Mythic producer Carrie Gouskos steps up to rally the troops behind a few juicy, if tantalizingly vague, quality of life improvements coming in the warhammer 1.3.5 patch. Take my hand, Dorothy, for it's dyes, scenarios, Marauders and minimaps, oh my!
Following Warhammer Online's patch 1.3.4, the team has kept a close eye on the PvP scenarios, and while they are happy overall, the plague of player /AFK's have taken their toll. Carrie promises that they are "actively investigating a solution for this problem." She also highlighted the improved communication efforts of the team, as seen on the official Dev Discussions forum.
Small but attractive improvements are in store for WAR's 1.3.5 patch, including a sharper look for armor dyes, "gutters" for the minimap to show off-map objective directions, and dual wielding for the mutated Marauder class.
These are, of course, not the extent of 1.3.5's additions and changes to the game, which Carrie is quick to point out: "Obviously this doesn't include any information about the massive city changes; those are too extensive to detail here." She closes by urging guilds to stay tuned to the forums for possible selection to testing their 100% RvR Driven City experience.
For those interested in trying out WAR, the path has never been smoother: not only is there an unlimited trial up to level 10, but Mythic recently removed the cost of the game's purchase.
Jun 19, 2010
Warhammer Online Producer's Letter teases 1.3.5 improvements
May 25, 2010
Warhammer Online: Easier Subscription Anounced
(Existing retail codes are still valid for 30 days of game time for new accounts.)
Players can join the WAR endless free trial and experience the new user journey, all of the intense Realm vs. Realm action and subscribe to the full version of WAR by visiting: http://www.warhammeronline.com/.Upgrade from trial to full version of game requires a monthly paid subscription. Euala, EA online terms conditions and service updates can be found at http://www.warhammeronline.com/.
Mar 20, 2010
WoW Cataclysm tanking cooldown feedback wanted
Nethaera hit the forums this morning, asking for feedback from tanks around the globe. Ghostcrawler has been having a lively discussion with tanks (most specifically protection warriors) recently, and now they seem to be formalizing the discussion for the wider audience.
NethaeraWoW Raid buffs for great justice
Last week, we talked about the core buffs just about every raid needs to get by. I included the 3% damage buff provided by some folks like retribution paladins. While ample raids get by without that buff, it's so straightforward that I felt it merited inclusion. It affects physical DPS characters, tanks, and magical DPS characters all alike, so is fairly universal.
Of course, I didn't mention a lot of other obvious buffs like Arcane Intellect. While I'll certainly admit I can't recall having been on a raid in while without that buff, I'm pretty sure at least a few 10-man groups have gone without a mage. But that's why, this week, we're picking up the remainder of the raid buffs that provide so much synergy for raids.
As Brian Wood pointed out, raid buffs are some of the most drastic increases available in raid performance. Every class's power soars while under the effects of raid buffs (and while their targets are getting debuffed), and it's this synergy that makes raids successful. That's by design: Blizzard wants us to be exponentially more powerful while grouping with other players. The power of two players in a group is greater than the sum of their parts.
With all that in mind, let's jump behind the cut and start going down the other important raid buffs.
Offensive and Stat Buffs
Agility and Strength
At this point in the expansion, everyone's been under the effects of Horn of Winter. What's less commonly known is that if a shaman has put points into Enhancing Totems, their Strength of Earth totem is actually a little more powerful by about 23 points of Strength and Agility. Caster classes obviously won't get much bang from an Agility/Strength buff, but any physical-based class (including tanks) will love it.
But since you can't swing a stick without banging it off a half-dozen death knights, you can always be assured of having the Agility/Strength buff.
Attack Power (Raw)
In what seems like an elegant design to me, warriors provide Battle Shout and paladins provide Blessing of Might. Both can (and probably should) be improved with talent points, but the only real difference is that a warrior has to proactively keep Battle Shout active. A paladin can cast Blessing of Might, and then forget about it for a half hour. If you have one paladin and one warrior, you might want to have the warrior go for Commanding Shout instead. Blessing of Might does have the advantage of not having to be near the warrior when the buff is cast, but Battle Shout has ample range that it should affect everyone who needs it.
Attack Power Increase (Percentile)
There are three methods to increase your raid's attack power by 10%. Blood death knights have Abomination's Might, marksman hunters have Trueshot Aura, and enhancement shaman have Unleashed Rage. 10% attack power can turn into a lot of damage for folks who are already stacking that stat, but it's important to remember that it's not a percentage increase to your damage. It affects attack power, which then affects damage. It also, obviously, does nothing for casters.
Critical Strike Chance
You have two sources of physical critical strike chance. The first is from feral druids. Leader of the Pack provides a 5% critical strike buff, as well as a bit of healing if specced all the way into Improved Leader of the Pack. Rampage does the same, although it doesn't have the healing benefit.
There are two sources of spell critical strike chance. Balance druids provide Moonkin Aura, which buffs spell critical strike chance by 5%. Shaman are the source of the second spell critical strike chance with their Elemental Oath.
Haste (Universal)
There are two auras which provide 3% haste to characters. One is (like so many buffs) from retribution paladins, earned via the Swift Retribution talent. The other is from the masters of the laser-beams. Moonkin can provide 3% haste from Improved Moonkin Form.
Haste (Specific)
Death knights who are specced a bit into the frost tree can give their raid Improved Icy Talons. The buff is a little tricky to maintain right now, thought there's some welcome changes coming in patch 3.3.3. Shaman can do similar with Windfury Totem, although it'll take additional talent points to make it as effective as Improved Icy Talons. Both of these two effect specifically buffs melee haste.
If you're looking for spell haste, there's only one real source. That's the shaman's Wrath of Air Totem.
Intellect and Spirit
The mage's Arcane Intellect is the standard intellect buff. Warlocks with a Fel Hound also sport Fel Intelligence, which also provides Spirit. Fel Intelligence's spirit does not stack with Divine Spirit, though. If you're short a priest and mage, warlocks can cover both with Fel Intelligence.
Damage Improvement (Spell)
The spell damage buffs are a little odd. The tooltips for them all read a little differently, but they don't stack. Your three buffs for increasing spell damage are Demonic Pact, Flametongue Totem, and Totem of Wrath. Ultimately, most people are using the warlock's Demonic Pact nowadays, since they have enough innate spellpower to make its percentile increase superior to the shaman buffs.
And you can't forget the Ebon Plague, brought to you by unholy death knights, which allows for 13% more spell damage. Earth and Moon does something similar. However, both the items are techinically debuffs less than buffs. (We'll do debuffs in another column.)
Incoming Damage Reduction (Physical)
Ancestral Healing (shaman) and Inspiration (priests) both reduce physical damage taken by the target of a critical heal by 10%. (Inspiration is admittedly a little more specific about which heal spells will create the effect.) These abilities will proc almost non-stop, although they won't stack with each other. A 10% damage reduction will move a boss's attack from being worth 10,000 points of damage to a mere 9,000. Hey, it might not sound like a huge amount, but every little bit counts.
Incoming Damage Reduction (Universal)
There are three buffs that provide a universal damage reduction of 3%. These are the protection warrior's Vigilance, the protection paladin's Blessing of Sanctuary, and the discipline priest's Renewed Hope spell. Of the three, Blessing of Sanctuary is the lowest maintenance, since Vigilance can't be be used on the tank who casts it.
Healing or Health Buffs
Healing Received
The Tree of Life is not only a shapeshift form for druids, but it also provides a 6% buff to everyone's healing received. Improved Devotion Aura will do the same.
Mana Regeneration
Mana regeneration is a little different than Replenishment. While replenishment provides an amount of mana based on your total mana pool, mana regeneration provides a flat amount of mana per second. The two sources of this "tick-based" mana regeneration are the paladin's Blessing of Wisdom and the shaman's Mana Spring totem.
Raw Health
There are only two sources of raw health. Commanding Shout and Blood Pact. Commanding Shout is more effective, but it requires more active maintenance by the warrior, and might cost you the benefit of Battle Shout.
Unique Snowflake
Bloodlust/Heroism
One of the iconic abilities of shaman, the Bloodlust and Heroism buff probably does more to vastly ramp your raid's damage than anything else. It lasts 40 seconds, and increases melee, ranged, and casting speed by 30%. While you can only benefit from Bloodlust once every 10 minutes (barring death removing the Sated debuff). Bloodlust has been the subject of a little bit of controversy, since it can solely be found with shaman and is so darn powerful.
WoW: Gurubashi Beatdown is today
Join in the Gurubashi Beatdown today with It came from the Blog!
- When: Saturday, March 20th at 5:30pm EDT (2:30pm PDT, 3:30pm realm time) and the mixer will be at 5pm EDT.
- Where: Meet in front of Orgrimmar, Zangarmarsh U.S.
- Who: Any Horde DK that is free from Arthas or any other level 55 and above Horde character.
- What: After chatting it up with the WoW.com staffers, we will travel to the Gurubashi Arena and participate in some PvP games of my own devising.
We hope to see you there!
Final Fantasy XIII Breaks Franchise Sales Record
Even despite some controversy, Final Fantasy XIII is selling well. Square Enix sent word today that the RPG has sold more than a million units in North America, in the five days following its March 9 launch. This makes it set the record for the best first-week sales in Final Fantasy history, which is no small feat considering the pedigree. The name still carries a lot of weight, even as the game is facing some negative feedback based on its departure from the traditional tropes of Japanese RPGs.
The news comes on the heels of last week's announcement that the company had shipped 3 million units to North America and Europe alone, helping the series as a whole cross 96 million units. The game is still readily available in stores and Square is shipping to retailers, so we should see a strong showing in the March NPD data. We may even find a tight race between it and PS3-exclusive God of War 3 for the month's top seller.
Feb 9, 2010
No new WoW accounts in China
Reuters reports that Netease, the company that operates WoW in China, has stopped accepting new accounts and has reapplied to GAPP (General Administration of Press and Publication) for permission to release The Burning Crusade. The article does not mention if this was voluntary, or if this was part of the ruling that was scheduled to be handed down in January.
For those unfamiliar with this story, Netease was told to cease WoW operations last year by GAPP and the Chinese Ministry of Culture stepped in and contradicted the ruling. Netease has continued taking new accounts until now, while waiting for the decision of these governmental bodies. Assuming Netease can finally get approval to release The Burning Crusade, they will still need to apply for permission to release Wrath of the Lich King. At this rate, the rest of the world will get Cataclysm before mainland China sees Northrend.
The timing of this is unfortunate, considering that Lunar Festival begins next week. Lunar Festival is based on Chinese New Year.
We'll keep you posted as this seemingly never-ending drama continues.
[via Joystiq]
Feb 5, 2010
Shield spell effectiveness reduced in PvP
After the recent changes to resilience and the reduction of healing in PvP, we now move on to spells that prevent damage entirely. Power Word: Shield and Sacred Shield are also being affected, having their effectiveness in Arenas, Wintergrasp and Battlegrounds reduced by 10%. Bornakk broke the news to the forums, which responded about as you might expect, with people who rely on those mechanics frustrated and those who have to try and kill people using them jubilant. I know, I was shocked too.
I'm kind of on the fence about this change. On the one hand, man, as a warrior I hate beating on a shield in PvP. Hate hate hate. It does seem odd to me that we moved resilience to reduce all incoming damage and then reduced all healing to match, though. It seems somewhat like a complicated way to do nothing at all. As someone who sometimes goes resto on my shaman for PvP, I don't really look forward to having my heals heal for less, especially since it's a penalty that will hit me immediately while farming up honor for PvP gear to get resilience will take me time, time my healing will have been adversely affected throughout. How about you? Happy or unhappy about the latest changes in PvP?
Bornakk says:
After further observations of the recent changes made to resilience and healing in PvP, we have made an additional change via an in-game fix so that the PvP healing debuff in Arenas, Battlegrounds, and Wintergrasp now also lowers the effectiveness of Power Word: Shield and Sacred Shield by 10%. The majority of other strong shields or damage absorption mechanics are already affected by the healing change, so we feel this new adjustment is an appropriate step in balancing the effects of resilience versus healing. The ultimate goal is to find a better median between PvP encounters feeling too quick from burst damage, or too long from heals, shields, and absorption effects. We will continue to monitor the way these changes play out and let you know if we feel any further changes are needed. As always, feedback based on your PvP experience with these new changes is welcome.
WoW Warriors: Fury 101
Protection warriors are the tanks of the warrior class, the guys who stand up there and bang on their shields and bang their shields into things ranging the gamut from large horrible squamous tentacle monsters in Old Kingdom to giant walking bone piles in ICC. And that's fine: somebody has to keep the monsters and bosses of the game focused on a hard target so the rest of us can kill it. It's good to see prot warriors alongside bears, walking corpses and daisy picking fancylads doing the tank job. (I kid you paladins because my heart is black and full of envy.) It's good that there are warrior tanks.
But that's not you, is it? You haven't read this far because you want to tank. If you did, you'd have clicked that link and been on your merry way. You don't want to tank. You don't want to stand up front and keep monsters attention focused like some kind of giant nursery school teacher for the horrors of Azeroth. No, you don't want to tank.
You want to kill things. You want to rip them into bloody gobbets and leave their ruined, looted corpses in your wake. You want to wear two huge weapons crossed on your back and reach up to draw them forth as soon as things get ugly, which can't come soon enough in your opinion. You want to get on up there and rip things heads clean off. You're the kind of person who thinks Grom Hellscream had a good idea but didn't go far enough with it.
Come right this way. Fury is the spec for you.
1. What is fury?
Fury is the "grrrargargsgarg DIE DIE DIE DIE" spec. It's the spec Blizzard described in the Class Q&A last year as "screaming barbarians in woad" and that still remains the best way to think of the spec. For in game examples of warriors who seem to embody the fury playstyle, both Varian Wrynn and Garrosh Hellscream fit the bill. (Sorry, guys, Saurfang is arms. We all know this to be true.) Fury warriors can offtank in a pinch or even tank a five man, but they're not designed to be tanking in raids. The spec is designed at present to equip two huge weapons and smash them into things.
It's refreshingly simple in concept, really.
2. What are the benefits of fury?
Well, do you like two handed weapons?
What about hitting things with two handed weapons?
In all sincerity, fury is as simple and pure as it gets. Get two big weapons. Hit things with them. If this sounds fun to you, then congratulations, fury is the only spec in the game that can allow you to dual wield two handed weapons. Since fury is a warrior spec, it's dependent not on mana, energy or runes/runic power, but rather on rage, a resource that scales as damage increases. The harder your white hits (any attack that doesn't require use of a special ability, also known as 'auto attacks') the more rage they generate. The more rage you have, the more you can do since most warrior special attacks (also known as 'yellow hits' because their damage is reported in yellow colored text) cost rage. Fury, in essence, feeds on itself: the more you do the more you can do.
Plus, we look ridiculously cool. Go ahead, try and say we don't.
Fury has a few. First off, few talent trees are so thoroughly dominated by their 51 point talent as fury is by Titan's Grip. If you are a fury warrior, you're taking Titan's Grip: there's no reason to do so otherwise, even with repeated nerfs the talent is always a DPS increase over any other possible fury build. Secondly, I think it's fair to say that absolutely no spec in the game is as ridiculously depending on absolutely rigidly specific gear selection to get the ultimate best performance. While it's true that a prot warrior in bad gear can't tank at all while a fury in bad gear can DPS poorly without instantly dying, the margin for error in fury gearing to get the highest possible DPS is exceedingly small. Finally, DPS warriors in general and fury warriors in particular are remarkably fragile for a DPS class that wears plate. While you can talent and glyph for slightly higher survivability, such choices always come at a cost to DPS, and since DPS is what fury is all about, it's a hard tradeoff to make. In general, survivability/regen talents and/or glyphs are better suited to the leveling process than they are to endgame.
4. What stats do fury warriors like?
Generally, fury are looking for stats that allow them to kill things.
- Strength. This is raw smashing (or chopping or cutting) power. Strength converts to Attack Power which adds directly to weapon damage per second (or DPS). The talent Improved Berserker Stance adds another 20% of your total Strength when you are in Berserker Stance. 1 Str = 2 AP for a warrior.
- Hit Rating. Since fury warriors dual wield, they require hit rating to reduce the chance that they will miss an attack. We talked about Hit and Expertise back in 2009 for DPS warriors. I've generally changed my mind about the Precision talent since then, but the basic argument that we need 263 hit rating (without Precision) to push yellow attacks off of the miss table is still sound. Precision gives 3% chance to hit with melee weapons and is basically always worth the points, since minus the Draenei racial or any hit debuffs your chance to miss with white hits is 27% against a level 83 boss. (Raid bosses are skull level, effectively always three levels above a player.) With Precision, you only need 163 hit rating to effectively hit 8% for specials.
- Armor Penetration. As you get better and better gear it becomes easier to reach what is known as the hard ArP cap (currently 1399 ArP rating if I'm doing the math right): most leveling fury warriors don't need to concern themselves with ArP at all, it only becomes a viable stat once you begin accumulating Tier 9 or better gear. It's easier to start working towards the soft ArP cap (roughly 50% armor reduction, 699.5 rating) which in combination with an ArP proc trinket like the Grim Toll, Mjolnir Runestone or Needle-Encrusted Scorption will reduce armor to very close to 100%.
- Expertise. Expertise is the stat that diminishes the chance a mob will dodge or parry you. Mobs in WoW can dodge when you are behind them (players cannot) but cannot parry unless they are facing you. Expertise, unlike hit, has no talent in the fury tree to help warriors cap it. Also unlike hit, it's easier for a fury warrior to completely cap out the effective value of expertise. After 26 expertise there is no effective value to any further points in the stat. (My fury set is 1 point over, which is effectively wasted expertise. However, it's better to be over than low, if those are your only two options.) 26 expertise is 214 expertise rating. You do not need to gear for the hard cap of 56 expertise as a fury warrior. (That hard cap pushes parries off of the table as well, but since as a DPS warrior you should always be behind the boss or mobs, there's no value to pursuing more expertise.)
- Critical Strike Rating. Really, crit never gets bad. It's good to hit harder. White critical hits will generate more rage, allowing you to use more special abilities. You don't want to stack crit above all else, but neither can you ever really 'cap' crit: the more, the better. Plus, it activates Flurry.
Stamina is neither to be courted nor shunned. Armor Value helps your attack power from talents like Armored to the Teeth, but it's not worth going specifically after. The talent just exists to keep warriors out of leather or mail. Similarly, defense, dodge, parry and block are of no interest to you. You're not a tank. You can pinch hit for a few seconds or tank content you outgear, but don't go confusing fury warriors for dedicated tanks. Avoid tanking stats for your DPS set, although by all means, collect a tank set and use it to tank. We're hybrids, after all, and since you'll be paying the hybrid tax on your DPS you might as well get some hybrid benefits too.
Stat weighting depends greatly on the level of gear you're in. Leveling gear and blues from 70 to 80 instances just won't have a lot of ArP, and will be low on expertise as well. As you gear up, however, ArP and expertise will be easier to acquire. Generally your best DPS stats are ArP over Strength over Crit over hit over exp, especially once you have 26 expertise. You simply never need any more expertise than that.
5. To level a fury
So far we've talked about the stats you want, but how do you go about leveling as fury? For starters, keep it simple: trying to collect ArP on you leveling gear will just frustrate you. You won't have Titan's Grip until level 60 (if you take all of your points in fury to that point) so you'll level with either a 2h weapon or two 1h weapons. Focus on strength, then crit, then stam (stam is useful for leveling because it makes it harder for you to die). "Of the bear' and "of the beast' are probably your best bets for leveling greens. Also keep in mind your relative fragility compared to a tank: you're not going to be able to soak up nearly as much damage, especially when you lack in gear. The heirloom plate shoulders, chest, and 2h axe are all good choices for a fury warrior (and you can always get a second 2h once you have Titan's Grip).
The better your leveling gear is and the more you work on keeping it up to date, the easier it is to level as fury. Consider the Bloodthirst glyph as soon as you can get it, because the self heal is very useful for leveling. Make sure to keep potions, food and first aid ready.
This is a level 70 build aimed at soloing and grinding quests which is also viable for dungeon finder groups. It takes Blood Craze in order to improve survivability (you'd likely have at least Bloodthirst glyphed as well for more health regeneration). This level 80 build is aimed at providing the raid with maximized versions of Battle or Commanding Shout for the longest duration possible (so glyphs would be chosen to amplify one of those two shouts) as well as longer durations on Demoralizing Shout. This variant is instead focused on maximum benefit from the Demo Shout debuff. You could easily move points around for Furious Attacks and Heroic Fury to increase PvP viability or for raid utility.
As a fury warrior you probably won't bother with protection talents when it's almost mandatory to go at least up to Two-Handed Weapon Specialization in arms. Since you'll have to spend at least 15 points to get there, you're most likely going for Impale and Deep Wounds as well: how you get there doesn't matter all that much, although it's not like Improved Heroic Strike is going to hurt your rage dumping any. While fury is hardly the most popular PvP spec for warriors, if you're going to PvP as fury you might as well get Iron Will. Otherwise, I'd recommend Tactical Mastery to make stance switching easier, although as fury you won't have to do that very often. (TM also makes offtanking when necessary easier for a fury warrior.)
There are a lot of talents in fury and of course everyone will have different talents they like. I'll go over those I think are particularly interesting or useful, but as always, your own opinions may differ. I'll be mentioning them in the order that they become available on the tree: the more points it costs to get to a talent, the later it will appear on the list. It would take more points than you probably can afford to spend and get the generally accepted necessary arms talents to buy all of these.
- Amored To The Teeth: The developers want you wearing plate, so they have given you this talent (also very attractive for prot warriors speccing into fury) to make the plate give you something useful.
- Booming Voice: Shouts last longer, shouts reach more targets. Since it's right there in the first tier it's pretty easy to justify picking it up.
- Cruelty: For five points, you get 5% crit independent of gear. It doesn't decay as you level, meaning that every time you get a level and the amount of critical strike rating you need for 1% crit goes up, this talent is inflated in value. Think of how much itemization 5% chance to crit is worth at level 80.
- Piercing Howl: Do you want to have to switch stances to hamstring, or would you rather be able to just yell and daze them long enough to get that killing blow in? PH is good when soloing and grinding, in PvP, and on any instance or raid fight with a lot of adds that can be slowed and kited.
- Improved Cleave: This, when combined with the Glyph of Cleaving, is a lot of damage in AoE situations.
- Dual Wield Specialization: You're going to be dual wielding a set of 2h weapons. You want your offhand to hit harder. It stacks with damage from Two-Hand Weapon Specialization.
- Precision: The white hit cap not counting things like draenei racials is close to 880 hit rating. You're never going to get there, but it means that Precision is never a bad talent.
- Death Wish: 20% more damage dealt, 5% more damage taken. Pretty much a must have, just try not to use it when standing in fire, or acid, or fire acid or whatever they're making the floor exude this boss.
- Flurry: You attack faster, generate more rage, and do more damage within the same time frame. Always get this.
- Intensify Rage: Shorter cooldowns for various important DPS abiliies.
- Bloodthirst: Your main instant attack as fury, every four seconds, calculated off of attack power, small self heal that can be increased with glyph for leveling. A necessary talent.
- Improved Whirlwind: More damage for your main AoE ability, which is also your secondary instant attack (glyphed, whirlwind fires every 8 seconds, meaning that your standard rotation will be BT - BT - WW). Another must have talent.
- Furious Attacks: Useful for PvP or fights with healing that needs to be reduced, FA is unfortunately only a chance to apply, only applies on white hits, and must be stacked to 2 to be as effective as the Mortal Strike debuff. In the end, it's a pale second, but if you intend to PvP as fury you'll almost have to accept that.
- Improved Berserker Stance: At the full five point investment, it's an extra 20% strength and a 10% threat reduction (the only threat reduction fury warriors have available) - you have no choice but to take this talent.
- Heroic Fury: A fun and useful talent, good for PvP or for mobility fights where an extra intercept makes getting back into DPS range much, much easier. It's one point, but that may be 1 point you just don't have to spare. (I always try and pick it up, but others are not so enthused.)
- Rampage: If you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you'll have a feral in your raid comp, you can skip this. If there's any chance you won't have one, it's worth picking up. Keep in mind it's inferior to Leader of the Pack.
- Bloodsurge: Without this ability, you should never touch Slam in your damage rotation. With it, Slam as soon as it procs as long as you have the rage.
- Unending Fury: More damage from your big three rotation abilities.
- Titan's Grip: Let's not waste our time pretending. You're going to take Titan's Grip. You know it, I know it, and the two 2h weapons you're going to smash into everything that moves, they know it too. They're already calling your name. TG, even with the damage reduction, is a huge DPS increase.
You'll notice that several talents I recommended taking like Imp Demo Shout and Commanding Presence are not on this list. That's because I don't like them. That doesn't mean they aren't useful for raids or that you shouldn't take them, but they're boring and I hope they're revised or even removed and replaced by mastery in Cataclysm. Several other talents like Enrage, Unbridled Wrath, Improved Execute or Blood Frenzy need some work before I'll recommend them for more than a leveling spec. (Enrage is basically a great leveling or PvP talent,
7. Fury rotation
Unlike protection last week, fury actually has a pretty standard rotation. You'll use Bloodthirst every 4 seconds, Whirlwind every 8 seconds (glyphed, of course) and Slam every time Bloodsurge procs and makes it an instant attack. While you're working on this rotation, you'll most likely weave in Sunder Armor (if there's no protection warrior tanking), Heroic Strike to burn rage if you're high (any rage generated past 100 rage is effectively wasted, so it's always to your benefit to try and stay below 75 rage as a guideline) or Cleave if you're in a multi-mob pull. You also may be expected to keep Demoralizing Shout on a boss, or Commanding or Battle shout up for the group.
You should use your DPS cooldowns (Death Wish, Recklessness) every time they're up as long as you can be sure that you won't waste some or all of their duration by having to move. (Many modern boss encounters feature a lot of movement and are not considered 'warrior DPS friendly') Bloodrage should be used if a long period of rage starvation (three or more white swings missing) causes you to be unable to keep up with your rotation. Major glyphs for fury are almost certainly going to include Cleaving and Whirlwind and Heroic Strike is a popular third choice. Minor glyphs often include Command, Battle or Bloodrage.
You'll gem for whatever stats your gear is short on to make caps at first, then once you have sufficient hit and expertise on gear to no longer need to gem for it, you'll most likely switch to ArP as much as you can. Your meta gem will probably be the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond, with a Nightmare's Tear and one of the purple or green gems with stamina and a desirable stat (again, most likely ArP or crit) to make the meta's requirements.
Next week, we'll discuss arms, and then wrap up our 101 series with gearing, gemming, glyphing and enchanting in detail.
Ready Check: Professor Putricide
Professor Putricide is the final boss in the Plagueworks. He's kind of the R&D guy for the Lich King's slime armies. If you recall from fighting Rotface, Putricide is the guy who's constantly screaming about what good news it is that the slime is working again. Frankly, I'm mostly motivated to kill the guy to get him to shut up about the slime.
Putricide is a movement fight. There's a lot of mechanics that will require your raid to rapidly swap targets (to kill adds), and then not-stand-in-stuff. (Most of the stuff you'll not be standing in is one variety of slime or another.) It's not really much of a coordination fight, per se, because your tanks are probably pretty well-versed in swapping aggro back and forth. However, Putricide is going to put to the test your raid's ability to get on an add quickly. And not stand in stuff.
Let's take a look behind the jump and talk about the fight in more detail.
For your 10-man raid makeup, you'll be aiming for two tanks. You'll want either two or three healers, with the rest of your raid being DPS characters. Whether you need two or three healers will depend on how sturdy your tanks are, as well as how awesome your raid healing is -- use your best judgement here. In 25-man, you'll need 2 off-tanks, and about twice as many healers. One of your off-tanks are going to have a special challenge in this fight, as he or she will have to pilot an abomination.
There are three basic phases to the Putricide fight. You get into the second phase when the Professor is at 80% health. The third phase begins at 35%. When the phases turn over, you'll get hit with Tear Gas, which will stun your entire raid while Putricide makes a dive for his chemical table.
As soon as the first phase starts, have your off-tank run directly for the table and immediately take over the Mutated Abomination. You do that by right clicking the table. The abomination is going to put out constant damage to the raid via Mutated Transformation, but the Abomination's ability to eat slime will make up for that detriment.
Throughout the fight, Putricide will lob ooze out to the raid. The Slime Puddles are bad news, doing significant damage to anyone who has the misfortune of standing in them. (So, don't stand in the ooze.) The Abomination has the ability to eat the slime puddles, which will both provide power to the Abomination and decrease the size of the puddles. If the puddles grow too large, then your raid won't have anywhere to safely stand. Every time the Mutated Abomination eats a slime, it'll pick up the Energy required to fuel Regurgitate Ooze, which will slow down the two adds that appear.
While in first two phases, Professor Putricide will summon two different types of adds. The raid warning will call out an Unstable Experiment when it's time for the add to appear. This happens about once every 40 seconds. The two types of adds are Volatile Ooze and Gas Cloud. The Oozes appear in the north portion of the room, where they leak from the ooze tank. Gas Clouds appear on the opposite side in the south. Both adds will choose a target and crawl towards it. They each have different special affects they place on their victim, and then an explosion they do if they reach that victim. If they're not killed before they explode, they will choose another target and start their attack routine all over again.
Volatile Oozes will spawn, focusing on a target and rooting that raid member in place. (The root effect is called Volatile Ooze Adhesive, and isn't just a clever name.) If the Volatile Ooze reaches the raid member, it will explode in a Ooze Eruption. The eruption will not only deal massive damage to anyone standing near it, but it will also knock everyone around the room. That includes knocking some folks into the Slime Puddles. So, it's important to burn Volatile Oozes down as soon as they appear, long before they manage to reach their target. If the Ooze does reach its target, however, the explosion is split evenly between everyone within range. If you're not getting the Ooze down in time, try and have the raid stack on the target instead, so as to evenly spread out the damage.
Gas Clouds will also focus on a single target, but they don't root like the Volatile Ooze. Instead, Gas Clouds put a 10-stack of Gaseous Bloat on its target. The Bloat will inflict damage on the target, while steadily dropping off on of its stacks every few seconds. If it reaches its target, the Gas Cloud will explode to deal damage to the entire raid. Obviously, it's best to burn down the Gas Cloud just as quickly as you burn down the Volatile ooze.
When Putricide hits 80%, he will drop that Tear Gas we talked about and enter Phase Two. He runs back to his desk and grows two tentacles. (I feel like I should make an anime joke here, but I'll skip it.) Putricide will start shooting Malleable Goo at random raid members. Anyone who stands in the area where the Malleable Goo lands will take huge damage, and receives a slowing debuff which will increase their casting and attack time by 200%. Goo will generally attack ranged targets first, but will target melee if there is no ranged target to affect. This is really the only completely new trick for the second phase, but everything from phase one will continue.
He'll also drop a Choking Gas bomb in between Malleable Goo attempts. They explode for truly massive damage, and should be avoided when you see them land. The tank should kite Putricide away from the area they land in, and melee should be careful not to stand in them.
When Putricide hits 35%, he'll hit your raid with Tear Gas, and then go mutate again. The third phases grants Professor Putricide Mutated Strength, which increases his damage and attack speed by 50%. When you attack Putricide, he'll put Mutated Plague on your tank. This plague inflict damage to everyone in your raid. At this point, your tanks will have to taunt-swap Putricide so that the Mutated Plague stacks never get too high that your healers can't handle the raid damage. You don't want to swap too often, however, because Putricide is healed every time the Mutated Plague drops off a tank. (For about 3% of his damage.) For 25 man, you'll need three tanks to make sure the plague doesn't get out of control, while you'll only need 2 for 10 man.
Phase three continues with the Gas Bombs and Malleable Goo, but no more Volatile Oozes or Gas Clouds will spawn. You won't have the abomination in the third phase, which is where you get the extra tank to handle swapping Putricide around. The Slime Puddles will still continue to grow, however, so you want to lean on the DPS in this third phase. Without the Mutated Abomination, the growing Slime Puddle will eventually overrun your raid.
In summary, here is the flow of the fight. Your main tank pulls Putricide, while one of your off tanks pilots an abomination. When adds appear, kill the adds. The abomination should be eating slime off the floor to give your raid safe places to stand, and placing its slowing effect on the adds. When you get to the second phase, don't stand where Malleable Goo is going to land. Continue to burn, steady like the beating drum. When the third phase happens, blow all your cooldowns, and burn him down as quickly as possible. If you stay too long in phase three, you'll have no place safe to stand. Good hunting!
Jan 29, 2010
Most popular WoW Armory crafter gear
Gems
The most popular gem on the Armory is the Runed Scarlet Ruby. (I'll pause a moment for all your dramatic gasps of shock.) It's almost three times as popular as any other gem cut, presumably because the +19 Spell Power gem is worthwhile to the largest cross-section of characters: any spell caster. (Strength gems only really work out for the three plate-wearing classes, for example, while the rest of the physical types tend to rock raw Attack Power.) A close second to the Runed Scarlet Ruby, according to WoWPopular itself, is the Runed Cardinal Ruby. The epic level pattern is probably slightly less popular because the epic gems are more difficult to come by. There will be proportionally more alts and dusty characters wearing the old blue-quality gem.
The next most popular gems are the Solid cuts of either the Sky Sapphire or the Majestic Zircon. The Sky Sapphire is actually much more popular, but I'm guessing it's for similar reasons as the Scarlet Ruby. It's cheap and easy to get compared to the only slightly better Majestic Zircon. This +Stamina gem probably ranks so high because every tank wants as much Stamina as possible . . . and so do many PvP players. The cross-section makes Stamina a very attractive gem stat. (I guess it'd only be completely useless to those players who never, ever die and are somehow nearly immortal. Note that I'm not advocating Stamina over your usual powergame stats, I'm just saying it's not total slop. Dead rogues do no damage.)
The third most popular gem is the Bold Scarlet Ruby. If you got the materials sitting around, expect its epic counterpart -- the Bold Cardinal Ruby -- to go for similar big bucks.While I pointed above that only three plate classes get the big benefit from Strength. But those three classes are immensely popular. So the sheer raw number of people playing death knights, warriors, and paladins drive the demand for these three gems up through the roof.
Blacksmithing
Blacksmiths get a little lucky in their crafted gear choices, since they get to make everyone's weapon. Healers, DPS, and tanks can all find some good stuff from the blacksmithing trade. Still, I bet you can guess the single most popular blacksmithing item still to this very day, right?
If you guessed the Titansteel Guardian, you win yourself a prize. It can service all the healing classes, as well as providing DPS items for all of their casting DPS specs. It goes both ways, you see. Other than that, the next two popular items for blacksmiths are the Tempered Titansteel Helm and the Spiked Titansteel Helm. I think these two items are so popular because of the relative difficulty of picking up a hat until you have sufficient Emblems of Frost, and folks want the quick headstart on gear. (Get what I did there?) The Spiked hat does have a lot of tasty hit rating, as well, which will make it serviceable to plate DPS classes for a very long time.
All of these items are still good for bootstrapping someone into a raid, and they're relatively quickly and easily made for the cost of their materials. That kind of longevity is going to keep these items relevant, even in the current Icecrown Citadel environment.
Leatherworking and Tailoring
Leatherworking and Tailoring both have the same benefit: they provide relevant enchants to even the very highest tier of gear, so they haven't dropped off in value at all. I already talked about these items a great deal a few weeks ago, and I don't want to rehash that territory. Check out What to sell, what to sell.
Inscription
In a radical change from normal operating procedure, there are a few very clear winners for most popular glyphs on the Armory. According to The Crafter's Tome, the four most popular glyphs on the Armory are Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth, Glyph of Raise Dead, Glyph of Horn of Winter, and Glyph of Levitate. So there we go. If you're a master of Inscription, you have a good target for the four most popular glyphs to list on the Auction House.
Engineering
Engineering only has so many saleable materials, two of which are the obvious Icecrown arrows and bullets. The Armor Plated Combat Shotgun is still amazingly popular on Armory characters, as is the Heartseeker Scope. While hunters don't seem to still be the default character class for new players or farming characters, they're still very popular. These crafted staples of hunter gear are still valuable to folks who aren't rocking raid gear.
Explanations for Popularity
The first and obvious example for why many of these items are still so popular has to do with the nature of alts and alting. While you want your secondary, tertiary, and even quaternary characters to be in viable, feasible gear, you're not going to go hilt-deep in trying to equip them with the very best items. And there are so many hours in the day!
So if you want a fresh-to-80 character to be viable without running a bunch of old instances and raids, crafted gear can still give you a quick jog up. If you list a Destroyer on the Auction House for 900 gold, for example, that's not a lot of cash to someone who just wants to get their brand new death knight viable as fast as possible.
Secondly, it's easy to forget that there are millions of players in WoW. This could be hard to believe for many of us, but there are people who don't like raids or instances. For those folks, these crafted items will be the best gear they'll see in Wrath. While it might be below an Icecrown raider's preferred iLevel, it's all still pretty awesome to someone who'll barely see the inside of 5-man isntances.
The Crafter's Tome and WoWPopular for the data!
Jan 25, 2010
Ghostcrawler on hunter ammo replacement
As you may recall, Blizzard announced their intent to get rid of consumable ammo in Patch 3.1, only to withdraw the change a short time later, with the promise of reimplementing it at a nebulous later date. Now, it's been more or less assumed that said later date is Cataclysm itself, or at least Patch 4.0.
In a general forum post created to discuss ammo replacements, Ghostcrawler piped in to remind us that the only change announced for Cataclysm was the removal of ammo, with nothing else yet decided (or, more accurately, announced). While he did acknowledge the possibility of adding in new situational ammo, he did observe that the hassle of collecting and swapping different ammo types might grow old pretty quickly, especially for a class like the hunter that already needs to push a lot of buttons to play at peak potential, in addition to already having a pet to manage.
I do see some wisdom in Ghostcrawler's words. As someone who played a hunter relatively extensively during Burning Crusade and has recently begun leveling that hunter again via random dungeons, I can attest that we do have a lot to juggle if we want to put out a respectable level of DPS or PvP utility. One more thing to worry about could conceivably get a little bit tiresome.
That said, I'm a hybrid player at heart. I played a druid when I first started playing, and I play a death knight as my main now, and in both cases, I always keep a set of gear upgraded and ready for all their respective roles. Those sets include relics. I have my tanking relics and my DPS relics already. If ammo become a similar "relic" system, it might not be so bad. Being able to spice up your shooting with some procs from an ammo relic would be a great way to add a little bit of fun to the system without making it overwhelmingly unmanageable.
Of course, if they just take out ammo altogether and roll the extra DPS back into the base weapon damage, I wouldn't complain too much either. My engineer will be sort of sad that one more source of cash flow is gone, but then again, raw materials sometimes sell for more anyway.
Spiritual Guidance: ICC-10 gear guide for holy and discipline priests
Hey ladies! Hey fellas! You know you're doin' good 'cause they're jealous *Pop-Pop* And they only hate ya 'cause you're a go-getter *Pop-Pop* Pop ya collar - Don't let 'em sweat 'cha! *POP* No clue what I'm talking about? Trust me, it's better that way. Though, if you don't know why I'm talking about popped collars, let me direct you to the picture above. It would seem popped collars are all the rage in Icecrown Citadel. I don't know what Blizzard was thinking with this, especially for priests. If anything, warlocks and mages are the frat boys of WoW. Or paladins. Well, whatever it is, this week I'll be talking about loot drops in Icecrown Citadel.
But first, a story.
The other day, I was in 10-man ICC with my guild and a Thaumaturge's Crackling Cowl dropped. At the time I was playing my new Alliance priest, and the helm was a significant upgrade from the Onyxia 10 helm that I was wearing. We'd been running with the default need over greed system all night, so I just hit need and went on my merry way, exploring Deathbringer Saurfang's platform for the first time. It seems you Alliance folk don't get a repair vendor (that I could find) after the Saurfang fight like the Horde do, but I guess this is the trade off for having a much shorter story sequence before the encounter. Anyway, a few moments later, while I was bouncing around inside the Skybreaker, the rolls went out and I won the helm with a 99. The only person who had rolled and lost against me was a mage.
That's when the conflict started.
Well, at least the internal conflict. No one actually said anything about it, and since the raid was called for the night I was free to go stand on some crates in Stormwind while I performed my interior monologue for some rats. You see, I have always held the idea that when faced with an equal upgrade, a DPS should get loot before a healer.
Of course, this is a frequently disputed idea. Some players believe that if you gear your healers first they will have the equipment necessary to heal the raid through difficult progression. Other players, like myself, argue that if you gear your DPS first, you can blast your way through the content and the healers won't need as much gear since they won't need to endure such long encounters.
The way I see it, DPS don't have ceilings the way healers do. What I mean by a ceiling is that there is a finite amount of healing you can do simply because your raid members only have so much health, and there is only so much damage. Even if the damage is constantly incoming, you will only be able to heal so much before you're overhealing. For DPS though, there is no ceiling, just a finish line with a dead boss and shiny treasure. The sky is the limit. And yes, I know about that one encounter -- I'm not changing my argument for one fight that gimmicks you into stacking paladins.
The other reason is a bit more subjective but deals with much the same ideology. Imagine that a progression encounter is a hill. The kill is at the peak and your raid is trying to climb up to it. When you get to that peak by killing the boss you find out there are two paths. The DPS go to the left, which leads up another hill, while the healers go to the right where there are changing rooms for them to suit up in their swim attire and play on a Slip 'n' Slide for the next 6 months. I hope that analogy wasn't too convoluted... Basically what I'm saying is that after you kill a boss there is really no more work for the healers to do. Each week after the first kill, the encounter will constantly get easier and easier to heal. Meanwhile the DPS can keep going up and push the bar a little higher, making the fights shorter and the clearing of the content for the 20th time more bearable.
Now let's go back to my priest though, since I mentioned a conflict. After my navel gazing above you'd think there wouldn't have been a conflict. I would have just passed the helm to my mage buddy and gone on my way. Except as I said, this priest is a new character. She has six, level 200 blue items on and while the upgrade from a 232 helm to a 251 helm isn't that big, I have so much heroic gear on my character that it would have helped get me closer to the gear level the rest of my guild's healers are currently at. So for once, an upgrade going to a healer over a DPS made sense. What would you have done?
While that mulls over, let's go ahead and look at the drops in ICC. For today, I'll just be examining the 10-man drops since that's what we've been talking about. Later this week, you can expect a write up on the 25-man drops, as well as their badge and crafted competition. I will also be discussing my thoughts on tier at that time. Now, without further ado:
Back
- Heartsick Mender's Cape -- 10-man Prince Valanar -- This is a great cloak for any healer. Priests of either spec can look to this if they do not plan on buying a badge cloak (Volde's Cloak of the Night Sky and Drape of the Violet Tower) or venturing into 25-man ICC.
- Bloodsoul Raiment -- 10-man Prince Valanar -- Depending on how you feel about tier, this may be an acceptable 251 upgrade for holy priests. Compared to the 251 tier 10 there is less spirit and spellpower on these robes, but the addition gem slot levels the difference.
- Robes of Azure Downfall -- 10-man Sindragosa -- [Disclaimer: This item can't be confirmed as a drop until the fight goes live!] Again, if you're not going for tier bonuses, this is is a fine choice. Disc priests who are avoiding spirit like the plague can look to this if they do not want to save their badges for the Meteor Chaser's Raiment.
- Pale Corpse Boots -- 10-man Prince Valanar -- These boots with spirit are more ideal for holy, but if you don't plan on raiding 25-man plague wing for Plague Scientist's Boots, there is no drop or crafted option for disc priests.
- Signet of Putrefaction -- 10-man Festergut -- The mp5 will create less competition for this ring. It is suitable for both holy and disc.
- Cerise Coiled Ring -- 10-man Prince Valanar -- A nice throughput ring for either spec priest. The tooltip doesn't show a socket bonus, but a commenter on WoW Head states it as being 5 spellpower.
- Gloves of Broken Fingers -- 10-man Rotface -- Much like the Bloodsoul Raiment, this piece is about on par with the 251 tier 10. If you want your tier bonuses, you can skip these, but if you don't they're not bad. The 264 badge vendor gloves (Gloves of Ambivalence and Gloves of False Gestures) offer better itemization options for disc priests, though.
- Thaumaturge's Crackling Cowl -- 10-man Deathbringer's Cache -- Just like other gear pieces with a tier alternative, this is a nice choice if you don't care about set bonuses. If you value haste over crit, this is better in raw stats than the tier. Also, again, is the helm that dropped for me in the story. As you can see it doesn't have the best itemization for disc due to the spirit.
- Cowl of Malefic Repose -- 10-man Blood-Queen Lana'thel -- If you don't want tier, this is the option for disc priests or holy priests who want throughput over regen.
- Kilt of Untreated Wounds -- 10-man Festergut -- These are a fantastic leg option for priests of either spec. Compared to the tier 10, you gain both crit and an extra gem slot in exchange for the loss of spirit and set bonuses.
- Leggings of the Refracted Mind -- 10-man Valithria Dreamwalker -- [Disclaimer: This item can't be confirmed as a drop until the fight goes live!] If you're a holy priest, these are a comparable stand in for 251 tier 10. There is less spirit on these legs, and no additional spellpower, but the extra gem socket makes up for it. The socket bonus can't be confirmed until the fight goes live, unfortunately.
- Midnight Sun -- 10-man Gunship Armory -- Good for either holy or disc. It is nearly identical to the Lockjaw, but take in mind that paladin healers can't use daggers, so you might want to shoot for this one to be nice to any paladin healers you might run with. Both options will look equally cool on your hip, though, in my opinion.
- Lockjaw -- 10-man Rotface -- Basically the Midnight Sun, in mace form. You get a bit more haste for a little less intellect and mp5. This is suitable for both holy and disc.
- Soulcleave Pendant -- 10-man Deathbringer's Cache -- Great throughput neck for any caster. There are many neck options in 25-man ICC as well, so everyone should find something that works for them.
- Choker of Filthy Diamonds -- 10-man Rotface -- This neck will work for either disc or holy.
- Bloodstained Surgeon's Shoulderguards -- 10-man Festergut -- Compared to the Crimson Acolyte Shoulderpads, the additional socket doesn't make up for the differences in stats and tier bonuses, unless you are trying to socket one type of stat. These will save you the badges that you'd need to spend on tier, however.
- Stiffened Corpse Shoulderpads -- Zone Drop -- There are confirmation comments that these BoE, 264 shoulders drop in 10-man ICC off trash, but not enough to be certain. If they do, these are going to be your best choice if you don't intend to raid 25-man content. There are currently no shoulder options without spirit, so disc will want these shoulders if they're not going for tier.
- Sliver of Pure Ice -- 10-man Lord Marrowgar -- I know that use effect trinkets are never as popular, but this one isn't too bad given the spellpower on it. The mana regen works out to 67mp5 over 2 minutes, more or less depending on how long your encounters last.
- Mag'hari Chieftain's Staff -- 10-man Deathbringer's Cache -- This is a great staff for a holy priest. The spirit doesn't make it ideal for disc, but if you desperately need a weapon upgrade then this should be easily farmable. Unfortunately, the 25-man staff off Blood-Queen Lana'thel is the same way: lots of spirit. I suspect that if there is going to be a throughput staff in ICC it will drop from Arthas. One more thing as a note: the spellpower on this staff is the same as the Midnight Sun and Lockjaw. With the current off-hands in ICC, staff-wielders will be straggling behind rather significantly if the staff spellpower enchant doesn't get a considerable buff.
- Cord of the Patronizing Practitioner -- 10-man Lord Marrowgar -- The spirit on this belt will make disc priests want to avoid it. Holy shouldn't have any problems with it though.
- Cauterized Cord -- 10-man Professor Putricide -- This throughput belt is ideal for either spec priest, as well as all other cloth wearing casters.
- Lana'thel's Bloody Nail -- 10-man Blood-Queen Lana'thel -- If you will not be raiding 25-man ICC, this is your only wand option in 10-man. That means priests of either spec can take this without hesitation.
- Bracers of Dark Blessings -- 10-man Lady Deathwhisper -- These bracers are a tiny step above the crafted 245 bracers (Royal Moonshroud Bracers and Bejeweled Wizards Bracers). If you didn't ever get those bracers made, this is an option, but they will be better for holy priests due to the spirit. Notice that there is even more spirit from the socket bonus.
Now, back to my story: I ended up whispering my guild mate and having him come pick up the helm in exchange for a port to Dalaran. (What? My hearth was on cooldown.) I figured that, despite all my blue gear, in the long run that little bit of DPS would help out my raid more than me. Also, since I play disc in raids the itemization on the helm was better for him than me, because he can utilize the spirit for crit in combat. To further help me swallow the loss of such a pretty piece of gear (okay, not really, the popped collars are ridiculous) the mage was very appreciative, which made me feel very warm and fuzzy inside. He even whispered me after an hour of heroics to let me know it was a big upgrade for him. Granted, I didn't ask how much a big upgrade was to him, but I don't think that matters.
So why did I tell you this story? Because I wanted
The Colosseum: Bearzerk, rogue of Mannoroth
Gladiator Bearzerk of US-Mannoroth won't be wearing his gladiator title much longer -- he'll be upgrading to Relentless Gladiator! Our rogue interviewee today is team captain of a rogue-mage-priest composition named A B C that was able to go on a victory streak and get the coveted title on the last day of the season.
Read on after the break to see what Bearzerk had to say!
WoW.com: Who are your teammates?
Bearzerk: My teammates in season seven were Nobodyseven (mage) and Lfv (priest).
WoW.com: What's your general plan against other 3v3s?
Bearzerk: Usually, our general plan for 3's is to make clutch switches. When we get a kill, the opposing team doesn't expect it at all. However, at times we do train a single target when a switch is unnecessary.
WoW.com: What challenges does your team have?
Bearzerk: I think our team honestly doesn't have any challenges since we've played together more. When we first started the team it took us a bit to get along and get strats/coordination and play styles down -- which got us off to a very bad start. We've progressed over time to play nearly at the top of our game.
WoW.com: You mentioned that your 3v3 team "got off to a very bad start" -- why didn't you stop playing when you were doing poorly?
Bearzerk: At times I thought we would not play anymore at the start. I'd have to say our team stayed together because Nobodyseven would influence us to keep going and that we'd only get better. Apparently, it worked out for the best.
WoW.com: What's your opening strategy?
Bearzerk: Opening strategy for us mainly depends on what map it is and how the opposing team is positioned. If we get Ring of Valor, sometimes I will be able to get a Sap -- but we don't depend on it. On that map, our mage usually opens with a Frost Nova into a Psychic Scream from the priest. Any other map we usually know what we'll do and when we'll switch.
WoW.com: How do you work out target designation and swaps?
Bearzerk: Since we all know when to call a good switch, over time we've learned to listen to each other. It will be a good switch any time it is called. If a switch is called at a wrong time, the person calling switch will go back to our main target. At times we will call to fully dispel someone and make an easy switch to clinch the win depending on what setup our opponents are playing.
WoW.com: What signals that you need to radically change strategy midmatch? (And how do you accomplish that change?)
Bearzerk: Symbols we mainly look for is:
- Someone is not dying for whatever reason.
- Need to change the crowd control because of diminishing returns, or if the crowd control will be broken at the time.
- Need to peel off of my mage or priest or even the need for my teammates to peel off of me at times.
- Someone is fully dispelled and our target is not dying.
Bearzerk: I'd have to say my favorite class to kill is rogue, not sure why I just like to. Another two would have to be mages and shamans. We had numerous games this season where my mage would not do any damage. In those games, if he did any damage, it was very little -- and I would end up soloing the opponent. This happens with other classes but rarely compared to these three.
WoW.com: What spec do you play? What advantages does that spec provide you that others do not?
Bearzerk: I play 44/4/23 assassination. I feel this spec gives the best damage I've tried of all specs thus far. I spec into Focused Attacks and gear for agility. I'm up to 46.03% crit unbuffed so my energy shoots up really fast for top damage.
WoW.com: Why did you choose to play rogue-mage-priest over other possible compositions?
Bearzerk: To be honest, I transferred to play with Nobodyseven as we have known each other for some time. We ended up getting lucky to have a great priest like Lfv. As a team, we became closer over time which kept us together more than any other players I have played with before.
WoW.com: How do you schedule your playtime? Do you try to play at times when lots of teams are queueing up?
Bearzerk: Our playtime was scheduled around my raids mainly, and when Lfv wanted to queue! We took a very long break from December 21st to January 18th (which was the final day of the season). Nobodyseven went on vacation and my computer was infected for three weeks. Luckily, I got it fixed on January 17th and was able to play the next day. My internet went down Tuesday (the 19th) from no payment as well! We were very lucky!
WoW.com: How does it feel to be a Relentless Gladiator?
Bearzerk: Almost makes up for not getting glad in season four or five for team hopping!
WoW.com: What are you trying to improve?
Bearzerk: I'd like to keep improving my win-loss ratios to the best of my ability.
WoW.com: What did you think of season seven in terms of balance?
Bearzerk: In terms of balance, I think it was the best in Wrath of the Lich King thus far -- besides protection warriors.
WoW.com: What do you think about the resilience changes for season eight? Do you think it's the right move?
Bearzerk: I think resilience changes will be a good move. I do think it is the right move as I hate losing to teams like death knight + warrior that don't do anything but Charge and Bladestorm -- they land kills without Mortal Striking anything. However, I believe they should take off the 47 minute timer for each arena game.
WoW.com: Will certain classes be affected more than others?
Bearzerk: I do not think certain classes will be effected more than others. They will just have to find new strategies to land a kill, mainly by draining mana and cooldowns.
WoW.com: What's the biggest thing that differentiates a good player from a great player?
Bearzerk: I believe what differentiates a good player from a greater player is:
- Knowing what to do and when to do it.
- Quickness of abilities.
- Knowing your position and role in the game.
Bearzerk: My advice would be to watch PvP videos (I am looking into making one before expansion)! Also, duel classes to learn abilities and when your opponents would possibly use those abilities.
WoW.com: Thank you so much for giving us a great interview Bearzerk -- is there anything else you'd like to say?
Bearzerk: Looking forward to another great season and hope to get rank 1 in all brackets.
Jan 22, 2010
Bobby Kotick didn't think Blizzard was worth $7 million in '96
Have you ever looked at something new on the auction house and thought "Who would pay a thousand gold for that," only to find that months later the item has skyrocketed in price and you missed a golden opportunity to pick it up on the cheap? Activision kingpin Bobby Kotick might make the same analogy. If he played video games, I mean.
The Escapist clued us in to this little story: back in 1995, Kotick was eating lunch with some folks from Davidson & Associates, and they told him that they had just bought up-and-coming software developer Blizzard Entertainment for the tidy sum of seven million dollars -- a number that a baffled Kotick believed to be ridiculous. At the time, Blizzard's claim to fame was Warcraft: Orcs vs. Humans, and ... that's pretty much it, save for a few one-off games like Blackthorne and The Lost Vikings. Kotick called them nothing more than a "contract developer" and remarked that they weren't worth seven million bucks.
Of course, later that year, Blizzard released Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, which catapulted them into gaming history forever. Thirteen years later, in 2008, Kotick (and Activision) paid seven billion dollars to acquire Blizzard. For those not into mathematics, that's one thousand times more than what Davidson & Associates paid.
Well, he was right about one thing. They definitely weren't worth seven million bucks. He just didn't know how right he was at the time.
WoW Moviewatch: I'm MT - Season 2 - EP03
WoW Moviewatch: I'm MT - Season 2 - EP03
It's been a while since we've looked at the wonderful series, I'm MT. The series has obviously progressed pretty well, and the characters continue to be heartfelt and adorable. The animation style is still fun to watch, and our hero now seems to have levelled up into the twenties.
The opening segment for I am MT - Season2 - EP03 is absolutely fantastic. The call out to the Super Mario games is an inspired choice, since it calls out to the roots of gamers everywhere. I even found the final gag to be pretty amusing, since it still exemplifies the slapstick humor of the main character.
Watching the video, I was pleased to see the new, wide variety of characters that have been added to the show. There's a new troll, of course, but you also get to see the author's interpretation of the Alliance as well. I am MT - Season 2 - EP03 is a fairly long movie, clocking in at about a half hour. But if you've got the time to check it out, I think you'll find it worth it.
Click here to see it for yourself. WoW Moviewatch: I'm MT - Season 2 - EP03
Jan 17, 2010
WoW, Casually: Instance leveling guide
More importantly, dungeons are fun. In order to research this guide, I dusted off a level 18 paladin I hadn't played for at least 2 years. I picked up skills that were new since the last time she trained, redid her talents and tested the Dungeon Finder waters. It was an absolute blast running through Deadmines with an appropriately leveled group. I've also had a great time leveling a priest in her 30s and a mage in her 60s using the Dungeon Finder. If you too want to try some instance leveling (and I bet most of you already have), here are some tips to make the most of it:
Set aside uninterrupted playtime
The great thing about soloing is that you never have to worry about interruptions bothering anyone else but you. And if you have close friends or understanding guildies, you can usually impose on them with non-emergency AFKs as needed. But if you're going to PUG it up using Dungeon Finder, you should make arrangements to only be interrupted if absolutely necessary. Captain Obvious says it's inconsiderate to do otherwise. If you're a parent, I find that after bedtime is great.
Primetime is Dungeontime
If you wait until your server is quiet to queue up, you'll probably find your options limited and the queues long. So I highly recommend recording your favorite shows so that you can dungeon crawl when everyone else is.
Plan to spend around an hour
In general, old world instances are much longer than the 5 mans we run in Northrend. Of course, there are exceptions such as Scarlet Monastery Graveyard, which is an easy 15 minute run. Also, you may end up in a dungeon in which your whole group is unfamiliar and/or can't remember. And there's a lot to be said for enjoying the scenery instead of just rushing through.
Be a healer or tank
If you really don't like playing either role, don't take this advice. Playing WoW should be fun. However, if you do enjoy being a meatshield or playing whack-a-mole, then you will find your waiting time much more reasonable than queueing as DPS -- possibly even as instantaneous as it is at 80. Of course, some people queue as tank and then expect someone else to actually do the work. That's just stupid, since runs only go smoothly if everyone performs their role correctly. But I'm sure you all know that. Also, make sure you understand the basics of your class in your chosen role and have the appropriate gear for it at that level.
Get the quests
I have solo or duo leveled most of my characters previous to Patch 3.3 and therefore am used to just dropping the quests requiring instances. But now I seek them out. The quest rewards for dungeon quests are often better than the drops inside and are usually better than nondungeon quest rewards. And, of course, there is the nice chunk of XP you get for turning in quests. Picking up quests isn't always possible for every dungeon, particularly for the ones that are located in enemy cities. And some are hard to find. The really nice PUGgers share their quests at the beginning of dungeon runs... if they have a chance before the tank starts pulling.
Prepare your bags
Visit your bank, shop at vendors, mail to your bank alt and otherwise empty your bags of everything you don't need for the run. Then make sure you stock up on food, drink, bandages, potions, reagents and anything else you will need for a run or two. Make sure to repair and restock inbetween queuing. You can only trade conjured items across realms, so your groupies won't be able to help you if you're missing required items and you don't have a mage.
Start young
You can start using the Dungeon Finder tool at level 15. I don't know if I'd recommend starting that early -- level 18 might make the dungeons go a bit easier. When you sign up for a random dungeon, you will be put in a group of similarly leveled people in an appropriate instance.
Stay till the end
Defeating the main boss for the dungeon will give you achievements, great gear drops and most importantly, an XP bonus and The Satchel of Helpful Goods. Unlike the heroic dailies at max level where the best goodies only drop once a day, the satchel will drop every time you complete a random dungeon while leveling. The satchel contains sweet, delicious gear that is usually better than anything else you can get at your level. Even at lower levels, you get a pretty blue item to drape on your bod.
Don't stay till the end
The satchel and valuable playtime is not worth it if you're stuck with jerks and/or idiots. The players blaming everyone else for wipes are usually the ones who are causing them. And the ones who are ridiculously rude from the outset will not improve during the run. You'll enjoy your play session much more if you are questing while working off the Dungeon Debuff than if you are putting up with That Guy. I once stuck with a run where the "leader" made a rape comment in the first few seconds of my zoning in. Dumb move. I should have put him on ignore and scarpered. The funsuckers only win if you let them, so degroup from the jerks and don't look back.
Need everything you want
I know not everyone agrees with me on this, but it really reduces your stress and makes the runs go faster. In the lower levels, classes can need on armor that is lower than theirs. So hunters can need on cloth -- that they'll never use. And some of them will. If you are there at the beginning of the run, suggest a Need Everything loot system for speed purposes. If you aren't there at the beginning or forget to communicate, I recommend you make a quick gear comparison by holding down the shift key while you mouseover the dropped loot. Then Need it if it's an upgrade. Need every pattern for your professions too. If something drops that you can use and will equip right away, but you don't win it, just ask if the winner will wear it. You can trade dropped gear from the current instance and conjured items across realms but nothing else. To reduce drama, equip new gear right away.
Don't degroup from good groups
If you still have time in your play session and your group was a good one, don't degroup at the end. Speak up quickly and suggest requeueing together. You'll still get the satchel at the end because the group began as random. The only problem is when one of you outlevels the others, then the leader won't be able to requeue until the higher level leaves.
Have fun!
If you are stuck in a level where you get the same dungeon over and over along with everyone else you are PUGging with then the runs are going to be speedy blurs. But if it's your first time in a dungeon on your current character, announce that at the beginning. It shouldn't be difficult to find others who are willing to take it slow-ish to really enjoy the experience. My PUG and I had a blast in Deadmines even though we wiped a couple times and we got lost running back. A couple impatient DPSers dropped group because we weren't speedy enough, but they were instantly replaced. (That's another reason being a tank or healer is best.)
When you spend an evening playing with the Dungeon Finder Tool, you are going to find that the leveling will be fast and furious. You may even want to macro a "Grats" emote for all the groupies who are dinging with you. Also, the Gearscore/Recount elitism that happens at endgame is nonexistent while leveling, making the whole experience more relaxing. (It seems that many of you have found that the elitism is still going on in leveling instances. How disappointing.) And at the end of the session, you'll find your more advanced character sporting sweet new armor, weapons and a bulging pocket of gold. Now go forth and dungeon crawl!
The Frozen Throne is now in Icecrown (sort of)
We took notice of this in an earlier edition of the Queue, but I thought this little bit of news merited its own article for the benefit of lore junkies, raid leaders, or anyone who just might have missed it. After being asked a question over where Angrathar was really located in the larger Icecrown raid complex, I flew out to no-man's-land of southern Icecrown/northwestern Dragonblight and tried to get a good handle on the architecture. While doing so, I noticed a new and extremely tall spire nestled in the mountain range past the Wrath Gate and flew over to investigate. At the top of a saronite spire is huge chunk of misty ice capped by a flat surface with a black design vaguely reminiscent of the one on the Lordaeron throne room (although for all I know this is entirely unintended). From above, it bears a startling resemblance to an image datamined by Boubouille some time ago that was guessed to be the location of the eventual fight with the Lich King -- and I think this exterior "set" could be quite useful for any raid attempting to work on positioning once details of the fight become known. Curiously enough, the Throne itself doesn't appear to be present in-game at the moment, but that might change soon.
Beware of WoW Armory phishing scams
First things first: the correct address for the WoW Armory is wowarmory.com. Bookmark it. Memorize it. But don't ever, ever search for it again. We've talked before about how misspelling searches can get you into trouble. But even if you spell WoW Armory correctly when Googling, the first sponsored site that shows up is a phishing site -- and it's a really good one.
Update 1:10pm: Google seems to have removed the site from their sponsored listing in the short time since I wrote this post. Kudos! Nonetheless, there are and will be more sites using the same technique, so the warning remains valid.
Do not go to the following site: armory-worldofwarcnaft.com/wowarmory/, it is evil. Notice the n in warcnaft? You may not when you are clicking on it in your search page or when it shows up in your address bar. And that's what they are counting on. Because the rest of the site looks authentic. When you type in what you want to search for, you get asked for your Battle.net info. Then, no matter what you type in, it gives you a password error. (I typed in profanity. It was fun.) They have stolen all of the elements of the actual Blizzard pages, so that if you want your login page in other languages, just a click of the button will get you there. But don't. It's evil.
So let's say you do fall for this (many people are) and you don't have an authenticator... The next time you log into WoW, there will be an authenticator on your account. You'll have to call up Blizzard Support, convince them you are you, and work with them to get your account back. And the whole time you're doing it, someone is fondling your characters, hocking your bank contents and disenchanting your gear. They may even use your good name to scam someone else.
Please double check where you are anytime a site asks you for your account information. These social engineers are clever, so your safest best is not to search at all for official WoW pages. Just go to WorldofWarcraft.com and navigate to where you need to go.
And please, please, please get an authenticator, either in keyfob form or via your mobile. The pet is adorable and the added layer of security is relaxing. Don't wait for the possibility of them shipping with Cataclysm. Get one now and play in safety.
[Thanks to all those who sent this in.]
