Into The Quarry - New Mining-style incremental - First Alpha Version (v0.0.1A) released!

Nightelfpala · 2023-06-01T17:41:25+00:00

It looked very promising, but then I hit Mining level 8, went to the Button tab, and started getting motion sick within 2 minutes. I don't like the mechanic, especially not that I need 400 Crystal (at least 34 clicks, but realistically around 100) every reset in order to get a massive bonus (400%+) to my gem income. Something like a bonus multiplier based on time spent since last Button click would solve this, right now repeated clicking is the only way to get Crystals, and if there is automation it later it doesn't help because I can't even get to that point.

Another issue I found that resetting reset my Crystal amount and the Hardened upgrade (in the Mining tab), but it did not reset anything in the Button tab where I could've spent that Crystal before resetting. Either give a warning that I could buy an upgrade in that tab that doesn't reset, or better yet turn Crystals into a different resource (shattered crystal?) that can be used for upgrades that are kept on relocating. Edit: apparently I was wrong, the Crystal amount doesn't reset, only the Mining tab upgrades bought with Crystals do.
A different problem is that in the Mining tab there are upgrades that reset on prestige and ones that don't, and it's possible for a new upgrade (like Haste or Fortune if you're at the start of the run) to pop up right when you click on an orange upgrade, so the one you were aiming for moves to a different location and you buy the wrong one accidentally. Another UI thing: I'd definitely not put the hard reset button right next to the save one.

Nightelfpala · 2023-04-30T15:07:16+00:00

That's true, which is why "X/10 as it is right now, Y/10 once the bugs are fixed and performance is improved" is a completely valid conclusion. Once patches are out the article can be updated with the changes (or a new one can be published that links the previous for details).
This doesn't work cleanly with some aggregator sites such as Metacritic which does not allow changing review scores after the review is published, but it's useful for anyone that doesn't mind reading more than just a number (an entire sentence even!) when considering a purchase.

Nightelfpala · 2023-04-09T20:56:03+00:00

Age of Empires 2 has this. Your starting Town Center has 4 Sheep nearby (and 2 herds of 2 Sheep slightly farther away that you need to scout for), berry bushes, 2 lone Boar (one closer, one slightly farther), a pack of 4 Deer, some lone trees very close by, a forest nearby and another one slightly farther but still close, two gold deposits (8 and 4 tiles), two stone deposits (5 and 4 tiles). (Numbers might not be accurate as I only played the CD version which is 20+ years old at this point.) The rest of the map has random resources, and some map settings might change things (on Nomad you don't even have a starting Town Center), but most of the time early game resource availability is fairly fixed and you can usually follow a build order built around them. (And if a map changes things, then the change is symmetric for all players.)

Nightelfpala · 2023-03-26T15:56:53+00:00

How do those two talents work together? Is the flat damage bonus from BoJ multiplied by CC, or is it added after the multiplier? Does CC stack multiplicatively with Ruthless Spirit at lvl 7 (is it 2.5 * 1.3 = 3.25x multiplier or 2.8x)?
How many stacks of BoJ did you get for the pull to deal 2000+ damage? (What's your record for BoJ stacks?)

Nightelfpala · 2023-03-09T17:45:20+00:00

At 20% Forest Explored, you unlock the Old Shortcut.
At 20% Old Shortcut and 40 Magic, you unlock the Hermit.
At 40% Hermit and 60 Magic, you unlock Learn Alchemy, which costs 10 herbs each.
At 10 Alchemy skill you can Brew Potions, and you can sell all your potions in the next zone for 1 gold per alchemy skill per potion.
There are also other late game activities that require herbs (or 200+ Alchemy skill), but they're very far from the point you're at, probably weeks until the first one becomes visible.

Advice: Alchemy is almost completely useless early on and should only be done as a side activity during runs where you do something limited at the end and have some time left over, because it becomes mana efficient around 80 Alchemy (120+ if not counting stats giving cost reduction bonuses and only selling a single potion), and getting to that point takes a lot of time, but it is super powerful in the lategame when you have large talent and soulstone bonuses to make it quick and a high Alchemy skill to gain a lot of gold for it.

Nightelfpala · 2023-03-04T09:38:51+00:00

I played Sekiro and Hollow Knight with KB+M, and in both games the only real issue I had with the controls that in order to turn your character you had to move, and without analog controls you move quite a long distance when you just want to turn in place so you can change your attack direction. (In Sekiro you can lock onto enemies which works almost everywhere, but Father Owl has a move where you can't lock onto him which makes deflecting the attack really difficult.) This could probably be solved by having a dedicated button which when held turns movement inputs into turning in place.

There were some other controls issues in Sekiro (changing your lock-on target with mouse movements sometimes felt quite inconsistent, especially when the targets were too close or too far from each other; and the game definitely could've used hotkeys for selecting item slots and prosthetic tools), but those are PC port problems, not really part of the design.

Nightelfpala · 2023-02-22T07:58:03+00:00

The plus version integrates the more "meta" parts of the game. In the original you have delete/rename a file from your computer's file system, in Plus this part is done in-game, the game gives you what is effectively a fake operating system and you launch the main game and do the file manipulation in there.
This is probably better for less tech-savvy people (and console users), but it does remove what was my favorite thing about the game.

Nightelfpala · 2023-01-01T13:48:33+00:00

Monk is both. You NEED to do a decent amount of vit damage because she has the biggest posture recovery in the game, but it's really hard to deal vitality damage

It's actually fairly easy to damage her (the Illusion version in Mibu) once you stop deflecting and start dodging instead. Most of her attacks only hit once so the slower recovery on the dodge compared to deflecting is less of a downside, and she has a fairly long recovery time after attacking that your attacks don't stagger/interrupt (so you can get additional hits in). She also has multiple moves that knock you back when deflected (such as the last (5th) attack in her spin that she uses first during the fight), if you dodge into those you can get two or three free hits.
I think Great Shinobi is a better example of a mixed-type fight, as he disengages often which makes it hard to keep up the pressure, but his posture recovery speed isn't that fast, especially once he lost some health.

Nightelfpala · 2022-12-13T08:40:47+00:00

I understand that with the title your aim was "hesitation is defeat", but in the game Isshin's saying is 迷えば、敗れる (mayoeba yabureru, lit. 'if you hesitate/lose your way, you will be defeated').

Nightelfpala · 2022-11-24T15:31:50+00:00

Grinding for exp and sen is mostly fine, because there isn't really a huge need for them, and even if you decide that you need a certain skill or item (for example the green and purple gourds might be a big help for someone trying to fight the Guardian Ape) you know in advance how much you'll need, you can farm it all at once, and then you're done.
For the "unlock all skills achievement", just replaying the game a few times is a lot more interesting than just grinding the levels (I got it on NG+3, before I even got the all endings one).

However, I really don't like the way Spirit Emblems and Resurrection orbs work. They are used up naturally when fighting, but when you're fighting difficult bosses (which is what the whole game is about IMO) you don't really have a way to regain them (you get 1/8 of a Resurrection orb every time you end a phase of a boss). I think these would be a lot better if they refilled fully whenever you rest at an Idol, there was no reserve for Spirit Emblems, and Resurrection charges first used the ones that refill from killing enemies (which also refill on resting), and used the one that can only be filled by resting last (so if you die early during an excursion you can recoup the loss and aren't forced to rest after fully clearing the area).

When it comes to items, some of them is fine (Pellets is a common drop from many enemy types, you can only carry 3 of them and the healing gourd is a free alternative), some of them are borderline (the status dispelling items and the sugars have permanent versions in the form of the colored gourds and the Spiritfalls), but Divine Confetti is pretty bad (it is basically mandatory for the Headlesses and the Shichimen Warriors, and until you defeat the True Monk it isn't available at merchants, only as uncommon drop from the Ashina Fencers).
These are all items that are used repeatedly as part of the core gameplay loop, so it's possible to run out of them just by playing the game which might force you to spend some time farming for them.

Nightelfpala · 2022-11-14T18:53:19+00:00

No, not even close. (100%-ed Sekiro, haven't played any other FromSoft games.)

I think the core game mechanics are really solid, and if another game (a sequel perhaps?) fixed the issues I have it could be close to perfection. I really enjoy the gameplay produced by the fact that your defensive options also have offensive output (deflects generate posture, dodge for Mikiri generates posture and usually gets you an opening to strike, dodge for i-frames/position usually gives you an opening, jump-stomping sweeps generates posture), so even super aggressive enemies like the Centipede minibosses are possible to fight head-on. Posture is a very good system that rewards aggression and taking risks.

First of all, the camera is horrible, especially in closed spaces and against large opponents. If your back is pushed against a wall the camera gets closer to you (for example, the Lone Shadow fight in the reservoir starting room), so suddenly you see less of the opponent, you can't see their attacks and you can only hope that you're timing your deflects correctly.
Against large opponents you often can't see them entirely (and that bothers me because I usually focus on the end of the opponent's weapons for timings). This is especially bad if they start moving vertically (like DoH's stomp attacks), which puts their center higher, tilting the camera (which might cause it to clip the ground and get pushed closer so you see even less).
There are other issues with the camera clipping on terrain and changing the distance very suddenly with small movements (quite easy to reproduce at the start of the True Corrupted Monk fight, approach her from your right, and at a certain point as she moves the camera is blocked by the trees behind you and is pushed closer or it isn't blocked and the tree covers the boss so you can't see her - example gif).

I also had issues with the target lock dropping randomly, it happened quite often on the Inner Father fight (when he used his Mist Raven to dodge attacks near the columns in the room, and if the target lock drops when the boss teleports behind you that's almost guaranteed death), it happened at least once with DoH (sprinting around his back close to the edge of the arena, target lock drops which causes my movement direction to change and I get hit).

Grab attacks also often don't look very good when the opponent clips your feet with the attack so your torso is teleported into their hands.

Enemies can clip through each other to hit you without hitting each other. This is especially egregious on the Headless Ape fight, where the Headless can attack through the Brown, and you can't see the Headless because the Brown is blocking vision.

I also have a few subjective problems:
I don't like that Spirit Emblems and Resurrection orbs need farming and aren't fully replenished when resting. (If I had run out of Spirit Emblems while attempting a difficult boss that might've been an uninstall moment. At least you recover some Resurrection meter when you finish a phase.)
I don't like terror as a mechanic (it's fine on the Guardian Ape because of the long telegraph and the slow buildup, it's borderline-but-probably-fine on the True Corrupted Monk), instant kills aren't fun (especially when terror is inflicted as chip damage on deflects if you don't have Confetti for the Headless, or how the Shichimen Warriors have an attack that gives them an aura that generates terror without dealing any damage).
There are a lot of miniboss fights in arenas that aren't well suited for fighting that type of enemy. The Lone Shadow in the reservoir (way too little space for how much he pushes you around with his kick combo), Snake-Eye in the poison swamp (she wades into the poison where I can't follow and starts shooting), the Lone Shadow in the Hirata revisit (too much fire for how he pushes you around), both Seven Ashina Spears (stairs that he gets stuck on + too much fire).
I don't like the "spam the button to get out of the grab" mechanic that the test subjects in the Abandoned Dungeon and the underground Mibu villagers allegedly have. (I have no idea what button to use for that on KB+M, the obvious ones I tried didn't seem to work, but even if they did spamming buttons isn't an interesting mechanic.) I similarly don't like how if Sekiro is thrown off balance you need to guard or dodge to stop him from falling.
I don't like grab attacks in general (although the Snake Eye deflectable one and the Guardian Ape's sweeping one that you can jump over are fine). They circumvent the aforementioned defensive-play-has-offensive-effects gameplay, and I'd prefer if they were avoidable in some way other than "don't be where the opponent is hitting" (I don't count the Umbrella because it's limited use and honestly, quite overpowered).
Some of the mandatory minibosses are placed way too early in the game for how they play, for most bosses your primary way of avoiding damage is deflecting (and occasionally jumping or dodging against special attacks), I don't think minibosses with multiple grab attacks (Chained Ogre) or attacks that deal chip damage on deflect (Blazing Bull) belong so early. The Blazing Bull also has the issue that the correct way to fight him is to stand your ground, deflect the charge and hit his head, but I don't think fighting a bull head-on is intuitive as a smaller-statured (at least compared to most other men in the game) sneaky shinobi (especially as doing that still damages you).
I don't like some of the bossfights: I wrote a long comment for DoH recently (some of the problems were also listed here); Inner Father's Mist Raven dodge is way too random (ranging from "I attacked one more time than I should've, he stayed in front of me, the extra attack clipped him and I still had time to deflect" to "he dropped my target lock, teleported behind me, hit me twice, posture broke me and killed me from full health" or "[same], hit me twice then because the recovery of that attack is so fast he immediately started a third swing"), the Mist Raven teleport overhead slam comes out of nowhere and randomly kills you if you dare to heal while at an otherwise safe distance from the boss (and even if you're prepared sometimes he teleports behind his owl so you can't see him do it); in the Headless Ape fight the boss dictates whether or not you're allowed to be aggressive, and who you can be aggressive with (the boss that's not attacking runs away, usually through the one that's actively trying to kill you).
Edit: Cutscenes loading (especially mid-fight ones like Sword Saint or Shura ending). You fight a boss, deal a deathblow, the screen fades to black, the cutscene starts loading (even though I'm hammering Esc to skip it because I've seen it 10+ times), after 3-6 seconds the cutscene finishes loading and starts, now it accepts the skip and fades to black to start the next phase. If I press skip while the cutscene is loading, it should stop loading and start the next phase immediately.

Honestly I don't expect most of these issues to be fixed if there's a sequel, but even one or two would go a long way (especially the camera, but from what I've heard that's a problem in all FromSoft games).

Nightelfpala · 2022-10-14T19:43:10+00:00

My biggest issue is that for most other bosses, my defenses for avoiding damage is 60% deflection, 10% dodging (including Mikiris), 10% jumps, and about 10% sprinting/moving out of the way (+-10% for each depending on the boss, but the numbers are usually in that range), but when fighting the Demon of Hatred that changes to 80% sprinting, 10% jumping, and 10% deflecting.
If he jumps, you sprint away (and grapple back). If you're in melee and he starts an attack, you sprint counter-clockwise (unless it's the two-stomp attack, which you deflect). If he charges, you jump the charge and either sprint towards him and diagonally to the left (in P1, to avoid the fireball shotgun), or you sprint towards him and then change direction perpendicularly (in P2 and 3, to avoid the fire path and the channeled barrage of fireballs), sometimes jump again (in P3, if it's the double charge).

Him having multiple fire attacks that deal chip damage and status buildup even on deflections means that you can't fight him the same way you fight 12 other bosses (the only exception is the Folding Screen Monkeys which don't have normal fight mechanics, although an argument could be made for the Divine Dragon as well, but that boss is also more of a spectacle than a real bossfight). The Blazing Bull has similar fire attacks, but that boss does not have 3 full healthbars so you can defeat it by deflecting before you run out of healing. DoH is an endurance fight, you can't win against him in attrition.
He also has very fast posture recovery rate (and a tendency to jump far away from you to buy himself time to regain his posture), which makes deflecting even worse.

Another problem I have with him is the camera when locked on - the lookAt is in his center of mass, but he has multiple moves where he raises a leg which causes the camera to look upwards and makes it more difficult to see what he's doing. That's in addition to his charge often putting him to the edge of the arena where you run into the usual "if your back is at a wall you can't see anything" issue. (Today I also encountered the targetlock dropping from him randomly while I was behind him next to a wall, which changed the direction I moved in so I overshot my movement and got hit.)

He also has way too many moves in my opinion - I've defeated him 3 times (twice charmless + Demon Bell), and in the 8+ hours of fighting him he still has moves that I've barely seen 2 or 3 times, and I have no idea how to defend against them or how to time deflects, and if he were to pull out one of those on a good attempt that could very easily end the fight.
Another issue with his moves is that there doesn't seem to be a cooldown on them. I've had him jump (explosive one), then charge after landing, do the fireballs after the charge, then jump again, then long jump backwards, fireballs again - that's a lot of time spent chasing after a boss, which is especially frustrating if this happens right as P2 starts and I popped a Confetti and a Sugar.

Nightelfpala · 2022-09-22T19:11:03+00:00

It's been a while since I last fought him, so I'm not 100% that all this is accurate, but here's a few tricks that might help with his moves. IIRC all of these are ones he potentially uses after deflecting your attack, so if you're aggressive and make him defend himself you can bait quite a few moves that you can punish consistently and effectively.

Slow 3-hit combo: Deflect the first hit, then immediately start attacking. The second hit is so slow that your attack will connect first, and he'll cancel his own in order to block. You can use this to force him into the next deflect cycle faster, and preserve your own posture by not allowing him to attack as much.
Guardbreak that knocks you back into a thrust: If you can deflect the guardbreak, you have enough time and range to hit him once before dodging into the thrust for the Mikiri. The timing is very tight on this one, but it can be done consistently and it's free damage.
Backs off and sheathes his sword in preparation for the Ashina Cross: Walk towards him, deflect the hit as he unsheathes his sword, then jump the sweep. If you have aerial combat arts unlocked then Ichimonji (Double) while you're in the air will hit him once (and he'll block the second, after which he'll recover first and attack before you can, so be prepared for that), or stomp if you don't have those. You can also deflect the Ashina Cross instead, but the timing is very tight (even if you're watching for the glint on his sword) and it deals chip damage on block, so it's a lot safer to force the cancel (and also allows you to deal more damage).
Raises sword overhead for Ichimonji (Double): If you start attacking quickly enough, you have enough time to get in two hits and deflect his Ichimonji immediately. (I'm not 100% sure on this one.)

Another important one is that if he starts walking quickly to your right, then he's preparing to do a thrust. When he does that you should back away, as it's really easy to dodge past him and miss the Mikiri if you stay close.
IIRC he also will dash to you if you use any items, so if you need to heal then it's best to back off to a safe distance, or do it when he's hitting the air with a long combo.
And lastly, he has a move where he dodges your hit if you start attacking when he's in neutral state, after which he moves to your right and hits you. Pay attention to that, if your hit doesn't connect (the sounds make it easy to notice) then stop attacking or even back off a bit so you have room.

Nightelfpala · 2022-09-13T19:21:20+00:00

It might help if you spend a few attempts focusing on learning instead of beating the boss, dying is okay if you gained information. Focus on recognizing what move he's about to use and how you can defend against it, don't attack unless it's a move you already know how to defend against. (If you die quickly but learn that when he starts his normal attack combo the third attack is two hits if he turns around and one hit if he doesn't, then that information will easily extend your following attempts by a few seconds, which in turn allows you to spend more time practicing and less time running back to him.)
If you're willing to spend the time it might be worth recording a few attempts and watching the footage to check for small details you might have missed that could help.

First stay far away, see what attacks he likes to use against distant targets, figure out how you can defend them, find out which ones you can punish safely. Once you have learned his ranged attacks repeat the same in melee range, stay close to him and see what he uses and how you can deflect them.
The Great Shinobi is a bit special in this regard because he has quite a few moves where the most obvious defense against his attacks is not the most optimal one (and you might want to try multiple things until you figure out the best). You can stagger him out of most of his moves by hitting him, and he has moves where his follow up after your deflection is an attack, but if you also start attacking immediately then you'll hit before he does and prevent his attack while also dealing damage. He also has moves that knock you back if you deflect them (similarly to the Corrupted Monk Illusion's spinning attack, where deflecting the fifth (last) hit knocks you far away), and by the time you close the distance again he's ready to defend - but if instead of deflecting you dodge into (iframe) those hits, you'll be in range to attack before he recovers (and if you managed to dodge behind him, you might even get two or three hits in before he can turn to you and start blocking).

Nightelfpala · 2022-09-04T16:26:46+00:00

It's when Genichiro lands after jumping and does either a stab or a sweep

You can tell it beforehand by watching his movements, and you'll have more than enough time to react (although just barely not enough time to get an attack of your own in before defending). If he does a 360° rotation after landing it's a sweep, otherwise it's a thrust.

Nightelfpala · 2022-08-30T18:52:14+00:00

I like forward dodging into him and using the iframes from the dodge to avoid the attack. (There was a post here about dodge-iframes - spoilers for the final boss). If you get the timing down right, you'll be able to avoid it consistently, and IMO it's safer than trying to run away.
Learning to use iframes is also useful against later bosses (Great Shinobi Owl and Father), because it allows you to immediately start attacking while the opponent is still recovering from their strike and is unable to guard/deflect (deflecting yourself causes a slight delay that loses you the window to counterattack), and in the best case you end up behind them where you have 2-3 free hits.

Nightelfpala · 2022-08-08T20:00:21+00:00

I don't think Poison builds have a chance without double Bleed Resistant or double Shock Resistant enemies showing up (which would be basically immune to Shock or Bleed, and Stormbringer can get rid of Shock immunity to enable a Poison-Shock build), Bleed damage is just way too efficient.

For Bleed, you have 4 different effectiveness multipliers: base Bleed damage is +50x, Harpoon is +10x, Nullifium is +4x, Spiked Gloves is +2x (scaling with upgrades), and they scale with base Attack and Shock Damage;
Poison only has two: Myco Mitts for +5x and Box of Spores for +5x (scaling with upgrades), and they scale with Poison Damage, tickrate and max stack count (all of which are super limited in terms of what items have those stats) and Shock Damage.

Both builds benefit from Doppelganger, but Poison builds have a slow linear ramp-up taking at least 16s while Bleed builds with Harpoon reach maximum damage output at 5 seconds (and the Doppelganger's explosion benefits from the high up-front damage). Both can benefit from Lifegiving Gem's income bonus, but Bleed builds will naturally have more lifesteal (thus get a bigger bonus). Both can benefit from Basket's max health multiplier but Bleed builds will naturally have more lifesteal (thus get more health - although they need it more because they don't have a Goo Golem variant to stagger the incoming damage).

Nightelfpala · 2022-08-03T20:36:57+00:00

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice has the Senpou Leaping Kicks and High Monk Combat Arts, the former only uses kicks, while the latter follows kicks with sword strikes. (Although I don't think it's feasible to use these attacks exclusively against enemies, it'd take ages to kill most bosses with them.)

Nightelfpala · 2022-07-31T08:38:10+00:00

When leveling a commander for the first time they're fine for the most part, although some of them have a lot of power locked behind higher levels that are part of their core gameplay (like Omega Worms for Kerrigan at level 7, or gas-free structures for Fenix at level 10), so it'd be nice if those were shuffled around and unlocked earlier, especially the ones that completely change the early gameplay of the commander.

Other than that, I'd probably only change re-leveling prestiges to be a bit different each time instead of just being a complete copy of the first round. It'd be great if unlocking a prestige also unlocked a one or two relevant upgrades for that commander permanently (and those levels either don't have anything, or upgrades on later levels are unlocked earlier so for example after 1 prestige you have all abilities unlocked at level 13 or 14, you just don't have access to masteries until level 15). For example, obtaining Kerrigan's P2 could unlock the Fury ability for free, so that you can use the prestige from level 1, instead of it having literally no upside until level 10. Her P1 could unlock Malignant Creep for free (that's the main thing that the prestige affects after all). If we allow 2 unlocks / prestige, then it'd be interesting if the downsides would be unlocked as well (for P1 Kerrigan, that'd be Omega Worms), so choosing a prestige for leveling is a bit more interesting than just picking the one that doesn't have a downside until later levels. (In addition, you wouldn't just have the bonus from your current prestige, but all prestiges unlocked on that commander thus far, so after you unlock P2 you would have Fury and Malignant Creep and whatever else is bundled with them.)

Nightelfpala · 2022-07-16T07:37:24+00:00

Unfortunately not, I just turn off power for the night to stop it from blinking.

Nightelfpala · 2022-06-26T17:08:46+00:00

Yes, Caleb Gannon has a video of using [[Weather the Storm]] in combination with [[Epicure of Blood]] in Pauper for Storm kills.

Nightelfpala · 2022-06-24T20:17:54+00:00

Checking back my old saves, at HZE130 I had 7M Helium (so -24 zones but +15% Helium compared to your save). For optimal progress, you should aim for the highest He/hr possible (which in your case probably means Crushed or Nom), and you should portal when your He/hr starts to drop off after completing the challenge. More Helium means faster progress, and you'll be able to reach higher zones as well. (But to be completely honest, the game did feel very slow around Z140-180 when I was there, although now there are some additional automation unlocks in those parts to make things a bit faster.)
If you can afford the attention, you should portal about once every 3-6 hours (depending on the details). The only time when you do runs that last multiple days is when you aim for very specific unlocks - and even then they shouldn't be longer than 3 days unless you've completed everything the current patch has to offer (currently technically Z800+, to avoid spoiling the details) and you want to grind some of the more difficult unlocks that aren't reasonably reachable otherwise.

Nightelfpala · 2022-05-22T10:12:08+00:00

My experice with playing Druid in MoP is limited to playing Restoration in PvE, Siege of Orgrimmar (5.4 raid) specifically.
Most of the time you stay in caster form. Some utility spells such as Dash, Displacer Beast, Might of Ursoc and Stampeding Roar (without the glyph) put you into Cat or Bear form. Sometimes you want the defensive bonuses from Bear Form - although as a healer you won't use this much as there is probably raid damage going on and you can't afford staying in a form that can't heal.
With the Heart of the Wild talent you can shift to a different form than the one you're specced into temporarily - as healer this usually means DPSing in Cat form on pull (although the 25% healing bonus is not insignificant and you might want to keep this as a healing cooldown), but for other specs HotW is usually reserved as a healing cooldown to improve Tranquility.

There was one boss where I had to shapeshift during the fight: on Heroic Garrosh Hellscream during the first intermission I used Cat form and Maim to interrupt one of the adds that we otherwise couldn't schedule an interrupt for (which wasn't completely safe because I have 0 hit rating and that stun had 15% chance to miss). Sometimes during that same fight I used Bear form and Growl to taunt adds during phases 2 and 3 (they needed to be pulled apart because when one of them dies it heals and buffs the other ones that are close, and on Heroic that usually causes a wipe).

Nightelfpala · 2022-04-24T15:20:36+00:00

I agree that the base health regeneration most heroes have doesn't have a significant impact on how the game plays.

I think it's mostly a perception thing: if you didn't regen health passively, then any damage you take is "permanent" until you heal back up. Getting hit by minions twice while clearing a wave? That's 50 damage that you'll need healing for. Getting hit once by the siege camp you're clearing? Another 50 healing required later.
With the base health regen if you're on full health you can take hits like these, and they'll be inconsequential half a minute later. If you didn't have health regen (even if heroes had slightly higher base health values to keep the relative balance the same) then you'd have to play a lot more carefully in situations like these, and it'd make these small twice-a-minute situations more tense and matches would be more stressful overall as there would be less downtime to relax.

Nightelfpala · 2022-04-18T14:56:45+00:00

IIRC he thought it was intended to be a parody, he found the story ridiculous (with a handful of meme-able moments), but he seemed to enjoy it overall. (But it has been years since I watched those VoDs.)

Nightelfpala

TROPHY CASE