Tag Archives: fantasy

The Great Warlock Tank Debate

Posted on by
4

The Great Warlock Tank Debate:

You may recall me recently mentioning the revelation that warlocks could tank in the World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria beta via the “glyph of demon hunting.” It caused a bigger stir than almost anything else from MoP, and warlocks everywhere dropped to their knees and thanked their dark gods that their prayers had finally been answered.

Not only did lock tanking work, it also turned out to be freakishly over-powered. Soloing Dragon Soul bosses over-powered. But hey, it’s the beta. Still plenty of time to balance.

But then, tragedy struck. After many days of rejoicing, Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street — WoW’s lead systems designer and the world’s least popular oceanographer — posted on the forums to say that warlocks are not intended to tank, and the glyph’s goal was to give them an “Oh, ****” CD in the event of tank death, similar to an arms warrior throwing on a shield and off-tanking. The fact that this almost never works has been mentioned by a few people pretty much everyone.

The glyph has now been updated to allow for something called threatening presence, a second version of metamorphasis that gives demonology warlocks a tank toolset at the cost of DPS much like the original glyph. However, to switch from metamorphasis to TP requires leaving meta and waiting ten seconds

Threatening presence is, to put it simply, fracked up beyond all belief. Reportedly, it’s still letting people main tank, the CD makes it completely useless for the intended “clutch tank” design, and the ability to swap between DPS and tank is exactly the kind of PvP-breaking shenanigans that made them split feral druids into two specs.

Cat durid is 4 fiteI haven’t followed a beta closely before. Do they always make this little sense?

So this has sparked a massive outcry among the fans. People are arguing, begging, and pleading for the original glyph to be brought back and for warlocks to be recognized as a tanking class, complete with the ability to queue as such in the Dungeon Finder. And I must admit, they make a good case.

Let’s break it down:

-Warlock tanks work. Most of the changes needed to make them viable have already been done. The guy who soloed Morchok proved that pretty well.

-Warlocks have always been the most tank-like caster and have been used as tanks in encounters with unusual mechanics, such as the Blood Council in Icecrown Citadel, for years. They even had a taunt and some other basic tanking tools back in Wrath.

The Blood Prince Council from Icecrown Citadel-One of Ghostrawler’s concerns is that he feels tank specs should have to use different gear from a DPS spec of the same class. But aside from the whole “bear druids say hi” argument, this can be easily fixed. Make the glyph convert spirit to dodge, and we’re golden.

-Warlock tanks are based entirely on mitigation, which is over-powered compared to other tanks. A simple solution is to nerf their mitigation and add an avoidance mechanic, like the aforementioned spirit = dodge.

-The current design of threatening presence will likely be extremely over-powered in PvP. The original glyph design would not be, because it forces someone to choose between DPS and tank before battle begins.

-Although exact numbers cannot be proven, it seems like most warlocks want the option to tank.

My take:

I think warlocks should be allowed to tank. But not for the same reasons as most. Tanking is not my favourite thing, and I’m lukewarm on the idea of tanking on my warlock.

But as someone with a passion for game design, I love the idea of a glyph to change roles. Aside from the fact that it’s a hell of a lot more interesting than the dull passive bonuses glyphs usually provide, this could be the ultimate solution to the pure versus hybrid debate.

You see, once upon a time, there was something called the “hybrid tax.” Classes with multiple roles were much less effective in those roles. But this mostly meant that hybrids were just brought along for buffs or gimmick fights and otherwise ignored, so Blizzard eventually made them as viable as pure classes.

But now we have a problem. Hybrids are much more versatile than pures, and lose nothing for being versatile, so what’s the advantage to being a pure? There isn’t one. A warlock is just a shadow priest who can’t heal, and a rogue is just a monk who can’t tank or heal.

A shadow priest showing off their shadow formTwo ideas are usually offered to solve this: fourth specs for all classes to add extra roles, or converting current pure specs to new roles. But the first is an insane design commitment — akin to making several new classes at once — and the second will just piss off people who play those specs now. I know I’d lose it if they went through with the idea of making combat rogues tanks.

The glyph offers a much more elegant solution. Warlocks could tank without losing a current spec or requiring entirely new abilities, flavour, and lore for a fourth spec. And if it works for them, it could work for other classes. The possibilities of glyphs like these are nearly endless: combat tanks, fire healers, shockadins, blood DPS, holy priest DPS, shaman tanks…

That’s why I want the original glyph of demon hunting back. It’s a beautifully elegant design with the potential to revolutionize the game.

I  have a much higher opinion of Ghostcrawler than most, but I think he dropped the ball here. Let the warlock experiment proceed, Greg. There’s so much to gain and so little to lose.

Edit: Oh, and I realize what the date is, but this isn’t an April Fools gag. Zergling Teaches Spelling is an April Fools gag.

Review: The Fallen Kings Cycle: The Dread + New Writing

Posted on by
1

Edit: Huh, apparently this is my 100th post. Well, I’ll be a monkey’s carbuncle.

Review: The Dread:

“The Dread” is the second book of Gail Z. Martin’s “Fallen Kings Cycle,” but that name really just stems from a change of publishers. In truth, this is the sixth book of her “Chronicles of the Necromancer” series. Before I give my thoughts on “The Dread,” let me give you a little retro review on the series to date, so as to have some context. Expect a few vague spoilers.

Cover art for "The Fallen Kings Cycle, book two: The Dread" by Gail Z. Martin“The Chronicles of the Necromancer” is an interesting hybrid of dark fantasy and high fantasy. The style of the story is very much in the high fantasy vein, full of wizards and epic conflict, but the setting is more dark fantasy. Instead of Elves and Dwarves, the land is populated by vampires (they’re called vayash moru in this series, and they do not sparkle), werewolves (called vyrkin), and various forms of vengeful dead.

It is the story of Martris (or “Tris”) Drayke, the king of the nation of Margolan, one of the Winter Kingdoms. He is also the first Summoner — or necromancer — in a generation, making him a mage of virtually unmatched power.

The series began with Tris as the second son of Margolan’s king, leading a peaceful life with no obligations or importance. This changed when his evil half-brother, Jared, and a dark wizard, Foor Arontala, murdered the rest of his family and forced Tris to become a fugitive.

As you would expect, Tris then went on an epic journey to free his kingdom from Jared’s depravities. Along the way, he learned to command his magic and gathered various allies: the warrior-princess of Isencroft, Kiara, whom he later married; the loyal palace guards, Soterius and Harrtuck; the gifted bard Carroway; the fiery healer, Carina; and the crude mercenary, Jonmarc Vahanian.

If they sound like a cliche bunch of characters, I suppose they are, but they were likable enough for it to work. It should also be noted that Jonmarc has a very long and tragic past which grants him more complexity than I can properly communicate in this blog. In all honesty, I think Jonmarc may be the best reason to read the entirety of this series.

Between the likable characters, the spooky atmosphere, and the sheer vileness of Jared and Arontala, the first two books of this series — “The Summoner” and “The Blood King” — were very enjoyable, and I recommend them. My only major complaint was that Tris, as a light mage, could not raise the dead or do any of the cool stuff we generally associate with necromancers.

Cover art for "The Chronicles of the Necromancer, book one: The Summoner" by Gail Z. MartinUnfortunately, the rest of the series has not lived up to the quality of its beginning. Once Jared was defeated, the series got progressively more domesticated. The epic struggle was gone, and more and more attention was given to more “soap opera”-type storylines, like Tris and Kiara wringing their hands over her pregnancy.

The second two books, “Dark Haven” and “Dark Lady’s Chosen,” showed promise and were partly saved by Jonmarc being ridiculously badass at every possible opportunity, but they failed to deliver the kind of intensity they should have.

That brings us to “The Fallen Kings Cycle,” and its first book, “The Sworn.” Honestly, I can’t even remember what happened in this book very well. It set up a new threat, an invasion by the northern nation of Temnotta and their Dark Summoner. But that’s just the thing: all it did was set up. There was no punch, no real excitement.

In “The Dread,” Gail Martin makes a heroic effort to resurrect (See what I did there?) the action and intensity of the first books in the series, but she’s only partially successful.

What was once the strength of the series, its large cast of likable characters, has started to weigh it down. The cast has ballooned to an unwieldy size, and several of the characters seem to add little or nothing of value to the story. The book is painfully slow in getting going, and much of the first few hundred pages — these are big books — feels unnecessary.

Now, to be fair, the last few chapters of “The Dread” are actually pretty spectacular, showing the armies of the Winter Kingdoms, the vayash moru, the vyrkin, and even the ancient dead of centuries past rising up to face the Temnottan invasion. The true power of Summoners is in evidence as Tris battles his northern counterpart.

But it’s impossible to escape the feeling of “too little, too late,” and the Dark Summoner proves a disappointment, as well. Whereas Jared was lovingly crafted into a sociopath of the highest order, and even Malesh — the rogue vayash moru villain of the middle books — was passably intimidating as a villain, the Temnottan Dark Summoner is woefully underdeveloped to the point where even calling him a character and not a plot device is just inaccurate.

I can’t help but compare Gail Z. Martin to James Maxey. I started reading their books at around the same time, and I saw many parallels: they were originally with the same publisher, both tried to bring something new to the fantasy genre, and both had a lot of potential, despite being a bit rough around the edges.

As we saw with “Greatshadow,” James Maxey has improved greatly since his early career. But sadly, Gail Martin seems to be stagnating. I’d like to see her grow as much as Maxey has, but I’m losing hope.

Overall rating for “The Chronicles of Necromancer”: 7.2/10

Overall rating for “The Dread”: 6.3/10

New writing:

Weird Worm has posted another of my articles, “The Six Stages of Inspiration.” Despite their botching one of the image uploads, I think this is one of the best things I wrote for them. But maybe that’s just the narcissistic artist in me.