Matticus

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

Bank of Matticus Goes Public

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Due to requests from certain Hunter bloggers, the Bank of Matticus Financial Group has decided to go public. As part of the public disclosure process, CEO Matticus Moneycus has decided to reveal various assets that the public needs to know if they wish to invest in this banking powerhouse. Matticus leads a syndicate of prominent WoW Investors who have entrusted him with their finances and assets.

Hydroponics

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This is but a fraction of the hydroponics sector of the Bank of Matticus. Herb specialists continue to acquire species of plants around the clock to invest in Inscription the moment it becomes available.

Consumables

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In a bid to stream line workers, over 1000 Gnomes were released with severance pay with the option to rehire within the next year. Simply put, there is too much supply of consumables and not enough demand for them.

Ore

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Efforts to equip the soon-to-arrive Death Knights are well under way. They’ve agreed to become Smithies in order to augment themselves. Here is a fraction of some of the Ore and Stone that’s been gradually accumulated.

Supplementary

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The supplementary portion of the bank has largely been liquidated or is still in the process of being liquidated. Epic gems have largely been sold as well as a significant number of normal gems. Food consumables still remain as do other high performance consumables.

You’ll notice the gold count looks unimpressive. There’s a good reason for that. Bank of Matticus finances are spread out through a network of Dwarven and Goblin banks. In the event of a security breach, it will not result in the complete loss and destruction of BMF. Rest assured, hard currency sits at the 5 digit level. But that information cannot be disclosed here for the time being. It’s a result of Enchanting mats and numerous amounts of cloth being liquidated. The fifth bank tab has been hidden as it contains sensitive items and materials. Negotiations are currently underway Ironforge International Bank of Commerce for rights and access to a 6th tab. This is expected to happen within a year as assets continue to accumulate.

Healing Naxxramas – Gluth (10 man)

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Who let the dogs out? No, really. Gluth is this really large dog that has been pieced together with flesh from various beasts (or people). He is the third boss you have to tackle in the Construct Quarter.

Abilities

  • Mortal Wound: Reduces healing taken by 10%. Stackable debuff!
  • Decimate Flesh: Consumes everything in the room for approximately 90% of their health
  • Infected Wound: Increases the Physical damage taken by an enemy by 100 for 1 minute
  • Enrages: Hits slightly harder than normal unless he gets a Tranq Shot

There’s no trash needed to clear to him. The path is empty from the moment you kill Grobbulus. There’s a green tube (pipe) that you need to go through and when you exit it, you will be thrown into combat right away and engage Gluth. Stay on the right side as you walk through the pipe.

So here’s the gimmick with the fight. You’ll need to have two tanks on Gluth the whole time. That Mortal Wound ability I told you about gets periodically applied to him. Ideally, our tanks will taunt off each other once the debuff reaches 3 or 4.

Not only that, there will be zombies (Zombie Chow) that stream in from time to time and they have around 500000 health. Those need to be kited. There’s no way the raid group can kill all of them right away.

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Kiting Methods

  • Using a mage to run around while casting Frost Nova and Ice Lance to grab aggro
  • Having a Hunter with Freezing Traps and Explosive shots grab aggro
  • There are other ways, but those are what I have witnessed so far

One more thing

Gluth does a Decimate Flesh ability that you see in the opening shot of this post. Everyone’s health including the Zombies drop down to 10%. That’s your cue to get the entire raid to focus fire the Zombies and kill them. Otherwise if you don’t kill them quick enough, they will run towards Gluth and he will consume them and gain a lot of health back. And you do not want Gluth to get healed.

Pro tip: A few seconds before Decimate hits, have your kiter run to the opposite side of the room where Gluth is to buy your raid a few extra seconds of DPS time.

Healing

I’m strongly advocating a 2 single target healer on the tanks and 1 AoE healer on the kiter approach. Tanks will be taking a bit of a beating. Normal hits on Pate for about 4500. Enrage hits on Plate for about 5500+.

Tank healers have to focus and listen for the calls. Make sure the tanks are communicating so that tank healers know when they’re switching.

gluth-3The AoE healer will be keeping an eye on the kiter. It is inevitable that the kiter takes a few glancing blows here and there. Every time a player gets hit by Zombie Chow, they suffer a disease called Infected Wound which cannot be cleansed. It wears off after a minute. The disease causes players to take increased physical damage by 100 every time it is applied. I once had 20 applications of the debuff and believe me, it wasn’t fun at all.

After he hits Decimate Flesh, the raid’s health drops straight down to 10%. AoE heals are big at this point. Have the tank healers get the tank health back to 80% or higher and spam the rest of the raid. Don’t forget, during this portion of the fight, that zombies don’t aggro onto anything. They’re going straight for Gluth.

Priests

Circle of Healing a few times to get everyone out of the red. Finish off with direct heals or Prayer of Healing to get more heal strength down. In fact, consider using Holy Nova while you’re near players and are also in range of the Zombies. Every bit of DPS helps.

And lastly, here’s an action shot of a Gnome Mage being chased by some hungry Zombies. I wonder if he gets away…

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Blizzcon Predictions from Bloggers and the WoW Twitterati!

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Whelps, Blizzcon’s just about here! I decided to activate the crystal ball that is the WoW community in an effort to predict the news, events, activities, and happenings that would unveiled at this years Blizzard convention! You’ll hear it from from the 3 of us along with other bloggers and the chemical catalyst that is the WoW Twitterati!

Dying for the return of Starcraft: Ghost. With the merger with Activision, wouldn’t it just rock to see Ghost on the CoD 4 engine? We know that dual talent specs will be explained more. I think we’ll hear a lot more from the class designers regarding design choices and intents for the various classes. I’m hoping for first shots of Arthas in Ice Crown but I believe that’s unlikely to happen. Will definitely be paying a lot more attention to the raids and dungeons aspect of the convention. And it won’t be Blizzcon without Starcraft and Diablo related news! I’ll have multiple split screens set up so I can keep track of everything.

Here are Sydera’s guesses at the announcements that might be made at the druid class discussion.

“Many people are concerned about the size of the big bear butt. We are as well, because we play druids, and we can’t tank half as comfortably as we’d like with big fuzzy in our faces. So, we’re instituting a new, improved, Slim Bear Butt form. Just apply a minor glyph, and your bear will morph into a lean, mean, streamlined-rear machine. The graphic comes with black and yellow bicycle shorts to further hold in bear cellulite. And remember, you can only eat [Raw Carrots] and [Celery Stalks] in Slim Butt Form. Side effects of this form include nausea, dizziness, and increased irritability. Those mobs had better watch out! They look tasty.”

“Now that we’ve removed the 20% snare from Tree of Life, many of you Restos will never see caster form again–at least not while you raid. So, to respond to your aesthetic concerns, Tree of Life will shift colors every season. Shifting days will be tied to the closest Tuesday to the equinoxes and solstices. We are removing the Rotten Broccoli coloration entirely. Spring Form will have yellow-green leaves with blooming pink flowers, while Summer Form will be deep green with [Shiny Red Apples], Autumnal Form will have brilliant orange-red leaves that drift, one at a time, to the ground, and Winter Form will have no leaves at all, just a dusting of sparkling snow. We would like to thank Sydera for repeatedly posting this idea for us on the suggestion forums. We really could not have thought of it ourselves.”

“We have recently heard that druids are quite proficient at 2v2 and 3v3 arenas. In fact, many in the gaming community consider druids’ mobility to be overpowered for arena. So, just for druid arena players, we have decided to implement Potted Plant Form, a new shapeshift form that all druids will gain at level 80. Druids will no longer be able to heal in caster form or Tree of Life form in the arenas. Instead, they must use their new healing-specific arena form. In Potted Plant Form, which looks just like a window-box full of geraniums, druids’ mobility is reduced by 100%, but their healing is also increased by 100%. Their resilience is buffed by 400%, but they cannot cast Lifebloom at all while shifted into Potted Plant Form. We think that the introduction of this new form will be exciting for players, particularly the forum trolls that haunt the druid class forms, making whiny emo posts every time some Druid-Warrior combo beats them in 2v2. Just especially for the arena druid, we will also be introducing the [Glyph of Potted Plant Form], which will attract cute little butterflies and chipmunks to your pretty red flowers. The butterflies and chipmunks apply a stacking spell haste buff of 10 spell haste per critter, which can stack up to 10 times.”

Possibly another expansion after Wrath (unlikely to hear about it). Definitely hear more about Starcraft. The healing trees of all classes besides Priests will be removed and Priests will get a tanking tree :). Murlocs will be a playable race. Alliance and Horde will, for the first time ever, be able to talk to each other. Full slots of legendary grade items (On a side note, why aren’t there any legendary items aside from weapons?).

Other Bloggers

Joveta: I predict a big announcement that’s non-Wrath related.  Maybe a date for the new Starcraft or Diablo (or both!).  (It is Blizzcon, not WoWcon, after all)

Veneretio: My prediction is that the new spec system will include a sandbox area where you can pre-build specs and save them. This in conjunction with a single click respec feature would allow for easier, safer, faster respecs for maximum level characters.

Seri: Lots of wrath promo. New pvp info. Dual spec ui teaser for post-wrath. New Diablo info. Maybe a demo. Class panels with lots of QQ. Photos of drunken fanboys with devs and CMs. Pin the tail on the Tauren.Felicia Day sighting.

Lassirra: Naked Gnome races and Murloc rodeos!

The Twitterati

@Medros wow 4.0, updates on dual spec and dance studios, and general fanboi craziness

@shinmeko Blizzcon predictions: Alex and I get drunk, Felicia Day stuns nerds far and wide, and Starcraft never gets released.

@isheepthings from the blue feeds it looks like they will hash out a bit more about duel-spec mechanics. rest will be d3 news.

@Laikia i have a sneaking suspicion we’ll all be a tad disappointed. But maybe a release date for Starcraft II

@honorshammer Tigole or Kalgan will make an offhand comment in one of the class Q&As that will get disected for days and days on the forums

@roflwolf  I predict there’s a potential for getting felicia day’s autograph… assuming I can rely on my friends… so, probably not. lol! Otherwise, it’s going to be E3 w/o the competition… whatever that means.

@eliah No big announcements. Overpriced collectible crap. I will stay up late posting.

@IcE_IcE_Luwin Jessica Alba will reveal she is a hardcore WoW player (plays a female dwarf priest)

@justanna  someone, somewhere, will murder a murloc horribly. I predict chalk outlines, as this becomes a new Blizzcon trend.

Image credits: mmagallan

Plan Your Raid with RaidComp!

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MMO Champion’s released a great new tool for Guild and Raid Leaders alike! It’s called RaidComp!

The basic premise of the tool is that it allows your leaders to plan raids and optimize them by literally dragging and dropping different class specs. The right side of the screen shows buffs and debuff abilities that the spec can bring.

With buffs now being applied raid wide, it would be time consuming to manually figure out what spec your players were and what abilities they had on your own. Using RaidComp, you don’t have to do that anymore.

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Right: Here you can it showing the debuffs that the raid composition I picked will be able to apply. Below the debuffs, you can see the total count of the number of tanks (based on talents), healers, Ranged DPS, Melee DPS, Mana Batteries (Replenishment), as well as Heroisms.

There are certain classes and specs that will overlap with each other. You’ll notice that Spell Damage Taken debuff is in yellow. I have a Warlock in there with Curse of Elements which increases the Spell Damage taken. There is a talent that increases the potency of Curse of Elements to 13% (Spell damage taken increase).

Alternatively, if I didn’t want the Warlock to pick up that spec or if they didn’t want to get the talents for whatever reason, I can mouse over that and it will show me the other classes and spells that can do the same thing I want. You can see what it looks like below.

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Below: And just for fun, here’s a test raid that I threw together just for kicks to ensure that I could get every possible buff and debuff so you can see what it looks like. It offers full support for a 40 man raid. Not only that, you can even export builds as links and share them with other players.

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A great big thanks to the tech monkeys at MMO-Champion for coming up with this nifty script!

Healing Naxxramas – Grobbulus (10 man)

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Welcome to Grobbulus! You’’ll run into him right after Patchwerk in the Abomination wing. Once the room’s been cleared out, get ready to grab Grobby!

Abilities

He puts a disease on players at random called Mutating Injection. It’s very important that it does not get dispelled! There’s a boss in Blood Furnace (the big floating Eye) that drops poison clouds all around the room. This boss also drops poison clouds. If the disease on you gets dispelled or if it wears off, then you drop a poison cloud.

Slime Spray is another ability of his which hits for a decent sized amount. Any players who are affected will spawn slimes. DPS needs to kill slimes when they spawn!

  • Poison Cloud: Deals a moderate amount of damage

So how do you handle it?

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The Process

Tell your tank to pull Grobby in a clockwise direction. Don’t move him too fast. You don’t want to rush him around because it takes time for poison clouds to wear off.

Your DPS and healers will be standing in the middle and shooting outwards. Melee players will be standing behind Grobby as he is being tanked. Don’t forget to kill Slimes as they spawn!

If you get hit with a Mutating Injection, run and stay behind Grobbulus until it wears off. The main idea here is to keep the poison clouds on the exterior of the room thereby leaving the middle area relatively clean. Once diseased players are in a safe position, then all you need to do is Cleanse or Dispel them. The debuff will wear off and a poison cloud will expand where they were standing. Make sure they run back after the debuff wears off.

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Healing

I suggest using a 2 healer on tank, 1 on raid setup. Grobbulus does not hit really hard and the damage should be manageable. The concern here is the amount of players absorbing AoE damage from Poison clouds. As long as they are alert and aware of where they are relative to the clouds, they should have no major issues.

Other Notes

Grobbulus’ abilities are Nature based. Consider using Aspect of the Wild or other Nature Resistance abilities (Totems?). I do not know how effective using the resist is but it could help the raid stay alive longer than normal and buy more time. I haven’t had a chance to test Nature Resist. But it isn’t a necessity.