Icewell Radiance.... lulz...

AHH MAH GAWD WORD IS ENDIN' NOZE!

Oh wait, no it's not.

Incoming with the release of Icecrown Citadel is a new raid-wide NPC mob buff called Chill of the Throne. The short version of the change is:

• "For Icecrown Citadel, we are implementing a spell that will affect every enemy creature in the raid. The spell, called Chill of the Throne, will allow creatures to ignore 20% of the dodge chance of their melee targets."

This addition has come to be (un)affectionately named Icewell Radiance, a comedic portmanteau derived from Sunwell Radiance. Sunwell Radiance did essentially the same thing that Chill of the Throne will be doing, reducing a tank's chance to dodge (post-diminishing return) by 20%. The reasoning behind this addition is the same reason for including it in Sunwell Plateau, namely that tank avoidance is climbing too high to keep healers from having aneurysms (more on that in a minute). There are three major points I would like to hit concerning this change: why avoidance is a pain (specifically, my experience both tanking and tank healing), why the developers screwed up, and why it's forgivable that they did screw up.

To start, for those who don't know (which is likely none of you, since, to my knowledge, there aren't any people outside of my guild who read this) I have four tanks and two healers. Three of my tanks have tanked ToC raids, both of my healers have healed them, and two of my tanks and one of my healers have been to or through ToGC 10. I've seen the issue from both sides. As a tank, I stamina stack, not because I'm focusing on being an EH tank, but because with the natural evolution 0f iLvl on gear, avoidance from gear is enough for raids. Avoidance works great on melee attacks, but stamina has the added benefit of keeping you alive through magic damage and those unavoidable special abilities (Gormok's Impale bleed, for example). Stamina is also a guarantee. There isn't a random chance that my hit-points will count. They will always be there. Avoidance is very tricky, and can lead to a false sense of being on top of the healing from a healer's perspective.

As an example, I tanked VoA 10 on my warrior last night. Her gear is decent, but not nearly as good as my other tanks. I was the boss tank for the Emalon encounter. I watched my incoming damage because I was benchmarking my warrior. I noticed a string of avoids, a good three or four of them, followed by a melee hit which brought me down near 50%. I then took a second hit which near killed me. It was primarily thanks to Emalon not hitting as hard as Heroic Northrend Beasts that I didn't drop instantly. Sure, I got some quick heals too, but I wondered if, had the boss not hit as hard and I not avoid as much, I wouldn't have gotten so low to begin with. More on this in a minute.

The first thing that came across my mind when I saw the announcement of lolnododge was "Again?". We've seen tank avoidance get too high before. This same change had to be put in place at the end of BC. Diminishing returns were specifically put in place to prevent this from having to be done. So why did it happen again? Item level grew too fast, and itemization of avoidance became greatly inflated. Some tanks began to stack avoidance because of the sheer power of it (and necessity in some encounters), but even stam-stackers like myself saw avoidance numbers climb incredibly high. The developers point to the additional iLvl tiers from hard modes to be the prevailing cause of this, but as far as I'm concerned that was poor foresight. I understand that there needs to be better tank gear from hard modes, and that's fine, but if the lesson learned from BC was tone down avoidance, then to increase avoidance drastically on the hard mode gear. Give a crap ton more stamina, add a socket, or add more hit/expertise. I don't think any tank would turn down an item that had the same amount of avoidance, but also came with expertise. Balancing threat stats while gearing a tank is a delicate art, and rewarding a tank who completes a hard mode with gear that makes choosing pieces easier is a great reward. So good game, itemization team. I have yet to see one post from a blue explaining why they chose to add more avoidance over threat stats or armor to hard mode items.

But I'm not going to hate the devs for making this mistake. In fact, I'm going to forgive them, not only for Chill of the Throne, but Sunwell Radiance as well. As the devs have stated, each new tier of content requires that a boss put out X damage per second on the tank. Damage taken per second varies drastically as you add avoidance to the mix. To ensure that a tank still takes that same damage per second, you need to drastically increase the strength of a melee swing or ability. It's not as much an issue when starting out in Naxx, since the DTPS requirements are lower and tank avoidance is lower, so the hit that DOES land doesn't have to be as strong. In ToGC, however, avoidance is so high, and because it is the 3rd tier of content the DTPS is high (as a natural evolution). So when you avoid 60-70% of the attacks, that one that DOES land needs to hit incredibly hard to bring up the average damage taken. It needs to come up so high, in fact, that if the second hit is not avoided, a tank will likely die.

This isn't fun for a healer. There is less reliance on big, effective heals, and more reliance on spamming fast healers, even if the tank isn't taking damage, because he just may end up getting hit mid cast, and you can't afford to not get a heal off immediately. By bringing down avoidance, they are able to reduce a boss's melee damage to still achieve the same DTPS by the tank. Healers don't have to be as twitchy, tanks can better predict incoming damage (and therefore cooldown use), and everyone can worry less about having a stress-induced heart attack.

I don't fault Blizz for having to add Chill or Radiance, because they came from respect for the player-base. In BC, the goal was to end the expansion with Black Temple. WotLK development was taking longer than expected, so to keep players in the game they rolled out Sunwell Plateau. Problem was, tanks going into Sunwell were full T6 geared, so they were nigh-unkillable. That was acceptable for T6 raids, because you should be able to trivialize a raid when you outgear that raid. They wanted that gear to be great, because they hadn't originally intended on adding another tier. When that did end up happening, they had to reduce avoidance to keep tanks from being insta-gibbed (having never been in Sunwell, as I understand it avoidance was reduced but boss damage continued to scale. I hear Brutallis was quite the stressful encounter.). For WotLK, it was necessary to nerf dodge in ICC because of the popularity of hard modes. Sartharion was such a fun new idea that when the players called for more hard modes, Blizz ran with it. Yes, the gear scaled way too fast because of this, but I (and I bet all of you) wouldn't give up access to hard modes just to NOT get dodge nerfed in ICC.

Unforeseen circumstances brought about the necessity of the dodge nerfs, but they only resulted in a better game overall. We have better content, scalable instances (to some degree), and overall more polish to the encounters. A necessary evil that resulted from so much good. So Blizz, great work. And for all you people who think the sky is falling, crunch the numbers. You'll live. The world isn't ending in 3.3.

Read more »

Early T-10 Armor Art Review

Chalk this one up to my attempt at increasing post counts, and that I'm kinda tired of talking about set bonuses, but lately as the PTR rages on, there have been more and more model previews of the Tier-10 armor sets. Today I'd like to give my early general impression of the styles used and how they stack up, as a whole, to previous sets. If you'd like to actually see the sets, bounce on over to MMO-Champion and browse the news posts (I'm not collecting all those here, I don't like you that much).

First off, these new sets are a radical shift from the faction specific sets we've seen in Trial of the Crusader. In place of shiny faction armor well crafted for warfare, we will be treated to somewhat grotesquely designed armor pieces reflecting the undead nature of the Citadel. For some classes it works, for others... not so much. For instance, Death Knights are, by nature, evil, and the attitude they present is that of the vicious yet elegant swordsman. As such, the Death Knight armor set is very dark with glowing highlights, and the obligatory skulls abound. It is also somewhat reminiscent of the saronite starting gear (massive plates strapped over fur linings).

Other classes, however, to not quite transition well into "demonic" mode with their armor sets. Paladins suffer from this. Paladin armor sets have always been geared towards the bright, "holy-warrior" image, with brighter armor and shining highlights. For Tier-10, however, the colors have been radically toned down and subdued. And there are skulls. Skull on paladin gear. That's like putting flowers on Death Knight gear. To me it just portrays the wrong image. On top of that, the Paladin set just isn't that visually appealing. It's, well... boring. Another class that doesn't quite make the transition to this new environment is, surprisingly, Warlocks. Warlock sets have always been demonic in nature, which fit well thematically during the BC era (and, arguably, the BC era 'lock sets were the best looking). But undead just isn't quite the same thing as demon. The 'lock T-10 armor set is just laughable. The witch hood just doesn't quite evolve on top of previous sets (though few things compare to the Grand Apothecary Putress armor that was T-8). The shoulders on the 'lock set also look as though the 'lock is wearing an entire wing of the Saronite Citadel, which just looks ridiculous. It doesn't fit.

And finally, there are some sets that, well, I guess just need to be seen in game to give them a true evaluation, because these sets, from the screen shots, just look pretty... meh. Take the priest set. Very small number of colors used. There just isn't much depth to the set. The model itself seems pretty sedate, too. It looks like it could be a dungeon set. T-8 Priest seemed very regal, as though it demanded authority. The use of color helped to accent the armor nicely, and the ninja-hood was just icing. Very fitting of a healer, especially one that devotes themselves to the Light (it made less sense for shadow, but I don't like shadow). I want to see the druid set in game, too. It seems to have captured the scourge themes we'll be seeing in the Citadel while retaining the nature aspect of the class. It looks like robes covered in Venus Fly Traps. From the screenshots, it appears to be the most polished (texture- and geometry-wise), but I'd like to see the set in game to see if there are any animations or additional effects that come with it.

In closing, I would like to give mention to what may end up being the coolest looking set in T-10, the Mage set. The Mage set combines elegance with evil, in a way only the darkfallen San'layn can. So at least one class has something radically imaginative to look forward to. The rest of us get reused themes, dull decorations, and under-refined armor (even considering the function-over-form mentality of the Scourge).

Read more »

Tier-10 Set Bonuses: Death Knight (Tank)

Part 3 in my ongoing set bonus examination. Today's post will review the Death Knight tank bonuses. If you haven't been following, the Prot Paladin and Druid posts are up. Enough with the pleasantries, moving on to the important stuff. Here are the bonuses as they appear on the PTR:

• 2 Pieces (Tank): Increases the damage done by your Death and Decay ability by 20%.
• 4 Pieces (Tank): When you activate Blood Tap, you gain 12% damage reduction from all attacks for 10 seconds.

Right, standard deal here. The 2-piece bonus provides a damage increase to an ability (the Druid and Paladin bonuses did the same), but the Death Knight bonus is much less exciting. The Druid and Paladin bonuses buffed abilities that are used all the time as part of a regular tanking ability rotation. Death and Decay, however, is the Death Knight's situational AoE threat generating ability. It is not something used while tanking single-target, primarily because of its cost. DnD uses one of each rune type, which is tremendously expensive. On top of that, let's not forget that it is designed to hit multiple targets, so it won't (or shoudln't) ever beat out a single target ability like Obliterate, otherwise why have anything other than AoE spells in the game? There may be some situational use for this set bonus, however. While a main-tank won't be too thrilled, it has the potential, when combined with the Glyph of Death and Decay, to turn a DK into a superior AoE tank for situational encounters and trash, which could speed up clearing to the next boss. In the end, though, it seems entirely situational at best, and although I'm not thrilled with it, I will reserve final judgment until setting foot into the Citadel.

The 4-piece near mirrors the Druid bonus. In this case it is tied to Blood Tap, another 1-minute CD ability. It's also the same 12% damage reduction that druids receive. As I pointed out in before, this damage reduction is powerful when compared to avoidance, because mitigation works no matter what your situation (stunned, feared, etc). Combined with the other (as some would call them OP) cooldowns Death Knights posses, it should be a nice boost, and yet another indication that we should be seeing some seriously healer-taxing encounters.

So one mediocre and (as of yet) untested bonus and one carbon-copy bonus. It could be worse, but then again Death Knights have started to fall back a bit in tanking power, though that really means much to other players when complaints come from the class most favored by Blizzard's Art Department. Just look at the DK Tier sets. Each one more class defining than the last. Beautiful.

Read more »

Tier-10 Set Bonuses: Paladin (Prot)

Today is part 2 of X (where X is the number of posts it takes for me to get tired of writing about set bonuses), and in this post I will be examining the Protection Paladin Tier-10 set bonuses. I have had the most tanking experience as a Paladin aside from my Druid. I have been tanking as a Paladin since BC, where Prot Paladins were un-hittable block machines that craved spellpower, an odd remnant of the old ways of itemizing and paladin spell mechanics. The class has undergone quite a few changes, especially in the tanking department, to the point where the once AoE masters now have solid single-target threat and are quite capable main-tanks. Tier-10 has some interesting things in store for the Prot Paladin, not the least of which is the 4-piece set bonus. Here are the set bonuses as they exist on the PTR now:

• 2 Pieces (Tank): Your Hammer of the Righteous ability deals 20% increased damage.
• 4 Pieces (Tank): When you activate Divine Plea, you gain 12% dodge for 10 seconds.

As with the last post, I'll start with the 2-piece bonus. Hammer of the Righteous is a core Prot Paladin tanking ability (it is, after all, the Protection 51-point talent). It is a strong ability that, when glyhped, will strike 4 targets. The 2-piece bonus will grant it additional damage. 20% is nothing to scoff at. It is a quite major increase in the damage of an ability that can effectively glue 4 mobs to the Paladin at one time without much work. On top of that, it will apply stacks of Seal of Vengeance/Corruption for even more threat on tertiary targets. Again, as with the Druid feral 2-piece, it's not terribly exciting, but it is, nonetheless, a significant boost to a strong ability.

And now the 4-piece. Ah, yes, here we get our ability altering bonus. Divine Plea is a favored ability by any Paladin spec, but especially so to a Prot Paladin thanks to the Glyph of Divine Plea, which grants the Paladin 3% damage reduction for the duration of Divine Plea; thanks to talents, Divine Plea can be kept up indefinitely. The trick to this bonus, however, is that it pops up when you activate Divine Plea. What this means is you must use the ability (which is on a 1-minute CD). No a huge issue, except that you will almost always pop Divine Plea while running in to engage a mob. Like I said, it won't ruin the bonus, unless there happens to be an encounter in the Citadel that requires massive avoidance boosts within the first minute but not in the first 10 seconds. Anyway, on to the usefulness. 12% dodge is a truck-ton of dodge. My Paladin sits at about 53% avoidance against a level 83 mob in a 10-man raid. This bonus will put her up to my Death Knight in terms of avoidance, and WAY past my Druid. Also note that it says 12 percent, so you will get the full amount as it does not suffer diminished returns the way dodge rating would. It may sound good, but it has two serious drawbacks compared to the Druid bonus.

See, avoidance does nothing to mitigate or otherwise prevent spell damage. It is useless against spells. It does, however, make it quite good for trash and add tanking, where I find avoidance to be quite useful since usually adds and trash are primarily physical based. The other major drawback is that increases your change to dodge does only that; increases your chance to dodge. It is up to the RNG to determine if you actually do succeed in your dodge. Avoidance tanks are scary to heal because, while they can go long strings of taking no damage, the damage they DO take is usually quite spikey. Also, because of the chance to dodge, anything that keeps you from being able to dodge, like getting stunned, completely negates the effect of this bonus.

The bonuses aren't terrible, and likely you will drop your old sets for them, but the Paladin 4T10 bonus is definitely on the weaker side of the tanking bonuses. I would much prefer something that buffed my Bubble Wall, but the dodge is a unique bonus that may find its niche in the Citadel encounters.

Read more »

Tier-10 Set Bonuses: Druid

(I tried something for this article. I linked all abilities mention to WoWHead so you can see them if you aren't familiar with them. If this is a distraction, or if you would like to see it more often, leave a note in the comments)

Today marks the first in what I hope will be several posts discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the upcoming Tier-10 set bonuses. If you have not yet seen them, you can view them HERE. In this post I will be looking at the Druid set bonuses, starting with what I know best: Feral.

• 2 Pieces (Feral): Your Swipe (Bear) and Lacerate abilities deal 20% additional damage and the cost of your Rip ability is reduced by 10 energy.
• 4 Pieces (Feral): Your Enrage ability no longer decreases your armor and instead decreases all damage taken by 12%, and the periodic damage done by your Rake ability can now be a critical strike.

One thing to note about feral set pieces is that one set must cover two different specs and raid roles of the same tree, Tank and Melee DPS, which is why the Feral bonuses seem to carry a lot with them. The Tank half of the two piece bonus doesn't provide any added functionality to any abilities (which seems to be the case with a lot of the T10 bonuses), but it increases the damage of our spam threat abilities. Swipe and Lacerate are used in between auto-attack Mauls and Mangle cooldowns, and contribute a fair bit (in Lacerate's case) to a substantial part (in Swipe's case) of a Bear's threat. In AoE situations, this should be a near 20% damage/threat increase. On the DPS side of the set bonus, we see a cost reduction in the second most important ability a Kitty relies on (the first being Savage Roar), Rip. A typical Feral Druid DPS attack priority involves keeping Savage Roar up, followed by keeping Mangle up (if there is no Arms Warrior or no Bear Tank), followed by keeping our bleeds active (Rip and Rake). After those conditions are met, Shred is used as a filler and to generate Combo Points. Reducing the cost of Rip means I will have spare energy, which can be used to either hit with more Shreds, or fire off a Ferocious Bite.

The 4pc bonus is where we see that functionality change for abilities. By default, Enrage reduces base armor by a percentage (depending on whether you are in Bear or Dire Bear, so basically are you level 40 or not) while generating rage over the duration. It is a handy ability used at the beginning of a fight to generate rage before engaging a boss, though is not practical to use while tanking as it is a substantial reduction in mitigation, and if you are tanking Trial of the Grand Crusader you just can't afford it (though you will NEVER be rage starved in that instance). A deep Feral talent gives Enrage a small damage boost when active, useful for Off-Tanks on fights where aggro switches but a mob is taunt-immune (Void Reaver in TK: The Eye, for example), but otherwise goes unused. This bonus not only removes the penalty, allowing it to be used while tanking a boss, but goes one step further to offer another mitigation cooldown. Enrage is on a one minute CD, as is our other primary mitigation cooldown, Barkskin. With this set bonus, I can now run 12 up, 48 down of 32% damage reduction, which is a lot of reduction on not a lot of cooldown, or, for longer sustained damage, 24 up, 36 down of 20% then 12% damage reduction. My guess is that the first scenario will be the more likely one, meaning that bosses in Icecrown Citadel will be hitting hard but predictably, in the vain of Three Drake Sarth's Fire Breath.

The Feral DPS 4 piece has an interesting story to it (well, interesting if you were a Feral at WotLK launch). That bonuses use to be a part of a deep Feral talent Primal Gore, which now only grants the crit change to Rip and Lacerate. Rake was removed from that talent because it was deemed "too powerful". This seems to hold true since, even without Rake dots critting, Feral DPS is still highly competitive (though falls to the wayside when your gear falls behind, as I've noticed lately...). Also, traditionally, the goal of a set bonus was to challenge a player to decide at what point raw stats outweigh the benefits provided from them, which means the bonuses had to be good. Take the WABAC machine to The Burning Crusade expansion and look at the Feral 2pc Tier 4 set. It provided melee attacks in Cat a chance to generate 20 energy. This bonus was so powerful that it took until 4pc T6 to even consider dropping it, and with the release of the "non-set set pieces" (bracers, boots, belt) in Sunwell, the new hotness became 2T4, 4T6. It was that good. The reason it was so good is because it was a near direct mirror of an existing Rogue talent in deep combat, Combat Potency. I don't expect this bonus to be quite as necessary as 2T4 was, but it WILL be a nice boost to Feral DPS.

Overall I am very happy with the DPS side of the bonuses (especially with the mediocre T9 DPS bonuses), and the tank bonuses blow me away. I will for sure be aiming for 4T10 as soon as I can get my hands on it. This post has gotten longer than I expected, so for now I leave you with the Feral bonuses. If you would like to see your class's set bonuses features, leave a note in the comments or, if you are feeling so bold, write a short overview of them and send it my way and I will list them up here for you.

Read more »

Should blizzard be rehashing old content again?

NOTE: Apologies to Pyros, he sent this to me three weeks ago. All I had to do was sign in, copy and paste, and publish, and it still took me this long. It's a bit dated, but still relevant.

With Onyxia’s lair released this week, there has been a lot of mixed feelings about Blizzard’s rehashing of old content. Using Naxx as the entry level raid for WOTLK kind of flew under the radar because most of the player base never saw much of the initial Naxx. I was in a pretty competent raiding guild at the time, but we only made a couple of forays into 40 man Naxx before BC was released and we all had more important things to do. Those brief glimpses were still more than most of the playerbase saw. Sure there were some who bashed Blizz for re-tooling Naxx for Wrath, (and making it much easier as well) But for the most part it was new content for players, so there was very little weight to those complaints. Complaints that it was ez mode were more prevalent and probably more justified. Everyone may not have taken it down in the first week, but there were probably not many raiding guilds who did not roll the place in pretty short order.

Wrath did see a couple of other launch raids that were brand new. They were single boss raids, but there was enough variety in early Wrath raiding to keep most folks happy. Even if you did not care for EoE or OS, they were new. New dynamics, new foes, and the new 10/25 man settings certainly gave us all something to do when we hit 80. True to form, Blizzard released another couple of raids in fairly quick order with Ulduar and TotC. Within 9 months of the expansion release, Blizzard provided us with 2 more high end raids. That is not bad for any MMO. It is not the same pace they kept back in the day, but still not bad at all.

Now Blizzard has given us a novelty raid for the 5th anniversary. Welcome back Onyxia! With that announcement and subsequent release there has been a fair amount of criticism on the forums and the regular wow haunts about Blizzard reusing old content. I understand the sentiment, but I don’t think it really applies in this case.

The new Onyxia raid does not really factor into guild progression. To my knowledge, there is no “must have” loot drops for any classes. It does not open up any additional raids down the line. It really is nothing more than a fluff raid for a bit of nostalgia. Further, Blizzard did a fine job enticing raiders to go back to that zone, even players like myself who swore never to visit Onyxia’s lair again. I could care less about getting an upgraded dragonstalker helm. I never cared for that model all that much anyway. However, I will run that zone any chance I get for a shot at the Onyxia mount!

I am not a mount or vanity pet collector. I have the green proto drake, a couple of dragons from factions, and I still use my boring old wolf for my ground mount. The Onyxia mount is the first mount they have released that I really want. And I really want it. Having been in a raiding guild that re-built a number of times during vanilla wow, I ran Onyxia many more times than any player should. Same with the quest chains to open up her lair. It seemed that every week we would get a few new people in the raiding ranks who needed Ony drops to fill out tier sets. We always needed scales from her for more BWL cloaks. And being a hunter, I was always sympathetic to the newer hunters who were searching for her black sinew for their epic bow quests. I plan on riding Onyxia as payback for most of 05-06.

No matter how good you were at raiding, Old Onyxia remains one of a handful of encounters where 1 or 2 people can wipe the entire raid. It was quite possible for a well seasoned group who had killed Onyxia dozens of times to find themselves taking that long ghost run from the ogre camp on the other side of the map. All it took was one person to pull agro, or for someone to get too close to the whelps and a cakewalk encounter could instantly turn into a nightmare. For those reasons alone, I swore off the place. For me, Killing Onyxia went from being the ultimate achievement in the game, to something I never wanted to see again.

But you know what? I went back as soon as it was released. I went back for a shot at the mount, but I have to admit that I enjoyed the encounter quite a bit. We no longer used pet pulls to bring the warders in one at a time, and the fight has changed a little, but in no time I found my self at that old sweet spot on the wall where fears still kept you out of the lava bursts on phase 3. As an extra bit of nostalgia, one of my long time in-game friends and fellow hunter was right there in the sweet spot with me. The rest of the ranged dps hasn’t found it yet and knowing us hunters, I doubt we will tell them about it 

I did not get my mount yet. I don’t really care too much about the bag, but I will take one if the chance shows itself. The quest item and the helm I will probably pick up if no one else wants them. Still, the really nice surprise was to find that I enjoyed seeing (and slaying) the old girl again.

So, be critical of Blizzard if you wish. Some say the raid is too easy. Some say reusing content is lazy. In my opinion adding Onyxia back into the game was a lot less about lazy development and much more about throwing the player base a bone to celebrate 5 years of WoW. All in all, job well done.

Read more »

A full month :(

When I started this site, I told myself I would never write a post like this. Yes, it is one of those "I'm sorry I never write more often" posts that every blogger who is not getting paid eventually writes. The one difference here is that, well, I'm not sorry that I haven't written. Truth be told, my current environment is not very conducive to getting work done, especially writing. So had I been writing, you would be reading very forced articles that aren't very thoroughly written, and it may just cause people to stop reading (yes, both of you).

On to some good news. I have been a bit re-energized to write lately, but this time I will be relaxing my writing a bit, both in frequency of posting and post length. I will try to keep myself to a few posts per week, and I will keep the word count down, which means I will (or should) be writing more. Also, I will be branching out a bit outside of the realm of WoW and into general gaming in hopes to boost my post count. In addition, I am still interested in bringing in contributors willing to write about... well, almost anything gaming related. If you want to write and don't have any ideas, I can assist with that.

For now, I will leave you with another post from our hunter friend, Pyros.

Read more »

Hunters: Focus on the Horizon

Today we have our first post from a contributing author. Allow me to introduce Pyros, a seasoned hunter. Pyros sent along this write-up for the site. I hope you enjoy it, and remember if you would like to get involved it's as simple as sending me a well written essay. So let's see what Pyros has to say...

There are a lot of changes on the horizon for hunters. At least that is the post blizcon buzz. Blizzards track record for follow through with hunter changes is less than stellar, (WARE IS ME TRAP LAUNCHER??) but with the changes being discussed for Cataclysm there is a bit more reason to be optimistic this time around. Will we actually see the end of consumable ammo and mana? It is hard to believe that these ideas will be pushed back again. The timing for it is long overdue and Blizzard seems to have set the stage appropriately this go around with the upcoming expansion.

No one argues with the removal of consumable ammo. Well, no one but engineers. It just makes sense. Hunters really are one of the only classes that require a constant investment in craftable items to maintain top dps. But should mana go the way of the dodo? As someone who has played a hunter since day 1 (even longer if you count beta time) I believe so.

Mana as a resource was not the initial design for hunters. Hunters first showed in a beta build with focus. Alas, the mechanics of focus did not work well for the class. Rather than rework it Blizzard made them mana based and shipped the game that way. I don’t have an inside track to Blizzard, but my guess is that it was the easiest way for them to get the game out the door. Hunters were added in so late into the beta process that they really never got the kind of testing other classes did. Blizzard could have gone the way of the Rogue or the way of the Mage, but I am guessing they bolted on an existing resource mechanic since they did not have time to iron out a unique resource for hunters.

Unfortunately, there is a great deal of the class and the world that was tied to that hunter/mana system. Changing it was not just a mater of replacing the resource and calling it a day. A change like that is going to involve changes to existing skills, abilities, talents, gear itemization, boss encounters, and probably a host of other things that the average player just does not consider. Each patch that provided work arounds for hunter issues also provided more elements that would need to be changed if they were to scrap mana as a resource. It was a low priority change with too many long reaching ramifications to make good sense in the past.

So why after all this time is Blizzard finally changing a core tenet that has been with the hunter class since release? I think the answer is because they finally can.

Cataclysm, from what we know of it so far, is going to be a bit different than the last two expansions. Both the previous expansions contained some content for leveling players, but the focus was predominantly on new content and new zones for the 10 new levels. Both centered around new worlds with new zones.

Conversely, Cataclysm looks to be reworking most of the old world in a new light. There will certainly be new zones to explore, but there will also be some compelling reasons to go back to re-experience the changes in our old familiar haunts. What better time to make sweeping class changes that reach all the way back to level 1 than when all that old world content will need to be redone?

There are so many changes slated for Cataclysm that reworking the hunter class from 0-85 is finally feasible. They can change all the old gear because they are simplifying stats for all classes. They can rework talents and skills because all damage modifiers will have to be changed anyway with the ammo and stat changes. They can make all the current high end gear obsolete because a gear reset with an expansion is expected. The fact is, there is no better time to go back and fix the class because they are going to have to rework so much of the initial game anyway. The plans for Cataclysm finally give Blizzard the ability to make the changes they have hinted about making to the class for a very long time.

Many hunters will cry about the change, but most who have been around for a while are probably in the same boat as me. I am excited about the change and I see it as a way to solve some of the issues that have plagued the class since day 1. Still, I can’t help but be a little nervous that we are going to get another “Black Arrow Change.” Black Arrow was a half assed solution that fixed some problems while creating others. I hope the switch to focus is a bit more thought out. Given the timeframe we are talking about here, it should be.

Time will tell, but Blizzard seems to have created an environment with Cataclysm that will make some fundamental class changes possible. Not just for hunters either. I anticipate that the simplifying of stats will mean changes to most, if not all classes. Still, the changes to the hunter class look to be the most sweeping.

Read more »

Attack my target... please

Two things have become very clear to me over the past few days while tanking on my recently respecced DK. First, as Frost, if I want the highest threat gen over the course of a trash pack, I need a couple of seconds to wind up my threat. Second, the DPS doesn't give you that time. I've found myself having to ditch a high threat ability rotation for a lower threat "snap aggro" rotation, as well as taunting more often than a tank should. I have a solution for this, however. Attack my target. Please.

As a Frost Death Knight, I rely less on Death and Decay for my AoE threat generation and more on Howling Blast. I'll get into more on those at a later time, but for you damage dealers what that means is I need to burn at least two runes before I can even hit anything but my primary target because of the benefit that one of my disease grants all of my other abilities. In addition, if I do use Death and Decay, I wont be able to effectively use Howling Blast (I can, but like I said this is all in the most ideal threat rotation sense) for at least a full rune rotation. So those extra mobs I'm not targeting are getting hit with minimal threat for anywhere between 3 and 8 seconds.

There's a catch here, however. You see, while I may not be doing much in the way of threat generation on my secondary targets, there are quite a few things that I AM doing to my primary target. First up, auto attacks. Auto attack threat for a DK can be a bit spikey since DK's tank with two-handed weapons, but parry hasting can bump up the auto attack threat a fair bit. The second thing I'm smacking around my primary target with is Rune Strike. Rune Strike is THE ability for a DK tank. It is a high threat, and quite high damage ability that is usable on my target. It can only be used after a successful dodge or parry by me, so it can suffer RNG and take a bit to get active, but it's solid, single-target threat that is only hitting the target I'm staring at. The last thing I'm hitting him with is Frost Strike/Death Coil. Frost strike has the potential to deliver serious damage, especially when combined with a Killing Machine proc. Alas, this ability is only single target. Total them up, though, and you get three very solid sources of threat. And they are all single target.

So what can you, the DPS, do to alleviate some of my stress? Well, if you absolutely insist on AoE abilities, give me an extra second. Wind up a single target cast or auto attack the main target before going nuts. Also, check a target that I'm NOT targeting and look at your Omen window (you do run Omen, don't you?). Does it look like I have threat on it? If so, then blast away. If you are single target, don't wait for me to mark a kill target. If I'm in a heroic, I generally DON'T mark because I will target the kill target (unless I'm on my warrior). Target me and press your assist key. That is your kill target.

You don't want a tank to blow a taunt unnecessarily, and that tank doesn't want to either. Taunt is meant to be a reactive ability to grab a loose mob, not a regularly used ability. It doesn't work like a hunter pet's Growl. Keep an eye on your Omen window, too, or set aggro warnings. Know when you are getting close, and back off a bit or cancel your AoE. Follow my targets so you are always hitting the mob with the most direct threat. Follow these tips and you will live longer and have a happier tank. Don't count on me to taunt that mob that you ripped from me off of you. It may be on cooldown from having to use it for another over zealous DPS. Or if I'm in the right mood, it just might "miss".

Read more »

BlizzCon Reactions: New Races and Class Combinations

Worgen and Golbins... well, they're official. Also, we're getting new class/race combinations. Blizzard is definitely mixing things up a bit this time around. Some of them make sense, some.... not so much. At any rate, though, more variety is pretty nice, right? Right?

I'll start off with Worgen. We've seen them in game, primarily in Shadowfang Keep. Not much is known about them, short of they used to be human. So Worgen have a chance to really juice up the story of the cultures and civilizations of WoW, which I dig. They're also a race that we haven't seen that much of (SFK is about the extent of it). From a lore point of view, I was a little thrown off by why the Alliance would even bother with them. They're not humans anymore. The Alliance has generally not been accepting of imperfect races (Blood Elves, Forsaken). But it's primarily the Humans that are the racist bunch in the game. If you watch the Cataclysm trailer, you'll see it's the Night Elves (referred to as "Old Friends" iirc) that make the first move, possibly hinting that the Night Elves tried to assist the people of Gilneas when the affliction struck that area.

From a gameplay perspective, I'm pretty excited about Worgen. There are a lot of unique things about them. What first got me excited, though, was Karazhan, or more specifically, Torment of the Worgen. That item game me a chance to play as a Worgen for a brief few seconds, and I liked it. The animations were very animalistic, and I'd imagine they have been improved for Catacylsm. I can't wait to see their druid forms, either. Gilneas, too, is shaping up nicely. You can get a great view in the trailer. The town really gives off that "Don't go out past midnight" vibe. It's very stale and foggy. It doesn't posses the lavish color and flamboyance of Silvermoon City, or the modern (for the time) developments of Stormwind. It looks like it truly has spent the better part of a decade behind a massive wall, locked off from the rest of the world. All said, the Worgen should add a unique perspective to the Alliance, and I can't wait to give 'em a go.

Now, Goblins. Where do I begin with how much I don't want this to happen...

Goblins have been around for a long time, since back in the Warcraft II days (and possibly Warcraft, though I don't recall seeing them). They have always been traders, leading the different trade cartels around the world. They have also been a neutral faction the whole time (though in the past have shown preference for the Horde). From a lore view, it's a bit odd that the Horde would accept them into their ranks, but I'm told the starter quests (which are supposed to be as if not more epic than the Death Knight zone) explain the peril of this particular trade cartel and their need to join the horde for survival, so I won't complain too much until I get a chance to run through it. If nothing else, some little cannon fodder packing high explosives will help clear the way for the REAL Horde.

I don't see myself actually playing a Goblin for too long. Oh sure, I'll play one. I may even play two. But the chances I'll have one at max level are kind of slim. Who knows, though. This may be the first character animation that actually makes me WANT to level a mage (because for the life of me I just can't do it). It will be a tad odd seeing a Goblin main-tank a boss. The Alliance have had a similar view watching Gnome tanks in action, which really just seems bizarre to me. At any rate, the jury's still out on this one. At first I was terribly against it, though every time I get more on the story behind their perils, I get a little more intrigued. Time will tell.

Finally, I'd like to briefly discuss the new class/race combinations. If you want a list of them, they're floating around all over the place. Go look. Okay, first off, Tauren Priests and Paladins. Wow, I was against this when I heard it. I was legitimately MAD that this was happening. That is, until I reminded myself of a new quest and a conversation that takes place in Thunderbluff. In it, a wounded soldier and a Shaman or Druid, for the life of me I can't remember, nor can I be bothered to go look, are discussing the ways of Tauren Druidism, and how they may be leaving out half of the story by worshiping only An'she (the moon), and not including Mu'sha (sun). The sun is light, and Paladins/Priests are followers of the light, so this is a step forward in Tauren religion which, again, I like.

Troll druids; I wanted to hate this so much, but I couldn't help saying YES. There was that odd lore thing bugging me again. Yeah, I know that Trolls have been known to transform into animals, I ran Zul'Aman. Quite a lot, actually. But those were Amani trolls in ZA. I'm sure the Darkspear can do it to, but they've never really played up that angle. Once again, though, the trailer shines new light on this vague acquisition of power by the Trolls. In so many words, they have decided to embrace this power to help strengthen the Horde ranks with more diversity. They have willingly accepted the trials to becoming a druid. I'm okay with that, too. I'm so okay with this, actually, that I would transfer my Druid into a troll in a heartbeat if Blizzard were to give me that option (please? PLEASE?).

The rest of the new combos are less exciting/game breaking/paradigm shifting. More hunters, great. As if Forsaken didn't attract enough little kids, now they can be hunters. Gnomes get a healer. Enjoy. I may roll a Dwarf Shaman purely for the novelty (and I like shaman). More Mages get thrown around. Yawn. More options is (usually) not a bad thing, so maybe this will finally get players to roll alts who haven't already. I know I will be rolling at least 5 more toons when the expansion hits.

Read more »

BlizzCon Reactions

BlizzCon officially starts today, and I would love nothing more than to be there. But, like many of the population, I'm stuck away from Anaheim yet again this year. Thankfully there are plenty of sites with writers who are there, so the information will makes its rounds.

Over the next few days, I will be posting reactions to new information as it's released. I will be focusing primarily over lore, raiding, and classes that I actually play at 80, so hunters/warlocks/mages/rogues don't cry when I don't talk about you. I'm not guaranteeing there won't be ANY info for those classes, but if you'd like to see a post about your own class, why not write one and send it my way?

Okay, yeah, so shameless plug for more content contributors. But it's free advertising, so deal with it. Anyway, as always, feel free to open up discussions in the comments, and check back later as the news starts rolling in.

Read more »

The health benefits of PvP

Last night, my guild and I had our first run in with the newest boss of the Coliseum, the "Faction Champions", and I can say with absolute certainty I've never been facerolled so bad by a boss encounter. The reason this encounter is so difficult is because it's not a raid boss. No, this fight is a raid boss level arena team, and yes, they are Gladiators (except the mage, he's just a Duelist). If you don't know the fight, imagine Priestess Delrissa from Magisters' Terrace (and if you don't know THAT fight, go now, it's one of the most entertaining 5 man bosses in the game), except double the number, make them boss level, and give them every serious PvP ability that players have. Early reports from the PTR claimed this encounter to be a cakewalk. Blizzard must have taken that to heart, because it is quite difficult, or at least it is for the guild that doesn't PvP...

My guild does not have a noteworthy arena presence. We have no Gladiators, and the Furious gear we have was a gift from Emalon. Sure, we have some BattleGround enthusiasts, but BG's don't really give you that true Player versus Player experience. BG's tend to be more Players on Player. There is little to no communication, and what communication there is exists on a strategic, not tactical, level. The PvP that means something is the Arena game, because it takes some serious skill and coordination (or a Flavor of the Month team) to be successful.

Arenas should be a mandatory part of being a raider. If you want to raid end game, guilds should require that you participate in Arena matches. Yeah, I know not everyone likes to PvP and aren't totally in to that whole side of the game, but how many of you actually enjoy wiping on a boss during the "learning phase"? I'm not suggesting that one attain an arena title to raid, far from it. That takes some solid dedication (at times on the scale of raiding). What I'm suggesting is that PvP will teach a player more about their class, more about other classes, help them develop faster reflexes, train them to watch for cast bars and buff animations, and increase situational awareness.

To PvP in an Arena match is to survive. The name of the game is survival. Survivability can be increased in three ways. You can gear for it with stamina and resilience, you can use your own abilities and talents to increase it, and/or you can use your team members' abilities and talents. When you gear for PvP, you generally have to sacrifice other stats. Higher stam values plus added resilience take up more of the item budget, leaving less room for intellect, strength, hit, etc. So as you gear for PvP, you have to strike a balance between defensive and offensive oriented stats. This balancing act can apply directly back to PvE, and is the most direct connection raiders will have to PvP. The goal is to cram the best performance for what you need into the gear you have. If you are a warrior, for example, you may not be the first target on the opposing team's kill order, so you can sacrifice some defensive stats for more Crit or more Attack Power. On the other end, as a healer, you will likely be a focus target. You may need to stack on more stamina and resilience to increase your time alive. What you are doing in these situations is evaluating yourself in the situations you see most often. You are increasing your encounter analysis. Jump over to raiding now. Imagine you have a fight that is going to be long. Your goal will be to last the entire fight, and output per second is less important. As a healer, you will be able to recognize that for this encounter, gear with mana regeneration will benefit more than higher amounts of spellpower. If you look instead at a shorter fight or a fight with low time on target, you will know from your Arena matches how to best combine cooldowns and abilities to maximize burst damage, just like you would while finishing off an opponent with low hit points.

Using your own abilities to stay alive in an Arena match teaches you more about your class, with the added benefit of encouraging proper key bindings. You have to be well aware of the utilities at your disposal and know exactly where they are in a pinch to save yourself in a match. Where are your interrupts? Are they bound to a key that you can hit easily? What about a backup ability if the interrupt fails? What forms of Crowd Control do you posess? In an Arena match, it is very important that you know what abilities you have and how to best use them. This requires a lot of attention to little things. For example, if you are prepared to interrupt a target, watch the cast bar not only for a cast, but for which ability is being cast. If a mage is winding up a fireball, it may be beneficial to not interrupt it, especially if the opposing team is running a CC train on your healer. Save your interrupt for the Polymorph that he has on standby as his next cast.

Have you noticed something big in that last example? A big IF, perhaps? If you are going to save an interrupt for a CC cast instead of a DPS cast, you have to have been watching and taking note of the degree to which the opposing team is utilizing CC. You have to pay attention to how they play, much the same way you have to pay attention to the tanking style of the tank in front of you. If the tank is using slower threat AoE abilities, you can't wind up to full power on the first target. Conversely, if the tank is using snap aggro and high threat abilities while tab-targetting through the mobs, you can't let loose a wile AoE ability. This player awareness is an extentsion of situational awareness, and Arena matches will keep you on your toes with tests of your situational awareness. If a player leaves your screen view, you need to keep tabs on where they are. You need to know where your team members are and what they are focusing on, be it putting pressure on the healer or kiting melee away from you. It follows suit in PvE encounters, too. You need to know where your offtank is, especially if you need to avoid a mob that cleaves or in case you pull aggro and need to run to your tank (btw, always ALWAYS run TO the tank). You need to be vigilant of the abilities that other classes/mobs have and know what to look for to avoid, which brings me neatly to my next point...

As a player, one of the best things you can do for yourself is to learn other classes. You need to know what your enemy has in store for you, and you need to know fast. You can't properly counter an enemy if you aren't sure what they will use against you, just like you can't defeat a raid boss unless you know where not to stand. Most abilities that can be countered will have some visual aid to clue you in to their presence. A Warrior's Bladestorm is quite obvious. A whirling ballerina of death, it's hard to miss, and just by looking at the talent tree you will know that this Warrior is Deep Arms. However you don't have to wait for Bladestorm to KNOW that this is an Arms Warrior. Assuming he's not a terribad, if you see a Warrior in a match, check out his weapon. If you see only one weapon, you are looking at an Arms Warrior (dual wielding two handed weapons screams Fury). Arms Warriors utilize a single two handed weapon to get their point across. Again you can check out talent trees to understand that Arms prefers one two handed weapon, or you could ask someone familiar with the class how you can easily identify them. If you are facing a team with fears, do you know if you healer can dispel magic? If not, you need to know that you will have to utilize your trinket to break that fear. In PvE, you have to know your fellow party members. How does your tank generate threat? If it's a Frost Death Knight, they may wait to spread a disease around before dropping a massive Howling Blast to make sure the mobs are glued to them.

It extends beyond just know WHAT a player/mob can do, though. It's important to understand WHY and HOW. Let's go back to the Arms Warrior. Okay, you can recognize Bladestorm, and you know it hurts. Do you know, however, that while Bladestorm is active, that Warrior is immune to CC? Yeah, the Mage NPC on the Hodir fight drops a nice fire that keeps you from having to jump around like an idiot, but do you know that spells cast while near the fire have a chance (and a damn good one) of hitting for additional damage and applying a stacking spell damage increase debuff on Hodir? Knowing the little things, the ins and outs of an ability, will keep you from wasting a GCD on a fear or popping your trinkets at the wrong time.

A lot of this may seem like common sense to the average player, but it's stuff that really isn't emphasized in a PvE setting. You stand, deliver, and stay out of the fire. The broad knowledge is certainly required in PvP. Proper bindings, situational awareness, class knowledge, quick reflexes; they mean the difference between a win and a loss, and not just in PvP. A good PvP player can react fast, either to a player spell or with a quick Battle Rez. They know where their enemy is, even if they aren't always looking. Browse through the top end guilds, check their arena team ratings. It's no coincidence that top raid guilds have top Arena players, and it's not because they spend too much time playing WoW (okay, not entirely because of that). No, it is because PvP and PvE are not too dissimilar. They both require solid play; active, quick thinking; and are both about the end goal of scoring that win, be it against 2/3/5 other players, or one giant, incredibly pissed off dragon.

Read more »

It's a raider's market

Heads up, this is a long one...

WoW is an ever evolving game. Fundamentally, sure, the game is the same as it has been since launch, but compare day one to day X (X being today, I'm not going to count all of them, though), and you can see that very little remains of the original game as far as encounter complexity, talent trees, and even classes capable of tanking (from one to four). At its core, however, WoW is a social game, and with that social environment the need to be connected to a group of like minded players is essential. This is where the guild structure comes in.

The guild structure has existed for a long time, in one iteration or another. Topics on guild management are no different. A guild can function in several ways. It can run like a club, with one member presiding over the group to act as the final decision maker, and members are kept on equals grounds. Generally the "club" style system has a very relaxed atmosphere, and is popular with player who either raid a very loose schedule or like to spend most of their time in a relax setting. Guilds like this generally don't focus much effort on being the "Server First" type of players, instead seeking to build up the bonds between members and promote a social atmosphere.

On the opposite end of the scale, there are the more business-like guilds, where the primary goals are the quality of the product and the bottom line. Members of guilds like this are held to a professional level and expected to be prepared for all scheduled guild functions. Raids are set in advance on a regular schedule. Raiders perform to the requirements of their position and are rewarded for doing so, in this case through raid spots and gear.

Upon WoW's release, raiding was srs bizz. Raids were comprised of 40 players which, if you've never had to coordinate a raid, is a HUGE hassle to organize without proper discipline, and players knew this. Raid leaders couldn't afford to put up with poor attitudes, so there was a bit of an iron-fist mentality. During this time, players had a desire to perform well in raid settings because that was the only end-game that really meant anything. So to play WoW, you had to play well, or you didn't get to raid, plain and simple. Guild leadership set the plans and you followed them, because if you didn't, you didn't play for that night. There was little flexibility in this design. Guild leadership ruled, and everyone was fine with it.

Fast forward to today, and we see a paradigm shift in guild relations, particularly as they relate to raiding. Raids have been scaled down to 25, with the option of further reducing that to 10 players, both of which are on separate lockouts. Normal mode raids are less difficult, to the point of being facerollable with a competent group. There are also a lot more raiding guilds per server for this very reason. Anybody can raid now. What does this mean for guilds? Well, no longer do the leaders set the standards. It has become a raider's market. The raider decides what he/she wants out of their playtime, and if the guild won't provide it, there's another guild happy to do so. Raiding is easier, and with the wealth of raid spots available, raiders no longer need to put up with something they don't like. If the guild isn't progressing, there's is another guild that you can join that IS progressing (likely 3 or 4 others at any given progression level). There are more options.

I noticed this trend while serving as a leader during TBC, and it has gotten worse since. Raider turnaround was HUGE, especially after the great raid nerf of 3.0. No longer did you have to be in the top of the top guild to see the best content, you just needed a competent group. Min/Maxing went out the window (save for hard modes, but that's a bit outside the scope for now). There is a huge burden on the leadership to maintain an atmosphere that will not only retain members but also increase applications from new members. The problem was there in BC, but most raiders weren't aware of it. In WotLK, raiders know that they are a hot commodity, especially the good ones, and could easily leave and fit in somewhere else to get what they want from the game.

Guild leaders need to maintain progress to maintain members. Failing on encounters for weeks on end is no longer excusable because they just aren't that hard anymore. For a casual player who is just happy to raid, wiping or not, just being there is worth it. The players who are serious about raiding, however, those who dedicate time to perfecting their art, as it were, don't want to put up with that. A serious player in a serious guild doesn't have the problem of not being satisfied with progress (same for the casual player in the casual guild). Where you see these problems are the middle ground guilds. The guilds that don't raid 24/7, but also put focus on quality play.

These guilds have grown in popularity lately, which I attribute to the increase in other stuff to do (PvP, professions, heroics). Players want to get more out of there game, and are willing to spend less time in a raid to do that. The more casual schedule appeals to this type of player (I would put myself into this category). For me, I like to play my alts, to run heroics, PvP a little, and occasionally (VERY occasionally) have a real life. The distinction, however, between these players/me and the casual players is that we don't take our playtime lightly. When I raid, I do it right. I don't screw around, I play to the best of my ability all the time. This extends to my alts and heroic runs. I like to have fun when I play, but fun to me is perfect execution of a boss fight, or an amazing recover to some bad luck.

Guilds that run a more relaxed atmosphere NEED players like me to benchmark, to be a role model to players that don't have the ability to understand all the math behind theorycrafting, to provide someone to learn from. Players like me give the casual players a more dedicated raider base to play with. Think about a pickup basketball game. You have a lot more fun when the players on your team are good, even when you aren't. You even play a little better because you want to carry your weight. You may also recognize your own limitations and work around them. Maybe you cant make a 3-point shot, so instead of trying to do so, you'll either pass the ball to someone who can or move in closer to where you will help out more. The same effect can happen in a raid. Maybe during Mimiron you get tunnel vision a lot, and forget to move from Shockblast or Rockets. If you have the serious players raiding with you, you might focus more during those phases, trying harder not to make a mistake. It's an important dynamic that helps a more casual guild keep up progression.

The trouble for the leaders is to keep the casual players in the mindset of WANTING to play better so that progression stays fast enough to retain the serious players. It's not an easy task, but it needs to be emphasized in an open environment. Both sides of the raid force need to know that they are appreciated for what they contribute while also working to improve in some regards, specifically that the casual players should strive to step up a little bit each raid (remember the pickup game, play to your team) and the serious players should strive to set a good example and provide assistance to the rest of the raid (note to casual players: don't shrug off when a more experienced player tries to help; it's in everybody's best interest).

I'd like to end with a note from a serious player. I don't think I'm God's gift to casual guilds. Not by any means, actually. I enjoy the atmosphere of a casual guild because I get a chance to play my alts and my skills are respected. I like to help people. I don't have a god complex, I just like to pass along knowledge that I have. Your guild's serious raiders are there just as much for themselves, which, oddly enough, involves them being there for you. Take the time to learn from what they have to teach, ask questions. They will be happy to help, they have the knowledge that you want, and you have something they want. You have the personality they like in a casual guild, and you have the potential to contribute your fair share to the raid. So ask for their help, because by doing so, you are helping them more than they are helping you.

Read more »

Army of the Dead, oh how I hate you

What I'd like to talk about today comes from experiences I've had with a little Death Knight ability called Army of the Dead. See, this ability is one of the most frustrating things you can use while you are NOT the tank, and it got me thinking about some of the things that people do while I'm tanking that really set me off. Stick to these tips, and you will have a happy tank. A happy tank that just might actually get his main character to run that next heroic because he likes you so much, he wants you to have fast, effortless badges.

Army of the Dead: I'm gonna start with this one because it's what got me thinking in the first place. I'd like to explain something beforehand, though. I think this is a really cool ability, and it's very defining of the class. In fact, it's what got me most excited about Death Knights from the pre-release videos. The problem lies with execution. See, it's not, from what I can tell, meant to be used during a boss encounter. Why do I think that? Well, if you read the tooltip of the spell, it states "Summons an entire legion of Ghouls to fight for the Death Knight. The Ghouls will swarm the area, taunting and fighting anything they can. While channelling Army of the Dead, the Death Knight takes less damage equal to Dodge plus Parry chance.". Re-read that second sentence. They taunt. They TAUNT. Now, tanks often get frustrated when a hunter accidentally leaves Growl turned on for their pet, and that's only one attacker. This is a Legion of ghouls. As a tank, I am trained to watch my Target of Target window for any change, along with several alerts when I lose aggro. When I see something amiss, my first reaction is taunt it back, find the answer later. But in this case, all that will happen is the boss will be taunting back off me by one of your stupid ghouls. And these ghouls are not meant to tank. In fact, they will systematically be one-shot until they are gone, and in the mean time, I'm not getting attacked, so you have nerfed my threat. Although there have been changes to improve tank threat when not being targeted, I still rely on some incoming attacks to maximize threat. So you waste a long cool-down, you nerf the tank's threat, and you generally just piss me off. Do some reading on which bosses can and can't be taunted by this ability, and save it for then.

Overanxious DPS: Hey, Mr. Rogue. Guess what? I have 30,000 more hit points than you do, as well as talents that flat reduce the damage I take. That boss won't even bother to chew when he gets a hold of you. Why do you insist on engaging the encounter for me? I am perfectly capable of grabbing that patrol, or starting this fight. I don't need you to do it for me. Sure, you might get lucky and my tank reflexes will kick in, sending me running for my snap aggro button, but why risk it? What profit you to begin DPS'ing before anyone if you lay flat on the ground by the end? And while we're at it, don't go straight into your DPS rotation, blowing all your cool-downs at the start of the fight. Walk up, get in position, and give me a three count on a boss. It's going to be a long fight, and if you die in the first seven seconds, it'll be that much longer, except you won't be a part of it. You're playing this game for fun, or at least I assume that is the case. Why would you jeopardize that fun by attacking early? Just chill a second longer, and slowly ramp up into your rotation, because next time I may just suppress that tank reflex.

Stand BEHIND the tank: In a perfect world, this wouldn't be an issue. Sure, I can understand jumping the gun on DPS during a fight. I've been guilty of it myself. But this one really gets me. Imagine this: you're in a heroic. See that patrol coming? Well, so do I. And as a tank, I have learned that patrol's path. I know how close they will get. I am standing in a place that will either give me the best chance of snap aggro, or will allow me to avoid pulling them or double pulling two packs. So do the world a favor, and get behind me. Unless I tell you otherwise, always ALWAYS stand behind where I am standing. I'm there for a reason, I want you there too. Think of the tank as your shield. You wouldn't run at an opponent with your shield behind you, would you? No, that would be stupid. So don't do it. Grant me, at the very least, that little luxury.

Read more »

Questions I am often asked

There has been a lot of WoW news hitting in the past few days, namely leaked information about the (still unconfirmed) upcoming expansion Cataclysm. I will do some write-ups about that stuff over the next few days, but rather than let the site sit idle until then, I thought I'd keep it rolling with some more (though admittedly less exciting) on my play style and my characters by answering some questions that I frequently get asked by other players. Join me, won't you?

How do you have the time to play so many alts?

The first part of this question is fairly simple. I just spent the last 4 years as a college student. As a college student, I had a lot of down time during the day, especially in between classes, which, to avoid taking a nap and sleeping through a later classes, allowed me to stay awake by knocking out a few quests. In addition, because I took the time to learn the class well and how to maximize output while minimizing downtime, I was able to avoid wasted time. That's the most important thing while leveling is to maximize XP per hour. So really, I didn't spend every waking hour of my life leveling, I just did it right, and used my time well.

Why do you play so many alts?

As a frame of reference, my Icecrown character list is full with one of every class. I have played each class to at least 40. My lowest level character is a 32 Warlock, who I rerolled when my previous lock hit 40. Why do I play every class? This goes back to wanting to learn any and all classes in the game. Fellow guild mates have always looked to me for advice on classes they don't play much or how to best utilize certain abilities/talents, so my playing alts is an extension of this. If I'm going to help someone, I need to know the class I'm helping them with. What better way to help someone with Priest mana issues than playing a priest in a Naxx raid? It also helps tremendously when leading a raid to know what you can reasonably expect from your players at their gear/skill level.

Why so many tanks?

I get this quite often (it happens when you play a Druid, Warrior, Paladin, and Death knight, all tanks, all level 80). Why so many tanks goes back to the previous question, but instead it's for my own assistance. I have always identified myself primarily as a tank (at least for raiding). I want to be the best tank that I can be, so to do that, I have to know what I can do to separate my Druid from the rest of the tanks. What do they have that I don't, and what do I have that they don't? I also feel like I have a responsibility to provide for the raid the highest threat producing, most damage mitigating, easiest to heal tank, so I keep up with the gear/skill of all my tanks, always watching for the day when it will be of best service to my guild to discontinue raiding on my Druid. Luckily, thanks to changes in feral tanking, staying on top of gearing, and the massive damage I can put out as a cat, I haven't yet had the need to retire my druid.

Which toon is your favorite/most fun?

I'll start of by talking about my tanks first. Each tank has a unique play style to it. The Paladin is very defensive, parking in one spot and keeping the mobs there. The Warrior, on the other hand, is a very offensive based tank, with a variety of melee attacks and capable of some pretty solid damage. The Death Knight fits somewhere in the middle, but is a very active tank, especially with Death Grip (you'll know a good DK tank when you see this used effectively). The Druid, however, doesn't really fit into these labels. It's a lot harder to spot a great Druid tank instead of a good one. Most people won't know the difference until they have had a truly great Druid tank in their group. The Druid doesn't really come alive until larger raid content, where the shifting aspect can really come into play. So to answer the first part of the question, my favorite tank is my Druid. It takes planning to be able to pop an Innervate or Battle Rez on someone while still main tanking a boss, or to squeeze out some extra DPS in cat form at the right moment.

As for most fun tank, I'm gonna have to go with my Warrior. Warriors are great fun to play. I actually enjoy running heroics as a Warrior tank. Warriors don't fall into the rotation tanking of the other three tank classes. They play more like a DPS class. You have a priority system, but you also watch for Revenge or Sword and Board procs. A warrior tank is like a Swiss Army knife where one of the attachments is another Swiss Army knife. There are so many abilities to utilize and they all have a purpose (and you will, more than likely, use ALL of them on a given pull). Warrior tanking really is a challenge, and a rewarding one at that.

Now, if I extend this to all of my toons, I have been having a lot of fun lately playing my Shaman. Enhance shaman are incredibly fun. Finally, with WotLK, WoW has a "Battle Mage". If you haven't seen them in action, a high end raiding enhance shaman will deal a large portion of their damage through spell attacks. It's really quite fun. Toss on the massive burst damage potential and you can really impress some people on a boss fight.

So that about wraps up this little Q/A session. If anyone has any questions about tank classes, tanking in general, or raiding, toss them in the comments and I'll be sure to answer them.

Read more »

Progressions raids on... old content?

So, in case you haven't heard the news (and if you haven't, SHAME ON YOU for not keeping up with the WoW community, but hey, that's what I'm here for), Blizzard is re-tooling a beloved old raid encounter for patch 3.2.2. Which raid encounter, you ask? Well, it just so happens that Azeroth's own Onyxia raid encounter will be joining the ranks of level 80 raid content.

Yes, Blizzard, after oft saying that old content is old, and yet bringing us Naxxramas in Northrend (in all fairness, not many people actually did get the chance to raid Naxxramas), is at it again. This time the iconic WoW dragon Onyxia (they say they have made updates to the encounter, like maybe she deep breaths more!). And like Naxxramas, Onyxia will drop loot based on the level 60 loot table, she will be available as a 10 or 25 player raid encounter, and yes, much like Naxx, will no longer be a level 60 dungeon. This has me a bit torn...

Disclaimer: I have never fought Onyxia with a full level 60 raid group. I have also never ventured into the level 60 version of Naxxramas. I had seen Onyxia raids happen, had watched the videos, and read about the fight. It was something I looked forward to while leveling to 60, but never got a chance to run appropriately. Sure, like everyone, I ventured back when they removed the key requirement, but it's not the same as running the actual encounter the way it was meant to be. So this change should be for the better, right? I'll get to see the encounter in all its majesty. Maybe...

WoW players tend to have a romanticized view of the past. The game was great back then. The game still is great, but there have been many changes for the better, especially when it comes to encounter design. Heck, even Blizzard doesn't put much value on old raid boss mechanics being sacred (Thaddius and Mechano-Lord Capacitus, for example). In fact, many old raid boss mechanics have been reused in 5 man dungeons, though obviously not to the scale of a raid. Fact is, though, we have new raid mechanics. The old stuff just seems, well... old. I noticed this quite a bit in the level 80 version of Naxxramas. It was cool to see for the first time, but every time after, something just kept bugging me. The instance was stale and uninspired. Sure, it was massive, and it was different that other raids at the level 60 time (it was blue and green instead of red and black). Overall, though, I just got the feeling of "Yawn, been here before".

Onyxia is just one fight, though, and the mechanics are unique to most dragon encounters (of which there aren't many), so I'm hopeful that it won't feel stale. I used to want to see old content re-tooled for max level, because I didn't get to see much of it at the time. But after seeing Naxx updated, I'd be fine with just fresh NEW content. Yeah, yeah, if I haven't seen it, it's new to me, but if I've seen a minor tweak version with a fresher coat of paint then, well, yeah, I HAVE seen it. One thing that does redeem this a bit for me is Blizzards oh so subtle hint about Quel'Serrar: "The tier 2 helms aren't the only models we wanted to reuse, that's all I'm saying.-Bornakk". Yeah, that's about as subtle as the proverbial Elephant in the corner. Tier 2 helms? Yeah, who cares, you already DID reuse them (BC heroics, look it up). But at least I can gear up two of my tanks with the oh so sexy tank sword of old, so that's gotta be worth some points. And oh yeah, Ony's a mount!

Read more »

Meet My Toons: Khanus (Feral Druid)

Here is part one of the series Meet My Toons. First up in the series, you get to meet my main character, the one who bears my namesake (or rather, whose name I choose to go by). Khanus is currently a level 80 Elite Tauren Chie...., errr, level 80 Tauren Feral Druid. Khanus is the first toon I created on live realms. I went with a druid because my brief exposure to WoW during the beta saw me playing as a druid (also named Khanus, but at that time as a Night Elf). I was instantly drawn to the druid class because I hadn't seen anything like it in any of the other games I have played, and I was sold on the idea when I first saw a level 10 Druid on the beta realms. If you haven't played a druid, or aren't familiar with the class (you're missing out), level 10 is the level when a young druid first begins his/her path of the claw by capturing within them the essence of the wild bear (layman's terms: i m a bear, lololz). I just thought "Wow, that's too cool for words. I want to be a bear!" I had no idea what a druid was capable of (hint: not much, at least at that time), just that I wanted to be a bear...

That is, until I got cat form...

Cat Form opened up a second whole new world for me as a leveling druid. I could now actually put out some damage, and without having played the other classes, or for that matter grouping with them much, the paltry DPS I was putting out seemed like a lot. Leveling was a breeze with the increased run speed, and Leader of the Pack heals removed all down time. It was around the middle of my leveling that I learned the fate of all druids: Healing. I was sorely disappointed, but, knowing that I wanted to raid, I gave it a go, and at level 46 I respecced to Restoration, and healed my first instance.

And I didn't hate it. I actually enjoyed it. Sure I wasn't shredding faces, but I had a much larger impact on the group's success. A lot more responsibility lay on me now. Furthermore, I was damn good at healing. I didn't manage to raid much when I did end up hitting 60, though, as The Burning Crusade expansion was just a few weeks away. When it hit, I kept my resto spec. In fact, I enjoyed it more now that I had some actual spellpower gear. But at the same time, I couldn't help but collect some feral gear. I always tried to grab feral gear when I could, and collected myself a nice set. Then one day, while questing through Zangarmarsh, at level 64, something clicked and I got really REALLY tired of the painfully slow leveling speed of restoration.

Sure, it was nice to heal an instance every now and then, but what good was that if I wouldn't hit max level... ever? So I put my feral gear to good use, respecced, gave the new talents a whirl, and LOVED it. WOW! This was a new type of feral. I had some solid damage, and what's more, I could TANK stuff now. I tanked my first instance ever that day (Underbog), and I found out that not only did I think I was a capable tank, so did the rest of the group. I had fun tanking, but having people thank me for it? That was icing. Delicious icing. And what's more, I had control over the group. I was the leader. The other players followed ME. I was their guardian. I had found my place in the World of Warcraft. I would be a tank, but not just any tank, I would be a feral druid, and I would put every aspect of my character, and later characters, to work in a fight. I learned to maximize my survivability, to balance my gear for threat generation when needed, and optimize my DPS gear for those fights that I wasn't needed to tank. I would be an asset, not a liability. But most importantly, I would forever be a tank.

Read more »

Who, What, and Why

As per the norm with most new sites, I find it fitting to offer an introduction about myself, the site, and a brief welcome to the site. Normally I don't go out of my way for pageantry of this nature (I'm more of a simple "Here it is" type), however this site serves several purposes. The first of which is that I like to talk, at length, whether or not anyone is actually listening. The second purpose ties closely to the first, and that is that I play World of Warcraft... a lot. Some would argue too much. The third is that I'm trying to build myself a portfolio of writing samples just in case I come across a professional blog writing or online content gig. The last reason that I'm going out of my way to produce well researched, professional articles is that, well, I'm just bored lately.

So let's start with an introduction of myself. This site isn't about my personal life; it's not about me as a person (primarily, though I do pride myself on extending several tangents beyond the original scope of a conversation, then somehow finding a way to tie them all back to the original point), so you're not going to get life stories. Therefore, you can call me Khanus, though I answer to several other character names. Khanus is a Feral Druid and primary tank for Epilogue(H) of Icecrown-US, a guild I have been with for some two years or so. I have been playing WoW since about half a year prior to the release of The Burning Crusade. Since day one, I have worked to be the best player I can, because, well, what's the point of playing if you're not striving to play better than you did yesterday? Because of this, I play a lot of alts. To me, if you really want to learn your class well, learn the other classes. You will better understand the mechanics of your own class as well as understanding the capabilities of your fellow players. To date, I have 6 80's, all on Icecrown, but I will introduce my characters in a later post (or posts, as will likely be the case).

So what can you expect from this blog? Well, my dear reader, you can expect commentary on tanking, not just from a feral druid perspective, but from that of every tank class (yes, 4 of my 6 80's are tanks). Expect also to hear about frustrating raids, my dislike for failing, and some general commentary on WoW itself and upcoming changes/development.

So if you're not bored enough already by an unnecessarily long intro post, please bookmark the site, check back often, and open up discussions in the comments. Help me care about this site.

Read more »