Looking into the future...or is it the past? Warlords of Draenor.

Well, I wont lie, this post has taken me over a week to compose, I struggled massively initially as I wrote what can only be described as a novel on how upset I was about the loss of reforging. Re-reading what I had written it suddenly dawned on me that I sounded like a moany spoiled little brat. So I ditched the entire post and began again. Before even writing a single word I did something very important...research. How could I project an opinion on something I had not really looked at that much since Blizzcon? So I delved, I nosed, I trawled through forums, blogs and various other sites where I could get as much information as I could before sitting down to look at the changes objectively and like an adult, rather than my initial "tantrum" about reforging.

   I should probably start by stating that as it stands, Outland is one of my absolute favorite places to quest and level, so when the Blizzcon announcement came through that they were basically going to "Re-vamp" this zone and take us back to when it was Draenor I was actually very excited. I don't intend to cover every detail in this post, I will just hit a few of the headlining changes and discuss my opinions (minus tantrums) on each one. If you have any comments or questions please feel free to discuss them below the post or you can now contact me via the details in my new "Contact" page!!

Garrisons.

I shall start off with this as it is quite possibly one of the things I am looking forward to the most, being an avid Sunsong Ranch owner (I have 6 now) I am absolutely stoked at the prospect of having my own "Gaff".  I really love the followers Idea, and the fact that they will even go off and get shinies for you!! (Because let's be fair here, who doesn't love a shiny or two?!) I already plan to have mine based in either the Tanaan Jungle or perhaps Nagrand, anywhere lush and green would be great for me. I think having something like this in the game will be great for anyone like me who is struggling with having "too much" free time on their hands, as it will provide a nice alternative outlet of entertainment when the LFR's are done. Also the removal of the daily questing will promt a need for replacement activities, and I think this could well be it.

UI Improvements. 

This is also something I am looking forward to. For me, as something of an altaholic I am very pleased to see that all my heirlooms will be accessible from all toons, at present my Priest is my Heirloom bank baby, and I am always sending things to and from her bank, and as she is also my jewelcrafter, I could do without the loss of at least 15 bank slots at any given time. Having them cross realm will also be handy, as it means again, I don't have to worry about things like "hmm, ok so who's got my agi mail set at the moment?"  The introduction of the toy box... YES PLEASE!! They take up SO much room in my bags currently, so than you Blizzard for giving me at least 20 bag slots back!! Personally I didn't have any issue with the current quest log but I can see how it does need improving a little, and I can understand how some people may find it confusing as to which quest they need to be on to progress what storyline, which are side quests etc, so I do think on the whole this needs to be adressed, it would also encourage more casual players to play more I think, as it can be a bit daunting to get back into a game and not know what the heck you need to do to get any further.

Dungeons and Raids.

I think this is my first "sticky" point, I am immensely looking forward to the new dungeons and raids, however the new raid structure as it stands is a little concerning for a number of reasons.
Let's take a look at it:

So, I basically have just a few questions about it really, most of these will revolve around the Mythic raiding section.
- What happens to 25m guilds? Do they drop 5 players a week? How will they select which of their players sit out? What if they are a guild that has been raiding together for a long time? I think that this could possibly cause friction, however I also understand that a lot of people are adults and I'm sure if this is the way the raid structure will truly lie they will be able to work around it, however I just feel that it may be a bit of a needless stress.
- Equally, what about 10m guilds? Where do they get the extra 10 bodies from? Do they merge with another guild? Do they disband to find a guild with room? Other end of the scale here, but I can foresee issues with guild mergers, 2 guild masters, one guild, how do you pick which one runs the guild? Would the players from one guild show more allegiance to one person than another? Surely this would potentially cause many issues, however, again, a lot of people can be mature about this and I'm sure some mergers would be perfectly successful, just, in my opinion, again, un necessary stress.
    I have to say that I am a little disappointed that flex mode will now be normal mode, I personally thought the introduction of the flex raid was a really good way to help people gear up for normals, and I think having a clear definition between flex and normal is needed, I'm not trying to sound elitist here but some (not all) of the major issues with raiding can involve people being under geared, and not prepared for fights, and having a flexible mode to send people into to prepare is a great and positive way to helping them, rather than telling them to go sit in an LFR where the tactics don't exist and the gear is lower. I do, however like the way that you can now expand your normal group to 15 or 14 for example, thus saving the hassle of guilds which suffer with "uh oh, I've for 12/13/14 people signed for our 10m raid again".

Gear Changes.


Right, here we go, probably one of the most Taboo changes Blizz are making, judging by forum reactions and comments, however, as I said, I shall be adult and look at things objectively here.

Hit/Exp- GONE. YES!!!!!!! Well done Blizzard, thank god for that, no longer to I need to try and reach the caps, thus wasting the stat points when I could be using them elsewhere (Think of ALLLL the mastery I could have had with no hit ex!!) But seriously, from a non selfish point of view, I can't see anything bad with this at all, casters will no longer be missing important spells, melees will hit everything they aim for, this is a wonderful notion and I can only say I wish they had done this before :D

Dodge/Parry - GONE. For me this will have little impact as I can't ever really say that I have specced into either stat, I use dodge with my brew but that's about it. However for DK and Warrior tanks I should imagine it will be a benefit not to have to waste the stat points into them? I leave this one open for now, I shall speak to my GM who plays a DK and get his thoughts on it :)

Reforging - GONE. (Rip) Ok ok, I will make this brief - personally, and this is purely selfish, I am not happy because I just spent 4 months learning to use the reforge tool myself without having to follow a guide, and I'm quite proud of being able to reforge my gear to my liking without having to consult Mr Robot /end rant. On the other hand, with the loss of hit/exp/parry and doge, and the introduction of the new stats, there should be no need to reforge every time you get a new piece, and to be honest this will be quite nice, because it means that perhaps you can equip it as soon as you win it, rather than having to wait until the end of raid to go gem, ench and reforge everything. See, I found a positive!!

New stats. Amplify, Multistrike, and Readiness....oooh, now these look like fun, its nice to see stats that you would have only seen on a trinket previously be put onto armor, makes me wonder what kind of wierd and wonderful things trinkets will do, persoanlly I love things like the netherwing trinket, where you can summon a netherwing ally to fight with you, would new trinkets have cool things like this on them? 

Fewer items can be enchanted. This I quite like the prospect of, as a person who has a lot of toons, enchanting everything to make them all possible standins for a raid can be time consuming or expensive if you don't have the professions, so I think having an enchant possibility as a bonus is a much nicer idea than making them manditory. It will also hopefully remove the LFR notion of "Omg that tank iz shit cos he gots no gemz or enchantz". Some people just cant AFFORD to gem and enchant low level gear on alts, they wait until they get something WORTH enchanting, I'm hoping that this new way of enchanting will remove this issue from LFR's. (This is purely because lots of toons = lots of LFR, and anything to make it easier/more pleasurable is a bonus in my book) 

Item Squish. This is much needed, don't get me wrong, I know we all love the pretty numbers, and it always amuses me greatly on a Garrosh pull to watch our two warriors lolstorm a million dps, but realistically, how big to the numbers go? I saw something absolutley hilarious on the WoW forums while I was researching, where someone had made up a piece of gear called the "Chestplate of ridiculous numeracy" and had, based on previous expansions upgraded the 5.4 stats to a hypothetical 6.0 stat. 7k mastery rating on one piece...while on one hand I'm like YES PLEASE!!!! On the other hand it is totally ridonculous, people would be doing millions of dps, and the recounts/and skadas would end up taking over the whole screen. It seems a loit of people are complaining because they will miss their numbers but to be honest I really don't think it will be noticeable. Blizz have confirmed we can still go and lol through old content just as we can now so I dont see the issue. If anything I personally think this may help with raiding because some people should focus less on the numbers and more on what they are doing....hopefully!!

This little monk had 1 spec, this little monk had 3.... 

As many of you know I am in a guild that currently has 2 10m groups, one progress group which are 7/14 HC and our little normal group which are on Garrosh. We are hoping that the new raids involve some mechanics that require more than 2 tanks, but there is a very high possibility that they wont. So there is a very large chance that there will not be a permanent tank spot for me. I love the guild I am in and would never leave, and at first I was a little sad that I may not be permanently tanking for WoD, but then I thought, this opens up so many doors for me, I am a monk....we can play ALL 3 roles, so in the run up to WoD I shall be gearing up all 3 specs so that when it comes to raid time I can jump onto whatever spec I am needed for, thus making me a far more useful tool for my raid team. So for any other monks that are worried about this sort of thing, don't despair, we have SO many utilities, go learn them, have fun doing it, and expand your knowledge in the process!! 

Anyway thats it for me on this one, I hope it's not too much of a wall of text, I have taken the images from the official WoW website and if you visit this link you can see much much more!

Dont forget its the 13th, which can only mean one thing.....MONK MEDITATION TONIGHT!!!!!
Looking forward to watching live as I have been unable to for the past 2 episodes, feel free to come and join me in the dojo, I will be there with my cup of Brew!! So head on over to The Monk Meditation Homepage.....and come join in the fun!!

Lady, out xx