Well, the highly-awaited 1.2 patch notes hit the Herald last night, and as expected the community is abuzz with discussion of all the proposed changes, tweaks, bug fixes and nerfs. Mark Jacobs obviously wasn't kidding when he said they were going to be 50-plus pages in length. I'm going to go through the notes in order, pointing out specific ones that catch my eye and giving you my thoughts on them. This may be a really long post, so I may split it into multiple parts. Without further ado, let us begin.
We already know about the Slayer and Choppa, as well as the Twisting tower scenario, but something that just jumped out at me was this:
*Answer the Call to Arms with new Realm vs. Realm gameplay enhancements! Introducing the new Open RvR Rallying Cry system that summons you to key battles for Tiers 1 and 2.
What is this? I've never heard about this before, I even missed it when going over the notes last night. From the sound of it, it could be a button similar to the scenario button, except that instead of porting you to a scenario, it posts you to where there is heavy RvR occurring in your tier. This could have a great impact on ORvR, as well as making open RvR more dynamic. Instead of flying out to the camp to defend the keep, your warband can be ported to the area in question and be able to join the siege that much faster. Of course it remains to be seen how close to the action you get ported, this could be a great feature, so long as it's implemented properly.
* New treasures await! Across-the-board itemization improvements have been made to the Fortresses, world dungeons, and city dungeons of WAR, including better world drops, quest rewards, Influence rewards, and more!
Better loot is always good, not much to see here, maybe I'll see less Willpower on the non-healing gear.
* Crafting System Improvements! We've made many improvements to the game's crafting system, including pairing-off specific gathering skills with specific production skills in order to make crafters more self-sufficient. Also, the leveling curve of trade skills has been improved and fewer components are required to create items. Last, but certainly not least, is the addition of new craftable items!
This is great news for dedicated crafters. I personally am not a big crafter, but I scavenge on quite a few characters to make some extra money, mostly. I tried leveling Apothecary and Talisman making, but I tend to fall behind in my crafting since I outlevel the mob range that drops the mats that I need. I have yet to hit 200 on any profession save for scavenging. More details on this later.
* Multiple mail attachments! Now you can send several attached items with a single mail message.
Amen. Thanks Mythic, this was sorely needed.
* When instructed to attack a target on the other side of a closed door, pets will no longer run through the door.
This fix was a long time coming, and hopefully after this is implemented we will see much less complaining from players regarding Engineer turrets or Magus pets continuing to attack them through closed doors. Good fix.
* When attempting to loot from a pile of corpses, the client will now prioritize corpses with loot on them over empty corpses, making it easier to loot.
This. I'm very happy about this. I would get very frustrated on my tanks when I would AoE grind and then be unable to loot some mobs because they would be stacked on each other and I simply would be unable to loot. This is a minor fix, but highly appreciated.
* Monsters which flee from combat due to being at low hit points will now immediately begin moving at a slower speed.
This too. Many players don't experience this, as they kill mobs one at a time, but tanks and certain dps classes who AoE grind know the pain of dying, not because of a bad pull, but because a mob will flee exceedingly quickly, then evade to full health and return to the attack because its original position was within aggro range. I've died to this more than once.
* All Disorient effects cast by players will no longer stack. Only the most powerful Disorient will affect the target.
* We have adjusted the way that the Disorient debuff will effect characters. Instead of increasing all ability cast times by a flat value, it will now increase cast times by a % of the total cast time of the spell. As a result, melee abilities and instant cast spells will no longer be affected by Disorient since their cast time is effectively 0 seconds. Specific abilities for each career affected by this change are noted below.
This is a pretty major change to the disorient mechanic, it hits Marauders pretty hard, and other classes in varying degrees. This is a pretty major buff for melee, as the majority of their attacks are instant, and so will no longer be affected by disorients. I'm pretty stoked on this personally, as I play melee characters mostly, and now melee will be a lot more effective in T4, simply because they will be able to maintain their damage output without being setback by disorients.
* All absorb shield buffs have increased in effectiveness, and will now absorb roughly 50% more damage in most cases. Specific abilities for each career affected by this change are noted below.
Looks like a blanket buff to damage shields, although how many careers have those? I know SM's and BG's have them, BO's can spec for one, and the Zealot and Runepriest have them as well. I'll have to do more research to see how many careers are affected by this change.
Black Orc:
* Wot armor?: This ability has had its stacking % armor debuff replaced with a fixed-value armor debuff. Additionally, it will now apply its maximum debuff value in a single hit.
* Da Toughest: This ability will now grant less Wounds and health to the Black Orc when it triggers.
* Shut Yer Face: This ability will now deal more damage and cost no AP to activate.
* Down Ya Go: This ability will now deal more damage, knock the target down for 3 seconds, and cost no AP to activate.
* T'ree Hit Combo: This ability will now deal more damage but will receive less damage contribution from stats.
* Not in da Face!: This ability will now deal more damage and also make you and your group briefly immune to disabling effects.
* Dat Was Great!: This Tactic has been changed to match the changes to Wot armor?. The Tactic will now increase the duration of Wot armor?, and reduce the victim's Toughness.
Looks like all the percentage-based armor debuffs have been replaced by a flat value, this sounds painful, but it's a bit early to tell the long-term effect of this change. I do like using the armor debuffs on my tanks, but so long as the flat value isn't completely pitiful the ability will still be useful in my rotations.
I'm sad to see the Da Toughest nerf, I loved that thing in PvE hopefully Mythic will change the value it gains from speccing into the Da Toughest tree, so Blorcs built for survivability will continue to get decent returns from this ability. Good to see the AP requirement removed from Shut Yer Face and Down Ya Go, it was kind of dumb to have these finishers consume AP while others did not. This helps with the AP consumption issues the BO has from time to time. Not in da Face! conferring a short immunity to diable adds some utility, as well as helping the BO spearhead a push into the enemy ranks.
I'm unsure about T'ree Hit Combo, as it seems to be both a buff and a nerf, and testing will be required to see how it shakes out.
There are a lot more notes to go through, and I will continue updating throughout the day.
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