Alliance <-> Horde Faction Changing Service for WoW - Page 5

Xelopheris · 07/05/09, 2:50 PM

Originally Posted by Vazu

Why go Alliance?

- If your tanks are NE, they gain 2% avoidance.
- Gnome casters gain 5% INT, which is actually quite good.
- The hit rating buff for Draenei allows for different gear and talent options.
- Humans can basically PVP trinket every 2 minutes.

Why go Horde?

- Orcs can Blood Fury to increase their DPS every 2 minutes.
- Orc Warlocks/Hunters gain increased pet damage.
- Tauren can War Stomp (hi Freya +3)
- Tauren have 5% more HP.
- Trolls can Berserk to increase their DPS every 3 minutes and is soon to be buffed further.
- Trolls gain a 5% damage bonus vs. Beasts.
- Trolls gain a 15% movement speed duration reduction bonus vs. impairing effects.
- Undead can remove Fear, Charm or Sleep every 2 minutes.
- Blood Elves can silence anything within 8yds for 2 seconds every 2 minutes, plus gain mana, energy or rage from it.
- Blood Elves have a passive 2% avoidance vs. spells.

--

So yeah, unless they make some major, major changes to Alliance racials, I can't see why any raiding guild would stay Alliance. Horde racials are superior basically across the board for every single class in the game. I know our Mages are salivating at the thought of re-rolling Troll. Warlocks want to go Orc, our DK's want to go Blood Elf, etc. There's just so many reasons to be Horde right now if you want a raiding advantage. Really the only noticable nice buff Alliance get is 1% party hit from Draenei. The rest of the bonuses I listed above are nice but they aren't as likely to change a fight like Orc or Troll racials can right now. All of those DPS checks in Ulduar where we've wiped at 2-3%? Never would have happened if our Mages were Troll, etc etc.

Sure, if you cherry pick which racials to list, it can seem like an overwhelming favor for the horde. While there is horde favor for PVE racials, it isn't a huge advantage, and can vary greatly by fight.

P.S. Would love to see a BE gain rage from Arcane Torrent.

Anarkid · 07/05/09, 8:20 PM

This could also make recruiting new members from the other faction more favourable than from your own faction. If you have two applications which are discernibly equal in quality, one from your own faction with bad racials (who won't be able to change races) and one from the other faction (who will be able to pick the best race for their class), which one are you going to choose?

ildon · 07/05/09, 9:13 PM

Originally Posted by Anarkid

This could also make recruiting new members from the other faction more favourable than from your own faction. If you have two applications which are discernibly equal in quality, one from your own faction with bad racials (who won't be able to change races) and one from the other faction (who will be able to pick the best race for their class), which one are you going to choose?

The one with better experience/gear/more impressive game knowledge/etc. There's no way that all those things can be so equal that it just comes down to the racials. Especially if it's a transfer app so you haven't played with them and don't really know their skill level.

Muahobo · 07/05/09, 11:48 PM

I can't picture even the best of guilds switching to the opposite faction simply for racials, but I can picture there being masses of players changing to the more populated faction on PvP servers. Most likely Blizzard implemented this feature for players to have access to play with friends, as an example if you just recently met someone and they played on a different server, and a different faction, you would be able to play with them by just buying a server and a faction changes.

Vaccine · 07/06/09, 6:09 AM

Originally Posted by Vazu

Horde racials are superior basically across the board for every single class in the game. I know our Mages are salivating at the thought of re-rolling Troll. Warlocks want to go Orc, our DK's want to go Blood Elf, etc. There's just so many reasons to be Horde right now if you want a raiding advantage. Really the only noticable nice buff Alliance get is 1% party hit from Draenei.

At least for tanking, this is false. Night Elves are vastly superior to Tauren since the last changes, especially Druids (can't Warstomp in Feral forms so lose even that). I'd go as far as to say that Quickness - Spell - World of Warcraft is borderline overpowered and by far the most effective racial across the board and should probably be nerfed back to dodge.

Anyway nobody has mentioned the most overpowered racial in the game yet, Diplomacy - Spell - World of Warcraft. If there was such a thing as a human Druid, I'd be paying for this as soon as it came out! I don't think picking your Racial would work very well though as it would just be another thing min/maxed to the extreme. Even going as far as having 3 or 4 people per raid with Heroic Prescence, whilst everyone else mixed and matched expertise passives for their current weapon or the gnome racial for casters.

Endus · 07/06/09, 6:52 AM

Originally Posted by Vaccine

Anyway nobody has mentioned the most overpowered racial in the game yet, Diplomacy - Spell - World of Warcraft. If there was such a thing as a human Druid, I'd be paying for this as soon as it came out!

From a min/max perspective, Diplomacy is arguably the worst racial in the game. It does absolutely nothing to improve your actual performance. All it does is remove some of the grind. Other races need, usually, another day or two of dailies or another heroic or two of rep gains to make up the entire difference that Diplomacy. This isn't a huge thing to overcome.

And once you've got the rep you need, it becomes 100% useless.

It's a decent racial if you're a casual player with little time to play, but that's about it.

Vaccine · 07/06/09, 7:11 AM

Originally Posted by Endus

From a min/max perspective, Diplomacy is arguably the worst racial in the game. It does absolutely nothing to improve your actual performance. All it does is remove some of the grind. Other races need, usually, another day or two of dailies or another heroic or two of rep gains to make up the entire difference that Diplomacy. This isn't a huge thing to overcome.

And once you've got the rep you need, it becomes 100% useless.

It's a decent racial if you're a casual player with little time to play, but that's about it.

Given that it's equivalent seems to be the +profession passives, I'd take it in an instant.

Blayze · 07/06/09, 8:50 AM

Given that it's equivalent seems to be the +profession passives, I'd take it in an instant.

Agreed. It's the best at what it does, and what it does is allow players to reach new levels of reputation easier and faster -- and there'll always be new worthwhile factions to gain reputation with.

Mordinm · 07/06/09, 9:45 AM

Originally Posted by Muahobo

I can't picture even the best of guilds switching to the opposite faction simply for racials, but I can picture there being masses of players changing to the more populated faction on PvP servers. Most likely Blizzard implemented this feature for players to have access to play with friends, as an example if you just recently met someone and they played on a different server, and a different faction, you would be able to play with them by just buying a server and a faction changes.

There's already a way to escape if you feel your faction is too badly disadvantaged on your server. You can always transfer to a server where your faction is dominate. I very much doubt there are massive numbers of people who want out of a weak faction server combo and yet feel so attached to their particular server that they refused to transfer off. If this service causes a huge population shift it will have to driven by racials.

Gorb · 07/06/09, 2:21 PM

Tauren have 5% more HP.

Just want to point out that this was changed to 5% BASE HP, which makes it almost nothing.

footloop · 07/06/09, 3:04 PM

Originally Posted by Gorb

Just want to point out that this was changed to 5% BASE HP, which makes it almost nothing.

It's still ~500 hp, which is only slightly worse than current profession bonuses. It's not as good as a nelf's racial for tanking, but it's not 'nothing' either.

tonic316 · 07/12/09, 12:21 PM

They are doing the faction change to play with friends (because rerolling sucks). You don't need to change your race to play with friends if they are the same faction.

Kraith · 07/18/09, 2:52 PM

Originally Posted by footloop

It's still ~500 hp, which is only slightly worse than current profession bonuses. It's not as good as a nelf's racial for tanking, but it's not 'nothing' either.

No but it does make it almost nothing, which is what he said.

With the sneak peak/troll of the new Halloween masks we have the possibility of two new races. This has also brought up talk of people leveling a class of the opposite faction simply to faction change to one of the new races. Thoughts on this?

I would assume faction changing to the new races would be locked; at least for awhile.

Linnet · 07/19/09, 6:05 AM

Originally Posted by Kraith

This has also brought up talk of people leveling a class of the opposite faction simply to faction change to one of the new races. Thoughts on this?

I'm missing the point of why you'd want to do this, unless the new racials are absolutely stellar?

Kraith · 07/19/09, 9:46 AM

Originally Posted by Linnet

I'm missing the point of why you'd want to do this, unless the new racials are absolutely stellar?

You underestimate the attractiveness a new race has on WoW players. Look at Drae and Blood Elves, other than the new class they brought to each race, there are a ton of them. It is the same reason people use gender change right now. People care about how their character looks.

Linnet · 07/19/09, 10:05 AM

Originally Posted by Kraith

You underestimate the attractiveness a new race has on WoW players. Look at Drae and Blood Elves, other than the new class they brought to each race, there are a ton of them. It is the same reason people use gender change right now. People care about how their character looks.

OK, I guess. But if people are so desperate to be first on the block with a raiding character of the new race, I don't see any reason why Blizzard would disallow it. It's free cash for them and there are no balance issues. That's assuming they don't start at higher levels (like death knights) anyway.

Kraith · 07/19/09, 11:16 AM

Originally Posted by Linnet

OK, I guess. But if people are so desperate to be first on the block with a raiding character of the new race, I don't see any reason why Blizzard would disallow it. It's free cash for them and there are no balance issues. That's assuming they don't start at higher levels (like death knights) anyway.

I'll quote myself:

This has also brought up talk of people leveling a class of the opposite faction simply to faction change to one of the new races. Thoughts on this?

Meaning someone will have a level 80 of the opposite faction of their current main and use the faction change feature to move it over to their main faction. Thus having a high level toon of a new race. IE starting at higher levels.

Linnet · 07/19/09, 11:33 AM

Originally Posted by Kraith

I'll quote myself:

Meaning someone will have a level 80 of the opposite faction of their current main and use the faction change feature to move it over to their main faction. Thus having a high level toon of a new race. IE starting at higher levels.

I just meant that if the new races get high level new starting areas, there's even less point going to all the effort of levelling an alt on the other faction just to switch it over. But there aren't any balance issues so I don't really see the problem (it just seems like a waste of money to me.)

• alcaras · 07/20/09, 10:25 AM

Originally Posted by Kraith

With the sneak peak/troll of the new Halloween masks we have the possibility of two new races

Err, what was this?

Jaconis · 07/20/09, 11:07 AM

Originally Posted by Kraith

I'll quote myself:

Meaning someone will have a level 80 of the opposite faction of their current main and use the faction change feature to move it over to their main faction. Thus having a high level toon of a new race. IE starting at higher levels.

Yeah, but what advantage is there to doing that compared to switching to an 80 of any race of this fictional person's main faction? They get to be the world/server first 80 of the new race? Its not like this person would have recieved an "unearned" 80 or somehow cheated the system. They still will have leveled from 1-80 (unless its a DK, but then they would have started at 55 on the new race too). They would have actually missed out on any of the new starting areas to repeat old world leveling zones.

Ukerric · 07/20/09, 11:39 AM

Originally Posted by alcaras

Err, what was this?

See the lore thread (which not everyone follows, I have to admit).

The latest PTR built had apparently a QA slip, and some files ended up in there. There's some Emerald Dream works (map update, incorrect tagging which leads to think it's an old update landing now on the build), and what's more, 4 new Halloween Masks. Since masks are only available for playable races, and have never been available for others, and they include female version of NPCs that never had a female form so far... Occam razor rules says the most likely explanation is probably the correct one: 2 new races coming with Cataclysm: Worgren and Goblins.

The speculation being, of course, on whether some people will level an opposite faction character to 80, and convert them into level 80 goblins or worgren on release.

Prinsesa · 07/21/09, 1:53 AM

Originally Posted by Liar

With that in mind, it shouldn't be too hard to compare the racials in terms of item budget since you can express most racials in form of ratings (i.e. Heroic Presence is worth 33 rating in the best case (melee hit, needs exactly 1% to cap - it get's worse the closer you are to the cap and if you are a caster). Blood Fury can be averaged out as a +AP/SP buff that can be tied with CDs, expertise racials work the same and so on. Anyone feel like making such a list? :P

91 equivalent item points from Quickness' 2% miss (Night Elf)*
46 equivalent item points from Gun Specialization's 1% crit (Dwarf)
46 equivalent item points from Bow and Throwing Specialization's 1% crit (Troll)
41 equivalent item points from Mace Specialization's 5 expertise (Dwarf)
41 equivalent item points from Axe Specialization's 5 expertise (Orc)
36.44 equivalent item points from Berserking's 36.44 haste rating**** (Troll)
33 equivalent item points from Heroic Presence's 1% melee hit (Draenei)
27.07 to 23.13 equivalent item points from Endurance's 5% increased base health** (Tauren)
27 equivalent item points from Heroic Presence's 1% spell hit (Draenei)
25 equivalent item points from Mace and Sword Specialization's 3 expertise (Human)
20.125 equivalent item points from Blood Fury's 40.25 AP*** (Orc)
17.46 equivalent item points from Blood Fury's 20.375 spell power*** (Orc)

Not covered:
Expansive Mind - the amount of equivalent stats you'd get from this 5% INT bonus would vary from class-to-class, spec-to-spec
The Human Spirit - the amount of equivalent stats you'd get from this 3% SPI bonus would vary from class-to-class, spec-to-spec
Gift of the Naaru - I'm not sure how this can be expressed as an equivalent amount of item points, or if it even should be, since healing is not something that you'd always need to do (unlike spell power or AP buffs)
Arcane Torrent - while this can be expressed as an equivalent amount of MP5 when used every cooldown, it would again vary based on the player's mana pool

* Come 3.2, it will take 91 dodge rating to get 2% dodge, or 91 parry rating to get 2% parry. I decided to express this in terms of dodge or parry since Defense Rating does not add "just" miss, and dodge / parry will have the same conversion rate anyway. As well, Druids would not be represented fairly by "an amount of Defense Rating equal to 2% total avoidance" since Druids do not have Parry.

In any case, the miss chance from Quickness is not diminished, so it's mechanically no different from Dodge or Parry except if you're not facing the mob.

** A Tauren Warrior or DK will see 406.05 extra HP from his Endurance as the highest contributor, while a Tauren Shaman will see 346.95 extra HP from his Endurance as the lowest contributor (including 3.2's Shaman base health buff). Also, note that this is not directly equal to 27-23 item points spent on STA, since STA would scale with raid buffs.

*** When used every cooldown (derived from 322 AP for 15 seconds every 120 seconds, or 163 spell power for 15 seconds every 120 seconds). Actual DPS contribution may be higher when combined with trinkets, proc effects, Bloodlust, etc.

**** When used every cooldown (derived from 656 haste for 10 seconds every 180 seconds). This may not be directly equal to a plain 20% haste rating conversion, since difference sources of haste stack multiplicatively. Actual DPS contribution may be higher when combined with trinkets, proc effects, Bloodlust, etc.

• Melthu · 07/21/09, 8:50 AM

Heroic Presence should be multiplied by 5 to account for the fact that it's party-wide.

Quickness' power increases as your gear increases since it is not affected by diminishing returns. If we take a hypothetical druid with 0 defense rating and a raid-buffed dodge chance of 50%, Quickness is worth 227 dodge rating.