Matticus

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

Where’s the Drama? And MTG Goodness

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Ever since Mike left WoW.com, the Guildwatch column was on a temporary hiatus. Today it came back into business and to the surprise (and vehement displeasure) of many, the drama section was removed!

Many readers are screaming to bring it back.

How come?

I’m curious as to why. Why do people care about the mishappenings and horrors that happen to other WoW players or guilds? Is it just sheer entertainment to read about some guy who got the Legendary bow intentionally looted to someone else? Or that this person saved everyone to raid but then gkicked the entire guild and stole the bank? Or that a top guild stole the raid ID of another lesser guild because they couldn’t do it? But then I stopped and thought further. There’s a reason why TMZ and Perez Hilton are so popular. There’s a reason why newspapers have celebrity gossip columns because people happen to find this stuff interesting! The Tiger Woods incident? Now the thing with Conan and NBC? Its all celebrity news and when interesting stuff happens to high profile people, its like whoa!

Personally, I do pay attention to the drama sections. Its nice to know at what length players will go to achieve some kind of goal. Its nice to know what those goals could be. As a GM, I pay close attention to the mistakes that other guilds and players make. Why? So that in the event something similar happens to me or my organization, I already have a response or plan of action in place. I’ll read a particular story and just get blown away the events. Then I’ll think to myself "Man, if I were the GM or if that were me in that person’s place, what would I have done? Would I have reacted the same way or would I have done something else?"

So, do you guys care about that stuff? What about it makes it so appealing for you?

A Drama blog

Now, if I were an aspiring WoW blogger looking to carve a niche for myself, I think WoW drama would be where its at. I’ve actually made plans and thoughts about starting another WoW blog that would just be nothing more than a place that links to certain drama threads or summarize different stories and events.

Do you know of any WoW blogs that center primarily on WoW drama? I sure as heck don’t. And there certainly seems to be a high demand for it.

Anyway, those plans were abandoned pretty quickly.

For one, I’d probably have to do it anonymously. I don’t imagine a lot of friends would be made going that route.

Two, there’s a lot of research and compilation that would need to be done. You gotta find a story first. Then you gotta gather the facts. You gotta figure out who is or isn’t legit, who’s telling the truth, and what’s actually going on. Lots of realm browsing to do, that’s for sure.

Three, its dependant on other guilds or people. You can’t really make stuff up. Thats kinda lame. I mean I suppose you could. A fictitious WoW drama blog? Probably more satire or creative writing than anything else.

Anyway, its not exactly a niche I’d want to get involved with. Too "hot", if you know what I mean. Plus I’m already involved with my blog, Plus Heal, NSUI, and WoW.com. I have to run a guild too. And there’s school.

If blogitus were real, I’d be chronically affected my desire to start blogs. My friends (real and online) would be unanimous in tying me down in order to make sure I don’t begin another blogging project. I simply don’t have the time for it. 

But the demand for WoW guild drama appears to be there. Classifieds won’t be there to satiate your appetite for it unfortunately.

Speaking of lack of time…

In an effort to curb my WoW time, I got back into playing Magic: The Gathering again. Oh man, I’m weak :(. I blame all my friends. They started getting involved with FNMs (Friday Night Magic tournaments) and pushed me to join them.

Damn you peer pressure.

Any MTG types out there that actively play? Wouldn’t mind chatting a bit. Also, if you play online with Magic Workstation, I’m up for a game if I have time.

I’ll be piloting this.

Red Deck Wins

4 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Teetering Peaks
12 Mountain
4 Goblin Guide
4 Plated Geopede
4 Hellspark Elemental
4 Hell’s Thunder
4 Ball Lightning
4 Earthquake
4 Burst Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Quenchable Fire

SB

4 Goblin Ruinblaster
4 Dragon’s Claw
4 Magma Rift
3 Manabarbs

(Might run Punishing Fire in sideboard instead)

Two of my friends are running Valakut ramp, one is running Vampires, another two are using mono white soldiers or something. Managed to go 5-1 pre-sideboard against Valakut, but ugh, Valakut has some serious burst.

Anyway, now that I’ve effectively cemented myself as uber geek of the week, I’ll stop for now. Depending on how often I play, I just might set up a smaller scale MTG blog or something.

There I go with the blogitus again…

Looking at the Holy Priest Renew Spec

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There is a discussion that has spawned on Plus Heal about the high use of Renew in T9 and T10 raids. Some players were asking about it and I felt it was enough to touch on and elaborate further about here.

What is it?

The Renew heavy spec: Take a look.

holy-renew-spec

It’s essentially a 14/57/0 Holy priest build but there are a few key talents that are missing. Almost all direct healing spells do not get talented. Talent staples such as Empowered Healing, Divine Fury, and Improved Healing are skipped over entirely. Instead, Blessed Resilience, Empowered Renew and Test of Faith are all taken and maxed out for amplified Renew… age.

Single target healing spells aren’t used much.

Flash Heal would mostly be used during Surge of Light procs (when they’re free). When looking at spell usages, it’ll be a mixture of Circle of Healing, Prayer of Mending and lots of Renews until the cooldowns are available. Prayer of Healing is another option when strong AoE heals are needed.

For glyphs, it would consist largely of:

A case could be made to include glyph of Renew in lieu of Guardian Spirit but that’s assuming that cooldowns might not be needed. I don’t know, the ability to boost healing received every minute is like a reverse 2 minute DPS cooldown, you know?

You can expect a really high amount of overhealing to come from this style of play especially when you are paired with multiple Druids. The line of thinking here though is to sustain your raiders and "slow down" whatever damage ticks they are taking long enough for a Chain Heal, or a Holy Light to bring them back up to the green zone.

What are the benefits?

Master of Priestcrafting, Zusterke, points out that:

  • A glyphed Flash Heal costs roughly the same as Renew
  • Both spells can trigger Holy Concentration
  • An Empowered Renew can hit with an instant heal in the 2-3k range (Flash Heal takes 1.5s to produce a 5k-6k heal)
  • Renew is a HoT and still produces healing after it is applied
  • It doesn’t require a glyph (although the glyph is handy)

Where could I apply it?

In Icecrown, I can think of several instances where a heavy Renew style would be very beneficial. Against Lord Marrowgar, Bone Spike Graveyards can be cushioned quite easily. Lady Deathwhisper, jus about every player would benefit and those caught in death and decay have an extra second or two to bail out. On Saurfang, players suffering from Mark of the Champion would have some increased insurance.

In the Plagueworks when fighting Festergut, the gases that damage the entire raid can be mitigated with a whole bunch of Renews. Against Rotface, even though the healing is halved, those affected by the slime debuff when they have to run out could move a bit further before a dispel is necessary. It’s also great for stabilizing the raid after one of those Oozes explode. When engaging Professor Putricide, preemptively Renewing the raid just before a green ooze makes contact or on any number of other aspects of the fight can grant a slight edge.

To finalize

I’m going to give this a shot this week and see how it works out. It’s not quite the same as dropping shields all over the place, but you can see the similarity when it comes to "blanketing the raid".

Anyway, it’s a style and spec to consider so keep an open mind.

Disc Priest Tip: Professor Putricide

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You know how on Professor Putricide, a player needs to inhale a potion and they turn into this Abomination thing which controls all the slimes, oozes and crap? In order for Abominations to do that, they run on something called Ooze energy (It’s basically like energy). The only way to get such Ooze energy is by (you guessed it) consuming Mutated Slimes nearby.

Actually, that’s not quite the only way.

You know that Discipline Priests have this talent called Rapture which feeds energy, rage, or mana back to the target if the shield wears off.

It turns out the Abomination works the same way.

In other words, if your Abomination needs a quick burst of energy, have a Disc Priest shield them and the Abom can just sit and chill in a slime pool for a second or two in order to trigger the effect before eating it for more energy.

putricide-shield

Note: This actually isn’t my parse. Someone sent this in anonymously.

As you can see, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t offer much. But it’s nice to have for an initial energy boost when starting out.

If Druids have that Revitalize talent, it also provides a really strong energy boost as well.

Conquest will be taking cracks at him later tonight once we take down Rotface on 25.

Matticus Reimagined

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It’s Friday, and the first week of 2010 is about to end. One of my honorary guildies drew my Priest. I like it. She’s got the shoulders right and Vala’nyr looks good.

She caught my pose when I was deep in thought about something. I wish she’d done it when I had a scowl or a frown on my face.

The next question? What the heck is up with my belt?

matticus

Shutout by Rotface

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Last night, 3 Conquest ICC 10 teams dove in with the goal of reaching the new wing. All of us were successful even though we went at slightly different paces.

Gluth’s mini brothers, Precious and Stinky, represent a serious trash wakeup call. Getting a little better at handling it but I’m still suffering 2-3 casualties in the raid. The priority is to get the current dog tank topped up fast. That isn’t the problem as we don’t seem to be quick enough in reaching everyone else. My current thinking is to bubble spam soft targets like clothwearers (players with overall low health) before dropping the raid healing bombs. The chomp doesn’t kill us, its Stinky’s fart that seems to do it. When taking care of Precious, be careful with the zombies and don’t stand next to them when they get trapped or rooted in place.

Since most of the players had worked on Festergut on the raid night before, he fell over fairly easily within 1-2 shots as we knew what to expect and how to handle it.

Now Rotface completely stoned us. He stopped all the shots the various groups had taken on him. After multiple attempts, it had gotten to the point where groups were wrestling with the increased disease spawn time (the 30% mark or so) or had proximity issues with the uber big ooze. The Ooze explosions were easy to manage.

What’s going to haunt me over the weekend is the fact that my guys wiped on Rotface with 10k health left.

Rotface juts got nerfed, by the way.

On a side note, I have to share something. Spring semester started this week and I sometimes end up getting in classes with professors with intriguing accents. In math classes or stats, I end up getting the stereotypical Asian prof (from Hong Kong or Taiwan or something) who are difficult to understand. I was pleased to discover that this prof had an eastern European accent.

In other words, he sounds like Borat.

And this is a class on International Studies.

“This u-ni-vehr-sity cam-pus is velly’ nice. Be sure to read journal article by Robert Bates for next week, yes?”

Anyway, how are you guys tackling Festergut and Rotface thus far? Problems? Can’t wait for the Professor myself.