World of Warcraft XIII: Even Aspects Get Nerfed

[Karoht]

Its not just that either. It seems like every expansion just has larger and larger cash value on quests and such and builds up money faster. Ive played since release. I remember when getting 1k gold for your epic ground mount was months of farming runecloth and praying for lucky drops. I cut that in half by looting a GREAT epic item that sold for a whopping 500 gold! (big money back then) Now its getting to the point where, by the time im high level enough to buy it, I have the cash for it. I barely have to farm at all for 310% flight. I didnt even get 280% flight on any character until the end of WRATH, let alone tbc. It was just too expensive to be worth it for me. Now I throw away another what, 4500 gold? Just for a 30% extra boost thats only really noticeable over long flights.

Would you like to farm more? I know of this great game called Everquest...

Face it, money has largely become meaningless. Partly due to the way the game rewards are structured (you can't buy the best gear with money), and partly due to the way the player driven economy has gone. Heck, look at the people complaining that the new flying in Mists will be 2700 and how THAT is just too darned much.

Personally, I honestly don't care about money. Money has never been a barrier for entry for me, it's never kept me out of any fun content, it's never been this big deal that other people make it into. I still can't figure out how Gold Farmers still make money on WoW, when money is largely this meaningless thing.

[Traab]

Would you like to farm more? I know of this great game called Everquest...

Face it, money has largely become meaningless. Partly due to the way the game rewards are structured (you can't buy the best gear with money), and partly due to the way the player driven economy has gone. Heck, look at the people complaining that the new flying in Mists will be 2700 and how THAT is just too darned much.

Personally, I honestly don't care about money. Money has never been a barrier for entry for me, it's never kept me out of any fun content, it's never been this big deal that other people make it into. I still can't figure out how Gold Farmers still make money on WoW, when money is largely this meaningless thing.

Meh, I played everquest for years. It had its upsides and downsides. Main downside was the lack of quests. I mean, they were there, but it was genuinely hard to know without reading guides what npcs had them, and what you had to do to get them. Thats something WoW did EXTREMELY right. You can go from start to finish without ever having to grind at any point unless you want to, because there are quests to do that frequently even have a story behind them. The other thing I liked about everquest was its steep ability curve. You got punished if you died, and it is way harder to avoid dying in that game. Or at least it was 12 years ago when I played. It really pushed you to learn how to play your class well. The fact that the game wasnt easy to level up in also helped to foster a real sense of community. Everyone knew everyone else on their server, and your reputation would proceed you.

Thats because it took too damn long to level up an alt after your main characters reputation got ruined for kill stealing or ninja looting or scamming or whatever. It made it easy to keep track of the scum. There really isnt that sense of community in this game. Yeah you know your guildies, but they each probably have 10 characters on that server, then there are the other 50k characters running around. If someone is a jerk you wont know about it till you get nailed. And even if they DID manage to be so heinous as to be known server wide, it takes all of a month to get another character to max, and thats without trying very hard.

[Karoht]

The lack of community I blame on the people. Blizzard can't do anything to force socialization out of those who don't wish to. If anything, by opening up raiding to the majority rather than the minority, they've greatly encouraged people to work together. The problem is the people, they don't want to contribute, or they want to troll, or they want to do their individual role and not socialize.


Meanwhile...

Tonight my crew is going up against H Madness of Deathwing. We're just going to use our extended lockout and get this thing done.
Yes, I will be streaming it, same bat-time, same bat-channel.
www.livestream.com/Karoht
2230-2am calgary time. It's roughly 14 hours from the time of this post.
Given that I will be focusing on the fight, odds are I won't be talking all that much in chat. My apologies in advance.

[Leon]

I still can't figure out how Gold Farmers still make money on WoW, when money is largely this meaningless thing.

You may think money is meaningless but there are still plnety of people who do and are to lazy to actually earn it. I know someone who bought gold despite being told not to and he was hacked - we had a good long laugh at him.

[delphinae]

Blizzard just announced that the Dragon Soul debuff has been increased to 25% as of the maintenance this week. This change is already live on the US realms, but not on the EU realms.

Source

[Karoht]

You may think money is meaningless but there are still plnety of people who do and are to lazy to actually earn it. I know someone who bought gold despite being told not to and he was hacked - we had a good long laugh at him.

Okay, what did he buy with that money (if he actually received the gold that is) that he was willing to pay real dollars for?

Can't buy much in the way of Raid gear.
Can't buy PvP gear.
Can't buy any of the achievement bound mounts.
Can't buy any of the BoP mounts.
Can't buy rep.
Can't buy your way into most of the achievements.

So, what did he buy, or what was he planning on buying?


@DS Nerf
Called it.
Better odds we down H Madness this week. I'm crossing my fingers that we get the Hagara achievement for the meta next week.

[Expf]

Okay, what did he buy with that money (if he actually received the gold that is) that he was willing to pay real dollars for?

I can't say for him but I just view gold as a kind of high score to achieve in this game (and something to rely on when it's needed -- for things like gear maintenance). Basically, making gold is just something to do when there's nothing else to do! It's not 100% meaningful, but there are useful situations where it might be needed. With the Black Market AH coming out, it might be worthwhile.

Of course, buying gold & duping are terrible ideas though -- essentially cheating.

[Traab]

Okay, what did he buy with that money (if he actually received the gold that is) that he was willing to pay real dollars for?

Can't buy much in the way of Raid gear.
Can't buy PvP gear.
Can't buy any of the achievement bound mounts.
Can't buy any of the BoP mounts.
Can't buy rep.
Can't buy your way into most of the achievements.

So, what did he buy, or what was he planning on buying?


@DS Nerf
Called it.
Better odds we down H Madness this week. I'm crossing my fingers that we get the Hagara achievement for the meta next week.

What could he buy? 310% flight for his 50 alts. Epic boe gear for level 85s, some of the buyable mounts are expensive, (Are those mammoths still 10k?) Stacks of tradeskill material to level up his tailoring, blacksmithing, alchemy, whatever. I could probably burn through a half a million gold in 24 hours if I was determined to spend it on stuff.

[Expf]

Remember there are also TCG mounts, which are extremely expensive. Some people do enjoy collecting mounts for the sake of collecting (much like people who collect comic books and and those who collect stamps).

[Leon]

Okay, what did he buy with that money (if he actually received the gold that is) that he was willing to pay real dollars for?

Don't know what he wanted gold for but what ever it was he was not willing to earn it in game but wanted the easy way and suffered for it.

I spent a decent amount of gold on BoE Epics when i was gearing my 85s to get into LfR, it was better than even more endless hours in a random dungeons (which was done anyway but for the chance of drops)

[Karoht]

I didn't bother streaming last night's H Madness attempts. Why?
Because we pugged in 4 people. And 3 core people had to leave early.

Now admittedly, we did make it to the 5th platform, so huzzah for that. And on some pulls we were two healing it without too much issue. So yeah, progress, even with pugs.

But, due to roster issues we (Insomniac) aren't raiding again for the rest of the week.
...
...

...

So then after raid, I get a whisper from a guy in a newly forming guild called IoG. He asks why I wasn't streaming. And I tell him.
He informs me that his guild is looking for 4 people, he knows 2 of my other guildies already (from former guilds) and wanted to know if our dwindling core wanted to join them. Turns out they are a splinter group of the #1 guild on the server, Refined.
Refined only does 25 man, and has a list of server firsts under their belt.
IoG wants to be what Refined is, but 10 man. And I very much think they have what it takes.
And their raid times are really good for me.
And they have big plans for MoP that I rather enjoy the sound of.

After some guild drama 2 weeks ago that was highly detrimental to the guild, progress is now effectively stalled, and with an open raid spot, I am strongly considering leaving the guild that I have been a part of for the better part of 3 years.

But I'm going to the big leagues.
This should prove interesting.

Possible guild swap tonight before raid. If this takes place, I plan on doing a video about it on my stream before I stream another raid.

[Dublock]

Good for you, if they have the people and the dedication to push for firsts in MoP.

My guild has unofficially stopped until closer for MoP.

[Karoht]

Yeah, I'm not the type what gives up. I'm amazingly tired of carrying people through raids though. We carried so many people to their Corrupted Firehawks (metas + 6/7H) and Tarecgosa's Rests and now we've carried about a good 20 people to 7/8H. It gets very tiresome to spin our wheels and go absolutely no where, and other people benefit.
I have a funny feeling that just like with the Lich King, without the dead weight on board H Madness will just fall over.


Their plans for MoP are cool.
Set times and groups for Heroic Dungeons, Scenarios, Achievements, and Challenge Mode stuff. This is "an achievement focused guild" so all of that kind of content really appeals to all of us, and we want to tackle it with a plan so that we have a time and a place for it that does not impact raiding.
They want to get a PvP core going that does PvP/Rated on the weekends.
They want a PTR day once T15 is on the PTR.
They have another guy who livestreams, so we might get a combined stream going, which would be awesome.

[subanark]

Still having issues with H. Blackhorn... we just can't eat enough of those swirls to have the ship stay alive (plus we have been having attendance issues). I guess that damage to the ship doesn't get nerfed. Also it looks like the alliance finally got server first H. madness last week. There is another guild who is also having attendance issues, but the officers are concerned that if we try to combine raids it will alienate some members of the guild, which is barely surviving as it is.

Also someone had the guts to try to build a 25 man on our server, it was a train wreck with lots of wipes and eventually ended on spine (normal) with people not moving to the correct side to roll.

[Karoht]

Still having issues with H. Blackhorn... we just can't eat enough of those swirls to have the ship stay alive.

Yes, you can. It's on your healers though. 2 healing or 3 healing?
Have people just double up. Stand on each other. Leave the healers out, just the DPS. Tanks can eat one or two as well. If needed, have healers just stay with tanks and do their best to avoid Lines but still soak small swirlies with the tanks.
Every Big Swirly, your tanks should be using their 4pc bonus, alternating of course.
Sapper is UBER important to kill though. Ignore small swirlies to kill the Sapper. If the Sapper is getting through, ever, that is probably your problem. Even if we are perfect on small swirlies, if a single sapper gets through it's probably a wipe.

Also someone had the guts to try to build a 25 man on our server, it was a train wreck with lots of wipes and eventually ended on spine (normal) with people not moving to the correct side to roll.

We tried the same thing in Firelands. We put our two 10-man's together, and brought in some others to fill out the last 5 spots. It was a joke, at best.

[subanark]

We don't even bother to double up, that just caused deaths. Instead we just have people use the mirror to survive them. I'm thinking we might need more than 1 person to take a big swirl and we should be fine. People just aren't quick enough to jump in them.

[Karoht]

We don't even bother to double up, that just caused deaths. Instead we just have people use the mirror to survive them.

By that logic, Mirror for the solo swirlies, partner up after that, and you should be good to go. Your coverage should be really good then.

I'm thinking we might need more than 1 person to take a big swirl and we should be fine. People just aren't quick enough to jump in them.

Wait what?
You only have 1 person take big swirlies?
Yeah, this might be more of the reason why the ship is breaking up quickly. More damage is distributed to the ship if you have less people make it in.

People aren't quick enough to jump in the BIG swirlies? Um. Okay. They happen at set times, you have 6 seconds or so to get in them, people have movement powers, life grip... Yeah. I think this is easier to fix than changing anything with the small swirlies.

My new advice is, keep doing what you are doing with little swirlies, just fix big swirlies and don't let sappers through.
The last set of Drakes, we actively avoid little swirlies (though if you have mirror I would keep taking them so long as Mirror is up) and just burn the Drakes faster. We usually end the fight with the ship at about 15-25% health.

Hope that helps.

[subanark]

Its not the big swirl that is the problem, its the small ones. People will either be late in getting to them (which causes deaths if only 1 of the 2 make it), or the end up appearing in fire. Its a downward spiral as we get fires and that makes it more difficult to get swirls that cause even more fires. We did get close to phase 2 with the final drakes dead and the ship simply died on the last big swirl.

I'm thinking that if we simply assign everyone who doesn't have a debuf to take the big one it should work out well (that or just assign most the raid to do so). The earlier issue was with missing small swirls when too many people take the big one.

[Expf]

Yeah, I'm not the type what gives up. I'm amazingly tired of carrying people through raids though. We carried so many people to their Corrupted Firehawks (metas + 6/7H) and Tarecgosa's Rests and now we've carried about a good 20 people to 7/8H. It gets very tiresome to spin our wheels and go absolutely no where, and other people benefit.
I have a funny feeling that just like with the Lich King, without the dead weight on board H Madness will just fall over.

Sometimes, it's for the best. When I look back, I think of all the opportunities I wouldn't have missed had I made the choice earlier. Playing with like-minded people is generally more healthy for everyone.

[subanark]

Well we got H Blackhorn down. 1 tank died right after the dragon went down so we had to improvise (Elemental shaman taunts). Still though we were 3 seconds past enrage when he died. Once we figured out phase 1, we progressed quickly in phase 2.

[Karoht]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...v=GGx92MoaWEA#!
Discussion regarding MoP.
"What if MoP released without the raids ready."
For something like 4 weeks (at max).

The Gist of It:
There is so much non-raid content coming, so much diversity, that it may be overwhelming for some people.
It takes the push off of raids at the onset, and legitimizes people trying out the new content.

Downside:
The people who would whine pretty darned loudly if they made such an announcement.


Thoughts?

[The Succubus]

Wheeee! I got my very first Epic last night and a pretty rare one at that. Blade of Eternal Darkness from Princess Thedras in Maraudon. Beat a Priest and a Rogue(?) on the Need roll for it. Procs like crazy with my Arcane Missile spam.

[Traab]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...v=GGx92MoaWEA#!
Discussion regarding MoP.
"What if MoP released without the raids ready."
For something like 4 weeks (at max).

The Gist of It:
There is so much non-raid content coming, so much diversity, that it may be overwhelming for some people.
It takes the push off of raids at the onset, and legitimizes people trying out the new content.

Downside:
The people who would whine pretty darned loudly if they made such an announcement.


Thoughts?

The biggest downside would be the whining of the one guild per server that is always making it to the end game first and crushing it, because that would give any competing guilds the chance to catch up, and make it into an actual challenge. Thats not such a big deal.

[Dublock]

The biggest downside would be the whining of the one guild per server that is always making it to the end game first and crushing it, because that would give any competing guilds the chance to catch up, and make it into an actual challenge. Thats not such a big deal.

I was going to make that my first point :p

The second point it would depend on how long, if its only a month or two I would be fine, as that would give time to get raid ready, to have gear set up, to get my max cooking and fishing (Yea, I am a guild profession/mat gatherer) and finally insure that the guild has a core group with whatever class they want (how many people will reroll to monks?).

I know a lot of people will be upset but personally I like it as it gives me some more time to do everything.

[Karoht]

Yeah, I'm not seeing much of a downside, even a 2 week delay would be good. But again, for purposes of this discussion, lets assume a 4 week maximum delay from release date.


...And if it let them release the expansion that little bit earlier (it likely wouldn't affect release date) that would be another vote from me.


Really, MoP is going to have a lot to do at release.
85-90 Questing
Monk?
Professions
Dungeons
Heroic Dungeons
Challenge Mode Dungeons
Scenarios
Proving Grounds
New Battlegrounds and other PvP improvements
More World PvP encouragement via Cross Realm Zones
Pet Battles
Reputations
Managing your Garden with the Tiller's faction.
Dailies
Various Achievements related to all of the above

The hardcores might eat their way through all that in a week, or at least the bare bones just to get into the raiding race to world first. I think if raiding isn't around for a while, then even the hardcores get to take their time, build up their position, establish their rosters, theorycraft/learn every detail of their characters, bench test their potential and tactics in Heroics/Challenge Modes, fill up their guild banks with consumeables, and do all that leg work prior to 'the race' starting.

So the day they open it up, they can all line up at the SAME starting line, fully prepared and ready to go. Possibly making the Race to World First the most fair, and the most interesting yet.


Also, guild drama

Spoiler

Show

We left, we left quitely and politely. Guild leader immediately turned around, spammed Trade chat with garbage about us. She also said that she was going to kick us out anyway.
The people who ran her raids for her, and carried her arse to 7/8H because her healing sucks. Right.
Thats when I knew I had made the right choice.
Junk like that.
Meanwhile, new guild is cool so far.

[Traab]

My favorite drama event.

This is in TBC, im on my feral druid, (doing dps, not tanking) when a boe epic drops in botanica. The watchmans hood I think it was called, some nice leather agi gear. I win the need roll against the rogue in our group. Keep in mind this is a full pug, so every man for himself imo. The rogue INSTANTLY starts raising a stink, whining, crying, dropping from the group and running for the zone line, where he starts spamming how much of a ninja looter I am for taking that upgrade from him. I already have it equipped as it was a VERY nice upgrade for me.

This triggers a zone wide argument over whether feral druids should be "allowed" to roll on "rogue loot" where you have some people basically saying druids shouldnt get anything unless noone else wants it, others saying upgrades are upgrades. It even spills over into my guild! Apparently this loser rogue tracked down my guild leader and complained to him, he brought it up, I explained what actually happened, and suddenly the argument restarts in guild chat as well as general. Eventually the guild leader had to boot like 5 members just to get them to shut up. (they got reinvited after they calmed down and let it drop)

My point of view was simple. It wasnt a guild run, it was an upgrade for me, therefore I should be allowed to roll on it. Really, gear issues was the worst part about playing a "hybrid" back then.

[Talesin]

My point of view was simple. It wasnt a guild run, it was an upgrade for me, therefore I should be allowed to roll on it. Really, gear issues was the worst part about playing a "hybrid" back then.

That and being forced to heal.

[Traab]

That and being forced to heal.

Only on raids though. It was annoying, but possible, to get dps slots as a hybrid in dungeon runs, but raids? Forget it. I played an enhance shaman from release. Before mc came out, I could stand toe to toe with a warrior and beat him to death 9 times out of 10. I had high dps dangit. Then mc came out, all the shaman gear was healbot crap, and suddenly warriors got a massive dps upgrade with the epics that dropped there. Only plus side was that the nontank warriors always begged for me to be in their groups with windfury totems bouncing them up several slots on the dps meters. :p

[Karoht]

Really, gear issues was the worst part about playing a "hybrid" back then.

Tell me about it. I was a Powershifter in Vanilla. To get any relevant gear that wasn't caster, it had to be passed on by 6 rogues or more, or I couldn't even think about rolling on it. And if there were enchanters around and I took a piece of agi leather? Fuggedaboutit.

Insomniac was largely drama free for the most part. Most drama that did crop up tended to crop up around bad players or a few of the package deal couples that wanted to be carried.

Then, when guild management changed hands shortly into Dragon Soul, some of that drama just built and built. The tension was getting pretty noticable. And it wasn't burnout or anything, it was generally the issue that no one liked the new leader. Mostly because she was a non-leader leader type. But that lead to a lot of smaller issues, or contributed to them to make them worse.


Oh well. Over now.


========
Also, I spent some time reviewing Monk Healing. I found a great approach to it actually. Read the tooltips and think about what your keybinds/mouse buttons/healbot setup might be like. Once I started doing that, and started trying to group certain buttons together in combinations/sequences and give placement based on priority, I came to some interesting conclusions. Spoilered conclusions.

Spoiler

Show

Resource Management
Energy for Jabs and Rolls and a few other abilities.
Mana for most of your core stuff.
Chi for your big stuff.
Once you get quite a few stacks of Renewing Mists rolling around, Chi generation should greatly increase. This means that this is a healing class with a rampup time, and it might be extremely costly if one were to mess up that ramp up. This may give Mistweavers trouble in the 5 mans and challenge modes, but they may excel on longer fights in raids.
The fact that their basic 3 heals is actually sort of combo'd into one heal which is actually altered by two other abilities, may in fact be harder for some people to grasp than previously advertised. And the fact that Mistweavers will need to manage a few buffs such as Thunder Focus Tea and Mists and Blackout Kick, in order to really make the most of those 3 heals, might prove rather complex.
Also, the skill cap between the average healer and the really good healers is going to be a bit sharper than previous. To be a good Mistweaver, you have to be good about your melee DPS, your placement, your movement, your mana management, your Chi Management. Blackout Kick becomes important again to healers after 75.

The Good News:
They have some great smart heals. Not too many that things feel automated, but enough to contribute very very meaningfully at all times. I highly recommend that all healers (not just Mistweavers) enable their raidframes to be able to see who has Renewing Mist on them, and who is having Soothing Mist channelled on them.

Do they lack in burst? Yes and no. If you manage your Chi properly, and can generate 2 Chi every 6 seconds or better (you can Jab 2x or Surging Mists 2x), Uplift will not only refresh Renewing Mist (anyone who has it on them) but dumps a very large heal on everyone who has Renewing Mist on them.
There's Chi Wave which functions like Chain Heal and Chain Lightning all in one cast. There's Chi Torpedo which is a dash and a heal. Spinning Crane Kick becomes a Channel AoE Heal/DPS. There's Zen Sphere which applies a HoT, and if you cast another Zen Sphere the first one explodes in an AoE heal. And they can drop down Healing Sphere's which function like healing land mines.
But because of the fact that their burst is mostly Chi dependant, and there is a rampup/maintenance time and cost with Renewing Mist/Uplift, it's going to take skill and flexibility to 'weave' in that burst without upsetting the rest of the things they will likely be juggling. This is where that skill cap comes in.

Quality of Life:
They have a combat res, they have a single target damage reduction cooldown similar to Blessing of Protection, they have a raid wide damage reduction cooldown which combo's well with a magic damage reduction cooldown they can talent into. They have a personal physical damage reduction talent that they can also select.

Overall:
Their tools are varied an interesting, and skilled players are going to do extremely well. The key thing is, to be skilled at Mistweaver is really going to take a very Zen approach, and a constant learning process. Mistweavers have to be good at everything to be good at all. That may cause other players to shy away, or invite them to learn and become awesome.

[Traab]

Tell me about it. I was a Powershifter in Vanilla. To get any relevant gear that wasn't caster, it had to be passed on by 6 rogues or more, or I couldn't even think about rolling on it. And if there were enchanters around and I took a piece of agi leather? Fuggedaboutit.

Insomniac was largely drama free for the most part. Most drama that did crop up tended to crop up around bad players or a few of the package deal couples that wanted to be carried.

Then, when guild management changed hands shortly into Dragon Soul, some of that drama just built and built. The tension was getting pretty noticable. And it wasn't burnout or anything, it was generally the issue that no one liked the new leader. Mostly because she was a non-leader leader type. But that lead to a lot of smaller issues, or contributed to them to make them worse.


Oh well. Over now.


========
Also, I spent some time reviewing Monk Healing. I found a great approach to it actually. Read the tooltips and think about what your keybinds/mouse buttons/healbot setup might be like. Once I started doing that, and started trying to group certain buttons together in combinations/sequences and give placement based on priority, I came to some interesting conclusions. Spoilered conclusions.

Spoiler

Show

Resource Management
Energy for Jabs and Rolls and a few other abilities.
Mana for most of your core stuff.
Chi for your big stuff.
Once you get quite a few stacks of Renewing Mists rolling around, Chi generation should greatly increase. This means that this is a healing class with a rampup time, and it might be extremely costly if one were to mess up that ramp up. This may give Mistweavers trouble in the 5 mans and challenge modes, but they may excel on longer fights in raids.
The fact that their basic 3 heals is actually sort of combo'd into one heal which is actually altered by two other abilities, may in fact be harder for some people to grasp than previously advertised. And the fact that Mistweavers will need to manage a few buffs such as Thunder Focus Tea and Mists and Blackout Kick, in order to really make the most of those 3 heals, might prove rather complex.
Also, the skill cap between the average healer and the really good healers is going to be a bit sharper than previous. To be a good Mistweaver, you have to be good about your melee DPS, your placement, your movement, your mana management, your Chi Management. Blackout Kick becomes important again to healers after 75.

The Good News:
They have some great smart heals. Not too many that things feel automated, but enough to contribute very very meaningfully at all times. I highly recommend that all healers (not just Mistweavers) enable their raidframes to be able to see who has Renewing Mist on them, and who is having Soothing Mist channelled on them.

Do they lack in burst? Yes and no. If you manage your Chi properly, and can generate 2 Chi every 6 seconds or better (you can Jab 2x or Surging Mists 2x), Uplift will not only refresh Renewing Mist (anyone who has it on them) but dumps a very large heal on everyone who has Renewing Mist on them.
There's Chi Wave which functions like Chain Heal and Chain Lightning all in one cast. There's Chi Torpedo which is a dash and a heal. Spinning Crane Kick becomes a Channel AoE Heal/DPS. There's Zen Sphere which applies a HoT, and if you cast another Zen Sphere the first one explodes in an AoE heal. And they can drop down Healing Sphere's which function like healing land mines.
But because of the fact that their burst is mostly Chi dependant, and there is a rampup/maintenance time and cost with Renewing Mist/Uplift, it's going to take skill and flexibility to 'weave' in that burst without upsetting the rest of the things they will likely be juggling. This is where that skill cap comes in.

Quality of Life:
They have a combat res, they have a single target damage reduction cooldown similar to Blessing of Protection, they have a raid wide damage reduction cooldown which combo's well with a magic damage reduction cooldown they can talent into. They have a personal physical damage reduction talent that they can also select.

Overall:
Their tools are varied an interesting, and skilled players are going to do extremely well. The key thing is, to be skilled at Mistweaver is really going to take a very Zen approach, and a constant learning process. Mistweavers have to be good at everything to be good at all. That may cause other players to shy away, or invite them to learn and become awesome.

Yeah, I was the same way. I wasnt allowed to loot a drillborers disk in mc until after every other warrior, even the ones that didnt tank, got one. Pretty much every 2h weapon was the same. if I could equip it on my shaman I couldnt have it unless literally noone else wanted it, even though there are a half dozen options for other classes. I think I ended up settling for a 1h aurastone hammer because finkles lava dredger wouldnt drop. Raiding kinda sucked once we got past the learning stage. After rag died the second time we never raided mc sober again.