Filed under: Paladin, Analysis / Opinion, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It, Wrath of the Lich King

What a great year 2008 has been for Paladins. While 3.0 overhauled the game in general, the class was retooled throughout the year, particularly Retribution, and became one of the most fun classes to play. In fact, Paladin popularity, while never a problem, rose incredibly. Even as I mourn the decline of Warlocks, I shudder at all the Paladins coming out of the woodwork like roaches. No, really, all the Paladins who have now specced Retribution because it’s viable but can’t break 1,400 DPS even with an epic 2-hander make me want to kick little kittens.

But never mind how I feel about that. The truth is that this is all good for the class, if not necessarily the game. I mean, did we ever dare dream that people would actually look for Retribution Paladins in trade or general chat? When you say you’re a Retribution Paladin nowadays, nobody flinches. Nobody laughs. Nobody says, “haha, lolret.” Or if they do, you Divine Storm their ignorant butts to kingdom come. Seriously, the most badass character in all of Wrath of the Lich King — the one guy who spanked Arthas’ sorry Death Knight butt — is a Paladin. That feels pretty good. So, 2008. One heck of a year, wasn’t it?

Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: Shine on! A 2008 review

The Light and How to Swing It: Shine on! A 2008 review originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 31 Dec 2008 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Factions, Wrath of the Lich King, Achievements, The Queue

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider’s daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.

New Year’s Eve! Hooray! Are you doing anything special tonight? I totally am. I’m going to play an alt. Gasp! Shock! No seriously, I have no idea what I’ll be doing. Right now though, I’m answering questions!

JLocke asked…

I know the next big patch to hit will have Uldar raid in it, but are there any other cool things attached to it that we know of?

Continue reading The Queue: New Year’s Eve edition

The Queue: New Year’s Eve edition originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 31 Dec 2008 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Warlock, Analysis / Opinion, (Warlock) Blood Pact, Wrath of the Lich King

I wasn’t kidding the last time I wrote about the decline of Warlocks in the game. It’s pretty palpable in major cities like Dalaran, walking around and seeing a glut of Death Knights crowding the mailbox and only the occasional Warlock summoning her Dreadsteed to cruise the cobblestone streets. It makes my heart all warm and fuzzy (or sulfuric and crackly, you know) whenever I read an emote from Necrosis. I think it should be a point of pride. The class has fallen off the radar, and the sad part is — nobody misses us.

How did we get here, though? What happened between the class’ popularity or should I say notoriety, from early this year to now? I mean, 3.0 happened, right? Blizzard buffed the class, with all three specs having a unique feel and playstyle. The class has never been more viable… on paper. I mean, Warlock DPS is competitive in PvE and that’s the plain truth. It’s a different game now. All classes can DPS in Wrath, and if they’re played right, they’ll do incredibly well. This means that playing a Warlock is now seriously hard work.

Continue reading Blood Pact: How the mighty have fallen, 2008 in review

Blood Pact: How the mighty have fallen, 2008 in review originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Rogue, Analysis / Opinion, Raiding, Talents, (Rogue) Encrypted Text, Wrath of the Lich King

Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we discuss how troublesome Assassination’s new rotation is.

During my regular readings of the Rogue forums, I often heard complaints regarding our Assassination 51-pointer (Hunger for Blood). The main issue is that people find with it comes from the fact that it takes our required button-pushing amounts from manageable to annoying. I was skeptical at first, as I had not been having much trouble with it in heroics and the odd Vault of Archavon run.

I initially figured Mutilate would be a more interesting rotation than the old Rupture/SnD spam that was TBC Combat Swords. With Mutilate generating way more Combo Points than Sinister Strike, and simply replacing SnD with Envenom in my raiding DPS rotation, I figured it would be business as usual. I trade off using Mutilate less than Sinister Strike by having to keep HfB up. Easy enough, right? Wrong.

Continue reading Encrypted Text: Hunger for Blood is terrible (to play)

Encrypted Text: Hunger for Blood is terrible (to play) originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 31 Dec 2008 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Druid, Analysis / Opinion, Humor, Burning Crusade, (Druid) Shifting Perspectives, Wrath of the Lich King

Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting Druids and those who group with them. This week, our author is completely spaced out on cold medication, and is somewhat concerned that her raid performance has improved under the circumstances.

The time has come (the Allie said)
To talk of many things.
Of Roots and Bash and Travel Form,
And Strength (which scales with Kings).
Why Tauren cat form sucks so hard,
And whether trees have wings!

And, yes, before anyone asks, I’m tripping on too much cough syrup and ibuprofen after receiving a belated viral Christmas gift from a relative. So I’ll just put this out there right now; this column’s probably on the weird side. I took a long look at all three Druid specs over 2008 and saw a few sad things, a few happy things, a little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants, and now I’m channeling the famous Mary Tyler Moore episode “Chuckles Bites the Dust,” and that has to stop because I do not believe Mary Tyler Moore ever played a Druid.

If you’re completely uninterested in reading an account of any spec that’s not your own — although that would make me weep into my little cup of generic label cough syrup — here’s a set of quick links to each:

• Balance
• Feral
• Resto

Continue reading Shifting Perspectives: The Druid of 2008

Shifting Perspectives: The Druid of 2008 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 30 Dec 2008 23:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Druid, Analysis / Opinion, Burning Crusade, (Druid) Shifting Perspectives, Wrath of the Lich King

Continue reading Shifting Perspectives: The Druid of 2008, part II

Shifting Perspectives: The Druid of 2008, part II originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 30 Dec 2008 23:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Druid, Analysis / Opinion, Burning Crusade, (Druid) Shifting Perspectives, Wrath of the Lich King

Continue reading Shifting Perspectives: The Druid of 2008, Part III

Shifting Perspectives: The Druid of 2008, Part III originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 30 Dec 2008 23:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Raiding, Wrath of the Lich King, The Queue

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider’s daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.

Merry No Maintenance Day, everyone! Let’s not waste it and jump right into things. Chilblain asked…

When my guild does 25-mans, it’s not uncommon to have 2-3 Priests, 2 Warlocks and 2-3 Mages. Nearly one third of the entire raid is all rolling on Cloth armor, yet we go entire evenings where not a single piece drops.

If Blizzard insists on the ridiculous notion that cloth should be all things to all people, have they addressed the poor drop rate in comparison to other items? Our Resto Druids and Shaman are all decked out in 213 and while our Priests are still healing in Heroic blues.

Continue reading The Queue: The loot blues

The Queue: The loot blues originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 30 Dec 2008 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Economy, Making money, Wrath of the Lich King

Our good friends over at Massively have teamed up with the GamerDNA site to come up with some stats of MMO playtime this year, and the results are very interesting. Unfortunately, those results are buried under some pretty confusing charts (and these are all approximations of what’s happening from GamerDNA information, not actual subscription numbers), but we’ll see if we can pull out the salient points for you.

In (very) short, WoW rules. Two games that most pundits thought might affect WoW playtime, Warhammer Online and Age of Conan, in fact, didn’t affect WoW logons in the least, according to this data. And while Zenke says he may have spotted a short decline in WoW playtime right around the release of WAR, that was quickly overshot by the release of Wrath, as WoW’s numbers jumped right back up.

But while Blizzard has weathered the competition this year, things might not be so hunky dory for them in the future: while games like Lord of the Rings Online and EVE Online are showing sharper increases, WoW’s population seems to be leveling out. It’s still growing, sure, but not at the rate that it has been (and perhaps at the slowest rate in the game’s life). And you have to think, as we said on the podcast last week, that whatever other expansions Blizzard can come up with, none will be as interesting to their players as finishing off the story of Arthas Menethil and the Lich King. WoW is still the undisputed king of MMOs, but the stats say we’re closer to the end of its reign than the beginning.

Massively and GamerDNA chart the MMO market in 2008 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 30 Dec 2008 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Breakfast topics, Leveling, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King

It’s over a month after the release of Wrath of the Lich King and the World of Warcraft’s first new class since its release. And though I’m guessing you all know exactly what I’m talking about, for the sake of clarity, I’ll spell it out: we’re talking about Death Knights. When everyone had an expansion box in their hot little hands, the first thing most of them seemed to do was hop off to roll a shiny new Death Knight. (Note: calling a Death Knight “shiny” to their face may or may not wind up duels to the death, but personally, I wouldn’t risk it.) The starting zones were crowded and no one could have wanted for companionship while leveling up towards Northrend (unless they needed a healer, anyway). But after a month and a half? The rush is over and the crowd has died down. Have you rolled your Death Knight? Were you waiting on getting a main (or a main and an alt or two) to 80 first? Is anyone out there still rolling Death Knights?

Breakfast Topic: Death Knights and you originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 30 Dec 2008 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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