Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Mount Jealousy

I'll be the first to admit that I've always been jealous that paladins and warlocks get free mounts. Yeah, sure... it works great in lore and whatnot, but why just those two classes? You could also argue that Druids have a type of increased speed via travel form, but more on that later. This probably shouldn't bother me because I've been past level 40 on the toons that I play for quite some time now. Heck, they've basically all hit 70 and have flying mounts, but that's not the point. So, today, I'm going to look at "mid-level" content and explain the new mounts as I see them. (Yes, this is completely made up; to my knowledge Blizzard is not looking to implement any of these mounts.)

Druid
They already get travel form 10 levels earlier than anyone else. Not sure if this is changing in the next patch since basic riding skill can be learned at 30, but they've enjoyed years of outpacing other people early. Plus, with the instant-cast, it gives them the jump to begin with. But where's the epic travel form? They have a flight form and an epic flight form, but no 100% increase (or say 90%) in land speed at or near level 60. Hmmm... interesting. I could see how this would be extremely overpowered in WSG, but that flag is pretty heavy.. maybe it would slow them down when carrying the flag.

Hunter
Let's start off by saying that Aspect of the Pack and Aspect of the Cheetah are pretty neat, but I wouldn't really call them "mount worthy". So, let me get this straight: a hunter can tame a wild animal to attack all sorts of monsters and enemies, but they can't figure out how to tame a mount? Furthermore, I see almost endless possibilities for these master-tamers. Boar mounts? Wind Serpent mounts? Warp Slicer mounts? Clearly, the Hunter community (all 0.5% of Wow players) have been without these mounts for far too long.

Mage
I'm a freakin' master of arcane, ice, and fire magic. Talented correctly, I can summon a water elemental. I can open portals to various places (still not sure why I can't open portals to pretty much anywhere I've been, but whatever). But I can't figure out how to use my powers to summon some raw energy that will carry me throughout my adventures. Arcane Orb mount? Fireball mount? I truly need to learn more in order to become a true master.

Paladin
You get a mount at 40. Granted it's a long quest chain, but you get another one at 60. Furthermore, you get increased mount speed as well. No more mounts for you.

Priest
Is there really a reason why Levitate (A) requires a Light Feather, and (B) cannot go faster than running speed? By your divine powers, you can levitate. What's to stop these powers from pushing you faster along? So, maybe Magic Carpet mount? lol. Or just no mount at all, but some type of Divine mount.

Rogue
You're sneaky. You pickpocket things. You can even distract. But you can't figure out how to steal a mount from the mount vendors? For shame. Rogues should be able to steal their mounts. Yep, that's right. You rogues are all criminals in my book. Go steal your mounts. Any mount sold at any vendor.

Shaman
Master of Elements, huh? What? Grace of Air can't actually lift you up off the ground? Oh come on! Give them an Air mount! Stop gimping the entire Shaman class. (See what I did there?)

Warlocks
Moving on.

Warriors
This class was a bit more challenging for me. Surely they couldn't fly around on their rage like Mr. Furious. But they can Intercept. So, at level 40, they figure out how to run at 60% speed. At 60, it's 100%. Maybe for the 3 second mounting cast timer, we can let them tie their shoes or something.

12 comments:

Leiandra said...

Bah... I even had some cool pictures, but they didn't upload for some reason. Oh well.

Anonymous said...

Very entertaining.

I think for warriors, they have to buy "sugar cubes", and then use an ability called hyperactive which consumes the sugar cube. This gives them the 60% or 100% speed boost.

For mages, they should have "rapid blink" or "insert cool name here" which would blink you along moving at the 60% or 100%.

Shaman, should just get faster ghost wolf.

Ardent Defender said...

Paladin should at 80 since its every 20 level get a flying "Pegasus".

Leiandra said...

Ah crap! How could I forget about ghost wolf? Oh, I know... because I haven't used it since I hit 40. Yeah... they should get a faster ghost wolf.

As for the mage, Elinor... I would never use "rapid blink" if it's as buggy as the real blink. :)

Very funny on the sugar cubes... but maybe we can make it not a consumable. More like "sugar cane"? /shrug

@Galo: Hmm... I hadn't explored the thought of future mounts. But how cool would it be if a Pegasus actually swooped down from the sky to pick up the rider, instead of the normal "mist" then change that we're used to now? On that thought... all flying mounts should do that. That's it! I'm off to the suggestion board. lol.

Anonymous said...

Instead of sugar cubes then "everlasting gobstopper" :-)

Leiandra said...

LOL!!!!! We have a winner! 50 points to Elinor.

Anonymous said...

It would be nice if Mages could get a flying carpet or something... but what I really want is Gnomes to have access to the Engineering mounts... It's in their blood...

Anonymous said...

Hunters are only one half of one percent of the WoW Community? (0.5%) I thought it was much higher than that. Aren't they one of the more popular classes?

Unknown said...

I think rogues should get stealthy mounts. Make it where they have to get exalted with Ravenholt or something like that. Of course that would be very unfair in PvP, even at a reduced mount speed in stealth form...

Leiandra said...

@Gnome: For some reason, a flying carpet doesn't do it for me. Yeah, it might be cool, but EQ2 kinda already did that. Not that Wow hasn't stolen other ideas from tons of MMO's. /shrug

@Pable: Sorry... it was kind of an inside joke. One of our hunters was saying that there should be a Stable Master down in the Caverns of Time since there's a vendor that will repair your armor there. My response was something like "Yeah, because that would benefit a whopping 1% of the Wow population." "Less," was his response. Hence where the 0.5% came from.

Anonymous said...

Understood, thanks for the clarification. :-)

I forget that this is kind of a guild blog too, lol

Leiandra said...

Nah... my fault. I know my readership is bigger than that. I just forgot it was kind of an inside joke. Furthermore, I think the joke used to be that everyone and their brother had a hunter or two.