Patch 5.1 Monk changes

 General Monk  2 Responses »
Nov 272012
 

Still not actively playing, but the 5.1 changes have stirred my theorycrafters’ heart, so let’s take a look. :) (Much love to wowhead for compiling all this so I can just cut and paste.)

Nice change for Windwalkers here. Previously, you had to slow DPS to ensure you’d have enough energy to interrupt; now, you don’t need to worry.

Quality-of-life change.

  • The energy cost of  Healing Sphere has been reduced to 40, down from 60.
  • The healing provided by the  Healing Sphere base spell has been increased by 20%.

Healing Sphere still doesn’t put out enough healing to be significant for non-mistweavers, but it’s now significantly easier to heal yourself now if you’re not talented into Zen Sphere.

This hurts Mistweavers the most; WW and BM mostly use it for self-healing, so the HS buff helps there, but Mistweaver AoE took a hit across the board (see below).

  • The Tiger Power provided by  Tiger Palm now reduces target armor by 30% with a single application and no longer stacks.

No more stacking, yay! This doesn’t really affect Brewmasters at all (TP remains filler) but it definitely helps Windwalker ramp-up time, and even helps Mistweavers do some Eminence healing if they choose. (I’m 99% sure that the wording here is just bad; you don’t actually reduce the target’s armor, you just reduce the target’s armor effectiveness against your attacks.)

  •  Stance of the Fierce Tiger now increases the Monk’s movement speed by 10% in addition to its other effects. This movement speed increase stacks with other effects.

Monks didn’t really need a speed boost, but I’ll take it.

  • The  Power Strikes talent now grants the  Power Strikes effect every 20 seconds, which causes the Monk’s next attack to generate 1 additional Chi.

The Wowhead wording appears wrong here. The duration of PS hasn’t changed, but now it can be triggered by Jab, Crackling Jade Lightning, or Soothing Mist. Moreover, you also now have a visible buff that pops up every 20 seconds, so it’s easier to plan around.

What’s more interesting, though, is the Ascension change, which isn’t mentioned in the notes at all. Ascension now grants +15% energy/mana regen in addition to the max Chi boost, making it a much more attractive talent. For Windwalkers, some napkin math shows that it’s still inferior to PS or CB, but only if you can trigger those abilities on cooldown. If your PS usage is around 2/min (or CB slips to every 2 min instead of 90 sec) then Ascension will win out. Brewmaster and Mistweaver optimization  will take a bit more in-depth theorycraft.

  • The  Healing Elixirs talent now grants the  Healing Elixirs effect every 18 seconds, which causes the next Brew or Tea consumed to heal the Monk for 10% of maximum health.

Nerfed from 15 seconds. Not entirely sure why, wasn’t really a desired talent in the first place.

Mistweaver specific stuff:

Ouch, that’s a big AoE healing nerf, which only serves to make the spell even more frustrating.

  • All healing spells which cost mana have had their mana cost increased by 10%.
  • You now have a chance equal to your crit chance to generate double the amount of  Mana Tea charges.

The second change helps compensate somewhat for the first. More evidence to stack crit, apparently.

MMOC has this listead as getting a 32% nerf, which appears wrong; probably just an artifact of the spell being available at an earlier level.

These changes suggest they’re really trying to push the use of Soothing Mist more; it did need a buff, as it was nearly outperformed by Eminence healing from CJL in its previous incarnation.

Feel free to share your comments! I’ll probably be digging into the new Patch 5.1 content in the next few weeks…I’m in no hurry, as I’ve still got ACIII and BL2 that I’m working through.

 Posted by at 11:57 pm

Reformulating Expectations

 Uncategorized  3 Responses »
Nov 182012
 

(x-posted on TFD and WoM)

One of the perks of an enforced hiatus to any activity is the ability to gain some perspective. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve logged in or done any writing. I expected to feel compelled to come back; oddly, though, I’ve felt almost relieved at the lack of pressure. Why has WoW (which, y’know, is supposed to be fun) become funless for me?

Well, no matter how I slice it, I keep coming back to the same point: it’s a multiplayer game. (Duh.) While the game offers tons of singleplayer endgame content (and I include things like random 5-mans/LFR as singleplayer, because you’re not really interacting with anyone there at any serious level), let’s face it; most of those experiences are nothing more than time grinds to obtain stuff. Sure, it’s stronger stuff, or prettier stuff, which is nice, but that doesn’t change the fact that the gameplay itself to get there is mostly an exercise in tedium. Repeating content is fun once or twice, but that’s it.

The worst part: it didn’t have to be this way. Unfortunately, in the name of “fairness,” Blizzard has elected to balance single-player progression solely on time invested, and not player skill. Gone are the group quests, soloable by a good, determined player. Gone are the large gold rewards earned from running dungeons solo (yes, AoE looting compensates slightly, but only just). Etc. The only difficult challenge I’ve had this expansion has been rare elites, and their non-scaling nature means the difficulty curve for those drops off quickly as well. I’m holding out hope for Brawler’s Guild, but unless they do a complete 180 on their current stance, I won’t be seeing that content for some time.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m perfectly okay with Blizzard taking this stance, and agree completely that it’s my erratic schedule that’s at fault, not Blizzard, for why I’m not “playing like I’m supposed to.”  I’d love to do a few challenge modes, for example, but I’m still not at the point where I can agree to set aside 1-2 uninterrupted hours to learn and do one. And no, this isn’t an “I quit” post in disguise. I still enjoy racing the clock in scenarios, outDPSing people who outgear me in LFR, and, quixotically, farming. I also think I’m going to take another stab at battlegrounds (now that I have a good connection and a good PC to play on) and probably mess around with pet battles. The things I don’t enjoy, though, such as powerleveling professions on alts, VP capping every week, or random 5-mans; I’m going to stop feeling like I “have” to do them…because I don’t. Seriously. Dailies? Dailies can kiss my human/elven ass. The Shado-Pan can hate me, and I’ll go on hating them right back. (P.S. your monastery sucks too.)

In writing terms: I’ll still be kicking around, writing about what interests me, and I’ll still write the occasional guide post from time to time. My dreams of being the pre-eminent analyst for  druids and monks, though, died next to a hospital bed about six weeks ago, and I’m surprisingly okay with that.  I’m just going to keep on keeping on, probably making things up as I go.

Then again, I’ve been doing that for the past two years and it seems to be working.

 Posted by at 8:57 pm

Personal Update

 Uncategorized  3 Responses »
Nov 032012
 

(xposted on TFD and WoM)

The good news: my wife has recovered enough to go home. The bad news: there’s still a lot of adjustment we have to do. I didn’t really think it through, but I actually had more free time in the hospital to play/write because the nurses took care of her personal care. Now that she’s home, I’m having to help her with everything (including adjusting to life as an ostomate), so I haven’t touched a keyboard (until now) since we got home a week ago.

I’m still keeping up with goings-on via RSS on my phone…just don’t expect me to say anything meaningful for a while. Hope you guys are having fun in WoW!

 Posted by at 2:21 pm