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Blizzard just released their Warlock Q&A with Ghostcrawler and pals. This follows in the series of many others, which you can find in WoW.com’s Guide to Patch 3.2.

Some of the highlights of this Q&A session include:

• Blizzard is considering giving different models to Warlock pets.
• Blizzard wants to make the Warlock experience more different from that of a Mage.
• Affliction and Destruction are doing good damage, Demonology is lagging behind.
• Warlocks are underrepresented in PvP currently, this needs to be fixed.
• Basic idea for the new Soul Shard system: Soul Shards will provide a combat (damage) boost, but should not be something Locks need to farm. This change will be beyond Patch 3.2., with more information ideally at BlizzCon 2009. A new Soul Shard system sure would be a Cataclysmic event, right?
• Soulshatter cooldown is going to be lowered to 3 minutes.

Read the full Q&A after the break.

Warlock Q&A with Ghostcrawler and the World of Warcraft Community Team

Community Team: We’d like start this Q&A off by asking a question that players of all classes often ask in regard to the very purpose of their class. In this case, we’re looking specifically at the warlock.

Q. Where do warlocks fit into the larger scope of things currently and where do we see them going from this point forward?

A.The warlock is a caster — a ranged damage dealer. They can fill only one role, which makes them a “pure” class as opposed to a hybrid. Warlocks have a reputation for trafficking with darkness, and their spells and abilities reflect this — demons, curses, drains, fears. All warlocks rely on damage-over-time spells and demonic pets to some extent. The Affliction tree focuses on damage-over-time spells, curses, and shadow magic in general. The Demonology tree emphasizes the damage and abilities done by demons. The Destruction tree gives up a little of both to become a little bit more like a mage with direct damage and fire magic. Overall, the vision is for warlocks to feel less fragile than mages. They have historically had higher health pools and easier to sustain mana, but fewer emergency escapes. Keeping the mage and warlock feeling distinct is a big challenge. They fill a similar role and share similar gear so sometimes even the profiles of their character art look similar.

Going forward, we want to try and make the warlock experience more different from the mage. Our new plans for Soul Shards will help here. We want to make them a core mechanic instead of a minor feature that can be neglected at best and feels tedious at worst.

We’re happy with the relative damage done by Affliction and Destruction. Depending on which Lich King patch you look at one or the other are slightly on top, but they’re close. Demonology still seems to lag a little behind. We think there is still room for a strong Felguard build in there. It might be that the pets still require too much management or it could just be that the rotation isn’t as interesting as the ones Affliction or Destruction use right now. Demonology suffers from a little bit of the same problem as the Beastmaster hunter, which is when the pet is such a big part of your damage you are crippled in moments when the pet is killed or ineffectual.

Except for a brief moment early in Lich King, warlocks have been under-represented in PvP and we want to see more of them. We don’t want to get there through fear bombs, though. In fact, we think the damage locks can do is in a pretty good place. The problem is survivability, especially when stunned. Now some of the 3.2 changes are going to chill out damage across the board and we are increasing the survivability of pets in PvP. Both of those changes should help warlocks, who historically have been a little better in endurance fights than quick scrums. If those changes aren’t enough, we’re prepared to make additional ones.

Lich King made the warlock pets more interesting but we think there is still a lot of opportunity here. Some of the pets have abilities that just don’t get much use (Imp Fire Shield anyone?) while other pets could benefit from a couple more abilities. The voidwalker for example does all of his damage through just a simple autoattack. While we are slightly positioning the imp as a Destruction pet and the felhound as an Affliction pet, we think we can make the choice of what demon to use at a particular time more interesting. The succubus has too narrow a niche, and the voidwalker is still used mostly as a level-up pet.

Q. What is it that makes them unique compared to all other classes?

A.Demons are a big one. Warlocks are a pet class, but they gain more of their own power from their pets and can make their pets do more than say a hunter or death knight. The way they do damage is different from a mage because a lot of their damage, even for Destruction, comes from damage-over-time spells instead. Warlocks bring some utility that doesn’t strictly increase raid damage, so we feel like it’s fine to keep those abilities unique to the lock — things like summoning and health stones. But again, we think the real way to keep warlocks from feeling like mages with pets is to do more with the Soul Shard mechanic.

Q. Soul Shards is subject that has been a constant amongst warlock players since the launch of the game. While we’ve made some minor improvements over time, players still find Soul Shards to be an annoyance. Are there any plans in motion to make further improvements to the warlock Soul Shard system?

A.Yes. As we have hinted on occasion, we have a revamp of the entire system in the works. This is a big change, beyond the scope of the 3.2 patch, but we are confident — CONFIDENT — that the new system will be something warlocks finally enjoy. (I’m sure I will never, ever regret saying that.) We hope to be able to talk more about it at BlizzCon, but the basic idea is that shards provide a combat boost when needed without becoming a resource that needs to be farmed. Currently too many of the shard abilities are maintenance-like things such as demons and stones. Blowing a shard should be a big deal — an exciting moment. We want to make shards fun and remove the hassle, but we want to make them a core part of the warlock experience and not a marginalized feature.

Q. Most DPS classes can spend three (or less) talent points to decrease their threat by 30%, while warlocks must spend four talent points in two different trees to gain a 10% drop in threat. What are our thoughts on this, and why the discrepancy?

A.There are a couple of situations like this in the warlock tree. The essential problem is we want locks to be able to go down their different trees. When you have something important like threat-reduction or range, it either needs to go very high in the trees where everyone can reach it, or you need to have duplicate talents that essentially accomplish the same thing. The problem with the latter approach is that confusing things can happen when you get both talents — either they stack (which is too powerful) or they don’t stack (which can be confusing or make talent builds difficult). The way we have tried to solve the latter problem is having some talents affect Fire / Destro and some affect Shadow / Affliction. Of course the problem with that approach is that warlocks use both kinds of damage spells. We recognize that we need to solve this problem, but sliding a lot of talents around is not the right way to do it, and also beyond the scope of 3.2. See below for a partial solution for the threat problem though.

Q. As a follow-up to the last question, would we consider giving warlocks a better “aggro dump” ability? Currently, their one “aggro dump,” Soulshatter, has a long cooldown and costs a reagent.

A.We are going to lower the cooldown of Soulshatter to three minutes. We don’t think the shard cost is a big expense in PvE situations. Threat-dump abilities are tricky to balance. We don’t want these spells to feel rotational — you aren’t supposed to do say Curse of Agony, Immolate, Soulshatter, Curse of Agony, Immolate, Soulshatter. They are there for emergencies.

Q. In PvP, warlocks feel at a disadvantage against melee classes (and hunters), particularly rogues. What are our thoughts in this, and are there any plans to provide warlocks with a little more help in this area? Additionally, players have often suggested allowing Demonic Circle to be usable while stunned, is this something we’d consider?

A.The reason we don’t like making Demonic Circle usable while stunned is that changes the ability from a remote evacuation into a stun-breaker. Our concern is locks would never use it except for the stun removal, which makes the spell a lot less cool. Circle is definitely one of those abilities that requires a lot of finesse. Clever locks can do amazing things with it and beginner locks might not get as much benefit out of it. It’s probably also fair to say that stuns (especially chained ones) have become too important in PvP, especially now that we have toned down the impact of some of the other forms of crowd control.

Q. Pet survivability is something that comes up often. Do we see this as a concern, and if so are there any plans to increase warlock pet survivability and/or consider decreasing the warlock’s dependency on pets in PvP?

A.It is a concern. We never wanted it to feel like it was stupid to attack the pet — like they were so unkillable that you just have to endure damage from the pet while you chase down the lock. You have to remember that locks were once really dangerous in PvP (this was back when we added resilience for DoTs) and so everyone was nervous about making their pets too powerful. It’s just incredibly frustrating to be on the other end of that and finally get a pet down only to have to then face the warlock. However times have changed and we think pets are too fragile now. We tried buffing their health a few times, but we think it’s finally time to add resilience to pets and fix it right.

Q. Continuing off of the previous question, are we happy with pet scaling currently? One constant request by warlocks in PvP, is to allow scaling for resilience. Would we consider making this change?

A.Yes, pets are never going to scale correctly as long as there are some stats that affect the master but not the pet. If the lock gains crit and haste, the demons don’t benefit as much as if the lock had gained spellpower. This is a problem. We need to make pets just scale with all stats. Technically, this is not a “flip the switch” kind of change. It’s complicated so it’s going to take some time to do right. We’ll get resilience and spell pen done first.

Q. Many warlocks often find it difficult to resummon or switch pets, especially when compared to other pet classes. Fel Domination with Master Summoner is nice for those who have the talents, but still somewhat problematic due to the long cooldown of Fel Domination.

A.As you probably know by now, we are dramatically lowering the cooldown on Fel Domination.

Q. Talents that increase the range for spells is often a point of concern, particularly for PvE-focused warlocks due to the warlock’s mixture of using both Affliction and Destruction abilities. Is it possible that warlocks can be given a merged range talent in a low tier of either tree?

A.This is the same problem I mentioned above. Moving the talent up higher is one solution, but it would have to be very high and whatever talents are there now would have to come down. This then becomes a pretty significant re-architecture of the talent tree. It is something we want to address, but probably isn’t a 3.2 change.

Q. Do we have plans to add a little more burst potential to the Affliction tree?

A.Yes, and Haunt is probably the right place to do it. Haunt is one of the few Affliction spells that can’t reach the 200% crit level, so we are going to make that change through Pandemic.

Q. The spell Hellfire is one that warlocks rarely use, due to that fact it’s channeled, generates a great deal of threat, and has self-damaging properties. What are our thoughts on how this spell currently functions, and what might we consider changing in the future?

A.We’d agree that the “interesting tradeoff” isn’t that interesting, and in fact it’s hard to find niches for so many different AE spells. Long-term this might be the kind of spell that gets cut.

Q. A common concern that comes up regarding warlock players is in regards to their minor glyphs. While they understand that these glyphs aren’t meant to be game-changing, many of the minor glyphs focus on improving spells that aren’t really used at all, such as Eye of Kilrogg. Would we consider looking at the minor glyphs available for warlocks and possibly making some improvements?

A.We can look at the minor glyphs. We are more concerned at the moment with making sure the major glyphs are interesting without being overpowered.

Q. Green fire for spells has been something that’s often requested by warlocks. Would we consider adding this into the game, possibly in the form of a minor glyph so that we’re not forcing it on players who may not desire their fire spells to be green?

A.We wouldn’t do it through a minor glyph. Originally, we were going to make the minor glyphs mostly cosmetic like this, but as we evolved the glyph feature we found that some spells just didn’t make sense to have a major glyph, so these became minors. We definitely understand some (many? all?) warlocks would love to have green fire and we’ll try and find a cool way to deliver on this. At this point, we’d probably rather do it with a flashy new spell rather than just change up an existing one, but we’ll have to see. As with the new druid forms, after waiting so long, we’d want to do it right.

Q. Would we consider adding a warlock-specific flying mount? Warlocks have promised to never complain again should such a feature be added. Okay, not really…

A.I think it fits the warlock kit pretty well to have some kind of crazy flying demon. We don’t have any art for such a creature yet, but we’ll keep it in mind. You’d have to go back to Dire Maul to get it. Okay, not really…

Q. Are there any plans to allow warlocks to slightly customize or change the appearance of their pets?

A.This is something we are discussing. There are several voidwalker and imp models we could use pretty easily and it might be nice to add more felhounds and succubi. This isn’t a high priority, but something we would like to eventually get around to improving. We are discussing whether this is simply just random variation (like the names) or whether it becomes an even bigger feature.

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I had concerns when Blizzard first announced the way bosses would be unlocked in Patch 3.2’s new raid instance, the Argent Coliseum. Blizzard has announced that while the first boss is available immediately, other bosses will be unlocked week-by-week. It’s not the first time an artificial barrier has been put up for raid progression — hello Sunwell — so I guess I’m not shocked by it, but progression wasn’t really what I was concerned about.

In our current raiding system, each boss drops a pre-determined set of loot. Some bosses drop a token which can be turned in for a piece of armor matching that particular slot, and the boss will always drop this same slot token. Thorim will always drop a shoulder token in Ulduar 10, for example.

So the issue is, with the Coliseum officially being our new tier of raiding, with gear that far outclasses Ulduar gear, and with the Coliseum bosses being unlocked each week, it means that players could get screwed out of upgrades. Your chestpiece might not be the greatest, so if you were looking forward to upgrading it, you’d be pretty crushed to find out that the T9 chest token only drops off of the final Coliseum boss — which will only be available (at best) a month or (at worst) several weeks more than that due to RNG.

It turns out that Blizzard was thinking the same thing I was. That’s why, with 3.2, Coliseum bosses all drop one of three universal armor tokens — the Regalia of the Grand Protector, Vanquisher, or Conqueror.
But how do I know that? Well, I looked on the PTR, and each tier armor piece was purchaseable with the same type of token. To verify that I wasn’t just seeing things, I checked the game files and, sure enough, only three types of tokens total.

This is a pretty big step forward for raiding in general, not just for this tier. While there’s no guarantee that it’ll stick around for subsequent raids, the effects of this change are many:

- You can build your set at your own pace, picking and choosing the best upgrades.

If you’re like me, while building your Tier 8 set, you may have gotten some pieces that weren’t strictly upgrades because the stats on them didn’t shine unless couple with another piece of armor from the same tier. My shaman, for example, was way over hit cap for a while due to not getting my T8 shoulders yet but having my T8 helm. What this change allows you to do is find the most direct upgrade path — if upgrading your gloves first gives you the biggest bonus, you can grab those first with your Regalia instead of skipping out on wearing your perfectly good legs because you don’t have your helm yet.

- You won’t “waste” loot by getting identical tokens in 25-man soon after 10-man.

You rolled on that helm token on your no-DKP 10-man and used the helm for a day before getting the 25-man helm token. This way you can use the 25-man Regalia to get your shoulders instead for your two- or four-piece.

- Doesn’t matter which bosses you kill, you’ll still get your four-piece eventually.

Hey there, priest! Is Yogg-Saron being a total cad and only dropping Vanquisher shoulders? Sucks to be you! With this new system, though, you won’t run into this issue. So long as somebody’s dropping Conqueror tokens, you’ll get your set bonus eventually, just by being there for bosses in general.

- YES BUT WHAT ABOUT LOOTING, MIKE SACCO, WHAT WILL HAPPEN NOW

Hey, good question, guy! At least in my guild, this’ll certainly mess up offspec sets, which we start collecting once people start passing on mainspec tokens. And yeah, maybe if you use DKP, someone could hoard a bunch of tokens immediately. That’s for your guild to work out, though. I’m sure you can figure it out. The benefits tend to outweigh the negatives here.

As with anything on the PTR, this could change at any time, but everything I’ve seen from datamined info to the text on the Tier 9 vendors on the PTR indicates that this change is a go, and I’m pretty happy about it.

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We can’t believe it either – Turpster has been let loose on WoW.com to bring you videos from in and around the World of Warcraft! You’ve heard him on The WoW Insider Show now see him on TurpsterVision right here on WoW.com

Today FigurePrints revealed their brand new line of 3D printed WoW products in the form of 3-piece collectible non-combat pets — FigurePets! As always I was on hand with a camera, a knife and a box of products to open cautiously on camera to give you the first impressions on this exciting new product range.

Also I managed to sit down with Ed Fries, the FigurePrint wow goldfounder, and ask him a few questions about the new FigurePets and what else might be on the horizon for 3D Printed WoW Products.

Behind the break you’ll find the video, interview and a photo gallery of the FigurePets.The pets are produced to the same high quality that I found my FigurePrint to be albeit in a smaller, cheekier form. They still have the bright yellow font on the front, which I didn’t like on my FigurePrint, but think it suits the less serious atmosphere of the FigurePets better. This being said, I have spoke with Ed Fries since my review and he has informed me that he is looking to add more font options to the FigurePrint creation process so watch this space!

If you collect non-combat pets like I do in game then you will more than likely appreciate a few of these critters making their way around your desk or standing valiantly beside your full sized FigurePrint. As just a first run I think that there is lots of potential in the FigurePet concept, a Children’s Week quest reward trio would be a great way to complete the achievement that would otherwise take three years!

In short I am as smitten by the FigurePets as I was by the FigurePrint, it blows me away that these are just printed in a machine (My printer at home struggles with photos!), and if already have a FigurePrint or can’t afford one then I think these make a great addition to any WoW collector’s display.

I also got a chance to talk with Ed Fries who answered a couple of my questions on the new FigurePet collection.

WoW.com: First up, thanks very much for taking the time to talk with us, since WoW.com last spoke with you back at BlizzCon ‘08, we’ve seen the Lottery system withdrawn and FigurePrints are now available in the EU, has the continued growth surprised you at all or is this all going according to plan?

Ed Fries: From the beginning we’ve wanted to reach all WoW players, wherever they may be. We knew we were doing something that had never been done before and so we wanted to make sure that we maintained very high quality and at the same time gave everyone a fair and equal chance to get our product. That lead to two things: the lottery, and a staged launch where we started in North America, got the bugs out, then moved to Europe, and are now working to move to Asia. I guess the surprising thing for me is that it just always takes longer than I think it will to move from one stage to the next. I’m glad our customers no longer have to deal with the lottery, but I can’t wait to start to be able to reach players in Korea, Taiwan, and ultimately mainland China.

WoW.com: Now obviously the reason we are talking today is about the new FigurePets range. Can you let us know how these are going to be available and when we can get our hands on some?

Ed Fries: FigurePets(tm) started as something fun we did for BlizzCon last year. We were printing up some one of a kind stuff to show in the display cases in our booth and thought “why don’t we make some pets?” At the time we didn’t have any plans to turn it into a product, but people at the show had a really positive response so that got us thinking that maybe we could offer this as a real product. Blizzard liked the idea but it took a lot of work to turn it into something real. Now we are ready to launch our first set of three pets. They are limited edition in the sense that they will only be sold until July 31st and then this set will be discontinued. If we get a good response we will produce another set of three pets in a few months and so on.

WoW.com: How big are these pets going to be? Will they come in glass domes like the full-sized FigurePrints?

Ed Fries: The pets are roughly 3 inches on a side and do not ship in a glass dome. The cheapest way to buy them is as a set of three in which case they cost only $24.95 (22,95 euros) each. Some people will want to buy these because they are pet collectors in the game. For some people it will make a nice complement to their FigurePrints statue. For some people this will be a less expensive way to experience what FigurePrints technology is like in person and hopefully get them interested in having their custom character statue created some day.

WoW.com: Are there any plans to produce any more variations on the original FigurePrints? We’ve spoken in the past about mounts, hunter/warlock/death knight pets, dead character bases, etc.

Ed Fries: Now that the pets are launched we can turn our attention to the next big thing. Behind the scenes we’ve been working on everything on your list. The one we’ve had the most requests for is combat pets so that’s going to be our primary focus through the summer. We’ll definitely have something to show at BlizzCon in August but when it will be available for sale, I just don’t know at this point.

It is worth noting that if you order a FigurePet your account will be credited with a 10% discount on your next purchase of a regularly priced FigurePrints statue.

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After yet another Cracked Egg with nothing but a Cobra Hatchling in it, and the bigtime raiding proto-drakes constantly getting dropped out of the game, there’s really only one other option: the Red Proto-drake, a reward for the Glory of the Hero meta-achievement. It’s not easy: you’ve got to not only beat all of the heroics in the game, but all of the hard mode achievements for each of them. Guides like our OverAchievers can help, and a really great group to go along with helps more, but some of the achievements are so tough they need extra attention.

The Oculus‘ achievement, however, is one that needs an even closer look. And 4 Haelz kindly provides exactly that, with an in-depth guide to toppling two achievements in one, both the Emerald and Ruby Void, by doing the boss with five Amber drakes. The Amber drakes are usually meant as DPS, which makes this fight extra tough: you can’t take much wow golddamage at all, because you can’t get any damage back without healers. So what it requires, instead, is communication and coordination. Basically, you use the drakes’ Time Stop ability to slow the fight down, and then try to do some coordinated kiting while DPSing like mad, all the time hoping that you can bring him down before he takes one of you out.

As Bell says, once you get the idea (and have wiped a few times — you should probably be riding the drakes naked, since not only does your gear not affect their performance, but it’ll save you repair costs), the fight’s not actually that hard to pull off, but it’s the learning that’s going to hurt.

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Death Knights are among the most-changed classes in the first PTR version of patch 3.2, which is not terribly surprising for such a young class. Because of such wow goldsignificant changes, all DKs will receive a free respec.

Blood Strike will scale more from disease (up to 50% per disease), while Frost Strike is receiving significant nerfs: it can now be dodged/blocked/parried, and only gets a 55% bonus from weapon damage, instead of 60%.

On the tanking front, one of our major cooldowns was nerfed, although DKs are still probably the king of tanking CDs (disgustingly powerful new Ardent Defender aside). Icebound Fortitude’s CD was doubled to 2 minutes. Veteran of the Third War’s Stamina bonus was cut in half, and Toughness was cut by a third.

As for DPS, both Dancing Rune Weapon and Gargoyle were changed to a fixed duration for 60 Runic Power, 12 and 30 seconds respectively, and the Gargoyle now flies closer to the ground so melee can hit it.

Desecration is now a PvP/slight tanking talent (2 points for 25/50% snare, no damage increase), but a new talent called Desolation has taken its place: causes Blood Strikes to increase all damage the death knight deals by 1/2/3/4/5% for 12 seconds.

Speaking of PvP, Lichborne’s duration was reduced to 10 seconds, but the cooldown cut to two minutes.

Unholy Blight was completely reworked. It looks like now it makes your Death Coils apply a 10-second DoT equal to 30% of your DC damage, which stacks in a like manner to Ignite and Deep Wounds. So less AoE damage, but more single-target, for the Unholy DPS DK.

Frost got a big new talent to prop up dual-wielding, as the devs were saying they might do. Threat of Thassarian reads: When dual-wielding, your Death Strikes, Obliterates, Plague Strikes, Blood Strikes and Frost Strike have a 30/60/100% chance to also deal damage with your off-hand weapon. Off-hand strikes are roughly one half the effect of the original strike.

That’s about the size of it as far as DKs are concerned. As an Unholy DPS player myself, I’m pleased with the changes. Desecration was irritating, and Unholy Blight, while fun on AoE, made the rotation a little complex.

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Sometimes you’d like to know that there are other MMOs out there, right? Our sister site Massively can provide you with everything you need wow goldto know about all those other shiny MMOs! Check out this roundup of the latest news from the wider MMO world.

	A World of Warcraft player’s guide to Free Realms Oh boy, what have I gotten myself into? Comparing one of the largest and most popular MMOs with the current fastest-growing MMO? Do I have a deathwish? Well, it turns out World of Warcraft and Free Realms actually do have a few things in common, but a straight comparison isn’t the point of this article. We at Massively have decided to compile a guide for World of Warcraft players who may be interested in checking out what Free Realms has to offer. Even better, for those WoW players out there with children, this guide could be valuable for some alternatives to your usual family gaming choices.
	DDO goes F2P: An interview with Turbine As the news hit yesterday concerning Dungeons and Dragons Online going free-to-play, many MMO gamers collectively rejoiced, while others didn’t. The idea of this hybrid business model is wonderful for those who have yet to experience DDO, as it now gives them a chance to play the game as long as they’d like, with no level cap restrictions for absolutely no cost. This means no credit card info changing hands, no commitments to a monthly fee and the implied need to “get your money’s worth” and no real need to quit the game if you can’t afford it. But it can’t be that easy, can it? Well, there’s a slight catch.
	Free Realms breaks the 3 million mark Sony Online Entertainment has just announced today that their kid-friendly free-to-play mega-hit Free Realms has hit the 3 millions registered user mark. This news comes less than seven weeks after the game’s launch, and only two weeks after their last milestone of two million registered users.
	Should MMOs have sequels? From movies and books to computer games, the concept of the sequel is firmly embedded in the entertainment industry. It’s usually a much safer bet to make a new part to an existing successful intellectual property than it is to back an untested product. In the games industry, sequels are a great way to make more money from the same game concept but as usual MMOs have proven to be something of a different animal.

	Hands on with the Aion beta: Exploring Sanctum and Verteron After leveling your stunning avatar to level 9, ascending to Daevahood and getting your wings, it’s time to go out into the world — well Verteron at least. But first, let’s talk a little about the glorious city of Sanctum and what your new Daevic powers really mean.
	The Digital Continuum: Reign of the shooters Can it be coincidence that everywhere you look at this year’s E3, most of the exciting upcoming MMOs are shooters in one way or another? I’m looking forward to Final Fantasy XIV as much as the next fan, but there’s only one or two traditional looking concepts that have my interest.
	Runes of Magic drops more info about Elves as a playable race Frogster really seems to be on a roll the release of content updates on a regular basis since launch; Return to the Ice Dwarf Kingdom (Patch 1.7) dropped earlier this month, bringing guild castles, permanent pets, and high level content with it. Chapter II - The Elven Prophecy will be released in September 2009.
	MMO racism: the No Elves! movement picks up steam To some it is unadulterated racial hatred; to others, pure marketing genius. Ok, perhaps I’m sensationalizing just a bit, but since its release, the No Elves! trailer for Global Agenda has generated quite a buzz. A recent newsletter announcement by Hi-Rez Studios details how they plan to capitalize on it.
	Rumor: Cryptic developing a Neverwinter Nights MMO According to a recent rumor at Variety, Cryptic Studios may just be developing a Neverwinter Nights MMO afterall. Of course the speculation first arose a few weeks ago when Atari acquired Cryptic, but the speculation has now reached full-fledged rumor status! *Gasp*

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The Colosseum takes us inside the world of the Gladiator (Brutal, Vengeful, Merciless, and otherwise), to interview some of the top Arena fighters in the battlegroups. Our goal is to bring a better wow goldunderstanding of the strategy, makeup, and work that goes into dueling it out for fame, fortune, and Netherdrakes.

It’s been six months since the last time we summarized our collection of Colosseum interviews. With at least a season and a half of Wrath of the Lich King now behind us, now’s a great time to look over the gladiators who’ve shared their experiences. We’ve had Paladins, Hunters, Death Knights, Paladins, a Shaman, Paladins, and even a Warlock. There are certainly common themes among these discussions. By comparing them, we can hope to get a better idea of what’s going on this season.

Lightss of Korgath was our first interviewee of the year, back in January 2009. A Holy Paladin, Lightss had been running a Protection spec through most of Season 5. What’s interesting about that fact, however, is that Protection spec healers have been making a comeback in Season 6. A lot of the explanation for this nowadays seems to be that Protection spec offers a great deal of defense and utility that’s missing out of the Holy tree, especially since the Hand of Freedom nerf in 3.1.3.

Lightss was the first person to confirm that Arena players have moved on to Gladius instead of Proximo. The newer mod has the same functionality as Proximo, but with a few more bells and whistles to go along with it. And even though the hubbub on the forums in January had been that healers didn’t have much effect in an Arena match, Lightss argued that a skilled healer was still key to success. Commenters at the time pointed out, however, that a Holy Paladin displayed survivability no other healer could match. The lack of that kind of survivability was what hurt other healers.

By comparison to Holy Paladins, you never did hear much from Rogues in Season 5 or early Season 6. That was probably how Anthany liked it. Anthany foretold the major theme of Wrath of the Lich King Arena matches. They days of Crowd Control dominance are mostly behind us, with the major theme for Arena success being “pressure.”

The skillful application of pressure is what controls an Arena match nowadays, not simply dropping a Cyclone on the opponent’s healer. This isn’t to discount the power of crowd control, but that it introduces the idea that long term pressure is required to handle most long term matches. As Footwerk points out, if you fail to accomplish a kill on your focus-fire target, you do have to pull the match back to equity using whatever CC you have available. It’s a fine balance.

This idea of “pressure” and “burst damage” was confirmed by Infractus, a Death Knight. Infractus disagreed with Lightss, claiming that with the amount of pressure and burst available in Season 5 “healers just can’t out heal 2+ DPS.” That might seem obvious, but it helped spell out the dynamic of “survivability” versus “lethality,” and how that plays out in small-format PvP fights. Meetsi echoed Infractus’ feeling by pointing out that one of the things that made Paladins so attractive as healers is the fact that they can survive that burst and pressure, by using their legendary bubble powers.

Dcane of Korgath represented a significant break from the Holy Paladin/Death Knight mold, however. A Discipline Priest partnered with a Rogue, Dcane is used to a more technical, crowd-control format than the burst/pressure tactic. Using the Rogue’s superb player controlling abilities, as well as a Priest’s own Fear, they cripple their opponents while focusing their available lethality on the un-controlled target. While a Discipline Priest is able to survive an amazing amount of damage, even Dcane mentioned that it was incredibly difficult to even try and heal through two DPS opponents.

Dcane wasn’t the only Arena fighter with this perspective. Gladiator Lamures also runs a Discipline/Rogue composition, and he re-emphasized the dire need to crowd control any double-DPS opponents. According to Lamures, one of the ways they tend to win a match was to “Chain CC one of the targets and wear down the second one eventually killing it in a good CC.” Lamures reinforced that if the opposing team did manage to live through a strong round of burst, it almost always meant they had ripped through their available cooldowns.

By the time we were fully into Season 6, however, the Discipline/Rogue composition had become much more common. A Discipline Priest’s ability to provide solid shielding and effective healing made the class attractive, with its periodic crowd control (in the form of Fear) sealing the deal. While the Holy Paladin had ruled the day in Season 5 thanks to its bubble-blessed invulnerability, the more technical Season 6 matches are requiring the toolbox of a Discipline Priest.

Mana Burn represents an important part of a Discipline Priest’s toolbox, but it’s one that Merlizzel cautions his brethren to use very carefully, “I remember letting my partner die once while Mana Burning,” he said. “Since then, I vowed to never let that happen again because I felt like such an idiot at that point. If my rogue notices the opposing priest in a mirror Mana Burning when his rogue is in any bad position, he’ll blow CB and I’ll try to burst him down.”

This flaw that Merlizzel is referring to is known as “tunnel vision.” The general idea is that the player becomes so obsessed with completing a single objective, that the players loses awareness of what’s happening in the environment. If you can detect an opponent suffering from tunnel vision, that’s the perfect time swoop in for a kill.

Some of the best advice for new folks coming into the Arena was actually provided in the last few weeks, by Ogc the Warlock and Ninchuu the Hunter. One of the most frequent questions I see about the Arena and PvP is “How do I get started?” Considering an Arena match is entirely a zero-sum game, it can be incredibly intimidating to newcomers. (Especially since there’s more reason to not fight in the Arena than to do so, if you don’t think you’ll get high enough ratings to get gear.)

When you get started fighting in the Arena, Ogc recommended you think back to when you first started playing WoW at all. “Think of when you started playing the game and how much more you know now. It’s a lot,” he said. “In the same way, when you take your first steps into an arena, you’re going to get dominated. If you stick with it and really enjoy your class, you’re bound to get better with every arena game. You’ll soon find yourself vanishing Death Coils or spell locking Fel Dominations in no time.”

And when you inevitably do lose matches, Ninchuu had some fantastic words of wisdom for folks. “Don’t play while under stress or when you’re in a bad mood,” Ninchuu warned, “this only creates tension between you and your teammates and ultimately causes nerd rage. Don’t play while sleepy or when hungry, your mind will wander off. And finally, never ever point fingers when you lose an arena match. This isn’t dueling, this is a team-based effort, always question what you could’ve done better rather than demanding more from your teammate.”

Both Ninchuu and Ogc stress that you have to have fun while fighting in the Arena. Ogc discussed his Warrior teammate, who transferred to a different server. Even while saying how much he missed the warrior, Ogc wished his ex-teammate the very best. He hoped the warrior was accomplishing the goal of having more fun with a different environment. Ninchuu confirmed it all, when he revealed the greatest mystery to Arena success. “The best ’secret’ I can share for success in arena, is to enjoy the arena,” he said.

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Two Bosses Enter … but only One Boss Leaves, in WoW Insider’s series of fantasy death matches. This season’s bosses come from the five-man instances of Wrath of the Lich King.

This week’s Two Bosses Enter is less boss-versus-boss than it is boss-versus-event: The Nexus’ Anomalus versus the Tribunal of Ages encounter in the Halls of Stone. The Tribunal of Ages event tasks adventurers with protecting wow goldDwarven explorer Brann Bronzebeard from waves of mobs as part of the Halls of Stone quest — a boss-level encounter in terms of difficulty and loot, if not in actual boss-versus-boss combat. It’ll be Anomalus’ Chaotic Rifts and Crazed Mana-Wraiths against the Tribunal of Ages’ Kaddrak, Abedneum and Marnak plus the cadre of Dark Rune Protectors, Dark Rune Stormcallers and the Iron Golem Custodian.

The ground rules:

• For the sake of this deathmatch, we’ll have to get a little (ok, a lot) creative with Anomalus’ presence here in the Tribunal. In this scenario, we’ll retain the basic mechanic of the Tribunal of Ages encounter. Brann Bronzebeard’s survival still determines the success or failure of the mission. Anomalus is therefore challenged with holding the Tribunal at bay long enough for Bronzebeard to complete his task.
• This match takes place inside the Tribunal of Ages in the Halls of Stone.
• If you assume that Anomalus is “too dumb to move,” we’ll have a very boring match indeed. Be open to other possibilities.
• Assume that foes share similar levels, health pools and a comparative overall damage output.
• Don’t get caught up in game mechanics and what actual players might do in each encounter.
• Style and scale are your main considerations.

Anomalus
Chaos beckons … Reality unwoven … Indestructible … Of course … Expiration is necessary…

Anomalus is an Arcane elemental inside the Nexus, created when the high amounts of magical energy streaming through the Nexus created the Rift. He used to guard the Nexus and Keristrasza’s prison. Now, however, Anomalus seems to have gone out of control and his Chaos Rifts and lesser Arcane elementals are attacking the Blue Dragonflight.

At three points during battle, Anomalus creates a Chaotic Rift and uses Rift Shield to make himself immune to all damage. The Chaotic Rifts themselves can cast spells, as can the Crazed Mana-Wraiths that can be summoned from within them.

• Arcane Attraction
• Create Rift
• Charge Rifts
• Rift Shield
• Spark

Chaotic Rift

• Chaotic Energy Burst
• Charged Chaotic Energy Burst

Crazed Mana-Wraith

• Arcane Missiles

Read more about fighting Anomalus and review comments from players who’ve fought him.

The Tribunal of Ages
Abedneum: Warning! Life form pattern not recognized. Archival processing terminated. Continued interference will result in targeted response.
Kaddrak: Security breach in progress. Analysis of historical archives transferred to lower priority queue. Countermeasures engaged.
Marnak: Threat index threshold exceeded. Celestial archive aborted. Security level heightened.
Abedneum: Critical threat index. Void analysis diverted. Initiating sanitization protocol.

During the Tribunal of Ages encounter, adventurers must protect Dwarven explorer Brann Bronzebeard long enough that he can access a database to retrieve information required to complete the Halls of Stone quest. Hindering Brann and his helpers are the three stone faces of the Tribunal, Kaddrak, Abedneum and Marnak, plus wave after wave of foes including Dark Rune Protectors, Dark Rune Stormcallers and an Iron Golem Custodian.

Kaddrak

• Glare of the Tribunal

Marnak

• Dark Matter

Abedneum

• Searing Gaze

Dark Rune Protector

• Charge
• Cleave

Dark Rune Stormcaller

• Lightning Bolt
• Shadow Word: Pain

Iron Golem Custodian

• Crush Armor
• Ground Smash

Read a description of the Tribunal of Ages event and review comments from players who’ve completed the related achievement.

The smackdown
For the sake of this deathmatch, we’ll have to get creative with the details surrounding the Halls of Stone quest and the reason for Anomalus’ presence. We’ll retain the basic mechanic of the Tribunal of Ages encounter. Brann Bronzebeard’s survival will determine the success or failure of the mission. Anomalus, then, will be challenged with holding Bronzebeard’s foes at bay long enough for him to complete his task.

This match takes place inside the Tribunal of Ages in the Halls of Stone.

As usual, you should assume that overall, the foes share similar levels, health pools and a comparative overall damage output.

This matchup should offer plenty of variables to consider. What do you think would happen? Can you come up with a convincing scenario that will sway other readers to vote for your victor of choice? Show us your stuff in the comments.

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I know, it’s another Retribution post, but since we got hit with the nerf bat again (ever so slightly) I decided to devote one last column to the spec before I rotate back to Protection. Besides, my past month or so has been spent raiding Ulduar as Retribution (with the first few forays as Holy) so I think that’s what I’ll talk about for now. Rather than talk about specific boss strategies, we’ll talk about the little things we can do to perform at our best in Ulduar.

Flame Leviathan
First up is Flame Leviathan. Obviously, none of the usual strategies will apply here but one key point players should remember is that the vehicles scale with gear. This means having to prepare an outfit set optimized for the encounter. One thing to note about vehicle scaling is that it doesn’t look at stats, just iLevel. Optimizing a gear set for this means putting the highest iLevel item you have in every slot. For “pure” classes, this is usually their normal set-up, but for Paladins who keep several sets of gear, an iLevel-optimized outfit can be composed of healing items, a few tank items, some DPS items, and even PvP gear. Players can use AddOns such as RatingBuster to determine an item’s iLevel and outfit managers such as Outfitter or Blizzard’s new in-game equipment manager to quickly swap gear.

Vehicle strategies are everywhere, but Retribution Paladins who would prefer to do something familiar should hop on a Salvaged Siege Engine, which plays the most like melee. The difference is that this isn’t a DPS role, and steam pressure should be kept in reserve for Electroshock to interrupt Flame Vents and Steam Rush to create some distance when Flame Leviathan targets the player. It’s still more about learning the fight and vehicle roles and less about any particular class.

Ignis the Furnace Master
This is a very good fight for Retribution Paladins, despite the need to move the boss around. This is because Ignis’ most devastating attacks are easily avoidable by melee — Scorch won’t be a problem as long as players manage to keep behind the boss and Flame Jets won’t interrupt anything as everything is instant cast. Even the geyser knockback (or up) won’t make a difference because players staying close enough can keep hitting the boss.

The best thing a Retribution Paladin can do in this fight is actually during a non-DPS phase, when she’s picked up an placed into the Slag Pot. Players specced for Divine Sacrifice should use it following a Divine Shield when placed in Ignis’ belly, as well as ease burden on the healers by calling out immunity and even healing themselves. It’s also a good time to remind players that they can (and probably should) use Fire Resistance Aura during this fight because all the talented benefit are granted through any aura.

Razorscale
This fight requires a lot of switches, which is actually better in practice than it is on paper for Retribution DPS. Retribution can pump a lot of burst DPS in the opening seconds of a switch, and players should always hit Crusader Strike first. Vengeance will likely be at full stacks, and Exorcism should be used while jockeying to get into melee range. Similarly, since Exorcism is low on the spell priority list, it’s easy to reserve it for Wing Buffets which knock players out of melee range. Needless to say, step out of the fire — staying out of the large circle on the ground should minimize this problem.

XT-002 Deconstructor
DPS on this fight is largely a matter of luck. If players get a Light or Gravity Bomb more than a few times, DPS will drop significantly. AddOns such as DeadlyBossMods allow players to check their range with a /range command, which should help remove the guesswork from knowing if the player’s debuff will hurt anyone. Default range is at 10 yards and should be set to 15 to ensure that nobody else gets affected. Knowing exactly when to stop running away will also ensure players get back into DPS range much quicker.

As a melee class, Retribution Paladins are ideally assigned on the boss exclusively to optimize DPS to the heart when it pops out. Needless to say, always reserve Avenging Wrath for the exposed heart. Depending on the relative strength of your raid it may or may not be advisable to pop wings from the get go. Some raids get to the 25% threshold in under two minutes, in which case the players’ DPS will be lower overall. If you bring Potions of Speed to raids, the last heart phase with Bloodlust is about the best time to use for optimal DPS.

The Assembly of Iron
This fight changes quite a bit depending on which boss your raid decides to do first, but whomever the raid chooses, the encounter is generally not very conducive to melee. The easiest fight and most common fight will be taking down the giant Steelbreaker first. Because Molgeim places Runes of Power underneath the bosses, the tank will move Steelbreaker around quite often. Ideally, the boss gets pulled out of the rune just far enough to remove the buff from the boss but still allowing melee to attack while on the rune but this won’t always be the case. The most important advice to keep in mind here is to not pay attention to the DPS meters. DPS in this fight is artificially inflated by Runes of Power, so don’t worry about it. Stay alive.

Players should be mindful of Art of War procs, easing healer burden by popping a Flash of Light between cooldowns. Keep up Sacred Shield because the damage from High Voltage (among other, non-persistent sources) is a nuisance. There really are no other tips for this fight other than paying close attention and know when to run away. Pursuit of Justice is awesome here because there’s just a lot of running (away) involved.

Kologarn
This is a good fight for Retribution because it doesn’t involve a lot of running around, and because Focused Eyebeams have a minimum range. Melee simply have to focus on Kologarn himself, with ranged DPS classes usually assigned to the arms. Retribution DPS is quite excellent on this fight because when positioned properly, Divine Storm and Consecration will hit all three targets. The arms are also close enough to switch to without having to move much or at all. Relish this opportunity and enjoy the fight as it’s one of the few bosses in Ulduar where a Retribution Paladin can shine.

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The Colosseum takes us inside the world of the Gladiator (Brutal, Vengeful, Merciless, and otherwise), to interview some of the top Arena fighters in the battlegroups. Our goal is to bring a better understanding wow goldof the strategy, makeup, and work that goes into dueling it out for fame, fortune, and Netherdrakes.

And now for something completely different. Ogc is a Warlock. Specifically, he’s the team captain for one of the highest rated 5v5 teams in the world. We’ve been hoping for a Warlock for the Colosseum for a little while, so we were thrilled with this opportunity.

Check out what Ogc had to say after the cut.

WoW Insider: What comps do you run? Why Warlock? What is it about the class’s toolbox that appeals to you for competitive Arena?

Ogc: Before our warrior recently transferred, we were running Affliction Warlock / MS Warrior / Holy Paladin in 3s, and we run a cookie cutter 2346 setup in 5s. 2346 stands for Disc Priest / Holy Paladin / MS Warrior / Elemental Shaman / Warlock (Destruction for now). I don’t have a 2v2 nailed down, although I was doing 2s at around 2600 rating with a Discipline Priest. But I have recently gotten out of that to help powerlevel people for gold.

Warlock has always been my favorite class. I’ve tried to get into several other classes since I’ve gotten into competitive arena, but always come back to my demons and DoTs. I enjoy the playstyle of a utility class with a ton of buttons and lots of role shifting in different positions and situations.

On my Warlock, I feel like I make a significant difference in every game, unlike when I played my healer. I just felt like I was keeping my partners up and they were doing all the work. I got Brutal Gladiator on a 5v5 running a three-healer comp as Felguard spec, and it was one of the most fun experiences I’ve had playing WoW.

Competitive arena is not friendly to warlocks right now. According to SK-100 we have approximately 2% representation in terms of all three brackets, which drops lower than that in 2s and 3s, but is considerably higher in 5s. The three different Warlock specs all offer vastly different tools in PvP. The toolbox that we bring to the table could be considerably improved,even though I definitely like it as is.

With Affliction, you get high consistent damage, a unique protecting debuff in Unstable Affliction, and lots of multi-target damage that doesn’t require the opposing team to bunch up. Unfortunately, Affliction suffers from survival problems, long games which will hurt you because of pet survivability, and virtually no burst capability whatsoever.

In Demonology, the warlock gets a great pet that can take a good amount of hits as well as a large amount of sustained survivability and consistent damage with some burst. The down sides are that you have to pass up the Felhunter (which gimps you a dispel and a spell lock), and you don’t really have anything special about the spec. If you go deep enough to get Metamorphosis, the 51 point talent can actually hurt you more than it can help you due to opposing Turn Evil and Banish. This tree is my personal favorite, and I really wish it would bring more unique crowd control components to the table. Currently the Felguard is missing a slot on his pet bar (no joke!), giving him something simple like a hamstring would go a long way to making this spec arena-viable.

Destruction offers ridiculously high burst damage currently (I expect a heavy nerf soon), and a lot of different kinds of CC (thanks to Shadowfury stun, and Succubus Seduce, if you choose to use her). Unfortunately, Destruction is the easiest warlock spec to ‘lock down’ with melee as so much of its damage is dependent on cast times. Melee can interrupt, silence, or cause a fair amount of spell pushback on the warlock to prevent Incinerate spam. Also, Destruction suffers from not having any Immolate protection, which is fundamental to virtually all of our burst spells. Dispel the Immolate and our Chaos Bolt and Incinerate spells drop in damage by a ridiculous margin, and we’re not even able to use our Conflagrate.

Overall, I enjoy being able to completely dominate an arena game when we’re winning via CCing healers with spell lock,shadowfury, Death Coil, and of course Fear. I also enjoy dispelling teammates or opponents and either putting out lots of multi-target damage or bursting like crazy. That’s easier said than done since the opposing team has ways to limit both my CC and my damage, but we seem to make it work alright.

WoW Insider: So, given the state of the Arena right now, what’s your analysis of this season’s dynamics?

Ogc: I’ll try to answer this question more generally than specifically, as we could talk about the differences not only between 2v2, 3v3, and 5v5, but also between different successful comps. Burst is still very high. Ghostcrawler has gone on what seems to be a personal tirade lately, trying to assure everyone that burst is much better than it was in S5, but I’m not so sure it is. I mean, if I’m left to free-cast, wearing full PvP gear and Demon Armor, I can still take out someone in a global pretty easily if my Chaos Bolt, Incinerate proc (or Searing Pain) and Conflagrate all crit at the same time. I’ve heard of other classes doing things just as (or nearly as) ridiculous, and it’s just kind of disheartening to die in a global based on RNG crits.

WoW Insider: There’s obviously concerns about melee domination of the ladder, about 2v2 maybe being a lost cause. Additionally, Ghostcrawler did just say they’re not happy with Warlock representation. What do you think’s going on to make things this way?

Ogc: Melee are very good right now, for reasons I could probably spend 12 pages listing and analyzing. However, I think an eloquent way to summarize some of the problems warlocks is the following…

Pyrilus (a Brutal Gladiator Warlock like myself) wrote the following post on the Melee vs. Caster imbalance:

“Speaking from a warlock’s perspective, the one thing that I knew for sure while leveling my warlock was that a warlock was an anti-caster caster, and that mages were anti-melee casters. I absolutely enjoyed the dichotomy and really believed in my role as a caster-controller. As the patches have been pushed through, many changes were made to warlocks to make them less of an anti-caster, especially against mages. Magic resistance was removed (but subsequently given to mages) and Tongues was toned down (as well as all other cast time increasing effects). Other side-effects include the fact that many healers that relied solely on casted heals were given castable options and many classes were given anti-fear abilities and effects.

Some things still in place that give warlocks an anti-caster edge are things like Unstable Affliction, Soul Link being a consistent mitigating ability for both magic and physical, and Nether Protection. But these aren’t as potent in some respects as many of the things other classes now have. Cloak of Shadows, AMS, AMZ, the plethora of silence and interrupts that almost every class has access to. The disconnect is that there aren’t as many disarms, pacifications, or immunities available to the rest of the casters, and CC has become so much less a part of the game than it used to be. Warlocks used to have the ability to tank melee and had the highest HP pools among anyone, all gear being equal (besides PvE tanks).

Simply put, the game has evolved into an arms race (as was mentioned) that, from a warlock’s perspective, has not been kind to warlocks or casters. It’s a mess that I frankly don’t envy the developers of having to fix.

However, I don’t agree that casters need more escapes. Or rather, I don’t think that’s the only solution. I think the whole caster/cloth defense system needs to be rethought, because as items continue to inflate in power, physical damage classes will continue to have an easier time of pushing damage out and generally being able to “cleave” their opponents with greater and greater efficiency.

Not only that, but facing requirements in a game where melee classes are generally on top of their targets really does not allow for a very viable mechanism in a game that punishes casts either by interrupting them or completely negating their effects after a successful cast.”

WoW Insider: Will the Hand of Freedom and Juggernaut nerf really make a difference?

Ogc: No. These are specific changes to certain classes (and only Paladin / Warrior at that) that don’t address the true issue of the Melee vs. Caster imbalance. The true problem lies in the instant-cast immunity-type defenses that melee classes get and the plethora of interrupts that the physical DPS classes get.

In addition to this, melee has infinite resource mechanics while offensive casters need to sacrifice something to get mana back, whether it’s time (Evocation), health (Life Tap), or damage (Aspect of the Viper), and yes I’m lumping hunters in there. I mean, when’s the last time you saw a rogue take a second out of his busy day to 8 second channel adrenaline rush?

WoW Insider: What can reasonably help Warlock representation?

Ogc: Pets. Warlocks’ #1 issue is pet scaling. It needs to exist. Right now, Felhunters are basically level 74 Enhancement Shamans in full greens. They need to scale with spell penetration and resilience on a 1:1 ratio basis. In fact, they need to scale everything on a 1:1 basis. If you need to make the base Hit Points of the pets worse in order to adapt, so be it.

The cost of losing a pet to a Warlock in incredibly devastating. Not only do they lose key abilities from the pet (usually Devour Magic and Spell Lock), the ability to keep an opposing class in combat, and a meager amount of damage, but warlocks lose Soul Link which is currently what their survivability is based on. They can use a ridiculously long cooldown to get a summon on a new pet, but that one dies just as easily as the first. The opposing team is not CCing itself to kill the warlock’s pet (contrary to the developer’s belief), they’re destroying his survivability and utility by killing it. If you don’t want to use Fel Domination to get a new pet out, you have to sit there for 5.5 seconds trying to get a new pet out,then Soul Link it with another global cooldown afterwards.

Compare this to the Death Knight pet. Not only does it have better abilities than the Felhunter, (Gnaw, Huddle, Leap), but it’s instant-cast, and much more easy to recast with Night of the Dead. The Death Knight also doesn’t depend on the pet for his survivability.

I’m not saying that Warlocks should have Death Knight pets, or that Death Knights should even have Death Knight pets. But the fact that Warlocks are a pet class, yet have to go through all this red tape just to get a key part of our class into the game (and if we don’t have it we’re probably subsequently dead as our survivability is tied up with our pet) is just kind of ridiculous. It can get very depressing when comparing Warlock pets (or Hunter pets for that matter) to DK pets, so I think I’m going to stop here. DK pets need to get toned down, but all pets need to scale with all stats on a 1:1 basis to solve these problems.

All other issues for Warlocks are secondary. In 5v5, we’re actually a fairly survivable class because of Nether Protection (melee doesn’t dominate in 5v5 like it does in 2v2 and 3v3, although lots of high-end PvPers will probably tell you that a Mortal Strike class is completely necessary, but that having a melee on the team to lock down the opposing [insert caster class here] is extremely beneficial).

Warlocks can benefit from overall survivability increases (and not depending on Soul Link for it), as well as some interesting changes to the Demonology tree that I would really like to see. Immolate protection would be nice, as would removing frontal requirements on spells. Shaman and Warlocks both could really benefit from an immunity-type instant cast spell like Ice Block, AMS, Cloak of Shadows, etc, that works vs. physical damage.

WoW Insider: In terms of casters, who do you think the worst off would be? I’d guess Boomkin and maybe Shadow Priests, but I don’t seem to see a lot of Elemental Shaman in there either.

Ogc: It depends on bracket. Elemental Shamans are exceptional in 5v5, just absolutely fantastic. This doesn’t come from their survivability, it comes from the ability to put out enormous amounts of damage while retaining some totems for some cool buffs and Shocking when they need to.

In 2v2 and 3v3 they are much worse because their class mechanics are not as important. Shocking is not good when they have to sacrifice DPS to do it (the other two people can pick up on DPS in a 5v5 if they’re going to interrupt a heal), and the totems affect less players.

As for Boomkins and S. Priests, I don’t have much experience with playing with either, in any bracket recently. If I had to pick an absolute worst caster, I would go with either Demonology Warlock or Fire Mage, just because they have better options available to them and don’t really ever try to make it work.

I’ve seen some Shadow Priest / Rogues in 2v2, but it’s much better for the shadow priest to just go Disc for that team, so you rarely see that as well.

I’d really like to see every class of every spec equally viable in arena, but realistically that’s probably never going to happen (too many rainbows), and I kind of like Blizzard’s philosophy of making sure that a class is represented fairly well in arena rather than worrying about specs first.

WoW Insider: What would you say to new Arena fighters?

Ogc: Find partners who are willing to do lots of games with you. Try to find a good “popular”comp and play it, don’t worry about losses that much, you’re just learning. Focus on what you’re doing well. Ask people on your server for advice. Try to always see the ‘big picture’ of what’s going on. A lot of times you’ll die and you’ll have no idea what happened. Other times, you’ll know it’s because they chained a Fear into a Blind into a Sap into a Mind Control. It’s not a big deal, figure out what you can do to make it better and move on. Most of all, if nothing else, try to have fun and do what you enjoy doing.

WoW Insider: Where’s the best resource for a new player, and how long should they wait before thinking “Maybe I’m not cut out for this”?

Ogc: www.arenajunkies.com is by far the best resource on the web for arena advice and research. As for the “Maybe I’m not cut out for this,” it takes time. Think of when you started playing the game and how much more you know now. It’s a lot. In the same way, when you take your first steps into an arena, you’re going to get dominated. If you stick with it and really enjoy your class, you’re bound to get better with every arena game. You’ll soon find yourself vanishing Death Coils or spell locking Fel Dominations in no time.

WoW Insider: Serennia recently suggested abandoning the 2v2 bracket, instead pushing for the creation of a 4v4 bracket. But others suggest that would simply make 3v3 “the” bracket, and may or may not be better. What’s your thuoghts on this?

Ogc: 4v4 is without a doubt the worst thing that could happen to Arena. The games would be most similar to 2v2. I’ll explain this really quickly. The differences in arena brackets are usually due to healer to dps ratio.

2v2: Most teams are 50% healer (1:1)
3v3: Most teams are 33% healer (1:2)
5v5: Most teams are 40% healer (2:3)

Based on this data, you would naturally assume what practice has shown us over 5 seasons of arena play. 2v2 is primarily the outlast bracket, 3v3 is the bursty bracket, and 5v5 can be either but normally tends to be a bit more bursty than normal. Of course, if you go up vs. a two healer 3v3 or three healer 5v5, you’re probably going to be in there a while, especially if the opposing team is good at healing but bad at doing dps.

4v4 would be almost unanimously 2 healer, 2 dps with a MS class and a high damage class. Consider already that 5v5s caneasily be healed by 2 healers in most regards. Sometimes, my burst-comp 5v5 can go for 4-5 minutes versus a similarly stacked team just because of how defensive cooldowns work when you put them on your teammates at the right time.

Consider also that the opposing team has 5 people to try to lock down my healers, but they often can’t because of the additional people (DPS) on my team preventing them from doing such, in addition to the double healing / double defensive cooldowns that we have.

A three DPS / one healer team vs. a double healer / double DPS team would find itself in a very bad position. Not only does the double healer team have 4 people to lock out that single healer if they want to go for a burst kill, but they also have enough adequate DPS and healing to sustain themselves through the opposing three dps (just like they do in 5v5).

Because mana efficiency is so important on this 4v4 setup, a Mortal Strike class would be 100% necessary. This means that you would need to have a Warrior, Rogue, or Hunter. You would also probably want a priest for mana burn, but I can see shaman-paladin or paladin-druid working as the healers, even though I think priest-paladin or priest-druid would work best.

The other DPS class that you would need would most likely be something that already goes well with a mortal strike class in 3v3 that has an infinite resource (because remember, these games are long). Death Knights and Ret Paladins, because of their large damage output in addition to utility would be fantastic additions to a 4v4 team like this, Affliction Warlocks would be fine in theory too, but you’ll probably be going up vs. Warrior-DK, Warrior-Ret, Rogue-Ret, Rogue-DK, etc, so you might want to rethink that Warlock.

Overall, the 4v4 bracket would be the penultimate outlast bracket that would go to time far more often than 2v2 matches, and would be in general incredibly annoying to play for most teams. I believe at high levels you would see incredibly small variance in team composition compared to the other three (current) brackets, even less variance than 2v2.

I could mention some good things about the 4v4 bracket, but I could make the same arguments for 3v3 and 5v5 and nothing good would really be unique to 4v4 as I see it. It seems that the trend in these later seasons has been the larger the bracket, the better the balance. Whether that’s good or bad, I don’t know.

WoW Insider: Before we finish up, is there anything in particular you’d really like people to know, or think about?

Ogc: Our warrior recently transferred because he wanted to move to a better BG (we’re currently on one of the worst ones). He was with us for all of our 187 games in 5v5, and was holding #1 spot just like the rest of us, but he wanted to move on to greener pastures. Arena isn’t just about winning, it’s about having fun, and in my experience most high-rated players feel this way. I’m sure many readers are probably telling themselves “Why would he leave a #1 5v5? He was gonna get Furious Gladiator!?”

Sure, but the important thing was him having fun the way he wanted to. He thought transferring to another server would make him happier and I think he’s probably accomplished that. So I just hope everyone continues to have fun with the game, especially in PvP, because at the top you can really get focused on just winning-winning-winning instead of having a good time.

And uhh… yeah, for a plug, WE NEED ANOTHER AMAZING WARRIOR FOR 5v5. Please make a character on Tortheldrin-Alliance or PM me on Arena Junkies if you wanna apply.

WoW Insider: What do you wish people would keep in mind more about the Arena?

Ogc: The big picture. Arena is all about figuring out what’s going on at that time for your team vs. their team. A lot of that has to do with the positioning of the players and what cooldowns are being popped. If the opposing team is LOSing you defensively, then you might not wanna rush around that corner, especially if you’re at low health or vulnerable because you popped defensive cooldowns. They might be setting you up to kill you by LOSing your healer. That’s just one example. Always try to keep the big picture in mind, and always try to keep having fun.

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