We’ve heard and seen it all before: the basic triad of class roles for group dynamics in almost every single MMO. That is the basic triad of Tank, Healer, and DPS. The tank’s roles being the one to take damage and control aggro, the DPS’ job to output as much damage as possible on the intended target, and the healer to keep everyone alive with healing magics. This is nothing new.

Every MMO seems to follow this mechanic. Even if they never intended to follow this mechanic in the first place, their classes always seem to end up being reduced to one of those key three roles. Of course many classes can swap between roles, but it is still within that holy MMO trinity of constraints.

But where did this mechanic come from? Some game designers way back when the first MMOs started? This trio certainly didn’t come from real life fights. To be honest, the concept of a person trying to taunt every single “mob” to attack him and not his friends seem ludicrous when in a real life situation and not very practical. I’ve been in a few fights in my time (not that I’m saying it is a good thing here, people!) and most of them ended up being just one big free-for-all where each person looked out for themselves and did the best they could. There’s no armor. There’s no magic. And, in the at least fair fights, there isn’t even any weapons.

To think of the triad mechanic in real life, seems rather funny to me. Completely improbable for a real life situation, unless of course you’re one of those LARPers: (LIGHTNING BOLT!! LIGHTNING BOLT!!)

It’s ironic that when you compare PVE style combat to PVP combat it’s starkly different. PVP fights are actually more like a real life fight. Everyone is out for themselves and each player has to have their own set of “tricks” to get them out of messy situations. The fights are most times unpredictable and makes for an exciting play-style if you know your class well. Arena fights in WoW are crazy nuts and if you’re not constantly pushing yourself to the limits of your class, you will utterly fail.

What if MMOs followed that real life PVP model? What if each and every player has to fend for themselves in a fight? Rather than one massive Boss monster there were several higher AI monsters that a group would have to contend with. There have been a few examples where this was the case. Magister’s Terrace in World of Warcraft was a prime example where it threw the boss “tank and spank” model out the window. Each fight had to be planned out, crowd control was needed, and each player had to be ready to fight mano-e-mano with a mob. The Observations Grounds fight was especially challenging as there were a random collection of monsters and their aggro tables were pretty much non-existant. The fight always ended up playing out as one big mosh-pit, similar to an arena fight.

Star Wars: The Old Republic claims to follow this same technique as well. Rather than the usual encounter with one massive monster, the group slowly chipping away at it until it runs out of health, SWTOR claims it will have more encounters where groups face large numbers of enemies. In theory it would mean each player would potentially have to fight it out against waves of enemies, often relying on their own skills to survive.

Frankly, this asks a question we’ve been asking for a long time now. What would happen if the triad of Tank, Healer, and DPS was discarded? What if each playable class in an MMO had the potential to be both Tank and Healer at the same time. Able to withstand damage, deal damage, and even boost/heal one’s health? Essentially in a given fight, everyone would be responsible for all three roles. Sure, you’d have some classes better at a given role over others, but each class could cover all three in some form or other. Makes for an interesting playstyle.

In a way, I see MMOs already going down this path. In World of Warcraft, most of the classes can fit at least two roles and some, like the Druid, can actually play all three roles if geared and talent specc’d properly. Having played a druid myself, there was never a dull moment or a burn-out moment as I would sometimes get with other classes. Having the ability to step into any role and pushing those limitations was a great thing in my opinion. The only drawback to this was I’d have to switch specs, change gear, or even hit a class trainer to reset all my talents.

The key I’m getting at is being able to do all this on the fly. Please note, I’m not at all talking about some “super Hero class” that can perform all three roles at once. Heck no. What I’m talking about is being able to survive a fight using your own skills and abilities without having to completely rely on another to heal you or taunt off aggro. Being able to go toe-to-toe with your enemy and then, once he’s down, move on to the next enemy or help out some of your buddies in the fight. Inevitably, fights will end up becoming more dynamic, faster in duration, and ultimately, more fun and exhilarating.

At least I would like to think so. Some people like the safety and security of the triad. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I just like to mix it up once and awhile and have a good mosher every now and then in my games.

Interested in getting updates on the next GRATS! posting? Follow Rackham on twitter at: @rackhamgreg

© Posted by Rackham for Im Talkin Games with 3 comments on 05/23/2010.
Posted in: Comics, Featured Tags: GRATS!

A lot of my articles and comics that I work on deal with that elusive topic of immersion. That is the concept of just how much a video game draws you in and makes you feel a part of whatever world the developers worked so hard to create. Some games have good immersion. Some games do not.

One measurement of a game’s level of immersion is to look at the quality of the voice acting. As technology has increased the quality of the graphics, so have the fans’ expectations for voice overs.

Voice overs for games are a fairly recent thing. It wasn’t that long ago when we were perfectly happy just having our dialogue text appear on-screen. The Legend of Zelda series is a good example of this. We happily followed Link along on his many adventures, but by the time Twilight Princess came out, there was a bit of debate over the lack of voice overs in the game. The game still sold really well, but expectations for voice work had changed by then.

Even now more so than ever, big game developers are pressured to bring in top notch voice actors to record dialogue for their games. Many of them are going so far as to pay for well known Hollywood actors to voice characters and, excuse the pun, speaking out about who’s voicing their game. Bioware’s Mass Effect 2 was practically a casting call from B and C list celebrities. They dropped more names than Randy Jackson at a party! Cryptic Studios also made an attempt to draw Star Trek fans in by making a last minute cash plug and bring Zachary Quinto and the great Leonard Nimoy to add their voices to the game.
Even the professional voice actors themselves are becoming celebrities in their own right. No longer just the “voice” behind a character, voice actors are being called out to fan conventions and swarmed by fans knowing their work and begging for them to demonstrate their vocal abilities. The last Blizzcon hosted a panel where some of the voice actors for Starcraft 2 were featured. Even Chris Metzen himself showcased some of the characters he has voiced over the years. (Thrall anyone?)

One such voice artist is my fellow Canadian, Scott McNeil. Recently interviewed on EP Daily (LINK – jump ahead to 10:49 for the voice acting feature or 12:01 to go directly to Scott’s segment), we got to see a small portion of Scott’s long history of work that includes voicing, Wolverine, Transformers, Care Bears, and even Dragon Ball Z. He is a fan favourite at every convention. My personal favourite (and I’m sure many others too) was his voice work for the Goblins in Warhammer Online (Ah ye stupid gits!). In fact, if ever there was a perfect voice for Goblins in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, Scott would be it!

Bioware seeks to raise the expectations even further by fully voicing Star Wars: The Old Republic in every aspect of the game. Hiring hundreds of voice actors, Bioware hopes to once again set a new standard by which voice overs in games are measured. Although they managed to get the great Lance Henriksen to voice their Holonet features, they haven’t stated yet whether more celebrities will be called in to add their voices. Given the amount of voice production they did for Mass Effect 2 and their goal to make SWTOR as immersive as possible, I wouldn’t be surprised if they brought in some big names. Who knows, maybe Luke Skywalker himself will add his personal vocal touch?

I have no doubt that Bioware will once again blow our expectations out of the water and voice actors all over the world can cry out in joy. You’ll have lots of work for many years to come.

On that note, I leave you all with my favourite voice over sample of all time from several years back. Mr. Movie Voice himself doing the trailer for a Jerry Seinfeld movie, Comedian:

© Posted by Rackham for Im Talkin Games with 2 comments on 05/09/2010.
Posted in: Comics, Featured Tags:

As World of Warcraft: Cataclysm nears, I find myself pondering what things we can expect not already announced by the folks at Blizzard.

Will there be any cool new features that will shock us on release? Let’s hope so.

As I while away the time waiting, I’ve come up with a list of “blue sky” features that I can almost guarantee will NOT be in the expansion. These are completely fake and preposterous notions brewed up in my mind whilst playing in WoW.

So humour me as I present to you my:

TOP 10 MOST UNLIKELY FEATURES of CATACLYSM:

1. A new hero class will be introduced: Magelock – combining the abilities of Mage and Warlock into one class. The rivalries can now cease!
2. The new Worgen dance emote will be from Teen Wolf
3. The new Goblin dance emote will be the break dancing
4. All variations of the name “Quark” will be banned for Goblins
5. All variations of the name “Jacob” will be banned for Worgen
6. A new style of PVP and guild housing will be introduced called Guild vs Guild (GvG) where rival guilds can attack each others’ guild home base.
7. If a player gets kicked from a PUG three times in a single day, their character will have a large “L” hover over their head for the rest of the day.
8. Paladins will be nerfed, just for kicks.
9. Pandaren Monks will be introduced into the game, but you’ll need to have a level 80 of each class to unlock it, but damn will it be worth it!
10. If you unlock the Pandaren Monk, the game will automatically shut down and the following message will appear every time you try to log back in:

“You have completed this game, now go get some damn sunshine”

- Rackham

© Posted by Rackham for Im Talkin Games with One comment on 03/16/2010.
Posted in: Comics, Fail, Featured, Funny Tags: Blizzard Entertainment, Cataclysm, World of Warcraft

We are in an age of stagnant online entertainment my friends. We now live in a time where creativity and innovation have been trashed for statistics, mindless grinds, and false achievements. Story and plot have taken a backseat to repetition and grinds. We are players in games where the destination is now more important than the journey. We are a people starved for innovation and lacking the key narrative element.

Read on my friends and I shall try my best to discuss what’s been bothering me and many others regarding this famine of RPGs.

World of Warcraft is a lazy dungeon master. Rather than mystify us with smoke and mirrors and throw red herrings at us to veer us from our path, WoW simply just tells us to go kill a certain number of this monster, grab components from that mob, or deliver a parcel to this NPC. WoW does not make us guess or have choice in our game. There is no mysterious figure lurking in the shadows or some hidden force with evil motives placing pawns in our way. Nope. Things are pretty cut ‘n dry in World of Warcraft.

We’ve often compared MMORPGs to their roots from tabletop and pen ‘n paper games, but how often have we turned the tables (excuse the pun) and looked at how MMOs these days would be translated into a pen and paper game? How would WoW measure up as a pen and paper game? I know Warcraft has a PnP based game out there, but it’s using a core ruleset based off of White Wolf’s previous games. How would the MMO as we know it measure up in a basement of people crowded around a table with only paper, dice, and their imaginations to drive the adventure? After killing ten rats, twelve boars, and finding ten red silk bandannas, we’d be pretty bored out of our tree.

MMORPGs have now been sterilized down to simple move and click combat simulations. Immersion is no longer a design decision and placed on the backburner in terms of priorities. Questing has been turned into a factory-line repetitive grind. Gone are the RPG components of these games and they’re now being referred to as simply MMOs. How did we come so far from those ancient days huddled around tables, tossing dice like they were made of molten lead, and using our *gasp* imaginations?

Some MMOs (yes I’ll use that term now) have tried and to some degree have been successful. With Lord of the Rings Online, Turbine has been unparalleled in their ability to mix the almost sacred stories of J.R.R. Tolkien directly with their gameplay. Their opening sequence for new characters is fantastic as it starts you right off talking with key characters and making you feel like you’re taking part in something heroic.

Even the free to play Dungeons and Dragons Online: Unlimited manages to sneak some key elements into their gameplay. Facing a dungeon instance and having a narrator tell you: “You wish these bones were a little cleaner. The air reeks of rotting meat.” – you know that something is amiss!

This has been a fairly common topic these days as the MMO field has grown rather stagnant these past two years. Many folks like Scarybooster and the guys over at Ten Ton Hammer are screaming for something better and innovative than grind fests like WoW. Syp over at Bio Break longs for those pen and paper days where imagination was the driving force.

It’s funny because one of the initial sparks was single-player games like Bioware’s: Dragon Age, where people got to see what story meant to a game and how good immersion truly can be. Maybe if enough people talk about it, MMO developers will finally listen?

We need to make our demands. We need to demand that story and plot get put back in our MMOs. That we can once again label them as MMORPGs with confidence! Developers throw us some curveballs and don’t be afraid to mix things up now and then. Why not place some traps and red herrings along our path and see if we’re intelligent enough to find a solution? Have us use our brains and, more importantly, use our imaginations!

Having said all this, there are some hopes on the horizon. Many out there just might be seeking to destroy the current MMO mould. One popular example, Star Wars the Old Republic, totes itself as a fully story driven MMO. Here’s hoping they succeed with that. With fully voiced quest lines, and separate quest chains for each class, they’re evidently on the right track, but will that immersion carry through the rest of the game? Will we see an MMORPG out there that breaks out expectations and really makes us pause and think about our next step? Will we have an MMORPG with decision based consequences?

I feel we’re on the verge of a new way of thinking. Here’s hoping that having enough people talk about this, it will make it clear to developers they can start taking risks. Here’s hoping we’ll see a new generation of games over the next couple of years that simply blow our notions of what an MMORPG truly should be.

My imagination is bored and longs for something better. Let’s hope it will find it soon.

Want to stay up to date on Rackham’s posts? Follow me on Twitter @RackhamGreg

© Posted by Rackham for Im Talkin Games with 3 comments on 02/01/2010.
Posted in: Comics, Commentary, Featured, Opinion Tags:

Ahhh, the Red Shirts. Just like the expendable Star Wars clones and droids, red shirted Starfleet officers were created solely to act as the “casualties of war” during away missions. During the Original Series, they were the security officers, but then the Next Generation broke with that tradition by having red uniforms being that of tactical and command. At least they kept part of the original tradition by sacrificing a few red-shirted officers every now and then!

There has been quite a bit of buzz around the upcoming release of the new MMO, Star Trek Online. Both good and bad reviews. A majority of the complaints I’ve been reading is surrounding whether or not Crytic has captured the true “Star Trek” feel. Does it feel like you’re actually in Star Trek or is it just a combat oriented shooting gallery with Trek-style cutouts?

Another complaint is that Cryptic did such a good job in the space battles, that the ground missions seem
clumsy, awkward and sluggish. Could it be that we as MMO players are just so used to the “kill ten rats” scenario and running around on foot that the space battles are a new refreshing break from that typical model?

Speaking of “Kill ten rats“, a few folks have stated their dissapointment that the Borg are your initial default trash mob (albeit “broken” Borg). I can understand Crytic’s reasoning for this as the Borg appear to be the primary threat in space at this time in Star Trek history. Since there are no rats or boars in space, it makes perfect sense to me to use Borg!

Now I should note, I’m a fan but not one of those die-hard extreme fans of Star Trek. People who know me would know I am not fully versed in Klingon and I would not know the Star Trek timeline to heart. – Or you would have noticed I have one of the ensigns holding a non-standard issue rifle that doesn’t occur from the Original Series era

However, I do know the meaning on the phrases: “Make it so, Number One” and “Dammit Jim! I’m a doctor not a physicist!“, and the humour in the word: “Sabotage“.

I know enough of Star Trek to understand the aliens, the ships, and the pop culture. I’ve watched the shows
with a passion (DS9 is my favourite) and I can say I’ve been to at least one Star Trek convention (although not in costume).

Either way, I’m enough of a Star Trek geek to go out and purchase the game regardless of the complaints from Open and Closed Beta. As many have said, Cryptic can count on many people like me to base their decision solely on the fact that its Star Trek and that alone. For myself, I’ll give it at least a month or two of playing to see how the game develops. As a Star Trek fan, I HAVE to experience exploring space in my own ship. I HAVE to walk through Deep Space 9. I HAVE to see where Cryptic takes this game after release. They have already stated that they plan to do a further content release 45 days after launch. I think for many, this will be the tell-tale time for Cryptic to step up to the plate and show us all what they’ve got.

I have even avoided ruining my impressions of the game by not participating in either of the Beta tests. I did
get an Open Beta key, but I decided to wait for release and experience the game as Cryptic intends it. I’ve done that in the past where a game has come out and I’ve already had frustrations with bugs and errors from beta. LOTRO was one case of that, although their release went fairly smoothly overall. For me, I’ll be approaching this game knowing it will not be perfect on release, but willing to see how the game evolves after release.

The timing couldn’t be better for Cryptic as well. Now that we’ve been told not to expect Star Wars: The Old Republic until 2011, Cryptic has a huge window of opportunity to gain some subscribers over this lull in the MMO market. Even Cataclysm won’t be released until most likely the fall of this year, so that gives Cryptic a good 6-7 months to perfect the game and provide enough incentive for players to stay.

Want to stay up to date on Rackham’s posts? Follow me on Twitter @RackhamGreg

© Posted by Rackham for Im Talkin Games with 2 comments on 01/16/2010.
Posted in: Comics, Featured, Funny, Misc Tags: Cryptic, Star Trek Online

As Santa’s elves load up his sleigh in preparation for tonight’s Christmas present deliveries, gamers the world around the world are wishing that BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Repbulic could be something they’d get under their tree. Too bad that isn’t going to happen this Christmas, but we all remain hopeful for next year.

While the game may not be coming just yet, we wondered how the Sith might celebrate the holidays, and Rackham delivered the imagery to help us understand the dark side of the holidays. May 2010 be as fun for you all as it was for us.

From all the staff at ITG, have a happy holiday season!

- br3ntbr0

© Posted by Rackham for Im Talkin Games with 6 comments on 12/24/2009.
Posted in: Comics, Featured, Misc, Uncategorized Tags:

Ah, the fabled quest. That one activity that’s prevalent through many games, both single player RPGs and MMOs. How far the “quest” has come from its early days.

Not to sound like an old man, but in my day we had to trudge across miles in Azeroth with no mount, and the snow weather system wasn’t even invented in the game yet! We had to read the quest log to get our clues! None of these fancy dancy wikis or quest helper mods were around to help us and none of those prissy sparkles to highlight a quest item! And when we finally returned back to the quest giver after running for days, all we got was 32 silver! And we did that hundreds of times because that’s the way it was and we liked it! We loved it!

The chat channels were always pounded by people asking for directions to certain quest areas or screaming for help to kill some elite mobs. There was no LFG interface then either, just the general and trade chat channels.

For any class-specific quests, players usually groaned at having to run around the zones in what inevitably meant hours of playtime devoted to those arduous quests. Need I remind you Shamans about the Call of Water quest chain?

Quest sparklies were not out yet then either. I remember spending hours in the Hinterlands as a herbalist, trying to spot the elusive Sungrass in amongst all the green grass texture. Looking back on that now, I think about all that time wasted. However back then, I willingly accepted that as just part of the game.

Nowadays we’re presented with an overwhelming amount of quest assistance. The quest window interface has gone through several changes as well to make the quest process easier and easier with each patch. The most recent patch 3.3 has adopted the quest map markers taken from many MMOs like Warhammer Online’s Tome of Knowledge and mods like the ever popular QuestHelper.

In addition to in-game assistance, there are now a multitude of game wikis and game databases out there that contain all the secrets and directions for any quest in the game. Have trouble finding a particular mob? In the past, it would mean screaming across the channels in hopes that someone else had found it. Nowadays, if you don’t alt-tab to one of these sites, you’ll get screamed at for being a noob who wastes everyone’s time. Ah, how far we’ve come along.

Why make the game easier?

With each development decision, game developers strive to make the quest process easier and less time consuming. Blizzard is infamous for this by “dumbing down” World of Warcraft by including with each patch quicker ways for people to level up. Whether it be including more and more quest assistance, allowing mounts at earlier levels, or even going as far as reducing the XP requirements per level.

Remember all those elite non-instance mobs you had to kill back in the day? Remember the Ruins of Alterac or Andorhal in the Western Plaguelands? Today, most of those mobs have been normalized and you’d be hard-pressed to see anything elite outside of a dungeon. Even dungeon bosses have had their HP reduced dramatically with each new expansion.

All of this is in response to players wanting their gaming experience to be quicker and easier. Where in the past it would have taken someone months to get a character to 60, now people seem to roll new alts to 60 within a matter of days and to 80 within a couple of weeks.

What does all this say about our society and expectations in games these days? Have our attention spans dropped that dramatically that game developers are willing to strip the challenge from their games? Or is it more an issue that the developers, in effort to keep players involved in their games, pave roads to each quest objective with bright neon signs and floating arrows? Personally I think it’s a little of both.

Part of me wonders if games of the future will eliminate quests entirely. If players are so eager to rush through these quests, why not just dump the whole mechanic and do something new? Part of me does worry that this might be the case, but I think we’ll see another evolution to the quest mechanic eventually. One example of this creative thinking is the steps Bioware is taking with SWTOR. By having fully voiced interactions with NPCs, we may just see players wanting to slow down and experience each quest like we did in the old days. Just like the motivation WoW players have for the Wrathgate questline.

In a way, we’re falling back to the roots of RPGs. Bringing back a focus on storyline and lore, rather than XP bonuses and mob kills. Maybe it won’t be so bad to spend hours doing one quest? Maybe it will become the new way and maybe we’ll love it!

- Rackham

© Posted by Rackham for Im Talkin Games with 7 comments on 12/09/2009.
Posted in: Comics, Featured, Funny Tags: BioWare, Star Wars: The Old Repbulic, World of Warcraft

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened. Could it be because I have returned to creating web comics and blogs? Quite possibly.

First, let me make some introductions. I’m Greg Moran, a.k.a. Rackham, the newest addition to the I’m Talkin Games family. To quote Troy McClure, you may remember me from such former blogs as the Warhammer Online web-comic, Tome of Knowledge. During that time I wrote commentaries on the status of WAR with a strong emphasis on the lore and story in the Warhammer world. When I stopped playing WAR back in March I closed down my blog but continued on in other games including the ever popular World of Warcraft, and yes, even Wizards101. Still feeling the itch to write and draw web comics, I jumped at the chance when the ever great, br3ntbr0, offered me a place among his crack team of elite bloggers (team uniforms are sure to follow!).

So here is the first issue of a regular web comic feature I’m calling GRATS! You can expect to see in this comic all things gaming and geek all rendered in digital art form. I’m wanting to poke fun at everything from “Star Trek vs. Star Wars” to MMO gamer culture. I’m hoping to post these up in a regular fashion so be sure to check back often for future issues!

As my first comic suggests, I’m eagerly awaiting several things on the gaming horizon. World of Warcraft takes up my current Triple-A MMO slot at the moment with the upcoming Cataclysm expansion high on my list of things to buy. Keeping within the Blizzard family, Diablo 3, is also looking too good to pass up. Who doesn’t want to lay out some mindless, mouse-clicking frenzy, mayhem as the Monk, Barbarian, Mage, or Witch Doctor?

As my comic also suggests, the Force is strong in me. It must be, because where else would I get the strength to resist marching down to Bioware, crash down those doors, and absorb every ounce of Star Wars: The Old Republic goodness that they are cooking down there? Everything I have seen from this game has caused that young 10 year old in me with star wars bedsheets to squeal in joy. For a time I couldn’t decide between this MMO and Star Trek Online, but lightsabers beat out phasers for this geek. The jury is still out on whether I’ll go Republic or Empire, but I’m looking at everything with heavy anticipation. I still have my doubts though. We have all seen such promise before with other games only to leave disappointed or frustrated. Only time will tell. Only then will we see if Balance returns to the Force.

Until then you can find me mostly in Azeroth, but also playing in Wizards101 with my son. And be sure to keep watch for me here for more web comics!

- Rackham

© Posted by Rackham for Im Talkin Games with 8 comments on 11/30/2009.
Posted in: Comics, Featured, Funny Tags: BioWare, Blizzard, Cataclysm, GRATS!, Star Wars: The Old Repbulic, World of Warcraft

Before you get your hate-inspired Nerd Rage on and spam the comment section with “nOOb” “lul l2p” or w/e form of nerd rage vernacular you might care to use, just hear me out. I know and understand that frost spec is the most commonly used spec,   and also the most widely accepted spec for PvP.  I want to talk about fire and the insane amount of pwnage that goes on with this spec after level 50. I know 50 levels of sucking hard and dieing a lot because you keep missing your target even though its only 1 level above you is enough to roll a Warlock (or even a LOLadin)…ugh.

I’ve leveled Salsaverde as fire from day one, and let me tell you – it was tough.  I normally don’t instance until Outlands and Northernd, so gear in Azeroth is scarce at best, but it’s there if you know where to look and or have higher level friends that can run you through instances.  You shouldn’t really have any trouble getting decent gear.  If not, you may want to check out Wowhead.com or just use google to find other related sites. I’d at least try to run RFC if you are Horde (Alliance, I’m sorry you guys will just have to quest). The problem really comes in when most other classes start to hit their stride, about level 25-30ish. “Miss”, “Avoid”, “blah,blah” these 2 words become more common then a balance Druid spamming OOM!

Well, when I started this little blurb about my fire mage, she had just gotten into Outlands at level 58 with level 40-ish gear but now that I’m 63 almost 64 with full Outlands greens and some blues, (armory link) fire spec is picking up very nicely. Once you hit 50 and get Dragon’s Breath things start to happen. Proc’s start proc’ing more, your mana pool starts to diminish even faster, but at the same time mobs start to die, and die with style and grace, one after the other! Its really glorious!

Time to get into some analysis on why I decided to level as fire instead of frost.  It all started with my rogue 3 years ago. I was leveling combat as was the status quo then.  My friend (who was also leveling a rogue) had gone a different route since he was more proficient with the game then I was at the time.  It was better suited for him to try other specs and see what he liked. In fact all of my Wow friends were PvP’ers, which is probably how I became so addicted to PvP.

My friend was subtlety spec and really just had an eye and understanding for what worked for him.  In PvP I’d watch him dance circles around other players 3-4 levels higher than him, and it was just really something to see.  Knowing that being the odd spec can throw off your opponent, most players will assume that you are the most common or popular spec out there. This gives you an advantage and handicap all in one cup.  Other players will know what to expect and how to counter your most powerful moves, given the chance. The other side of  the spectrum is playing the less popular spec, which in turn may or may not be as versatile, causing you to be the underdog in PvP.

Here is a pretty decent fire mage video, hope you enjoy it:

The Element of surprise can be a tide turning effect. Given some class and gear imbalances that are currently present in Wow, you will more than likely need to get re-adjusted to your new spec. Practice, practice and more…practice!  I know that for now I’m loving fire spec, and that its good for raiding too, so that holds promise for saving on a re-spec at level 80. I also plan to test out Arcane Shatter spec which has been getting some attention in the mage forums and some mage blogs I’ve read.  By the time I reach max level I’m sure that a new patch and talent/ability adjustments will have made AS a passing spec. So it should work out perfectly for me.

Final thoughts on leveling as a Fire Mage: Meh.   It’s OK.  To be completely honest, I’d stick to frost until 50 or 60, and then go fire as you will have the talents/gear to really have a Blast! I’ll be Posting more on my Mage and other Wow related topics, until I pick up another game that interests me, or until something tickles my fancy that I feel inclined to write about.  Side Note: I’d really like to shoot some footage of my mage in BG-pvp and world pvp, but my PC is in a craptastic state right now, and am in the processes of looking into a Alienware M16 or M17. I’m not sure which one is the really good one that is out right now, but I have hopes on either getting a desktop replacement comp or going with a custom built rig for gaming. Maybe for Christmas I’ll get some extra $$ to splurge on one!

Here’s to wishful thinking.

~Kaldeem

© Posted by Kaldeem for Im Talkin Games with 4 comments on 11/12/2009.
Posted in: Comics, Opinion Tags: Mage, PVP, World of Warcraft, WoW