Ice Wizard. Mana patch

[Onno]

Deleted

 

[скибидивапапа]

I agree with you

 

[DaZh]

In fact, it's very strange, IceWizard, and so it was very weak, now it's generally the very class that is practically nothing, the only feature of this class, as written above, was the last talent for +150% ice javelin, but now it doesn't have that either, I hope it will be returned or something will compensate

 

[Cosmickitty]

I’m not an ice wiz… but i believe the intent was to increase the dps with the “failed cc gives additional dps” mechanic, if that’s not working as intended actual numbers, statistics, and data will help the otters fix it correctly. They’ve said that nothing is set in stone and things will be tweaked, they just need people playing their toons and sharing info so they can get data to adjust.

worth pointing out… I’m a tester, no one but Vs brain knew about changes a year ago.

 

[Lalocat]

Meanwhile fire is stronger after the patch, in some ways at least.

The stun nerf is very painful however. I tried a Heroic 1 Rookery and even in this raid which is very much not stun dependent, it was very noticeable. Other raids like Cloister will be impossible for wiz to solo now past silver.

 

[Tareco]

Meanwhile fire is stronger after the patch, in some ways at least.

The stun nerf is very painful however. I tried a Heroic 1 Rookery and even in this raid which is very much not stun dependent, it was very noticeable. Other raids like Cloister will be impossible for wiz to solo now past silver.

It will be better start a Fire Wiz thread to discuss about the changes, and leave that one to Ice Wizards only.

 

[IrishElf]

If you encounter something that is not in the patch notes that you think is a bug, please do bug report it.

 

[скибидивапапа]

If you don't mind, I'll write how I see the new ice wizard I hope my dream will be heard

1. I like how Thermal Core works now. this is a really useful change


2. I see the role of the ice wizard in slowing down, completely freezing, immobilizing enemies. I disagree that after using hoarfost, it removes the frozen solid effect from the target. Why would I freeze an enemy and then unfreeze him a second later? what is the point, benefit of deep freeze? I believe that hoarfrost should not remove frozen solid status from the target

There are bosses in the game that are immune to deep freeze. Thus, when attacking these bosses, I am deprived of the benefits of enhanced hoarfrost. I absolutely don't like how it works

150% normal aoe hoarfrost damage.... THIS IS A DROP IN THE SEA. deep freeze cd 20-30 seconds. What is the use of the standard damage of 150% once every 20-30 seconds? Very little damage! Fire wiz can drop fire rain 5-10 times until the frost wizard makes 1 empowered hoarfrost with aoe.

Strengthening the glacial spike I like it, really good

3. The damage increase from this talent is not significant. Nice numbers, nicely written, but doesn't work as a 40 point talent. He doesn't deserve to be a 40-point talent. Just weak and can't give a significant buff to the wizard like a 40 point talent should.

4. I like it. Good boost

5.Doesn't work at all. not efficient. But the idea is good

6.the cooldown of the skill is too long, because of this, the effectiveness is 0

7.i like it
it works

 

[V]

Thanks for the detailed feedback! Constructive criticism such as this gives us the ability to better balance and improve the recent changes.

If you don't mind, I'll write how I see the new ice wizard I hope my dream will be heard

1. I like how Thermal Core works now. this is a really useful change


2. I see the role of the ice wizard in slowing down, completely freezing, immobilizing enemies. I disagree that after using hoarfost, it removes the frozen solid effect from the target. Why would I freeze an enemy and then unfreeze him a second later? what is the point, benefit of deep freeze? I believe that hoarfrost should not remove frozen solid status from the target

The main reason for the Frozen Solid effect being removed upon Shatter is because Shatter also instantly refreshes Hoarfrost. If it was not removed, players could keep triggering Shatter on the same enemy back to back very quickly.

There are bosses in the game that are immune to deep freeze. Thus, when attacking these bosses, I am deprived of the benefits of enhanced hoarfrost. I absolutely don't like how it works

This is understandable. A potential long term goal is to slowly decrease the frequency of bosses being inherently immune to all control effects. They may enter periods of invulnerability / vulnerability based on their mechanics instead, for example. This is not part of the current build, but some of the changes made in the build (reducing the duration of most control effects) opened the door to perhaps doing so in the future.

150% normal aoe hoarfrost damage.... THIS IS A DROP IN THE SEA. deep freeze cd 20-30 seconds. What is the use of the standard damage of 150% once every 20-30 seconds? Very little damage! Fire wiz can drop fire rain 5-10 times until the frost wizard makes 1 empowered hoarfrost with aoe.

This Ultimate is meant to synergize directly with Thermal Core. For example, if the wizard casts a chain Deep Freeze on a group of enemies, they can switch between them one by one, triggering Shatter one each. However, if this is not working effectively in practice, then improvements can be made.

Strengthening the glacial spike I like it, really good

3. The damage increase from this talent is not significant. Nice numbers, nicely written, but doesn't work as a 40 point talent. He doesn't deserve to be a 40-point talent. Just weak and can't give a significant buff to the wizard like a 40 point talent should.

We can look into updating this Ultimate so that it is more useful, and are open to suggestions for its improvement.

4. I like it. Good boost

5.Doesn't work at all. not efficient. But the idea is good

By not efficient, do you mean to say that the chance to trigger the effect is too low, or that the effect is not powerful enough / too short?

6.the cooldown of the skill is too long, because of this, the effectiveness is 0

This can be looked into

 

[Sumi]

Yesss the new 40-ultimate is almost worthless. Every single ice wizard I know in the game has seen a significant drop in DPS (myself included for my pure-ice and mostly-ice builds, and most certainly for my hybrid builds that used the old ultimate). I love hybridizing and have made a heck ton of builds, especially with Wizard as it's my favorite class. The old Cold Blooded, increasing Ice Javelin's damage, was by far the #1 most worthwhile thing to take from ice when making those builds. Now? Not as much. I swapped out 40 in ice for other talents and found better results (despite the 40% ice power loss).

From everyone I've talked to about it, the consensus is clear -I would suggest the easiest way to make ice where it's vision places it, is to combine the old ultimate with the new ultimate, making Cold Blooded not only increase Ice Power when your CC effects fail, but also increasing the strength of Ice Javelin.

This way, Ice will remain the "CC subclass" as intended, and will fit that role very nicely due to the updates, while having enough DPS to clear content as normal and not having mosquito-like damage, but not being on the same level as pure-DPS-focused subclasses, such as Nature, Marksman, Fury, Shadow, and Fire. The DPS classes will shine with their damage still while Ice will be able to complete the solo content (as the majority of complaints are for soloing raids they used to be able to do, or bounties while leveling, etc. Group content you can be carried easily enough.) it's supposed to.

 

[скибидивапапа]

thanks for your attention to the post

By not efficient, do you mean to say that the chance to trigger the effect is too low, or that the effect is not powerful enough / too short?

I mean the chance of triggering the effect is too low

 

[BFurry]

I saw my name mentioned... but im not here to comment on the testing process

Nice to see dev responding and explaining the intentions of some changes. It would be better to have more of such details in the patch notes. I think these new interactions of spells and effects need to be played before further comments.

thanks for your attention to the post

I mean the chance of triggering the effect is too low

Regarding the rework of Brittling Chill and Frost Barrier, 20% chance for absorb shield is definitely too low and it still requires both Ice Shield and Ice Floes to activate. This need to be simpler as a basic defence backup. Especially now Ice Shield is practically useless on its own (buff definitely needed here if nothing else changes). Please consider making Ice Shield stronger (like +30% to Armor and MR) and restoring a decent absord shield into Ice Shield. Then maybe the ultimate provide a >50% chance to boost all above effects 200%. This will feel more like an ultimate to me

 

[DanFarrands]

La habilidad del collar del mago de hielo creo que esta mal.
Duerme a los enemigos en area y reduce armaduras durante 15 segundos, asta ahy estupendo, lo que no entiendo es si golpeas a uno de esos enemigos toda la reduccion de armadura desaparece, que sentido tiene??

 

[скибидивапапа]

La habilidad del collar del mago de hielo creo que esta mal.
Duerme a los enemigos en area y reduce armaduras durante 15 segundos, asta ahy estupendo, lo que no entiendo es si golpeas a uno de esos enemigos toda la reduccion de armadura desaparece, que sentido tiene??

Te apoyo. No entiendo cómo se supone que funciona esta habilidad ahora

 

[скибидивапапа]

The main reason for the Frozen Solid effect being removed upon Shatter is because Shatter also instantly refreshes Hoarfrost. If it was not removed, players could keep triggering Shatter on the same enemy back to back very quickly.

I tested alternately using hoarfrost on 5 enemies that were under the effect of Frozen Solid, and found that it required me to press the change target button 5 times + hoarfrost button presses 5 times in less than 7 seconds. This is a lot of frequent clicks, I find it inconvenient. I also found the problem that I don't have time to use Hoarfrost on all the enemies with the Frozen Solid effect, because the enemies that I have already applied the Shatter start attacking me and I have to protect myself from them, stopping the Shatter streak. It really is. Lots of clicks and lots of risks to die.

If this opinion is noticed and accepted as a problem, I would like to suggest that we consider a change to the Shatter effect, in which the enemies remain frozen in place, and Hoarfrost itself bounces on all enemies on which Deep Freeze was used once, but without refreshing. It seems like it would be handy and would give consistent and predictable combo damage.

And if Hoarfrost could reduce the cooldown of Deep Freeze by 1 second after each bounce from the target, that would be wonderful! But this paragraph refers to my dreams

 

[Elijah Lin]

I havent played ice wizzy before but after seeing the livestream I was gonna give it a shot! I mainly base my hybrid from fire, splashing ultimates like brittling chill, ice bloom and frost dominance before the mana patch.

Now with the update, my hybrid fire/ice wizz is broken I was gonna go all icy wizzy but I will hold off the idea for now…

A few things I would like to address and express…


1. Before the patch Frost Dom and Shatter Ultimate, used to be any crit from an ice spell casted, will stun and recover mana, which I loved!! But now it has to be afflicting ice spelling AND Frozen Solid status… which is quite different.

Okay, lets start and count how much effort it needs to take to make the 4th ice wizzard branch work and disadvantage it may have. I really dislike writing all these things, but ill do my best to make sense :

1. Afflicting spell opt first of all comes down to 3(?) Ice storm, Brain freeze (?) and Deep Freeze. I never used Deep Freeze because of the long CD. And never like Brain Freeze as a necklace. Before the mana patch it was cold chill??Does Frost Nova count as ice afflicting ice spell? And does it count as frozen solid? ( cause when its used before the patch, it says Nova Frost)
2. To use ultimate shatter effectively, one needs to deep freeze a target, use hoarfrost on a frozen solid enemy then get the refresh- which you still need to use more mana(?) after it refreshes
NOTE: I can see in one way it helps to build Frost Dom counter stacks by bouncing the ice back but on the other hand, your enemy is free to attack and by which you only have Frost Nova to delay them unless you already used it. Isnt the ice wizzard meant to buff allies and debuff enemies? I feel it would be more useful to refresh deep freeze as well (?) or at least, help speed up deep freezes CD, like shamans, Crag Strike for Earth Shard. Or even when it Frozen solid enemies shatter they have a chance to proc deep freeze around them or proc ice storm to slow down the enemies?? As an ice wizzard you want your enemies at least somewhat hindered(?) for an ultimate on the 4th branch. Not to just freeze the enemy and unfreeze them again. Or what if an enemy is successfully frozen, Deep Freeze refreshes?
3. Glacial Spike can crit strike is a nice touch but on frozen enemy… A bit contradicting, is it not with hoarfrost defreezing the enemy?
In one way, you may say, its a choice between to build up Frost Dom stack quickly to get mana back or… to try and kill your enemy faster crit hits Glacial Spike, which the enemy is still frozen if hoarfrost isnt used before. Are we… maybe forgetting… the ice wizzard has only one Frozen Solid feat and thats Deep Freeze? Or perhaps did I miss another feat entire??
4. All of this ultimate is solely based on Deep Feeeze. Should any ultimate have so much dependence on one feat? (this could be asked with all the classes not just ice wizzards)

——————

Secondly, I want to point out, why was Frost Barrier changed? Why is Ice Floes added into the equation? Ice Shield already worked nicely with Frost Barrier Why would you need a feat like Ice Shield when you can put talents in Thermal Shell or buff your wizzard’s armour, glove, boots and hat? Before the mana patch, Ice Shield procs Absorb shield through the Frost Barrier Ultimate 100%. Players would post or chat about Ice Floes healing vs Ice Shield Barrier. Both of those feats, work good in different situations. For example, why I use frost barrier w/ ice shield is because of the absorb, with as hybrid glass cannon, delaying a bit dmg or poison is perfect! A bonus boost with armour and Mag Resist. I still havent found use for Ice Floes yet Although I wish Ice Floes can target and heal allies as well.

Now with the mana patch update, the practicality of Ice Shield is not very desirable as I mention if you really want def, best to build gear for def than use a feat that mildly barely helps buffs you. Now, if Ice shield could retaliate slow or chill or frozen statuses and reduce dmg % it might be worth considering. Atm as it stands, Ice shield is just there to be actived so ice floes can 20% proc an absorb shield.

Practically, it would make more sense if Frost Barrier has the effect:

“Casting Ice Floes has 20% chance of generating a 200% standard level absorb shield for 15 secs”

Then cutting away the middle man,

“While Ice Shield is active”

Question: What does Ice shield add to an ice wizzard atm? Certainly not like the old holy priest bless, thats for sure.

I do believe Ice shield should be revised, changed, better buff option than the current state it is in.
1. it doesnt add anything to team play and takes an extra space slot.
2. It doesnt really make a difference in combat because your main defense is how well you equip you gear whether its good or bad.
3. The feat definitely needs more.


Some possible suggestions about Ice Shield to make it more useful and interesting:

1. Make it an AOE buff % def and mag res and Ice Barrier Ultimate granting absorb shield and regen
2. Merge Ice floes and Ice shield together becoming a healing feat plus defence buff. Would be a nice touch to be able to target allies and make a contribution to the team.
3. Make an ice barrier protecting the caster and % chance to inflict random effect statuses like slow, frozen solid, debuff def, or knock back to enemies.


Okay, thats all I got for now. I was really looking to try out Ice wizard but Ill wait and see.

I hope I dont sound too negative in the this post as its not my intention. Just wanted to express some and input some ideas for future changes 🫣

And it saddens me that in VnH main line story, you see ice wizards as the main class defending against Mallok and Evil bosses from the Rift, yet this noble class falls short of that fame and glory.

But I hope it will improve in time and build to match up its heroic role in the game.

 

[Aaliagh]

a) imho, there was Absolutely Nothing Wrong with the way the ice wiz was built before the update. I had decent defense, I had great offense, I didn't have mana problems. I was usually top in dmg charts, now I see myself 3rd at best, 10 at worst. I haven't been so low in dmg chart since level 50ish. Another thing: my mana regen became worse now since I had to take points away from regen. It's not horrible but it's worse.
b) ice shield is indeed now useless. While I was able to bring some defense back with filling the Thermal Core (which I haven't used before ) via taking points away from mana regen (which hasn't affected my mana regen all that much but still did), I still take much more damage than before, even though my defense rating is by .01 point higher now. I see myself taking a lot of damage now when I check the charts & without even checking, bounties weren't usually able to bring me to a dying point, damage taken before was pretty little. I have to constantly run my heal now and even so I still take a lot of damage.
c) damage has been Drastically decreased, imho due to the ice javelin effect being removed. Deep freeze has also drastically decreased in damage, it would take out 48-52% of bounty health before, now it takes out 3-5%. The new way deep freeze works does nothing for me, while I don't mind the stun decrease time I don't find any use for the chance of it affecting nearby enemies. I specifically have single target spells because I don't want to touch the other enemies and have a horde of them attack me, especially since the defense decrease. My ice power also has decreased big time, it would get up to 200+% before, now it barely ever goes up to 115%.
d) I don't see it fair that ice can't be a real dps class, I don't like fire effects and fire spells, it's a matter of personal preference of course but why should I not be a capable class only because of that? If ice isn't able to do what it did before, it being my favorite class there is no point for me to play anymore and I certainly don't have the capability to raise another class from ground up to be able to be decent, I don't even wanna be anything else really. People have mentioned before that Marksman is getting rare because people don't like the fact that it does less damage, well at least mark has ally buffs, my class has become entirely useless now. I can no longer withstand high damage, I no longer give out decent dps and I certainly don't have ally buffs. Entirely Useless. I didn't play this game for 2 years raising my toon to lvl 95 34 elder only to become uncapable of doing anything.
I especially feel ridiculed when comparing my wiz damage to that of my lvl 28 holy priest alt and lvl 31 nature hunter. Priest does nearly as much damage and hunter does More.

 

[V]

a) imho, there was Absolutely Nothing Wrong with the way the ice wiz was built before the update. I had decent defense, I had great offense, I didn't have mana problems. I was usually top in dmg charts, now I see myself 3rd at best, 10 at worst. I haven't been so low in dmg chart since level 50ish. Another thing: my mana regen became worse now since I had to take points away from regen. It's not horrible but it's worse.

I would still recommend waiting until some fixes come in before putting too much stock in the charts. There are several abilities that are broken and resulting in unintended damage.

b) ice shield is indeed now useless. While I was able to bring some defense back with filling the Thermal Core (which I haven't used before ) via taking points away from mana regen (which hasn't affected my mana regen all that much but still did), I still take much more damage than before, even though my defense rating is by .01 point higher now. I see myself taking a lot of damage now when I check the charts & without even checking, bounties weren't usually able to bring me to a dying point, damage taken before was pretty little. I have to constantly run my heal now and even so I still take a lot of damage.

Ice Shield's armor and magic resist bonus were unchanged. The change to Frost Barrier was that Ice Shield would no longer generate a shield upon being cast but instead players could continually trigger shields with Ice Floes if Ice Shield is active. The current proc chance of 20% will be bumped up to 40% in an upcoming build. The idea was to add some synergy between those two defensive spells, but if players still prefer the old Ultimate after the updates come along then it can be reverted.

c) damage has been Drastically decreased, imho due to the ice javelin effect being removed. Deep freeze has also drastically decreased in damage, it would take out 48-52% of bounty health before, now it takes out 3-5%. The new way deep freeze works does nothing for me, while I don't mind the stun decrease time I don't find any use for the chance of it affecting nearby enemies. I specifically have single target spells because I don't want to touch the other enemies and have a horde of them attack me, especially since the defense decrease. My ice power also has decreased big time, it would get up to 200+% before, now it barely ever goes up to 115%.

I double-checked and there was no change to Deep Freeze's damage with this build. It should deal the same amount of damage as it did prior to the update.

Your Ice Power having a -85% deficit is alarming though, but there have been no changes that could result in such a dramatic reduction in a player's ice power. Are other ice wizards seeing the same issue? Perhaps if you are doing raids then ice power fluctuations you are seeing are due to the dungeoneering boost you receive at given raid tiers. Looking through the ice changes, there isn't anything I can see which would have any impact on the player's ice power, much less to that degree.

d) I don't see it fair that ice can't be a real dps class, I don't like fire effects and fire spells, it's a matter of personal preference of course but why should I not be a capable class only because of that? If ice isn't able to do what it did before, it being my favorite class there is no point for me to play anymore and I certainly don't have the capability to raise another class from ground up to be able to be decent, I don't even wanna be anything else really. People have mentioned before that Marksman is getting rare because people don't like the fact that it does less damage, well at least mark has ally buffs, my class has become entirely useless now. I can no longer withstand high damage, I no longer give out decent dps and I certainly don't have ally buffs. Entirely Useless. I didn't play this game for 2 years raising my toon to lvl 95 34 elder only to become uncapable of doing anything.
I especially feel ridiculed when comparing my wiz damage to that of my lvl 28 holy priest alt and lvl 31 nature hunter. Priest does nearly as much damage and hunter does More.

Yes, ice javelin's damage was reduced. I understand that this has upset a lot of ice wizards and I agree that the new Cold Blooded Ultimate could use a boost to make up for its loss. However, I also believe that the boost should come in the form of something dynamic and interesting.

When looking at a class that is underperforming, it would be easy to select one or two spells, double or triple their damage and call it a day - there you go, class is balanced! - but that sort of change has ramifications. It will result in the class being entirely dependent upon those specific spells in order to perform well and it also does not make for very engaging and thought-provoking gameplay. Yes, Ice Javelin's damage could be bumped up by 500% and ice would be quickly promoted to one of the most powerful classes in the game, but that would simply be providing a crutch rather than a solution.

Ice, in comparison to other DPS classes, has a couple of main advantages:

• It is meant to be a more defensive class (will improve Frost Barrier to ensure this remains the case)
• It has more crowd control options (deep freeze, brain freeze, ice javelin, frost nova, ice storm, bitter chill)

This means that Ice should naturally have a disadvantage in comparison to pure damage classes:

• Less damage output

I know that at the end of the day, everyone very much craves damage - even the tanks and healers are after it! - but damage output has to remain fair for those classes which have to make defensive sacrifices to reach their numbers. If other classes are able to compete with their damage without any of the drawbacks, that would be an unfair advantage. Ice should ideally sit somewhere between the tanks and the pure DPS classes in terms of their damage output since they also sit in between both of those classes in terms of their defensive capabilities.

 

[Sumi]

Ice Shield's armor and magic resist bonus were unchanged. The change to Frost Barrier was that Ice Shield would no longer generate a shield upon being cast but instead players could continually trigger shields with Ice Floes if Ice Shield is active. The current proc chance of 20% will be bumped up to 40% in an upcoming build. The idea was to add some synergy between those two defensive spells, but if players still prefer the old Ultimate after the updates come along then it can be reverted

Ice Shield has historically always had a few problems with it, making Ice Floes always stronger - its lvl95 highest number is 2,572 Armor and Magic Resistance. This is less than one reinforcement rune, with 100% Ice Mastery the number goes to 5,144 MR/Arm, which is worth 1.5447 (447 repeating) max reinforcement runes for the cost of a whole spell, and if I remember correctly, three times less than the amount the old Bless gave. Both can have 100% uptime, old Bless on anyone, Ice Shield only on the caster. Ice Floes was pretty much always the better choice due to this, since it was good HoT especially in raids, didn't need expensive reapplying for shielding, and with the mana cost of reapplying Shield, well, it is why Ice Shield needed more synergy to get chosen more, understandably.

Also, Diminishing Returns, I'm pretty sure you can do the math and see how Ice Shield has never really been a strong use of a socket. (Boy does it look cool though! An actual ice shield on your toon? Whooo! How's that for class aesthetics!!)

However, now, Ice Shield needs Ice Floes to be somewhat worthwhile, meaning that's 2/7 staff slots on defensive feats.

Not a big problem since Ice is the more defensive wizard subclass, but when you look at what to do with the 5 other slots, it's a bit icky (not to mention the majority of players who don't have all 7 spells filled!!).

1. Ice Javelin
2. Deep Freeze
3. Glacial Spike
4. Hoarfrost
5. Ice Storm
6. Bitter Chill
7. Ice Floes
8. Ice Shield

That's 4 single target spells, which all are necessary to make the most out of the talents; 2 AoE spells, one of which is necessary for talent points to not be useless and the other is very necessary for decent damage; and 2 defensive spells, one of which is necessary for the other to be useful-ish and make an Ultimate not worthless.

That's 7 important spells to not have worthless Talent Lines/Ultimates, and the one other spell that Ice shouldn't use anymore is A.) an overall fan favorite due to feeling powerful and cool animation, and B.) a strong spell that's always been seen as good despite its kinda pitiful group buff, but now is cast aside as Powerful Spell + Worthless Talent is worse than Mediocre Spell + Worth Something Talent.

Imo, there should not be worthless talents/Ultimates, and there should not be 7 spells needed to make a subclass's Talent Lines/Ultimates work.

And I get not wanting to have boring Ultimates or buffs to subclasses, but looking at the other subclasses, maybe steal something out of Nature's book:
Ice Jav deals increased damage against CC'd enemies,
and then,
Cold Blooded lets Ice Jav have a 75% chance to do it's increased damage against non-CC'd enemies?
*Like Nature's 40 Ultimate, and it's invisibility synergies instead of bringing back the old Cold Blooded that you stated you'd prefer to not do*

*And to clarify; I agree with most of what you said above, just making a note on where Ice Shield is at, and possible non-boring update for Cold Blooded

 

[Stella StormSong]

I used to love my Ice Wiz, Rhiannon was my favorite toon to solo. She is currently a ghost of her former self. I eagerly await the update of Ice skills, because for now its simply Not Fun.

IMO, most of the change which came with this build- across all 10 sublcasses- has made things unnecessarily complicated. I am not a fan of the 'x% chance to proc y when z is active' things. I need to know what my attacks are going to do so I can use them when the situation calls for it.

I consider myself a casual player- I am over 40, I have a family, a day job, multiple responsibilities - I play V&H to relax and have fun. I have been here many years, and loved it so much I volunteered to MOD for the Otters. It is the people and the charm which makes V&H special. The clever dialogue, the inside jokes, its a relaxed and easy-going kind of place.
I hope the devs with keep whimsy & charm in mind as they continue to grow our favorite game.

And in the immortal words of Coco Chanel, remember that "Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance"