Though once removed from the game, Heroic Leap found its way into the WoW CCG.

The second day of updates began with a list of changes for the Warrior class, arguably the tanking class most in need of improvements. It’s also arguable as to whether or not Cataclysm is going to deliver on that front. But, hey! New spells! You know the drill…

Unlike most of the other classes so far, the Warrior will get no new lower-level abilities, but they’ll have the customary post-80 stuff to play with. The first is Inner Rage, a passive skill that makes capping out on Rage less of a detriment by temporarily buffing the player. However, it’ll be under the microscope for the duration of the upcoming beta to determine whether or not people are purposefully capping Rage just to take advantage of it.

The second spell in the Warrior’s expanded arsenal is Gushing Wound, which is a new bleed-effect attack that stacks up to a max of three and applies every time the target moves. This will undoubtedly be beneficial for fights in which the boss or mob needs to be kited, and it can almost go unsaid how important it’ll figure into a PvP rotation.

Finally, we’ve got the triumphant return of Heroic Leap. If you’ve been playing World of Warcraft for a long time, then you’ll know this is an ability they tried to implement back in the beta for Wrath of the Lich King, but cut due to people messing about with it. Ultimately, it was too much of a pain in the ass for Blizzard to get it to work the way they wanted it to at the time, so it was removed from the game. It’s unclear whether or not Heroic Leap will work just as it did back then, but it does provide Warriors with a new means of initiating a fight (it shares a cooldown with Charge), casting Thunder Clap when they land.

Something else that should be noted is a new mechanic called Vengeance. This is the second Mastery stat that will appear in all tanking trees, so expect to see it have an effect on other classes, as well. Basically, every time the tank gets whacked by the enemy, they gain a stacking buff to their damage (and, subsequently, their threat generation). It’s a little complicated, but a more comprehensive explanation (as well as the rest of the Warrior changes) can be found beyond the cut. Continue Reading

Leap of Faith turns Priests into babysitters for people who stand in the fire.

Priest information is coming in awful late for us in the Western hemisphere, but Blizzard did say they were going to stagger releases so that all fans around the world would get something to read at an appropriate time. Nonetheless, there are some interesting changes as you might expect.

Right off the bat, you’ll notice a lot of the same language they used earlier in describing how Shaman healing would change. And like that class, a new healing spell will be added early in the game to make newbie Priests feel more versatile long before they ever have to start raiding. Mana usage will also have to be monitored more closely.

As far as new spells go, there’s Mind Spike (a new “fill-in” damage component for Shadow spec), Inner Will (a self-buff that increases movement/decreases mana cost of instant spells), and Leap of Faith (a utility spell that allows you to pull party/raid members towards you to get them out of trouble). I love utility spells like that because, when encounters are built around them, it means the game is a lot more about skill and less about chewing through numbers.

I actually found two of the new talents more intriguing, though. Power Word: Barrier, which Blizzard says functions similar to a Death Knight’s Anti-Magic Zone, seems like it will be integral to Discipline play. Chakra is a new mechanic in the Holy tree that allows Priests to switch their healing priority by casting three spells of a certain type in a row. Say you cast three Greater Heals in succession. Chakra kicks and and gives you an appropriate buff, temporarily specializing you in tank healing. Think of it a little bit like shifting gears on a car depending on what you need to do at any given time.

Of course, there are many more spell and talent changes than I’ve discussed here. Hit the jump for the whole shebang. Continue Reading

The MMO genre of gaming is not a particularly young one. In fact, I’d say it’s only a few years younger than the modern RTS and FPS genres (I remember playing my very first graphical MMO in 1997). So, suffice it to say, I was a bit surprised when I found out that not one MMORPG has made it onto GameRanking.com’s top 100 list. I’ve checked the list and I’ve checked it twice (ho ho!) and I’m telling you there are no MMOs to be found which raises the question: why haven’t any MMOs made it there yet?

Believe it or not, despite the genre being over a decade old now there really aren’t that many MMOs in the market. In fact, of the actual “pay2play” model of MMO there are typically only a handful of games released each year, as opposed to the thousands of Wii, 360, PS3, PC games that are released each year. This probably has had some sort of impact as to why there are no MMOs on the list. Let’s face it, when there are so many games coming out every year the MMO is bound to slowly get pushed down the list until a new one makes it back up there. In fact, GTAIV actually pushed World of Warcraft right off the list (who now sits at #101). However, that said, this logic does seem to conflict with the “quality over quantity” saying. Despite putting out fewer games than most other genres, there are still many quality issues that exist within the games upon launch… which brings us to our next issue.

One of the most obvious reasons as to why most MMOs never make it to the top of review scores is primarily due to quality. MMOs are HUGE worlds with many aspects of gameplay all running simultaneously with thousands of gamers. The sheer scope of programmability within these games would probably dwarf about ten single player games of near any other genre. Because of this there are a number of quality issues that must be tested and, unfortunately, the best test usually occurs after the game has gone live. As many MMOGamers know many of the biggest fixes and features aren’t readily patched until a couple months after the games release, which cites the mantra of many gamers today: “An MMO on launch day will be completely different 6 months later.” Perhaps if reviewers would put up two reviews of an MMO there would be a better “leveling off” of the scores…

Anyways, take from this what you will. World of Warcraft still sits at a very respectable #101 right above Zelda: A Link to the Past (one of my favorite games) with the next “MMO” being WoW: Burning Crusade at #142. After that there is nothing until beyond the 200 mark. It’s very clear that GTAIV effectively pushed WoW out of the running, but even before then WoW was only at #99 which is just barely scraping it by. No telling what MMO will make it there next. While Age of Conan looks like it will receive fair scores, I seriously doubt it’ll reach the top 100. Anybody want to take bets on Warhammer Online?

Check out the full top 200 list HERE.