Stacking Stamina

Path of the Fake-Out

I’m sure by now everyone has heard the news about some highly anticipated Cataclysm features from worldofraids.com.  I for one, am very disappointed.

The removal of Path of the Titans was quite unfortunate.  Now… I can understand if it came down to “+% healing and +% damage” were too boring and they couldn’t come up with more interesting cross class bonuses from following different Titans.  Afterall, <sarcasm> Blizzard Entertainment is known for producing boring games with completely obvious mechanics, rotations, and story. </sarcasm>

Really Blizz… try harder.  Let me take a quick crack at it, shall I?

Lets assume that the “path” people choose are based on some titans that the players probably have a pretty good relationship with: the ones we freaking saved in Ulduar!  That gives us Freya, Thorim, Hodir, and Mimiron.  Each could have some utility, dps/threat, survivability, and fun pseudo-talents associated with their path:

Freya

Gift of Life – Gain Lifeblood (as an herbalist) at it’s maximum effect.  If you already have Lifeblood, the effective healing is doubled.

Regenerative Body – Regenerate 2% of your maximum HP every 5 seconds, even while in combat

Sting of Nature – Chance on dealing damage to apply a poison based DoT (scales with the higher of AP or SP)

Floral Stride – Leave a trail of fragrant flowers wherever you tread.

Thorim

Lightning Speed – Increases movement and mounted movement speed by 15%.  This does not stack with other movement increasing effects.

Energy of the Titans – Resource (mana/energy/rage/focus/runes) regenerates at 100% increased rate for 10 seconds.

Titanic Shock – Chance on dealing damage to instantly cause nature damage (scales with the greater of AP or SP)

Power Overwhelming – The power of Thorim courses through your body causing small sparks to erupt (think Mongoose’s lightning graphic, but on your character model)

Hodir

Icy Disposition – Reduces the duration of stun and fear effects by 10%

Cold Shoulder – If an enemy strikes the caster, they take a small amount of frost damage (scales with the greater of AP or SP) may have their movement slowed by 30% for 5 sec.

Frozen Solid – Your movement is slowed by 50%, but you resist all damage by 30% for 8 sec.

Frost Bitten – Your skin takes on an icy appearance, and your breath is cold as ice (frozen breath effect).

Mimiron

Natural Tinker – You are able to use Engineering items up to 50% of your highest trade skill’s value.  If you are an engineer, those items will no longer fail to work properly.

Be Prepared – Reduce the cooldown by 10% on all abilities with cooldowns 1 minute or greater.

Calculated Precision – Increased chance to hit with melee, ranged, and spells by 1%

Portable Walking Assistant – Ride on your very own S.E.G.W.A.Y (Secondary Egress Gizmo and Walking Assistance Yoke) – Not usable in combat

And those are just off the top of my head.  Blizzard could have done some amazing and fun things with this; something to really make players have fun choosing which titan to follow based on personal RP choices, aesthetic preferences, or even abilities.  I would have made all the purely fun/aesthetic abilities toggle on and off (much like worgen will have with human/wolf forms).  They could have even added non-combat pets and mounts for following your specific path.

I really think that they’re making a big mistake by not including this…  The “new” version of Archeology still looks interesting, and I know I’m going to be working hard on getting as much from it as possible… but I’m disappointed as hell.

More to come soon on how annoyed I am over the diminished guild system.

QQ