WOW: Tournament Edition vs The Live Game

Like many others, I been having a blast playing the TTR.  For the first time ever in TBC I actually have full PVE gear to work with, the result?  2150 AP before trinket/mongoose, 30% crit, 80 hit rating and 220 resilience.  Let's just say my character feels a LOT more powerful in S2/T5 than S3.  With expose armor up, thanks to the two piece T5 bonus, shadowstep, improved eviscerate and dirty deed, I am getting non-crit evis's for 2000+ easily.  With trinket/mongoose activation I hit 2600+ AP easily unbuffed, and against S2 characters it is almost . . . unfair.

The armor penetration stat on S3 gear is a joke for rogues.  Against warlocks improved expose armor already bring them to zero (although if your name is Glickz, you get 3800+ armor unbuffed but even then with serrated blades, he is still very close to 0 once exposed).  Against any other class, S2 to S3 saw a significant increase in armor value across the board, so you don't gain any damage at all via armor penetration.  I played some rogue/rogue with both rogues at 2150+ AP and it was the best fun I had in a long time.  Instant 2v2 queues makes the bracket so much more fun to play, and with druid survivability nerfs it should make double DPS much more viable, especially with a human rogue.

Which brings me to my next question after reading Radikal's latest article:  How many people would be satisfied playing only the TTR module of the game for $15 a month?  I hate honor/badge grinding as much as anyone, I actually enjoyed raiding to a degree except I just can't fit it into my schedule, but even then I still enjoy the social aspect of having a main character.  Let's face it, this blog as the epitome of professional journalism, my hokage title acknowledged by every rogue under the sun, my relationship of love and harmony with Serennia, none of it would have existed if Ming the rogue character never existed.  We cherish characters like Neilyo-kun and remember him as the angry Undead rogue hero, I really don't believe Neil Mosunic playing 3-4 different characters would have brought him anywhere near the e-fame he has today. 

Not exactly the attitude SK wants:



TTR is an amazing idea that will certainly keep players coming back for more, but by itself, it won't sustain 10 million subscribers.  I am as loyal to the rogue community as I am to my significant other.  Even with the lure of creating fully equipped characters from other classes in minutes, I couldn't betray my way of the ninja.   I would never play another class on live because I obviously want to spend my very limited playing time on improving the character that made me who I am today, but even with zero consequences, I didn't feel like trying out other classes.  Maybe I am old fashioned, but I just can't see WOW in the same light as say, Street Fighter 2 where you just pick whatever character you like.  There is a level of attachment, a spiritual bond I must form with my character before I can really enjoy playing it.  A pure PVP game will never, ever have anywhere near the impact and commercial success WOW has today.  Not even Starcraft 2 will come close to the cash machine Blizzard built.

Finally, A Video Every Whitie Should Watch: