I’ve been absent. Most people probably think I got hit by a bus or something, or that the blog is well and truly dead and I’ll never post to it again.

The latter is probably closer to the truth, but it’s hard to just close this thing down. Too much time has gone into it. Too much work. Too much money. Maybe I’m just being stubborn and denying the inevitable. Maybe not.

I started this blog many years ago, when I was so passionate about the World of Warcraft, when I was so passionate about Arms Warriors, that I felt that I had something to say, and that Arms needed a voice to speak on its behalf.

I’m still passionate about World of Warcraft, though not as much as I once was. To be fair, much of my passion in the game was because my life at the time was a wreck, and I needed an escape more than I thought I did. Denied that truth for a long time, too. I’m still passionate about Arms Warriors, and Lelissa remains my flagship sword-wielding warrior queen in Azeroth… and in Arborea, Skyrim, Amalur… anywhere a powerful fighter with a two-handed sword can be found.

The problem is that I feel that I’ve run out of things to say. I’ve tried to rekindle that theorycrafting spark; I’ve tried to force myself to write on the upcoming 5.2 changes and rage management and the loss (finally!) of Heroic Strike… and I just don’t have it in me.

I don’t know what the future will hold for this blog. I’m going to try my hand at returning to a little fanfic, but posts will likely be sporadic (as I’m sure anyone remaining has noticed). I have stories to write and stories to finish – believe me, Lelissa has been screaming at me from the corner of my mind that she calls home – and I’m going to tell those stories. Just bear with me.

If you’re still following me after all this silence, then thank you. Thank you for sticking around, just in case there was something to be said.

I leave you with this – wonderful, wonderful art provided by my most excellent friend, Lorelai:

Lelissa and Malyss, fighting the good fight, back to back as they should have from the very beginning before Arthas took that away from them.

Let me explain.

I have a nasty habit of taking on more projects than I can reasonably handle. Then, when the time comes to sit down and work on one, it becomes a question of focus. Which one should I work on? Where are my notes for it? Am I going to have to do a lot of memory-searching, or is something down on a document? Usually, by the time I figure out what I’m going to work on, the window I had to work on it is gone, and we’re back at square one the next day.

It’s a personal flaw that I recognize in myself, and I *am* working on it. I think I’m just going to need to keep a whiteboard with progress meters in my room.

To this end, I’m cutting out the D&D chronicle from the blog. I can’t stay ahead of it, and I’m so far behind I will never catch up. I can’t continue to try to post it, but I will say that you can typically follow our D&D adventures on twitter, courtesy of @PixelExecution, @FabulorWizard, @KevaraBloodbane, @Half_Lazan, and @Key_the_Thief.

In the WoW world, well…  I’ve been busy. I’ve been made recruitment officer for our guild on Rexxar, Stands in Bad (and we are recruiting!), so a lot of my time outside the game is spent thinking up ways to get our guild out there and known. Ironically, my blog is the last place I thought of in order to get the word out, but hindsight is 20/20. We’re still short a few caster cloth- and leather-wearing DPS to finish the second team, but we’ll have to make do in the meantime.

We start raiding this week. Wednesday will be the guild’s first foray into 10m normal Mogu’shan Vaults, and I think we’re prepared. As prepared as we can be, I suppose. A majority of us have run LFR, and we understand the mechanics that are missing, so I think we can make a fair go of it.

Lelissa has been 90 for quite a while, and I’ve been working hard to have a second 90 to fill a spot in a second raid to make sure everyone who wants to raid can. So, after a week of solid work (and assistance from a girlfriend who enjoys powering everyone’s alts through dungeons), I got Qiuzhi, my Pandaren Mistweaver/Windwalker, to level 90 this past Sunday morning. She was not the first alt I was expecting to get to 90, and I suspect that Malyss is very disappointed in me right now.

I’m sure she’ll deal. She hasn’t been in a spotlight position since Wrath anyway.

I’m very uncomfortable with the idea of healing for pickup tanks right now, since she’s decked out in crafted PVP healing gear. I don’t have mana issues so long as people pay attention and do what they’re supposed to, but after her first two heroics on Sunday, I’m starting to wonder how many people haven’t absorbed the fact that we’re on a new expansion, and the healers in dungeons aren’t gloriously overgeared for them.

Siege of Niuzao Temple is the best dungeon for showing you who your potential raiders are. The third boss, with the shield and the bombs is Grade-A trial material for who will cut it in your first week, I guarantee it. My experience with it was abysmal, until I finally lost it.

I won’t go into the specifics of describing the fight, as anyone who still reads my blog already knows them I’m sure, but when people are throwing bombs at the tank holding the adds, not getting out of the way of bombs that are about to blow up, and just generally not paying attention, your mana goes right out the window. Rocks fall, everybody dies.

Then it happened a second time, after a brief explanation of what not to do.

It must be my old age, but I’m actually very impressed with myself that I didn’t just put the whole bunch of idiots (except the tank, he’s my friend) on ignore and leave the dungeon. I ended up telling my buddy to wait a moment, and I proceeded to fill the chat with something more direct. I didn’t even swear once, which is something of a milestone for me. It was fairly simple.

“Do not stand next to bombs unless you’re going to throw them. If you cannot get to a bomb within 2-3 seconds, then leave it alone and GET AWAY. If a bomb has fallen near you, and you don’t know how long it has been there, then GET AWAY. I don’t care if you have to stop DPS for five seconds, I don’t care if your mother is on the phone. I am not overgeared for this content, and I CANNOT HEAL STUPID. The less damage you take, the more likely we are to get through this encounter. Now buck up and let’s do this right.”

The next attempt went without a hitch. I barely even had to heal, except for the tempest AoE and some sudden, unexplainable tank damage. I even got to throw some bombs.

This expansion is going to be serious culture shock for people who cannot adapt. Now, more than ever, in heroics and in raids, personal accountability is at the forefront. This is a good thing for people like me, those people who play to get better, for those who expect the most out of themselves in the arena they choose to play in, heroic or normal raiding. For a player with more of a sense of entitlement toward the endgame, this expansion will either forge them into something better, or it will break them. I don’t think there can be a middle ground.

There’s more to say, but my friend already has the trademark on the Bearwall. I’ll just have to save it for the next post.

I’m not going to go into too much detail – we all know that I’ve got a tendency to get wordy, and it’s best avoided here. Frankly, every Arms Warrior is going to play a little different based on choices and situations, so I’m only going to focus on single-target outputs.

Ability Changes

Mortal Strike now has a 6-second cooldown, up from 5, and generates 10 rage. With the way Overpower functions for us on Taste for Blood, I suspect that this change was put into place in order to keep the original feel of TfB and its internal 6-second CD for Overpower from the old Rend ticks.

Rend is gone, replaced by Deep Wounds which appears from use of Mortal Strike. Deep Wounds itself lasts for 15 seconds, but Mortal Strike only has a 6-second cooldown, so on single target fights, you won’t see Deep Wounds dropping off.

Taste for Blood now has an additional effect for Overpower. There is a 30% chance that Overpower will enable a followup use of Overpower, and will add a stack counter to increase the damage done by Heroic Strike. Initially, I found this change to be frustrating (you all know what a proponent I am for kicking the old Heroic Strike to the curb), but after working with it pretty extensively after the patch, I have the utmost confidence in the way the Overpower/Heroic Strike symbiosis works. Overpower also no longer costs rage.

Stat Changes

Fortunately, things have changed for slightly better here. You will need 7.5% hit and 7.5% expertise for boss fights. Right now, at 85, that works out to 768 rating for each, unless you have racial bonuses that work in your favor. Fortunately, the stat screen on your character window will show you just how much you have (including your bonuses), so it’s easy to see how much of a gap you have to cover.

Our relationships with Crit, Mastery, and Haste remain unchanged – we love the first two, and loathe the last, because it doesn’t do enough for us.

Talents

Key for single-target fights, I think, is Dragon Roar. Bladestorm still locks us down for ability usage, so that’s out unless you’re fighting a boss that summons a ton of adds regularly. Shockwave would also be purely situational. Dragon Roar ignores armor, and crits automatically – no need to worry about boosting it with something else before use.

Glyphs

I’m a little indifferent about our glyphs save for one: Unending Rage. A rage bar that fills to 120 is incredibly useful, and is the only must-have I will recommend. For the other two, I only suggest that you use what you know you will make the most use of. Me, I like Long Charge and Rude Interruption.

Priority

Things have changed a little bit since before 5.0.4, and it’s going to feel a little weird adding Heroic Strike to the mix, but you have to. Here’s your priority:

1. Dragon Roar
2. Colossus Smash
3. Overpower (TfB Proc – only one!)
4. Mortal Strike
5. Execute (below 20%)
6. Overpower
7. Heroic Strike (only with 2+ stacks of TfB)
8. Slam

So let’s break this down one piece at a time.

Dragon Roar comes first. As we said before, it already ignores armor (no need to burn Colossus Smash beforehand), and always crits. It hits all enemies within 8 yards, and also hits them with a little bit of a knockback and a knockdown. The knockback isn’t that noticeable on regular mobs, and on bosses, it’s non-existent, so there’s no need to worry about too much movement.

Colossus Smash to prep for Execute under 20% health, or Mortal Strike and Overpower above 20% is always a must. No question there.

Mortal Strike, and Overpower to follow up. Obviously, at the start of the fight, you won’t have Overpower just sitting there waiting to be used, so you have to force the proc with a Mortal Strike. The key here, though, is that as long as Overpower continues to proc, use it until it isn’t anymore. If you have an Overpower proc waiting to be used, but you Mortal Strike instead, you’ve just wasted an Overpower and a chance for a TfB stack. There’s an important caveat here, though: Do not use more than one GCD to delay a Mortal Strike. It’s an important DPS ability, and if you’re just chewing through Overpowers instead of using it, your output will suffer. Fortunately, it’s rare to run into it, but if you do, keep that in mind. If you’re playing your cards right, you’ll start to see a pattern between what you can do with the Mortal Strike/Overpower/Heroic Strike chain, which we’ll cover in a moment.

I’ve seen a couple guides out there telling you not to use Heroic Strike unless TfB is at 5 stacks. Some guides even tell you to use Heroic Strike with just one stack, even over Slam. Don’t pay attention to either one. The first situation is completely unrealistic – you’ll be able to count on one hand, two at most, the number of times you’ll get to five stacks in a single RAID, let alone a single boss fight. The second situation is a waste of your resources. Slam does 215% weapon damage plus 997 at level 85; Heroic Strike with a single stack will only do 210% weapon damage, plus 499. Even if the latter portion of the equation gets doubled, it’s still only 998, which means you’re losing out.

The key here is to make sure that you’re always using Heroic Strike at 2+ stacks, but only use HS when the TfB stacks are just about to drop off – you’ll almost always be able to try to sneak in one more MS+OP combo with 3-4 seconds to spare on the stacks, so if it doesn’t add another stack, you can still burn HS without much trouble.

That’s pretty much everything. For those of you who use Weak Auras (or are interested in doing so to help you keep track of things like TfB stacks and the like), once the display bugs are worked out in the menu, I’ll be posting up my export strings for anyone to use, as well as including some screenshots.

Slay well, my friends.

The group defeats the first group of Seiq, and moves further into the cavern. They are forced to crawl through a small, low-ceiling tunnel with Caelissa leading the way. As they reach the opening at the end, Caelissa is grabbed by a web and dragged into the room beyond. The team hurries out into the space and engages the Seiq in the next room. Lazan is dragged up the wall by one of the webs; Kevara responds quickly, and hits the Seiq with a powerful blast. The Seiq drops Lazan… and then promptly falls right on top of him, dropping Lazan to negative hitpoints – not dead, but very close. A Seiq queen – a human-looking woman’s body on top of a wasp’s abdomen – enters with two of her guards to survey the battle. As the team takes out the lesser Seiq, the queen’s guards join the fray. The queen moves to make her exit, plodding her way out. The team makes quick work of the guards, revives Lazan, and rushes out of the tunnel in time to see the queen escaping into the sky.

The group finds themselves many weeks away from Three Hills, low on food and in unfamiliar territory. By the time they make it back into the town, the group is exhausted, tired of foraging, hungry, and generally irritable. They return to the Sagemaster’s home on the following day after a good meal and a rest, and make him aware of the emerging Seiq threat. In thanks for their efforts, the Sagemaster offers to craft weapons and armor for them using the treasures they brought back from Camlain. Sufficiently outfitted, he introduces them to a Dragonborn Warlord, Abraxus. Sagemaster Volrane explains that Abraxus will be joining them on an expedition to investigate an earthquake far from Three Hills, and that they should go and report back with what they find. The group agrees, and the Sagemaster goes to work on their equipment. The following day, Abraxus meets them at the Sagemaster’s home, and he creates a portal near to the location of the quake.

The group travels for a few hours, discovering that the quake has unearthed a massive door cut into the side of a mountain. It is carved with runes that the party does not recognize, and its sheer size leads them to believe they could not open it by force. Some further investigation reveals two carved openings next to the door; the group quickly discovers that they are keyholes, of a sort, and that the dagger found in the skeleton’s chest in Darkhaven fits one of them perfectly. They do not have a second dagger for the second opening, but a few thievery checks and a well-placed sunrod triggers the mechanism – the door slowly swings open, and the damp, musty air within escapes. Shayla goes cold; the spirits have abandoned this place, and her spirit companion dissipated into nothing when the doors fully opened.

In the interest of brevity, the tomb was laid out in a labyrinth-like design consisting only of thirteen rooms, with each room having a puzzle of some sort. They required a little bit of thought; some were borrowed from my old gaming days, some were completely original, and some I found on the internet. Ultimately, their trek led them to a centralized area of seven rooms. Four of these rooms contained a sarcophagus, and six of the seven rooms had a strange panel with some sort of rune carved into them. The runes coincided with a set of gems they discovered in a previous room, and by installing the gems in the panel, a glass inlay in the seventh room would light up with each color, opening the door into an eighth chamber.

Inside the eighth chamber, a large sarcophagus rests in the center of the room, bound by chains. On top of the chains are two items. The first is an orb, roughly the size of a grapefruit and covered in runes. The second is a small book, no more than 4×6 inches, but thick with many pages. The cover is stained black, and has an odd, leathery feel to it. Kevara takes the book and skims it, finding that it is written in unusual script that she is unable to recognize at first glance. Abraxus enters the room, scans it briefly, then comments that they should probably take the orb to Volrane. Kevara agrees, and pulls the orb free of the sarcophagus. The chains, no longer bound by the magic that held them in place, slide away, and a horrific scream sounds throughout the tomb. The lid flips free of the sarcophagus as though thrown by a giant, and black energy shoots into the air. Kevara runs for the door followed closely by Abraxus, and Dorn moves in to cover their escape. To buy the rest of the group time, he thrusts his sword into the energy, and withdraws only the hilt – the blade has completely melted away.

Running back through the rooms, the group passes the sarcophagi and discover that the chains on these, too, have fallen away. Knowing that they are pursued by some dark force, they rush out into the open air where Abraxus reveals several figurines in his possession that become mounts for the group. They ride away to safety as the tomb behind them is blasted into powder by the force they have unleashed.

Unsure of where they are for certain, the team opts to camp for the evening. Abraxus finds a defensible place to camp, and watches are set. Kevara takes a little time to study the orb, and she discovers that it has been carefully crafted and enchanted with multiple spells. Curiously, the item seems to be empowered with spells tinged with good and evil, and there are eight paths of spells powered into the orb. Unsure of what to make of the item, Kevara tucks it away and rests. In the morning, a survey of the area gives the team some bearings, and Abraxus mentions a town about two days travel north. They are unable to use the figurines again while the magic recharges, so they begin walking.

The travel is uneventful, and the team finds an area to camp for the night. Watches are again set, and rest begins. Halfway through the night, the group is attacked by the four skeletal abominations they encountered in the tomb. The fight is over quickly, however, and the team takes them out with only a few wounds to show for it. Shocked that the creatures would have found them so soon, the group converses over the battle. Determining that they are safe now that the abominations have been dispatched, they prepare to finish their rest. Kevara studies the path of Knowledge on the orb and learns the following:

The following morning, the group sets out for the town. They arrive in the late afternoon, and procure several rooms for the night. A few short hours after nightfall, the alarm is raised, and the guards can be heard shouting, “Undead at the gates!” The team rushes to assist, and discover more of the skeletal abominations clambering over the walls. The guards are already engaged in battle with two of the creatures, but unfamiliarity makes the guards vulnerable to attack. Two of the guards are slain, and the creatures move forward to fight a new pair. The group rushes in to help as those two guards are slain, and they are understandably shocked when the first two guards rise again, transformed into the same creatures that killed them.

I know a lot of us have had this problem in some form or another. You’re puttering around Stormwind or Orgrimmar going about your business when you happen to see something on your screen that makes you do a double take. Something someone said in General or Trade Chat made you wonder just what was going on, or maybe you spotted the name of a character or hunter pet that made you slow down and say, “Hold on a second, here. Did I just see what I thought I saw?” So you turn to check again, and sure enough, there sits a Worgen Hunter with a wolf pet named Jewbiter. Or a Dwarf Paladin named Mikehunt (if you’re confused about this one, say it out loud really fast). I’m not making these up – these are people I’ve actually reported before.

In days past, you would be able to click the trusty red question mark in your UI, open up a ticket, and file it with the GMs so that it would be looked at. You’d receive a nice little in-game message that showed that it was responded to and being investigated. In the case of Mikehunt, I added him to my friends list to make sure that the name was changed, and if not, I could report him again later (I had to report him several more times for other versions of the same name, until he finally received a final warning, I suspect, and changed his name to something more appropriate). With Jewbiter, however, you just had to make your report and hope that it would be resolved. Not the greatest option, but for me, it was enough. The in-game mail response at least indicated that it was being investigated, and in my experience, turnaround time on these issues was typically within a day or two.

The new system doesn’t work in the same way, and in some cases, it’s a little bit better and more user-friendly. The option for making a report on bad player names, bad pet names, bad guild names, or unacceptable language in chat is now reduced to a click-to-report option. Right-click the character portrait or character name in chat, choose “report player,” and the UI comes up. Now, the UI for this feature is great. You can choose one of four radio buttons: Bad Player Name, Bad Guild Name, Language, and Cheating ; add in a short description of the incident in the provided text box, and that’s that. Report finished.

On paper, it looks like the perfect way to manage these reports. No more having to remember what a character name is, or figuring out just what alt code you need to get that umlauted u. I don’t get updates from Blizzard anymore to say, “Hey, we got your report and we’re gonna look into it. In the meantime, have a Pudding Pop,” but when this feature was first released, I could live with it. They’ve done right by me in the past, so no big deal.

Then something went wrong.

Back on Azgalor-US, I was running through Stormwind one day on my hunter. I happened to run by the blacksmith’s area and ran past a Worgen Warrior rocking the DS5 instance plate armor. That armor looked pretty good! So, like any fledgling transmogger (damn you Rades and Rhuan) wanting to check it out and see what it would look like on a Draenei, I clicked his name and did a double take.

Ibitanegar.

I was shocked. That’s not even skirting the line of racism, that’s taking the running long jump right into I-dare-you-to-ban-me-ville. So I brought it up in guild chat. Encouraged everyone to report him, and filed a player name report myself. Added him to the friends list to keep an eye on the name change, and went about my day. In my heart I knew it would get handled; Blizzard would bring down the hammer.

The next day, I logged in and saw no change. No big deal, I thought, it’s probably backed up in the system, but I filed another report anyway. The day after that, no change. No big deal, I thought again, it’s probably backed up in the system. I filed another report anyway. I was away from my computer for a few days after that, working on my D&D/novel project, so I wasn’t able to check in to see if there was a change. However, I’m sure you can imagine my surprise and confusion when, a week after my initial report, I logged in to find that Ibitanegar was still on my friends list. I reported him again. I encouraged others to do the same. I mentioned it in guild chat. Standard operating procedure, right?

A week later, after reporting daily, Ibitanegar was still on my friends list. Alright, follow standard operating procedure. Report, encourage. Report. Encourage. Report. Encourage. It was then that some people in my guild mentioned that they couldn’t report him without being able to click him or his name. So, after forming a group with everyone who wanted to report him but couldn’t because they weren’t in Stormwind, I used HGWT to bring them to his position (and I’m sure if he was at his computer, he was confused as to why half a dozen people just teleported in on him, but I digress). Reports were made, and I went on about my business.

On one occasion, I decided to see what would happen if I were to use the old way of reporting. Choosing the “report a player” option simply gave instructions on the click-to-report procedure, but what about another method? I sent in a complaint through the original system, indicating that my numerous reports on the new system had gone unanswered, and that this player name was something that should be addressed. I received a wonderfully copy-pasted response detailing that all player reports must use the new click-to-report procedure, and no escalation option. Glorious. (Note at this time that I didn’t use any of the reporting options on Battle.net. Why? Because until the time of this writing and discussions with Rades, I forgot they even existed.)

More than a month after my initial report, Ibitanegar was still unchanged. I was absolutely baffled. I could not understand why a racial slur of this magnitude was allowed or just glossed over.

Some time later on Twitter, Blizzard posted this:

And I responded:

A few hours went by without a response, and I logged off for the day. I got up the next morning to see an update in my twitter feed, a response from Blizzard:

My jaw dropped. Are you KIDDING me? “The atmosphere on a realm is determined by its population.” My problem with this response is two-fold. In the first place, it doesn’t explain WHY they would allow a name such as this to persist, and second, does this mean they’re okay with a racial slur as a name so long as everyone else on the server is fine with it? I responded to this utter ridiculousness, only partially addressing the requirement of having to click to report:

Now, I’ve seen @BlizzardCS respond to tweets they’ve received about people having problems and questions on tickets and so on. Not once did I ever receive a follow-up from them on this for more clarification, and I’ve been grinding my teeth about this whole event since it happened. It’s been almost two months since my initial reporting, and Ibitanegar is still playing his happy little racist heart out on Azgalor-US, but I’m no longer there to continue reporting him.

This ties in neatly with the post made by Stubborn  where their letter to Blizzard about votekicking says:

“I understand your secretive punitive measures that are to “protect customer’s privacy.”  Fine.  Those of us who are actually trying to maintain some semblance of civil community are constantly frustrated by it because one job of a justice system is deterrence, which can’t happen if justice takes place in secret, but fine.  Okay.  However, when the one tool we’re given where we can see swift and cold justice happen is gimped in such a way as to make it unusable, it calls into question your own stand on bad player behavior.”

My problem with the reporting feature is the SAME THING, but on a much more potentially damaging scale. Blizzard has given us a tool in order to help “police the community,” as Stubborn indicates, but barring one tweet from @BlizzardCS which is removed from the original issue, I’ve seen no results. On top of that, it feels to me as though that the customer service department is suggesting that if I’m the only person who has reported it (I know that I’m not), then it’s not important enough for them to investigate. Maybe I’m reading too much into that, but I’m not sure what else I’m supposed to take away from “The atmosphere on a realm is determined by its population” other than a casual dismissal.

Clearly, this isn’t working. So how do we fix the system? Honestly, click-to-report is a great feature. What’s not great is that it is the ONLY way to report. You might be able to get around distance restrictions by doing some fancy target-of-target work, but if you’re reporting in Stormwind and your guildmates are in Felwood, that’s just not possible. This requires the person in Felwood to come all the way back to Stormwind to report cases like this, and why in the HELL are the ones who are following the rules the ones who have to be inconvenienced in order to police their own community? I know that Blizzard doesn’t make public how many people they have in their GM system, so I know that some of the issue has to be with the sheer ratio of reports to personnel, but there HAS to be a better way.

Changes that I think would make this system run a little better:

• More options than click-to-report, OR make it so that you can /who [name] and click to report from the /who window. Being half a world away unable to report something your friend or guildmate mentions automatically forces you into a silent majority. I know Blizzard wants us all to use their shiny system, but if part of the system is broken, responding to “it doesn’t work” with “use it anyway” is flawed.
• Reports about bad character/guild names must be treated with the same level of concern as you would over someone reporting a hate crime. It might be something that severe, anyway.
• Reports about language must be treated with a high level of concern, though honestly, I’m less worried about someone saying “fuck” where a kid might see it than I am about them being exposed to racist views. I’ve personally witnessed other players talking about the “gook delivery driver” that just brought them take-out in general chat, or that some “goddamned Jew” ripped them off in trade. Put the four-letter words (or others like them) on the back burner, and address the racism first. I’m not saying the language is any less valid a complaint, but as a personal opinion, I think racism is much more damaging to the community than a rampant swear word.
• Implement and maintain a zero tolerance policy for racism. I’m sorry, but if I were on Blizzard’s GM squad, I’d be pushing for automatic perma-bans on anyone spouting off racist remarks or offensive names. I know there’s a bottom line to consider here, but what would you prefer? Banning one racist and scaring another ten into line, or letting one racist run rampant and losing ten paying player accounts because you’re not heading this behavior off at the pass?
• More escalation options in-game. It’s too easy to forget that there are other reporting options outside of the game world (I have a pretty good memory, and *I* forgot). Also, getting an automated response from a filter-based servicebot with no way to actually talk to a human being doesn’t contribute to the betterment of the community.

In closing, I’d like to point out that I’m not some raving censor out to quell every little thing that people do wrong. If someone swears in a public channel, I’ll let it go. I swear to express frustration or disbelief, and I’m not about to tell someone they can’t get a word in for emphasis if they really need to. However, if they’re on a major rant-bender where every other word requires an eye-covering of any nearby child, then I warrant it necessary to report it.

But this isn’t the 1800s anymore. It’s not even the 1900s. Any racism, even casual racism, confuses and upsets me a great deal. I just can’t wrap my brain around a blanket hatred of a group of people because of the color of their skin or a stereotype. Beyond that, though, I think what I’m shocked at most was how this whole situation was handled. Not once was I contacted for further information; not from in-game chat, not from in-game mail, not from @BlizzardCS after a half-hearted “show some server solidarity – power to the people” response. After two months, it makes me feel like my concerns for keeping up a good community were just swept under the rug.

I should be asleep right about now, but I’m still fairly jazzed up about a secret project I’ve been working on for a while now, and just finished (no details yet, it was just shipped off to the responsible parties a couple hours ago), and I’ve also been pondering some turns of events.

The D&D group has undergone a transformation. Some playstyle conflicts arose, and two of the players left to make way for others who fit in a little better. To that end, I devised a bit of an interviewing process (that I’m still fairly convinced that only I took remotely seriously), with the intention of bringing on two or three new players. The end result was a bit of a surprise, where I suddenly found myself actually willing to take on FOUR new players, bringing the total up to eight, making this only the second-largest game I’ve ever run, and the largest I’ve ever run with an online-only audience. Who are the new players? Well…

Those of you who have been reading some of the older blogs will recognize Llanion, formerly of the Mad Cow Chronicles, which is no longer available on the web. Others may be more familiar with a blogger fairly new to the scene, but gaining in popularity: Kialesse, of The Sisterhood of Kia. This won’t be the first time I’ve been a DM for a couple (she and Achloryn are quite the interesting pair), and it won’t be the first time that I’ve DM’ed with my own significant other in the game as well, who is the third addition to the team. The fourth and final addition, which is also the one that terrifies me simply because of his ability to pick out a story like nobody’s business, is Rades. Yes, that Rades. I have to admit, I’m more than a little intimidated at the thought of being the DM and storyteller for someone who has dissected Blizzard’s lore with the skill of a surgeon, and writes his own established fiction with the flair of a professional writer. I know I’m my own worst critic, but comparing my work to Rades’ is not unlike comparing a Hyundai with a Ferrari. They’ve both got four wheels and an engine, but the Ferrari is going to turn a lot more heads.

I have so much to do, and so much I have been doing. I still haven’t been able to put as much time into the beta as I would have liked in order to test Arms, and I gave up a while back thanks to the bug with CS that forced a client crash every time you used it. I have somewhere between 4 and 8 game sessions to post. I have been dabbling with TERA, and greatly enjoying the combat system. The new players have revitalized my creative process with regards to my D&D world, and I have been scribbling notes like mad whenever I’ve had a spare minute (if I can sort it all out when I’m done having ideas, it’ll be a bloody miracle). Diablo 3 is being released in 6 days. I’ve finished gearing Lelissa for Mists, but Malyss and Velyth are still picking up some late pieces. I’m working out again. I’m still employed at a company I like with a job that I despise. It’s stressful.

Anyway, enough whining. Just look forward to some new character updates soon, and the new D&D session posts. My goal is to get as much caught up as I can before the next game on the 20th, where the new and the old combine and move forward following the death of a hero.

You’ll see. I don’t want to ruin it.

Sweeeeeeeeeeet.

I’ll get some numbers in here as soon as I can.

Heroic Strike: Now does 100% (was 160%) weapon damage plus 498 (was 796.8) (140% (was 224%) plus 697 (was 1116) if a one-handed weapon is equipped).

Okay, so it’s still a 30 rage ability, and back down to being an ability that’s more or less useless without Incite. But here’s the part that really bakes my noodle.

Slam: Now does 225% weapon damage plus 2101.5, up from 150% weapon damage plus 1401.

Then why in the HELL would I EVER use Heroic Strike again? Not even as a rage bleed! Even with critical strikes doing 200% damage, Heroic Strike STILL puts out less damage. Sure, if your Heroic Strike crits, Incite guarantees the next one to be a crit, but why would I even bother? A standard Slam already does more damage for the same rage!

Essentially, we’re back to where we are now in Cataclysm. Heroic Strike will be even more of a waste of space on your ability bar if this particular change makes it to the final release. Not that I’m complaining (I really hate Heroic Strike anyway – always have), but why have all of these special talents and abilities tied to a spec that won’t ever use it?

It’s just like the current T13 2-piece bonus. Not only is it NOT a passive ability like most other classes, but in order to be effective, it requires Incite and a boatload of rage you’re usually better off using for something else. Don’t get me wrong, there are a couple fights in Dragon Soul right now where the amount of damage you take keeps your rage pretty high, and for that it’s Heroic Strike heaven. But the majority of the time, you’re burning more rage than you should if you use it, and you get a better return out of Slam, even with the .5 sec cast time.

It’s haphazard changes like this that make me fear for the future of Warriors, not just Arms. If Blizzard returns us to the state we were in back in Wrath, I don’t know what I’m going to do.

• Battle Shout: Now grants 10% increased attack power, not Strength and Agility. Now also generates 20 rage.  Not altogether a surprising change. I’d expected Battle Shout to go to a raw attack power number for Cataclysm, and it didn’t.
• Battle Stance: Now increases damage done by 10%.  So we’re gaining an overall buff here, essentially getting the Berserker Stance values, since Berserker is getting something else entirely. I like this one – a 5% damage reduction was a very disappointing “bonus” for losing 5% damage output.
• Berserker Rage: Duration reduced to 6 sec, down from 10 sec. No longer grants extra rage generation from taking damage.  Also not a surprising change. I’ve never used Berserker Rage outside of a fear break, so I have no complaints here.
• Berserker Stance: Increases damage done by Whirlwind and Cleave by 20%. Doesn’t affect us at all. Fury Warriors might cry havoc a bit with this one, but maybe not. It seems like one of their major abilities is getting a massive boost.
• Bladestorm: Renamed from Whirlwind. You become a whirling storm of destructive force, striking all nearby targets with your main hand weapon for 75% weapon damage. Also does 75% weapon damage for off-hand. This one I’m not too clear on. Has Bladestorm, then, been removed from our talent list? According to the WoW site it’s still a level 60 talent option, but maybe they’re just behind on an update.
• Charge: No longer requires Battle Stance. Cooldown increased to 20 sec, up from 15. Now can be used in combat and generates 20 rage, up from 15. Also an expected change, with the complete restructuring of talents. A lot of the old Arms talents are getting rolled in here, and the increased rage generation will be very helpful. Not too sure how happy I am about the increase in cooldown time, but I suspect I’ll be picking up the 12-second cooldown talent anyway, as it’s the best PVE option, unless they decide to make it so that we can charge at very close range. Time will tell.
• Cleave: Now has a 1.5 sec cooldown, down from 3 sec. Now does 75% weapon damage. This isn’t a big contender for Arms damage, so I’m not terribly disappointed by this. Sweeping Strikes and Cleave is always handy for AoE fights you don’t have a Bladestorm ready for, but it’s still low damage by comparison. This makes me wonder how baseline rage generation will function, because a lot of our abilities are getting rage cost increases.
• Commanding Shout: Now increases Stamina by 10%. Percentages seem to be the flavor of the expansion. Works for me.
• Deep Wounds: New. Your Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst and Devastate cause the target to bleed for 1090 over 15 sec. The loss of Rend as an ability forced this one a bit. It’s good that every spec is getting something out of it, and for Arms, the cooldown on Mortal Strike will keep this rolling pretty constantly. I’m pretty sure the damage values given here will scale with level… otherwise this might be a bit disappointing.
• Demoralizing Banner: New. Throw down a war banner that decreases the damage dealt by all enemies within 30 yards of the banner by 10%. You can Intervene to your war banner. Lasts 15 sec. 30 yd range, 3 min cooldown, Instant cast. The banner seems like an interesting mechanic. Healers need some help keeping melee alive during a close blast? Throw this baby down. Being able to intervene to it… I guess it’s a handy way to be able to leapfrog into battle faster? Heroic Leap -> Banner -> Intervene -> Charge or some variation thereof? Hmm.
• Disarm: No longer requires Defensive Stance. No longer costs rage. No longer disarms the ranged weapon. My god, it’s about time. Not being able to disarm ranged weapons kiiiiiiiinda tilts a PVP battle in favor of hunters, but every hunter I talk to tells me that Arms Warriors are their bane, so I dunno. I haven’t done a lot of serious PVP lately.
• Enrage: Critical strikes with special abilities and critical blocks Enrage you, increasing the rage you generate from normal melee attacks by 25% for 6 sec. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is where a lot of our rage generation is going to come from, but let’s face it, 6 seconds is NOT a lot of time! At best, you’ll get two normal swings during the duration unless you’ve got some serious crit value and can chain a few of these in a row. I’ll have to reserve judgment for testing.
• Execute: Now costs 30 rage. No longer has a stance requirement. No longer consumes additional rage to do more damage. Probably a wise move. They’re looking to streamline rotations/priorities for all classes, and waiting until you’ve got lots of bonus rage for an Execute was always a little iffy. 30 rage baseline puts this on the same level as many of our other standard abilities, and it makes me concerned about whether Execute will remain the beneficial attack at the Execute phase. I’m sure that it will be, of course, otherwise this would be a really stupid change.
  
• Hamstring: No longer has a stance requirement. Keen.
• Heroic Strike: Now has a 1.5 sec cooldown, down from 3 sec. Now deals 160% weapon damage plus 796.8 (224% plus 1116 if a one-handed weapon is equipped). This is part of an effort to get us to use Heroic Strike more often, I think. It really was a poor ability for Arms even through Cataclysm (Slam did more base damage despite the meager critical chance boost, and the only real value from Heroic Strike came from Incite), and it’s never been a popular attack for bleeding off extra rage in my book. You’ll see what I mean a little later.
• Heroic Throw: Now has a 30 sec cooldown, down from 1 min. Now does 50% weapon damage and no longer causes high threat. Didn’t really find myself using this in combat either, except as a lead-in to a Charge most times.
• Incite: Reworked: Your Heroic Strike criticals cause the next Heroic Strike to also be a critical. These guaranteed criticals cannot re-trigger the Incite effect. This is now a passive baseline ability, once again an effort to make Heroic Strike more “regular.”
• Intervene: No longer has a stance requirement or rage cost. Now only takes the next hit while the target remains within 10 yards. So now Arms Warriors can try to save a healer in a pinch. Where am I going to find a place to put the damn ability?
• Intimidating Shout: No longer has a rage cost. Now has a 1 min cooldown, down from 2 min. This has some very interesting PVP implications.
• Mocking Banner: New. Throw down a war banner that forces all enemies within 15 yards of the banner to focus attacks on the warrior for 6 sec. Lasts 30 sec. You can Intervene to your war banner. 30 yd range, 3 min cooldown, Instant cast. More of a Protection ability, obviously, but could be handy for kiting. Heroic Leap and some rocket boots, perhaps?
• Pummel: Now has a 15 sec cooldown, up from 10 sec. No longer has a rage cost. We’ve traditionally had one of the longest cooldowns on any of our interrupt abilities, and this has always bothered me a little. Now we’re increasing a cooldown on a rarely-used PVE ability, and a crucial PVP ability? We’ve gone from being good to have around in an Arena to the red-headed stepchild of PVP. Interestingly enough, we’re now actually really useful in PVE, where up through Wrath, you could get more DPS by swinging a dead cat in the direction of your monitor.
• Shattering Throw: No longer has a stance requirement and no longer does damage based on attack power. Um..  okay.
• Skull Banner: New. Throw down a war banner that increases the critical chance of party or raid members within 30 yards of the banner by 30%. Lasts 10 sec. You can Intervene to your war banner. 30 yd range, 3 min cooldown, Instant cast. I like this one, obviously. 10 seconds of 30% bonus crit? Really good for heavy healing needs or a point where you need more burst on a boss. I’m still reserving judgment on how I feel about these banners, though. I need to use them a while. Where’s my beta access, Blizzard?  /shakefist
• Spell Reflection: No longer has a stance requirement or rage cost. …Huh. Guess I’ll have more reason to carry a shield around, unless they remove that requirement from the ability. I’d have less of a problem using something like this consistently if it didn’t turn my spec into such a gimmick. “Oh, hey, I can spell reflect, but I’ve got to trigger three whole global cooldowns to make the switch, use the ability, and then make the switch back to a weapon that actually does damage!” Call me selfish if you want, but it seems like this is just lazy design.
• Sunder Armor: No longer causes a large amount of threat. Yeah, didn’t really use this a lot anyway. I raid with Rogues and Druids.
• Taunt: No longer has a stance requirement. Hmm. This will be nice, actually. No more stance changes for fights with mechanics like Beth’tilac.
• Thunder Clap: No longer has a stance requirement. Now reduces target’s physical damage done by 10%, down from 20%. Damage no longer increased by attack power. This one becomes our AoE bread and butter, I think. You’ll see why a little bit further down.

So overall, we’ve got some really good changes, I think. Some things are a little confusing (the cooldown extension on Pummel, for instance), and a lot of things look like they’ve really got some potential. So let’s look at the stuff that’s going to be just for us Arms types.

• Blood and Thunder: Your Thunder Clap now also applies Deep Wounds. This is why Thunder Clap becomes our bread and butter ability. Stomp, make everything bleed, then go to town.
• Colossus Smash: No longer has a stance requirement. Now costs 30 rage, up from 20. Smashes a target for 175% weapon damage plus 221 and weakens their defenses, allowing your attacks to entirely bypass 100% of their armor for 6 sec, and causes the Physical Vulnerability effect on the target. Bypasses less armor on players. Weakens the constitution of an enemy target, increasing their physical damage taken by 4% for 30 sec.  The rage cost increase is something we’re going to see a lot of, and I hope that the changes to rage generation are really going to be able to balance it out. There are a couple things that will help – one that we’ve already seen (Enrage), and one that’s coming up a little further down the list.
• Die by the Sword: New. Increases your parry chance by 100% and reduces damage taken by 20% for 5 sec. 2 min cooldown.  I suspect this is what Retaliation is becoming, if it hasn’t already. Good potential in both PVP and PVE, I think.
• Mortal Strike: Now generates 10 rage. Now has a 6 sec cooldown, up from 4.5 sec. A vicious strike that deals 125% weapon damage plus 1282 and causes Mortal Wounds on the target.  The idea of Mortal Strike being a rage generator is just WEIRD to me. Don’t get me wrong – I like it. I have a feeling we’ll need the generation. The extended cooldown sucks a little bit, though, and it feels like they’re trying to give us more GCDs in between abilities (probably to use more Heroic Strike).
• Overpower: No longer has a stance requirement or rage cost. Now does 140% weapon damage, up from 125%.  These rage-free abilities are very interesting, especially something as explosive as Overpower, and especially for its synergy with Taste for Blood coming up a little further down.
• Seasoned Soldier: While wielding a two-handed melee weapon, your Physical damage dealt is increased by 20%, up from 12%.  This has been long overdue in returning. This actually gives us a respectable chance to keep up with most other DPS classes. Right now, we’re HEAVILY outdistanced by Rogues and Hunters and most casters who make more use of huge haste benefits from buffs like Heroism/Bloodlust.
• Slam: Now costs 30 rage, up from 15. Now is instant cast, down from 1.5 sec. Now does 150% weapon damage, up from 145%.  Hallelujah. No more “cast time” on an ability that should never have had it in the first place. The increase in rage cost makes this automatically inferior to Heroic Strike going forward, however, and if they’re both at 30 rage each, unless our rage generation is HUGE, I just don’t see using Slam all that often anymore. Again, this is one of those things that I need to be able to TEST.
• Sudden Death: No longer allows you to keep 10 rage after using Execute.  I’ll miss that part of the ability, but at least it still allows Mortal Strike to reset the cooldown on Colossus Smash.
• Sweeping Strikes: No longer has a stance requirement. Erm…  yay?
• Taste for Blood: You have a 100% chance for Mortal Strike to enable the use of Overpower, and a 30% chance for Overpower to enable the use of an additional Overpower.  If this is actually operating as it reads, this could provide some interesting burst, and also explains why the rage cost was removed from Overpower. I like the fact that they’ve finally tied these two spec-defining abilities together, and I think it’s got some good potential for some serious damage output. I can’t wait.

As you can see, there’s a lot of neat stuff going on here! The changes to Mortal Strike, Slam, Heroic Strike, and Overpower are absolutely key to making Arms work going forward. Now that Rend is gone and Mortal Strike and Overpower are synergistic, the original Cataclysm priority makes a few changes based on exceptions. The current priority is as follows:

(Rend->)Colossus Smash->Overpower->Mortal Strike->Slam(Heroic Strike>70 rage)

The changes to the abilities, however, make for some interesting possibilities between Overpower and Mortal Strike:

Colossus Smash->Mortal Strike(Overpower)->
Overpower(Mortal Strike)->?(Slam/Heroic Strike>70 rage)

This, of course, means that so long as you have Overpower continuing to activate new Overpowers, you’d utilize it over any other ability.  Zero rage cost for big damage? You betcha. When it stops triggering new Overpower usages, you go back to Mortal Strike. What I’m not so sure about is the last part of that priority. Heroic Strike and Slam will both have the same rage cost in Mists, and a 1.5 second cooldown is just a GCD. Why would we even use Slam anymore? Does this mean Slam becomes the rage bleeder when you’re above 70 rage, or is Heroic Strike still off the GCD and would it allow you to use both at once?

I sorely need to test this. Blizzard, where is my beta invite?