Majority Rules? Cataclysm Changes Continue, Starcraft II

With new traffic and new changes coming to TwinkInfo, I am now both blogging and moderating in full force. So mostly what you will see is 49s information on the front page, as well as my own musings and maybe some information about Blizzard and 80s content. A blog is a blog, and if you want to read it, that’s your choice. If you’re not happy about what I write, just move on to our forums.

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty

The highly anticipated RTS finally arrived this past Monday (poor Starcraft: Ghost… who else was/is mad that that game never made it out of development).

I have never been a huge RTS player except for the really old school Command and Conquer games. Unfortunately unless my friends really get into it, I probably will not buy it until it goes down in price. I did however get to play around with the game at my workplace where people were playing over lunch break. The graphics are fantastic, and the game play will be quite satisfying for any RTS lover.

One of the largest complaints about Starcraft II has been the lack of LAN support, which I can agree with. Going to high school, we had many LAN events and offline play, which is amazingly fun (yes I’m quite nerdy). I remember a huge section of Starcraft players sitting right next to the original Counterstrike group (including myself). Now that Blizzard is set on Battlenet, you have to have an internet connection to be able to play their games online and with your friends. Let’s just say that 20 people on a LAN that’s trying to feed into the internet is going to create many headaches. So therefore, if your friends want to get together and have a LAN party, you better pick the house with the best bandwidth and no relatives downloading porn.

On the same note however, is Blizzard truly pushing for connectivity with the people you play with? Or by forcing us to play in our own home for maximum connectivity, are they killing the old LAN environment that many of us hold so dear? It’s understandable that we are in new times now… perhaps it’s time to give up the LAN and play while talking over vent/skype.

Cataclysm Changes Continue

Instead of posting every single change that I see, because you can read it all elsewhere, I will post a few links that should help you navigate to things that you want to find. There have been many arguments on which talent calculator or item database is better/more accurate and I recommend using MMO-champion’s database for items, and Wowhead’s talent calculator. MMO-champion’s main page is still the best for information however.

Keep your eye out for more front page posts about changes as we get closer to Cataclysm’s release and out of closed Beta.

Mmo-champion home // Mmo-champion's Item Database // Mmo-champion's Talent Calculator

Wowhead Cataclysm Home // Wowhead Talent Calculator

Majority Rules in 49s?

Last night as I was dotting people up in WSG, I watched a group of 4 warriors on our team basically stomp over their entire midfield crew. Normally 1-2 warriors are fairly easy to handle and kite, but the difficulty of peeling 4 warriors off of a target is almost impossible. While 2 warriors and 2 <insert any class here> may not have been able to pull off such a feat with such grace (or just wtfpwned), 4 warriors were able to waltz over what looked like a fight that would last quite a while.

Perhaps it’s not fair to say that a singular class has the best synergy with itself. In Arenas, you normally want a mix of classes who can all do different things and bring certain class abilities to the table. However, in Warsong, there are many instances where having many of one class would trump having a complete mix of other classes. I’m sure 19s can relate to this, even 29s and 39s. More Hunters… am I right? Don’t worry…we complain about hunter stacking in 49s as well.

When you look at the scoreboard before the game begins to see what and who you’re going up against, you do a mental calculation to “Watch out for so-and-so” or “Hey there’s a rogue, we gotta flare”. When you have multiples of a certain class however, they work to become a completely overpowered combination that your team can’t break. I mean who wants to go up in a midfield brawl with 3-4 hunters and a pocket disc priest when your team is two mages, a warlock, and a squishy resto druid that you really have to peel and help while you can’t even touch the priest because of all the incoming damage when you move into range.

When you have a single rogue to deal with, their ability to help their teammates control the field is diminished. When there are 2-4 rogues on the field however, you have no idea what is going to happen or where one or two of them may pop up. While their damage is good alone, backed with another rogue… they become a presence on the field that you have to always watch for.

I’m probably rambling by now so I’ll attempt to wrap it up gracefully. While brackets contend with classes like hunters which are vastly overplayed at every bracket level, there is the potential for other single classes to group up and play a dominant role on the field. The theory probably doesn’t stand true with all brackets and obviously not all classes (lolferaldruids @49), however the potential is definitely there. Balroy and I had a good laugh about his ideal WSG team of two paladins, two hunters, and six elemental shamans. Then we sobered… because ideally that was completely overpowered.

I leave you with a link to the history of Blizzard and Activision’s merger.

Related posts:

1. How Yin/Yang Can Help Hunter OP’ness
2. Cataclysm: Talent Tree Revamp
3. Managing Cataclysm – Day 2
4. [49] State of the Union
5. Cataclysm: The Rebirth of Twinking? Part 2