tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79711970834123264012024-03-14T02:49:00.604+00:00Way Of The DruidDruid stuff. Moonkin DPS and maybe some tanking.Rakhmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16875429172456533751noreply@blogger.comBlogger68125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971197083412326401.post-9041018077115348272016-05-17T19:41:00.002+01:002016-05-17T19:41:58.881+01:00The Way of the Mists of Pandaria and Warlords of DraenorA long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... I got to max level and then got bored.<br />
<br />
It wasn't that Star Wars The Old Republic was <i>bad</i> as such, it was just a bit of a WoW clone. Sure, the class missions were awesome fun, but the endgame was dungeons for story and gear, then raiding bosses in instances with a load of trash for gear. Sounds familiar...<br />
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<b>Mists</b><br />
<br />
Thus it was at the time of WoW Mists of Pandaria that I reactivated my account and Mutio rode again. Or did he? Having tanked up the raids in Cataclysm and thoroughly enjoyed them, I found myself coming back guildless and so joined a new guild make up of friends and ex-players from my old guild. Alas the new guild was somewhat more hardcore than Elder Brethren, and so I joined the ranks of casual members and made my own way through the content. Welcome to casual city; inhabitants: you.<br />
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But I wasn't entirely unhappy with my lot. You see, the introduction of the Raid Finder in Cataclysm means even an unprepared casual player such as myself can queue up and muddle through the encounters. But as tank? Yeah right. Grabbing the awesome flexibility of the Druid, I flipped over to running as ranged DPS in lazer chicken mode in secondary spec. Which erm, quickly became primary spec, although I still tanked a few dungeons.<br />
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So Mutio raid findered his way through all the tiers, ground his way through the dailies, sat at the back of the dungeons while the other players argued about who caused what wipe, and who isn't doing enough DPS. Once the raids were cleared, the subscription was canceled and I went off to work on that Steam game pile of shame (80-odd and counting, most never played).<br />
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<b>Warlords</b><br />
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Then glorious Warlords hit, and I gladly re-subscribed to get my fix once again. Except this time I find Mutio grounded, unable to quick shift to flight form, bound to the ground for most of the bloody expansion. This did not sit well with a druid.<br />
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At least I started when the expansion hit, so I could do the content when it was relevant. Eventually I got geared up through random dungeons and the drops from the follower missions, then the raid finder accepted me and I started getting drops. Pretty soon the last patch dropped and the horrible grinding to get flying began, plus grinding to get to the end of the raids.<br />
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Finally however I got that flying skill, but given I'd completed the raids and the dailies to get flying, that was pretty much game over for me. So again I cancelled my subscription and sat waiting for the next expansion.<br />
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<b>Legion</b><br />
<br />
Now Legion has pre-orders up, I have made my order and I await impatiently the release of the latest expansion. What is the plan? Probably to go and laser chicken through the content, grind up the grindables for gear, do the follower/NPC/whatever missions they add for more gear, then hit the raid finder and dailies for each content patch. Until the end boss lies dead, cheesed in the raid finder!<br />
<br />Rakhmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16875429172456533751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971197083412326401.post-36546616518126568722015-04-30T12:30:00.001+01:002015-04-30T12:30:46.808+01:00New blog: Cloud and TechOff topic, but I have started a new blog called <a href="http://cloudandtech.blogspot.co.uk">Cloud and Tech</a>, where I will be posting about Cloud computing and various tech items of interest to me!Rakhmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16875429172456533751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971197083412326401.post-59113529752538602432012-01-12T17:22:00.001+00:002012-01-12T17:22:36.872+00:00The Way Of The Star WarsNot a lot of updates around here recently. Sort of around the time 4.3 came out I have stopped. That's because I decided, as I was going to play some other game, I wouldn't start on 4.3 and Deathwing at all. A shame because I'd have liked to seen him killed, but I don't think it was a possibility without many months of gear grinding and Blizzard nerfing the final raid encounters many times (Icecrown buff any one).<br />
<br />
So I have gone off to a galaxy far far away...<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://swmmo.blogspot.com/"><img border="0" height="142" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1o1SirSJUCUpyeNGuN6hXIqtZhUzYR3XdG-gjLZ-JB3Kr7-RrE-l4BURqE8-hQ7CmvMCb5eOibSxp7EvVoaEgHFWg4-iX1vc2o8KPL_835QnCxAiIY0Pzlu5FbdJG7oNkX4fH-lVKCsFs/s400/logo-the-old-republic.png" width="400" /></a></div>
However, as usual, there are blogs and what not to wibble on. One such blog is <a href="http://swmmo.blogspot.com/">Star Wars MMO</a>, which talks about Star Wars The Old Republic and my experiences playing the Jedi Knight and Sith Warrior.<br />
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So enjoy WoW, I may be back to make a Kung Fu Panda, maybe not.Rakhmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16875429172456533751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971197083412326401.post-38163554047222708892011-11-10T13:58:00.000+00:002011-11-10T13:58:37.452+00:00Blizzard Class Balance and Stuff Q&ARecently there was a Q&A on class balance and other stuffs, and MMO Champion posted the <a href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2547-PvP-Season-10-Ending-Soon-Class-Design-Balance-Q-A">transcript</a>.<br />
<blockquote>Q: Are there any plans to simplify the feral cat druid dps rotations or are you happy where they are right now?<br />
A: The Feral rotation has been simplified slightly in 4.3 by renaming the Glyph of Shred and allowing it to trigger off Mangle instead. In addition, in 5.0 Mangle will no longer cause a bleed damage debuff and so no longer be required in the rotation. At that point, the two abilities will be interchangeable, changing only by whether a Feral Druid can attack from behind or not. That will make Feral easier to play in high movement encounters and encounters with facing restrictions. The current Feral Charge and Stampede talents are becoming part of Wild Charge, so you can select not to have that complexity with Ravage. Past that, we are pretty happy with the rotation and feel there is a strong Feral community that enjoys the current rotation.</blockquote><br />
<blockquote>Q: Moonkin are losing many of their core talents to the general "druid talent tree." How will they be compensated? It seems like we'll probably be forced to take these talents while the other druid specs will have options. Why were many more (500%?) balance talents taken away while talents from other specs werent?<br />
A: If you look at the tree carefully, you will find that talents from other Druid specs were also placed in the tree, such as Tree of Life, Feral Charge, Feline Swiftness, and Nature's Swiftness. In general, if a Druid wishes to keep the exact same abiltiies they have today, they can, they are just locking themselves out of some of the new choices. In particualr, the level 60 row has Feral Charge vs. Tree of Life vs. Force of Nature. Each of the existing 4.3 specs has something in that row, and the exciting opportunity to take something that belonged to a different spec instead.</blockquote><br />
<blockquote>Q: With the previously mentioned removal of the +bleed debuff will Feral druids have Mangle taken away to become Guardian only and Shred lose its positional requirement. Without the bleed debuff and its obvious lower damage output than shred, Mangle is extremely situational especially when somebody else is already providing the ability. Or will Mangle debuff on the target just increase the feral druids bleeds and shred damage?<br />
A: Mangle and Shred will both exist for Feral (cats). Mangle will no longer apply a debuff, but will be usable from any facing, whereas Shred will offer slightly more overall DPS if you are able to stay behind the target. Guardians (bears) will have Mangle, but not Shred.</blockquote><br />
<blockquote>Q: For the Druid talent: Incarnation, what does this talent do to Balance/Moonkin Players?<br />
A: Incarnation for Balance transforms the Druid in to the Chosen of Elune Form, which currently increases spell damage done and Solar and Lunar energy generated. That is, of course, subject to change.</blockquote><br />
<blockquote>Q: Rogues and Feral Druids currently spend a good portion of their attack time just sitting and Autoattacking because they have to wait for Energy regen. Is there anything that you guys are thinking about to help lessen the waiting?<br />
A: Honestly, we would prefer if all classes worked like that. The Energy model is the one that is most tolerant for lag, player error, movement and just giving players a chance to stop tunneling so much on the target and pay a little attention to the rest of the fight. We don't like it when any class fills every GCD. It works okay for casters, as long as they aren't using all instant spells.</blockquote><br />
<blockquote>Q: I think this is the main question that feral druids seems to have right now: when you said that Shred will do "slightly" more damage than Shred, did that mean that mangle is going to get buffed a little to provide less penalities in the several encounters we can't Shred? Because the difference between those skills is pretty big currently. ^^<br />
A: Our own internal numbers show that once the Glyph of Shred works from Mangle as well as Shred, the difference between a Mangle and a Shred rotation is actually fairly small (in the 5% range).</blockquote><br />
<blockquote>Q: As a Druid, I feel that the level 90 talents feel too much like work. You guys put so much effort into making the Moonkin unique and more complex, so why force us to shift more often to "fill other combat roles?" Poor kitties are going to have a nightmare of a time dealing with this...<br />
A: The level 90 Druid talents deliberately come in 3 different levels of work required. Heart of the Wild is perfect for an encounter where there is a period where increased healing is needed for a short time, and dps is not the need of the encounter. Something like the Chimaeron encounter where more healing is needed at certain times, and dps is less important. Master Shapeshifter targets the Druid who is willing to do a lot of work shifting back and forth or occasionally needs to heal or damage, such as Blood Queen Lanathel, where a Tranquility boosted by the talent would help your group a lot during her air phase. Disentanglement is there for the "lazy" Druid who doesn't want to do that work, but still gets some benefit from a well-timed shapeshift.</blockquote><br />
<blockquote>Q: A lot people are worried that with druids being able to do well at our other roles, we'll see the return of the "hybrid tax". It's the same old story: if we can perform any role when needed, raids will stack us, unless we don't do as well in our specific roles, in which case we're bad at what we most want to do. What assurance can we get that we won't have this problem?<br />
A: We are very interested in opening opportunities for more hybrid gameplay in druids, as you can see in the level 90 talent tier, while still allowing an option for players who want to never do anything outside their role. We don't intend for that added hybridization to be offset by any sort of DPS nerf. While DPSing, a druid's DPS will be entirely competitive with other DPS. We hope to see druids that do things like, "DPS in Cat Form most of the fight, but during one phase, when healing is super difficult, pop out of Cat, hit Heart of the Wild, Tranquility, and spam heals on the raid to help top everyone off, then go back to Cat and resume DPSing." In that sort of the situation, the Cat will have spent less time DPSing than other DPSers, but his/her DPS while DPSing would have been competitive, and in exchange helped save the raid when healers were falling behind. You can probably think of many situations where this would be useful in raid content, or in some 5man content, and frequently in PvP. To clarify a bit further on how the druids will perform at their off-roles: Ferals and Guardians will have Nurturing Instinct, which increases spell power based on Agility, and Balance and Restoration will have Killer Instinct, which increases attack power based on Intellect. They will have a smaller toolbox of spells for their off-role, but the strength of those spells will be competitive, when under the effects of those hybrid talents.</blockquote>Rakhmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16875429172456533751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971197083412326401.post-84113448622785827042011-11-03T10:39:00.000+00:002011-11-03T10:39:13.981+00:00Rock You Like...The new Hurricane spell animation has been posted on YouTube by MMO Champion, and it looks very cool.<br />
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/aqHYGHQdP54" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
<br />
Now Blizzard just need to make it worthwhile to use!Rakhmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16875429172456533751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971197083412326401.post-91575965122660942152011-09-13T09:24:00.000+01:002011-09-13T09:24:11.911+01:00The Way of the Raid NerfIt seems that, from next week (Sept 19th), Blizzard will be nerfing the current tier of raiding.<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
With the final showdown against Deathwing approaching, we've been keeping a close eye on players' progress through the current Firelands raid content. Before patch 4.3 is released, we want groups who are working on Heroic-difficulty content to be able to get as close to Ragnaros as possible, and we want players who are tackling normal progression to be able to experience as many of the encounters as they can. To achieve these goals, we'll be toning down the difficulty of both normal and Heroic raids through hotfixes in the coming weeks. In general, we plan to reduce health and damage of all raid bosses in both normal and Heroic Firelands by around the same percentage we brought difficulty down for the original Cataclysm raids when Rage of the Firelands (patch 4.2) was released.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
We're looking forward to seeing more groups of players face off against the Fire Lord in the weeks ahead. However, before we make these changes, we want to give everyone a final shot at the bosses at their current difficulty level -- so this is a heads up that we're planning to apply the difficulty hotfixes beginning the week of September 19.
Stay tuned to the Patch 4.2 Hotfixes blog for these and other live updates to the game as they happen. </blockquote>
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<a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3494581#blog">source</a><br />
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This is interesting, in 4.2 they nerfed the Tier 11 raid, but that was old content and players could get much the same rewards from Justice Points. Now they are actually nerfing a raiding tier while it is current, and by the sounds of things, by quite a lot. The amount they nerfed the Tier 11 raids was quite noticeable, fight strategies changed and bosses often just rolled over and died. In my mind it was quite a hard nerf.<br />
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Part of me likes this change. It means our guild gets to see more of the bosses in Firelands and get them killed, and it may increase interest in raiding for the current tier.<br />
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Part of me doesn't like it though. One wonders if they have to nerf the content this hard, perhaps it was actually too hard to begin with, and they would have been better going with more bosses and a slower ramp up in difficulty.<br />
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This action also suggests an even slacker approach to the current tier of raiding. Why bother grinding against hard bosses for a tiny amount of Valor Points, when you can face-roll heroics for far more Valor Points? Why not just wait until Blizzard nerf the current tier of raiding, then go in there with all your Valor Point gear you ground in heroics, and face off against some far easier raid bosses, with the chance of far more progression.<br />
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Maybe because grinding heroics is boring, especially 2 troll ones. So although some raiders may well give up until 4.3 is nerfed, I may continue against Deathwing. I just hope there is enough content, and not a short and hard raid, intended to keep us "busy" until the next expansion.Rakhmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16875429172456533751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971197083412326401.post-67209862340127490382011-09-01T09:00:00.000+01:002011-09-01T16:19:24.834+01:00Ghostcrawler on Tank Active MitigationHere we have a <a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3401304">post by Ghostcrawler on Tanking and active mitigation</a>, with some ideas of how they might go about making us press more buttons.<br />
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They have noticed that now tanks don't need to spam buttons to generate threat, we can actually take it easy and concentrate more on keeping defensive buffs up. I can now concentrate on keep my Demo Roar up and Pulverize buffs up, and not bother using Thrash for threat, saving the rage and GCD for other things. I can take this time to look around at what is going on, instead of spamming buttons, and plan where I might kite to, or watch or adds, or other tanky things. This is good, and I like having the time to consider the environment and the current fight.<br />
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GC discusses the three models, which are "Tank DPS matters", "DPS buttons provide mitigation" and "DPS buttons build up resources", where they will make us again press lots of buttons. I quite like "DPS buttons build up resources", where you build up some resource and can choose to spend it when you need it. I think of Lacerate building up stacks now, but instead of Pulverize increasing the chance of a random shield, it actually generating the shield right there. That would be pretty cool, as there are definitely times in a fight I could do with more mitigation. <br />
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I can't help remembering the last time the water cooler was posted, some changes were made almost immediately. I think in this case the changes will be in 4.3, so we won't suddenly have a different way of going about tanking. Hopefully.Rakhmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16875429172456533751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971197083412326401.post-59154160779098590332011-08-17T17:00:00.001+01:002011-08-17T17:00:04.723+01:00Hmm yes that is an interesting concept for the future... what? You changed it now!? Deathwing?<b>Threat changes</b> <br />
The latest <a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3300854">dev watercooler</a> was certainly interesting, with talks of threat changes and active use of mitigations. Among them were some likely changes:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Hotfix: The threat generated by classes in their tanking mode has been increased from three times damage done to five times damage done.<br />
<br />
In an upcoming patch: Vengeance no longer ramps up slowly at the beginning of a fight. Instead, the first melee attack taken generates Vengeance equal to one third of the damage dealt by that attack. As Vengeance updates during the fight, it is always set to at least a third of the damage taken in the last two seconds. It still climbs from that point at the previous rate, still decays at the previous rate, and still cannot exceed the current maximum.</blockquote><br />
So that was interesting and maybe I missed the "hotfix" part here. But I certainly welcomed the increase in threat generation in the future.<br />
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Lo and behold, <a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3019413">today we have a hot fix</a> where said threat changes went live! <br />
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This should mean that tanks in 5 mans can probably AOE tank stuff easier, with less chance of mobs escaping their attentions. It should also mean raids will become even easier threat wise on a pull, currently the pull is the only part where threat of my tank matters, after a few minutes of a fight I usually have a big lead and can actually slack off on the threat quite a bit and prioritize keeping Demo Roar and Pulverize up over doing uber threat/DPS.<br />
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I am quite surprised by the speed of the hot fix however, clearly the water cooler series is actually talking about features the development team have already decided to deliver. They are using it as a vehicle to explain why they are changing certain things, rather than showing how they are thinking and what might just change in the future.<br />
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I can't wait to try the threat changes out tomorrow.<br />
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<b>Patch 4.3 The Wings of Death</b> <br />
In other news, it turns out that <a href="http://wow.gamona.de/2011/08/17/wow-patch-4-3-ein-raid-drei-instanzen-und-ein-wirklich-lang-gehegter-traum/">patch 4.3 is the Deathwing raid</a>, which is a little soon, but this leads to some intriguing questions. <br />
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When is the next expansion out? If 4.3 is coming out, say Holiday 2011, to coincide with a <a href="http://www.swtor.com/">certain other MMO</a> which is releasing then, will the next xpac be 4-5 months after? Like in 2nd quarter 2012? Another <a href="http://www.thesecretworld.com/">certain MMO</a> is releasing in April 2012, which is certainly in 2nd quarter 2012. Putting the Wow xpac up against that would seem to be a cunning move. So here are my predictions, based upon nothing but the release dates of other MMOs which Blizzard are sure to want to compete against. Plus that we are not interested in waiting 6 months between content patches.<br />
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Will they announce the expansion and its date at Blizzcon? I was expecting the xpac to be announced (as some Panderan thing), but a date would be super-handy for sure. After all, it should have been in development since Cataclysm shipped, so they might have a good handle on when it will be ready. <br />
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<a href="http://wow.gamona.de/2011/08/17/wow-patch-4-3-ein-raid-drei-instanzen-und-ein-wirklich-lang-gehegter-traum/">Gamona.de</a> are processing their video of the interview, so hopefully when that is put up we will have more information.Rakhmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16875429172456533751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971197083412326401.post-29555491742891567662011-08-10T17:00:00.000+01:002011-08-10T17:00:00.942+01:00Tanking Shannox in Firelands<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blizzplanet.com/wp-content/uploads/shannox-photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://www.blizzplanet.com/wp-content/uploads/shannox-photo.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Given our guild is massively progressed with 1/7 in Firelands normal 10 man, why am I posting this information? Well, when tanking <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=53691">Shannox </a>I have found the strategy guides somewhat less than helpful.<br />
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They describe the first phase of the encounter fine - tank him at 60 yards from the Riplimb tank, I find the <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/range-display.aspx">RangeDisplay</a> mod really useful for this, simply focus the tank and you can see how far you are from him, then set raid markers on your spots. Avoid fire traps at your feet, which DBM now calls out quickly. If Riplimb is coming back with a spear and there isn't enough time for your stacks of Tear to drop, kite Shannox away a bit, but stay in range of the healers. Again RangeDisplay helps here, set your healer as focus, then make sure it always reads 30 yards. <br />
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When Shannox gets enraged, don't worry, the extra healer for Rageface should now help to keep you up. Save SI for phase 2. It is when Riplimb dies and phase 2 is entered I struggled with.<br />
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Luckily last night we nailed it. In phase 2, Shannox stops throwing his spear and will just try to kill you by stabbing it into the group which does a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=99840">Magma Rupture</a>. This hurts but also repeats if you are still in range after he has done the attack. This leads to two 50k+ hits and given you have stacks of <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=99936">Jagged Tear</a>, you are likely to die. I certainly did.<br />
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The trick here is, when Shannox casts Magma Rupture, strafe away from him as far as you can before he comes after you. You have a massive threat lead from phase 1 where you are just tanking him, I had 10k threat on him with the closest DPS was 4k. Backing up is too slow and you'll be in range of the second tick of Magma Rupture, no strafing at full run speed is definitely the way to go. Plus popping cool downs and the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=62466">Mirror of Broken Images</a> is very recommended here.<br />
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Once I stopped noobing it up and dying, the kill was easy and I even got some <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=71020">gloves</a> too. Plus I almost beat a mage on the DPS meters with 9k of sweet Bear damage.<br />
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How about the Riplimb tanking job? No idea, we get the DK to do that one ;-)<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image from blizzplanet.com</span>Rakhmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16875429172456533751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971197083412326401.post-37814573222448110582011-07-19T15:14:00.000+01:002011-07-19T15:14:03.738+01:00Tier 11 to give valor points (again)In a surprising change to their ill-conceived move to Tier 12, Blizzard have today decided to hotfix Tier 11 normal bosses to drop some Valor points.<br />
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Realising that getting 10 raiders together, explaining complex tactics, and getting a boss killed is way more difficult that just running an easy heroic using the Dungeon Finder, and should have at least equivalent rewards, Blizzard have made all Tier 11 bosses drop 35 Valor Points on normal:<br />
<blockquote>Due to some recent player feedback we’ve made the decision to implement a hotfix that will put Valor Points back on the bosses in Blackwing Descent, Bastion of Twilight, and Throne of the Four Winds (except Argoloth).<br />
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We agreed that players should have some additional options for earning Valor Points beyond Firelands, Zandalari dungeons, and tier 11 Heroic difficulty raids. We don’t want raiding guilds to feel like they have to raid Firelands AND the old raids every week, but we do want players to feel like they have some options besides running ZA/ZG over and over.<br />
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Bosses in these raids will award 35 VP on 10-player normal difficulty, and 45 VP on 25-player normal difficulty, to match the rewards currently offered for the Heroic versions of those encounters.<br />
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This change should be live within the next few hours.</blockquote><a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2842767555">source</a><br />
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For raiding guild who have gotten utterly cock-blocked in Firelands (such as ourselves), this is a nice change. We are capable of doing Tier 11 bosses, even before their massive nerf. As Blizzard seem to be saying we need to grind Valor like mad to buy some 378 epics before we have a chance of downing anything in Firelands, mainly because there isn't enough content there to give us an "easy" starter boss or two, letting our raiding guild actually raid to get items is a nice approach. <br />
<br />
It is just a pity they didn't think through Valor points in Tier 12, and had to learn the hard way that people really don't want run over-long troll heroics just to cap their valor each week.Rakhmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16875429172456533751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971197083412326401.post-31853774691302470592011-07-13T17:00:00.000+01:002011-07-13T17:00:08.192+01:00Firelands raid and reputation and dailies gear<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuBFiqW7Q4NEi0folKDuFaijunZkyejhut7udjI0TF-N4VjaRFX89k6Wesh1WBdmpNs_eXIJoB8hSkE-1V6KGHpG0TwyUcWDZnOipff0bbflULeNJ0lTQ5vs3vzV_fxxNwxA91qrKh2YZK/s1600/uldum_on_fire.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuBFiqW7Q4NEi0folKDuFaijunZkyejhut7udjI0TF-N4VjaRFX89k6Wesh1WBdmpNs_eXIJoB8hSkE-1V6KGHpG0TwyUcWDZnOipff0bbflULeNJ0lTQ5vs3vzV_fxxNwxA91qrKh2YZK/s400/uldum_on_fire.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>Taking inspiration from <a href="http://www.restokin.com/2011/07/feral-4-2-gear/">Restokin</a>, <a href="http://eaoexcursions.wordpress.com/2011/05/23/patch-4-2-the-firelands-feral-druid-gear/">Eao's Excursions</a>, <a href="http://www.wowheadnews.com/blog=190236/new-options-in-firelands-a-guide-to-gear-in-4-2">Wowhead</a> and others, I'm looking at Bear gear here from the new Tier. This is from raid bosses, BoE drops from farming trash and thus the auction house, Avengers reputation from farming trash yourself, valor points from farming heroics, and Hyjal dailies rewards. Plus some crafted stuff.<br />
<br />
I was interested on how to spend my valor points, which depends in which bits of gear are available and what raid drops I might be getting anytime soon.<br />
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<b>Dailies</b><br />
Firelands and Hyjal dailies unlock various item level 365 stuff, which is a mere 6 point upgrade over Tier 11 i359 stuff, but an upgrade nevertheless. My plan is to take everything, then replace it all with 378 gear as and when I get it. Other than whether to grind the hell out of the dailies, getting all of this stuff is a no-brainer. Plus there is also a load of tasty Moonkin and Cat gear.<br />
<br />
<u>Getting to the Molten Front</u><br />
<a href="http://wowhead.com/item=70105">Matoclaw's Band</a><br />
<br />
<u>Vendor (<a href="http://wowhead.com/quest=29281">Additional Armaments</a>):</u><br />
<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=70144">Ricket's Magnetic Fireball</a><br />
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<u>Vendor (<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/quest=29279">Filling the Moonwell</a>):</u><br />
<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=70110">Band of Glittering Lights</a><br />
<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=70143">Moonwell Phial</a><br />
<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=70109">Relic of Elune's Shadow</a><br />
<br />
<u>Vendor (<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/quest=29283">Calling the Ancients</a>):</u><br />
<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=70122">Aviana's Grips</a><br />
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So I'll be unlocking the Moonwell vendor first, purely because they sell the most items.<br />
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<b>BoE trash drops</b><br />
Bored? Join a trash run for reputation and a crack at some BoE drops. Rich? Head on over to the Auction House or trade channel for the chance at some expensive BoE epics.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=68915">Scales of Life</a><br />
<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=71640">Riplimb's Lost Collar</a><br />
<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=71361">Ranseur of Hatred</a><br />
<br />
I am 2 out of 3 for the BoE drops, thanks to lucky dice and a generous guild. Now if Riplimb's Lost Collar could get unlost, that would be handy. It is definitely worth doing some trash farming, for BoEs and the reputation items.<br />
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<b>Avengers reputation</b><br />
While running that Firelands raid trash, you can haz Honoured reputation with The <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/faction=1204">Avengers of Hyjal</a>. But no more, unless you can kill bosses. No sign of Emma Peel either, which is a shame.<br />
<br />
Friendly: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=71228">Sleek Flamewrath Cloak</a><br />
Honoured: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=71131">Flamebinding Girdle</a><br />
Revered: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=68996">Stay of Execution</a><br />
Exalted: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=71216">Viridian Signet of the Avengers</a><br />
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Riplimb's Lost Collar can stay lost once I get to honoured if I don't have it, although it has better secondary stats than the Flamebinding Girdle.<br />
<br />
<b>Valor points</b><br />
Not killing bosses? Don't let that get you down, just grind 7 heroics into the dust for Valor points! Then die lots in the new, long and quite tricky Zul'* heroics!<br />
<br />
Chest (2200 VP): <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=71100">Obsidian Arborweave Raiment</a><br />
Gloves (1650 VP): <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=71097">Obsidian Arborweave Grips</a><br />
Legs (2200 VP): <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=71099">Obsidian Arborweave Legguards</a><br />
Neck (1250 VP): <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=71129">Necklace of Smoke Signals</a><br />
Wrist (1250 VP): <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=71130">Flamebinder Bracers</a> <br />
Ring (1250 VP): <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=71209">Splintered Brimstone Seal</a><br />
Relic (700 VP): <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=71146">Covenant of the Flame</a><br />
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Neither the Tier 12 head nor the shoulders can be bought with Valor Points, you need a token from Ragnaros and Staghelm respectively. The Legs and Gloves could drop from the new boss in Baradin Hold, Occu'thar. The bracers are BoE, so they could be gotten from the AH eventually (at great cost). The two piece set bonus is pure threat (and damage) increase, the 4 piece bonus is the one which might help survivability.<br />
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<b>Crafted</b><br />
Patterns for the crafted items drop from trash in Firelands.<br />
<br />
Gloves: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=69942">Clutches of Evil</a><br />
Feet: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=69951">Treads of the Craft</a><br />
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The <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=70165">Witch-Hunter's Harvester</a> is also crafted from a pattern from the Firelands Dailies, but it is item level 365 and given the likely cost, might not be worth picking up. As ever your purse will be the deciding factor.<br />
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<b>Boss drops</b><br />
The least likely thing to get, at the moment for our guild, is the boss drops. Mostly because a boss has to drop dead before we get a chance at their shinies, and progress has been lackluster of late.<br />
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Head: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=71003">Hood of Rampant Disdain</a> (Lord Rhyolith (one of first 4 bosses))<br />
Shoulder: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=71345">Shoulderpads of the Forgotten Gate</a> (Baelroc (5th boss))<br />
Chest: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=71314">Breastplate of the Incendiary Soul</a> (Baelroc)<br />
Wrists: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=70735">Flickering Wristbands</a> (Alysrazor (one of first 4 bosses))<br />
Hands: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=71020">Gloves of Dissolving Smoke</a> (Shannox (one of first 4 bosses))<br />
Legs: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=71031">Cinderweb Leggings</a> (Beth'tilac (one of first 4 bosses))<br />
Feet: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=71313">Sandals of Leaping Coals</a> (Staghelm (penultimate boss))<br />
Ring: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=71032">Widow's Kiss</a> (Beth'tilac) <br />
Trinket: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=68981">Spidersilk Spindle</a> (Beth'tilac)<br />
Trinket: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=68994">Matrix Restabilizer</a> (Ragnaros)<br />
Neck: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=71354">Choker of the Vanquished Lord</a> (Ragnaros)<br />
Cloak: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=70992">Dreadfire Drape</a> (Lord Rhyolith)<br />
Weapon: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=69897">Fandral's Flamescythe</a> (Fandral)<br />
<br />
Now here the first 4 bosses might be dying at some point, for our guild the latter ones are going to be difficult. It is nice that Ragnaros drops a trinket, but I doubt I will be seeing it, so that makes it worth getting the trash drop trinket. However I would hope Shannox, Beth'tilac and Rhyolith are within our reach, giving a good chance at legs, gloves, ring, helm and a different trinket.<br />
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What is harder to get is the items from later bosses; the chest, shoulders, feet, fire kitty staff (damn), neck and wrists. This is a good pointer for what valor gear to grab first. Shoulders are not on the valor vendor, neither are feet. Feet can be bought as a crafted epic, so keep an eye out for those, same with wrists or you can grind them. The weapon needs to come from trash. There are no relic drops either.<br />
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Thus the chest, neck, relic and ring are prime purchases for Valor, plus maybe hands or legs to get the 2 piece Tier 12 bonus. That will really come down to which drop I didn't get, hands or legs. I think I will grind up the chest first, then see where I am with the legs or gloves. Recall the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=99001">2 piece set bonus</a> is just threat, and I don't hold out massive hope of getting 4 pieces, so I may go for relic, neck and rings cos they are cheap, once I get the chest, and hold out for drops on the legs and gloves. If you are in a more progressed guild, you may want to snag things in a different order and be ready to grab the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=99009">4 piece set bonus</a>.Rakhmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16875429172456533751noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971197083412326401.post-37845529860791329452011-07-08T17:00:00.000+01:002011-07-08T17:00:04.405+01:00Archaeology modsA commenter asked what mod I was using on my recent post on Archaeology. <br />
<br />
I tend to use two, <a href="http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info19037-ArchaeologyHelper.html">Archaeology Helper</a> and <a href="http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info18283-Archy-ArchaeologyAssistant.html">Archy - Archaeology Assistant</a>. Both of these mods have yet to be updated to 4.2, but by loading them as out of date (or hacking the .toc file), they still seem to work fine. I have recently picked up <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/archdb.aspx">ArchDB </a>as well.<br />
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<b>Archy - Archaeology Assistant</b><br />
This mod does a few things. It shows two windows on the UI; one shows your current projects for the continent, the other current digsites (ordered by distance). <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5dEvZpaFn8pPzHypZKLbi56j7iRomUWvBKMBHRQEp5P_SgUV22GpJr6lZsjo22-0UchCdAKncnqfV7Y2FpRTGQxeZdcMEWGW-nG2iIMHWRTT1iwFYhoU-ru2H3kUURHHHSdlSZrpEuBRB/s1600/archy.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5dEvZpaFn8pPzHypZKLbi56j7iRomUWvBKMBHRQEp5P_SgUV22GpJr6lZsjo22-0UchCdAKncnqfV7Y2FpRTGQxeZdcMEWGW-nG2iIMHWRTT1iwFYhoU-ru2H3kUURHHHSdlSZrpEuBRB/s1600/archy.JPG" width="540" /></a></div><br />
Here you see Archy showing me I can solve my Night Elf project, that I have rares for Dwarf and Fossil, and the progress of my other projects. I could click the icon to the right of the Night Elf project to solve, or put some key stones into my Dwarf project from this panel.<br />
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On the right, the dig sites panel shows me which one is closest and what sort they are. This is very handy for keeping an eye out for Uldum dig sites.<br />
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Finally, Archy has <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/tomtom.aspx">TomTom </a>integration, so will pop up an arrow like you see here, to show the direction of the next site. This is really handy for setting off flying in one direction and adjusting your heading slightly when you go off course. While you're flying you can surf the web or whatever. When you get to the dig site, Archy will make a pinging noise, so you can switch back and get digging.<br />
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Archy will also put little circles on your minimap showing where you have previous gotten fragments from, colour coded depending on their distance from you. When flying into a dig site, it doesn't hurt to land where a fragment was found and dig there.<br />
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<b>Archaeology Helper</b><br />
This mod helps when digging at a site. Much like SAL, it shows a small control which lets you mark that a fragment is red, yellow or green distance from you at your current heading.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDEZpcg7fadNLRSookcq5XYJ93Mb1gepLcsKcL-FBACtt4ueBCV83Zdn-2j3wjLkWjLDMwLvA5eOD4z88Wc5250mJL8FzjvgdvaKkLeSFjdwBhnAgWu1gK6RK0gF7_CRD1WwIR8DPSFCKP/s1600/archhelper1x.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDEZpcg7fadNLRSookcq5XYJ93Mb1gepLcsKcL-FBACtt4ueBCV83Zdn-2j3wjLkWjLDMwLvA5eOD4z88Wc5250mJL8FzjvgdvaKkLeSFjdwBhnAgWu1gK6RK0gF7_CRD1WwIR8DPSFCKP/s400/archhelper1x.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>The shovel icon can be clicked to survey. After the survey, you face the direction of the indicator, then click the round button for the colour. This will draw a zone on the screen, showing you where the fragment will be. Simply fly into it, dig again and continue.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLTuYuRlXSAZVzIlRPGSpl_MoiTD5N58m_TamYkuBFAyVcIpkZl4ouRYM44in2Ux605tIWxwPpQkP4tljLERSWIU-vzhq6LBQBXyhIjxI95ovmfdog2XGboF72T6d-5Fgv9uJVP02xnVWA/s1600/archhelper2x.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLTuYuRlXSAZVzIlRPGSpl_MoiTD5N58m_TamYkuBFAyVcIpkZl4ouRYM44in2Ux605tIWxwPpQkP4tljLERSWIU-vzhq6LBQBXyhIjxI95ovmfdog2XGboF72T6d-5Fgv9uJVP02xnVWA/s320/archhelper2x.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>Here I have gotten a yellow light, then a green light, and clicked the appropriate buttons. So on the screen I can see the fragment will be somewhere where the yellow and green areas overlap.<br />
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For digging at sites, Archaeology Helper is very useful.<br />
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<br />
<b>ArchDB</b><br />
Arch DB shows you a list of all Archaeology projects possible, and which ones you have not got yet. It is very useful when grinding, to know when you have gotten all the rares for a certain race, as well as which rares you might be after.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvOR4q54Z2dQsHWa1-Had9KKVfoJcf5c_VRtvD32JfA9l0zc1WO0Ib5dm7EYm9v4l4QtJOv5r0tQ6v4wNTDNkuST_IkwxpnD6T1HjEqvZ7v1zEJwjHxXnKwtcWXTJpqv8vwcHoj2ozV8IL/s1600/archdb.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvOR4q54Z2dQsHWa1-Had9KKVfoJcf5c_VRtvD32JfA9l0zc1WO0Ib5dm7EYm9v4l4QtJOv5r0tQ6v4wNTDNkuST_IkwxpnD6T1HjEqvZ7v1zEJwjHxXnKwtcWXTJpqv8vwcHoj2ozV8IL/s400/archdb.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>Here ArchDB is showing me the Tol'vir projects I've yet to complete, so I know there is still some cool stuff to get.<br />
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If I switched to Night Elf, it would show that I have solved all the rare and common projects. This should mean, since patch 4.1, that Night Elf sites come up less regularly than other sites. I haven't seen this in evidence, but that's what the patch notes claim anyway.<br />
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<br />
So there you have it, these 3 are the Archaeology mods I use to get my Professor grind on.Rakhmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16875429172456533751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971197083412326401.post-19835632293161528422011-07-05T17:00:00.000+01:002011-07-05T17:00:01.952+01:00Firelands and 4.2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzPVYXyNZDV0FbsW8YiCnB6ZF-8ucduwRF4RXaQg4zricwqkcqNmEeWwBVH65GM0rTtbaLOV8jCCMKVMJ1HdIY4hQ0scKBDDN67LnR9-ufLBEH1zXdetaAAiPB4XX-QJeVAUm5AsbtKaaN/s1600/thrall_firelands.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzPVYXyNZDV0FbsW8YiCnB6ZF-8ucduwRF4RXaQg4zricwqkcqNmEeWwBVH65GM0rTtbaLOV8jCCMKVMJ1HdIY4hQ0scKBDDN67LnR9-ufLBEH1zXdetaAAiPB4XX-QJeVAUm5AsbtKaaN/s320/thrall_firelands.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>After a couple of days on the 4.2 patch, I have some thoughts to share. I won't call them "impressions" cos everyone is doing that. This post contains spoilers.<br />
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<b>Thrall Quests</b><br />
Man the new Thrall quest lines are cool. Now I am Horde through and through, I ran missions for Thrall back in Vanilla, so it's awesome to see him move from the Maelstrom and try to fix the world tree. The presence of the dragon aspects and Malfurion is cool, and helping to save Thrall, him calling you friend, is really epic lore stuff. The reveal of Staghelm being a fire Druid is also cool - it gives some introduction for the raid.<br />
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Now you Alliance may complain this stuff is too Horde-centric, but let's not forget you have Malfurion Stormrage doing his stuff for all Druids, yet he is Alliance.<br />
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Just watch out for asshats who are flagged for PVP. I carefully used single-target spells and checked my target before attacking. It's not a race, even a small amount of damage on a mob moves your progress bar when it dies.<br />
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Finally the Thrall quests award a nice 365 cloak, helpful because I needed to replace my Guardians of Hyjal strength cloak after Blizzard buggered strength for Druids. Maybe they knew the problems Feral Druids would face, and helpfully provided a new cloak for us?<br />
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<b>Daily Quests</b><br />
You know, the thing I liked about the Isle of Quel'danas dailies was that the new areas got unlocked thanks to the efforts of dailies maniacs on my server, without me having to log in every day and do the dailies.<br />
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Sadly that is not the case in the new Molten Front dailies. Still, the initial quests are an awesome Druid-tastic experience. Malfurion, Hamuul Runetotem and various ancients turn up, Runetotem gets pwned by Fire-druid woman, then spends the rest of phase 2 recovering in a tent.<br />
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I am in phase 2, in the Molten Front, where the rest of the quests look to have some variety, but are mostly grind on this, kill that, plant the other. Hopefully when I recruit a faction (Druids of the Talon ftw) the extra quests will make things more interesting.<br />
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A good tip is to unlock phase 2 where you enter the portal to the Molten Front, because there is a vendor called <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=52822">Zen'Vorka</a> who sells item level 365 epics in the Molten Front and you don't need marks or any reputation to buy from him. I snagged a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=70105">Matoclaw's Band</a> myself.<br />
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Overall these dailies are enjoyable and quite fast in phase 2, but when a faction is unlocked and there are a lot more of them to complete, their appeal may wane.<br />
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<b>Firelands Raid</b><br />
My guild braved the Firelands raid on Thursday, killed trash and had a few attempts at Shannox. What a lot of trash there is, other bloggers have already commented on this, but it bears repeating. Lots of trash. In fact, we spent the first hour just clearing trash before Shannox appeared.<br />
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At the moment I gain reputation for trash kills, so I am working toward the cloak at friendly, so I am all for trash killing. I can see this getting quite annoying when trash no longer award reputation, and it is just standing in the way of getting some time in on bosses. There is loads more than in Blackwing Descent, for instance.<br />
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Shannox himself was interesting, I was tanking Shannox so I just stood around, dodging fire traps and trying to get the hound into the traps. The guild itself seemed to be having trouble with Rageface randomly attacking people (as he is meant to), and players getting stuck in traps, running away from Rageface like headless chickens, etc. Hopefully errors that with practice we can eliminate.<br />
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However I read that Beth'tilac or Lord Rhyolith are also likely targets, and may place different requirements on our raiders, so ultimately may be easier for us. So hopefully we will have a crack at them soon.<br />
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Overall the raiding looks good, I do have doubts that 7 bosses in the same instance won't get boring (BWD certainly did) and that trash is going to get annoying sooner or later.Rakhmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16875429172456533751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971197083412326401.post-63272155932451418092011-06-28T21:56:00.000+01:002011-06-28T21:56:09.555+01:00Patch 4.2 for teh Durid!Patch 4.2 is live now. What impact will it have on the Druid?<br />
<br />
<blockquote>General<br />
* New Daily Quests: The Regrowth and Molten Front<br />
o A large assortment of all-new daily quests and rewards are now available in Hyjal, where players can help the Guardians of Hyjal push back the allies of Ragnaros and establish a forward operating base in the Firelands! In order to partake in the Regrowth and Molten Front daily quests, players must have at least completed Mount Hyjal up to and including the quest Aessina's Miracle. Once this quest has been completed, players should speak with Matoclaw in the Sanctuary of Malorne to take part in the Regrowth efforts.</blockquote>These new dailies will eventually reward item level 365 gear, in the ring, trinket slots plus one other, depending on whether you are tank or DPS. I waffled about this <a href="http://wayofthedruid.blogspot.com/2011/06/42-dailies-rewards.html">already</a>. So there is a lot of grinding to be done (around 31 days to unlock one vendor and thus some rewards but not all), but the rewards are there if you are into soloing or just running 5 mans. Raiders may not bother. I probably will for my off spec. However the new Tier 12 is item level 378, so 365 is not ideal.<br />
<blockquote>New Quest Chain: Elemental Bonds<br />
* A New quest line is now available to level-85 Horde and Alliance characters, bringing brave adventurers to Thrall's aid. The Call of the World-Shaman, the quest which will point players toward Thrall and The Nordrassil Summit, can be obtained at the Earthshrines in Stormwind or Orgrimmar.</blockquote>Lore-tastic, but also for the loot whores among us, the quest rewards an item level 365 cloak at the end, with a choice of tank or DPS item. So this one is well worth doing. Even maybe for raiders!<br />
<br />
<blockquote># New Raid: The Firelands<br />
* Located within the Elemental Plane, the Firelands is an all-new 10- and 25-player raid featuring normal and Heroic difficulties! Battle-hardened veterans of the Horde and Alliance now have an opportunity to strike at Ragnaros the Firelord and his loyal servants by venturing into their domain via Sulfuron Spire in Mount Hyjal.<br />
# New Legendary Item: Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest</blockquote>The Tier 12 raid is here. How hard it will be is not well known by me, I think my guild intends on having a poke in there, then concluding whether some more Tier 11 needs to be grinded up or not. The legendary staff is exciting, although equally cool is that you get two epic staves during the quest line.<br />
<blockquote>Classes: General<br />
Crowd Control<br />
* Many crowd control abilities no longer cause creatures to attack players when they are cast. The creature will not attack the player when the crowd control wears off, and nearby creatures will not become hostile to the player either. However, if a visible player gets too close to the target creature, the creature will remember and attack the player when the crowd control effect wears off. The intent is to make it easier for dungeon groups to manage crowd control assignments and pulling packs of hostile NPCs. The abilities affected by this change are: Hibernate, Entangling Roots, Wyvern Sting (will still cause hostility when it begins to deal damage), Freezing Trap, Polymorph, Repentance, Shackle Undead, Blind, Hex, Bind Elemental, Banish, Seduction.</blockquote>Now this, if you are a tank, should make heroics easier, if you bother with crowd control at all. Certainly I've seen that no one does bother with crowd control in 5 mans, and I hear not even in the new Troll instances. If you are DPS, you may even get asked to apply Roots to something in heroics, which you can do whenever you want and not pull everything. Nice. How much this feature is used is undetermined yet.<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Buffs<br />
* All class abilities which place a buff on friendly targets no longer generate any threat. This goes for raid-wide buffs like Mark of the Wild and Power Word: Fortitude, as well as triggered effects such as Blessed Resilience or Fingers of Frost, and single-target buffs like Dark Intent and Hysteria. The exception is buffs which directly cause healing or damage, such as Thorns or Renew. Abilities such as these still generate normal threat. </blockquote>Not that I've ever pulled aggro by buffing people during a pull, but if I had, I won't any more.<br />
<br />
Next there is the mother of all class change notes:<br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote># Druids now gain 1 attack power per point of Strength, down from 2. They continue to gain 2 attack power per point of Agility while in Cat Form or Bear Form. In addition, Cat Form's scaling rate from gear upgrades was slower than other classes, which was causing them to fall behind in damage with higher item levels. To counter the Strength change and improve scaling, the following changes have been made. All numbers cited are for level-85 druids.</blockquote>Throw away your strength cloak from Guardians of Hyjal, and replace it with a reward from the Thrall quest line. <br />
<blockquote> * Ferocious Bite damage has been increased by 15%. In addition, its base cost has been reduced to 25 energy and it can use up to 25 energy, for up to a 100% damage increase.<br />
* Mangle (Cat) damage at level 80 and above has been increased to 540% weapon damage, up from 460%, and bonus damage has been lowered to 302.<br />
* Rake initial damage on hit now deals the same damage as each periodic tick (and is treated the same for all combat calculations). Periodic damage now gains 14.7% of attack power per tick, up from 12.6%, and base damage per tick has been lowered from 557 to 56. There is a known issue with Rake's tooltip being incorrect from this change will be corrected in a future patch.<br />
* Ravage damage at level 80 and above has been increased to 950% weapon damage, up from 850%, and bonus damage has been lowered to 532.<br />
* Savage Roar now grants 80% increased damage to melee auto attacks, up from 50%. The Glyph of Savage Roar remains an unchanged bonus of 5% to that total.<br />
* Shred damage at level 80 and above has been increased to 540% weapon damage, up from 450%, and bonus damage has been lowered to 302.</blockquote>Buffs to Cat DPS right here. The Fluid Druid estimates 8% or more, so that's pretty cool.<br />
<blockquote># Entangling Roots and the equivalent spell triggered by Nature's Grasp no longer deal damage.<br />
# Innervate now grants an ally target 5% of his or her maximum mana over 10 seconds, but still grants 20% of the druid's maximum mana over 10 seconds when self-cast.</blockquote><br />
Actually the Innervate change might be a buff for ferals, I guess our mana pool is so small that 5% of the target's mana pool may well be bigger. It is still fairly useless however. For Moonkin self-innervating is still useful.<br />
<br />
<blockquote># Omen of Clarity clearcasting buff from now lasts 15 seconds, up from 8 seconds.<br />
# Starfire damage has been increased by approximately 23%.<br />
# Swipe (Cat) now deals 600% weapon damage at level 80 or higher, down from 670%.<br />
# Wrath damage has been increased by approximately 23%.</blockquote><br />
The two main nuke spells in the Moonkin rotation are buffed, which is interesting all right. Cat swipe was nerfed, but then it was fairly powerful before so this isn't entirely unexpected.<br />
<blockquote># Talent Specializations<br />
* Balance<br />
o Earth and Moon's duration has been increased to 15 seconds, up from 12.<br />
o Fungal Growth spell visual effect has been updated to be less visually intrusive and more aesthetic.<br />
o Lunar Shower has been redesigned. When casting Moonfire, the druid gains Lunar Shower. Lunar Shower increases the direct damage done by Moonfire by 15/30/45%, and reduces the mana cost by 10/20/30%. This effect stacks up to 3 times and lasts 3 seconds. While under the effects of Lunar Shower, Moonfire generates 8 Solar Energy, and Sunfire generates 8 Lunar Energy. The amount of Lunar/Solar Energy gained does not change based on the number of points spent in the talent, or stacks of Lunar Shower. Those druids who wish to delay transition in or out of an Eclipse state should now cast the one of their two basic attacks which will not move the Eclipse bar (either Starfire or Wrath).<br />
o Solar Beam has a new spell effect.<br />
o Wild Mushroom: Detonate can now also trigger Earth and Moon, in addition to Starfire and Wrath.</blockquote>The Lunar Shower change is basically to stop Moonkins from getting into Solar eclipse, then spamming Sunfire on adds in an AOE situation. Now Sunfire will generate energy, which means you will end eclipse if you spam it too much. This means I guess in some AOE Moonkin may suffer, but only if the adds last long enough that the Sunfires you are casting suddenly push you out of Solar eclipse. It may be necessary to use Insect Swarm as well, and only refresh Sunfire instead of spamming it. There is always the possibility of dropping the Lunar Shower talent, but the EJ Moonkin thread doesn't conclude anything, because the talent is useful when you have to run around like a headless laser chicken.<br />
<blockquote> * Feral<br />
o Bear damage abilities were scaling too fast with higher gear levels compared to other tanks, so the following balance changes have been made. All the numbers cited are for level 85 characters; numbers will be lower for lower-level characters.<br />
+ Faerie Fire (Feral) base damage has been raised to 2950, up from 679. Attack power scaling has been decreased to 10.8%, down from 15%.<br />
+ Maul base damage has been raised to 35, up from 8. Attack power scaling has been decreased to 19%, down from 26.4%.<br />
+ Pulverize weapon damage percent has been decreased to 60%, down from 80%. Damage per Lacerate application has been increased to 1623, up from 361.<br />
+ Mangle (Bear) weapon damage percent has been decreased to 190%, down from 260%. Bonus damage has been increased to 3306, down from 754.<br />
+ Swipe base damage has been increased to 929, up from 215. Attack power scaling has been decreased to 12.3%, down from 17.1%.<br />
+ Thrash initial base damage has been increased to 1042, up from 339. Initial damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 9.82%, down from 19.2%. Periodic base damage has been increased to 581, up from 189. Periodic damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 1.67%, down from 3.26%. In addition, a bug was corrected where armor decreased the periodic damage done by this ability.<br />
+ Lacerate initial base damage has been increased to 3608, up from 2089. Initial damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 5.52%, down from 7.66%. Periodic base damage has been increased to 69, up from 16. Periodic damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 0.369%, down from 0.512%.<br />
o Natural Reaction damage reduction has been increased to 9/18%, up from 6/12%.</blockquote>Some damage nerfs which may or may not bugger Bears up at current Tier 11 levels, Blizzard claim not but we shall see. The Natural Reaction change is interesting and makes Bear damage reduction even better than it was.<br />
<blockquote> * Restoration</blockquote><blockquote> o Symbiosis (Mastery) has been removed and replaced with Harmony. Harmony increases direct healing by an additional 10%, and casting direct healing spells grants an additional 10% bonus to periodic healing for 10 seconds. Each point of mastery increases each bonus by an additional 1.25%. Healing Touch, Nourish, Swiftmend, and the initial heal from Regrowth are considered direct healing spells for the purposes of this Mastery. All other healing from druid spells is considered periodic.</blockquote>Umm. It's for such insightful commentary you come here, eh?<br />
<blockquote># Glyphs<br />
* Glyph of Berserk duration increase is now 10 seconds, up from 5.<br />
* Glyph of Ferocious Bite has been redesigned. It now causes Ferocious Bite to heal the caster for 1% of maximum health for each 10 energy used.<br />
* Glyph of Innervate now causes the druid to gain 10% of his or her maximum mana over 10 seconds when Innervate is used on a friendly target, in addition to Innervate's base effect.</blockquote>Berserk just became even better, which is nice.<br />
<blockquote># Set Bonuses<br />
* The 4-piece Balance druid tier 11 PvE set bonus, Astral Alignment, now provides a total of 15% critical strike chance with 3 charges, decreasing by 5% per charge, instead of 99% decreasing by 33% per charge. This change was made because the set bonus proved so valuable it was not possible to upgrade out of the set into tier 12. To compensate, changes have been made to Starfire and Wrath (listed at the top of the druid class section).<br />
* The 2-piece Restoration druid tier 11 PvE set bonus has been redesigned to work with the new Restoration druid mastery. Druids with this bonus now receive the bonus to Spirit while the Harmony mastery bonus to periodic healing is active.</blockquote>I know the Moonkin Tier 11 bonus was too good, so it got changed. This is a good thing, as being stuck on an old tier of armour is no fun for anyone.<br />
<blockquote># Druid Bug Fixes<br />
* It is no longer possible in some encounters to use Feral Charge when closer than its minimum range.</blockquote>This stops Kitties from charging into bosses, even though they were still in melee range, so if you used that to increase DPS, its a DPS loss.<br />
<blockquote>Currency<br />
Valor & Justice Points<br />
* All existing Valor Points in the Currency tab have been converted to Justice Points. Any points above the Justice Point cap will be converted into gold at a rate of 47 silver per point and mailed to characters.<br />
* The maximum number of Valor Points which can be earned in a week from any and all applicable dungeons and raids is now 980, down from 1250.<br />
o The maximum number of Valor Points awarded for completing Rise of the Zandalari dungeons remains at 980.<br />
o The maximum number of Valor Points awarded for completing Heroic dungeons remains at 490.<br />
o The number of Valor Points awarded for killing a boss in the Firelands is 120 in 10-player mode, and 140 in 25-player mode.<br />
o The number of Valor Points awarded for killing Occu'thar in Baradin Hold is 120 in 10-player mode, and 140 in 25-player mode.<br />
o The number of Valor Points awarded for killing a boss on Heroic difficulty in The Bastion of Twilight, Blackwing Descent, and Throne of the Four winds is 35 in 10-player mode, and 45 in 25-player mode.</blockquote>Is someone trying to drag out Tier 12, by limiting how quickly people can gather Valor? Looks like it, doesn't it? If you are over 4k Justice + Valor, best spend some before the patch drops. I bought a trinket for my off spec, I'd hate to see hard-earned Valor being turned into silver.<br />
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<blockquote>Dungeons & Raids<br />
Baradin Hold<br />
* Occu'thar has broken free from his cage and presents an all-new boss challenge to players in 10- and 25-player arrangements who control Tol Barad.<br />
* All Tier 11 raids nerfed by 20% (my words) </blockquote>A new boss to pug in Baradin Hold, plus all Tier 11 nerfed by 20% means grinding this content in PUGs has become easier. Sadly Tier 11 normal now only drops Justice points, so you are better off using the Dungeon Finder to run some heroics. Our guild may still have a look at Tier 11. It depends on how hard Tier 12 is really.<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Items<br />
# If a player wins a Need roll under the Need Before Greed system on a Bind on Equip item, the item will become Soulbound to that player. The item will remain unbound if won via a Greed roll.</blockquote>So no more needing on BoEs to sell on the Auction House, now the only place you'll be selling them is the vendor. Of course, this doesn't stop enchanters from needing things to shard them.<br />
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<blockquote># Applicable tier 11 items now cost Justice Points.</blockquote>Rendering all the changes to crowd control utterly pointless, soon everyone will be in 3 piece Tier 11 (I assume the token pieces are not applicable) and associated boots, cloaks, trinkets, etc. Thus crowd control is no longer needed in instances, and we can face roll everything! (This is sarcasm). Still, now there is once again a reason to run heroics, plus the JP I stock piled beforehand can be spent on something shiny and epic.<br />
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<blockquote># The Keyring bag slot has been removed to make room in the user interface for new features.<br />
* Keys which no longer serve a purpose in the game will be removed from player inventories. Compensation for the keys will be automatically provided in the form of each key's vendor sell price in gold.<br />
* Keys which are obsolete quest items will be removed from player inventories.<br />
* Keys which may still be of use to players will be transferred to regular inventory space. If a player's bags are full, these keys will sit in a backlogged inventory until sufficient space is made available. Once space is opened, the keys will appear in regular inventory upon the player logging out or switching zones.</blockquote><br />
I remember when they added the key ring to the game, before then my bags and bank were choked with bloody keys everywhere. Now they are taking it away, but giving me back any keys I need? I am really hoping there are no keys I still need, otherwise I'm going to be quite mad I've got more useless keys to fill my bank up again.<br />
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<blockquote>Races<br />
* All character races now have a /roar sound.</blockquote>/ flex!<br />
<br />
<blockquote>User Interface<br />
* The order in which characters are listed at the Character Selection screen can now be rearranged and saved.</blockquote>Best feature of the patch, right there.<br />
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So general impressions then. The patch introduces a fair number of changes for Druids, some DPS increases for Kitties, some more survivability for Bears, plus some odd threat and damage adjustments. I am hoping the threat adjustments for Bears do not mess us up starting Tier 12. The new dailies are a hell of a grind, but do at least give non-raiders something to do, plus there is a lot of Valor point items on the JP vendor to go hit heroics for. Sadly there are no more Archaeology items, so I guess the best you can get without raiding is still 359 and 365 from the Firelands dailies. The new Thrall quest line looks like it will be very cool, plus there is an epic at the end, so that's all good.<br />
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References:<br />
<a href="http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t123595-feral_bear_thrashing_around_4_2_a/">EJ Druid tank thread</a><br />
<a href="http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t110353-balance_cataclysm_4_2_a/">EJ Moonkin thread</a><br />
<a href="http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t123596-feral_cat_4_2_fire_cat_funtimes/">EJ Druid Cat thread</a>Rakhmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16875429172456533751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971197083412326401.post-34690506349841129082011-06-28T15:38:00.000+01:002011-06-28T15:38:24.014+01:00Why Archeology is like downing a raid boss<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX__IlD4tv5cMP4h35epqHbJ7IUC1p6A-cW5EWqCZaznEQ7rf2KWGCYPOEvtv5r8oSDW770LC5iZ_B4Fc1XxLGkXxWRmnwWvFf5mm2pR60K7CW_JrKAHCoSh9HhkPzUugSwpWiNz5V34j3/s1600/archeology_rares.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX__IlD4tv5cMP4h35epqHbJ7IUC1p6A-cW5EWqCZaznEQ7rf2KWGCYPOEvtv5r8oSDW770LC5iZ_B4Fc1XxLGkXxWRmnwWvFf5mm2pR60K7CW_JrKAHCoSh9HhkPzUugSwpWiNz5V34j3/s320/archeology_rares.JPG" width="254" /></a></div>Bear with me on this one.<br />
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At the initial levels, Archaeology is a terrible grind, flying around dig sites to gather fragments for some grey vendor trash. That is, until you get your first rare project.<br />
<br />
Suddenly there is a rare or epic item in the Archaeology UI, begging you to just collect 100 or 150 items, then it will be yours. At lower levels these items are purely cosmetic: turn you into a Naga, a skeleton raptor mount, a pterrodon pet. However at Archaeology 525 these items can be epics like a ring or a staff, actual useful items.<br />
<br />
<br />
Remember the feeling when a raid boss has died and you're waiting for the loot to be announced? Will it be this item I'm after? That's how I feel when I solve a grey Archaeology project. Will it be the epic 2 handed mace? Or the spell power staff I'm after?<br />
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It's usually neither, but then I still haven't got the tanking trinket from Magmaw. Still, the thrill of anticipation is there. In 4.1 Wow changed so if you solve all the rare projects for one race, that race should not appear as a dig site as often. This should make grinding easier.<br />
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In other ways Archaeology is different to a loot drop. If your epic drops and you win the roll, it's yours. If you get the Staff of the Ammunae Sorcerer as a project, you have to grind 150 tol'vir fragments, which is a serious grind and will involve doing Night Elf, Dwarf and Troll sites just to clear them!<br />
<br />
Still, the thrill of knowing a useful epic will be yours, that thrill is present even in Archaeology. Just don't do it unless you're watching TV at the same time. Unlike raiding. No one would raid and watch TV, that's crazy ;)Rakhmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16875429172456533751noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971197083412326401.post-13223775410069856082011-06-20T09:03:00.000+01:002011-06-20T09:03:27.088+01:004.2 dailies rewardsWith patch 4.2 comes a new set of dailies which unlock ever more areas in Mount Hyjal, and feature a "personal progression" story. Think Island of Quel'danas area unlocking, but for just the player rather than the server.<br />
<br />
Now MMO Champion has the scoop about the loot available from the vendors in this new quest area, in <a href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2320-Patch-4.2-Firelands-Dailies-Marks-of-the-World-Trees-Rewards-MMO-Report-Comics">this here post</a>. What it boils down to is some item level 365 items, available for gold. Trinkets, ring and gloves are available for the feral druid. All for questing in Hyjal, helping out the Druids and a bit of grind.<br />
<br />
Hold on a second, how much grind?<br />
<br />
I refer to what <a href="http://kaliope.crafterstome.com/2011/06/guardians-of-hyjal-vendors.html">Kaliope's Crafting Blog</a> has to say:<br />
<blockquote>Completing all 14 of the new Firelands quests was taking me about 45 minutes each day. It might go faster if you have a group to do it with you. These 14 quests will reward 25 tokens per day. So the most tokens you'll get in any one day is 25 and this is only after you reach Phase 3. It takes 5 days to unlock each vendor once you've completed all the steps leading up to them. Phase 1 takes three days, followed by Phase 2 which takes 11 days. Phase 3 takes 6 days per faction, so 12 days total. Including the 5 days to actually unlock a vendor, you're looking at 31 days to gain access to the new recipes. Add another five days for each additional vendor you want to unlock.</blockquote>So that's 31 days of doing the new dailies, every daily every single day, before you are able to purchase items from 1 of the 3 vendors. Given one of the vendors has most of the feral druid goods you'll want, the other 2 vendors have 1 item of interest. I find Tol Barad dailies obnoxious, and they take me 30 minutes or less.<br />
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31 days of grinding, 3 points when the phase changes when you might see something else, otherwise days and days of a set of fixed quests, randomly available, much like Tol Barad.<br />
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The items available are 365, which is a mere 6 item levels higher than raid drops or Valor point purchases currently. Valor items will be available for Justice points in 4.2, so the items available from the vendors are a slight upgrade, and might fill a slot or two you don't have an item for. However, if you are raiding, you may already have 359 epics for rings and trinkets, and you might have the epic gloves from Dragonmaw already. Plus if you have success in the Firelands raid, you will be getting items with a higher item level than 365 anyway.<br />
<br />
31 days grind for an extra 6 item levels across 4 items? No thanks. I can't imagine anything less worthwhile, I think I'd rather grind heroics for Justice to buy all those left over Valor items from 4.1.<br />
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Now if you don't raid, I think the grind might be attractive. My <a href="http://shadowandblade.blogspot.com/">Death Knight </a>certainly has very shabby gear, and could only get 1 trinket from Justice (come 4.2), so an extra trinket and ring would be a good upgrade. Still, a month of solid dailies? Yuck, 4.2 certainly is putting the grind into <i>World of Grindcraft</i>.Rakhmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16875429172456533751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971197083412326401.post-35639996541973064222011-06-17T16:19:00.000+01:002011-06-17T16:19:09.526+01:00Ghost Crawler explains 4.2 changes (sort of)Mr Ghost has popped up in a<a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2956383"> developer blog</a>, explaining what's going on with the Druid changes in 4.2. Here is the scoop:<br />
<blockquote>We changed the values of Agility for plate-wearers and Strength for leather-wearers to reinforce which type of armor you should be using and so we wouldn’t have to spend diminishing returns trying to balance tanks wearing non-traditional armor sets.</blockquote>Damn my Hyjal cloak has strength on it, so come 4.2 I'll need to pony up for the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=58191">valor cloak</a> instead. Still, this will then be costing Justice Points.<br />
<blockquote>We boosted Feral damage to compensate for their losing the attack power from Strength. Net DPS shouldn’t change much overall, though burst may be slightly higher. (We didn’t want to buff bleeds since that was a problem before in PvP.)</blockquote>Well that is nice, although this doesn't change the fact I need to swap out my tanking cloak.<br />
<blockquote>We cut back on the power of Innervates from Feral and Balance druids because we felt they were contributing to too much healer mana.</blockquote>This actually means Feral innervate is useless. At the moment it is quite laughable really but I do try to cast it during movement phases (Artramedes Air phase comes to mind) on a healer who is squealing for mana. Now I might not bother!<br />
<blockquote>We changed several Balance druid mechanics to cut down on the damage they could do while moving in both PvP and PvE and to cut back on some of their strength in multi-dot fights in PvE. Furthermore, we felt like druids were spending too much time at one end or the other of the Eclipse bar by using dots rather than moving the bar back and forth as intended.</blockquote>This is accursed because being over powered is fun. From what I read on Wow Insider, this change may not affect Moonkin "gaming" eclipse too much anyway, but we shall see. <br />
<blockquote>We toned down bear damage, because they were going to do more DPS than other tanks while tanking. Other changes were made to keep bears from neglecting certain core abilities.</blockquote>Toning down damage is fair enough, threat is really what I am interested in, although beating DPS on the damage meters shows they are slacking, not you are an awesome tank. Is the "certain core abilities" Maul? The attack power scaling on Maul is now 19% but Thrash is 9%, so will Maul be useful again? I must admit, I've been using Thrash instead of Maul and I get more threat, even on a single target, so this change will be interesting.<br />
<blockquote>We redesigned Restoration’s mastery because it was devalued in situations where druids did a lot of raid healing by HoT-ing different targets, especially in 25-player raids.</blockquote>Huh. Me no heal, not sure about that one!Rakhmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16875429172456533751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971197083412326401.post-20804726834220816382011-06-03T10:37:00.000+01:002011-06-03T10:37:03.586+01:00The BoomKek postDue to a comical lack of ranged DPS in our most recent raid, I am considering going Moonkin for my DPS off-spec. Why comical? Before the split, our guild was swimming with ranged DPS and now we have very little. Why me? Because of the unique way of the Druid, we can of course do everything, so I thought "why not, I can be ranged DPS, why not try it?". Horrible death, incompetence and general utter bad DPS are some potential answers, but let us ignore those for now.<br />
<br />
So where should a budding Moonkin go look for answers? Firstly, there is the <a href="http://graymatterwow.blogspot.com/">Gray Matter blog</a>, specifically his <a href="http://graymatterwow.blogspot.com/p/moonkin-raid-guide-updated-for-401.html">Moonkin Raid Guide</a>. Then there is a <a href="http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t110353-balance_cataclysm_release_updated_4_1_a/">guide on Elitist Jerks</a>, updated for 4.1. Wow Insider have many guides for Balance druids, including raiding guides, but also <a href="http://wow.joystiq.com/2010/12/31/shifting-perspectives-cataclysm-heroics-guide-for-balance-druid/">running heroics guides</a>. Best of all is their <a href="http://wow.joystiq.com/2010/12/17/shifting-perspectives-balance-druid-pre-raid-gear-guide/">pre-raid gear guide</a> which is pretty much what gear I need to grab. Luckily my awesome reputations carry over to the new spec, apart from those Ramkahen dudes (really need to get them maxed), but then they have nothing for moonkins.<br />
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I had a weapon I saved from the Crucible of Carnage. From reputations, I managed to grab:<br />
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<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=62352">Diamants Ring of Temperance</a><br />
<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=62416">Yellow Smoke Pendant</a><br />
<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=62357">Cloak of Ancient Wisdom</a><br />
<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=62381">Aessina-Blessed Gloves</a><br />
<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=62420">Withered Dream Belt</a><br />
<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=62415">Band of Lamentation</a> <br />
<br />
To fill some slows, I also bought these 333 items from factions: <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=63915">Vision-Tainted Treads</a><br />
<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=62404">Spaulders of the Endless Plains</a><br />
<br />
Unfortunately, this leaves me a few slots entirely empty. Helm, Wrist, Chest, Trinket and Relic are all empty. I can get a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=62244">crafted Relic</a> and spring for a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56561">crafted chest</a>. The helm and wrist will have to be Justice Point purchases, unless I get a PvP item for the helm. <br />
<br />
So off to normals and heroics it is!Rakhmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16875429172456533751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971197083412326401.post-25643535017781827272011-04-26T14:00:00.000+01:002011-04-26T14:00:59.505+01:00The 4.1 Post<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/yMaGgT8fGnU?rel=0" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe>Patch 4.1 is upon us, the PTR is down and everyone is finalizing stuff. I was going to write a loot guide, but handily Wowhead have done it for me. Check out their blog post with all the new loot, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/blog=187351/closing-the-gap-a-guide-to-gearing-up-in-4-1">Closing the Gap: A Guide to Gearing up in 4.1</a>.<br />
<br />
The summary is there is phat epics in the new Troll instances, Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman, at item level 353. These new items are generally not as good as raid or reputation epics, but with the right stats they sure beat the 346 items you get from the old heroics and Justice Points. I for one will be in the new instances, trying to grab what I can. You do need an average item level of 346 or higher to get into one of the new instances, which is pretty much full heroic gear or maybe some reputation epics to compensate for some 333 items, so there's no "free" loot here for a fresh level 85.<br />
<br />
There is also a new <a href="http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2129252#blog">Call To Arms feature</a> in the Dungeon Finder, which has caused heated debate in the blogosphere, although I won't be using it, unless I fancy some top "fun".<br />
<br />
Onto the changes to the Druid class, the feral stuff specifically. Look, peoples have already talked about this stuff:<br />
<ul><li><a href="http://fluiddruid.net/2011/04/4-1-as-it-stands-today/">Fluid Druid</a></li>
<li><a href="http://eaoexcursions.wordpress.com/">Eao's excursions</a></li>
<li><a href="http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2011/04/bear-flood-of-bear-gear-in-41.html">Think Tank</a></li>
<li><a href="http://theincbear.com/bear-survival-guide-to-patch-4-1/">The Inconspicuous Bear</a></li>
<li>and probably more peoples</li>
</ul>My top picks includes Skull Bash never missing (yay), Savage Defense being tweaked to hopefully work better, and Swipe being on a 3 second for some actual AOE threat (I generally always loose against DKs and Paladins).<br />
<br />
Fun times ahead... if the combination of <a href="http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1999561667">Blizzard</a>, Telia and <a href="http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Broadband-down-your-phone-line/High-latency-in-World-of-Warcraft/td-p/152849/page/5">Virgin Media</a> fix the horrendous latency and lag spike issues I've been having recently.Rakhmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16875429172456533751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971197083412326401.post-80926512595598051922011-04-16T18:52:00.000+01:002011-04-16T18:52:43.341+01:00Massive guild drama inc!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmCWlLNDXKdGiDAa8_0T8a_Gvyz-fIM3YyPP926nJB60KOVUPEn-pII9qZlfBKYNHwFz_Y8fkiteSwlOpOOP-FjCEWwagy9Iy-oxJSj-Z40hMuG8n1pSFShn9CFCRcWp_YXYoWQ9smCH7I/s1600/jones_fight.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmCWlLNDXKdGiDAa8_0T8a_Gvyz-fIM3YyPP926nJB60KOVUPEn-pII9qZlfBKYNHwFz_Y8fkiteSwlOpOOP-FjCEWwagy9Iy-oxJSj-Z40hMuG8n1pSFShn9CFCRcWp_YXYoWQ9smCH7I/s320/jones_fight.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>I was going to make a post about soloing Zul'Aman, but as I was killing the eagle boss, some quite massive guild drama erupted.<br />
<br />
The usual stuff happened, someone posted a big wall of text in guild chat, saying how they have decided to leave and due to some circumstance they won't go into, but will refer to anyway, they are off. Then a gquit happens. Usual MO, except this time it was the Guild Master! A forum post went up at the same time. It turns out the GM is not happy with our raid progress and so is off with some officers and friends in guild to form a new guild, to raid on what appears to be much the same casual basis as ours, but with a cherry-picked set of people, and the expectation of better raid progress. Which, by our current progress or lack thereof, means they need to kill the Ascendant Council and the 3 end bosses on tier 11. Now given we had only our 2nd night of tries on the council, and ended on 2 0.5% wipes, I thought that we were making pretty reasonable progress. Those end bosses are hard, but in a week or two we would have just have them left. So with 4.1 dropping and the epics from the new Heroics, we might have a better chance at the end bosses.<br />
<br />
However, I don't see what happens in officers, so maybe loads of drama was brewing there. I don't want to see either, ignorance of that shit is bliss, been there, done the officer thing. There had been an incident a few months back where one of the officers almost left because our raid focus was lacking, but was persuaded to stay somehow. I suspect that "somehow" was by promising better progress, and when it didn't materialize in time, he wanted to leave. <br />
<br />
Their new guild has a strange new raiding strategy, of a fixed raid team who raids once per week, for progress, and teamwork where people farm flask and food for the team. I can't say I wasn't tempted, as I do love to raid, but this farming part puts me off. Farming for myself is very boring, never mind others. It's all very idealistic to think that people playing in a virtual world will be selfless and self-sacrificing for others, but I sure as hell am not. I suspect others won't be happy to have to farm the mats for someone else's flasks, and that might be the cause of some friction. Plus what happens when a member of the fixed team is on holidays, or out drinking, or something else, do you rely on other members to have an alt to fill the gap, or someone who never gets to raid usually (because they are not on the fixed team) to want to come along and save your bacon? Again, this is expecting high selflessness from people, and I don't see massive evidence of that in WoW.<br />
<br />
So thanks for all the fish, but no thanks guys. I'm going to stay put and see how the land lies when the dust settles. We might need a few healers and tanks and even DPS, so raids might be short in the ground for a while. Still, I've been neglecting my <a href="http://shadowandblade.blogspot.com/">Death Knight</a> a lot recently, so this is a chance to get my DK back on.Rakhmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16875429172456533751noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971197083412326401.post-21293626723409827042011-04-13T17:08:00.000+01:002011-04-13T17:08:45.994+01:00Cat hand-me-downs<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdSJ5Ei1ZEuzubr3-PWoVcU0i7PXzIH9KbW__dWLVq6kMoJBTO8XdagHUC23An9xvNZsMGwjRhni071TmGTc8WMvP2koEEg7uUSX6RNAwZowK4DFdLgLQq_CdNpwwP6PHP1hI00v1VKMBa/s1600/failed_deathwing.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdSJ5Ei1ZEuzubr3-PWoVcU0i7PXzIH9KbW__dWLVq6kMoJBTO8XdagHUC23An9xvNZsMGwjRhni071TmGTc8WMvP2koEEg7uUSX6RNAwZowK4DFdLgLQq_CdNpwwP6PHP1hI00v1VKMBa/s320/failed_deathwing.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>Running a dual spec with Bear and Cat, I have been gearing up for Bear primarily. This means everything I get, the Mastery is left alone and whatever weakest secondary stat is left, gets reforged into Dodge rating. Enchants are all tanking ones - Stamina and some Agility.<br />
<br />
When I go Cat, either for questing or to off-spec DPS in raids with far too many tanks, I tend to use the same gear with a Cat DPS spec. After all, the primary stats of Stamina and Agility are needed as a Bear or a Cat, it's just the gemming, enchants and reforging which is different.<br />
<br />
<br />
What happens when I get an upgrade is not all clear cut. If a DPS trinket drops, I can use that in the Cat spec, if a tanking trinket drops, Bear. If an armor item drops which is item level 359, it replaces a 346 item. Now should I continue to use the 346 item in Cat spec (with appropriate enchants and reforges), or go with a tank-setup 359 item? My initial suspicion was that by reforging a stat which gives some DPS, to a tanking stat (Dodge) which gives none, you are effectively removing those stat points from the item, and thus reducing its effective item level. Still, let's try <a href="http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.php">Rawr</a> instead of cogitating about it.<br />
<br />
Note here I am looking at DPS in Cat spec. If your main concern is average item level, or WoW Heroes score, obviously you use the higher-item level Bear gear. Laughing in a villainous manner all the way to the Heroic you just leeched into ;)<br />
<br />
For my current Cat DPS spec in Cat gear, Rawr claims 15758 DPS points. In Bear gear in Cat DPS spec its 15680 DPS points, a drop. However, this doesn't account for the fact that most of my Bear pieces are item level upgrades over their Cat equivalent, for example I have <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=58133">Mask of Vines</a> for Bear but am still using my old <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=63829">Shocktrooper Hood</a> for Cat. Unfortunately the Rawr optimizer won't let me say "don't reforge or regem anything, you only get this one item with things reforged to dodge", so I cannot optimize over all Cat and Bear pieces I have, regemming only the Cat pieces.<br />
<br />
So I tried swapping items around, putting in a tanking item in the place of a DPS item and seeing the difference. First you have to switch your spec to Druid -> Bear, otherwise Rawr will not let you reforge things to dodge (fairly sensible). Then swap the item and switch back to Druid -> Cat. Swapping the Shocktrooper Hood to a Mask of Vines gives a DPS points of 15752, which is a slight loss, despite the Mask of Vines being 346 vs 333. However, the Mask has Crit rating reforged to Dodge, and a tanking meta gem in it. How about a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=57918">Sash of Musing</a> to a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56537">Belt of Nefarious Whispers</a>? 15720 DPS points, again a slight drop. It is looking like going up an item level band, but reforging and gemming for tanking stats, produces an overall drop in DPS.<br />
<br />
Finally, a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=63460">Relic of Arathor</a> to <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=64671">Relic of Golganneth</a> (reforge Haste to Dodge)? 15777 DPS points. Now this is a slight increase, which is intriguing, and may lead me to using the epic relic in my Cat set.<br />
<br />
The results tend to show that my best bet is to take the upgrade for the Bear gear, then reforge, re-gem and re-enchant the replaced item to become a Cat DPS piece. If I don't already have a piece, I can use the Bear piece asis. In this way, I am using hand-me-downs from my Bear spec in my Cat spec. The Cat set is pretty solid already, and any upgrades for the Bear set will also mean an upgrade for the Cat set (unless its like a tanking trinket or something of course).<br />
<br />
<br />
Would hand-me-downs work the other way round, taking old Cat DPS pieces and using them in a Bear spec? That's a topic for later - the increased Stamina amounts on higher item level gear make them quite desirable, without considering the extra Agility. Other bloggers have shown a Cat spec with Bear survival talents only takes a bit more damage, using mostly Cat-oriented gear, whereas dropping overall item level would likely hurt Bear survivability.Rakhmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16875429172456533751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971197083412326401.post-78913470285645487082011-04-09T08:33:00.000+01:002011-04-09T08:33:46.795+01:00Df tanking - its not you, it's me (and my dislike of you)So blizzard are attempting to fix the long dungeon finder wait for people, by a cunning incentive system for the role which is needed most. I guess it's good they are trying to fix the issue, but will it work?<br />
<br />
Just how much gold is in that bag you get for answering the call to random? Enough to cover a wipe or two when a party member just can't wait, or won't CC even though you really need to (especially with Druid tank AOE threat)? Enough to buy your way to epics, which everyone you party with in the DF assume you already have (you've been running heroics since the first week, right? Right)? Enough to pay to somehow learn all the boss strats so you know exactly what to do, first time you get The Stonecore? Enough to make up for the Party all quitting because you made 2 mistakes and wiped the group?<br />
<br />
These are some of the problems the contents of the reward bag will not fix.<p><br />
How about a budding tank starts on normals, to get some practise in? Let's hope you don't get my first Lost City group, who thought crowd controlling anything was unnecessary "it's just a normal". Ok, let's practise in a normal and do the same thing in a heroic. Why am I dead using no CC? Don't I already have all the gear I'm in here to get? How about the boss strats tho, at least you can learn them in normals, right? Unless it's The Stonecore or some other instance where heroic means different fight.<p><br />
BBB is right, I won't pimp myself out for quicker queues now, and I sure won't pimp myself out for 30 gold and maybe some items I could grind myself.<p><br />
Only once we are in Tier 12 or 13 and facerolling the heroics will I even consider queuing as a tank. Until then, ill be a patient Dps or tank for the guild.<p>Rakhmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16875429172456533751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971197083412326401.post-65989112588155680402011-04-06T17:10:00.000+01:002011-04-06T17:10:00.741+01:00Barely raid tanking Maloriak<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil5H81DJMTaKMQZ7XlcgpbtYZVv_SniFXk097BrZ4LHPyqCpWGK9dkbEa6h9BTCTFGFG6L_NoTFrtRkk7HGgtIxn-EqRBNM4UeQY8hXncJQlosX5W0ir7u0JICW8JxCHcoBBmHWHPVoNPI/s1600/maloriak.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil5H81DJMTaKMQZ7XlcgpbtYZVv_SniFXk097BrZ4LHPyqCpWGK9dkbEa6h9BTCTFGFG6L_NoTFrtRkk7HGgtIxn-EqRBNM4UeQY8hXncJQlosX5W0ir7u0JICW8JxCHcoBBmHWHPVoNPI/s320/maloriak.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
After Magmaw and Ods in Blackwing Descent have been defeated, the deadly lift boss opens up and once you defeat it (hint don't jump while it is going down), 3 further bosses are available. We tackled Maloriak next, so here are my thoughts on Bear tanking the encounter.<br />
<br />
The bungling henchman of Nefarian, Maloriak is a 2 phase fight with 3 repeating subphases in phase 1, when he uses various potions which have a differing effect.<br />
<br />
2 tanks are needed, one for Mal and one on add tanking duty. I usually manage to persuade the raid that I should be on Mal thanks to the perception of poor bear AOE threat, although I'm sure I could take the adds. Maybe. Dependings if those sneaky warlocks try to pad the damage meters by cursing some of the adds.<br />
<br />
During phase 1 Maloriak is tanked next to his cauldron - he will throw either a blue, red or green flask into it, and while he does this, you can move close to where he stands and tank him there. The adds tank usually takes the adds to close to the door, away from Maloriak.<br />
<br />
During the whole phase 1 Maloriak casts two abilities, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=77896">Arcane Storm</a> must be interrupted so a DPS gets this job, but in 4.1 with unmissable interrupts, you might get the interrupt duty. <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=77569"> Release aberrations</a> is a 1.5 sec cast, if successful, he will release 3 adds. Now he has a total of 18 adds, but he will release any left at the beginning of phase 2, so the trick is to release 9, kill them, repeat so in phase 2 none are left to release and kill the raid. Sometimes a DPS will be on duty to interrupt this, but sometimes I get to do it, I coordinate with the adds tank on vent to know when he wants more adds and when he has 9. More than 9 and he can't take the damage. The adds get a protection from damage so aren't damaged during most of phase 1. Further more, there are 4 or 5 casts of this during one "sub phase", so you have to let some through and interrupt some. I find a good way is letting the first through, interrupting the second, letting the third and fourth through. That way if the second one is not interrupted (due to a miss), I can try to interrupt the third. The best approach is to get some hit capped DPS to do this, but in 10 man it's not always an option.<br />
<br />
When Maloriak throws a potion into the cauldron he gets abilities based on the colour of the potion. He alternates blue and red and after a few blue or red pots, will use a green one. Ideally you want the last set of adds to be released just before the Green sub-phase.<br />
<br />
<u>Red</u><br />
Red means Maloriak gets fire spells, mainly a cone AOE fire attack, the damage of which is split across everyone who takes it. So the raid will collapse in behind you and you need to keep Maloriak facing the wall on the right of the room (as you enter), but definitely away from the adds tank! You don't want the adds tank to get the fire damage on top of the pounding they are taking from the adds.<br />
<br />
Someone will get a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=77786">Consuming Flames</a> debuff which causes increased fire damage, if it is you, you really can't run behind the boss like the rest of the raid will do, so you just have to stand there and take the fire damage. Popping <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=62466">Mirror of Broken Images </a>when he does the fire AOE is ideal. What do you mean, you don't have it?<br />
<br />
<u>Blue</u><br />
Blue potion means he does frost damage, will entomb someone and also put a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=77760">Biting Chill</a> debuff on you. This just does more damage so don't worry, the raid will spread out but you can stay still and still tank him by the cauldron.<br />
<br />
<u>Green</u><br />
On green he will cast the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92910">Debilitating Slime </a>spell where everyone takes double damage, but also makes the adds take damage. You will also take double damage. He will also knock you back - after he throws the green pot into the cauldron, I try to line myself up so I am in line with him and the adds tank, hoping to be knocked back into the adds.You can also just run to the adds tank when you see him using the green vial maybe with Stampeding Roar. But a flying bear is just a whole lot more fun.<br />
<br />
After his knock back the raid will AOE the adds, hopefully 9 of them. The adds tank will hold them in place. The MT role is to drag Maloriak into the adds so he gets some of the AOE damage the DPS are doing, but I also have to keep his summon adds spell interrupted, otherwise you get more adds which will cause chaos. A ranged dps will help here maybe to assist with the interrupts, but they will likely be busy interrupting Arcane Storm. So keep the Release aberrations spell interrupted during this sub-phase.<br />
<br />
Dragging Mal into the adds is tricky - you may be knocked away from him, but feral charge will close the gap. He stops moving to cast arcane storm and summon adds, so you need to wait for the interrupt before moving further away from him.<br />
<br />
During this sub-phase you take increased damage, so popping Barkskin or Survivial Instincts will help the healers out.<br />
<br />
Once the adds are dead, you can draw Maloriak back to his cauldron and he will next use a blue or red pot. Then you repeat releasing some adds, doing blue or red pots then green, until he hits 25% health and phase 2.<br />
<br />
<u>Phase 2</u><br />
The first warning of phase 2 is he casts release all minions which is not interruptible. By this point all the aberrations are dead, but he does release two big ones called Prime Subjects which will fixate a player and become un-tauntable for 10 seconds. The adds tank now just tanks these two, taunting them back off a player once the fixate is over, the player should be trying to get out of the way, but slows are useful like infected wounds.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile Maloriak does more damage with <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=93013">Acid Nova</a>, pop cool-downs here, and the MT kites him around the room while the DPS burn him down. This phase is generally when Bloodlust happens, and is a good time to pop berserk.<br />
<br />
As the MT, in phase 2 you have to face him away from the raid, and toward somewhere no one is. This is because he casts <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=93039">Magma Jets</a> toward where he is facing, which leaves a line of fire on the ground and will hurt if you get hit. When Jets is announced, strafe away a bit and he will stay still and cast where he was facing, then he will run to you. At this point he will be facing away from the wall (having just run toward you), so face him back to the wall and wait for the next Magma Jets. Because the jets leave fire on the ground, the raid will run out of space at some point so this phase is a DPS race.<br />
<br />
I tend to face him to the back wall of the cauldron, then move him behind the cauldron and then along the left hand wall (as you enter the room). The smaller the movement you make to avoid Magma Jets, the closer together the flames are laid, so the more room you get to kite.<br />
<br />
During phase 2 he also puts <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=93013">blue circles of swirly stuff</a> on the ground which knock back, get out of those quickly as they will ruin your strafing! For this reason it's worth keeping yourself a slight distance from the wall, so you can back up toward it if you get a circle. If you strafe to the side to avoid a circle, he will point his Magma Jets at an angle and the flames on the ground will chew up a load of room!<br />
<br />
<u>Drops</u><br />
Maloriak drops <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=59343">Aberration's Leggings</a> and <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=59348">Cloak of Biting Chill</a>.Rakhmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16875429172456533751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971197083412326401.post-65983442593459978082011-04-01T20:08:00.001+01:002011-04-06T14:18:01.302+01:00Barely raid tanking Omnotron Defense System<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Jx-zPJXehTCFNuOB4LJZgz63GAt0jZ5aUMuEgeJu4Ge-bEVhKnL67qtVnPrbCbT-XtXaPbM3FCWfqDXvRRZ3IWUphsGtuL540_uNXvCd5eyW5cu3jw22Q3Ytrn62ro8FKVs6uBsSh3wr/s1600/ods.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="108" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Jx-zPJXehTCFNuOB4LJZgz63GAt0jZ5aUMuEgeJu4Ge-bEVhKnL67qtVnPrbCbT-XtXaPbM3FCWfqDXvRRZ3IWUphsGtuL540_uNXvCd5eyW5cu3jw22Q3Ytrn62ro8FKVs6uBsSh3wr/s400/ods.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Omnotron Defense System during the chaos</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>I am starting to document my experiences doing some raid tanking, despite the normal mode 5 mans I've done not being completely written up yet. Hey, raids drop sexy epics, right?<br />
<br />
First up is the Omnotron Defense System in Blackwing Descent. This fight is actually the joint-first fight in BWD, but because I have a DPS offspec I have not yet tanked Magmaw, so it's the first one I'll write about! For a post about Magmaw, see the <a href="http://primalprecision.blogspot.com/2011/03/bears-guide-to-bwd-magmaw.html">Primal Precision</a> blog. It is hereafter referred to as ODS, although it is not odious but actually a lot of fun.<br />
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<u>The fight</u><br />
Continuing your mission to clear out Nefarian's rubbish, ODS consists of 4 robot constructs who activate in turn, but yet have a shared health pool. Each construct has an energy bar and when activated, it is at full (100). By using abilities, the constructs energy bar depletes - at half (50), a shield is popped and a new construct is activated, and at empty the construct deactivates. The next construct to be activated is not random, but fixed, but the order is random when you first engage, so you really don't know who is going to be next, unless you've already wiped and seen the order once through. You have 2 constructs active at a time, apart from at the beginning where you have only one.<br />
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Pro tip: If you are on the second construct, DPS in Cat form at the beginning before it activates.<br />
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Each construct does various abilities which the DPS and healers need to worry about, and each one's abilities are unique. This means when you get construct X and Y up, the raid needs to worry about the abilities of construct X and Y and deal with them.<br />
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We run with two tanks, one per construct. Generally you position the two active constructs apart, but be careful not to back up too far into a corner so that the healers cannot reach you. I tend to keep them on the outside edge of the room, with me stood closer to the middle.<br />
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Regarding the construct switch, you will be tanking one bot and DBM will show a shield warning as its energy gets to 50 and it pops a shield. At this point you never want to attack the shield, because they all do nasty things. Just press esc or de-target the construct. Now it will continue to attack, and after 10 seconds its shield will go and you can continue building threat. I tend to pop a cooldown like barkskin and just stand there dodging until the shield goes. Now you can see a purple beam going to the next construct which will be activated, so make sure you can see it to target it. When your construct gets to 0 energy, it will cast a shutdown spell, the next one will activate at the same time and if it is the first time the new construct is up, it will run off after a healer. As soon as the new construct activates you need to FFF and taunt it, then get some threat on it, especially because the DPS will switch to a construct when it activates, so they will be damaging your construct. If it is the second or subsequent time activating, the construct will come for you because aggro is not wiped, so it's easy, you should have a big threat lead because you spent the time from energy 50 to 0 just tanking it on your own. I tend to get both constructs in the same place and stay there (unless I get a green cloud under me).<br />
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Basically you just end up getting one bot after the other, with two of them alternating, and you can usually stand in the same place. The other tank will be always tanking the other two bots.<br />
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When you get a specific construct to tank, what you need to do depends on which one it is:<br />
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<u>Toxitron</u><br />
The nature damage construct. He puts <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=80157">Chemical Bomb</a> on the floor which increases damage done to anything in it by 100%, so if it gets put under you, get out of it ASAP. It looks like a green cloud of smoke.<br />
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Pro tip: Pulling your tanked construct into Chemical Bomb will increase damage done on it by 100%, so if possible, get those bots in the green cloud.<br />
<u> </u><br />
He summons bomb adds with the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=91513">Poison Protocol</a> spell. These adds fixate on a raid member and travel slowly toward them, and need to be killed before they reach their target, otherwise they will explode. We get 3 on 10 man. This is why you need to keep him away from the other construct (and the rest of the raid), because when he summons adds you need the adds to travel the maximum distance to their target. The raid will be around the other construct if Toxitron is below 50 energy, and won't be paying attention to adds, so sometimes you need to shout out when he is summoning them.<br />
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Furthermore, if you are tanking another construct and Toxitron is up, you might get fixated on and an add will come for you, so you need to pay attention to DBM warnings when Toxitron is active. Luckily the bomb targets are not stunned, so you can kite the construct away from the bomb until the DPS kill it.<br />
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<u>Arcanotron</u><br />
The arcane construct. He puts a puddle of <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=79624">Power Generator</a> under himself, this increases damage done by anything standing in it by 100%. You need to move him out of this puddle, and make the DPS and healers aware it is there, so they can stand in it.<br />
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Pro tip: Move him just out of the puddle, so the melee can stand in it and enjoy the damage increase.<br />
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Interrupt duty is required on Arcanotron, he casts <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=91540">Arcane Annihilator </a>on random raid members, which really hurts. There needs to be an interrupter on him all the time he is active, even below 50 energy when the rest of the raid have gone off to damage the newly-activated construct. When his shield goes up, stray attacks like dots will increase his casting frequency of Arcane Annihilator, so one interrupter will not be enough. So you may be needed to help interrupt here, coordinate with your interrupter, although now skull bash can miss it's not guaranteed. Last time I alternated interrupts with a rogue, calling out on vent who's turn it was to interrupt. <br />
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<u>Magmatron</u><br />
The fire construct, his abilities are not that interesting if you are his tank. However, he does do <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92036">Acquiring Target</a> which sends red beam to the target and then fires a conal AOE to it. If you get targetted while tanking a different construct, the usual strategy is not to move and the rest of the raid get out of the way of the conal AOE, so erm stand still.<br />
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He also does <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=91519">Incineration Security Measures</a> which damages the raid, so you can pop a cooldown at this point if you want, although it only does 60k damage which on a health pool of 150k, is not that much to worry about. Your friendly tank healer should be able to cope, still such magic damage is what the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=62466">Mirror of Broken Images</a> is all about.<br />
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<u>Electron</u><br />
The electrical construct, he is very straightforward to tank. He will cast <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=79888">Lightning Conductor</a> on a raid member, who must move away from people. If it is cast on you while tanking him or another construct, you have to stay put and get the melee to run away, or if you're on your own, it's all good.<br />
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<u>Conclusion</u><br />
Once you figure out what to do when tanking each construct, and what to watch out for when another construct is active, the fight settles into a rhythm and will soon be over. Nice loot is <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=59120">Poison Protocol Pauldrons</a> and <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=59121">Lightning Conductor Band</a>.Rakhmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16875429172456533751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971197083412326401.post-38636041956674934002011-03-26T11:50:00.007+00:002011-03-26T19:58:04.627+00:00Is the end of Heroics CC in sight?Last night I ran Blackrock Caverns in a mostly guild group of Shaman, Paladin, Mage, Boomkin and myself as the furry bear tank. Despite having a fair amount of crowd control available, I found that more often than not, we just CCed one of the mobs and I would tank the rest, on pulls of up to 5. Despite the group being in a mixture of half heroic gear and half reputation epics, the pulls all went well.<br /><br />Now, the first time I tanked a heroic I had to use all the crowd control available, I even had to <a href="/2011/01/bear-tank-crowd-control.html">CC some mobs myself</a>, I was only wanting to take two mobs max at once. In other runs I've been DPS on, the tank has not CCed anything, although I put that down to them being a paladin and having the AOE threat to pull it off. Now I am thinking when I get full 359 epics (and a swipe on a 3 second cooldown), I will be able to tank everything in a mob pack and just mark up a skull and cross. <br /><br />I'm somewhat surprised that we can dispense with crowd control in Heroics in the first tier of the expansion, I thought it would take until the Firelands raid hit. <br /><br />I am still having to work to hold threat on well geared DPS when we are on a single target, not sure how it will go with AOE tanking. Perhaps along with their plan to nerf content, Blizzard will also buff AOE threat moves to keep up.Rakhmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16875429172456533751noreply@blogger.com1