14 December 2009

LFG and psychic warlocks

A warlock friend recently dinged 80 and we've been dipping in and out of the new LFG too to get geared up. (I am always the healer. If you ever want to dps, trust me, uncheck the heal box.)

So I'm having a poke around Skada afterwards and notice he's using unstable affliction and immolate. And I have a vague feeling from patch notes of yore that you can't do that any more. So I check wowwiki before opening my mouth and sure enough, these two dots now share a 'slot' — they overwrite each other.

Naturally, he was a little perturbed to receive this news — and from a priest, of all things. And after several expletives he asked, quite reasonably I thought: "how was I supposed to know this?"

And I have the same question for you, my erudite readers. If you don't trawl through patch notes with the ferocity of a tabloid proofreader, or have rolled your affliction warlock since the change was made, how exactly are you supposed to know about this? As far as I can see, there's nothing in the tooltip for either spell. Does Blizzard just assume you'll work it out, or have we overlooked the obvious?

7 comments:

Unknown said...

I've wondered this about a good number of stats in the game. I occassionaly play with a very casual enh shaman.

Try briefly looking at their gear and explaining weapon hit, spell hit, expertise, value of agility over strength, dps vs. spellpower mail, etc.

None of this is explained in the game, and yet is required knowledge, especially with everyone running heroics now. Raider-like knowledge is seemingly now expected for all players in the game, without in game resources to turn to.

This is a large hurdle that Blizzard needs to address if it wishes to continue to attract new players to the game, especially if these players wish to put in a similar level of commitment as their newest Wii game rather than their PhD dissertation.

Shayzani said...

Huh, this is actually the first I've heard of this and I usually go over patch notes pretty thoroughly.

Anonymous said...

Just wondering if this is the reason for the tutorials in the Expansion ?

Anonymous said...

I certainly try and read the patch notes more then once for my classes that I play. Then log into them to make sure nothing is missing from their talent trees and toolbars - With the amount of changes, I do think Blizz should look at another way of communicating the changes, even if they send the toon an alert as they log in with the summary if changes for the class - with a option of ignoring.

Weatherlight (EU-Runetotem) said...

One problem I have is bleeding eyes. I try to be up to date for incoming changes and I am, most of the time, up to one week before the patch and then I get tired I start missing notes.

Like on this one: I could swear there was something stating that Druid’s Enrage would give an increase of armor now instead of a 17% penalty. Well I got on my druid (my primary-alt) happily using Enrage and I see some hits slightly bigger than normal so I check stats and the armor still reduces. Now, was I dreaming or was there change of plans?

Usually I pay more attention to priest notes, but even there I’m not totally safe as not to miss something. Reading all the notes is somewhat mind-numbing (AQ-40 loot can now be traded…). They do communicate the changes in an easy way, they’re right there while you install each patch; it’s up to each of us to read them. I’m not sure even if Blizzard made them more visible there would be more people reading.

Weatherlight (EU-Runetotem) said...

Ups, just found the "Enrage increases armor" it's the T10 bonus.

And there you go, that's how too much research on notes and incoming content can make you confuse....

Nibuca said...

Hmm.. -I- knew this because I am obsessed. I agree it's an oversight that the spells don't list it.

Nibs.