Ghostcrawler Talks About Monks

The most recent Blizzard Insider features an interview with Dr. Greg Street, Lead Systems Designer for World of Warcraft, better known as everybody's favorite spectral crab Ghostcrawler. Ghostcrawler gives us some insight into the design philosophy for Monks and the feel they try to capture with each spec. Let's look over some of what he says.

The Monk: On Class Roles and Niches

The Monk was a somewhat left-field announcement. Given the difficulties Blizzard had with trying to balance Death Knights (not to mention the incessant cries of people saying they shouldn't be balanced, they're a hero class), it was not widely believed that a new class was in the works. When the trademark for Mists of Pandaria was sneakily filed by Blizzard with no comment or information like the torrent of Cataclysm leaks prior to its announcement, there was some speculation of brewmaster hero classes and a few whispers of a monk class (and if you read the comments in that link, you'll see me saying that it is likely a red herring; consider this sentence the equivalent of inserting my foot into my mouth, quite gladly too I might add).

But the Monk was announced nevertheless, and now the hype train is a' rolling. With a new class on the way, let us evaluate the importance of class roles and niches in World of Warcraft.

And Now We Count The Days

Today is Monday, October 24th 2011. BlizzCon 2011 - perhaps the most exciting BlizzCon in recent memory - has come and gone, and with this new week we begin to long march toward Mists of Pandaria and the bright new future of the World of Warcraft. And I for one could not be more excited.

Ah, but you don't really know who "I" is at the moment, do you? I've gotten ahead of myself. I am Iirdan, a fairly prolific commenter on WoW Insider and an avid WoW player. Even more specifically I am Brandon Cox, a part-time freelance journalist and student - you may recognize my name from several previously published articles on WoW Insider. But chances are you don't recognize my name, which may even be all for the better - here on Inner Peace I hope to carve a new name for myself.

Back when Wrath of the Lich King was launched I found myself drawn to the allure of the Death Knight. The starting experience unsurprisingly blew me away as the single most fantastic bit of questing I had seen in the game up until that point. During the course of those opening quests I was intrigued by the Death Knight's unique combat mechanics with recharging runes and a rage-like energy source. It was new, fresh, exciting - I loved it so much that even now my main character is a Death Knight.

Throughout Wrath I found myself getting deep into the Death Knight community, one of the many voices heard but not a standout voice. I read the Elitist Jerk threads, I posted on the official forums, I spent countless hours at training dummies (in Acherus, where else?) - and it was fun. More fun than I had ever had playing my self-hating gnome warlock (whom I have since further betrayed by rolling several mages).

So then imagine my excitement when the Mists of Pandaria announcement trailer reveals in those oh-so-satisfying golden letters that a new class - the Monk - will be included in the expansion. Here we arrive at the purpose of this blog.

Now that I have grown older and more driven than my Wrath-era self, I want to get in on the ground floor on this Monk class. With three roles to fill, I found it doubtful that I won't love them - but more on that in a subsequent post. Until the launch of the Mists of Pandaria beta (in which, per my Annual Pass subscription, I will certainly be invited to participate), this blog will be primarily concerned with news, rumors, datamines and other tidbits of information concerning both the Monk class and Mists of Pandaria as a whole - with my own thoughts and analysis, of course. Following the beginning of the beta, the blog will take a decided shift toward the "Monk" category with less focus on the expansion as a whole, though I will certainly provide news regarding it as often as I can in any way that I can. And once Mists is launched, full on Monk analysis will be the dominant focus of the blog.

So sit, help yourself to some tea (I suggest darjeeling), stay a while and meditate - find your Inner Peace.