provided by Blizzard:
-A level 22 spell reaches it's limit at 27. So it'll cease to do more damage or healing beyond 27 until the next rank is learned.
-So, let us assume the player's current level is 34. [(27)+6]/(34) = 0.970588235 * 100 = 97.0588235%.
-This means at level 34, the player's bonus spell damage will only provide ~97% bonus.

Going back to Death Coil, the highest rank (being rank 4) is learned at 68. Even though there's only a two level difference from 70, there should be a full Bonus Spell Damage effect regardless of the game's 6 level slack.

So, either this is a flaw with the game's Bonus Spell Damage mechanics or Death Coil isn't magic damage. Yet, it can still be resisted completely by a rogue's Cloak of Shadows, indicating that it is magic damage. And there's the possibility that Death Coil is an entirely different school of magic by itself, apart from the currently known ones. But that doesn't stop it from being affected by silencing abilities along with every other shadow based spell.

What do you guys think? Am I right? Do you experience similar oddities? Am I just spouting nonsense? Or am I missing the bigger picture here?

I suppose after fifteen patch updates it would mean that Blizzard must know in depth about what's going on with Death Coil (and other spells). And that would mean they're purposely leaving the mechanics in this current working order.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Quote:

Also, there's a section that explains how Bonus Spell Damage is supposed to work. And it's dependent on the spell's rank, when the spell/rank is first available to be learned, and the character's current level.
-This is the formula they use: [(spell level)+6]/(player level)
--Spell level = when the spell is available to learn, but at it's full potential level. Example: a level 22 spell can reach it's full potential at level 27. Meaning, as the character levels up to 27 from 22, the spell's tooltip should update with each level up with a new amount. This is all done on whatever rank the spell is. Same thing will occur on the next rank.
-- +6 = the "slack" the game's system provides until any penalty to Bonus Spell Damage is introduced.
--Player level is the player's current level.

Spell damage and healing - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

Coefficients are not based on the level you learned it at, but on its casting time (or duration, if it's a DOT).

The formula for direct-damage spells is basically x + (y/(z/3.5)), where x is the base spell damage, y is your spell damage (or healing, where applicable), and z is the casting time of the spell*. A 3.5-second cast (like Starfire) gets 100% of your +damage applied to it, but a 1.5 second cast like Lesser Healing Wave only gets roughly 43% of your +damage. Also, an instant cast spell like a shaman's Earth Shock is treated as a 1.5 cast for the purpose of ensuring it scales in some fashion. In addition, there are several penalties applied to the coefficient. In Death Coil's case, it applies a debuff (terror) AND heals you. That means that not only is it getting an already paltry coefficient (43%), it's also being penalized for the debuff and healing effect it does on you. WoWWiki, the site that you should be going to to begin with, states that Death Coil's coefficient is 21.4%. That means that either you don't have enough +damage to see any scaling (and since you talked about the level 68 DC, that means your gear SUCKS i.e. power-level tailoring and get the Frozen Shadoweave set dickweed, it's the best thing you'll see until around T5-T6 levels), or you are seeing scaling, it's just small enough so that it usually falls within the damage range of Death Coil.

*-There are some exceptions to this formula, such as the 2.3 shaman's Lightning Bolt, which has a base cast time of 2.5 seconds (meaning it should get a roughly 75% coefficient), but due to balance concerns was given an 80% coefficient.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by The_Griffin

Spell damage and healing - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

Coefficients is not based on the level you learned it at, but on its casting time (or duration, if it's a DOT).

The formula for direct-damage spells is basically x + (y/(z/3.5)), where x is the base spell damage, y is your spell damage (or healing, where applicable), and z is the casting time of the spell*. A 3.5-second cast (like Starfire) gets 100% of your +damage applied to it, but a 1.5 second cast like Lesser Healing Wave only gets roughly 43% of your +damage. Also, an instant cast spell like a shaman's Earth Shock is treated as a 1.5 cast for the purpose of ensuring it scales in some fashion. In addition, there are several penalties applied to the coefficient. In Death Coil's case, it applies a debuff (terror) AND heals you. That means that not only is it getting an already paltry coefficient (43%), it's also being penalized for the debuff and healing effect it does on you. WoWWiki, the site that you should be going to to begin with, states that Death Coil's coefficient is 21.4%. That means that either you don't have enough +damage to see any scaling (and since you talked about the level 68 DC, that means your gear SUCKS i.e. power-level tailoring and get the Frozen Shadoweave set dickweed, it's the best thing you'll see until around T5-T6 levels), or you are seeing scaling, it's just small enough so that it usually falls within the damage range of Death Coil.

*-There are some exceptions to this formula, such as the 2.3 shaman's Lightning Bolt, which has a base cast time of 2.5 seconds (meaning it should get a roughly 75% coefficient), but due to balance concerns was given an 80% coefficient.

You're both wrong. You're coefficient info is correct, and so is his. In other words, the coefficient is based on cast time AND level. The level adjustment was put into place as a nerf to downranking when 2.0 came out a year ago.

FELIPE NO

Read his post again. He claimed that since the last rank of DC was at 68, that it should get the full benefit from +damage. That's just plain wrong in every way possible. For the purpose of level 70 spells (or ones near 70, like DC at max rank), he's completely wrong. Yeah, there is a penalty for using a lower rank past a certain level, but that's to nerf downranking, like you said.

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Originally Posted by The_Griffin

Read his post again. He claimed that since the last rank of DC was at 68, that it should get the full benefit from +damage. That's just plain wrong in every way possible. For the purpose of level 70 spells (or ones near 70, like DC at max rank), he's completely wrong. Yeah, there is a penalty for using a lower rank past a certain level, but that's to nerf downranking, like you said.

Yeah, I saw where he was wrong, but I misunderstood your post to say that there was no level based penalty.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I can see the misunderstanding, but I merely said that the coefficient was based on the casting time instead of the level learned (which is right), not that there was no penalty.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Downranking nerf was another thing that made me stop having fun in this game. Downranking actually made getting the best +damage gear fun as a warlock.

How ya doing, buddy?

Ahh, I see now what you two mean. That does make much more sense than I had figured it to.

Looks like I need to figure out how else Death Coil wasn't benefiting from my Bonus Spell Damage.

Although, after my previous post, I asked a Warlock buddy to Death Coil a few mobs. He claims to have pumped out numbers indicating that he did infact cause damage/healing with a little extra. Now this doesn't make any sense to me anymore as to how or why my casts don't work like this.

So, I gave it a whirl and did two casts on a Ironspine Petrifier outside Shattrah. Now I see the bonus damage effect being applied. I wish I had a screenshot of when I noticed mobs taking only the normal indicated damage.

I'm not sure anymore as to what happened from then to now regarding me and Death Coil. But I do apologize for making a ruckus about this. I wish I had more free time to study the problem, but it's final's week. Case closed.

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Has anyone tried one of those pre-made characters on the PTRs yet? I asked for a Lv70 Rogue all tricked out. Comes with all epics and a Netherdrake for a flying mount. Quite cool, now to do some 'testing'.

I'm on the PVP Test Realm as QuasiNova.

I was speaking idiomatically.