So you finally got some raiding action, huh Grunz? I would've figured you'd have at least another week or two of gearing up.
Yeah, so did I. Your paladin friend and I have been running heroics for the last week or so, but I figured we wouldn't be seeing the inside of Firelands just yet. Imagine my surprise when I get home Wednesday and instead of heading off to do my dailies, I'm getting dragged inside of a raid I've never seen before to offtank. Apparently their normal offtank was sick that night.
Surprise raid, huh? Guessing you weren't quite up to speed on all of the boss mechanics beforehand, huh?
Up to speed? I knew absolutely nothing about that place going in other than "Ragnaros lives here" and "fire is hot". Those were the extent of my knowledge of Firelands.
Gotta love trial by fire.
Couldn't make it a whole post without a terrible pun, could you?
Nope. Back to the raid though. How'd it go, what with you being completely unprepared?
Surprisingly well actually. We one-shot everything up to Ragnaros and I picked up a few newpieces of gear. I did drop once on Shannox and once on Baleroc, but nothing we couldn't recover from. We weren't quite able to take down Ragnaros though, but we got him to about 10 million or so. Fun fight by the way - little hectic, but the fun fight's usually are.
Not funny. That's annoying, not hectic. There's a difference.
True enough. Sounds like the raid went pretty well considering you went in blind. Did they just have you read up on each fight before the pull?
My training was your friend, the main tank, gave me about 30-60 seconds of explanation right before the pull. It got a little more detailed for Ragnaros, but honestly that's the only one that really requires some preparation. The others are pretty easy to offtank from what I could tell.
Good to hear that the first raid went well for you.
Yeah, it was a good first raid after all that downtime. Group seemed like a nice bunch, so we should get along while you've got me on this assignment. Any idea how long this'll be?
Honestly? I couldn't say. We've still got no date for the Tyria trip and that other scouting mission I was looking at isn't for another couple months. Good news for you though is that with the recent news, you should have work for the foreseeable future. Might even have a new recruit to share the workload over there once I can find a suitable one.
Well, it's better than sitting around the office waiting for work with the rest of the team or packing for the move.
First of all, you and the other guys are all jerks.
Duly noted. Seriously though, what've they had you doing over there? I know he specifically requested a tank, but that's the only detail I was given.
No tanking so far, but that would be due to my gear being somewhat, oh what's the word? Ah yes, garbage.
Yeah, we didn't get the chance to set you up with much Horde-side work other than some normal dungeons. So they've been running you through stuff then?
Not yet, but that's due to the main project I've been working on. I have fixed some holes with auction house piece. I'm also doing these Molten Front dailies I was told about that are supposed to eventually let me pick up some decent epic pieces, but from what I can tell I've still got a long ways to go before I start seeing any purple from those. Those Hyjal people want a whole lot of those Marks of the World Tree before they think my gold's good enough.
Fair enough. So what's this main project you've been working on that's important enough to postpone Operation Make Gear Suck Less?
Well your Alliance buddy apparently also recruited a rookie about the same time as he brought me over. Since it didn't make a whole lot of sense to run me through 5-mans just to have to repeat everything once he hit 85, we decided to wait until he caught up.
Makes sense to me, though I don't really understand how that's a project.
Who do you think carried him to 85?
Ah, gotcha.
On the plus side, made a decent chunk of change once he got to the higher-end zones and I could do the same quests. I wasn't able to do all of the quests with him since the neutral factions seemed to recognize me even though I'm a Worgen now, but I still made a few thousand out of it. Enough to pay for those heirlooms you asked me to buy. Have you already told Mordigg you're making him work over there later as a jewelcrafter?
Okay guys, we've got a job request from an old friend of ours. Apparently he's started running some raids with the Alliance and he wants to hire a tank. I know everyone's excited about Tyria and leaving Azeroth behind, but since we don't have a concrete move date, I can't really tell him no. That means that someone gets to take a trip and do some Alliance work until we're ready to go.
Seriously, you two chose Human over all of the other races?
What's wrong with choosing Human?
Odd seeing Humans without those little red names floating over their heads
Seemed like a perfectly serviceable choice for our professions. Besides, it's not like it's Alliance against Horde on Tyria.
I know that. I mean why, when we're looking at a world with four race options that are new and exciting, would you two decide to go with something as plain as Human?
Well, as a thief, human honestly makes the most sense. While there's no statistical or racial bonus as far as I'm aware for the race choice, there is the unspoken quality most Humans have: they tend to blend in very well in urban environments. The Charr that you're looking at stick out like a sore thumb. Same with those giant Norns Solagar was talking about. The Asura are really too comical looking for most people to ignore and I know it'll be hard for most people to not notice the walking, talking plants that are the Sylvari. In the grand scheme of things, a Human is the plainest being you're likely to meet in a city. First rule of being a thief: don't stick out. Seems like a logical choice to me.
Hmm you make a good point. I suppose I hadn't considered the whole "hide in plain sight" trait Humans had, but the only one I've ever really worked with is Tuknir and I don't think he's a good example.
True, that one's not quite right in the head. He'd probably make a good Norn though.
You want me to give him access to a race that dedicates themselves to booze, battle, and what the majority of us would call insanity?
He'd be in good company.
I'll think about it. Back to the whole Human choice thing. Mal, you always struck me as a pretty proud Blood Elf. I would've thought you of all people would be averse to going Human.
You are correct on the Blood Elf pride front. However given that my race of choice is unavailable in Tyria, I'm left with the five options available. After careful consideration, the Humans were actually the best fit for me. The Charr may have Elementalists and Necromancers in their ranks, but they make no attempts to hide their distaste for most magic. The Norns have a slightly stronger connection to magic, but their general outlook on life doesn't quite match mine.
What about the Asura? They're pretty heavy into magic and magitek or whatever they call that stuff.
Yes, but I just can't bring myself to be one. I'll admit that I'm not the most humble Blood Elf in the world, but even I consider them to be a bit over the top. That and I can't help but see gnomes when I look at them. Big eyed, lizard mouthed gnomes. Seeing that face every morning would give me nightmares.
That still leaves the Sylvari.
I was considering them for a while, but in the end I just couldn't bring myself to do so. They remind me too much of Night Elves. I realize it's an unfair comparison, but it's there and I have a hard time not seeing my tree-hugging cousins when I look at them.
So it was Human by default then?
Yes, but that's not to say that I don't appreciate the race's qualities or history. In fact it sounds like an excellent match for a Blood Elf like myself. Nobility, political intrigue, magically-caused catastrophes - sounds like a good chunk of our history books. Plus I like their architecture. It's a far cry from the wonders of Silvermoon, but for Humans they do a passable job at being artistic.
Fair enough. Sounds like you two have put some thought into your choices. I apologize for being so sarcastic; I was kinda expecting a response like "we threw darts at a wall full of names and that's what came up."
Perish the thought.
Of course not! We have more respect for our work than that.
Good to hear. Guess that's it till next time, folks. Talk to you later.
Psst... you think he bought it?
Yes, but he won't if you keep talking about it.
Lips are sealed.
Good. Be sure to take down the rest of the names and darts from the wall of the breakroom. Pretty sure it was a lucky guess, but we don't need to give him proof.
Quick little break from the race posts to talk about something people might actually be interested in: guilds.
For our little group, we've looked at most guilds as sources of work. We'd take up a contract with whatever guild was willing to pay and treat it like a normal job, just with dragon murder instead of meetings. I'd say no paperwork too, but the boss never gets to avoid that stuff. Once we were off the clock though, that guild tag might as well not have been there. Sure, we had friends in the guilds we worked for; usually they're the ones that recommended us in the first place. There's a difference between being a guildmate and a contract laborer though. A guildmate will usually put the guild's needs ahead of their own. Contractors however look at the bottom line: if someone on our team wasn't being sufficiently compensated for their work, we either renegotiated or cancelled the job. Friendship is great and all, but we're running our own business here and I can't pay Orgrimmar rent with friends. Well, maybe if I was a goblin.
We were in an actual guild back in the old days though, The Greyside Gang. We weren't the biggest guild in the world (setting up a Karazhan run took a bit of creative planning some weeks), but we had the most important thing I've found for guilds that last - we actually liked each other. Whether it was from a shared sense of humor or just the timing of everyone finding a group where they could complain about their old guilds with others that shared their pain, this small group just clicked.
The only guild runs we've done as a group since those days have been a few Sartharion runs back in Northrend and the occasional 5-man dungeon there and after the Cataclysm. Some of us, like my team, have moved on to working for other guilds in the years after we stopped raiding. That didn't stop us from hanging out though. Even after all these years, we still get together to talk about other work we've found or to reminisce/complain about the old days. We may not have been on the cutting edge of raiding, but I'd be hard pressed to find many guilds that still do that after all these years. After some nights of raiding with other guilds, it was nice to head over to our meeting place and vent about some of what I'd seen.
Speaking of other guilds, you might ask why we ever did the contracting thing if we were perfectly happy with the Greyside Gang. Well, it's the same reason why anyone might go job hunting despite really liking their coworkers - if there's no work, you're not getting paid. There's also the matter of staying on top of your game too. Hanging out in a bar in Orgrimmar is fine for the occasional brawl, but it's not exactly up there with fighting a dragon. You usually lose money at those brawls too (that or in the drinking beforehand), so it kinda compounds the whole "no income" problem. As such we all had to take up with other guilds that weren't quite as good of a match for us personality-wise. Sure I got along with most of the officers and usually the other tanks, but we're talking big guilds here since that's what Sol and I usually got called for. It's hard enough finding nine people you like that know their jobs, let alone 24 plus all of the backups. Combine that with some of the rougher learning nights and there was usually a chain of whispers going between me/Sol and whichever one of our friends was on to laugh at our misery.
Looking at this, you can see the dilemma we've got: run with the guild that your friends are in or run with the guild that gives you work. You can only have one guild in Azeroth and, with the addition of guild reputation/leveling/achievements/etc., it made the decision to stick with one that much more of a pain. Tyria handles things a bit differently though.
Let's stick with my example of a guild for work and a guild for fun. Normally I'd be stuck having to choose which of the two I would represent. Whichever one I chose would be the only one I'd show up for on the guild roster (everyone else would have to "friend" me) and that guild would be the only one to benefit from any of my exploits. In Tyria however I'm no longer constrained to just one guild. Yes, I can only represent one guild at a time, but I can choose between them at will. Whichever one I'm currently representing will see me on the roster or talk to me through guild chat and I'll be able to use the tools they've unlocked through achievements and influence, such as the calendar or guild storage. Once I'm done there though, I can switch over to the other guild and do things with them. You could have a guild for running dungeons, one for structured PvP, one for world vs. world PvP, one for friends - as far as I've been able to find, there's no set limit at the moment.
I know what some of you are thinking though. You're looking at all of these lists of people and thinking, "I'm never gonna get a moment's peace in Tyria. There's always gonna be a list of people that can bug me to go do something from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep." Worry not! You'll also have the option to go incognito and represent no guilds. We've all had those moments where we just want to get something done without interruption and the Tyrians have seen fit to allow for just such an occasion.
That about wraps it up, but I do have one more quick thing to say about guilds. Remember the world vs. world PvP I mentioned earlier? I haven't talked a great deal about it yet, but those details can wait. The important thing here is how it's related to guilds. Right now there's no guild halls in towns like some of the bigger guilds have been requesting, but for those guilds that are into PvP? In those zones where world vs. world PvP occurs, there are keeps. Keeps that your guild can conquer for themselves and proudly display their flag for all to see. Keeps that your guild can use influence to upgrade and fortify against enemy incursion. I'm not sure how big of a role these will play in the grand scheme of the battles, but the idea of having a fortifiable base of operations in the middle of a battlefield sounds great. Would've been nice to have somewhere to coordinate from during the handful of battlegrounds I did in Azeroth, rather than using BG chat and hoping they would read it.
Do you have to use terrible puns for the bulk of your post titles?
Yep, got a pun quota and we don't post often enough to use witty ones, so puns it is. Anyways we're here to talk about another race and Solagar is here to present his choice for the trip to Tyria. So what race are you leaning towards, Sol?
Well, since I don't have a direct analog for a return to my old Blood Elf state, I've been looking through the options available. Out of the five you've shown me, I believe the Norn to be the optimal race for my travels there as a Guardian.
I'm still going Charr, but pictures like this made the choice kinda hard
Really? A Norn?
I take it you disapprove?
Not so much disapprove. It's more that the race isn't really, well, you.
Why would you say that? They're an honorable race of warriors and the guardian seems like a perfect fit for them.
For the class, yes. For you, not really. You are correct that they're an honorable race, but did you read any beyond that? Let's take a look at that first paragraph: "Boistrous, strong-willed, and passionate". I'll give you the second one. The third one's a bit of a stretch, but I suppose you can be passionate about your work at times. I'm gonna have to call you out on the boistrous part though. You're not exactly the rowdy party type, Sol.
You don't know that for certain. I had my moments during Blood Knight training back in Silvermoon and I've participated in events the guilds I've worked for put on.
Participating doesn't mean showing up, grabbing food, and leaving before someone makes you be social.
Fine, but the other parts of that paragraph work for me. "Steadfast allies and implacable foes" - that seems perfect for me.
You're right, there are parts that fit you better. It says right here they're "quick to anger, even quicker to smile, and treat each new day as a personal challenge". Dunno about the smiling part, but the rest of that seems spot on.
Very funny. Let's look further down, shall we? How about the connection to the spirits they have? I may not have the shapeshifting part, but being connected to the world and spirits? That I have plenty of experience with.
Video's kinda old, but it's worth it to see the story bits at the end
I'm not sure a stolen, then freely given, connection to the Light really counts there, but I suppose if we look at the fact that you've trained some with the Sunwalkers, it could loosely count. Before you say it, your old connection to arcane magic doesn't count; it was a side-effect of your race's magic addiction. Besides you only ever used the stupid thing as an interrupt anyways.
So are you telling me to choose another race or not?
Nah, there's nothing wrong with your choice. I'm just giving you a hard time. Personally I think it'll be good for you to spend some time with the Norn. Besides giving you a good supply of war stories to pass along, they might help you loosen up a bit. You've always been too high strung, so maybe being around a bunch of impulsive shapeshifters will fix that. Plus you're certain to pick up some new combat maneuvers from working with them to share with the rest of us.
Ah. Well, thank you for being supportive. For a second there I thought you were trying to talk me out of this.
Of course not! Where else am I gonna find someone to get me tickets to Keg Brawl games?
I take it we're not going to talk about the other possible worlds we saw at PAX then?
Maybe if we find time, but it's been a few weeks so we should move on. Besides, that Firefall one (not sure what the actual planet's name was - Urth or something like that) we looked at is supposedly letting other people get more hands-on time in the next couple months, so I might as well wait for that. As for the other one, I'm reluctant to talk about it.
Didn't care for it?
No, I liked what I saw. The problem is I didn't see enough. You and I got to check out Tyria and the WildStar world for 40 minutes. In that 40 minutes we had time to check out combat, questing, gear itemization - pretty much enough time to get a feel for everything we care about. Here I only got 20 minutes and half of that was talking. Don't get me wrong - the quality of the talking was good. I was interested in what everyone had to say. Unfortunately I was also interested in doing non-talky things and there wasn't really enough time for both. I could comment on what I tried, but I feel that would be unfair with the little I was able to see.
Understandable. Where does that leave us for today's post then? I know Lokaja hasn't finished his Ranger profession post because neither of us has seen him for a while.
Actually got the idea from the guys that have been giving out all of the details about Tyria. They're doing a week of posts about one of the five races we get to choose from in Tyria, seeing as how the bulk of us can't just hop over there and expect to fit in.
Ah yes, I'd been wondering when we would get to discussing that. Will we be focusing on the same race everyone else is talking about at the moment?
Where's the fun in being topical? Nah, we're gonna do this the way we talked about the professions: we'll talk about the ones that we've picked out for ourselves. It just works out here because I know you and I are planning on the same race.
Correct. I cannot speak for the remainder of the team, but the two of us at the very least will be adventuring through Tyria in the guise of a Charr.
Seems a little more intimidating than Med as a Blood Elf, huh?
That's right, though I assume for different reasons. I'll be going with the Charr partly because, well, they're the closest match I have to being a Tauren. They're big, they have horns, they're fuzzy - seems kinda obvious to me. They're a bit more warlike than my people, though that's probably going to shift some because of Garrosh (I'm not bitter, no...). To be honest though the bulk of their fighting is retaliatory since this Ascalon place did apparently take their land first and this Flame Legion group of Charr was apparently subjugating the whole race for a while there. When you listen to some of them talk though and hear how much they enjoy their work, you can't really mistake them for peaceful folks. Really though, I think that's the main reason I like them.
As much as I consider myself a Tauren, we're a race of druids, hunters and shamans with some outliers. I'm respected, sure, but you know you're always on the edge of society to some extent when you take up the blade. With the Charr though, everything that makes me who I am is considered a virtue. They value strength in battle and fearlessness. They strive for discipline in everything they do. Most important to an old smith like me though, they honor being industrious, particularly when it comes to working with metal.
Ah, now you're getting to the good part. Sure they value skill in combat and discipline, but most importantly they strive for technological advancement. It just so happens that being in a constant state of war is a great way to make said progress. The Charr have made great advances in engineering and metallurgy over the years, making them militarily and technologically superior to the other races of Tyria.
I'm sure those Asura guys might question us on this.
I know a warrior should prolly be Blood Legion, but I like the attitude of these Iron Legion guys
Bah! Let them argue the point! It doesn't change the fact that they're behind. While they waste their efforts on technomagical constructs like those golems they all have, the Charr have proven their dominance not only with their war machines, but with their finest work: the Black Citadel. The entire city is a vast foundry and haven for crafting and engineering work. While some members of the Charr do practice magic, the bulk of the race places their faith in steel rather than spells. Honestly after reading what you sent me about them, I couldn't find any compelling evidence to choose one of the alternatives.
Yeah. I'm gonna have to find volunteers for the other races. We'll all be able to work on the same stuff, but it's always good to try and spread resources in case we're missing something. Might have to ask one of the gnomes to be our Asura rep though; I can't think of any of the regular crew that would want the assignment. I could be wrong though. For the next post we'll ask Sol which way he's leaning. I'll be the one doing the asking though, not you. Pretty sure he's still sore about the whole "transforming him into a Tauren" thing.
Sigh... It's been months. Sometimes scientific progress has a few side effects. Nobody died, so it's not like anything that bad happened. Besides he'd just have to change for Tyria, so really I gave him practice. He should be thanking me.
Yep, I'll definitely be the one talking to him instead of you.
Indeed. While I may not have been able to try out Tyria due to someone pulling rank, I did have one other world I was interested in. The week before we left for PAX I heard reports of a new potential world to investigate.
So what's the name of this place?
Well, the world is called Nexus, but all of the information I found was labeled WildStar. A codename perhaps, because honestly who would name a planet WildStar? Name aside I looked for information about this new world. The main feature was the trailer included below, but they gave a few details about the world itself.
Guessing man-eating plant dragons and hordes of robots weren't in the travel brochure
I'll discuss the world when I get into my demonstration, but suffice it to say I was intrigued and put it on my list of places to check out on our trip. Like your Tyria expedition, mine was also 40 minutes so I actually had time to work. It's still early, so the only race/class combinations available were those shown in the trailer: the Granok Warrior, the Human Spellslinger, and the Aurin Esper. I chose the Esper and began exploring Nexus.
*chuckle*
What's so funny?
Oh nothing, just the idea of you running around as a bunny girl. For some reason that's amusing.
Sigh, if I could've chosen male, I would have. I thought about trying the Warrior, but I was actually talking to someone working at the show and when I asked for a recommendation, he suggested the Esper. I believe he said he was the lead combat designer or something like that, so I assumed he knew what he was talking about. Nice fellow by the way - he was pretty much talking to me the entire time I was waiting for my turn and he answered quite a few of my questions.
The demo began with me in the middle of a crashed spaceship. Before you say anything, no I didn't cause said crash; it was like that when I got there. I was resuscitated by someone else on the ship, then sent off to begin the normal adventurer process of running items around and killing the indigenous population for quest givers. There was one small difference in that though and that would be the path I chose.
You mean your class?
No, that's separate. In addition to choosing a race and class, you also have to choose a path. Basically a path is somewhat of a supplemental way of gaining experience and treasure. You still have the normal quests that everyone does and there's always monsters and the like around to slaughter, but you can tailor it a bit to reward you for how you would prefer to work.
The four path options are Soldier, Explorer, Scientist, and Settler. At the demo only Soldier and Explorer were active, so I don't have first-hand experience with the latter two though I have seen reports of how those are supposed to work. Starting from the top though, Soldier is pretty self-explanatory: you like to kill things. The Soldier path will support this by giving you the opportunity to prove yourself in combat. Everyone has some opportunity to do this: there were experience bonuses for kill chains and some pseudo-quests popped into my log while I was working that said, "Hey, you're good at killing these monsters. Think you can kill another eight in two minutes?" The Soldier however can take this one step further. At certain points he can basically drop a challenge flag and waves of monsters will come towards him. If he survives the waves, he'll then have to fight a mini-boss of sorts and should the Soldier survive that, he'll be rewarded.
I chose the Explorer path since Scientist wasn't available. I'm not normally the explorer of the group (that's more Lokaja and Daikaja's preference), but I enjoyed myself with the few explorer missions I was able to accomplish. Basically you'll be running around and every so often you'll receive a call over your radio asking you to place a beacon somewhere or investigate an anomaly. When you go to the spot on the map where the quest is marked, you'll see some sort of environmental obstacle.
The first one I found was a mountain with periodic landslides that I had to either dodge by hiding behind rocks or I had to time my double-jumps to leap over the waves of snow. For the second one I ran into what looked like a sheer cliff face, but when I inspected it further I found a secret path that led to the top of the rock where I could place the beacon. Finally the third one had me following a strange energy signature. When I reached the first spot where the floating energy ball had been sitting, I was infused with power that allowed me to leap to great heights which allowed me to follow the energy ball up to the top of the rock spire it had flown up to. In each of these cases, I received treasure and experience for doing something that many of us would've done on our own simply out of curiosity or boredom.
Yeah, I remember my old wall-walking days back in Vanilla when I had nothing to do in-between raids other than sell Lionheart Helms and Stronghold Gauntlets.
The other two paths are similar from what I've been told. Scientist examines things out in the field and they can unlock bonuses like extra damage against monsters or finding items in the environment to heal their party members. They also find out more about the world itself since the path is all about digging in for more information. Settlers are a bit more social - you get tasks like using an item to buff nearby people or to fix something that's broken in a settlement. I still believe I'll be going with Scientist when I get another chance to work with this, though I did have fun with the few Explorer missions I was able to work on. Would've actually liked to finish the last couple I found, but I had priorities.
Not enough time to do all the quests?
For more than one reason. Back to my demo though. Combat was somewhat of a mix between what we're used to in Azeroth with a little from Tyria. The Esper was a caster class like I'm used to, but it had combo points and finishers like rogues. The nice part about the combo points though was that pretty much every ability that wasn't a finisher generated combo points, so you didn't feel like using heals or self-shields was a waste of a GCD. There was a bit more standing around than in Tyria since my main combo point building attack had a cast time, but it was significantly more mobile than Azeroth due to the dodge mechanic. It operates similar to how the Tyria dodge works, but it had an additional bonus. Remember how I said there was an experience bonus for kill streaks? There's more bonuses like that and not all of them were limited to experience. If an enemy was charging up for a big attack (for example, the yetis had a cold breath attack you didn't want to be hit by), you could dodge the attack completely. When you did this, the enemy would be vulnerable for a few seconds and you could do bonus damage to him during that short window. This worked two ways though: if you didn't dodge that attack, it would probably knock you prone and it would be you that suffered all that extra damage.
Since I couldn't really play and film at the same time, watch TotalBiscuit's video
All in all I probably did a bit more stationary work than your druid friend that was trying the Warrior, but it was probably something like 50-50 and most of the movement was me dodging. A nice change of pace from the raids we've seen where it's "stand still until this happens, then run to the other side of the room and stand still until the next movement trigger".
Sounds pretty good so far. Shame you didn't have enough time to do everything though.
Depends on how you look at it.
I thought you said you couldn't finish the Explorer missions.
Yes, but those were side missions. There was a main storyline through the bulk of the missions and that's what I focused my time on.
Story was that good?
It was good, but it was less because of that and more because of what the people at the demo said.
Which was?
Well someone at the booth mentioned extra swag, so I asked that combat dev I'd been talking to about it. He said that everyone got a shirt, but that if you were able to finish the demo before the timer expired, you'd get something extra. I took that as a challenge.
Were you successful?
What do you think?
The closest we're ever going to get to "beating" a MMO
Well, that was a fun trip and we finally got to try some Tyrian combat.
Correction: you got to try Tyrian combat. I got to do the rest of the work since there was a bit of a line and you called 'dibs' on going first.
Oh come on, that's not fair! We were both at PAX to check out some possibilities for places to move after we leave Azeroth. We had to hit everything we could, so it just made sense to split up the tasks and not have both of us trying the same thing at the same time. It would've been nice if you could've had a little hands-on time, but unfortunately it felt like every other adventurer in Azeroth was in line with me there.
I would have an easier time believing the sincerity of your words if not for your attitude after you finished trying it out. The sight of a giddy Tauren gushing over combat techniques and dodging is not a pretty one.
What? I had fun. It's important to enjoy one's work after all and I was certainly enjoying my time in Tyria.
I take it that means it was everything we've been hoping for?
Well, I wasn't able to try everything I wanted since I only had about 40 minutes before I got sent back, but what I was able to try was great. I chose to go in as a Charr warrior for obvious reasons. In that 40 minutes, I got to help fight back a ghost that possessed a giant statue (at level 1 no less!), help out at a forge and a junkyard by gathering tools and defending it from invaders, and help out at this lake thing by slaying giant lizards. There was also some giant thing that hurt like a truck that I took down with the help of some other adventurers wandering about. The last eight minutes or so centered around myself and a group of three or four other adventurers, all below level 4, trying to push our way into a cavern filled with fire turrets and level 6 Flame Legion Charr. It didn't end up going in our favor, but we managed to hold our own for quite a while.
Sounds thrilling. What about the weapons themselves? How did the new mechanics you mentioned work out?
They felt great. Switching weapons on the fly was quick and learning new techniques went fairly quickly. I think it was something like three or four minutes with my starter sword skill until I learned my second one and maybe six or seven for the next one. I didn't test the fourth and fifth techniques because I was trying other weapons, particularly the rifle. It's still not entirely natural to me to fight at ranged, but I was starting to get the hang of it during our epic struggle to enter the cavern.
Dodging is going to take some getting used to. It's easy enough to do, but you can only dodge so often until you need to let your energy regenerate. It's fairly quick, but it does mean that you need to pick those moments when you need to move.
Since you mentioned swapping weapons, did you get the chance to look at equipment?
Indeed and compared to what we've been working with all these years in Azeroth, it'll be a nice change of pace. You've got four attributes to work with: Power makes all of your attacks hit harder, Precision increases your chance of getting a critical hit, Toughness reduces the damage you take from physical and magical attacks, and Vitality gives you more health. No haste or hit rating to cap, no dodge or parry to balance against one another - just four numbers to work with.
There were upgrade slots in most of the equipment I found, but I didn't have anything to put there so I can't give a first-hand impression, but I don't believe anything's changed since last week's crafting post so that should still be valid. I also didn't have any procs to play with, but since I was in the Charr starting area, that's to be expected. An associate of mine got the chance to try an Asura engineer in one of the later zones, so I might ask him if he can write something up when he's not busy.
Really? An Asura? He seriously chose one of those overglorified technomages over the Charr, the proven masters of engineering and war machines?
I know, I know, it's weird but it's what he wanted to try out. I certainly wasn't going to follow him in his madness, but to each their own. Now lemme think if I've forgotten anything...
Oh yeah! All those public quests I was working on? Pretty much every time I did something to further the goal, whether it was killing Flame Legion or just gathering tools for the forge, I earned some Karma. Now we already knew that there was going to be a currency for the events, but I didn't realize it was the same currency. I got quite a bit of karma from doing that event and the one with the lizards, then found my way over to the karma vendor by the forge. There was also one out in the fields that sold some armor I would've liked, but the one by the forge had all of the different weapons and honestly that was more important to me. I had to try out the rifle after all.
I think that's about everything from my short excursion into Tyria. Definitely looking forward to spending some more time there though. I did find a few other contenders that we'll be considering though, but those are for a later post. You have any luck, Med?
Indeed I did. While I may not have been able to try engineering in Tyria, I was able to get some time in with two other worlds that suited my tastes for all things technological.
Sounds good. We'll save those for next time since we've already run a bit long. Well, that and nobody's gonna want to ready about two different worlds in the same post. You want to tease people with something before we head out?
I believe I may have something to pique their interest until next time:
I know we've still got one profession to cover and there's still all those posts I need to write up about the lack of tanking and all that, but since Med and I are taking our research trip later this week, it seemed like I should try and find something simple. Something I could write up that wouldn't, you know, change after I wrote it up.
Little bitter about that, huh?
Eh, more that it's editing that I'll need to do at some point when I should be writing new stuff. From what I read, it made sense. Learning weapon skills from using weapons and using energy just for dodging and not for your skills - those both seem logical to me. There's also the bit about how to learn your non-weapon skills, but since I haven't really covered that yet, it's not a problem.
So if you're not talking about the changes, what is the topic today?
For today's post, we're going to be talking about crafting, a particular area of interest for me. That's one of the things I've always pushed with the team: everyone picks up trades and everyone works to perfect them for the benefit of the group. Besides that, I've always taken a great deal of pride in my work as an armorsmith (not blacksmith - I did that long obnoxious quest chain, so I earned that title), miner, and chef. I know Sol feels the same way about his work as a jewelcrafter and Med has made it abundantly clear that he is an engineer, not a warlock.
The sooner I can be rid of this tiresome reliance on fel magic, the better!
I know, you've told me. Repeatedly.
Just think. You get to listen to that all weekend on your trip.
I'm hoping to leave him by the engineering stuff and just pick him up before we head back. Regardless, let's get back on topic. We all know how crafting works back in Azeroth, right? You pick two primary tradeskills and you level those up. Unless there happens to be something you could use along the way, you find out whatever the most efficient method of leveling your trade is, then you grind out those items until you're done. If the stuff you made happens to sell well, you can recoup your costs. Otherwise you send it to an enchanter friend to disenchant for dust and essence. I know I made many, many worthless green items on my trip to master blacksmithing.
Yeah, I remember burning through stacks and stacks of green gems and ore you mailed me. I'd just stand next to a vendor while I worked. Cut gems till my bags were full. Sell all the cut gems. Go back to step 1. It was a little monotonous.
Yep, especially when you took into account the times you had to work on a yellow or green recipe. You'd keep throwing materials at the recipe for that last skill point because even though it kept failing to give you a point, it was still the most efficient way to level or it was the only recipe you had that would give you a skill-up. I remember some stretches of smithing where I was basically living in a zone for a week to gather ore. I'd long since stopped getting skill points from those veins, but I needed another three bags worth of that ore to catch up to the next tier.
Okay, we've managed to cover what was tiresome about crafting back home. What makes things different in Tyria?
Well, you still only have two tradeskills at a time. However you no longer have to "waste" a skill on a gathering skill. Everyone knows how to harvest materials from the world. That'll provide the bulk of your materials, but you'll also be able to find some on creatures you've killed or being sold by merchants. In addition there's a kind of disenchanting that anyone can do. If you get a salvage kit, you can use it to destroy old equipment and reclaim some crafting materials from it. You even have a chance to get upgrade components when you do so. These are kind of like gems in Azeroth, though they do have two distinct differences: they only work with specific kinds of gear (e.g. light armor, melee weapons, etc.) and in addition to being stat bonuses, they can also do things like adding effects to your attacks or adding a visual effect. I can't find any information about whether or not you have to level up your harvesting skill, but I imagine even if we do, we'll need more materials for crafting than we'd need to level harvesting anyways. Besides it won't be nearly that bad to harvest materials in Tyria.
Are you sure about that? I seem to recall the days of Hellfire Peninsula and Howling Fjord where we rushed in with every other member of the Horde. Finding ore back then took ages, especially for the mountain of ore I used for jewelcrafting when you had a good chance of not finding any gems in the ore you prospected.
Ah, but here's the difference. Let's say you and I found a vein of ore while we were out questing. Now back in Azeroth, the ore would go to whoever was faster, so your cheating "I get a 10% faster mount because I'm a pally" self would get the ore.
Jealousy doesn't suit you.
Bite me. Anyway, over in Tyria, both of us would get the ore. You might've got the vein first, but it's still available for me to hit. If we were running around in a full group and found a vein, every single person in the party would get a chance to mine for ore.
That's certainly an improvement over the old system. I can think of a few herbalists who would've loved that system when they were competing with Grunzford and his flight form. So you've established how we get our materials and that we can have two tradeskills. What are our options and what makes things different on the actual crafting side of things?
There's eight choices for tradeskills. For those looking to make armor, you've got tailoring (light armor), leatherworking (medium armor), and armorsmith (heavy armor). If you want to craft something to kill monsters with, we've got weaponsmith (melee weapons), huntsman (physical ranged weapons), and artificer (caster weapons). Lastly you've got jewelcrafting, which should be pretty familiar for you, and chef which is now a full-fledged tradeskill.
I assume that you're looking at armorsmith and chef?
Armorsmith yes, but to begin with I should probably pair that with weaponsmith. By the time we're likely to need buff food, I can powerlevel that. Weapons on the other hand help all of the melee people on the team.
So you're planning on dropping weaponsmith at some point then? What if we need a weaponsmith again? You'll have to do all that work over again unless you're planning on making someone else on the team level the profession.
Ah, but therein lies another difference here. Let's say I did level weaponsmithing up to the cap of 400 and then decided to drop it for chef. Now let's say I went to the trainer to relearn the skill. When I do so, I not only relearn the skill at my old level, but I also retain any recipes I may have known.
Sounds quite useful. I always wondered why I immediately forgot everything I knew about mining when I dropped that for inscription. I assume there's some system in place to discourage you from leveling every single profession yourself, because if there wasn't, you'd just do all of it and not bother to tell the rest of us that crafting existed.
True enough. To discourage people from doing so, the cost to relearn a skill goes up with your skill level. The system allows for those like me who want to know everything while still encouraging people to focus on something and trade with others for what they're missing.
How about leveling the skills themselves? What are we looking at for recipes? Trainer with a smattering of random recipes from reputations and vendors?
Yes on the trainer bit, but there's more. There's a discovery system. I know alchemists and engineers already have one back home, but this one actually makes sense. Those guys would be making things and all of the sudden get an idea for a recipe. May not have had any connection to the recipe they were working on, but they got the new recipe.
The audio cuts out pretty early on, but this is the best view I could find. Just try to ignore the repeated attempts to learn something from the exact same item combinations.
For Tyrian crafters though, you discover recipes through somewhat of a guided trial-and-error system. Let's say I've got 10 kinds of materials in my bags. I'll put one of those on the table while I'm working on discoveries and it'll say something like "8 recipes available. Add more components." That means that there are eight recipes I can learn from that one component type, but I need to add more to narrow it down. If I add something that doesn't work, the number goes down to zero and I know I've made a mistake. If it's correct, the number goes down and I repeat this until it says "We have a match. Craft the item to discover the recipe." At this point, I craft the item and now that recipe is added to my list. Because I learned this recipe on my own, I could choose to either share this recipe with my friends or I could keep it to myself if it's likely to be a profitable recipe.
Until there's a crafting wiki that shows every possible combination of every material known.
Well yeah, but for those glorious few hours, you could have a unique recipe. Regardless you're actually discovering recipes by working with the materials that recipe uses, so it's research that makes sense.
That's all well and good, but what about leveling the tradeskill itself? Are these discoveries capped by your skill level?
I believe I heard someone mention that in that video, but I may have misunderstood. As for actually leveling your trade, that's actually the best part. So you know how we were complaining about leveling through ambiguous yellow and green recipes? Never knowing if you'd actually get those last couple of points from the recipe. Well with Tyrian crafting, there's no ambiguity. Your tradeskill has an experience bar just like your profession. When you craft something, you gain experience and when the bar's full, you go up a point. No wondering if your recipe will give you a point or not - it's all simple numbers.
Any possibility of failure? Some of those other worlds you were looking at had crafting failure as a possibility.
Thankfully no. Can't imagine who would think that was a good idea. There is however the possibility of a critical success.
Thankfully no since that destroyed the market for any non-perfect cuts. If you get a critical success, you either gain extra experience or you don't use all of the materials while crafting your item.
So far the system you've described sounds fairly reasonable. Two crafting skills, but everyone can gather and you can learn new things without sacrificing old progress. Gathering that isn't determined by whoever has the fastest mount or has memorized vein locations in the zone. A discovery system with a sense of order to it. No failures, but the potential for bonus rewards.
Yep, that about covers everything. We still have to figure out who's doing what later on, though I assume you're sticking with jewelcrafting.
I see no reason to switch. It is a specialty of mine, after all.
That can wait for later though, since we're not looking to make the move any time soon. Hopefully I'll dig up a bit more on the trip, but I'm going to be focusing on combat and being a warrior.
Did you seriously use lyrics from that terrible song for this post?
Cut me some slack, I've been on vacation. Gonna take a bit to get back into my game. Consider yourself lucky it's not more puns. If you've got a better title for a post about the downed state, I'm all ears.
Without delving into some more obscure music, I do not. Regardless I thought you were going to talk about the traits system or how healing and tanking is supposed to work in Tyria. Wouldn't the downed state fit into the latter of those two posts?
I am trying to cut down the size of these walls of text. I usually fail, but I try. That's not the main reason for this though, but I'll get to that later. Back to the task at hand - today's post is about the downed state and how it's different from what we're used to back in Azeroth.
I'd feel sorry for the human, but I can't blame the big guy for being mad about an axe to the groin
You mean being dead?
Exactly. For you or me, when we ran out of health, that was it. You were down until someone decided to resurrect you or you released your spirit to run back to your body. Until one of those two events occurred though, you were just sitting there staring at the floor.
So how many raid dungeon floors have you stared at over the years?
More than I care to think about. Hell, with AQ40, you could've shown me a picture of the floor and I would've been able to tell you what room it was from and probably where in said room. Man, I hated that raid...
Schadenfreude aside, what exactly is there that could be different in how dying works in Tyria? Seems fairly standard from a biological perspective: your body takes a certain level of punishment and once that threshold has been passed, you expire.
The difference would be that downed state I mentioned. It's sort of an intermediate state between okay and corpse. Picture it like this: you've been fighting for a while, but you're running out of steam. Something hits you and you go down, but you're not dead yet. You're hurting and not able to jump back into the fray, but you've still got some fight left in you.
In this example, that spot where you went down would be where we would run out of health and die back in Azeroth. That bit where you're on the ground and still fighting is all new for Tyrians.
So basically in Tyria, you just get this extended bit of health bar for combat then? Still able to do what you could before, but now you're stuck in place? That also doesn't address the fact that you're still out of health and dying. The way you've described it, you're basically just getting off a few extra shots while you're on the ground but you're still going to die.
Let's start with that first bit there. Yes, when you're on the ground, you can still attack your foes, but not the same as when you were standing. When you're downed, you've only got four attacks available to you. One of these is a shared shout skill to protect yourself and the other three are based on your profession - they're weapon independent. For warriors like me, we've got a shout to buff our comrades, rocks we can throw, and a type of last stand ability to bring us back up to fight. That last one may sound really powerful, but it has a catch: once it wears off, you're defeated. That's basically the equivalent of dead for us in Azeroth; you're stuck until someone comes over to revive you or you teleport back to a waypoint on your map.
Do you choose where I respawn at? Seems unnecessary if I'm running back to my corpse.
That would be true, if you were in fact running back to your body. With Tyria though, if you pay to respawn back at a waypoint, then you are back up and running. There is no need to return to where you fell unless you need to return there for quests or you just feel the need for vengeance. If you went down and you were finished in that area, you could decide to come back in town and save yourself the walk back to clear out your bags.
Sounds convenient. Back to the skills though - what do engineers have available to them in this downed state?
Wish I could tell you, but unfortunately I haven't been able to dig up those skills for engineers. Got them for the other professions though. Guardians get some holytypeskills. Elementalists get an immobilize, a lightning attack, and a vapor form that lets them move their body if they want to get out of the fray or move closer to someone that can revive them. Similar stuff for the other professions.
Okay, you've described all of these attacks that you can do while you're downed, but that still doesn't address how you get out of said downed state. Is this just an extra way to put in some damage before you're in the same shoes as an Azerothian, waiting for a respawn or a resurrection?
Ah, but there is a difference here. Sure, you can be revived by your party members like we're used to. I believe this can be done in combat, though it's somewhat awkward given the time required. The reason you have those abilities available to you is because you have the potential to rally yourself back into the fight. Basically if you or your pet manage to kill something while you're downed, or even if you get experience for something dying while you're downed (say, from a monster that your party member managed to get the final blow on), you are rallied. This means you get a quarter of your health back, a second of invulnerability while you get your bearings, and whatever energy you happened to have when you were rallied. At this point you can return to the fray, though you most likely want to use your self-heal before doing so; 25% isn't one foot in the grave, but it's not exactly fighting fit. It's also possible that you could be rallied by your allies. Some professions have abilities that can rally nearby allies when they kill an opponent or some similar trigger.
I assume that these rallying effects have some sort of limiting factor, correct? Given how liberally most raiders use combat resurrection spells, I could see that being quite powerful.
It's definitely powerful, but yeah there's limits. For one there's a rez timer like we're used to. Basically the more you go down in succession, the longer it takes to revive you. Yes, there's always the rally effect for that instant revive, but you only have so many foes available to provide that rally and when you're down, your allies may going to have a harder time finishing the fight. If you keep falling down, they may not be able to avoid being defeated themselves. Still it does give you more options to get back into the fight other than stacking druids for combat rezzes or running back to the dungeon. Anything that reduces downtime is great in my book.
True enough. Anything else to add on this topic?
Nah, that about wraps things up. It's not a real stretch from the dying that we're all used to, but it is different enough that it should be addressed. Nothing like the healing and tanking stuff that I'm gonna have to figure out how to write.
And when can people expect that dissertation?
That one's gonna have to wait until we get some hands-on experience.
I was wondering when you were going to mention that particular fact.
You can't just come out and say these things. You have to build up to them - it's called showmanship.
It's called "burying it at the end of a post, so less people are likely to read it".
Bah. Anyways, what Med's talking about is a little trip we've got planned next week. We found out about a place that's going to give us a chance to have some hands-on experience with how stuff works in Tyria, so Med and I will be attending. Can't bring anybody else from the team for this trip (not sure where this "Seattle" place is but it's not cheap getting there), so it'll just be the two of us taking notes for this trip. We are however going with a couple of other people that are looking for a change of scenery from Azeroth, so we might be able to get some impressions from them once we're there. Personally I'm hoping to get some video while I'm there, but since I've never been to this show, I don't know how easy that's going to be. I'll definitely have some notes though, so be ready for that.
It's time to talk about another Tyrian profession. For today's post we've got two people chiming in: Malador the team's fire mage and Daikaja, our resident shaman. Before we begin, I'm curious why the two of you are looking at the same profession. I understand why Mal's looking at the elementalist seeing as he's a mage and all, but why would it interest a shaman?
Well there's not exactly a shaman profession available over there, so I have to look elsewhere. As for why I'm looking at this and not something else, it just feels like a better fit. There's no healer profession, so that's out. I could go dual-wield melee as a warrior or a rogue, but both of those are all physical combat. I'm a shaman and maintaining that tie with the elements is important to us, so the only real option available is elementalist. That being said, it's not as big of a stretch as you might think. I have been known to dabble as elemental dps from time to time, so I'm familiar with being a caster. At least I know how to use more than one element...
How dare you! I'll have you know that I've had plenty of experience with other specs.
Okay, that's enough from both of you. You're not spending this whole post bickering. Mal, let's hear why you're looking at the elementalist.
Certainly. As you know I'm an experienced mage in Azeroth. I've spent my whole life practicing with the elements and the arcane, using them to freeze, incinerate, or blast my foes. Given all of that experience with being a cloth-wearing wielder of the elements, I feel that it's an obvious choice that I should be the one to discuss this new profession.
That establishes why both of you are interested, so now let's get into the details. Weapons have seemed like a good place to start with the other posts, so let's have Mal talk about the elementalist's weapon selection given that he's familiar with the mage offerings.
The weapon offerings for the elementalist would feel very familiar to a mage looking at the profession. Staves are the only two-handed weapon available and those are primarily an AoE weapon, offering such skills as Meteor Shower and Chain Lightning. For main hand weapons, elementalists cannot wield swords like mages in Azeroth, but we gain the ability to wield scepters. These provide a variety of medium range spells both single and multiple target, such as Phoenix and Shatterstone. There's also daggers for the main hand and those are mostly close range attacks (e.g. Dragon's Claw) as well as many of our self-defense techniques (e.g. Shocking Aura).
Little more impressive than making a glowy red patch on the ground, huh?
For off-hand weapons, the elementalist can choose an additional dagger if they want more supportive abilities such as Fire Shield or Geyser. Alternatively they can use a focus like the ones we had in Azeroth. Rather than merely providing raw spell power though, these give access to powerful close range abilities like Flamewall or Lightning Field. In addition to merely being strong point blank techniques, these are also typically used for setting up cross-profession combinations. Have you addressed those yet, sir?
Sigh... no. That's another one to add to the pile. Back on task though. It sounds like you've got quite a few options there. Not only do you have all those weapons to choose from for your combat sets, but it sounded like you have spells from all four elements to choose from on each weapon as well. So how exactly are those elements mixed up amongst the weapons? Is it like one skill of each element or are there some that are heavy towards a specific one?
I'll take this one. It's actually neither. For each weapon, we basically have four sets of the five skills - one for each element. The elementalist can attune himself to an element and that switches out his skills. The attunements give the caster some passive bonuses and the skills tend to have a general theme to them. Water for example can heal your allies passively and the skills focus more on slowing foes and providing additional healing, whereas fire is heavy burning and AoE damage and causes fire damage to anyone that touches you. Air's a lot of lightning damage and blinding attacks in addition to shocking nearby opponents, and earth provides the caster with more passive defenses and lots of skills to protect themselves and their teammates. As such, an elementalist basically has four weapons for each weapon they own.
You have no idea how hard it is to resist using every electricity pun I know here
Nice, so in combat you essentially have eight different skill sets you can flip between with your second weapon?
Unfortunately no. We can change attunements, but we cannot change weapons while in combat. If you start combat with a staff, you're stuck with it until everything's dead. On the plus side though, switching attunements basically serves the job of switching weapons anyways. You might not have the perfect weapon available at all time, like if you start at range and everything's closed to melee, but you'll be able to find skills within the four attunements to accomplish the task just fine.
Hmm, not fond of being restricted to just one weapon at a time, but that's the warrior in me talking. Still seems like you'll have options in a fight, so I guess it all works out. Let's move on to some of the stuff that makes the elementalist different from the mage and shaman. Mal, you're up.
There's a few areas, though the attunements that my shaman "colleague" mentioned are the primary difference. Another area would be the use of glyphs. These are temporary enhancements the elementalist can use to augment their abilities. They can be simple bonuses like the Glyph of Elemental Power (simply makes all of your attacks critical hits for 10 seconds) or they can be a little more imaginative like the Glyph of Elemental Storage (allows you to store a skill from your current attunement for use while in a different attunement).
Signets are another difference between elementalists and mages, but those have been covered in the other profession posts. I can give a fewexamples, but there's not really anything new to discuss there.
Ah, forgot about conjuration for a second there! While elementalists may not be the "vending machines" that many consider us mages to be, they do have some ability to conjure for others. Rather than being limited to food and drink however, these conjurations serve a combat purpose. Each element has a different conjure spell that can be used to create elemental environmentalweapons such as the ones you discussed last week. For scenarios where you're placed up against a foe with an elemental weakness, either natural or caused by someone in the party, equipping everyone with an elementally attuned weapon could significantly increase your damage output.
The last major difference that I can think of would be in area of effect spells.
What is there to be different? I think I only ever saw you two cast a couple different types of AoE. Magessummonedit on one spot or did that Arcane Explosion thing. Maybe once or twice you guys used a coneattack. Shamans dropped a totem to make it pulse fire, then they dropped Chain Lightning on things. What exactly is different?
Well, all of those things are still available. We just have more options for them. I know I certainly would; Fire Nova just hit whatever was around my Flame Shock target and Chain Lightning would hit whatever it felt like hitting in the area. I suppose they did get Earthquake, but that was while I was running around as enhancement.
The shaman is correct about the expanded options. Bear in mind that while mages may have had all of those different types of AoE available to us, the options in each category were limited. Point blank was Arcane only unless you dropped one of the channeled spells on your head. Targeted area and frontal cone had two choices, but they suffered from the other problem mages had: our spec limited our options. If you were arcane, then you really only wanted to use Arcane Explosion. Frost mages preferred Blizzard and Fire mages just used Flamestrike. Well, technically just Blast Wave since Improved Flamestrike made using the actual Flamestrike spell meaningless unless you were desperate to conserve mana. Regardless, as much as the shaman will make jokes at my expense over this functional restriction, it was one built of class restraints over personal preference. When your fire spells hit 40-50% harder than anything else, then it's hard to justify using those spells.
With the elementalist however, our area spell selection is expanded to all four elements. The bulk of these being staff spells as I addressed earlier, but there are a smattering of other AoE spells amongst the other weapons. In addition with the trait system we read about, we'll be able to work on all of our attunements at once, rather than being forced to use merely one or two elements due to a lack of talent points.
Ixnay on the aits-tray. Still digging stuff up for that post.
Ah yes, sorry about that. That about sums up the elementalist, I think. Anything else to contribute, Daikaja?
Nah, I think we got it. Only elementalist stuff left to cover really is the cross-profession skills and the traits and it sounds like the boss is gonna be writing up that stuff.
Yeah, I'll be taking care of that stuff, though anything you guys can dig up will be appreciated. Won't be until after I get back though.
Off on your own research trip?
Something like that.
Do try and "research" something other than the bottom of a beer mug.
I make no promises. See you guys in a couple weeks!
