Matticus

Matticus is the founder of World of Matticus, a World of Warcraft blog.

Goodbye Old World

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It’s time you evolved. It’s going to cause a bit of pain from the slight scarring, but it will be for the better. One of my fondest memories of going through the old world is the constant world PvP action between Southshore and Tarren Mill. It finally appears that battle has been decided. The Horde have emerged victorious. Of course, not to be out done, Alliance forces pressed into southern Barrens and laid siege to Camp Taurajo. Blackrock Mountain will soon erupt with a flurry of activity from both sides. I remember on one of the previous servers, there was a guild called the <Blackrock Mountain Police>. As you can guess, all they did was clear out the place of any Horde players.

I ran Zul’Gurub one last time and I got shut out. Raptor gave me nothing and I couldn’t take down the Tiger boss.

Memories

  • I remember waiting what felt like five years for that stupid Defias Messenger.
  • I remember AFK running looking for Mankirk’s wife during my (brief) time as a Horde player.
  • I remember that insane run from Auberdine all the way down to Ashenvale and then on to the Zoram Strand for Blackfathom Deeps.
  • I remember how desolate Desloace truly was.
  • I remember all those chicken robot escort quests found in Feralas, Tanaris and the Hinterlands.
  • I remember grinding off buzzards, scorpions and basilisks out in Blasted Lands during that dreaded lower 50s bracket.
  • I remember a zone called Alterac Mountains.
  • I remember doing that Legend of Stalvan quest and wondering who the heck was this guy and would he one day end up being a raid boss (nope).
  • I remember doing the long Onyxia attunement quest chain (Respect to the Horde players who did theirs).
  • Yeah, it won’t be the same.

What’s the one favourite memory you have of the old world?

Leetsauced

Another podcast appearance by me. This time, it wasn’t Matt the blogger or Matt the healer. It was produced from the standpoint of Matt the GM. I spoke about how Conquest came to fruition, some of the tough decisions that had to be made and the rewards of being a GM. I also offered a bit of advice to players who do not feel content in their guilds and believe they can do a better job by striking out on their own. This is a good a time as any.

And finally, you get the full story of how Matt’s raiding iron man streak got ruined by his Wii (actually, I probably lost the Iron Man streak a long time ago).

Just a heads up that the content on the podcast is considered NSFW (some explicit language).

Can’t wait for it? Here’s a brief teaser.

Full episode will be released tomorrow evening (November 23).

New class combinations?

Anyone plan on rolling any new alts? I think I’ll probably set up a Night Elf Mage. And I know some of you are curious, but this priest will remain a dwarf not a gnome.

Healing Through the Burst Damage

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Some people call it spike damage.

Others call it burst damage.

Whatever you want to call it, this attack does a ridiculous amount of damage within a short time frame and coordinated healing is going to be required to counter it. It’s one of the basic attacks any boss will throw against your party and yet when I join pickup raids, these attacks are enough to drop most tanks. Either they forget to use their survival cooldowns or their healers forget to burst heal them.

Why don’t we look at some burst damage examples just so you get an idea?

Instant, high damage attacks

Flame Breath – Halion
Shadow Breath – Sartharion
Fusion Punch – Iron Council

What these types of attacks have in common is that they have the capability to 1-shot your tank if their health is too low. They’re fairly quick and you might not have enough time to prepare for it. In the case of the dragons, you need to rely on a visual cue with regards to the way they tilt their head up.

How to counter it: Your tank healers should always keep a HoT up on them at all times. Don’t even worry about over healing at 85. There is always going to be incoming damage and their health isn’t likely to stay at 100% for most of the fight anyway. Expect your tank to hover around the 70-90% range. Use whatever visual cues you have to your advantage. Expect to work with the tanks on this one if you’ve been wiping to it for most of the night. Have a survival cooldown ready for each application. Each healer or tank or DPS with a cooldown needs to know where they are in the list. It helps to have a leader bark out which player’s cooldown is next.

Individually, you’ll want to try to time your 2.5 second long big heal to coincide when the attack lands. It takes a bit of practice, but it’s doable. Eventually, after multiple tries and attempts on a boss, you’ll get a handle for the rhythm.

Channeled, high damage over a period of time

Plasma Blast – Mimiron
Frost Blast – Kel’Thuzad
Harvest Soul – Lich King

These types of attacks last over a period of a few seconds. The Frost Blast ability does 104% of a player’s health in seconds. Sometimes, there is no warning on these either. The initial tick or two will usually go off and your healers have 1 second to find out who the affected player is, 1 second to target and start the cast, and another second for the heal to land. By the 4th second, that player is usually dead.

How to counter it: First thing you want to do is make sure that the boss ability shows up as a high priority debuff on your raid frames. This way, you can use your peripheral vision and quickly determine which player is afflicted. This is where HPS actually matters. That boss is going to do an X amount of damage to your tank in a span of a few seconds. If you can hold off and mitigate or heal through the damage, you are golden. The trick with these? Sometimes it isn’t possible for 1 healer to do it on their own. The incoming damage is either too much or the healer’s spellpower and other stats aren’t high enough to counteract it. This is when your healing team needs to plan this out ahead of time and have 2-3 healers automatically focus the tank when that boss ability is used.

In one of the future encounters, the Omnichron Defense System has an boss where they will spend about 3 seconds targeting a player with a laser. After the 3 seconds are up, it shoots a huge jet of sustained fire at that player. I had a tough time tackling it on 10 man and it put a huge dent in my mana reserves.

Being able to counter these various forms of burst damage is going to be a key skill for your team of healers. It doesn’t hurt to practice or at least visualize how you intend to go about it.

Now the question is, how does your class deal with spike damage? Remember it doesn’t necessarily apply to just raids. There are going to be 5 man encounters where the only healer you have to rely on is yourself to keep that tank alive. You don’t need to keep players topped off. You just need their health bars to be somewhat filled. Topping off can always be done after the fact.

Question: Do You Give Second Chances?

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If a player leaves your guild, would you give them a second chance? Now clearly this one of those case by case type questions. I know for me personally, I’ll tell them they can always try again with us later if things in their future guild doesn’t work out. Yet deep down inside, I think to myself, “Probably not going to happen. You left us, buddy.” Of course, if the reason is something like a raid times issue, it is completely understandable. I can’t expect someone with a desire to raid to be in a guild when they can’t commit to those times.

Anyway, under what circumstances would you give players that left a second chance at life with your guild?

Embracing the Dark Side

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I never thought I would see the day. You know, when I first started this journey on my character, I’ve always envisioned myself as that of a career healer. It was my purpose. I was to heal, to sustain, and to cure players. Restore them back to full health. I have tried the dark arts before but it was beyond my skills and comprehension. And yet, with the guild expanding to a include PvP, I noted we had a fair number of healers already. And so, I activated a dormant side of Matticus that I thought I had suppressed forever. I vowed never to use that side ever again unless I had a significant reason to do so. But the time had come.

I went Shadow.

It was amusing at first. I already had a full set of 264 healing gear and a full set of 264 shadow gear. Within the span of minutes, I turned myself into a potent weapon. For those moments, I was no longer the shield of the guild. I was now the sword. The transferable gaming knowledge I picked up over the past 10 years came flowing back. The art of chain stunning and disabling from playing hundreds of hours of DoTA. The stacking, force firing and position playing from Guild Wars. The willingness to attract the ire of 6 opposing horde players and keeping them busy for that one second at the blue gate graveyard in Strands of the Ancients so that my team mate could capture that graveyard. Everything came rushing back. I was a whirlwind of death. Targets were identified and crushed with ruthless efficiency (unless they were resto druids, then it was just plain ruthlessness).

And you know what I discovered? I can’t get enough of it. Double tapping players with Shadow Word: Death is too much… fun.

Do not worry. You won’t be seeing shadow related posts here anytime soon. I am not quite qualified in that regard just yet. For me, the time has come to learn the dark arts. By doing so, I allow myself to play both roles in our raid as necessary and won’t be quite as restricted when it comes to roster flexibility. I have much to learn.

I will strive to learn everything I can and be the best at it. Yet, I know that it is truly impossible to master something. Here’s the thing I’ve noticed when it comes to trying to master a class. I mean, if I were to graph learning the skills to master a class, I would draw an asymptote. After all, although one can always get closer and closer to mastery, one will never reach it.

Have to admit, it is a welcome pace from healing. Except I have a disgusting 24% hit from all the spirit stuff I’m packing.

Monday Mind Dump: Movember 15

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This post is what I like to call a mind dump. There is too much stuff on my mind, so I figured I’d dump it all here so I can make sense of it later. it will appear jagged, out of the ordinary and it might not even make sense.

– PvP division is coming along nicely. Growth’s a little lower than expected, but it’s getting there. Managed to a dominating number of the battlegrounds we have entered so far. However, Conquest is 0-2 in Isle of Conquest. That statistic will continue to irritate me for sometime. Perhaps a 25 player preform of guild members and pickup players might not have enough muscle to swing victory. But being shut out of our island?! This transgression must be avenged.

– On the one hand, I would love to try my hand and leading some preforms. On the other hand, I don’t know if I have the ability or time to with all the other stuff I need to do.

– Thinking ahead to the opening weeks of the expansion. Who is leveling what professions and what recipes are we going to need to progress into raids? Obviously the main enchanting and jewelcrafting recipes will be a priority. There is also the crafted stuff to consider. Under our loot council system, whoever acquires a crafted epic won’t be rolling on the normal raid gear for that slot until everyone that can use it already has it. So if I make a Belt of the Depths for myself, I’ll end up passing on all cloth belts out of the raids in favor of other clothwearers who still need a belt. We need to think big picture on the gear route to minimize any wasting of gear.

– Speaking of professions, I’m not sure how many gatherers we have. That’s going to put a dent in the ol’ Conquest credit card especially if I need to make purchases of stuff.

– The Movember stache is coming along nicely. Sadly, no SS means it didn’t happen.

– Read a nice piece on playing to win versus playing not to lose. Good subject to explore later on. It compares taking risks for big gains versus staying steady and making safe decisions. Do you push DPS to phase Lich King early so you don’t have to deal with Defiles or Valks (and consequently risk getting them at the same time?) Or do you wait for them to spawn, then deal with them, and then push into the next phase? At what point do you slam the table and push or stay conservative and wait? It’s like playing a an Eye of the Storm. Does your preformm go for the 4 capture or play in a map controlling manner with 2 points and continual flag running?

– Also in the middle of reading a book about being clutch and how people perform in high pressure situations and why other people choke in those types of situations.

– Helped someone move over the weekend. I’m buying a 1 floor place or a place with an elevator. 3 floors is not fun.

– Guild rank restructuring has been complete. We’re pushing 10 slots as it is. Makes me wonder if another one is going to be added in the future. Anyway, here’s a quick breakdown.

  • GM (That’s me)
  • Officers (My awesome team)
  • Loot council (Decider of loot)
  • Raider (Raiders on the starting lineup)
  • Red shirts (Trials and players working on cracking the starting lineup)
  • PvP Commander (Preform leaders)
  • PvP Troopers (Rated BGers on the starting lineup)
  • PvP New Guys (Awaiting evaluation to see if they’re in the top 15)
  • Civilians (Socials, alts, friends, no obligation to raid or PvP, just a place to hang out
  • Normal (One of the few ranks that doesn’t require a radiation suit)

– Eyelids are getting real heavy now.

– Comparing 10 man vs 25 man healing. Not sure if you read my post on WoW Insider yet (you should), but if you’re not into reading, at the very least check out this legen …(wait for it)… dary video. Conclusion? If you’re not great with periphreal vision and standing out of stuff, 10 man raids are the way to go for you. There is more healing that needs to be done and you are triaging (tree-aging) more often. Be comfortable with players not at 100% health. On 25 though, it is much more chaotic. I didn’t know as much raid damage going on because the city was getting cleaned up right quick. But if you can manage those, the kidnapper will be blindfolded again.

10 man vs 25 man healing

– Skyline wasn’t that great.