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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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