Last week I'd mentioned that I'd probably be doing shorter, "QotD" posts... then promptly entered into a tripartite look at Cataclysmic stat changes. Such is the nature of blogging, I suppose. When topics rear their wordy heads, who am I to back down? Sissy Robe be damned; I shall see your post, and raise you one wall o' text! In any case, back to the plan this week... maybe.
Todays QotD: Have you ever accidentally sold an epic piece of gear that you didn't mean to? How'd that go down?
The short version of today's story is that I now have an ilvl 200, 25 Emblem of Heroism off-hand. That's the end of this story: me, shamefully converting triumph emblems all the way down to heroism emblems and choosing to pick whatever that creepy book is called over the violet ward thingy that was all the rage back when I started Naxx. Now, let's Tarantino this and see how it happened.
It was a normal Saturday night. We had spent the day with my family, eaten a dessert at the 'Bees, then went out to dinner with another couple we know, had wine and another dessert. Yes, we went from Cookie Madness (or w/e it is a the 'Bees) to Key Lime Pie in the span of hours. That's a nice little Saturday. Forget Home Depot.
But yes, wine was involved. Then more wine at home and perhaps some beer too. So Saturday night found me logging in (repeatedly, since I had the login boss set on heroic mode apparently) just a bit tipsy. I was not sloppy. My words per minute still exceeded my typos per minute. It was a happy buzz.
The night was pretty uneventful too. I waltzed through a few heroics on each toon (easy enough in raid gear, if all the mobs blur together: that's working as intended) and participated in Wintergrasp (because I'll only do it drunk now, so when the lag hits, it's all normal speed to me). While I queued, I fished. I like contributing to the Fish Feast Bonanza that happens every raid night, and if I refuse to cook, at least I can fish. Besides, if you fish right near the fire elemental area of WG, you can run through and pick up a few eternals every time they spawn (and/or avoid the times when it seems like everyone had the same idea). All in all, it's a rather relaxing and productive practice when waiting for the main event.
As my night wound down, I found myself in a strange chat channel talking to strange people (which happens) about strange things. I know I wasn't the only drunk one (you know who you are, Hunter Girl). At some point, with my eyelids drooping into the red and in need of repair, I called it a night. I did the normal routine of Hearth, vendor random crap, pop good stuff in the gbank, log out (which is much easier than logging in, I might add).
The next day, I signed on for the weekly raid quest we had scheduled, and my equipment addon notifies me: "Cannot find Scourgelord Baton". Wait, what? I have no off hand. Ah, must be in my bags since I still had my fishing pole equipped. Nope. Not there. Bank? No. Gbank? Now I'm just reaching. Holy crap! It's gone.
It took me a moment. What happened last night? Things got a little crazy. They escalated quickly. There was that one Dwarf with the jiggly... Yet, through the haze that was Saturday night, I seemed to recall emptying my bags. Now, if you take a moment to look at the icon for said baton (I can't link at work or I would), it looks like a crappy skull. A crappy skull that fits in with the rest of the crappy stuff you tend to fish up. Now, I'm guessing (and I'm not really sure I believe it, but I was drunk) that I saw crappy skull next to crappy seaweed and crappy piece of wood and just right-clicked my way to free bag space. Right before logging off for the night.
So my baton is not lost in the nether. Gone forever. Never to be seen again. At least until we reset our raid ID and probably get it to drop on Mr. Ram-You-With-Bone like it does every time. (I think now is a good time to mention out that our strange mantra for the guy is that "it get's easier the more you do it" which is both apt and gross.) So it's not a huge deal, and I ran the weekly, sans off-hand, and still pulled good DPS and picked up the shoddy replacement after we finished. Still, it had to be one of the pieces that relies primarily on drops to upgrade. It couldn't have been like, my shoulders (which I also replaced last night to get my 2 piece T10 bonus). Gah.
So this is a service announcement: If you're going to drink and sell things, you might want to name a trustworthy friend your Designated Vendor. Always game responsibly.
(It's also a cry for commiseration. I can't be the only one committing Gearscore suicide, can I?)
Monday, March 8, 2010
Friday, March 5, 2010
Everyone Needs A Break
Labels: IC Fridays 1 comments
Fulguralis brushed his robes once more in vain. Speckles of blood and grime covered him and would not be removed my mere wiping. He either needed a stout wash basin or someone with a better understanding of the non-volatile elements to be able to get the garment clean. Out in Icecrown, the nearest wash basin was a long ways away, and, on principle, Fulguralis refused to ask a mage for anything.
The fighting had been long an arduous over the past several weeks, but the hard work had paid off. Tirion and his groups of adventurers and crusaders had gained a tenuous foothold in the Citadel. The supply lines were steady and secure, and the soldiers well fed. That was something at least. Something to show for so many lives lost.
Wiping a grimy hand through his greasy, blond hair, Fulguralis looked at his fellow adventurers gathered in the camp just outside of the Citadel gates. They were resting now after yet another push deep inside of enemy-held territory. Several tents encircled the fire pit with the ten adventurers scattered around. The camp had looked the same since day one of the assault on the Citadel, faded canvas tents staked into the group with the miscellanea of war strewn about haphazardly. There was no time for tidiness in war.
Jessabelle, the dwarven priest, sat nearby, face buried in a book. She was the default leader of the ragtag crew; it was her efforts that had brought them all together. She did a rather good job at keeping them focused, though she seemed to have a propensity for getting her own self into sticky situations - Fulguralis recalled the narrow escape from the headsman a few weeks ago - no one know the lay of the land better than her. It only made sense, considering the amount of time she spent buried in those ever-so-flammable books.
Near the priest was her druid familiar. The strange, willowy man was always at her side. He was of few words, but when he did talk, it tended to spill forth in brambles as tangled as his branches in tree-form. The hunter tended to her pet off to one side, while two shaman categorized their totems on the other. The mage - yes, Fulguralis was forced into behaving civilly to a mage - sat near the fire, alternatively smothering it with ice and starting it back up again. A trickle of water ran away from the pit in a steady stream. Fulguralis could not see what she hoped to gain from the exercise, but it wouldn't be the first time he misunderstood the intentions of a mage.
Raucous laughter spilled from one of the tents in which a lantern glowed brightly. Through the pulled back flaps, Fulguralis could see a warrior and two paladins, one of whom was his wife. They appeared to be playing some sort of drinking game that involved the finger bones of some defeated monster and several large mugs of ale.
Fulguralis was surprised to note a rather fond feeling for the group swell inside of him as he surveyed the scene. They had been through a lot together, and were all similarly focused on seeing the Lich King taken down. It was a motley crew, but the common purpose bound them as tightly as any of those silly Argent oaths.
Fulguralis took several steps towards the party tent before glancing over at Jessabelle, "Hey! Jbelle! The drunks found another cask of ale."
Wide dwarven eyes unearthed themselves from the trappings of the book, a slight sheen of excitement seeping into them. If there was one thing that could get the woman away from books, it was ale. Carefully, she shut the book and stood, smoothing her robes in an overly dignified manner. It would not do to point out the ink stains on the cuffs of the garment, remnants of furious note-taking. Fulguralis knew such an observation was likely to get a snide response. Several of the other adventurers' ears perked up as well, and like fel bugs to holy light they were all drawn inexorably towards the tent.
Fuubaar spared a glance from the game towards her husband. Fulguralis caught her eye in the moonlight, and the warlock noted the somewhat drunken cast to her gaze. She had obviously started early again. He was beginning to worry about her, she had become increasingly reticent of late. Sure the battles had been hard, gory, and seemingly endless, but that had never seemed to bother her before. Perhaps it was the feeling of a looming storm on the horizon that had everyone on edge. It felt as if the very fabric of Azeroth was being pulled at the edges and would be stretched so tight as to split down the middle.
They all chalked it up to just another effect of the Lich King on the world, another crime for which he would pay in the end, and tried to ignore it as best they could. Still, his paladin wife had become somewhat skittish as of late and had taken a bit more heavily to the bottle. Being a warlock, Fulguralis wasn't quite sure what to say, if anything. Emotions weren't his strong suit. Their eyes stayed locked until a look of concern crossed the paladin's eyes and she dropped them to the floor of the tent. Fulguralis wasn't sure, but it certainly seemed as if she were hiding something. Whatever it was, it would have it's day when the Lich King finally fell. There'd be plenty of time for mushy talk then, surely.
Still, Fulguralis felt a keen sense of unease as his wife nervously fished a hand down the front of her armor and emerged with a strange amulet in hand. She had taken to wearing the thing lately, but every effort on Fulguralis's part to get a closer look at it only set her hackles up and sent her off into a rage about him being too "nosy". She had the strange crest on the end of the silver chain in her fingers, and was worrying it rapidly. Fulguralis picked up his pace, hoping to perhaps get a better look at it.
As he closed in, Fuubaar seemed to sense his proximity and realized she had the amulet out again, since she hastily shoved it back down the neck of her armor. Grabbing her mug of ale, she lifted it skyward and drained it to the last drop.
With a glare in his direction, she announced quite loudly, "Pour ush another round! We have more playershesh... hic!"
The fighting had been long an arduous over the past several weeks, but the hard work had paid off. Tirion and his groups of adventurers and crusaders had gained a tenuous foothold in the Citadel. The supply lines were steady and secure, and the soldiers well fed. That was something at least. Something to show for so many lives lost.
Wiping a grimy hand through his greasy, blond hair, Fulguralis looked at his fellow adventurers gathered in the camp just outside of the Citadel gates. They were resting now after yet another push deep inside of enemy-held territory. Several tents encircled the fire pit with the ten adventurers scattered around. The camp had looked the same since day one of the assault on the Citadel, faded canvas tents staked into the group with the miscellanea of war strewn about haphazardly. There was no time for tidiness in war.
Jessabelle, the dwarven priest, sat nearby, face buried in a book. She was the default leader of the ragtag crew; it was her efforts that had brought them all together. She did a rather good job at keeping them focused, though she seemed to have a propensity for getting her own self into sticky situations - Fulguralis recalled the narrow escape from the headsman a few weeks ago - no one know the lay of the land better than her. It only made sense, considering the amount of time she spent buried in those ever-so-flammable books.
Near the priest was her druid familiar. The strange, willowy man was always at her side. He was of few words, but when he did talk, it tended to spill forth in brambles as tangled as his branches in tree-form. The hunter tended to her pet off to one side, while two shaman categorized their totems on the other. The mage - yes, Fulguralis was forced into behaving civilly to a mage - sat near the fire, alternatively smothering it with ice and starting it back up again. A trickle of water ran away from the pit in a steady stream. Fulguralis could not see what she hoped to gain from the exercise, but it wouldn't be the first time he misunderstood the intentions of a mage.
Raucous laughter spilled from one of the tents in which a lantern glowed brightly. Through the pulled back flaps, Fulguralis could see a warrior and two paladins, one of whom was his wife. They appeared to be playing some sort of drinking game that involved the finger bones of some defeated monster and several large mugs of ale.
Fulguralis was surprised to note a rather fond feeling for the group swell inside of him as he surveyed the scene. They had been through a lot together, and were all similarly focused on seeing the Lich King taken down. It was a motley crew, but the common purpose bound them as tightly as any of those silly Argent oaths.
Fulguralis took several steps towards the party tent before glancing over at Jessabelle, "Hey! Jbelle! The drunks found another cask of ale."
Wide dwarven eyes unearthed themselves from the trappings of the book, a slight sheen of excitement seeping into them. If there was one thing that could get the woman away from books, it was ale. Carefully, she shut the book and stood, smoothing her robes in an overly dignified manner. It would not do to point out the ink stains on the cuffs of the garment, remnants of furious note-taking. Fulguralis knew such an observation was likely to get a snide response. Several of the other adventurers' ears perked up as well, and like fel bugs to holy light they were all drawn inexorably towards the tent.
Fuubaar spared a glance from the game towards her husband. Fulguralis caught her eye in the moonlight, and the warlock noted the somewhat drunken cast to her gaze. She had obviously started early again. He was beginning to worry about her, she had become increasingly reticent of late. Sure the battles had been hard, gory, and seemingly endless, but that had never seemed to bother her before. Perhaps it was the feeling of a looming storm on the horizon that had everyone on edge. It felt as if the very fabric of Azeroth was being pulled at the edges and would be stretched so tight as to split down the middle.
They all chalked it up to just another effect of the Lich King on the world, another crime for which he would pay in the end, and tried to ignore it as best they could. Still, his paladin wife had become somewhat skittish as of late and had taken a bit more heavily to the bottle. Being a warlock, Fulguralis wasn't quite sure what to say, if anything. Emotions weren't his strong suit. Their eyes stayed locked until a look of concern crossed the paladin's eyes and she dropped them to the floor of the tent. Fulguralis wasn't sure, but it certainly seemed as if she were hiding something. Whatever it was, it would have it's day when the Lich King finally fell. There'd be plenty of time for mushy talk then, surely.
Still, Fulguralis felt a keen sense of unease as his wife nervously fished a hand down the front of her armor and emerged with a strange amulet in hand. She had taken to wearing the thing lately, but every effort on Fulguralis's part to get a closer look at it only set her hackles up and sent her off into a rage about him being too "nosy". She had the strange crest on the end of the silver chain in her fingers, and was worrying it rapidly. Fulguralis picked up his pace, hoping to perhaps get a better look at it.
As he closed in, Fuubaar seemed to sense his proximity and realized she had the amulet out again, since she hastily shoved it back down the neck of her armor. Grabbing her mug of ale, she lifted it skyward and drained it to the last drop.
With a glare in his direction, she announced quite loudly, "Pour ush another round! We have more playershesh... hic!"
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Stat changes in Cataclysm: Death Knight Style
Labels: Death Knight, Gear 5 comments
Today represents the last in our tri-partite look at the Cataclysmic stat changes. As promised, Death Knights are the topic of today's discussion. Again, I'd like to make sure to note that like everything else Blizzard does, this is subject to change. With that in mind, we'll be looking more at the general directions they want to go.
For DPS Death Knights
Being a bi-functional class (tanking and DPS), we have to look at the changes in two ways. Let's check out the DPS stats changes first. Here's the old stat priority for Frost DPS:
Hit (until cap) > Str > Expertise (until cap) > Crit > Haste
The only two stats that are going away that we had some moderate use for are Attack Power and Armor Penetration, but as you can see, those weren't really in our top five. In fact, they will each now convert into one of those or stamina, so it's all good. As long as you're wearing plate, you should be well itemized. The non-plate items will be tailored towards other classes, and we will probably see less overlap, making those items not as good for us. As a plate, melee DPS, we should just be prepared to see more stamina and more strength. Nothing big here.
They've also said that they want to make Haste more useful for melee classes. In their words: "Our intention is for Haste to let you “do stuff” more often." As vague as that is, the key idea here is that we'll have two types of stats. Several to make things more powerful, but one to be able to do things more often. This sets the stage for some interesting trade-off discussions and calculations. Is it better to hit a lot faster or a lot harder? As always, I'm sure we'll be aiming for some sort of "sweet spot" in the middle.
For Tanking Death Knights
Where the DPS changes are fairly minor, the tanking changes will be pretty major. Fuu touched on some of them for Pallies yesterday and a lot of what she said applies to us as well.
The big change sounds like it's going to be to Defense. Before, any class of tank with the exception of Druids had to really pay attention to the Defense stat in order to get to the accepted "cap" that makes you un-critable. As mentioned, this is all going away. For Death Knights, it appears that their intention is to have us become un-critable upon entering Frost Presence. Since we should be in this presence when we're tanking anyways, it will really make life easier.
Existing Defense will be converted in other useful stats like Dodge, Parry, and Block. The hairy part here is that we can't really anticipate which pieces will be intended for which class. As a DK, obviously block means nothing to us, so any pieces that have Defense convert to block are probably not going to be as good. As far as this goes, there's no choice but to wait and see. I would imagine that Blizz has already thought this out, and plans to use more generic stats (like Dodge or Stamina) for any pieces that could be used by multiple tank classes. If a piece already has block on it, then chances are those are the pieces that may get some defense changed to block.
A second, more minor change is going to be made to Parry. It's interesting that they are talking about making Parry affect two concurrent attacks. I'm not sure if the percentages will all come out as they posted, but the general direction is that each Dodge, Parry, and Block will provide different (but more similar) forms of mitigation. Parry might halve two attacks, where dodge is a complete avoidance, and block is a steadier but smaller percentage. If I had to guess, I'd say they make the simple trade-off for these stats that the higher the percentage of avoidance, the less likely you are to avoid. So while it might be harder to Dodge, you would miss 100% of that attack. Parry would be in the middle, with block being the most stable. Either way, I anticipate them to balance these stats so they can be similarly valued.
A small side note to the Parry change is that the whole Parry-Haste discussion will no longer be valid since parries will no longer reset the swing timers for mobs. Thus, there really won't be a downside to Parry anymore which is great since we're a Parry heavy tank class. If anything, this may cause us to want more Parry, though Dodge will still be a big stack for us (and block useless).
For tanks, there really isn't a straight stat priority as it's more about balancing your needs. Nearly all of what I laid out in my DW tanking primer still holds, so I'd encourage you to look there if you want more information.
Filed Under Misc
Let's take another quick look at Reforging and Mastery.
Again, Reforging is what Blizzard is calling their general directive whereby they'd like to allow players to tweak the "support" stats on gear. For DKs and tanks especially, the ability to muck around with some stats is a good thing. I really don't think Blizz is "dumbing down" anything, since this ability alone would make for some very heavy theory-crafting. Think about it. I'm sure there will be some trade-off to moving these stats around, and the level of control will allow people to aim for the "perfect" stat combination (if such a thing exists). Instead of just having to make do with what's out there and create "best in slot" lists, people will need to look more at how stats interact and what sort of balance you really want. For DK tanks, this will probably be a battle between Dodge and Parry. For DPS, it'll be about Haste and Strength.
Mastery is rumored to be a new stat that will "allow players to become better at whatever makes their chosen talent tree cool or unique." You can interpret that as well as I can. For a DK, maybe we'll have an extra loud Horn of Winter or increase the cries of "OP". Maybe it would be super useful like allowing our spells to hit at the same hit levels as our melee (so there aren't two "caps"). Who knows? They indicate that it'll be some way tied to talents, so we could see things where you get a simple bonus multiplier based on your "mastery" level. I would guess this stat might be hard to come by and not malleable like "supporting" stats.
So what should you do now?
As I said in the Warlock version, we don't know when, exactly, these changes are going to roll out. They may be in a patch next week (remotely pos-si-ble, but unlikely), they could be several weeks before the expansion (likely, since it would follow the trend set by TBC), or they could be with Cataclysm proper (perhaps equally likely, though I would think to do the tweaking stuff "in preparation for" the expansion). There is no time line. When the changes are actually release (and what they are in their final form) definitely dictates how much it affects us. If there is considerable time stuck at level 80, you will most likely be using "old" gear. If not, then what to do now matters less.
With that being said, I want to have in my mind what I should do if the changes are coming sooner rather than later. The answer there: for DPS there's really nothing; for tanks, try to be aware of any gear that seems intended for Paladins and Warriors. In other words, avoid block. Also, for both versions of DKs, we'll have to pay attention to what they do with our weapons, since even now the stats can be a little weird for dual wielders like myself. I think we should see a bigger separation between what, say, Rogues use for DPS and what DW DKs use. The days of wanting to roll on mail or leather for the stats is probably over (if you ever did it in the first place). It's probably a safe assumption that your class's tier gear will be re-itemized with your class in mind, but that is probably the only gear claim you could safely anticipate. Other pieces may surprise you with who Blizz actually intended them for.
Besides that? We continue to play the waiting game.
For DPS Death Knights
Being a bi-functional class (tanking and DPS), we have to look at the changes in two ways. Let's check out the DPS stats changes first. Here's the old stat priority for Frost DPS:
Hit (until cap) > Str > Expertise (until cap) > Crit > Haste
The only two stats that are going away that we had some moderate use for are Attack Power and Armor Penetration, but as you can see, those weren't really in our top five. In fact, they will each now convert into one of those or stamina, so it's all good. As long as you're wearing plate, you should be well itemized. The non-plate items will be tailored towards other classes, and we will probably see less overlap, making those items not as good for us. As a plate, melee DPS, we should just be prepared to see more stamina and more strength. Nothing big here.
They've also said that they want to make Haste more useful for melee classes. In their words: "Our intention is for Haste to let you “do stuff” more often." As vague as that is, the key idea here is that we'll have two types of stats. Several to make things more powerful, but one to be able to do things more often. This sets the stage for some interesting trade-off discussions and calculations. Is it better to hit a lot faster or a lot harder? As always, I'm sure we'll be aiming for some sort of "sweet spot" in the middle.
For Tanking Death Knights
Where the DPS changes are fairly minor, the tanking changes will be pretty major. Fuu touched on some of them for Pallies yesterday and a lot of what she said applies to us as well.
The big change sounds like it's going to be to Defense. Before, any class of tank with the exception of Druids had to really pay attention to the Defense stat in order to get to the accepted "cap" that makes you un-critable. As mentioned, this is all going away. For Death Knights, it appears that their intention is to have us become un-critable upon entering Frost Presence. Since we should be in this presence when we're tanking anyways, it will really make life easier.
Existing Defense will be converted in other useful stats like Dodge, Parry, and Block. The hairy part here is that we can't really anticipate which pieces will be intended for which class. As a DK, obviously block means nothing to us, so any pieces that have Defense convert to block are probably not going to be as good. As far as this goes, there's no choice but to wait and see. I would imagine that Blizz has already thought this out, and plans to use more generic stats (like Dodge or Stamina) for any pieces that could be used by multiple tank classes. If a piece already has block on it, then chances are those are the pieces that may get some defense changed to block.
A second, more minor change is going to be made to Parry. It's interesting that they are talking about making Parry affect two concurrent attacks. I'm not sure if the percentages will all come out as they posted, but the general direction is that each Dodge, Parry, and Block will provide different (but more similar) forms of mitigation. Parry might halve two attacks, where dodge is a complete avoidance, and block is a steadier but smaller percentage. If I had to guess, I'd say they make the simple trade-off for these stats that the higher the percentage of avoidance, the less likely you are to avoid. So while it might be harder to Dodge, you would miss 100% of that attack. Parry would be in the middle, with block being the most stable. Either way, I anticipate them to balance these stats so they can be similarly valued.
A small side note to the Parry change is that the whole Parry-Haste discussion will no longer be valid since parries will no longer reset the swing timers for mobs. Thus, there really won't be a downside to Parry anymore which is great since we're a Parry heavy tank class. If anything, this may cause us to want more Parry, though Dodge will still be a big stack for us (and block useless).
For tanks, there really isn't a straight stat priority as it's more about balancing your needs. Nearly all of what I laid out in my DW tanking primer still holds, so I'd encourage you to look there if you want more information.
Filed Under Misc
Let's take another quick look at Reforging and Mastery.
Again, Reforging is what Blizzard is calling their general directive whereby they'd like to allow players to tweak the "support" stats on gear. For DKs and tanks especially, the ability to muck around with some stats is a good thing. I really don't think Blizz is "dumbing down" anything, since this ability alone would make for some very heavy theory-crafting. Think about it. I'm sure there will be some trade-off to moving these stats around, and the level of control will allow people to aim for the "perfect" stat combination (if such a thing exists). Instead of just having to make do with what's out there and create "best in slot" lists, people will need to look more at how stats interact and what sort of balance you really want. For DK tanks, this will probably be a battle between Dodge and Parry. For DPS, it'll be about Haste and Strength.
Mastery is rumored to be a new stat that will "allow players to become better at whatever makes their chosen talent tree cool or unique." You can interpret that as well as I can. For a DK, maybe we'll have an extra loud Horn of Winter or increase the cries of "OP". Maybe it would be super useful like allowing our spells to hit at the same hit levels as our melee (so there aren't two "caps"). Who knows? They indicate that it'll be some way tied to talents, so we could see things where you get a simple bonus multiplier based on your "mastery" level. I would guess this stat might be hard to come by and not malleable like "supporting" stats.
So what should you do now?
As I said in the Warlock version, we don't know when, exactly, these changes are going to roll out. They may be in a patch next week (remotely pos-si-ble, but unlikely), they could be several weeks before the expansion (likely, since it would follow the trend set by TBC), or they could be with Cataclysm proper (perhaps equally likely, though I would think to do the tweaking stuff "in preparation for" the expansion). There is no time line. When the changes are actually release (and what they are in their final form) definitely dictates how much it affects us. If there is considerable time stuck at level 80, you will most likely be using "old" gear. If not, then what to do now matters less.
With that being said, I want to have in my mind what I should do if the changes are coming sooner rather than later. The answer there: for DPS there's really nothing; for tanks, try to be aware of any gear that seems intended for Paladins and Warriors. In other words, avoid block. Also, for both versions of DKs, we'll have to pay attention to what they do with our weapons, since even now the stats can be a little weird for dual wielders like myself. I think we should see a bigger separation between what, say, Rogues use for DPS and what DW DKs use. The days of wanting to roll on mail or leather for the stats is probably over (if you ever did it in the first place). It's probably a safe assumption that your class's tier gear will be re-itemized with your class in mind, but that is probably the only gear claim you could safely anticipate. Other pieces may surprise you with who Blizz actually intended them for.
Besides that? We continue to play the waiting game.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Pardon The Interruption
Labels: Rant 2 comments
We interrupt this regular posting schedule to bring you a Fulguralis rant. To set the stage for this rant, you must view the previous post, in which Fuubaar uses a rather odd looking picture that initiated the following musing...
I knew today was Fuu's day to post so I didn't get around to looking at things until the afternoon. Her and I tend to IM each other a lot via Gmail chat at work, and she asked: "Did you see the picture."
My initial response was: "Yes, but I don't get it."
She followed with: "Did you read the post."
So I went back and re-read the post just in case I'd missed something. Nope. "I still don't get it," Say I.
"Didn't you see the part about a bomb shelter and a fireproof door?"
THAT?! That is what you're making. Honey, no. That is not what the picture implies. I mean, it's not awful. It's actually kind of funny in an "I fail at paint" type of way. We all love those pictures. But I have to say, when I looked at it the time, honestly, neither bomb shelter nor fireproof door wafted through my consciousness.
You see, my wife loves pictures. She loves to just throw in random pictures for anything and usually just Googles a term to find a picture (in this case, Fire Reisistant Door). For the most part, I try to support this desire, because the Light knows I could use some more flowery imagery in my life. I mean, warlocks and cute pictures don't really go together, yet visuals are good to have on a blog. So it's a balance.
Sometimes, though... I just /facepalm. There is nothing bomb sheltering, nor fire resisting about this door. It's the door to someone's porch superimposed over a calm fire that's neatly hemmed in by some sort of magical force field. It does not scream BOMB and the door doesn't really even look all that sturdy, though I am no door expert.
It's like one of those old drug commericals:
"This is your front door."
"This is your front door on FIRE."
"Any questions?"
I mean maybe I'm just persnickety about my fire being a warlock and all, but that picture does not scream RAGING INFERNO in my eyes. It's more like one of those cheesy fake fireplaces with the wavering orange light behind it and a semi-translucent screen colored to look like a fire. I can just imagine someone coming over to my apartment:
"Hello, welcome to my den, please pull up a chair."
"Oh why thank you, kind sir. It's amazing that you have a den in your apartment but... ZOMG what a big virtual fire you have."
"Thank you, you're too kind. I modified my 76 inch flat screen to only show fake flames all the time. I find it rather soothing."
"Quite."
If I'm going after an image of a bomb-proof, fire resistant door, I want the "holy shit" package. I don't want porch door on widescreen. I want Michael Bay to come over and orchestrate some shit with Samuel L. Jackson yelling in the foreground and a stunt man on fire running across my living room before smacking head first in to the back door of an armored car. I want a scud missile streaking at one of those huge bank vault doors with the spinny, spoked wheel on the front and a tiny window that looks like it would more at home in a deep dive decompression chamber. None of this pretty white entryway on orange with high curb appeal bullshit. This is a BOMB SHELTER not a cozy sitting room! There are no doilies in a bomb shelter!
Still, it's rather tough to Google "Michael Bay presents Samuel L Jackson yelling at a raging inferno caused by scud missile striking bank vault with decompression window." You really don't come up with much. In fact, go ahead, try it. I'll wait.
*taps foot*
You get exactly 4 results and none of them look very fiery. Not fiery at all. Nope.
So, yeah it's probably better that I leave the image finding to my wife and stop complaining about the results. After all, it's not as if I could do better and when you get right down to it... it has a door, it has some fire, it sort of goes with what she's saying. The fact that I just looked at it and said: "WTF is this?" is irrelevant because I'm apparently an elitist jerk when it comes to blog images. And that's just not nearly as fun as musing about where the hell this porch door came from, now is it?
This rant brought to you by Warlocks for Green Fire. We now return to our normally scheduled posting, already in progress.
I knew today was Fuu's day to post so I didn't get around to looking at things until the afternoon. Her and I tend to IM each other a lot via Gmail chat at work, and she asked: "Did you see the picture."
My initial response was: "Yes, but I don't get it."
She followed with: "Did you read the post."
So I went back and re-read the post just in case I'd missed something. Nope. "I still don't get it," Say I.
"Didn't you see the part about a bomb shelter and a fireproof door?"
THAT?! That is what you're making. Honey, no. That is not what the picture implies. I mean, it's not awful. It's actually kind of funny in an "I fail at paint" type of way. We all love those pictures. But I have to say, when I looked at it the time, honestly, neither bomb shelter nor fireproof door wafted through my consciousness.
You see, my wife loves pictures. She loves to just throw in random pictures for anything and usually just Googles a term to find a picture (in this case, Fire Reisistant Door). For the most part, I try to support this desire, because the Light knows I could use some more flowery imagery in my life. I mean, warlocks and cute pictures don't really go together, yet visuals are good to have on a blog. So it's a balance.
Sometimes, though... I just /facepalm. There is nothing bomb sheltering, nor fire resisting about this door. It's the door to someone's porch superimposed over a calm fire that's neatly hemmed in by some sort of magical force field. It does not scream BOMB and the door doesn't really even look all that sturdy, though I am no door expert.
It's like one of those old drug commericals:
"This is your front door."
"This is your front door on FIRE."
"Any questions?"
I mean maybe I'm just persnickety about my fire being a warlock and all, but that picture does not scream RAGING INFERNO in my eyes. It's more like one of those cheesy fake fireplaces with the wavering orange light behind it and a semi-translucent screen colored to look like a fire. I can just imagine someone coming over to my apartment:
"Hello, welcome to my den, please pull up a chair."
"Oh why thank you, kind sir. It's amazing that you have a den in your apartment but... ZOMG what a big virtual fire you have."
"Thank you, you're too kind. I modified my 76 inch flat screen to only show fake flames all the time. I find it rather soothing."
"Quite."
If I'm going after an image of a bomb-proof, fire resistant door, I want the "holy shit" package. I don't want porch door on widescreen. I want Michael Bay to come over and orchestrate some shit with Samuel L. Jackson yelling in the foreground and a stunt man on fire running across my living room before smacking head first in to the back door of an armored car. I want a scud missile streaking at one of those huge bank vault doors with the spinny, spoked wheel on the front and a tiny window that looks like it would more at home in a deep dive decompression chamber. None of this pretty white entryway on orange with high curb appeal bullshit. This is a BOMB SHELTER not a cozy sitting room! There are no doilies in a bomb shelter!
Still, it's rather tough to Google "Michael Bay presents Samuel L Jackson yelling at a raging inferno caused by scud missile striking bank vault with decompression window." You really don't come up with much. In fact, go ahead, try it. I'll wait.
*taps foot*
You get exactly 4 results and none of them look very fiery. Not fiery at all. Nope.
So, yeah it's probably better that I leave the image finding to my wife and stop complaining about the results. After all, it's not as if I could do better and when you get right down to it... it has a door, it has some fire, it sort of goes with what she's saying. The fact that I just looked at it and said: "WTF is this?" is irrelevant because I'm apparently an elitist jerk when it comes to blog images. And that's just not nearly as fun as musing about where the hell this porch door came from, now is it?
This rant brought to you by Warlocks for Green Fire. We now return to our normally scheduled posting, already in progress.
Stat changes in Cataclysm: Protection Paladin Style
Labels: Expansion, Pally Power, Tanking 2 comments
So, Blizzard has finally announced how the stat changes might look when the new expansion comes out. Very very interesting. The blogosphere has Es'ploded with theories on how this will affect their classes and gear choices & what sandwiches taste better with Milk. You know.... the World (or Warcraft) will change as we know it now.
/scratches chin
If you are interested in the whole thing, here's the link to MMO-Champion where they have it laid out pretty nicely.
Now, I'm only going to look at the stats that will be effecting Protection Paladins/ Tanks in general. Obviously this is all speculation but who doesn't love to try to piece out what the Developers are trying to do.
Stamina: apparently there is going to be more of it. The Dev's say that they want big health pools to even out the spiky incoming damage. This will allow for healers to not be sweating so much if you, the tank, hit a really bad RNG string of hits from a boss. I'm excited to see how big average tanking health pools are going to get 75k? 100k? I can't really remember what my health pool looked like in TBC but I'm around 45-50k health in our 10-man ICC runs. Another interesting note that I caught was that DPS & Healer health pools were going to be MUCH larger than they are now. Health pools are sort of like a tank's epeen. My health pool is bigger than yours sorta thing.
Block Rating: Apparently, this is going to be staying on tanking gear but really revamped. It will now mitigate 30% of incoming damage that is blocked. Block rating will improve the chances of this happening but it will not be nearly as often as it is now. With this so called, "Not nearly as often" speech, I'm thinking that something will be done with our Holy Shield spell. It currently has 8 Charges that can be used depending on how fast the swing speed of the Mob/Boss is. I'm wondering if they will take this number down or if it needs to be used up more quickly before it expires. I'm going to believe this to be the first option because I don't think that blizzard really wants to screw with our rotation (969). If they did the second option, maybe the cooldown would stay the same but those charges only had 5 seconds or something to be used up. I'm pretty interested in this stat the most out of all because of how much the Paladin tanking style will change because of it. Cool stuff.
Parry: Ok from what I understand is that now, when you parry, 100% of the damage is missed and you swing faster. With this change, 50% of the damage is avoided from the next two swings "if they hit at all" What an interesting idea. So technically you will be missing 100% of 1 hit out of two. This seems to me like two swings where you are "blocking" 20% more damage than you would if you were to actually Block the incoming damage. Thus, making Parry a pretty sexy stat if you ask me. They also took out that stupid Parry haste mechanic. No more Parry gibing yourself? I never quite understood it anyways so good riddance really.
Armor: Other than them saying that they [aka the Developers] want to change the scaling of Armor on gear, they want to bring other armor types (Cloth, Leather, Mail) up on the amount of armor that it has on it. The example that the Blues give is a normal Tank has around 26-28k armor where the most decked out mage has around 2k. That is a little ridiculous really. Another great point that was brought up was who are the real losers in the Armor department and it isn't the clothies.
Ok here's a question for you... who dies the most in your raids? I'll give you 10 guesses and the first 9 don't count.
Answer: Rogues!
Clothies have ways to boost their armor and give themselves distance from Bosses who could violate your trust. Rogues on the other hand, they poke the boss in the backside and dance with the big boys.
I think that this is a good direction to head in if they want survivability to beef up a bit.
Two stats that are more or less, going away are:
Block Value: As I talked about before, you will no longer see Block value on gear as a stat since now there will be a constant 30% damage reduction every time you block. That's HUGE! Right now, when I block, I probably mitigate 1.5-2k damage per blocked hit. That's absolutely nothing when a boss hits your for 25-35k a hit.
To give you a mental picture of how HUGE (if they were to implement this however):
Let's say you were greeted by a very angry dragon who apparently you insulted by claiming that she bad breath that could kill a Rhino in its path. She decides that she wants to turn you into a crisp then snack on you later.
With the current block this would be like going into the fight with a feather pillow and hiding behind it. I'm pretty sure I would be wetting my plate by then, creating horrible rust problems in the future.
With this new proposal, this would be like going into the fight with Bomb Shelter Door. Bravery would throb through your veins as you pummel that stupid dragon to death then to the Macarena on her dead carcass (sorry I'm a human female, we have the crappiest dance... we get it)
The only way that I could figure out how this would be even remotely possible would be to nerf the Block rating by a metric ton. Because if you at least blocked every hit (not including Misses, Parries, & dodges) these bosses would have to hit like WAY more than your health pool could ever be or if RNG was unkind that day, you would end up as a smear on the floor before any healer could have time to use a single GCD. This is something that Blizzard is trying to go away from so I'm assuming that with the E-peen Health pools that tanks are going to have to soak up normal (none mitigated/ avoided) hits a lot more often but when these actions do happen, it's like a healer vacation.
*Confetti*
Defense Rating: /waves goodbye and boots it out the door
As the levels grow, so does the amount of Defense we needed on gear to hit the cap. 540 Defense for Raid tanking wasn't all that difficult once you started receiving big gobs of it.
Here is how I saw gearing up for tanking when WotLK started.
Ding 80: Options are crafted gear and a measly few questing pieces along the way. The crafted gear was great because it got you to defense cap but it didn't have much else because of the itemization. So you start tanking heroics... oh look something shiny that I found in the armpit of this dead boss. Let's equip it because it's pretty much green across the scale... oh wait... I can't use it because I won't be Defense capped anymore. I guess I'll wait until I get enough badges to purchase Heroic Emblem Pieces that have quite a bit of defense on it.
Once you got past the awkward phase of Defense, it becomes too much. By the time you are in T-9 you have SO much Defense you don't even know what to do with it. Blizzard made it so that the stat itself wasn't wasted like Hit rating is for DPS (or healers if you're Fulguralis). I believe a nice transition would have made this MUCH easier. For lower level gear having blue gem slots because you are Defense capped with the Crafted gear, then slowly have gear that's an upgrade for you in heroics with gobs more yellow gems for Defense balancing.
Anyways, Defense rating is gone.
But Fuu, how will we become uncritable?!
Great question little one, how about using Righteous Fury. Flip it on & you're now defense capped. Bingo Bango Bongo, you're a druid :P
Again, this is ALL speculation from what I've read thus far from sources (MMO-Champion and other bloggers). It's actually really fun to dream of one day tanking with a Fire resistant Bomb Shelter Door. Fuu is really going to have to renew her Stormwind Gym membership if she's going to tank with the big boys. Carrying around that crap is heavy work and I don't want man arms!
What stat changes are you excited about? Is it the Armor change for you Rogues out there? I'll bet it is ;)
<3 Fuu
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Stat changes in Cataclysm: Warlock Style
Labels: Gear, warlocky 2 comments
Since BBB was so kind as to re-post the blue post yesterday, I'm going to link to him as the source of my contemplation. Having browsed the announcement casually, let's look at what this means for Warlocks (today), Protection Paladins (tomorrow via Fuu), and Death Knights (Thursday). Before we do that, though, I'd like to make sure to note that like everything else Blizzard does, this is subject to change. With that being said, I think you can take a lot of this information to the bank since it is very non-specific and more about the general directions they want to go. Thus, I'm going to try to keep my musings general as well. I'm sure Fuu will do her own thing.
For Warlocks
Here is the simple summary from the post:
If you are a DPS caster, expect to see:
* A lot more Stamina.
* All of your Spell Power converted to Intellect and Stamina.
* No Spirit. You won’t miss Spirit, though, because you won’t need it for DPS or mana regen.
These changes really represent a Big Deal for 'locks. It looks like a lot of the gear we prized will be changing. Is it for the better though? If they follow their word, I would say this could be great for 'locks. Here's why.
Dumping Spirit is good stuff. She's always been a fickle friend at best, and a dirty whore at worst. We need her, but we don't. We're curious, but at the same time we're cool. At least we'll be able to stop doing freaking 1/3 calculations for our gear. (0.33, repeating of course). The basic thing here is that it's one less stat to worry about for DPS, and that would be a welcome change. The only danger here is that some of our more Spirit heavy gear gets redesigned with healers in mind and thus becomes worthless to us.
Spellpower converting to Stam and Int is probably the best case scenario for 'locks. Since Int would be the "new" Spellpower AND it would still dictate mana pool. This is good. Having some convert to Stam (I assume to keep proper balance) is not wasted for us, since we can Life Tap. Thus it should be all around good news for us. Not to mention just having more hit points is a win as well.
Haste, Crit, Hit... those will likely still be good for us, but will be firmly "supporting" stats. This should let us be able to tweak them with reforging (more on that later), but depending on how that works, it could be really awesome. I'm so incredibly sick of carrying alternatively high and low hit numbers. I'm either wasting a ton or trying to scrape together more from somewhere. If we really could just tweak these stats it would be great. It's also important to note that Blizz intends to make it harder to "cap" stats (like hit), so we may be looking at cases where you just shoot for certain levels of "sufficiency" that depend on what level of raiding you're currently doing. I think the idea here is to decrease the dependence on "supporting" stats, so it just won't be as good perhaps.
So here's the old:
Hit (until capped)>SP>Haste>Crit>Spirit>>Int.
And here could be (emphasis on could) the new:
Int>Hit (until sufficient)>Haste>Crit>>Stam
It's simpler, cleaner, and puts clear emphasis on the "Major" stats with Int being top dog. It's also not completely boring. Still, this is total speculation.
Filed Under Misc
There are two concepts which I'll touch upon both today (for 'locks) and later (for DKs): Reforging and Mastery.
Reforging is what Blizzard is calling their general directive whereby they'd like to allow players to tweak the "support" stats on gear. They're really vague on how this will be implemented (in other words, it's still up in the air), but let's just assume there will be some type of reforging available in the not-so-distant future. As mentioned above, it would be really nice to have this option. Say we reach a level of hit that we feel comfortable with, then we could switch some of that to haste or crit as needed. Blizz intoned that there will probably be a trade off of some sort for doing this (it won't necessarily be a one to one swap, maybe you'd only get a half point per one point of the previous stat), so there should be some interesting choices involved.
Mastery is rumored to be a new stat that will "allow players to become better at whatever makes their chosen talent tree cool or unique." You can interpret that as well as I can. For a Warlock, maybe this stat will make us more evil. Perhaps Dots will get a bonus for Affliction 'locks, or maybe it would be something as simple as for Demonologists, the Demon for gets to look increasingly badass. Who knows? They indicate that it'll be some way tied to talents, so we could see things where you get a simple bonus multiplier based on your "mastery" level. I would guess this stat might be hard to come by and not malleable like "supporting" stats.
So what should you do now?
We don't know when, exactly, these changes are going to roll out. They may be in a patch next week (remotely pos-si-ble, but unlikely), they could be several weeks before the expansion (likely, since it would follow the trend set by TBC), or they could be with Cataclysm proper (perhaps equally likely, though I would think to do the tweaking stuff "in preparation for" the expansion). There is no time line. When the changes are actually release (and what they are in their final form) definitely dictates how much it affects us. If there is considerable time stuck at level 80, you will most likely be using "old" gear. If not, then what to do now matters less.
With that being said, I want to have in my mind what I should do if the changes are coming sooner rather than later. The answer there: nothing really, except beware of taking any obvious "healer" gear that may be good for you now. There should be a bigger separation between healer and cloth DPS gear in the future as itemization changes. It's probably a safe assumption that your class's tier gear will be re-itemized with your class in mind, but that is probably the only gear claim you could safely anticipate. Other pieces may surprise you with who Blizz actually intended them for.
Besides that? Just wait and see with the rest of us. Even if you could puzzle out Blizz's mind, you're more likely to simply out-think yourself, and even when we think we know what Blizz is going to do, they have a habit of still pulling out surprises.
For Warlocks
Here is the simple summary from the post:
If you are a DPS caster, expect to see:
* A lot more Stamina.
* All of your Spell Power converted to Intellect and Stamina.
* No Spirit. You won’t miss Spirit, though, because you won’t need it for DPS or mana regen.
These changes really represent a Big Deal for 'locks. It looks like a lot of the gear we prized will be changing. Is it for the better though? If they follow their word, I would say this could be great for 'locks. Here's why.
Dumping Spirit is good stuff. She's always been a fickle friend at best, and a dirty whore at worst. We need her, but we don't. We're curious, but at the same time we're cool. At least we'll be able to stop doing freaking 1/3 calculations for our gear. (0.33, repeating of course). The basic thing here is that it's one less stat to worry about for DPS, and that would be a welcome change. The only danger here is that some of our more Spirit heavy gear gets redesigned with healers in mind and thus becomes worthless to us.
Spellpower converting to Stam and Int is probably the best case scenario for 'locks. Since Int would be the "new" Spellpower AND it would still dictate mana pool. This is good. Having some convert to Stam (I assume to keep proper balance) is not wasted for us, since we can Life Tap. Thus it should be all around good news for us. Not to mention just having more hit points is a win as well.
Haste, Crit, Hit... those will likely still be good for us, but will be firmly "supporting" stats. This should let us be able to tweak them with reforging (more on that later), but depending on how that works, it could be really awesome. I'm so incredibly sick of carrying alternatively high and low hit numbers. I'm either wasting a ton or trying to scrape together more from somewhere. If we really could just tweak these stats it would be great. It's also important to note that Blizz intends to make it harder to "cap" stats (like hit), so we may be looking at cases where you just shoot for certain levels of "sufficiency" that depend on what level of raiding you're currently doing. I think the idea here is to decrease the dependence on "supporting" stats, so it just won't be as good perhaps.
So here's the old:
Hit (until capped)>SP>Haste>Crit>Spirit>>Int.
And here could be (emphasis on could) the new:
Int>Hit (until sufficient)>Haste>Crit>>Stam
It's simpler, cleaner, and puts clear emphasis on the "Major" stats with Int being top dog. It's also not completely boring. Still, this is total speculation.
Filed Under Misc
There are two concepts which I'll touch upon both today (for 'locks) and later (for DKs): Reforging and Mastery.
Reforging is what Blizzard is calling their general directive whereby they'd like to allow players to tweak the "support" stats on gear. They're really vague on how this will be implemented (in other words, it's still up in the air), but let's just assume there will be some type of reforging available in the not-so-distant future. As mentioned above, it would be really nice to have this option. Say we reach a level of hit that we feel comfortable with, then we could switch some of that to haste or crit as needed. Blizz intoned that there will probably be a trade off of some sort for doing this (it won't necessarily be a one to one swap, maybe you'd only get a half point per one point of the previous stat), so there should be some interesting choices involved.
Mastery is rumored to be a new stat that will "allow players to become better at whatever makes their chosen talent tree cool or unique." You can interpret that as well as I can. For a Warlock, maybe this stat will make us more evil. Perhaps Dots will get a bonus for Affliction 'locks, or maybe it would be something as simple as for Demonologists, the Demon for gets to look increasingly badass. Who knows? They indicate that it'll be some way tied to talents, so we could see things where you get a simple bonus multiplier based on your "mastery" level. I would guess this stat might be hard to come by and not malleable like "supporting" stats.
So what should you do now?
We don't know when, exactly, these changes are going to roll out. They may be in a patch next week (remotely pos-si-ble, but unlikely), they could be several weeks before the expansion (likely, since it would follow the trend set by TBC), or they could be with Cataclysm proper (perhaps equally likely, though I would think to do the tweaking stuff "in preparation for" the expansion). There is no time line. When the changes are actually release (and what they are in their final form) definitely dictates how much it affects us. If there is considerable time stuck at level 80, you will most likely be using "old" gear. If not, then what to do now matters less.
With that being said, I want to have in my mind what I should do if the changes are coming sooner rather than later. The answer there: nothing really, except beware of taking any obvious "healer" gear that may be good for you now. There should be a bigger separation between healer and cloth DPS gear in the future as itemization changes. It's probably a safe assumption that your class's tier gear will be re-itemized with your class in mind, but that is probably the only gear claim you could safely anticipate. Other pieces may surprise you with who Blizz actually intended them for.
Besides that? Just wait and see with the rest of us. Even if you could puzzle out Blizz's mind, you're more likely to simply out-think yourself, and even when we think we know what Blizz is going to do, they have a habit of still pulling out surprises.
Monday, March 1, 2010
A New Direction
Labels: Autobio, QotD, Raiding 7 comments
Well, the last weekend was quite busy in a non-gaming way. We took our annual ski trip, and bought a house. We don't actually close for two months, but still... this house business is a lot of work already. It's worth it, don't get me wrong. We're way past cramped in our apartment, but as I'm sure you all know, when life decides to rear it's ugly head, gaming tends to take a back seat.
Some of you may of have noticed the lack of an IC Friday last week. For that, I apologize. Really, those are the only days I feel bad about missing because I do so enjoy writing them. Still, life beckoned...
I wanted to relate this not as the obligatory "sorry my posting is on the fritz" post, but to explain a forthcoming change of approach on my part. You see, time is not going to cooperate for perhaps the next few months, and when moving there is always the threat of being (*gasp*) without internet for some stretches of time, so I really don't know how the next few months are going to go. I usually strive to be quite regular in time, quantity, and length of post (I am, after all, a creature of habit), but I'm afraid that's going to be a lot more difficult to anticipate in the coming weeks. As such, I'm going to institute a new "Question of the Day" feature.
The QotD feature here at KeS stems directly from the fact that I believe I have a stellar group of readers who often add insightful and helpful comments. Honestly, that's one thing I've really been surprised about and thankful for. I rarely get trolls; nearly every comment adds something to the topic at hand. It really is one of the driving forces behind my motivation to post. I guess I feel that even if I'm not particularly helpful or smart on any given day, the comments usually bail me out and can provide some great discourse. That's what we're all here for right? Why, just the other day I got someone asking in my Affliction Threads linked on the left there for some help and advice on a Destruction Spec. It was particularly touching because it was really a question asked towards a community, not towards me in particular, and it made me think "wow, I apparently have a community of knowledgeable 'locks around these parts" which is great stuff. Really, to have people trust enough and feel comfortable enough to lay it out and ask for advice is something I think all bloggers strive for, and I can't take credit alone for that... it's largely a function of my readers and for that I think all of you.
Oddly out-of-character emotionalism aside, where was I? Oh yes, QotD. Well, it's going to go like this. There may be a post, there may not, depends on how time treats me. I will try, however, to come up with at the very least, a question that is on my mind. I'll probably throw down some quick thoughts, but it may not be full-post worthy. Hopefully it will be game related (obviously), but the goal is the get some feed back. Maybe the answers will spawn posts of their own, who knows. The point is that I want to keep up a regular daily type thing, but may not always have the time to craft a full post, so we'll see how it goes. I imagine we could have some pretty neat discussions. It will probably be shorter than my normal fare, but, hey, we all probably have backlogged feed readers anyways. I just didn't want you guys to think I'm going anywhere or not keeping up with things. You can definitely expect expectant eyes on looming patches and expansions.
In any cases, let's get this party started with today's QotD:
For an extremely time-limited raid group (say once a week for two hours), how do you manage raid resets?
You can answer both from personal experience or from logical theory. As I've explained before, this is really the boat we're in. We raid ICC-10 once a week for two hours. That's it. That's all most of us can squeeze into our busy schedules. It's sort of a niche since I really think everyone involved is a great player and people who love games in general, but have a lot of other RL obligations. Whether it be kids, jobs, or other hobbies, we just can't dedicate the time to WoW that other raiders usually do. I've said before that we make up for it by researching, reading, and (some of us) writing about the game. We're those kind of players, and we've been really successful so far.
One conundrum, however, seems to be how often we should reset the raid ID. The trade-off is quite simply between gearing and learning. On one side, if you do not reset, you get a lot more attempts at the latest road block (Rotface for us). On the other side, you get to gear up to perhaps ease the learning curve, but don't even necessarily get to the "new" stuff. Really, it's a question of balance. You have to balance getting learning attempts with continue to gear your raiders, and do it all without burning anyone out or causing frustration at lack of progress. I think we've done a really good job so far with this, but we haven't really used a guideline or anything, sort of playing it by ear. If it was the weekly, we'd reset. Then we'd also reset some other times too. I believe we're going to reset today after getting a good 11 learning attempts last week. It's probably a good move, but I wondered what others are doing. Hence, QotD... nooooooow, go!
Some of you may of have noticed the lack of an IC Friday last week. For that, I apologize. Really, those are the only days I feel bad about missing because I do so enjoy writing them. Still, life beckoned...
I wanted to relate this not as the obligatory "sorry my posting is on the fritz" post, but to explain a forthcoming change of approach on my part. You see, time is not going to cooperate for perhaps the next few months, and when moving there is always the threat of being (*gasp*) without internet for some stretches of time, so I really don't know how the next few months are going to go. I usually strive to be quite regular in time, quantity, and length of post (I am, after all, a creature of habit), but I'm afraid that's going to be a lot more difficult to anticipate in the coming weeks. As such, I'm going to institute a new "Question of the Day" feature.
The QotD feature here at KeS stems directly from the fact that I believe I have a stellar group of readers who often add insightful and helpful comments. Honestly, that's one thing I've really been surprised about and thankful for. I rarely get trolls; nearly every comment adds something to the topic at hand. It really is one of the driving forces behind my motivation to post. I guess I feel that even if I'm not particularly helpful or smart on any given day, the comments usually bail me out and can provide some great discourse. That's what we're all here for right? Why, just the other day I got someone asking in my Affliction Threads linked on the left there for some help and advice on a Destruction Spec. It was particularly touching because it was really a question asked towards a community, not towards me in particular, and it made me think "wow, I apparently have a community of knowledgeable 'locks around these parts" which is great stuff. Really, to have people trust enough and feel comfortable enough to lay it out and ask for advice is something I think all bloggers strive for, and I can't take credit alone for that... it's largely a function of my readers and for that I think all of you.
Oddly out-of-character emotionalism aside, where was I? Oh yes, QotD. Well, it's going to go like this. There may be a post, there may not, depends on how time treats me. I will try, however, to come up with at the very least, a question that is on my mind. I'll probably throw down some quick thoughts, but it may not be full-post worthy. Hopefully it will be game related (obviously), but the goal is the get some feed back. Maybe the answers will spawn posts of their own, who knows. The point is that I want to keep up a regular daily type thing, but may not always have the time to craft a full post, so we'll see how it goes. I imagine we could have some pretty neat discussions. It will probably be shorter than my normal fare, but, hey, we all probably have backlogged feed readers anyways. I just didn't want you guys to think I'm going anywhere or not keeping up with things. You can definitely expect expectant eyes on looming patches and expansions.
In any cases, let's get this party started with today's QotD:
For an extremely time-limited raid group (say once a week for two hours), how do you manage raid resets?
You can answer both from personal experience or from logical theory. As I've explained before, this is really the boat we're in. We raid ICC-10 once a week for two hours. That's it. That's all most of us can squeeze into our busy schedules. It's sort of a niche since I really think everyone involved is a great player and people who love games in general, but have a lot of other RL obligations. Whether it be kids, jobs, or other hobbies, we just can't dedicate the time to WoW that other raiders usually do. I've said before that we make up for it by researching, reading, and (some of us) writing about the game. We're those kind of players, and we've been really successful so far.
One conundrum, however, seems to be how often we should reset the raid ID. The trade-off is quite simply between gearing and learning. On one side, if you do not reset, you get a lot more attempts at the latest road block (Rotface for us). On the other side, you get to gear up to perhaps ease the learning curve, but don't even necessarily get to the "new" stuff. Really, it's a question of balance. You have to balance getting learning attempts with continue to gear your raiders, and do it all without burning anyone out or causing frustration at lack of progress. I think we've done a really good job so far with this, but we haven't really used a guideline or anything, sort of playing it by ear. If it was the weekly, we'd reset. Then we'd also reset some other times too. I believe we're going to reset today after getting a good 11 learning attempts last week. It's probably a good move, but I wondered what others are doing. Hence, QotD... nooooooow, go!
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