First, there’s an interesting post on Everyday Stranger that I’d like to link to, although it has nothing to do with gaming. It has a lot of relevance to me, however, as someone originally from the US who is in the process of applying for British citizenship. Like her, I’ve more than contributed in my years here. I pay an ungodly amount of tax, am active in my local community (if you count a network of equestrian friends), and I’m in charge of a project that will give kids in the US and UK the first safe, secure social networking platform. Although I am a devout fan of the NHS (I don’t care how crappy it is, at least you guys have medical care when you need it, unlike in the States where people quite often go without), I can’t imagine a situation where I would ever go on the dole or otherwise be a leech on society. I contribute. And it is going to get very, very hard for me to apply for citizenship. This lacks in fairness, and will have a direct impact on my life.
And thus we have a neat segue back to gaming: the warlock nerf that everyone is writing about. :) See how that was done? lol… Anyway, anyone who has ever played a lock to endgame level knows that locks are build around lifetapping. We can’t regen mana, and it’s the only thing that allows us to be valuable to a raid as sustained dps. All our gear is based around it. And now, to balance PvP a bit better, this nerf will make it incredibly difficult to raid as normal, with the same hardwon gear. Perhaps they’ll totally re-work all lock gear to compensate for this, but I doubt it. It is a horrendous change.
I wonder if this has to do more with the fact that Blizz developers are famously known for being PvPers, or if perhaps they are trying to place more emphasis on PvP in preparation for Warhammer coming out, which is supposed to be based around PvP?
Either way, totally changing the goalposts, and basically kicking us off the playing field, is not the way to do it, not after three years of everything being based around a certain class design. Bad job, Blizz.