Lasereth

Some of it is the regular mumbo jumbo (most of the forum idiots say that each and every WoW patch "destroys" the game), but some of it is very drastic. The two biggest changes are the death penalty and the incorporation of reagents into caster spells.

If you die, all of your items lose 10% durability, even items not equipped. It costs a certain amount of money to repair these items. If they get to 0% durability, their beneficial effects such as armor rating, stats, etc. are negated. Items do not lose power until 0%. They don't "break" at 0% either...it's impossible to lose an item from durability. The bad part? Repairing items can be very expensive, especially if did over and over and over...and the true problem surfaces! I've PVP'ed between Southshore and Tarren Mill for hours at a time and died more than 10 times. That means for every 1-2 hours on a PVP server you may have to completely repair your armor which is VERY expensive. At level 50+, repairing all of the items in your inventory takes more than 3-5 GOLD.

Furthermore, instead of the Spirit Healer taking experience to revive you (if you choose the SH, you can always run to your corpse for no penalty), it now simply makes all of your items at 0% durability and puts a 30 minute resurrection sickness on you that seriously cripples your ability to fight. Like I said, it takes 3-5 gold to repair your armor now, so every SH rez is gonna cost a ton of money and leave you crippled for 30 minutes.

Ok, so the durability thing is gonna cost a lot of money and PVP'ers are gonna be more chicken-shit now because they don't wanna die. I could probably live with that without too much complaining. But wait! There's more!

Blizzard has the notion that casters should use items to cast some of their spells. Warlocks already do this to a certain extent. I wouldn't mind a caster having to use an item to cast a spell if the item was relatively cheap. You know, maybe 50 copper per buff, or 1 silver to teleport?

No. Mages now have to spend 20 SILVER to teleport their group and 10 SILVER to self-teleport. Mages get the self-port spell at level 20. Asking a level 20 to spend 10s to teleport is basically asking them to wipe out half of their bank account. 20s for a group teleport is almost as bad...but you can charge people for this and ask your group members to help pay for the reagent needed. BUT 10S FOR SELF-PORT??? Mages are NEVER gonna self-port now.

On top of that, all of the major caster-buffs cost money to cast after rank 4. It costs 7-20 silver for the items needed to cast caster buffs for every person. Why am I gonna buff my entire party if it takes 1 gold per hour? 1 gold is just about what I make on the average DAY. These new reagents needed to cast the buff spells are wasting everyone's gold supply.

So basically, I'm still gonna play the game and enjoy it, but these changes seriously affect the gameplay (especially the reagents). My solution would be making the reagents cost 50c for buffs and 1s for self-port and leave group port at 20s (group members can help pay for it). If Blizzard doesn't change this then no one is ever going to cast a rank 4 buff spell on anyone in the game (even themselves) ever again. Mages aren't gonna self-port anymore. It's basically ruining the advantage that caster classes had.

I'm guessing that Blizzard is gonna change the whole reagent thing...a thread was created on the WoW forums and the thread hit 25 pages in <I>two hours</I>.

-Lasereth

__________________
"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert