Matticus

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

Your Opinion: Is Raiding Too Easy? Or Just Accessible?

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Here’s a post that an officer of mine wrote on my guild forums. I wanted to share it with the rest of you to generate some discussion as we head into the long weekend. Check it out! Do you agree? Why or why not?

If you partake of the wow forums you will notice a large number of QQ threads lately that divulged from the nerf wars that usually take place.

ToC is too easy!

That is a huge complaint from a very small minority!

Now its not that I disagree with the statement but I disagree with the reasoning. It is my belief, and I think it is very very true, that the main reasoning people complain about the level of difficulty of ToC stems from the following basis.

People love to lord over other people.

It is that above statement which drives a majority of people that do raid. That statement is slowly being crushed by Blizzard’s belief that all of its subscribers should have the opportunity to do content.

Now if you do not quite understand what I mean by that I will explain it out fully. In Vanilla WoW on my old server, my guild was the only guild to be able to fully clear BWL, AQ40 and most of Naxx. We had roughly 40 or so people in the best gear. Every other guild that raided struggled with Molten Core and could barely kill a few bosses in BWL.

The ego that goes along with that level of success was amplified greatly. Believe me I had every hunter on the server drooling over my gear and asking me all sorts of questions. In BGs, it was common for me to rack up 120 killing blows and 0 deaths. I could one shot people and to be perfectly honest, it felt very good.

Blizzard realized soon after the release off Naxx 40 that they had indeed made a mistake. They released the best raid they ever built and no one saw it. Only a handful of the total population ever stepped foot into Naxx. They then decided they needed to change the game and they did just that.

We are now in the world of easy epics and 10 mans. It is relatively easy to see most of the bosses in game and actually kill them. Epic gear is widely available and if you only play a few hours a week you can conceivable have a raid ready character in a month. The casual players rejoiced.

But those few hardcore people did not.

They were no longer lords and masters of there respective servers. Thus their ego shattered and the crying began in full force.

I don’t know what kind of person can define themselves by this game. I define my hobbies as something I enjoy doing. I enjoy the game and I enjoy the camaraderie of the people I play with. It’s much the same with any of my hobbies be that golf or hockey. I don’t define my existence around it though. I don’t sit around work and brag about killing C’thun in Vanilla wow or being 6 of 6 Sunwell pre nerf. But I think many of these people who do have this perception about themselves where this game defines the type of person they are.

I find that very odd and disturbing but it in it self is nothing more that human nature.

The guy who buys a Corvette because his neighbor bought a Mustang would be that person. He defines himself on what he has as compared to others around him and that very concept drives many WoW players.

It’s a strange world we live in.

What Aldo Raine Can Teach You About Raid Leading

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aldo-raine

What on earth could you learn about killer raiding and leadership from a ridiculously accented, revenge-based officer coming out of Maynardville, Tennessee? Answer: Quite a bit! If you haven’t watched Inglourious Basterds yet, I’d strongly recommend watching the movie.

The Lieutenant puts together a team of eight soldiers to go behind enemy lines and do nothing but kill German Nazis. Aspiring raid leaders would do well to pay keen attention to Aldo the Apache’s style.

What exactly does he do?

Ability to identify talent

Aldo has a keen eye when it comes to evaluating people with certain skills. When he hears of someone who’s in a tough jam that helps fulfill a need, Aldo will go out of his way to extend an invitation.

As leaders, always keep your eyes and ears open for players out there who may augment your guild in some fashion. If your guild is raiding, never turn down talent right away. Take a look at them and see if that player provides something that your guild could use.

Be direct

Don’t beat around the bush. It’s okay to pick words wisely. There’s better ways to tell someone that they need to improve other than they suck. But you have to be prepared to get straight to the point and not play passive-aggressive. Tell your players exactly what went wrong or where they messed up. After every wipe, I look through Recount and Obituary to find out the events that lead to our wipe and I’ll explain to everyone what happened. This way, we’re all on the same page for the next attempt and we can minimize the chance of that happening again.

Common sense

Sometimes it’s common for leaders to overthink the scenario. All you really need is some basic common sense. As Aldo says, “You don’t got to be Stonewall Jackson to know you don’t want to fight in a basement.” When it comes to strategy and tactics, examine the room you’re in. Take stock of the boss abilities and the players you have.

In the Faction Champions encounter, your raid doesn’t have much room for error. It’s different every time and it’s going to rely a lot on players. Leaders need to make the right call at the right time in terms of what’s the next target and who to lock down.

Push players hard

Either your raiders are going to sink or they will swim. Push and stress them to their limits. Now that summer is just about over, we’ve all but abandoned Ulduar and are setting the guild crosshairs on both Trial of the Grand Crusader hard modes for 10 and 25 man. We’re taking a “Survival of the Fittest” mentality when it comes to selecting personnel. Syd and the rest of the officer corps did an excellent job while I was away to recruit some extra players and now it’s their chance to show why they should remain. This means continuing the grind of raiding.

As Aldo says, “You know how to get to Carnegie Hall, don’tcha? Practice.”

Set expectations

On the first day Aldo meets his recruits, he makes his expectations and intentions absolutely clear. Leaders set the bar that everyone needs to reach. For raiders, lay down a rough DPS benchmark that they should be able to hit on test dummies or on certain bosses (Patchwerk or Ignis). It’s difficult to set benchmark for healers but I try to look at their potential healing throughput (like 2000+ healing per second on some fights, or their assignments get rotated to see if they can cope).

Right from the get go, every man under Aldo’s command owes him one hundred Nazi scalps.

… And he wants his scalps.

Crusader’s Coliseum: Heroic Hard Mode Details (Updated 10:30 AM)

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Updated with more details, 10:30 AM.

These details come as a courtesy of my officer, KimboSlice and is obtained from the TankSpot forums (which is reposted on MMO Champion). Figured I’d share it (summarized) with everyone who is waiting for maintenance to expire (and who don’t actively check MMO Champion or Tankspot).

Northrend Beasts Encounter

Gormok the Impaler

  • Impale does 150% weapon damage instead of 100%.
  • DoT ticks for 80% more damage and lasts 5 seconds longer. Tanks must switch at 2 stacks.
  • Yes, you will need 3 tanks to handle the DoT rotation. All 3 will need heals.
  • Each Snobold that is out there increases his damage by 15%.
  • The direct damage from Impale will hit for ~35000.
  • Stomp on melee from 9k to 12k

Acidmaw and Dreadscale

  • Imperative for players to spread out.
  • Acid hits for 5000 every 2 seconds.
  • Burning bile is 9000 damage every 2 seconds to players within 10 yards.
  • It is expected that if one enrages, it will be a wipe. Therefore, both snakes may have to be taken down together. Not sure of this, but keep it in mind.
  • Whatever happened to that third snake?

Icehowl

  • Arctic breath does 30000 damage over 5 seconds. I suggest assigning healers to the left or right of Icehowl to help reduce increase survivability.
  • Random whirlwind on melee from 10k to 14k

Lord Jaraxxus

  • Touch of Jaraxxus inflicts ~4000 damage over 12 seconds which causes players to be affected by Curse of the Nether (AoE dot). Possible decurse?
  • Mistress’ Kiss: Next spell with a cast time gets that school interrupted for 8 seconds and causes 8000+ damage.
  • Incinerate Flesh needs 85000 healing instead of 60000 to remove it.
  • Burning Inferno (Incinerate Flesh after it’s not removed) ticks for 8000 damage a second for 5 seconds (Yeah, that’s a wipe)
  • Pain Spike from the Mistress does 100% of a target’s health over time
  • Legion Flame now ticks for 12000
  • Fel Lightning from 10k to 12k

Faction Champions

  • Spells and abilities are more potent.
  • Shaman LHW from 20k to 60k
  • Paladin Holy Light from 50k to 80k
  • Warlock Corruptionf rom 18k to 24k
  • Expect the trend to continue with the other class abilities.

Val’kyr Twins

  • Touch of Light (or Dark): Inflicts 4000 damage to players of the opposite essence every second. For example, Touch of Light will do ~4000+ damage to players under the effect of dark Essence every second. Light touched players will not take any damage.
  • Surge of Light (or Dark): Inflicts 1500 damage every 2 seconds to enemies of the opposite essence. For example, Surge of Light deals 1500 damage every 2 seconds to Dark essence
  • Shield health increased from 700k to 1.2 million (Ouch)
  • Power of the Twins: +20% damage and hit, 10% attack speed if Twins are too close.
  • Unleashed Light/Dark orb hits increased from 9000 to 15000.

Anub’arak

  • Leeching swarm ticks for 20% health instead of 10%
  • Extra add: Nerubian Ice Darter (No other details)

There might be some more surprises tonight as we head into the Coliseum. If there’s anything else you or your raid group notices, I encourage you to post comments to reflect that. As I experience the encounters myself, I’ll do a follow up post later on with more healing specific tips on getting through them.

Good luck and good hunting!

Healing Crusader’s Coliseum: Faction Champions

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faction-champions

Back from Blizzcon and now well rested. Got some pretty cool announcements coming up. I’m working on a very special project right now that I’ll disclose later.

Anyway, I’ve gotten several requests for tips on Faction Champions.

And it’s just going to be that: Tips. The same day I touched down at Vancouver, it was back to business in the raid machine. After blitzing through Northrend Beasts and Lord Jaraxxus, it’s time to check out Faction Champions from a healer perspective.

Not a traditional fight

This is the key. There is no such thing as aggro management or threat on this encounter. This is an extremely chaotic, fast paced, arena-esque fight. Players that dual spec into PvP may even wish to consider doing so for extra survival or abilities. Your raid group is going to be facing off against 10 champions of the opposing faction (6 on normal). They’re selected from a random pool of NPCs.

  • Death Knight
  • Balance Druid
  • Resto Druid
  • Hunter
  • Mage
  • Holy Paladin
  • Retribution Paladin
  • Healing Priest
  • Shadow Priest
  • Rogue
  • Caster/Healing Shaman
  • Enhancement Shaman
  • Warlock
  • Warrior

Ones in bold are your raid’s targets of interest. Isn’t it rather odd that they’re all healers?

Execution

It’s difficult to provide an exact outline of what your group has to do. The best I can provide is a general guideline. Go ahead and move your group under the Alliance (or Horde) section first before activating the NPC. It’s a good idea to take stock of what class combination you’re group is going to be facing so that crowd control can be used accordingly.

In most cases, our raid group initially crowd controls every NPC as much as possible other than healers. For example, this week we had a healing Priest, the caster Shaman along with the Holy Paladin. We opted to zero in on the Shaman first. Our Warrior tank started working on the Holy Paladin just by keeping him locked down and interrupted. Placing a Rogue or 3 on the Priest is also a nice idea.

Our basic mentality is that if we run down the healers first, then the other NPC’s are a cake walk. The next dangerous Champion after healers is the Rogue based on the speed at which it can kill a target.

This is an endurance fight. Expect to invest around 10 minutes from start to finish. Each NPC has around 2.4 million health (some have 1.9 million).

Communication is extremely important here. If you’re being pursued, say something. Someone might be able to jump in and snare or CC a Champion.

General class tips

  1. Keep the melee NPC’s busy as much as possible.
  2. Death Knights should defensive Death Grip Rogues, Warriors, Ret Paladins, and Death Knights away from the raid and slow them down. Minimize their movement with slows and stuns
  3. Typhoon and Thunderstorm intelligently. Again, use them defensively to keep NPCs away from your healers.
  4. Drop a Fear Bomb if multiple NPCs are closing in on someone.
  5. Crowd control incurs diminishing returns. Example, after casting 3 Polymorphs on one Champion, it’ll become immune to Polymorph. Spread that CC out.
  6. Offensive Dispels are a virtual requirement. Shamans should be Purging, Priests should be Dispelling. Things you want to get rid of are Druid HoTs and Shaman Earth Shields.
  7. If you have a PvP Trinket, consider equipping it for the fight.
  8. Heroism/Bloodlust on the initial pull. The sooner you kill an NPC or 2, the easier it becomes.

For Priests

As a Priest, my limited arena training has taught me two important skills: Running and healing. If you can manage to run and heal at the same time, you’ll be in good condition. I mainly stuck to firing off blind Mass Dispels (targeting an area with a lot of traffic and hoping it connects) and specific single target Dispels. Keep Shields active on players who get focused and are soft. Don’t bother with mana burning or mind controlling.

Use Psychic Scream everytime it’s available. Just run into a crowd and drop the fear bomb.

Your first priority is to keep yourself alive. If you have to run, drop what you’re doing and run. This isn’t exactly a fight where you can sit there and just grind heal your way through.

Use your defensive cooldowns liberally. Pain Suppression and Guardian Spirit will save lives. After I see a big spike on someone, I’ll drop a cooldown on them. If I see 3 Champions close in on a player, I’ll drop a cooldown on them. If I get death gripped, I’ll crap my pants then use a cooldown on myself (No joke. That Death Knight is a pain).

For Druids

This is just from me watching Sydera. Hopefully she’ll chime in here at some point. I’ve seen Druids use their Cyclone in between healing on various NPCs. Reserve Roots for melee NPCs if they’re chasing after people. Go cat form to put distance between you and Champions. If you’re out of tricks, it’s bear form until the Champion gets peeled off you.

For Paladins

Platewearers are usually durable in this one. Have the Hammer stun ready and use it when the cooldown is up. Hand of Sacrifice or Divine Sacrifice and follow it up with a Paladin bubble to help out the raid. The Champions are smart enough to occasionally focus fire on one target.

For Shamans

I reconfigured my totem setup to include Earthbind, Cleansing, and Grounding totem. Every so often, I’d run into a crowd and drop them all down again. Really aware Shamans will know to keep a healer focused and Wind Shear to help with the interrupting process. Bonus points if you can squeeze off Frost Shocks on a Champion who is chasing someone. Do all that while healing, and your raiding group will love you.

Hope this helps! Feel free to comment below with any extra tips or tricks in general or against specific Champions.

Good luck!

Happy 2nd (belated) bloggaversary!

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I absolutely, completely forgot to mention this. But on day 1 of the convention (August 20th), World of Matticus turns 2 years old. We may be one of the oldest blogs around, but we’re still going strong!

Thanks for your support and reading… ness. I’ll be back on schedule soon enough. I’m trying to exploit and enjoy California as much as I can. Gosh, I wish I could live down here and find a career here as well. It’s so beautiful. Hardly no snow, no rain.

On the other hand, I encountered this “Socal” traffic on the 5 on the way home. I’ll never understand it. Some times we speed along just fine and then we’ll hit a stop where it slows to a crawl and then we speed back up again.

Also, meeting real people who read blogs especially this one? Completely surreal experience. Difference between commenting, tweeting and actually shaking hands, hugging, and chilling around a table with beers. I am always willing to do more of the latter.