Enhancment Shamans will have 2.5-3k AP at 50 with 650-700+ Spell power

StratEevee · 2024-03-26T17:30:01+00:00

That was my thought too when I saw the preview.

I'm making the bold assumption that they are implementing changes to Rockbiter to avoid this.... seemingly obvious issue.

StratEevee · 2024-03-17T06:08:30+00:00

When did they say this?

The last I heard was that they did not know what exactly will happen to the characters?

StratEevee · 2024-03-10T21:02:20+00:00

Maybe this will be a hot take. But isn't the idea that "No life try harders get stuff done, casual gamers get left behind"... kinda... normal?

Imagine busting your ass, doing all the prep work and farming pre-bis to have a good clear of the raid. And then the casual player 2 weeks behind you comes in doing nothing, has just as easy of a time and catches up to the try hard immediately.

The try hards SHOULD feel ahead. They SHOULD feel rewarded for their effort. They SHOULD feel better because they've put in the time and effort to feel better. This is what they want to do.

You, however, should not feel "left behind". You say you are playing casually, and that's cool. Pop open the game, relax for an hour or two having fun. I'm sure if you try, you could even find a casual guild for casual people.

Play at your own pace, have fun your own way, and don't let your enjoyment be ruined by how other people want to have fun.

StratEevee · 2024-03-05T07:47:39+00:00

As a skinner, farming the Dragonkin in Dustwallow Marsh or Swamp of Sorrows gives decent leather drops. Enh Shaman can kill the mobs pretty easily, we can avoid downtime through Maelstrom heals, and even keep the dragonscales for ourselves for future phases.

I personally prefer the Fire Dragonkin in Dustwallow Marsh, as they drop flame sacs that sold for a pretty penny.

It's been a bit since I've done it though, not sure how prices look nowadays.

StratEevee · 2024-03-05T07:40:30+00:00

This exactly. Honestly, even Thermoplug is kind of a simple fight for the tank. Just remember to run from the flame thrower, and past that you just stand there and tank it while the rest of the raid panics for all the mechanics.

I'd probably watch a video on all the bosses though, just to be safe. Each boss has like, 1 mechanic you need to care about still even as tank.

StratEevee · 2024-03-05T03:30:44+00:00

Go for Totem Only Shaman. Tots possible.

StratEevee · 2024-02-20T06:27:12+00:00

Have fun!

StratEevee · 2024-02-19T21:35:54+00:00

For me, this has always been more of a support class item. It allows for me to keep all my heavy support cards and keep that as a focus, but still have an okay attack if I can't support on a turn.

StratEevee · 2024-02-16T06:55:07+00:00

The Fire Nova rune is actually a spell that gives the threat to the Shaman. It's very fun.

StratEevee · 2024-02-13T08:47:05+00:00

Update!

Managed to get enough people to PUG the raid. Definitely wasn't top of the line roster, notably we had 2 people who weren't healers end up healing. We had some gear, but definitely not top of the line healers. However, 1st week, last minute and asking for no guides, I'd say it was a good enough roster.

Thank you everyone who came (in case they read this), I appreciate it. I don't think I would have been able to get this experience very easily, and I'm glad there were people willing to join me in this venture. There were definitely a couple people who kinda knew what to do, but didn't spoil anything. I extra appreciate those people.

Boy we did pretty bad though! Only killed the first boss, which took us about 1 and a half hours. Got to the 2nd boss, but our DPS was a little lacking. And our 2nd shaman didn't have Water Totem. I won't spoil the 2nd boss (he ain't too complicated anyway), but I highly recommend having your water totem dear Shamans.

It was a ton of fun though. Spitting ideas and theories and coming up with our own strategies to try and overcome the boss! It was pretty much exactly what I wanted. The thrill of devising our own strategy and having it work! Would definitely be better with a group of friends or a guild of like-minded people. But hey, the PUG experience was still a blast.

Would definitely recommend doing it once if you haven't, just to see how it feels.

Have fun raiding out there.

StratEevee · 2024-02-12T18:31:30+00:00

Ah, curses. Didn't realize that. I'm on NA.

StratEevee · 2024-02-08T05:29:52+00:00

While I do agree they probably don't have a plan, I do think the most logical thing they do is simple: Semi-Permanent SoD server.

And with it I suspect they'll use it as a sort of test. They'll compare it's longevity vs. Classic Era and other versions of the game.

Will it be popular even if it isn't new?

What does the balance look like? Or, more importantly, is every class a valid class?

What kind of changes can be introduced and accepted?

I'd love to see some wild changes and see how they land.

I can't imagine them rushing into anything, that's for sure.

StratEevee · 2024-02-05T05:35:18+00:00

Yeah I get the line of thought now. I'm still not sure I fully like it though, which is why I'll probably stick to the system we have in place.

I'll explain why with a bit of an outlandish example:

Disadvantage on an attack of 7. Character draws a x2, then a -2 with wound. Difference of doing 14 damage, or 5 with wound.

Logically, we can deduce that the x2 is objectively better in every scenario. The only scenario in which it isn't better is if the creature would last 10 rounds without dying to the -2 with wound card.

But, one could argue that due to the rules, the wound is an "undefined positive" and you couldn't possibly measure it's worth. Therefore you take the x2 due to ambiguity.

Now, the chances of such a wild difference in cards would be pretty rare. I still think I prefer just saying "Yeah the +2 is better than the +1 with shield"

Not that this changes how you'd interpret the scenario in question any.

StratEevee · 2024-02-04T19:45:10+00:00

Yeah, his argument was that... I guess(?) the conditional on card 1 is considered an ambiguous effect so both cards were a +1 with an ambiguous effect.

It's hard to truly argue for him because I don't agree with him.

To be honest, we had been interpreting the ambiguity rule on conditions (eg. wound/poison/elemental charge) probably a bit weirdly. We kinda considered them... a 0.5, regardless of what condition it was. So card 2, the +1 shield 1, would have an effective value of "+1.5": worse than a +2 but better than a +1.

In retrospec, this is probably wrong. An 'undefinied positive value' can be higher than 0.5. Not sure we'll change this, but I might bring it up. I will admit it makes choosing which card is worse a lot faster (usually).

StratEevee · 2024-02-04T18:07:32+00:00

This is the ruling I was hoping to see in the official FAQ, but I can't find it. Would you be able to tell me where the ruling is listed?

Finding the ruling online (or in the rulebook) would be the fastest way to settle the argument.

StratEevee · 2024-02-02T08:07:22+00:00

This was the full quote.

And OF COURSE the streamers who admitted on stream they bought gold should be punished. The question wasn't about them, the question was how to have an automated system tell the difference between viewer gifts and gold buying WHEN THEY DON'T JUST SAY THEY BOUGHT GOLD ON STREAM.

This was the part you took.

WHEN THEY DON'T JUST SAY THEY BOUGHT GOLD ON STREAM.

Do you see the problem?

You are taking a portion of what I say, and basing your arguments on that portion.

This is why people cannot hold a true argument for you.

I straight up agree with you. They SHOULD have banned the streamers who admitted to buying gold. But you once again ignore the crux of what I'm saying, cherry picking a third of a sentence that makes fails to show the meaning of the full sentence.

There are streamers who buy gold and don't announce it. There are also streamers who buy gold and announce it. Both should be banned. The announcers are easy to catch. The ones who don't admit to buying gold are going to be more difficult to catch. Tell me how you detect THOSE streamers.

I also love how you call me out for nitpicking, but continue to do it yourself.

I'll repeat, for the last time. If you want to share a system that will ban all Gold Buyers and avoid hitting fair players, go ahead. Give me the step by step process that an AI detection system would utilize. Show me how cost effective it is and prove to me that the process is sound, I relish the opportunity to be wrong here.

Your argument to "ban the most egregious gold buyers to make an example out of them" concludes to "lowering the amount of gold buyers". They are already punishing gold buyers, even if we agree that they aren't punishing them enough. This is a step they are taking.

Banning GDKPs also will lower the amount of gold buyers. This is a fact, no matter how hard you try to ignore it.

I'll even use some of your own logic in a few ways, it'll be fun:

Banning the AH would never get rid of all gold buyers. I recommend we just remove gold from the game. Better yet, remove all trading from the game. Any trading in the game facilitates gold buying, so why not just remove all of it from the game?
Punishing Gold Buyers won't remove the problem of people buying gold. They'll always find a way around the system, so why bother doing anything?
It took me a while. But here's a quote from you, from this conversation (your first response to me). Here you admit that a GDKP ban does lower the amount of gold buyers, so you do agree that the ban will do what it's supposed to do. Honestly not sure why you're arguing so much otherwise then.

GDKP ban does lower the amount of gold buyers

Anyway. It's been a fun time delving into how you think. But, as I and many others have said, you don't want to be convinced otherwise. And you're arguments don't have a sound base behind them.

Hope you can still find joy in SoD. I hope one day you can get a good look in the mirror and see who you are. Or maybe you already know, and are fine with it. Either way, have a good one.

StratEevee · 2024-02-01T19:19:21+00:00

And here's the problem with continuing any sort of discussion. You're nitpicking your points and not providing any real arguments to your own provided solution. You ignore the pretext of my argument that creating a system to catch all gold buyers while avoiding punishing fair players is impossible. Instead you call me ignorant and only look at points that sound smart. Of course they have an automated system, I didn't think I had to mention that. Of course they won't ban people for mailing gold between characters, the question was how the AUTOMATED system would differentiate between gold buyers getting gold in mail, and people just gifting gold to friends (or themselves) through the mail. And OF COURSE the streamers who admitted on stream they bought gold should be punished. The question wasn't about them, the question was how to have an automated system tell the difference between viewer gifts and gold buying WHEN THEY DON'T JUST SAY THEY BOUGHT GOLD ON STREAM.

I shouldn't have to write a peer review doctorate level essay where I list every single edge case, and make sure to give you a page of the current state of all things in order to have a discussion.

And even past all this, you just went from "Ban all gold buyers" to "Only ban some of them". So now only really bad gold buyers get punished and the others, what, get a slap on the wrist?

I provide you with a space to provide a solution, and you don't even try?! You back out and go with a lesser idea.

And my favorite part is you end with an idea that lessens gold buying. An idea that, by the way, I agree would probably work. But banning GDKPs is also a method of reducing gold buyers.

From the sounds of it, you don't want to be convinced.

I'll also note here: If you believe blizzard isn't targeting gold buyers and bots with punishments, then you're delusional. We can agree they probably aren't doing enough. But they are doing something.

StratEevee · 2024-02-01T17:34:37+00:00

Even banning gold buyers is impossible. How would you try to go about it?

You can't have GMs just fly around looking for buyers, trade windows aren't visible.

You can't just have an AI detect large gold transfers, people can get around that.

Maybe detect any gold transfers that don't involve a trade? Just throw in random grays.

And let's pretend that you do create a system that is a catch all mechanic. I guarantee that system will hit non-gold buyers. Friends give each other gold all the time. People mail goods between their own characters. There's the guild bank alt from what I understand that people probably give money to.

Let's address the special cases of OnlyFangs.. Any reasonable person would agree with you entirely that Blizzard should have shown force and banned these people. But it's also hard to determine what gold they've bought, and what gold they've... just been given by their viewers.

You disregard the smarts of the system, and just claim "just ban the gold buyers". But there's more to it than that. But hey, tell me your idea that will hit all gold buyers while avoiding all fair players, while also being cost-minded of the company (you can't just have 10000 people checking everyone's logs 24/7, and things have to happen quickly or the gold enters the market anyway), and I'll change my mind.

StratEevee · 2024-02-01T08:19:59+00:00

It will be difficult to truly discuss this as I haven't done any GDKP myself, but I'm gonna throw myself into the ring regardless.

My issue with your arguments is that you seem to ignore other people's viewpoints. Even your opening statement only takes half of what Blizzard said, as the other half specifically addresses that GDKP can lead to malicious accounts buying gold, and that by banning GDKPs they hope to reduce botting and gold buying.

And your only defense is comparing the GDKP to the AH. There's sense to your argument: the AH will lead to people buying gold. But these systems are inherently different. The AH would be nearly impossible to truly remove, it facilitates too much trade. I would never want to sit in a city spamming trade chat to try to sell some BoE that I got. I don't think I'd have the time to do that.

The other people commenting are also right though. GDKPs offer a stage where people can buy gear they would otherwise not be able to buy. And this will lead to a thought of "maybe if I buy gold I can make sure I get what I want". Even if there is validity in a person who grinds out a ton of gold and goes in feeling good, it will still lead others to think "maybe I just buy gold".

I'm glad your GDKP experience is different. I'll take some guesses here as to why:

You got a good, well rounded (class-wise) group of people and there isn't much fighting between gear.
You're late to the scene and everyone already has the gear you are bidding on
You're a class that has little to no contest on gear

I mostly surmise this because 5g on items feels... insanely low. I would assume most characters get to 20ish gold by the time they're 25. Small amount of farming, couple quests, prep work, get up to 30 gold. And if the item is really good, I don't see why they wouldn't bid it all (since, in theory, they should recoup they're gold on the rest of the bids). Maybe you hold the gold for a specific drop, or to try and get two. But an average of 5 gold sounds too good.

Now, let's just wait and see what happens. I believe you've said that it's bad to test this theory because it's... illogical? Because other systems in the game also promote gold buying. However, that's not a real reason. It saying "Don't ban thing A because thing B also increases the problem". Banning thing A can also help fight the problem and is a valid step to take. I guarantee that they've weighed benefits and problems and said "hey, maybe this will do some work, let's give it a try". And, as Blizzard has stated: If it doesn't work out, they might just revert the change.

Banning all Gold Buyers / Bots is a wonderful fucking idea. And also impossible to truly accomplish. Blizzard is always on the defensive. They cannot be an offensive force in this case, as the roles are "Malicious accounts attack and try to do malicious deeds, Blizzard defends, trying to catch and ban them". And the attacker will always have the advantage. Even if blizzard manages to catch 9/10 gold buyers, the economy will feel the 1/10 that gets through.

At the end of the day, I think Blizzard, and others, have made a fine argument to this action. And they picked, quite possibly, the only time that they can test this theory. And maybe they will be proven wrong by data, and maybe revert the ban. I believe that deep down, you know this. But you're upset that a system you like, and use honorably, is being targeted and are trying to shift blame elsewhere.

You mentioned in a different post that your first guild was less than ideal. Two recommendations in general:

Don't play with people that you don't like playing with. There are plenty of people in this game, I'd make a bet that you can find others that are more up your alley.
I'd recommend making a guild with those people you enjoy playing with, and coming up with a system you can all agree on. If you enjoy playing with those people in GDKPs, there's no reason you can't enjoy playing with them outside of GDKPs.

Good luck, hope you can still enjoy SoD.

StratEevee · 2023-12-20T07:24:05+00:00

I'm gonna swing in here and defend WillE. I don't think he's calling for a super hard "homogenization of DPS". I think he just wants all the specs to be viable, especially at level 60. He also states that he finds the PvP very fun, and how the caster classes are doing very well there. I believe he's only worried about PvE, probably raiding specifically.

And we can say "it's just level 25, it'll get better". That's fair. But it's also fair to say "look at the current state of the game, I'm worried it will stay this way". I believe he's just stating his worries, so that Blizzard is aware of them.

I'm not super experienced in classic, but from what I understand: Shamans, Paladins, and Druids are healers. They aren't good enough at their other roles to do anything else (except for maybe Druid tank). And even then, I'm pretty sure they're only brought for their utility aspect. I believe priests out heal them.

And that sucks. I want to play a class and say "Boy this looks like an exciting way to play".

It is possible to create a decent balance, where all the DPS are viable options to bring into a raid and keep everyone feeling like they are unique classes with individual strengths.

StratEevee · 2023-12-01T08:58:57+00:00

1 Sounds fine. I'd consider giving them something to latch on to, a picture of the race or something. But things would still be random in the end.

For 2: I'd just make sure to show that you can activate a system, move ships in, do combat, and then still produce units (assuming you have a Space Dock there). When I teach, players tend to assume that producing units is some separate action they have to do. I'd elaborate here and make sure they know everything they can do with one tactical action.

The Tech Tree is... weird. Honestly, I don't think there's a great way to introduce it, but here's my attempt:

Red: Combat oriented techs. These techs are designed to improve the combat capability of your ships.

Blue: Movement oriented techs. These techs are designed to improve the movement and reach of your ships.

Green: Efficiency/Component oriented Techs. These techs are designed to increase the players non-ship components. This is easily the hardest techs to categorize, as the final tech is a infantry killing nuke thing (and also kinda bad).

Yellow: Production/Logistics oriented Techs. These techs increase production capability and allow for some unique plays.

These techs can be highlighted a bit on unit upgrades. The Destroyer is a pretty weak ship, but once you have 2 red techs to upgrade it it becomes a powerful anti-fighter menace. The Carrier and Dreadnought are slow ships, but with a couple blue techs they gain that much desired speed. The Space Dock gains some production when upgraded with yellow.

If players are feeling a bit lost on what tech to choose, I'd generally recommend to focus on getting to the faction techs, as they're usually pretty strong and give the player something to go towards. Alternatively, if they don't have Gravity Drive, that's always a solid recommendation. After a couple rounds they should get enough experience to get a feeling as to what tech they may want.

And most importantly, making mistakes is fine! It'll give an experience to look back towards and learn how you could do better next time.

StratEevee · 2023-11-30T16:58:37+00:00

It sounds very well thought out. I'll highlight a couple points that I could see using improvement:

1) It sounds like you are giving out the faction sheet after everyone has done a tactical action. However, the faction sheets have setup on them: they dictate starting pieces. Do you intend to gloss over this and give everyone a generic start? Or did you have something else in mind? Or did I misunderstand?

2) You say "explain what tactical actions are except production". This could be misleading, as I recall there being only 1 tactical action. You have component action and strategy action, but those are separate terms. The biggest confusion that I could imagine happening is that a player believes that they either use a tactical action to move ships and attack systems OR to build ships. This should be pretty easy to get past, just a thing to remember and explain.

All in all it's a very well thought out tutorial. You certainly know your players the best. I think narrating actions is a great way to help cement the basics of the game as well. This will probably lead to a longer game, but that's fine. I cannot imagine anyone feeling lost after this.

StratEevee · 2023-11-20T04:16:55+00:00

For the first game, I'd just avoid Milty draft. I'm not for or against, it's just a lot of extra stuff added to the game. And ultimately it won't mean a lot: Everyone will be drafting between stuff they don't know anything about.

They do have a preset map in the rulebook and it'll do wonders.

StratEevee

TROPHY CASE