I’ve been mulling things over for a while, because I think the state of the holy paladin is kind of sad in WoW Forever, but I don’t love critiquing something without bringing solutions. And then I realized, hey, if professional game designers seem to not have a good solution, I don’t need a good solution either! So I can attempt to throw some stuff at the wall and see if it sticks.
The Problem: Where to use talent points?
Back in Classic, this wasn’t a problem. A standard “all the buffs” build was something like this 33/11/7 build:
I had been thinking that a 31/5/15 build to grab Conviction would work, but I’m remembering the Wrath of the Lich King version of the spell, which did affect spell crit. Conviction from Classic doesnot and so it will not in Forever.
So this leaves me wondering what the heck to do with some points. I have this build in mind:
But that leaves me with six unused points. And I don’t want to put those points anywhere in particular. And I have questions! If I have 3/3 Divine Precision, is it useless to grab 1 or 2 or 3 points in regular Precision in Prot?
So like… where do we go? There is nothing tempting for me in the ret tree except for Benediction (which is way more useful now than it used to be). There is nothing tempting for me in the prot tree except for Guardian’s Favor.
Ideas for Row 1 or 2 Talents in Prot/Ret for Holy
– Easiest idea first, let’s put the spell crit back into Conviction like it was in Wrath! It would be handy for every flavour of paladin, although not even fantastic for holy pallies because oh yeah ILLUMINATION WAS NERFED TO 50%. (ahem)
– How about extended range on judgement? We are ostensibly going to be judging for light and wisdom, so let us do it from 30 yards away. Maybe put this in row 2 of prot, because it would be really handy for tanks to be able to hit something from afar.
– Oooooh, how about this? Redo Redoubt in row 1 of prot to say what it usually does (increased chance to block) and also “when a shield is equipped, increase your mana regeneration by 2/4/6/8/10%”?
– Maybe something else in ret, like “when your judgement is a critical hit, your next Holy Shock or Holy Strike is free (can only occur once per minute)”?
Ideas for Deeper in the Holy Tree
– Maybe put an extended range on judgement deeper in the holy tree if you’re worried about balancing prot and ret against holy in PVP?
– Maybe instead of Consecrated Ground doing 5%/10% increased damage against the first 4 enemies in our Consecration, this deep in the holy tree, maybe it could heal instead of harm? Like maybe 0 damage to enemies and mild healing to allies, decreasing in efficacy the more people are standing in it?
Not sure what else to do here, frankly. What do you think?
I have been a member of various online communities since I was but a wee lass. Like we’re talking 8-9 years old. I used to call up local Montreal-area bulletin board systems (BBSes) using my 1200 baud modem on my Atari 520 ST (but was souped up to 1040 bytes of RAM!). There is where I learned that when you’re online, your ideas (and how you express them) matter more than anything else about you.
In the intervening years, I have joined numerous online communities on the Internet. I even created several of them. That’s sort of been my jam. As a woman who is generally interested in things dudes are interested in, I have often had to make a place for myself in the online world. And World of Warcraft was no exception.
So as we’re now firmly into the Beta for WoW Forever, I find myself thinking about community, particularly when thinking about a certain toxic streamer who has necessitated someone creating an addon to mute/block/ignore anyone from that person’s affiliated guild. And the WoW Forever team wants to lean in to the community aspect, too, hence the campfires and stuff.
As such, I thought that I would talk a bit about the Dos and Don’ts of building a community in WoW. I was pretty successful in building a vibrant one back at the end of Wrath and throughout Cataclysm. While that’s a long time ago, the basics of community building never change. So without further ado, here we go.
Things to Do to Build a Successful WoW Guild Community
1) You need a place to gather. Not in-game. We’re talking a place where you and your guildies can communicate outside of the game, where you can write policies and where those can live. Historically, this has been a web forum of some sort, but Discord is a lot easier for some and is free, etc. If you use Discord, make sure you have some forum channels. This will allow you to easily post policies/rules/etc that should be read by everyone. The place in which you gather will also allow you to have persistent discussions about the guild, its purpose, what to do when members misbehave, etc. It should also allow you to accept applications to your guild. Yes. Applications. I am being absolutely serious.
2) Have people apply to the guild. Again, I’m being totally serious. It doesn’t need to be a very long application, and it doesn’t need to be super complicated. It just needs to require some effort from the candidate so that they understand you’re serious about whatever it is you do in the game. Whether it’s mythics or raiding or RBGs or arenas or even questing and chasing achievements, an application is a way to keep out people who aren’t serious about what you’re serious about, and it’s a way to get to know the applicant as well. Plus, it allows the applicant to understand what your whole guild is about.
3) Have a Guild Discord. This is especially important now with the guild chat link to Discord servers. This is a no-brainer. And in that Discord server, even if you already use it for forum channels, make sure you have some channels that are meant for organized group activities and make sure you have some channels for just chill hang time.
Don’t do These Things if You Want to Build a Successful WoW Guild Community
1) Don’t spam people in-game with invitations or text asking if they want to join. Just don’t. Random people do not want to join your guild. People who join your guild in this fashion have what we call “loose ties” to your guild. There’s nothing keeping them there. They’re just as likely to /gquit tomorrow as they are to stick around for three months. You have no idea if these people have similar goals to you, no idea if they’re jerks (to put it mildly) or genuinely lovely human beings, no idea if their idea of “common sense” is the same as yours. (Spoiler: their idea of common sense is almost certainly not the same as yours.) If you advertise in Trade chat or General chat (and, again, I discourage that), point them to your Discord application or website application, not to a “click this and instantly become a member” type thing.
2) Don’t leave your guild unattended without a word. If you’re the guildmaster (GM), it’s not recommended to just go away for like a week or three at a time without telling your guildies. They will leave. They might even try to gain control of the guild from you since you may be seen as “abandoning” the guild. Let them know when you’ll be away and if you’ll be completely cut off from the guild or not. (With Discord chat enabled, it’s unlikely you’ll ever be completely cut off, so bear that in mind.)
3) Don’t make just anyone an officer. First, figure out what you want your officers to do. They should have some kind of job in the guild. Guild banker, log analyst, RBG organizer, raid leader, etc, etc. If they don’t have a job, you probably shouldn’t have them be an officer. Note that sometimes these jobs are less visible than others. If they are providing you value as an officer, that’s fine. Just make sure they’re doing something. Heck, you can make an officer be “That Poor Schmuck Who Has All The Crappy Jobs In Raids”. (Hiiiiiii Toga! Hiiiiiiii Majik! Hiiiiiiiiiii Daey!) So long as they’re going to do a thing for you that you find helpful, that’s fine. But they also have to be consistent. You don’t want to promote someone who, a month later, suddenly can’t do any of your guild activity with you because their university term started. Sometimes this can’t be helped and work schedules change, and such, but most things are foreseeable. You should ask “hey, is there anything you can think of that would prevent you from being a consistent presence in the guild for the next 3-6 months?” and that sort of thing.
I have a lot more advice. Like, a lot more. But I think that’ll do for now. What dos and don’ts do you have when it comes to recruiting and creating a guild? Let me know in the comments below.
Also, don’t forget to check out my YouTube channel. I went looking for Ruins of Lordaeron and then found it and healed it!
And I also explored Riverglades. I was severely below level and it was hilarious.
No brain dump this week, my brain was just not having it.
Current state of me in the beta for WoW Forever:
Kurn is level 12 and took the boat to STORMWIND (!!!) from Auberdine. Exciting!
Madrana is level 13 and has done Too Many Goldshire Quests for my liking and has now taken the tram up to Ironforge because she can theoretically do the new Hall of Thanes dungeon up there. My plan this evening is to buy some +spell gear or something and do a bit of alchemy and maybe give that a go.
And now, some screenshots. Many of these are not taken with max settings just because my computer would be struggling, but also because of a wicked memory leak on the beta client. (If you find your fps dropping like whoah, try relogging or closing the client and logging back in.)
A boat in Stormwind HarbourA boat in Stormwind Harbour (with the moon)Dusk in Elwynn ForestRiver in Elwynn ForestDusk in Elwynn
Honestly, it’s pretty gorgeous.
Here are some videos of my playing WoW Forever. You should probably skip the one where I hit Northshire on my paladin because my audio was wildly awful.
Things I’ve learned:
You (as in you, your character) can only use ONE item at a campfire at a time. All the other items you have go on cooldown for an hour. Other people can still use one of their items to make a nice bunch of buffs.
Achievements exist, I got one for exploring Elwynn.
Health potions are not made by alchemists! They are made with first aid, so anyone can make their own health potions, so long as they level up first aid.
Holy Strike is crap. IMHO.
Giving people the ability to have “last” names was a mistake. The number of COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATE NAMES I see regularly is just tragic. Best non-traditional names I’ve seen so far:
Shift Faced (a night elf druid)
Chunky Brewster (dwarf shaman)
I will not list the worst names. Just watch my videos, you’ll see my commentary. It’s sort of like a running theme now. Kurn quests and then runs around the zone and makes snide remarks about people’s names…
Anyhow, that’s what I’m up to, along with still trying hard to make gold in retail to pay for my sub… and my brother’s. hahahaha.
What are you up to? Anything you’re curious about on beta that you’d like me to check out? Let me know!
Hello, my pally friends. I looked up the new talent trees on Wowhead (warning: these may change at any time) and, apart from being underwhelmed at our options in prot and ret, I wanted to mention something.
They nerfed Illumination.
At 5/5 points, it now gives you 100% chance to get 50% of the spell’s base cost back. That’s right, 50%. Crits are no longer free, folks!
They did give us a talent (leading up to Illumination) which gives us mana regen while casting, so that should help to offset things. Hopefully. Maybe.
Now, again, this could change. But I think this was a very deliberate and mindful change, so I think it’s unlikely to change again going forward. Who knows?
Let me know your thoughts, and let me know what you’re curious about in Forever and I’ll try to help get you clarity when I get into beta on Thursday, September 17!
Well, there’s one word on my mind today and that word is FOREVER.
First, there’s the video I recorded. (Let’s ignore the fact that I had a pounding sinus headache and recorded it at like 4:30am on Saturday night.) It’s about 30 minutes long and talks about what we see on the WoW Forever site and a few things I heard in the talks about it and such.
If you watch the video, you’ll know I purchased the Epic Edition, primarily for Beta access. But also because elves. (You’ll also know I spent the gold for the tokens, and Blizzard still hasn’t gotten one penny from my wallet or credit card since they ate much of the contents of my guild bank.)
So I’m excited for Thursday and to see what Beta holds for us. I won’t do All The Things because look, I’ve already done the various starting zones a dozen times on actual realms, and I’m sure I’ll be doing them again at least a few times for Forever, so I may just do a few things here and there and look at talents and the like. What do you want to see from Beta?
I’m looking forward to seeing the full talent trees for paladins and giving my two cents on what a holy paladin should do. Probably also for MM hunters, although I’ve never theorycrafted for my hunter the way I have for my paladin.
I’m also really looking forward to the new graphics. I’m probably going to stick with Classic character models and animations, but I can’t wait to be on my hunter out in Riverglades and other new zones, exploring things.
So far, the plan is: one night elf hunter, one human paladin, one dwarven shaman, and then either a Skyborne mage or druid. I’m not sure I want a druid, though — a lot of the joy I get from my druid on retail is flight form and farming.
Professions: Hunter gets skinning/LW, pally gets herbalism/alchemy, shaman may depend on if dual gathering is “supported” in the sense that nodes for both mining and herbalism are visible at once. If not, shammy gets mining and … engineering??? I have no idea, frankly. It’s kind of wild to think about old-school WoW, without jewelcrafting or inscription. (I’m not complaining.)
The racials are wild. They’ve been amped UP, dudes.
EUREKA! Reduced cost at 10% increased damage or healing on next 3 spells or abilities
AND
Expansive Mind: Maximum Mana, Rage, or Energy increased by 5%
Almost enough to want to roll a gnome. Almost.
And Undead get basically a free Lifestealing enchant, built-in!
Touch of the Grave: Sometimes drain health with your attacks
Speaking of Undead, I think it’s wild that we’re getting Undead Paladins in both Forever and Retail. UNDEAD PALADINS. WHAT. They look super cool, I’m not gonna lie, but what the heck. I have mixed feelings.
Now, my biggest thing here is… I hate people. 😂 So how is this open-world hanging out going to affect me? I can be nice enough in-game, but most of the time I just want to chill by myself or play with my brother (or other friends). We’ll see how that goes. I guess having a campsite thingy to chat and chill and get buffs will be helpful. And I do like providing buffs for others, sooooo I guess I’ll be doing that a fair bit?
Also, no servers? Should be … interesting.
I’ve been thinking a lot over the last couple of days, about everything to do with Forever. And my original experiences with WoW. It still astonishes me that so much of my life has been shaped by what server I chose to play on when I first loaded up World of Warcraft in October of 2005.
I literally looked at the list of servers.
I found one that was PVE (that was never going to be in question) and one that was also based in Eastern Time. I could have picked Dalaran or Khadgar or Stormrage. But I saw the name Eldre’Thalas and thought “hey, it has an apostrophe! That’s pretty darn cool.”
So I selected it and began my time playing.
Within hours, I was on the phone with my brother telling him he HAD to buy this game.
When he installed it, he asked me what server I was on, so he created Thefog on Eldre’Thalas, a night elf druid. (Hilariously, throughout all of BlizzCon, they kept talking about Fog and The Fog and I’m like “what about my brother???? Ohhhhhhhhhh. The WEATHER.”)
My brother has always been the extroverted one. I’m the introvert. I like to sit and read a book or play a video game versus going out to hang with people. So I wasn’t particularly surprised when he made sort of friends with people. This eventually led to him getting invited to a guild called Fated Heroes. And then I eventually joined, too. (And then Fog abandoned us for Tempest because they were raiding MC and then, possibly out of pure spite, I worked my ass off to get Fated Heroes ready for raiding. And Fog eventually came back to us anyway.)
So how was that life-changing? Well, without Eldre’Thalas, we wouldn’t have joined Fated Heroes. And without Fated Heroes, I wouldn’t still be good friends with people like Majik and Toga and Kam and Tia and Dar. Like I have met (most of) these people! I was a bridesmaid at Majik’s wedding, where I met legit half my old guild in person, including Maj’s brothers and Dar! Then, a few years later, Majik, his wife, and I went to Toga and Kam’s wedding together, and Dar was there too! These people are still in my life, at least to an extent. All because I chose a realm name with an apostrophe in it. It truly breaks my brain a little bit.
Anyway, with all that said, there’s a lot to look forward to learning about WoW Forever, and I’m planning to help people better understand what’s new in that version of this game we all play.
What are you curious about in Forever? Let me know, I’ll try to find out the answer for you!
I’m done with Timewalking. I’m DONE. I was excited for Wrath Timewalking! I was pysched! And then… I hated basically every single person I grouped with. Suicidal tanks. Inconsiderate warlocks. GO GO GO people.
People who, by my guess, weren’t even alive when Wrath came out the first time.
I’ve come to accept that running these dungeons now, some 15+ years on, is not a good idea for me. The rewards are nice! But not enough to deal with actual assholes. People who don’t know mechanics. People who know about mechanics and don’t care! People who leave others behind, time and again.
I legitimately like a lot of the Wrath dungeons. And this run… soured me. I’m too old for this shit. Too old to play with kids who weren’t out of diapers when I was running Heroic Nexus for my epic mace (pre-raid BiS!). Too old to constantly be chasing the idiot tank. This game moves ever-further from what I want out of the game. This was an event I really thought could be different, would be different. And yet. That’s it. I’m done.
It really didn’t help that I spent a chunk of the weekend watching mostly Liquid and a bit of Echo and their race to world first. Seeing talented players executing difficult strategies, then being faced with these bozos.
One could be forgiven for thinking it’s an entirely different game.
Yet, I continue, as I make money, play Hardcore Classic with my brother, and do stuff I find enjoyable. But this ain’t it. Not anymore.
Don’t have much time to write today, it’s been a long one for me. Eesh.
Topic 1: Hardcore.
I wanted to share that I died on hardcore at 36.
Here’s the short:
And here’s the whole thing:
Basically, I was dumb.
I will probably reroll again. But not right now. Why?
Topic 2: Patch 12.1.0
Because it’s time to make money again! Season 2 starts tomorrow and I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to pull in somewhere around 40-50k tomorrow alone.
I’m also aiming to get characters actually levelled up in this patch. I’ve got Kurn, Madrana, my mage and my druid all at 90. Next up is my shaman, then my grandbaby paladin, I think. Maybe. I dunno.
And it’s gonna be about time to really start outfitting everyone with decent profession gear, too.
Topic 3: BlizzCon
Is it really less than a month ’till BlizzCon? Huh, September 12-13. I guess so. Looking forward to learning more about Classic Plus and such things. Is digital attendance free? I can’t seem to figure that out.
Well, I got to playing a bit of Hardcore this week. I managed to escape two moments where I was surely going to die within about five minutes of one another.
And I made a short of the big moment where I was about to eat it.
And then, last night, I did more stuff, including dinging 36.
I’m mostly doing the hardcore stuff because I’m bored on retail. I know the patch comes out like tomorrow, so that’s good, but I do enjoy the immersion of hardcore. And the challenge of it. I just hadn’t touched it in something like ohhhhhhhhhhh two years! hahaha! So I’ll probably do more of that while I attempt to make all the monies in retail.
Have you tried hardcore? What’s your highest level and what class was it? 36 pally is definitely mine. My brother got a mage to 51 and died and was very, very sad (and mad) about it.
If you haven’t tried hardcore, is there any particular reason why not? I’d be interested to know.
Not too much to talk about this week. Spent all of Monday out with my littlest nephew and am absolutely wiped out.
But, over the weekend, I did do 5 BC Timewalking dungeons on Madrana, so you might enjoy looking at that! I had one tank I thought of as “good”, one was “okay” and the others were, IMHO, bad.
Not too much to say, just posted a couple of videos this week, both showing me healing Classic Timewalking Dungeons.
And then I ran the remaining four dungeons yesterday, and I also discuss tanks in general, dungeons in general, and of course probably use the phrase “back in my day” a dozen times or so…
That’s it for this week. What are you up to? Did you do any Classic timewalking? What do you think about running a dungeon solely to complete it, versus running it because you enjoy it or running it to get a specific piece of gear? I’d be interested to know.
