Matticus, Author at World of Matticus

Is Atonement Healing Back In?

August 6, 2012March 9, 2011 by Matticus

I haven’t been able to verify this on the PTR yet, but Atonement healing might be a go when 4.1 lands. For the past few months, I’ve observed that Atonement was simply too gimmicky. The relationship between that ability and Smite just kept going up and down, left and right, hot and cold, and all over the place. At the moment, it’s really awesome on Heroic Halfus due to mechanics of the fight.

So how exactly does Atonement healing get better?

Holy Fire damage is about 30% stronger than Smite.
Atonement triggers with Holy Fire.

I believe the initial Holy Fire hit and the subsequent DoT damage get the same increase. I think the DoTs from Holy Fire may even work with Atonement (But I’ll need to check). If Atonement healing is back in, you may want to brush up a bit on that style of play. Personally, I still believe its an awkward style of play. If only because the healer doesn’t get to dictate where exactly the heal from the damage ends up. I’ve had problems where Atonement heals would land on a blood worm or something.

Smite replaces your Heal. Holy Fire would function similar to a Flash Heal with a DoT. This would be a fun way to heal heroic dungeons in and such, but I’m a little afraid of allowing it in my raids simply because I don’t know enough about the strength and viability of it. The Holy Fire changes alone do warrant a closer look.

On a side note, this is great for soloing!

For GMs – Enjin 2 year anniversary means 40% off for you

March 5, 2011March 4, 2011 by Matticus

Our premiere partners at Enjin are celebrating their second birthday! (Disclaimer: I do advise them when it comes to their services from a GM perspective and the actual links are affiliate links).

From one guild master to another, I can’t recommend their services enough. In the past, I’d use my own combination of forum software, blog software, and EqDKP hacks to manage my guild’s online presence. On of top of that, I had to stress over the looks, too.

Now I don’t know about you but as a guild master, I’d rather spend my time actually playing the game with my guild instead of having to fret over the technical stuff.

I don’t have to worry about loot tracking. They do it for me.

Attendance? That’s taken care of.

My guildies can keep track of each others blogs.

The best part? An actual recruiting form for applicants. In the past, we had a separate forum where users had to copy and paste an existing application template into a new thread. It was archaic! But with their modules, all we had to do is come up with the questions.

Their promotion started a few days ago. But it ends tomorrow! If your guild’s web contracts are coming up for renewal, consider using Enjin to power your guild instead.

Enjin offers three plans. Here’s the scoop on their current deals:

SAVE 40% when you prepay for 1 year on any plan!
SAVE 40% on all themes and headers!
SAVE 30% when you prepay for 6 months on any plan!
SAVE 20% when you prepay for 3 months on any plan!

Their Ultimate plan is the best value if you opt in for a year. With the 40% discount, that’s $17.97 a month. For smaller guilds, Premium might be the better option for you. For a year on the same promotion, that’s a $5.37 a month.

That’s approximately three dollars a month without having to fret about technical issues, upgrades, or other problems.

But hey, if you’re still sceptical about their services, you can always move your entire guild and try out their premium plan for a month first. See how your guild likes it.

Hurry! You only have a day left before the deal expires!

More Frequent, but Smaller Content

March 4, 2011 by Matticus

Yup, I saw the post too. My heart sank a little bit when I read it. With 4.1 on the PTR, I thought for sure we’d be able to get some new raid action in fairly soon.

Nope! Not the case. We get Zul’Aman and Zul’Gurub in 4.1 (which is awesome, by the way. It’s as if the difficulty level for 5 mans just got reset. It’s the same feeling I got when I entered heroics for the first time in quest or reputation blues).

In the past, updates were fairly large and substantial. I remember the Sunwell patch when it first debuted had a new raid, a new daily quest zone and a new 5 man. The Trial of the Crusader 3.2 patch introduced had a new battleground, a new raid, a new 5 man, druid models and other stuff. I can’t help but wonder how less bored would the player base have been if those releases were staggered.

The problem with this new system is that new things coming out may not be appealing to everyone. Zul’Aman and Zul’Gurub might not appeal to the old school variety. Maybe a new future battleground gets released but as I don’t PvP very often, I wouldn’t exactly be diving head first into it either. Instead of one large patch with stuff that’s cool for a wider variety of players, the new design approach is smaller updates with stuff that’s cool for a certain subset of players. I can’t say for how its going to be. I haven’t participated in this type of model before. But you know, I’m totally willing to chance it.

On the plus side, this grants us additional time to get as deep into heroic raids as we can. After 65 attempts, we finally took out Nef. We threw a curveball in our progression and took down heroic Halfus last week. Our sights right now are going to be aimed at Al’Akir on Monday. After that, it’s a toss up between Al’Akir, heroic Chimaeron or heroic Atramedes.

Haven’t quite decided which way to go yet.

Maybe I’ll flip a coin.

Enjoy the weekend.

Matticast Delayed This Week

March 2, 2011 by Matticus

Long story short, I apparently mouth breathed like a boss into my mic the entire show. This among other issues means that Episode 10 will be slightly delayed. But oh man, it’ll be an exhilarating one! We roped in a surprise guest as we discuss the finer things in life like chicken nuggets and engage in heated, yet lively debates on what type of pizza is the most superior (Meat deluxe: Meatball, sausage, pepperoni, beef, pesto chicken and ham. Or the heart attack pizza).

Just kidding!

More raiding tips, everything you ever wanted to know about Battle Res and the steps you need to take both personally and as a guild to transform into a performance oriented raid group.

Keep the e-mails coming! We love reading ’em. If you have any questions or problems in your guild, we’ve got a listener line. Chances are, you might have a problem that other players or guilds are experiencing. Go ahead! Be that kid who raised their hand in a class of 600 people to ask a question that was on the mind of everyone else (Unless there’s like less than 10 minutes to go until the end of class, then keep your hand down and save it for next week so we can all leave on time)!

PTR 4.1: Holy Word Sanctuary and other Screenshots

February 26, 2011 by Matticus

This post goes without saying. There are going to be a few spoilers in here. If you’re not into that sort of thing, mark as read and move on.

But here’s a look at Holy Word: Sanctuary.

Yeah.

I know.

I don’t think the graphics work is complete yet. It just seems a touch small. Actual affected radius is still the standard size. Bliky over there on the right is still being affected by it.

* Yes, that’s my PTR UI. I just picked a random compilation and set it up because Real UI wasn’t functioning properly.

The current Zul’Gurub load screen. Wonder if its a placeholder or if it’ll be updated with WoW 4.0 tech.

Quest area just to the left of the entrance as you stroll in.

Also the front area of the instance. Learned fast that the cauldrons provide a 90% magic resist buff. Once you kill that mob that’s got those tendrils attached to it, the area gets flooded with gas which is where the cauldron kicks in. Don’t dispel it. You’ll find another cauldron further down along the path.

Nesingwary’s camp under siege. Many snakes. Handled it.

Found this on the ramp leading up to the raptor boss area. Frogger, yo?

Sup Bloodlord Mandokir? Way to instan-gib me. (Hint: Remember those spirits back in the day? Yeah, don’t release)

Ran into the first boss already where the old ZG snake guy was. Dude is absolute nuts. Likes to paint the whole ground with poisons and stuff. Some kind of nature resist will be handy to have.

Note that it appears heroic level instances at tier 2 when randomed into offer 140 Valor points (twice that of current). No word on whether you can run tier 1 and tier 2 for a combined 210. Gut instinct says its one or the other. Will verify and confirm later. Some problems with zoning back into the Zul’Gurub portal. Looks like theres a few phasing bugs that need to be fixed. For now, if you want to run ZG, I advise you abandon all ZG related quests. You can teleport into it via the dungeon finder. But if you die (and you will), then you won’t be able to zone in since the portal is non existent in that phase.

More to come…