Matticus

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

How to: Maximize Your Raid’s Potential with Special Teams

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WOW! What a way to end Thanksgiving Weekend. I managed the catch the Cowboys vs Bills game on TSN. I have a whole newfound respect for the sport. I’m amazed at all the plays by both teams. Five interceptions? I figure that’s a lot. That’s the best game of football I’ve seen since Remember the Titans. A wiseass would then remark “Well what football games have you seen since Remember the Titans?”. To which I would respond “None!”. But the literally down-to-the-wire win by Dallas is an attitude that should be adopted by everyone. Two seconds can be all it takes to from a humiliating wipe to a resounding boss kill (along with special teams play which we’ll get to in a moment).

Today’s piece is about organizing your raid. You’ve got your 25 members ready to go. You’re excited for Gruul’s because it’s the first time you’ve ever done a 25 man. You’re pumped and and the adrenaline rush hits you as you take down the first Ogre showing him whose the man: You. Then you come up against the High King and his goons and now you’re left gaping in awe because you’re not sure how to set up your groups, right? Face it. With the many different races and classes available, there are multiple auras and passive racials to take into account.

Enter Special Teams

Your raid consists of five separate parties. Special teams are important in Hockey and other sports. You want the Power Play units to generate and capitalize on scoring chances. You want your Penalty Killers to fend off the opposing team out numbered. I’m sure Football has numerous cases of special teams but I don’t know the names of them yet (That’s my goal for the end of the year). How you set up your parties in your raid can make the difference between a 1% wipe and a Guild first down.

What follows is a unit-by-unit break down of a hypothetical raid. This will be your standard, generic, default, 1st unit raid set up against trash and some bosses which assumes the following:

You’re using four tanks (Two Druids and Two Warriors)
7 healers (3 Paladins, 3 Priests, a Resto. Shaman)
14 DPS (3 mages, 3 warlocks, 2 hunters, 2 rogues, 1 warrior, 1 enhancement shaman, and 2 shadow priests)

Unit 1: Tanking Unit

This is the group your Main Tank (Henceforth known as MT) is in. What you are concerned here with isn’t damage dealing, nor mana regenerating, or the like. The main objective of this unit is to survive as best as possible which means loading up with Stamina, Armor, and whatever else the MT needs to do to stay alive.

Warrior (Prot)
Warrior (Hybrid with Commanding Shout)
Druid (Feral Tank)
Paladin (For Devotion Aura)
Warlock (Imp Health Increase)

Seems simple enough, right? Your MT here is bolstered by Devo. Aura (for the little armor it provides), the second warrior that has Commanding Shout (for temporary health increase), the Warlock’s Imp (health increase), and the Druid’s Leader of the Pack (What they hey, this bear’s tanking and should benefit from all this stuff too, plus he adds extra crit percent).

Unit 2: Secondary Tanking Unit

This is your second Tanking unit. It’ll mainly be deployed against trash pulls of 3+ or against certain bosses that have multiple parts (Fathom-Lord, High King are good examples).

Paladin
Druid (Feral)
Paladin (Holy)
Warlock (Imp Buff)
Hunter (BM Hunter)

At first glance, this unit seems like a mish-mash of left overs combined together (which it is). It’s the same principle as above except this unit has one feral druid tanking. The Imp buff provided by the warlock is a staple, and the Ferocious Inspiration from the Hunter is an on crit effect by the hunter’s pet which increases damage done by everyone in the party by 3%. Two Paladins means two different auras (Retribution Aura and Devo. Aura). In a nutshell, this is a mishmash of left over classes combined together. As you read on about the final three units, you’ll find out why.

Unit 3: Healing and Mana Regeneration Unit

Shaman (Restoration)
Priest (Shadow)
Priest (Holy)
Priest (Holy)
Priest (Holy)

This unit is your next important group to set up. You want to maximize the return on mana to your healers so they can sustain the rest of the raid. With that objective in mind, we task the Restoration Shaman here (His spell crit racial is a plus along with mana spring AND mana tide on emergency). We’ll use one of our Shadow Priests here for the mana and health returns from VE/VT. The rest of the group is rounded out with 3 Holy Priests. Note that we still have a Paladin kicking around. I would throw him in this group, but Paladins hardly ever run out of gas anyway so he doesn’t need the mana regeneration.

Unit 4: Close Quarters Combat Unit

Enhancement Shaman (Windfury is a no brainer)
Warrior (Hybrid, capable of tanking and dishing out punishment)
Rogue
Rogue (Kind of a given)
Hunter (BM Hunter)

This unit contains the Melee DPS of the group. The Enhancement shaman will rocket this unit’s DPS sky high with Windfury alone. In addition to WF, the Shaman should drop Strength of Earth and Healing Stream totems. Your Warrior is the last tank available in the event there’s an extra trash mob running around. At the very least, he’s a good OH $#%@ tank who can slap on a sword and a shield and taunt. Two rogues are in here, enough said. Our second Hunter is in here as well. I don’t know a lot about Hunters but I think the norm is BM hunters now? I’m not quite sure since I’ve been noticing more Hunter pets in raids. Ferocious Inspiration is an on crit by the hunter’s pet which increases damage done by everyone in the party by 3%. It’ll be up for the majority of the raid. [Thanks Melanne]

Unit 5: Caster Sustained Siege Unit

Priest (Shadow)
Mage
Mage
Mage
Warlock

This is your nuking group. The extra Shadow Priest again is for the VE/VT combination to fuel the firepower of the Mage and the Warlocks. Extra mana return helps to further extend the length of time that your casters can use. Shadow Vulnerability from the Shadow Priest helps the Warlock add a bit more extra punch.

I know this hypothetical raid group did not cover all possible classes or races (Sorry Horde players, I don’t know what kind of benefits your racials get). Obviously moonkin druids get no love at all (Carnage does not utilize any). There’s multiple ways to establish your Special Teams and they will consist of a variety of players and skill sets. You as the Raid leader needs to decide what is best overall for your raid Group. It’s a never ending game of balancing the pros and cons of races and classes with one another. Today’s piece was just a minor example of how to pull it off. Different bosses will yield different looking Special Teams. Bosses like Hydross will scatter your Paladins in different groups for Frost Resistance aura. Sometimes there is a particularly hard 5 pull that has all of your warriors and druids tanking and you’ll need to substitute players from your Close Quarters Unit with your Secondary Tanking Unit. Just remember to always use your discretion. Your Guild and raid makeup will obviously be far different then the one used in my Guild. Use this guide as just that: a guide.

Happy Thanksgiving Canadian Readers, and various minor updates

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As you may have noticed, I’ve changed the look of the page substantially. World of Matticus is almost two months old and the viewership has increased dramatically. I’ve recognized that fact and decided to overhaul the entire layout to become more aesthetically pleasing. A lot of bloggers like going for the dark look. I wanted to stand out a bit more since as a Priest, it doesn’t make much sense to have a dark and foreboding page (unless you’re shadow or something). At the same time, I wanted to throw my support behind my home team (Vancouver Canucks). I believe in blue. The team is now 1-1-0 (Because Luongo freakin’ robbed Iginla, buahaha).

If you notice any bugs or if you just want to comment in general, please leave a note at the end of this post so I can take a look at it. My viewing space is different from yours and I want to maximize compatability as much as possible.

Changes and Additions
Added a Flickr stream to the right. All of my screenshots and photos will be tagged worldofmatticus. The plug I’m using is Flickrss, but to my knowledge there is no way to force refresh the image feed. So images added there may take a while before they appear here.
The Main page now displays the latest post only. With this change made, it means I can do away with the “Show More” link expanding the column. Recent posts can be viewed on the left pane.
New tagline for World of Matticus on the upper right.
Facvicon added (Influenced by Kestrel)
Link mouse overs now say alternate text.
Images also gain new mouse overs.
Expansion from three column to four column look (left, content, middle, right)
Added additional posts to the Best of My World section.
Added Recent Comments to the left pane.
Removed link to my hockey blog.

Future Updates

I’m at the point now where as a Priest, I don’t know what else to write about that hasn’t already been discussed at length by other colleagues. I’m going to begin expanding to raid boss encounters and tricky pulls. They won’t cover the entire kill strategy, as I’m not the one in charge of that department. But what I can cover is healing priorities, techniques, and other things that you absolutely need to know as a healer.

Noted Bugs

Comment produces SQL garbage…
… but your comments will still appear

Fix0r’d

Leotheras the Blind Down

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LEO DOWN

And let it be said, that Matticus’ computer did strike fear into the hearts of the blind. Resist, he attempted! Carnage members were strewn across the battlefield. Hope wavered. Dwarf and Dranei fell one after the other. So did Mallet cast one final Power Word: Shield and threw himself willingly into the his Whirlwind. Then the ground trembled, the clouds parted, and the power of the Paladins spoke in unison with their hammers of justice! When the dust settled and the smoke cleared, there laid Leotheras the Blind… Another casualty to that known as Carnage.

Loot:

[item]True-Aim Stalker Bands[/item] – Florandraa
[item]Gloves of the Vanquished Defender[/item] – Langsaebel
[item]Gloves of the Vanquished Hero[/item] – Troen

Introducing Another Feature Writer, and Healing in PvP

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With the advent of examinations and other academic nightmares approaching, I found myself hard pressed to solo blog. Enter Pwyff: Restoration druid, PvP Veteran, and friend. He maintains his own blog over at Gameriot while allowing me the pleasure of relaying it to my viewers whenever applicable.  

Today’s column comes from Pwyff. It starts with healing in Player vs Player combat. If you’re already aware of this, just skim it and come back next time. He’s working his way up from the bottom. Expect to see more advanced topics coming soon. If anyone figures out what an Ooglar means, please tell me.

Top 3 PVP Rules as a Healer:

1.) Don’t be fancy!
I sometimes find that healers will get too caught up trying to bait out CSes and interrupts. Quite simply, I’ve seen a WAR+PAL team go down because I decided to go Bear and intimidate the heals. The Paladin spent so much time watching me and trying to fake out an interrupt that his Warrior died while I sat in Bear and looked threatening. If you’re going to bait, fine, bait, but don’t be stupid and fancy with your stopcasting macros.

2.) Be aware of your surroundings! Don’t simply watch everyone’s HP levels all the time!
Keeping aware of where that Warlock is so you can line of sight a key fear is the sign of a good healer versus a bad one. If you see an enemy Druid getting focus fired, and he goes Bear; stay out of line of sight! This can severely cripple the Druid’s ability to get away from everyone by Feral Charging you.
If you see a Paladin or Priest trying to get close to you, run away! A lot of the time, they’re trying to get in that HoJ or Psychic Scream that will put a severe dent in your capabilities to do things. Keeping aware of your environment while healing ultimately leads to an increased capability of healing as well.
Furthermore, by keeping tabs on where your players are, and keeping communication lines open, you can create advantageous scenarios by positioning yourself in key protected areas where you can predict your players to be, and then get off heals. Finally, it prevents you from getting LOSed by your own team when they panic and try to run away.

3.) Keep everyone topped off, or as high as possible.
Only in very specific battles is mana efficiency valued at even near your capability of keeping an individual alive. Thus, while I’m sure it does pay to be as mana efficient as possible, do not make it your priority. Your priority should be always trying to keep your teammate(s) out of burst HP levels. That is to say, out of the level in which a team can consistently ‘burst’ your player down via a full out CD spam, or even a Mage pet nova, frostbolt, ice lance vomno. The logic stems from the fact that having no mana is better than having nobody alive. At least, last I checked.

Top 3 PVP Rules as a DPSer:

1.) Don’t be fancy!
This comes a second time around for the arena DPSer by the simple that some individuals tend to get carried away trying to create some kind of insane vanish immune cheapshot full-parry-chun-li-special type of thing. If you don’t think you can do it, and in attempting to do it, you mess up your chances at bursting someone down, don’t do it.

2.) Control is often greater than DPS!
This is always and constantly true. As, say, a Warlock, you may feel completely inclined to set up your full UA dot cycle on everyone within your grasp, but if this means that the Mage can’t sheep anything, you have to ask yourself; should I really be UAing the Pally?
The answer is no, so stop fucking doing it.

3.) Trust your healers!
As a DPS, you may find that when you get to a scary low digit of health, you’ll panic and turn Sword+Shield Defensive tanking (thus losing your team MS), burn a talent to get the heck out of there, or quite simply, run.
Don’t do it! Keep your healers in consistent line of sight, and always trust that they’ll let you know when they can’t heal you, or when they’re controlled, or when you’re out of line of sight. Arena is a team game, so always trust that your teammates will support you! This in turn will give you greater confidence in pulling off your bursts, because you won’t suddenly find MS missing on the target because your Warrior is hiding behind a pole, spell reflecting moonfires with his sword and shield.

New Computer!

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As you know, my birthday was last week. I decided to get myself a new computer as a present. It freakin’ rocks! Pictures below!
Thanks to Paul and the guys at Frontier PC for helping me out with the selection!

Here’s the specs:

Gigabyte Intel P35
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.33 Processor (1333mhz)
OCZ Gold 2GB (2x1GB)
EVGA GeForce 8800 GTS 320 MB
Western Digital 160 GB
BenQ 22″ 5MS 700:1

I added my old 320 GB hard drive in as well, so I’m sporting a little under 500 GB of drive space.

My monitor