Thursday, September 24, 2009

Aion gives you wings...

..then you can't use them hardly anywhere.

I recently took a chance, and bought Aion. I logged in, selected a server, and went about creating a character. I liked the idea regarding four basic character classes that expanded out into other classes. I selected the good guys for my Mage, and the bad guys for my Rogue.

The characcter customization is pretty well done, with options for skin, hair, and eye color, scars, hair styles, different faces, body types, and even your in-game voice. I made a pale skin, blue eyed, and blue haired elf looking Mage. After going through some starting movie, I went about questing. There is an overall campaign quest line, with many side quests to do such as collect 100 pork butts.

Every creature here looks like a pokemon or digimon, I swear. As I went about questing, the carrot danging was getting that next level, getting that next spell, but most importantly, getting to level 10. At level 10, you get a quest to ascend to become a Daeva. Once you do this, you get the ability to fly that was used as a big selling point of the game. Several in-game cutscenes later, I finally ascended.

I got my wings, and entered the Sanctuary. Which of course I could not fly in. So I teleported to a city I could fly in, to find out I can only fly for one minute. If you are in the air after that, your wings disappear and you plummet to your death. No parachute, no slowfall, no nothing. Also, you can not fly over water, or over mountains. The next leveling area I walked to, you could not fly there either.

So I was walking about doing questing with my same ol spells, my same ol gear, and my same ol crappy one minute or you die wings. I could continue questing, getting more levels, getting more spells, but why? I no longer had motivation to do it, it's as if the entire goal of the game is to get to level 10, play around with wings, and get bored of it. I'm sure the spells get flashier, but all in all the carrot was gone.

So I logged out. I am considering still playing my Rogue on the bad guy side some, the quests and areas will likely differ. As well, it is a different play style, so perhaps it will give me at least another ten levels of enjoyment. I can't say though that I care enough about this genericy game to try to make it to max level. All I need is for them to introduce a flight spell to Mages in WoW.

Arcane Changes

Likely, many other Mage bloggers have already covered the details regarding this latest patch changes (3.2.2 or something like that, I don't bother to count). If you want to read them all, go check the patch notes you lazy bastard. Since I am a kind and benevelent soul, I will link you to one of my favored bloggers, Critical QQ.

Myself being a fully devoted Arcane Mage, and owning a blog, it comes to my responsibility to enlighten all on my views. All in all, I think we went two steps forward and one step back. One great leap forward for standing still (How is that possible? Magic, bitches.), in that you get to stand still even longer (Yay!) and do supposedly more dps and save more mana (Again, magic.).

It is however quite a standstill (Yes, I went there.) for those in need to move, such as when a Death Knight is on your rear (quite literally). As well, there are many PvE encounters that need either minor movement (void zones), or to move most of the fight. Since you now have so little cushion time, expect to have your dps gashed. But wait, there's Arcane Barrage!

Now don't expect me to do any math, because I'm not one of those types. I just mash my big ol PWN buttons (I macrod all my buttons) and see the fireworks as a Warlock dies. However, Arcane Barrage has went from being THE rotation, to being something you only cast if you want to lose DPS. It still is the most amazing instant cast spell there is (It sure is purty too!), but it has no place in rotations anymore.

So after going and making a hodgepodge attempt at covering what is important about these changes, my opinion on them, I have some suggestions. One, is that Arcane Barrage when cast increases the duration of the Arcane Blast debuff. This way you can cast your AB and if you have to move suddenly, cast Abarr and then get back into your AB stack. This would have to be on a time limit, otherwise you could keep the debuff on a target all day.

Either that, or make a mini rotation. Give Arcane Barrage increased damage or some other benefit, when you have one stack of the Arcane Blast debuff. This is not so great as the idea I just had above which I just thought of on the spot (Go me), but could possibly work. You know what else would work? Having Arcane Barrage with one stack of AB refresh Slow on the target.

Enough, I have to stop now or I will continue to babble out ingenious ideas for free. I should be charging you all for this! Consider it your birthday and xmas gifts.
-Vinven