Alright, we all knew this day was coming. I wanted to ignore it because so many people are so fanatical about which console everyone else should be getting. Let me preface this by saying that I don't care which one you like better. All I ask is that you don't put your inhibitions on me. I'm gonna go by the three main ones now. Yes, the PS2 was one of the best consoles ever put out. But it's so old that I've seen one selling for $20.
Hardware:
Xbox 360 - The 360 came out a year before the Wii and the PS3. When the 360 came out though, it had the option of getting an HD DVD player. You could buy a wireless antenna and as such play online. It had one of the best graphics cards ever. All in all, for when the 360 came out. It was top of the line and definitely ready for anything games on the market. Those are the some of the pros for the 360.
Cons - The RROD. For those of you who don't know what that is. It is when there is a cooling failure in the workings of the 360 and it completely freezes up the entire console and you have to send your 360 back in to Microsoft. It ends up being more of a minor convenience because they have changed the warranty for that particular problem to 3 years instead of the one year warranty. Another hardware con is the whole disc drive thing. Apparently when Microsoft was making 360's they decided to skimp a little bit on the disc drive. They left out a small rubber piece that the Wii and the PS3 have in them. This piece costs about $.50 to put in. Now they have several class action lawsuits against them.
PS3:
Pros- The best processor to date. Honestly, nothing can hold up a stick to this consoles sheer power. It's like 50 computers in a computerized room doing computer stuff. It's incredible. The blue ray player is a huge huge HUGE benefit as well. While you can't necessarily tell when it comes to movies, the ability to put a potential 6 game disc onto 1 disc is definitely good news for the developers.
Cons- With so much power, the expense hits the buyer. No game has even approached the opportunity the ps3 has and therefore they all look about the same as the 360. The processor, while extremely powerful is about the same thing as one of those old supercomputers. You know the things. They took up a whole room, they were powerful and way ahead of their time, but they were only good for doing computations. The PS3 is only good for computing. It's funny because usually the mac users are the ones that proclaim that the PS3 is so superior, while the PS3, out of all the consoles, resembles a PC the most.
Wii - I'll just get this out of the way. Nintendo is wonderful at coming up with new designs. The N64 was way ahead of its time in regards to controllers and ingenuity. The same can be said about the Wii but on a hardware level, it's vastly inferior to the previous two.
That's about all I have time for at the moment. I will get other things in the following weeks.
~j
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Friday, December 19, 2008
Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock
To preface this review, I thoroughly enjoyed the first guitar hero game on the ps2 back in the day. Boston, David Bowie and Rob Zombie headed the superb playlist. I still listen to some of those songs and I loved the way everything was made. You actually felt like you were playing a guitar and helping out the band. Expert was hard, but it wasn't impossible. I would stay up till 4 in the morning so that I could unlock all the songs and get better. Yes, I was that guy when it came to guitar hero.
This one has changed everything about that. First of all, the playlist is horrible. Most of the songs I've never heard of, and I would have no wish to hear again. A lot of the songs are from bands that I knew or thought I did but they didn't have songs that I recognized. It seems like they took the hardest songs from a band that they could find. Should Tenacious D even be considered as a rock legend? Should Dragonforce?
This brings me to my next point. The joy of the first game was that the notes that you played actually made it sound like you were playing the song. If you missed a note then the whole song went awry. Now it feels like you're not even needed to play the song. Almost like the backup vocals. Or the tambourine player dude guy. Now the whole point of it is to react to the colors as they pass over the bar. There's no rhythm to the game anymore. I would do just as well without the sound as with.
I'll be in the middle of playing a song and suddenly a random note will pop up and you'll lose your 50 note streak. It's very frustrating. In fact the only song that felt like the old school was one I downloaded. It's the only song I'll continue playing on it and enjoy it. All the other songs are just meh. That one song is Top Gun's Theme song. And it actually feels like you're playing it. That is what GH3 should've been. Not some mish-mash of notes that you randomly have to play and hope you hit them. You should feel the rhythm and know when you need to strum.
~j
This one has changed everything about that. First of all, the playlist is horrible. Most of the songs I've never heard of, and I would have no wish to hear again. A lot of the songs are from bands that I knew or thought I did but they didn't have songs that I recognized. It seems like they took the hardest songs from a band that they could find. Should Tenacious D even be considered as a rock legend? Should Dragonforce?
This brings me to my next point. The joy of the first game was that the notes that you played actually made it sound like you were playing the song. If you missed a note then the whole song went awry. Now it feels like you're not even needed to play the song. Almost like the backup vocals. Or the tambourine player dude guy. Now the whole point of it is to react to the colors as they pass over the bar. There's no rhythm to the game anymore. I would do just as well without the sound as with.
I'll be in the middle of playing a song and suddenly a random note will pop up and you'll lose your 50 note streak. It's very frustrating. In fact the only song that felt like the old school was one I downloaded. It's the only song I'll continue playing on it and enjoy it. All the other songs are just meh. That one song is Top Gun's Theme song. And it actually feels like you're playing it. That is what GH3 should've been. Not some mish-mash of notes that you randomly have to play and hope you hit them. You should feel the rhythm and know when you need to strum.
~j
Friday, December 12, 2008
WARHAMMER Chronicles: Episode 11 - Cast bars and melee
Well, back from a 2 week hiatus I logged in on Friday night last week. Everything seemed a little drearier when I did but I'm gonna blame that on the fact that I was so doggone tired. Well, I logged in. Scenarios didn't pop for about 20 minutes. I'm not sure what the deal is here. I thought my server had a very high population and all that but for some reason or other no one wanted to play on Friday. It's probably WotLK from WoW destroying the WAR's playerbase.
Anyways, when I did finally get in to a scenario something strange happened. I couldn't heal anyone. Suddenly, even though I was back to mork specced I couldn't keep anyone up. I could barely keep myself up under attack from an IB that was wielding a 1 hander. If a BW decided to attack me I was a goner. I haven't experienced that since I first started playing a shaman and decided that INT + WP was better than wounds. I don't know why though. Tanks would die under my watch. A DoK was outhealing me. I couldn't do anything. That's when I figured it out:
My cast bar was bugged. Every single non-instant spell that I had took .5-2 seconds longer than it was supposed to. The cast bar would fill up. Then my character would sit there, wait for a few seconds, and then cast. It was the most frustrating thing as a healer I've ever experienced. No wonder other DoK's were better healers, all their heals are all instants. I got so fed up with it that I couldn't even enjoy Gork Sez Stop (I promise to write a post about the hilarity of this spell at some other time). I ended up rolling a black orc just to have a melee I could run around with.
I figured that since Melee had all instant attacks that they would have the advantage for the next few days. Well, I was right. What I was wrong about was that there were 20 million blackguards and KotBS running around and that meant there weren't any healers. So, I'm sitting there as a black orc and getting no heals and dying over and over again. It is a little frustrating at times.
All in all though, I really like the BO, I'll keep him along with my Marauder as fun little alts. I want to get my shaman to 40 though. At least they've fixed the cast bar by now.
~j
Anyways, when I did finally get in to a scenario something strange happened. I couldn't heal anyone. Suddenly, even though I was back to mork specced I couldn't keep anyone up. I could barely keep myself up under attack from an IB that was wielding a 1 hander. If a BW decided to attack me I was a goner. I haven't experienced that since I first started playing a shaman and decided that INT + WP was better than wounds. I don't know why though. Tanks would die under my watch. A DoK was outhealing me. I couldn't do anything. That's when I figured it out:
My cast bar was bugged. Every single non-instant spell that I had took .5-2 seconds longer than it was supposed to. The cast bar would fill up. Then my character would sit there, wait for a few seconds, and then cast. It was the most frustrating thing as a healer I've ever experienced. No wonder other DoK's were better healers, all their heals are all instants. I got so fed up with it that I couldn't even enjoy Gork Sez Stop (I promise to write a post about the hilarity of this spell at some other time). I ended up rolling a black orc just to have a melee I could run around with.
I figured that since Melee had all instant attacks that they would have the advantage for the next few days. Well, I was right. What I was wrong about was that there were 20 million blackguards and KotBS running around and that meant there weren't any healers. So, I'm sitting there as a black orc and getting no heals and dying over and over again. It is a little frustrating at times.
All in all though, I really like the BO, I'll keep him along with my Marauder as fun little alts. I want to get my shaman to 40 though. At least they've fixed the cast bar by now.
~j
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Guest post by TD on Left 4 Dead
As I have discussed with anyone who would listen, the zombie apocalypse will not catch me unawares. I have marked such places that would make good supply stores, which places to avoid, what places would make good fortifications, and how many women we would need to maintain genetic diversity. I also have a carefully hand-picked group of friends with which I plan to survive Armageddon, each bringing a uniqueness to the table that increases our group dynamic (sort of like Final Fantasy but less gay) thus furthering our chances of repopulation. Since training for the final days of human society is rather difficult to simulate, we have turned to Valve’s morbid co-op masterpiece, Left 4 Dead.
Like surviving the brain-hungry horde (or just really pissed off sick people, depending on your movie), Left 4 Dead is best tackled as a team. The single player is good and has excellent AI. That is all I shall say about masturbation mode. In a group is where the fun begins. I took this to a friend’s house and we played some split screen, which means we still had two AI controlled team mates (although we could have opted to bring some people in over XBLive). Fueled by Irish Car Bombs and Scotch--we’re multicultural--we picked our projectiles (I’m an automatic shotgun and molotov cocktail guy myself) and took on The Director.
“The Director” is really just a clever naming of the game’s dynamic placement system. Based on your performance, the number and difficulty of zombies will ebb and flow. Don’t think that playing badly means you get an easy game, its more concerned with pacing than it is with you surviving. But by simply naming the system, we now have an evil force. Sure there are masses of undead, scattered boss zombies and obstacles, but the real nemesis is The Director. Like mice in a maze, he leads us down dark allies only to be vomited on by slyly placed boomers or strangled to death by smokers hidden on foggy rooftops. Everything might be going just fine but suddenly the music spikes and mosh pits of angry undead come screaming at you from all the city’s orifices. Why? The Director decided you weren’t moving fast enough.
Much like the discussions at the water cooler in my future compound, war stories abound from a single play session. Remember that time when I was at 1 health point, limping along at half pace, yet we all still managed to slam the safe house door on a Director controlled horde of angry undead? What about the time you shot at a lone zombie but hit the car behind him, thus setting of its alarm and summoning his five hundred buddies? Remember me telling you witches really “aren’t that bad” when we encountered one? All these events happened in a single night of play. What kind of mayhem could we be up to given a week’s time?
Whether or not you intend to survive the coming cataclysm or become my prey, Left 4 Dead exemplifies Valves obsessive drive to create superior products. Made by guys who obviously watched a lot of movies, the music, lighting, grain, and hundreds of undead model types would make George Romero proud. And considering the massive success of their previous games (ahem, Counter Strike and Team Fortress) is it really any surprise?
~TD
Like surviving the brain-hungry horde (or just really pissed off sick people, depending on your movie), Left 4 Dead is best tackled as a team. The single player is good and has excellent AI. That is all I shall say about masturbation mode. In a group is where the fun begins. I took this to a friend’s house and we played some split screen, which means we still had two AI controlled team mates (although we could have opted to bring some people in over XBLive). Fueled by Irish Car Bombs and Scotch--we’re multicultural--we picked our projectiles (I’m an automatic shotgun and molotov cocktail guy myself) and took on The Director.
“The Director” is really just a clever naming of the game’s dynamic placement system. Based on your performance, the number and difficulty of zombies will ebb and flow. Don’t think that playing badly means you get an easy game, its more concerned with pacing than it is with you surviving. But by simply naming the system, we now have an evil force. Sure there are masses of undead, scattered boss zombies and obstacles, but the real nemesis is The Director. Like mice in a maze, he leads us down dark allies only to be vomited on by slyly placed boomers or strangled to death by smokers hidden on foggy rooftops. Everything might be going just fine but suddenly the music spikes and mosh pits of angry undead come screaming at you from all the city’s orifices. Why? The Director decided you weren’t moving fast enough.
Much like the discussions at the water cooler in my future compound, war stories abound from a single play session. Remember that time when I was at 1 health point, limping along at half pace, yet we all still managed to slam the safe house door on a Director controlled horde of angry undead? What about the time you shot at a lone zombie but hit the car behind him, thus setting of its alarm and summoning his five hundred buddies? Remember me telling you witches really “aren’t that bad” when we encountered one? All these events happened in a single night of play. What kind of mayhem could we be up to given a week’s time?
Whether or not you intend to survive the coming cataclysm or become my prey, Left 4 Dead exemplifies Valves obsessive drive to create superior products. Made by guys who obviously watched a lot of movies, the music, lighting, grain, and hundreds of undead model types would make George Romero proud. And considering the massive success of their previous games (ahem, Counter Strike and Team Fortress) is it really any surprise?
~TD
Thursday, November 20, 2008
WARHAMMER Chronicles: Episode 10 - Whining and Buffs, Tanks and Thanksgiving
Friday night I logged in hoping to achieve another rank on my shaman. I ended up doing so mainly through scenarios (of which we lost only 1 or 2 all night) and PvE grinding for influence rewards. I got my ranged staff (woot bugs!) so now I run around with two staffs on my back. I like the look of the ranged one better so it always warms my heart when my shaman pulls that one out when he's casting.
Well, Mythic has listened to its fanbase, or shall I say that Mythic listened to the healers. For the moment, I will get my reduced time big heal AND there will be no nerf to my HoT. This it amazing. I didn't think they would change it but I'm very happy they didn't. It provides a little more utility to my class with the instant casts. All I can say, if you want a buff, is go whine in the VN forums about how much your class sucks (Mark Jacobs will tell you to delete your character) and then they'll be looked into. Simple as that.
The biggest reason I did so well in scenarios was because tanks started popping out of the woodworks. I had close to 5 BO's in every single scenario. It was wonderful. I loved it and no one really died. The scenarios, if you queued quick enough were popping every 10 seconds. If you didn't queue quick enough you had to wait 20 minutes or so. There were times where I would walk into a scenario and Destruction would already be winning by 100 because no order had been able to show up. Ah, the good old days. I'll say it again, I love tanks.
Next week is Thanksgiving week, and I'll be out of town. I won't be able to play at all for a few weeks so any posts will have to wait.
~J
Well, Mythic has listened to its fanbase, or shall I say that Mythic listened to the healers. For the moment, I will get my reduced time big heal AND there will be no nerf to my HoT. This it amazing. I didn't think they would change it but I'm very happy they didn't. It provides a little more utility to my class with the instant casts. All I can say, if you want a buff, is go whine in the VN forums about how much your class sucks (Mark Jacobs will tell you to delete your character) and then they'll be looked into. Simple as that.
The biggest reason I did so well in scenarios was because tanks started popping out of the woodworks. I had close to 5 BO's in every single scenario. It was wonderful. I loved it and no one really died. The scenarios, if you queued quick enough were popping every 10 seconds. If you didn't queue quick enough you had to wait 20 minutes or so. There were times where I would walk into a scenario and Destruction would already be winning by 100 because no order had been able to show up. Ah, the good old days. I'll say it again, I love tanks.
Next week is Thanksgiving week, and I'll be out of town. I won't be able to play at all for a few weeks so any posts will have to wait.
~J
Thursday, November 13, 2008
WARHAMMER Chronicles: Episode 9 - Power Level service and BW vs. Marauders
Friday came and went, and I achieved what I set out to do. I gained 3 levels of Renown and two ranks. I am now 26 and well on my way to being the uber healer that shamans are required to be. How did I do this? Well here's the hint. Pick a level 31 sorceress friend. Preferably one that can actually do damage and kill people. Heal him out the wazzoo till he levels out of t3. Find another sorc friend and then repeat.
Me and two of my friends, a squig herder and that 31 sorceress, decided to group into scenarios. We won every single match we were in together and with the healing buff to renown again (thanks Mythic!) I was getting around 2k renown consistently. It was incredible, some of the most fun I've had in WAR since I started. I highly recommend actually playing with people. It makes the game more fun.
Well, after I had gotten to 26, with my sorc friend at 32 and playing his rank 13 WE, I decided to pick up my rank 7 marauder and just try him out for a little while. Now, I stopped playing him (if you recall) because there were so many snares going on without any ability to break them, that I was perpetually snared and couldn't do anything. But, I gave him another go and he, when used correctly, kicks butt. I had been playing a BW for a little while before this and found out what it means to have no survivability and huge damage. With the marauder, I got survivability by trading in the range damage with the big numbers. All I do now is look at which healer, runepriest or archmage, I want to kill and if I get within melee range of them and outlevel them at all (which at rank 10 isn't hard) I will kill them. Then it's the BWs turn and so on down the armor tree. I ended a T1 scenario with 24k damage. That's the most I've seen even with a well played SORC or BW. Luckily I had a bunch of healers and tanks to help out.
But why was it so much easier for my marauder than my BW? Well, I'm not gonna say it takes any more skill. Sure, I have to have position on my target, be within melee range and all that, but I have about 1k more health on my marauder than my BW. Also, and this is the biggest reason. The group makeup on destruction (no matter the server) is better than the order. Order plays 30-40% BW in almost any given scenario. Then they have 1 or 2 SW, 2 or 3 Engineers, 1 healer somtimes a low ranked one, a few witch hunters, and absolutely no tanks. Destruction, from my limited experience, has at least 1 usually 3 tanks, at least 3 healers, 2-6 sorcs/magus, 2 WE, 2, Marauders, and 2 DoK's. The balance is overwhelming. I get heals constantly on my marauder when I got none on my BW. Order is so much more about the big damage (another reason why they lose so often but have the most damage) that they don't care about winning.
It's not a difference in skill level, or maturity level (while the order do bitch and moan in scenario chat constantly while Destruction are either constructive or silent). It's entirely a mindset where the destruction want to have a balanced group, while the Order just want to have the best class. The heaviest played class is the BW, followed by the IB. Those are the two classes that grossly outclass their destruction counterparts or don't have a destruction counterpart. No one plays healers because people constantly claim that Order is inferior to destruction (check all the forums) so all the people wanting to play a healing class go destruction because the Order claim that their healers suck.
All in all, Order isn't any worse than destruction, they just don't work as a team together. That's pretty much the gist of it.
~J
Me and two of my friends, a squig herder and that 31 sorceress, decided to group into scenarios. We won every single match we were in together and with the healing buff to renown again (thanks Mythic!) I was getting around 2k renown consistently. It was incredible, some of the most fun I've had in WAR since I started. I highly recommend actually playing with people. It makes the game more fun.
Well, after I had gotten to 26, with my sorc friend at 32 and playing his rank 13 WE, I decided to pick up my rank 7 marauder and just try him out for a little while. Now, I stopped playing him (if you recall) because there were so many snares going on without any ability to break them, that I was perpetually snared and couldn't do anything. But, I gave him another go and he, when used correctly, kicks butt. I had been playing a BW for a little while before this and found out what it means to have no survivability and huge damage. With the marauder, I got survivability by trading in the range damage with the big numbers. All I do now is look at which healer, runepriest or archmage, I want to kill and if I get within melee range of them and outlevel them at all (which at rank 10 isn't hard) I will kill them. Then it's the BWs turn and so on down the armor tree. I ended a T1 scenario with 24k damage. That's the most I've seen even with a well played SORC or BW. Luckily I had a bunch of healers and tanks to help out.
But why was it so much easier for my marauder than my BW? Well, I'm not gonna say it takes any more skill. Sure, I have to have position on my target, be within melee range and all that, but I have about 1k more health on my marauder than my BW. Also, and this is the biggest reason. The group makeup on destruction (no matter the server) is better than the order. Order plays 30-40% BW in almost any given scenario. Then they have 1 or 2 SW, 2 or 3 Engineers, 1 healer somtimes a low ranked one, a few witch hunters, and absolutely no tanks. Destruction, from my limited experience, has at least 1 usually 3 tanks, at least 3 healers, 2-6 sorcs/magus, 2 WE, 2, Marauders, and 2 DoK's. The balance is overwhelming. I get heals constantly on my marauder when I got none on my BW. Order is so much more about the big damage (another reason why they lose so often but have the most damage) that they don't care about winning.
It's not a difference in skill level, or maturity level (while the order do bitch and moan in scenario chat constantly while Destruction are either constructive or silent). It's entirely a mindset where the destruction want to have a balanced group, while the Order just want to have the best class. The heaviest played class is the BW, followed by the IB. Those are the two classes that grossly outclass their destruction counterparts or don't have a destruction counterpart. No one plays healers because people constantly claim that Order is inferior to destruction (check all the forums) so all the people wanting to play a healing class go destruction because the Order claim that their healers suck.
All in all, Order isn't any worse than destruction, they just don't work as a team together. That's pretty much the gist of it.
~J
Friday, November 7, 2008
WARHAMMER Chronicles: Episode 8 - Patch 1.05, HoTs and Reroll thoughts
I know I know, I'm a day late, I was busy yesterday with school and the cold weather. Not an excuse but definitely a reason for being late.
Anyways, I heard/read some horrible news yesterday. Mythic has decided to make a few major changes with their characters. Put simply - They did a lot of good things. Playing with fire is majorly toned down on the BW, snares will now properly break, a few classes (SH, Magus, Eng, and maybe a few others got some much needed damage love), and they nerfed the grudge mechanic on IBs. This was a much needed fix because it was the equivalent of a warrior running around with full rage. Anyone who has played WoW will understand what I mean. Also, they buffed DoTs across the board for all classes making it scale better with INT.
But the bad news is that BWs got a buff (but no more than 10% damage increase on their DoTs). Do they even test BWs in the devs brains?! DoTs are the problem with BWs. Yeah the big nukes are scary but with the ability for DoTs to crit (which was a good idea imo) BW could effectively take anyone down but putting their insta cast DoTs on them and then running away. Now they get at least a 4% increase per tick (not including crits) to their DoTs. This is just ludicrous. But that's not the worst of it...
My shaman, who all I felt needed was another direct heal (even if I had to spend a few more points in the mastery tree), got nerfed. If we go by percentage points (and theory) this is how big the nerf is:
Before I had about 1000 HPs total for my 'Ey Quit Bleedin' HoT (my bread and butter spell) in 15 seconds of HoT time. I'm not sure when it actually ticks but I think it's every 3 seconds. So:
1000/5 (every 3 seconds it ticks) = 200 HPs per tick. About the equivalent of 2/5 non crit nuke from a 30 BW (btw, don't feel bad their crits can hit for 1500)
With the increase to HoT time:
1000/8 (every 3 seconds it ticks) = 125 HPs per tick, or the equivalent of less than 1/3 a 30 BW nuke.
200/1000 = 20% of my total healing per tick previously
125/1000 = 12.5% of my total healing per tick after 1.05
That's a total 7.5% decrease per tick after 1.05. This is true of all healers btw, not just shamans. So, in effect all damage got increased by 5%-10% and the main spell cast by healers got nerfed at least 7.5% at my level. That's a 15% turn around meaning 15% more people will die. Meaning 15% less likely I will help change the tide of battle as a healer.
Yes, I know that I'm being irrational about this (not illogical) but imagine if your main ability took 60% longer to take effect. Instead of every 3 seconds a big nuke it's 5 seconds. Doesn't make sense to me personally, but it does make me want to reroll to either a BW, back to my Marauder, or a SH or Magus. This patch hasn't taken effect necessarily though, so it's entirely possible that this change will not pass. If you have any heart, go on the PTR (public test realms) and in the feedback, tell Mythic that you dislike the healing changes because you die 15% faster now.
~J
**edited for math's sake, thanks to Josiah for pointing that out.
========================UPDATE================================
The Devs are changing our big 3 second long heal to a 2.5 second cast and it doesn't get knocked back as easily. Nice work mythic, this makes more sense than what I thought you were trying to do.
Anyways, I heard/read some horrible news yesterday. Mythic has decided to make a few major changes with their characters. Put simply - They did a lot of good things. Playing with fire is majorly toned down on the BW, snares will now properly break, a few classes (SH, Magus, Eng, and maybe a few others got some much needed damage love), and they nerfed the grudge mechanic on IBs. This was a much needed fix because it was the equivalent of a warrior running around with full rage. Anyone who has played WoW will understand what I mean. Also, they buffed DoTs across the board for all classes making it scale better with INT.
But the bad news is that BWs got a buff (but no more than 10% damage increase on their DoTs). Do they even test BWs in the devs brains?! DoTs are the problem with BWs. Yeah the big nukes are scary but with the ability for DoTs to crit (which was a good idea imo) BW could effectively take anyone down but putting their insta cast DoTs on them and then running away. Now they get at least a 4% increase per tick (not including crits) to their DoTs. This is just ludicrous. But that's not the worst of it...
My shaman, who all I felt needed was another direct heal (even if I had to spend a few more points in the mastery tree), got nerfed. If we go by percentage points (and theory) this is how big the nerf is:
Before I had about 1000 HPs total for my 'Ey Quit Bleedin' HoT (my bread and butter spell) in 15 seconds of HoT time. I'm not sure when it actually ticks but I think it's every 3 seconds. So:
1000/5 (every 3 seconds it ticks) = 200 HPs per tick. About the equivalent of 2/5 non crit nuke from a 30 BW (btw, don't feel bad their crits can hit for 1500)
With the increase to HoT time:
1000/8 (every 3 seconds it ticks) = 125 HPs per tick, or the equivalent of less than 1/3 a 30 BW nuke.
200/1000 = 20% of my total healing per tick previously
125/1000 = 12.5% of my total healing per tick after 1.05
That's a total 7.5% decrease per tick after 1.05. This is true of all healers btw, not just shamans. So, in effect all damage got increased by 5%-10% and the main spell cast by healers got nerfed at least 7.5% at my level. That's a 15% turn around meaning 15% more people will die. Meaning 15% less likely I will help change the tide of battle as a healer.
Yes, I know that I'm being irrational about this (not illogical) but imagine if your main ability took 60% longer to take effect. Instead of every 3 seconds a big nuke it's 5 seconds. Doesn't make sense to me personally, but it does make me want to reroll to either a BW, back to my Marauder, or a SH or Magus. This patch hasn't taken effect necessarily though, so it's entirely possible that this change will not pass. If you have any heart, go on the PTR (public test realms) and in the feedback, tell Mythic that you dislike the healing changes because you die 15% faster now.
~J
**edited for math's sake, thanks to Josiah for pointing that out.
========================UPDATE================================
The Devs are changing our big 3 second long heal to a 2.5 second cast and it doesn't get knocked back as easily. Nice work mythic, this makes more sense than what I thought you were trying to do.
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