Friday, October 17, 2008

3.0.2 is here

Well as i'm sure you all know by now, the latest patch 3.0.2 is here, the prelude to Wrath of the Lich King which should be out in less than a month.

The changes to the game are wide and sweeping, and i don't remember the game play feeling so different when vanilla WoW went to TBC.

Ret Paladins once known as Loladins are absolute BS now, with crits coming out left right and centre, so powerful that Blizz nerfed them within days of release and people are still complaining they are too powerful.

Obviously your not here to read about the sweeping changes in the game, just how they affect stealthing, i've played with my druid a little, but haven't taken the opportunity to do any stealth running yet, from playing, looking at the patch notes, chatting to friends and checking out other more informative websites, here are the immediate changes i can see that will affect stealth running.

Huge changes to damage!!

Seems that either the mobs have been toned down, or all the DPS has been tuned way to high for current content, my friend a feral druid soloed all of Sethek Halls in normal mode, not just the bosses, but doing the 5 pulls, he didn't have to shift out and heal at all, just smacked all the mobs around in bear.

Besides the huge damage changes

Druids

Druids and Shaman can now use items while shapeshifted.
This will help Kitties and Bears eat HP pots and Health Stones while in form

Entangling Roots: Can now be used indoors.
Real CC Besides just SAP and blind will make multi pulls even easier

Feral Swiftness: The movement speed buff can now be used indoors.
Faster stealthing for ferals

Nature's Grasp (Balance): Can now be used and can proc indoors. This is now a base ability at level 11 and has a 100% chance to proc.
Might help a druid that accidently agroes

New Spell: Revive - Returns the spirit to the body, restoring a dead target to life with health and mana. Cannot be cast when in combat. (Ranks 1-7 added)
This is a huge change!! most of our rez's were through Battle Rez's and jumpers, this gives druids a real rez, less graveyard running

Soothe Animal can now be used on Dragonkin as well as Beasts.
People may laugh about this spell, but us stealthers know it's power on beasts

Soothe Animal is now instant cast.
Well this won't really affect the run but i thought i'd mention it.

Rogues

Elusiveness (Subtlety) moved to Tier 3, now reduces cooldown of Vanish and Blind by 30/60 sec and Cloak of Shadows by 15/30 sec.
Let's rogues screw up a little more with their safety net vanish on a shorter CD

Evasion, Sprint and Vanish cooldowns reduced to 3 min.
Quicker to stealth to bosses, and more changes to speed up, also gives the chance to vanish more often

Master of Deception (Subtlety) reduced to 3 ranks.
Bout time they thinned this talent down on par with druids

Disarm Trap range increased to 20 yards, cast time reduced, now requires stealth.
Sounds good, although to be honest, i can't remember much opportunity to do this in a stealth run, maybe in future instances

Pick Lock and Disarm Trap no longer require Thieve's Tools.
Less crap to carry around is a good thing

Vanish no longer requires the reagent Flash Powder.
Same reason as the one above, bags just get full!

Night Elves
Shadowmeld
Shadowmade seems amazingly strong now, being able to shadowmeld while in combat and it getting rid of your agro until you come out of shadowmeld.

One melded you can wait to get out of combat then restealth, unfortunately it now has a 2 minute CD, doesn't give you +1 level of stealth anymore, and you can no longer eat and drink while melded



I'm sure there's quite a few other things that will affect runs, and who knows how much of a nerf bat Blizz may swing to try and level the playing field, all i can say is can't wait for Wotlk new instances to learn to stealth :)

p.s. Bobo it's time to come back

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Stealthing Heroic Slave Pens with a Hunter

I had the pleasure of doing a Heroic Slave Pens stealth run with a hunter in the group.

It was pretty cool to watch, and he was able to run up to the bosses a lot quicker than i thought, he fell dead a lot less times than i thought he would, and being a Night Elf hunter, he was able to shadowmeld in some places to wait for pats to walk past.

Since we had a rogue in the group, it made it a little quicker as a rogue can sap some mobs for him to run past, however without the rogue, the hunter could easily kite some mobs away with his pet, and run past and fall dead.

I wasn't at all surprised when my friend offered to bring his hunter, as i have done a partial stealth run with a hunter years ago (LBRS) and if you've seen the Hunter VS World video's you know Hunters are op! (Hunter solo's Heroic SP)

So here's the basics of how he did it.

When you enter Heroic SP, you see the bogstrocks path around the pool, wait till they run past and run up the other side, pause a moment to see where the other pack of bogstrocks is, and then you can run up the right hand side behind the cages, you should be able to shadowmeld behind them until the slave handler paths past.

Run into the tunnel there wil be 2 Coilfang Champions that patrol, run up to them and fall dead, wait till they path past, then run to the end of tunnel.

We sapped the Coilfang Slavehandler that paths on his own, waited for the patrol of Coilfang Champion and 2 Coilfang Enchantress's to path away, then ran up to them and fall dead.

Run to the right, watch the patrols, and you should be able to shadowmeld and wait for a patrol to path away.

Run along the waters edge towards the 2 Coilfang Champions and wait for the druid tank to pull. Our hunter said he can run past here, just get his pet to kite them away, but as with our normal stealth runs we kill these mobs, just in case someone dies or screws up the jump, so they can stealth back later.

Getting to the first boss (Mennu the Betrayer) is easy enough, just wait for the pats to path away, and the hunter can safely run under the bridge.

Once the first boss is pulled, he's pretty cake as you know.

Getting up to the second boss is easy (Rokmarr the Crackler), the hunter runs up the bridge, waits to see which side the pats are on, and runs up the other side. If you have 2 rogues, you can sap both Coilfang Observers, if you have one, the hunter has to run up and fall dead until they pass.

Once up to the top of the bridge, just wait for the 2 pats (Coilfang Champions i think) to path to the other side and drop down the gap.

Jump to the side the second boss is on, and he's cake.

Getting to the third boss Quag was a little harder, the hunter jumped back into the water to avoid the bogs near the second boss, and ran all the way into the tunnel up past the first boss again, this time he jumped down the other way (used to be the normal way) a rogue sapped the Coilfang Champion and the hunter could run past.

The hunter runs along the waters edge up to the first group that usually consists of a mix of different Coilfang mobs. We had our rogue sap the Coilfang Observer and a druid slept the beast.

Our hunter easily ran in between the gap to the side with the cages, we're it's safe for him to run up to the ramp that goes into the cave.

Now our hunter used his pet to kite a group of mobs into the water, as the mobs pathed away, the hunter used this to his advantage and ran into the cave, a quick fall dead in the case in front of the last group of Coilfang Mobs, means he only has to get past the 2 groups of bogstroks to get to Quagg.

Timing the pathing of the Bogstrokks was easier than expected, he ran up, shadowmelded near the edge of the pool behind the cages and then was able to run up the side of the pool towards the back of the cave.

It was a lot of fun doing a stealth run with a slightly different group makeup.

Given WoTLK is just around the corner and the 3.0.2 patch is tonight, it should shake things up a bit, druid rez's, new shadowmeld abilities should make stealth running slightly more interesting in the very very near future.