Matticus

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

Are we Wasting Time?

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Image courtesy of rrss
First, I have a story to share for the sake of context.

One Raid

The other day, I assembled a a Guild Zul’Aman run. The goal is to keep a consistent ZA group that would run once a week in the hopes of eventually gelling together and running ZA with relative ease on a raiding off night without the displeasure of having to pug ZA groups. As usual, the group was built around a Prot Paladin and a Druid as well as the other miscellaneous classes that would be needed.

One Player

A DPS player from my Guild was interested in coming. Let’s call him Bruce. The only boss he needed was Zul’Jin and he really wanted the kill so he could get his weapon. I never really had a high opinion of this player in the first place but I didn’t care all that much about it. I just wanted to get the job done. He wanted to know whether or not this run would be a full clear. I told him that I could not guarantee a full Zul’Jin run. While my team scoffed at the idea, I exercised caution as there was still a few players who were new to the instance. I myself was rusty in Zul’Aman. Sure enough, we ran into a few bumps along the way. We started at approximately 8 PM and brute forced our way to Zul’Jin at 11 PM. The instance was slated to reset in 8 hours so we would not have the benefit of an extra day to come back.

We took 3 or so shots on him and managed to blow by phase 3 with relative ease. Unfortunately, we couldn’t follow up on our momentum and finish him off. We had a few EST players and it was getting late for them. As a result, we killed the raid and disbanded the raid.

Bruce wanted another attempt otherwise all of the efforts up to this point would have been for naught.

One Remark

A week later, the same core of us decide to go back in again. In Guild chat, Bruce stated that he’d like to go again but felt that the previous attempt was a waste of his time and hoped to be able to kill Zul’Jin again.

And that really struck a chord with me.

After all, Bruce only wants a weapon off of Zul’Jin. And if our little motley crew can’t kill him consistently enough, then that little remark implies that he would only be wasting his time by running with us. That is absolutely fine with me. I don’t really care much for the guy. If our Guild was a hockey team, he’d be a 4th line player and would see 6 minutes of ice time in a 60 minute game. As a result, I’ve no intention of taking Bruce into any kind of runs I do ever again because I’m afraid that it would simply be a waste of his time.

And I don’t like to waste people’s time.

5 Barriers of a Raid Healer – Part 3: Tunnel Vision

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Image courtesy of liquid008

Each Saturday for the next five weeks, I will be writing about one barrier of the raid healer. Healers are often overshadowed and looked over since we are expected to simply know what to do. With luck, this five part series will help you to become a better raid healer whether you are a varsity or a freshman.

So far, I have covered:

Barrier 3: Tunnel Vision

“Focus is a matter of deciding what things you’re not going to do.”
John Carmack

Even the best healers suffer from tunnel vision. Their eyes are deeply glued to the raid windows and often miss a Doomfire heading towards them (or a Spout). As healers, we are often frozen in place due to our responsibility as combat medics. Unlike our leafy limbed brethren, Shamans, Paladins, and Priests need to stay still in order to get their spells off. As a result, us healers spend precious seconds having to heal in a stationary position knowing we could go at any moment if we concentrate too much on the raid.

Responsibility

Every raider has a responsibility to stay alive. Just because we healers have methods to bring our health back up, doesn’t mean it’s the best way. Moving 3 steps right and 2 steps up can save precious mana and our own e-lives.

Just last night, I participated in a Zul’Aman run which went relatively smooth. We suffered 2 under 10% wipes on Zul’Jin. In fact, we went into Phase 5 with all 10 players alive. But alas, we wiped due to those flame geyser things. I died to them twice and I make no excuse for my own failings. I guess the blogging God saw it ironic that I would be writing about tunnel vision and decided to collaborate with the raid God to screw me over. On my part, there is absolutely no excuse. If I’m going to die, then I will die for reasons beyond my control. Total and utter shame on me. A lot of players will play the blame game because no one wants to take responsibility for it.

Not me. I screwed up, I know why, and I’m going to not make that mistake again.

Except I did *faceplant*. I wonder if there’s something in the DSM about that.

Tips

When (and I do mean when and not if) you get past the Karazhans and the Gruuls and start your trek into the SSC’s and the TK’s, the encounters get much more interesting. All the practices from “cave ins” and “shatters” should be a good start for build your situational awareness. Here’s a few extra tips and exercises that I do:

  • Maximize white space. White space is a term I use to refer to blank space or open areas. Unlike some tanks and DPS classes, we need to have our raid frames open at all times. This contributes to the clutter on our screen. One way to maximize white space is to reduce your UI scale. This can be done in your options -> video settings. If you’ve got the dough, opt for a bigger monitor. I raid on a 22″ monitor with the frames neatly tucked into the side. You can see various shots of my UI here.
  • Minimize down time. I don’t mean downtime in a in between trash pull setting. I mean downtime as in lapse of actions. Always be doing something whether it’s moving, trinketing, or something. Don’t simply stand there. Action is almost always better than inaction and it will help train you to become faster. I like to randomly move back and forth and side to side during raids where I’m allowed. Sometimes you have to in order to keep up with your tanks and it’s a good skill to pick up. When you’re moving, you need to concentrate on what’s immediately around you, therefore you need to switch from your frames to your windows. Eventually, you’ll develop a practice where you just “know” where you are in relation to the things and players around you. Your movements will no longer be random, they’ll be focus and fluid. Every keystroke, every step, every screen swivel will have a purpose. Playing RTS games help. Not only do you need to command your units in the field, you have to manage your economy and unit production simultaneously. I used to be decent at Command and Conquer (NOD) but then they nerfed tanks which completely wrecked my Crane -> Double Refinery (sell 1) -> Plant/Factory -> Factory/Refinery -> 8 tank rush -> WIN strat. While my units were moving towards the opposition base, I made sure every credit was being spent on upgrades, more factories, or more tanks (no such thing as too few tanks). Call it time management, if you will. Same thing in WoW. Boss fights are typically ten minutes. WoW isn’t just about resource (mana) management, it’s also about time management.
  • Work on your peripheral vision. When I was younger, I had a fascination with espionage practice and spying. One of the little exercises they had helped increase your ability to use your peripheral vision. The next time you’re walking home, try looking straight ahead and see if you can read house numbers without turning towards it. If you think you have it, check to see if you’re correct. I believe the reasoning was so that intelligence agents could observe their subjects without their subjects knowing they were being observed (He can’t be looking at me, so I must be safe). In WoW, having excellent peripheral vision can help increase your chance of survivability because out of the corner of your eye you can see that jet of water heading your way or some curled up flaming turkey from the sky.

Other Resources

Ego wrote an excellent piece a little over a month ago on a concept she referred to as tiered healing. It’s a great read and it offers a bit more of a detailed process in regards to prioritizing healing targets. As a Priest, I’m not as good as a Paladin for MT healing or a Shaman for raid healing. But I can switch between the 2 as needed at any time in case we get a man down.

20 Questions with Temerity-Jane

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Every week, Matt gets a chance to sit down with a WoW Blogger chosen this week by Haris Pilton. Find out a little more about your favourite bloggers as he tries to get to know them a little more!

This week, TJ of her self titled blog Temerity-Jane dot com somehow miraculously found enough time to answer a few questions.

So how did temerity-jane.com come into being anyway and what motivated you behind it?

I’ve been blogging on and off for about 10 years now – the first site was one of those site builder AOL jobbers back in 1998 or something, followed by pitas, livejournal, and eventually a self-hosted site. I kept up with the self-hosted site for a long time, until the demands of writing, responding to comments, answering emails, IMs, and even hate mail, just became way too much and I quit in a fit of rage. Ok, actually I just stopped writing it. Between my last self-hosted site and this one, I still found myself blogging – on my myspace page, or even just emails to friends, and when the whole graduating college-getting a job-becoming a real live adult thing had settled, I figured, "Well, I guess I might as well do this again." I never really stopped, through the whole 10 years. Even at points where I didn’t have a blog online, there are notebooks full of stuff that I wrote – and oddly, none of it is personal – I mean like, personal diary entries about my feelings. (Haha, feelings.) Even when I was writing stuff that only I would see, I would write like I was trying to amuse someone. Why waste me on just me! Seriously, though, I have mentioned once or twice on my own site that I have a disorder, and because of that, I find it a lot easier to communicate through text than I do in my day to day real live life, and blogging, for me, is mostly selfish. It’s kind of a validation that I can be interesting, smart and funny, when I don’t really feel like I come off that way at all on a day to day basis.

tj-2

Think the Druids are going to be mad at you for killing so many trees?

I’ve been trying to lay low in Aetherial Circle, otherwise known as "Druidial Circle." A raid in our guild is not complete unless it’s 42% druid. Now I’m probably going to have nightmares of being beaten to death by the limbs of a heard of trees, like those mean ones in the Wizard of Oz, remember those?

Which came first in terms of WoW? BRK or TJ?

In terms of WoW? I believe I’ve been playing longer than BRK, but his blog has existed longer than TJ.com has existed.

Speaking of WoW, what’s a clear officeholic like you playing that highly addicting game anyway?

A few years ago, in the fall of 2005, I got really sick. Not like, the flu – I mean really, long term, in bad shape overall kind of sick. Even when I started to recover, I was too tired to leave my house and dealing with bad pain in my legs that made it so that once I got up to my attic bedroom (where I lived with my cats, no joke), I wasn’t coming back down until I had to. So, for the most part, I was pretty much homebound for a few months there. I’m not a hugely social person in general, but anyone will go a little nuts confined to their home long term. I was playing a lot of StarCraft at the time, but the people I played with weren’t always available – mostly college students who had to do crap like "class" and "studying" and "drinking lots of beer" and couldn’t always be around to keep me entertained. Someone suggested World of Warcraft as an alternative to keep me busy until I was up and about again, and said "But look out, it’s addictive." I rolled my eyes like, "Yeah, right," – like anything was going to take me away from my StarCraft addiction. I did pick up the game, though, and installed it on a Saturday afternoon, and the next time I looked up, it was dark. Whoops. Guess they were right, huh?

What is the history of the demonic ponytail? Has it been holy at one point?

The demonic ponytail is actually a Fio creation. We were chatting on gtalk one day, and, having seen the Mr. T commercial and been unreasonably tickled by it, I demanded Fio make a guild rank, just for me – Night Elf Mohawk. Fio, being the reasonable and logical type, said, "But you’re neither a night elf, nor a mohawk." NOT THE POINT, I told him, and continued to insist. Must be NIGHT ELF MOHAWK! "Human afro?," he suggested? NO! MOHAWK! "Demonic ponytail?" "NO! It– oooh! Demonic ponytail! YESSSS!"

Ever thought about writing a book?

Kakalaki asked me the same question a couple of days ago, to which I replied "Ha!" No, not at all. What would I even write about? And could anyone really tolerate me for a few hundred pages? Highly unlikely.

You mentioned to me earlier that you were entering a temporary hiatus from WoW due to work issues. Any plans on when you will be returning to Azeroth and the Outlands?

Work is keeping me pretty busy. It’s not even that the hours have been so long this year, thanks to some great part time help (not including Saturdays and the occasional Sundays) but the pace is so stepped up and the stress is running so high that I’m just exhausted all the time when I get home. My main, a 70 lock that I had been raiding with, has pretty much been shelved for the time being. I just can’t muster up the energy I need to not only last a whole raid, but actually, you know, contribute. However, I haven’t been completely absent from WoW – I picked up work on my priest alt, he just hit 61. Leveling is all right – I can log in and play for a couple of hours, or for 15 minutes if I’m just too worn out. I’ve also been playing with the Pox Arcanum people, though my schedule has lead to me dipping out on them twice in a row now and I feel like a total buttface. But that’s also been a lot of fun and a pretty cool experiment, and I’ve enjoyed a couple of hours with them here and there as we plan it. As far as raiding goes, you can see from the blogs of Doom, BRK, Brigin and more that AC has been plowing through the bosses, and I’ve not been there. My main is also sorely lacking in badges for any kind of badgey gear, so I’m just falling behind and falling behind. Busy season is over in a month, and after that, I’ll have to see where the guild stands and where my toon stands to know what’s going to happen from that point on.

Have you thought about taking any pre-emptive measures to minimize meeting random guys in traffic intersections from happening? I hear the KGB has some great tips like randomizing your route to work.

Just moments ago, Doom was helping me with knife shopping. It’s not that I think that this particular guy is a threat of any kind – he’s probably just an overly friendly guy. The thing is, these overly friendly guys don’t realize how they come off to women sometimes – if I’m alone in my car, or in a parking lot, or any place that’s not bright with lots of people around, I’m generally going to be really on guard if approached by someone. I don’t know if all women are like that, but I’m willing to bet that I’m not totally alone in that. I know the Guy in Car story is funny, I wouldn’t have told it if it wasn’t, but the truth is, I certainly didn’t enjoy the whole experience and do plan on buying a sharp object of some kind – not to defend against this specific guy, as I said, but because this kind of stuff – that is, being approached by strangers when I’m alone – happens to me and a lot of women on a reasonably regular basis. Certainly a lot more than I’d like, anyway. I don’t plan to stab anyone, but the whole Guy in Car thing made me realize I’d like to invest in a little more personal security, if you get my drift.

tj-1Several weeks ago, you suffered an attack upon your very own principles. It appeared that your belief in Pirates over Ninjas was beginning to waiver. What has transpired since then? Are you still wrestling with your own inner demons about them?

You know, I’ve really tried to be alone with my thoughts on this matter, after broadcasting my internal dilemma for the whole internet to chime in on. I still feel I strongly identify with pirates. I don’t feel as close to ninjas. However, looking at the two, pirates are starting to look less and less badass to me, and more like drunk crusty old men, whereas ninjas are the ultimate in badass. Not being very badass myself, you can see how I would be a bit intimidated by the ninja crowd. The allure is strong, though. 

I made the mistake of once asking this to BBB several weeks ago. Seeing as you’re not in the military, I think I’m in the clear this time around. Might you have a favourite WoW or a story involving BRK that no one knows about?

A favorite WoW story or a story involving BRK that no one knows about… well, my WoW life is, for the most part, pretty uneventful. As far as stories involving BRK, the only ones I can think of involve me shrieking "AND YOU CAN’T PUT THIS ON YOUR BLOG!" at the end. So I’m certainly not going to get into those.

Speed Questions

Hilary or Obama?

Heh. No comment.

Favourite drink:

Diet anything. Except Diet Dr. Pepper. Tastes too much like regular Dr. Pepper. Which I do like. But I want my diet soda to taste like diet soda.

Favourite WoW encounter:

I have a love/hate relationship with Molten Core, since the best times I had in the game were there, but gaaaah Molten Core. I did like the Magmadar fight quite a bit though, and the Baron was just a good time. I like any encounter that makes me feel confident, like I can handle it. Right now, I would say the Black Morass event right now. It’s so orderly.

When stressed, you ___:

Cling to routine.

If you could have ONE of your in game class abilities in real life what would it be and why?

The ability to summon minions. They don’t have to shoot fire at anyone, or chop someone up with their big axe. Maybe just fetch me a diet soda every now and then as needed.

tj-3 Sports? Hobbies?

I don’t play any sports, but I like to watch baseball and hockey. As for hobbies, is reading a hobby? I do a lot of that. And I work. I don’t know if work is a hobby, but if I tell myself it is, I don’t feel so soul-crushed after a 12 hour day. I also like to play poker. I am a better poker player than I have any right to be since, technically – by the book, considering odds and chances and risks and such – I suck. I’m bad. I make bad moves, risky moves, overly conservative moves, based on nothing but the whim of the moment. And I win more than I lose. 

Top 3 TV Shows

House, seaQuest DSV and… I honestly don’t watch TV much right now. I catch some episodes of things online when I remember to, and just watched all the episodes of MacGyver, Due South, Bones and Scrubs over the last few months. As far as current TV shows, I’m sadly out of the loop. And I’m not one of those snobby pseudo-intellectual types that likes to talk about how they don’t watch TV by inserting it into conversation at every possible opportunity – I love TV. I would marry TV. I am obsessed with TV. To dangerous levels, even. But I’m also lazy, as is my roommate, and we never hooked the TV in my bedroom to the cable. 

As a veteran blogger, can you share some blogging tips and ideas?

I really wish a lot of bloggers, in the WoW type area especially, would be more aware of what is being written around them. The WoW blog thing has really exploded lately, and it’s a pretty saturated market. When patch notes are released, I can pretty much bet on the fact that my feed reader is going to fill up with people posting the patch notes. Over and over and over. Thing is, you’ve got to look at what other blogs out there are doing – the bigger, more established ones for each class or niche are most likely going to write about these patch notes as well – a site you probably even read. Why would you duplicate that? I wish more bloggers would realize that the reason they’re not getting as many hits as they want, the reason they’re not getting the feedback they’d like to see, is because someone is already doing exactly what you’re doing and they have been doing it longer, and possibly better. In a subject area like WoW-blogs, you’ve really got to do SOMEthing to set yourself apart. The day to day leveling and questing experiences in WoW aren’t that interesting since we all do them, but Ratshag manages to make it interesting. That kind of thing – intentionally or not, most times you’re just copying the same information that’s going around and around and around. If you can’t say anything new, at least say it differently.

 

Most ridiculous fantasy ever:

Isn’t this a family blog? Aside from the usual connotations when someone asks about a fantasy, I mostly think about normal people things. Winning the lottery, maybe. And even then, my fantasies don’t get wild – I’d pay off my student loans, send my brother to college to cut my parents a break. I’m even boring in my own wildest dreams.

You were once a student. Any tips for Matt on successful time management? Or pulling all nighters. One of the two. Or both.

1. Honest and realistic priorities – for example, it’s nice to say "school work comes first, always and forever, amen" but for a WoW player, it’s not necessarily honest or realistic.
2. Don’t pull all nighters. It always ends badly. Develop good sleep habits and everything comes easier.
3. Schedule your days down to the minute until you develop a more natural habit and routine and can loosen up a bit.

Shout outs to:

All my jackals, who I am hoping will count this as a post from me for the day.

TJ’s Blog: Although it’s not entirely WoW related, she has a sharp yet entertaining wit all the same. Don’t forget to subscribe!

Black Temple Fun – The Supremus Lottery Game

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Is your Supremus raid getting stagnant and boring? Are you one shotting it like crazy since there’s no challenge? Why not liven it up a bit with a lottery system?

Credit goes to the goons at the Blue Moon guild for this idea.

The Premise: Picking whoever dies during Supremus’ Volcano Phase (phase 2)

Buy in: Whatever amount you want (5G’s a nice number)

The Rules: Set one arbitrary player that everyone in the Guild knows and trusts. This is all based on the honor system. He’s going to be in charge of the gold and the picks. Let’s call him the master.

Before first pull, everyone who wants in whispers the master who they think will be the first person to die on Supremus and gives the master the 5g.

For the picks to be valid, the boss has to die. Everyone should be trying their best to live and survive. No one should be "rigging" the match, so to speak. We had an instance today where a Paladin bubbled, and Supremus went onto our mage who promptly died (for some puzzling reason no one picked him). That’s considered fair game because the Pally had to do what was necessary to survive. The mage, unfortunately died (unfortunate because I didn’t have him as a pick).

Remember deaths only count during volcanoes.

After Supremus is dead, winner takes all. If there’s multiple winners, then the winnings are divided.

In the event no one dies or if the players picked did not die, the gold should be rolled over to next week to further increase the pot.