Mookinage (Link)

[Ualaa]

Thought this was good: here's an idea to buff Moonkins - Forums - World of Warcraft

[Tim]

I'm just waiting for that person to edit their original post to say something like this:

Nevermind, just delete the Moonkin and play a Frost Mage instead.

[Ualaa]

It sounds a bit overpowered, the Mookinage.
But then you think about it, and there already is a class with all of those abilities.

[Tim]

The poster was obviously making fun of how over powered Frost Mages are. I'm not sure I agree, but I do have a Frost Mage, maybe that is why?

[Ualaa]

They probably don't have enough DPS, for PvE. Not horrendous, but not that good either; definitely not competitive for the top few spots in any of the PvE raids.

But then you look at root effects on four different diminishing returns, plus snares from the main nuke or hitting them, blink out of many CC effects every 15 seconds... and they have way too much control/escape to be given stronger DPS.

They're already a hard counter to all melee, except Death Knights. Any other melee is an automatic free kill to a mage with half a brain, even if the melee has much better gear. Granted PvP is not balanced around 1v1, but there are videos on youtube where a S.Priest cannot get a Feral+Warrior off of them in 2's, but the F.Mage is easily able to take out both melee solo.

[Tim]

Right now my Goblin Mage has about ilvl 350 PVE gear, and yesterday I was wandering around Tol Barad and saw a decked out warrior in PVP gear. So I flagged, and he attacked me (got the first hit).

All I did was nova, attack, frostfire, some ice lances, pet nova, deep freeze, and then the PVP warrior with like 170k hp was dead! I don't think he hit me other than his initial attack.

I think the issue isn't Frost Mages so much as it is Blizzard and the current state of World of Warcraft. The nonstop cycle of alienating their customers by buffs then nerfs, anti-social promoting gameplay aspects, and a complete push towards elitism, everything total just creates a gaming atmosphere that I believe another company could do better with.

[Zub]

"a push towards elitism ?"
wow has been pushing towards casuals since the pre-BC change to honor gains in classic WoW (and the new/ongoing system of 'welfare epics').

[Tim]

Okay let me rephrase, a gigantic shift towards elitism, that started out with a small push, and now is a massive shove. How's that? : )

But really, the steps Blizzard has been implementing over the years facilitate and further anti-social behaviours, elitists attitude, and break down those fundamentals that exist from which communities thrive with.

My opinion of course, but I still think it is true.

[Ualaa]

Gear score and the ability to view item level and average item level, definitely allows elitism.
Requiring a minimum average item level to even enter heroics encourages the same for raid content.
Having addons that calculate DPS is a step in this direction too; then again, in previous games without DPS, you had no idea who was pulling their weight and who was not... so relative DPS is not all bad.
Achievements are a major contribution to elitism; Looking for more, for whatever, PST with Achievement, Gear Score and Class-Spec.
Or the PvP equivalent... Looking for more for rated bg's, 3k res minimum and please don't suck.

Warcraft owes its success to catering to the masses, instead of the top few players.
Pretty sure most of the things put into the game are for artificial time sinks, to keep the player base interested, rather than an effort towards elitism on Blizzard's part.
The honor based gear is more a time sink mechanism on Blizzard's end, than a tool for elitism or welfare epics; it takes longer to acquire a full set of honor gear then it does to level a toon from 1st to 85th without RAF/Heirlooms/Rested Experience.

Still, game mechanics or tools that are included have moved the game (through player use of those tools/mechanics) towards elitism.
It is natural, to an extent, especially considering a large portion of the player base are in their teens... epeen tests.