Matticus

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

5 Things about WoW (post TBC) and How I Would Fix Them

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Matt’s Note: I’d like to introduce another writer. Ryan “Doc Holiday” has been a friend for many years. He also plays World of Warcraft with a Hunter as his main. He’ll usually post one or two days out of the week. His columns can be found under Ryan’s Rants on the side. Enjoy!

5. Heroic Dungeons

Now to be honest I’m not wholly against the idea of “beefing” up instances and offering up some decent epics but… something got lost in the translation. I don’t think it was Blizzard’s intentions that heroics become a nightmare of micro management for CC classes but thats what they got much to the chagrin of any non CC class in the game. Not only that its a nightmare for priests (2 shot wonders) or Druids (I wish i had some aggro management or at least let me cast heals in bear form) but the testing for heroics had seemed to be play tested with a group consisting of tier 6 Warrior, Holy pally, Mage, Mage, and a Mage. Now people are going to tell me “Hey Heroics are a success” and they probably would be right but that doesn’t stop me from hating it anyway.

How I would fix it

Making trash hit like a brickhouse and have a ton of health doesn’t make the game more “epic”. Well designed instances and fun encounters do. e.g…black morass. Whoever made Black Morass I would promote him and see what they could do with Heroics cause its got to be better then whatever fool suggested mobs that hit for a billion and have more health then Tidewalker.

4. Epic flying Mount

I can’t think of a bigger time and money scam then the epic flying mount. Question. Why would you spend 5000 gold on something that is completely irrelevant to game play? Oh people come back with “It helps me farm faster”… Really if you’re good enough to farm 5000 gold then why do you need an epic flying mount? This one item has basically done two things: Inflate the cost of everything on the auction house and keep gold farming companies in business. The first thing is probably good for Blizzard it keeps people playing longer. The second is well not good for Blizzard unless they secretly own the gold farming companies.

How I would fix it

It should be some grand quest that believe it or not… Takes time. The idea for daily quests is a good one but could be put to better use with a grand quest spread out over weeks or even months. Only the truly dedicated would complete these “epic” quests. Is it truly awe inspiring to see Johnny McCreditcard or Bill the Overpowered Warlock Mote farmer of doom flying his epic flying mount around all the other thousands of people with theirs? Truly epic indeed.

3. Time equals Gear

What ever flavor it comes in, Arena, Battlegrounds, or Reputation gear. Rewarding someone by simply playing is too me the lowest form of mediocrity. I would think as a 2000+ rated arena team its pretty degrading to see that hard earned arena gear on some team that maintains a even record. Yes the drive to be good is kept alive in wow. Want to earn gear? AFK in a Battleground, repeat, get easy epics. Grind Mechanar on easy mode, get an epic. Thats right people don’t excel because we know your too stupid to do anything that requires the smallest amount of skill.

How I would fix it

First and foremost: Arena teams must achieve and maintain a certain rating for certain gear. Failure to do so means you cannot wear that gear or purchase that gear in the future. No more points for “winning” or “losing” a Battleground. You get points for doing what you should be doing. Whether its dpsing or killing blows to healing or flag capturing or flag defending. No more Reputation gear. It would be replaced with Hero Gear. Tired of shadow labs? How about doing it without CCing anything? doing it in an hour or 45 minutes or 30 minutes? Reward people for the skill that is required to do these feats because you would be in fact training them to be better players and maybe just maybe you would have more then .01 percent of the total wow population doing the things you spent a lot of time developing like the Black Temple.

2. The Forums

I cannot think of a bigger cesspool and waste of time as the official forums of WoW. Trying to find useful and helpful information is harder then finding a needle in a haystack. Is everyone that plays wow a crystal meth addicted moron? If you read the wow forums the answer would probably be yes. What should be resource for the 9 million subscribers has turned into a never ending forum for trolls, criers and flamers. On the plus side it has created a huge offshoot industry of websites offering dedicated wow gamers the things they really need.

How I would fix it

Scrap the forums. Blow them up and start again. Hire a ton of moderators and have them deal with troublemakers right away. For those helpful and talented wowers out there give them a job and have them contribute full time to help make the game more enjoyable for everyone. There are plenty of great websites out there that do just that, for those that are for beginners (WoW Insider) or to the more advanced (elitist Jerks).

1. Trash

Oh lord give me strength after this wipe to battle through another hour of trash clears so that I do not take my own life in rage. You know I listened to Blizzard’s raid discussion and their attempt to defend the amount of trash in its raid and I just wanted to scream BS the entire time. No one can tell me that more trash is better or equal to less trash with more difficulty. The idea of putting trash into an instance to let you know that if your not ready for this instance yet is ludicrous. Bosses should be the test for guilds not trash. End of story period. Time after time again the thing that ends raids for almost every guild is a re clear of trash in starter raids of SSC and TK. You would think they would have learned something from the most successful raid instance of all time and no I’m not talking about Naxx I’m talking about BWL. Two quick boss encounters that were challenging some nasty trash that tested your tanks, dps and gear, a timed room clear that kept everyone on there toes to a boss that was tied into those timed rooms. Follow that up with some new and interesting trash 3 quick dragon bosses, the big doggie, then the end boss and what you had was 3 or so hours of fun. Now its an hour of trash followed by 2-4 attempts on a boss thats very unforgiving with mistakes.

How I would fix it

I am not saying eliminate trash but what I am saying in its current state is it either needs to be reduced or have its re spawn time increased. I once heard a Blizzard developer say that trash should be “relaxing”. Well I don’t want my pallies relaxing when I get poisoned and they don’t cleanse me instantly so i die. I don’t want my tanks relaxing when enraged Murlocs are running around 1 shotting healers. In the future, trash should be either tied into a boss encounter in a 15-20 minute cycle or removed entirely. Attumen is a good example of how trash affects a boss encounter, it adds a sense of urgency to the encounter without making it seem horrid if you have to do it again. If there is no trash then boss encounter should be difficult or long. Razorgore is a perfect example of a encounter that was interesting, chaotic and long. It felt truly epic and was followed up by a short but difficult encounter in Vael. How many times did you wipe on Vael? I know some nights it would take hours to down him but the important thing is it kept making us come back no matter how long it took.

Tidewalker down, and more Shamanisms

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Two tries, one dead water bubble farting giant. It’s about damn time. All we had to do was get a prot specced pally to tank the murlocs and we were set!

Loot:
[item]Pendant of the Lost Ages[/item]
[item]Pauldrons of the Argent Sentinel[/item]

Update: I made a section purely for Shamans where everything Shaman related will go. I’ve added two of my Restoration specs for both PvP and PvE use. I didn’t explain most of the abilities because I think they’re fairly self explanatory. I added notes on the different points you could off spec.

Shamans and You

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Sorry guys, I had a 12 hour double shift on Saturday which reduced any thought of me writing. I’ll make up for it with a double header today. I’ve written virtually nothing about my Restoration Shaman. Let’s change that shall we?

As a Restoration Shaman, you are nothing but a support class. You’re not expected to DPS with Lightning Bolts or Shocks or what have you. Unlike a Priest where we can Flash Heal, Greater Heal, and PW: Shield players, Shamans are expected to assist offensively and defensively.

Offensive Arsenal

Purge: Similar to a Priest’s dispel, except it can only be used offensively against enemy targets. Unfortunately, it cannot be used against friendly targets to removed debuffs. At later levels, it can remove two at time.

Earth Shock: This is an interrupt spell. It’s pretty straight forward. If Aran starts casting a Frostbolt, press it. It also silences that school of magic for several seconds.

Frost Shock: This is a slowing magic effect. It’s like Frostbolt but without the massive damage and it’s instantaneous (like all shocks).

Flame Shock: Deals initial damage, with subsequent DoT Damage applied afterwards (Mind Blast followed up with SW: Pain).

Nike Shock: Makes a target run faster (Boy don’t I wish that was real).

Lightning Spells: Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning are the two mainstays in terms of pure damage dealing. Chain Lightning affects three targets within relatively close proximity of each other but contains a cooldown. Lightning Bolt just hits one target but has no cooldown.

Heroism: Alliance Shamans get the 40 seconds of increased haste to spells and attacks. Good finisher.

Defensive and Healing Spells

Earth Shield: The giant brownie floating around players is a must get talent for any Restoration Shaman. Unlike Power Word: Shield which absorbs and prevents damage being applied to a player, Earth Shield will automatically heal at random whenever a player is hit. The threat is redirected to the player who has Earth Shield on. It’s perfect for tanks who need extra aggro. Think of the spell as a 10 charge Prayer of Mending without the bouncing effect to other players. The only downside? At level 70, it costs a whopping 900 mana.

Healing Waves: Nothing special here. It’s the two direct healing spells that shamans have (Lesser Healing Wave and it’s bigger brother Healing Wave).

Nature’s Swiftness: This spell rocks. It’s on a two minute cooldown but it allows the next nature spell cast to be instantaneous. Is your tank just hundreds of health away from doing? Blow Nature’s Swiftness and Greater Healing Wave and make your other healers look bad. Can also be combined with offensive spells like Chain Lightning to finish off a player swiftly.

Chain Heal: In my opinion, this is where Shaman’s make their worth. It’s similar in nature to Chain Lightning except it heals your raidmates. I’d say Shamans are ideal for healing Melee DPS groups. When Chain Heal is cast, it will jump two additional times after your first target. You have no control over who gets the subsequent two heals and the amount healed for is less each time. For about 500 mana, its some insane healing efficiency. It’s three targets healed for the time it takes to cast off a Greater Heal on a Priest on only one target.

Play Overview

It’s a little more difficult to play a Shaman then a Priest in PvE encounters. You need to maintain your totems, make sure certain spells are interrupted, and heal in between. Obviously there’s no way you will ever match up to the amount that a Holy Priest can do nor the endurance of a Paladin. Chain Healing is the big key here. It’s the ability to heal multiple targets within a short amount of time at a decent mana cost which is significant.

Toteming Techniques (for the PvP Player)

With totems, you have the flexibility to increase the damage done by casters, melee characters, or hunters (but not all three at once). They provide additional buffs like increased mana regeneration or health and the ability to automatically remove totems. Earthbind can slowdown opposing enemies within the totem radius. Fire totems can provide additional damage from another source or increase resistance against certain schools of magic (like frost).

Understand that you can drop four totems at any one time: Air, Water, Earth & Fire.

I have several default setups depending on what classes I am playing against.

Air Totems: My threes and fives team both have Warriors and another melee class. Just before we are about to engage the other team, I will drop my windfury totem for a few seconds so that the effect is applied on the melee guys. Then I will drop a grounding totem to absorb that incoming frost bolt or shadowbolt that I can feel coming my way (XPerl lets me know when I’m targeted). I’d never use wrath of air or grace of air since it’s primarily windfury and grounding totem’s as soon as it’s available.

Fire Totems: There’s not a whole lot of selection. I could drop a searing totem to annoy the other team, but if it starts hitting the Warrior he ends up getting extra rage. If there’s a frost mage, I will drop the frost resist to help with that. It’s unfortunate we’re unable to use fire elementals in arena. But I suppose having a 5 shaman team with 5 fire elementals and nearly 200 seconds of Heroism would tear through most teams.

Water Totems: By default, I would leave a mana spring totem. If there’s a rogue or a hunter on the opposing team, poison cleansing gets dropped. Mana Tide comes down if healers need the mana (frequently myself and the paladin who gets mana burned).

Earth Totems: I have three choices here: Earthbind, Tremor, or Strength of Earth. Usually I’ll drop the Strength totem to help increase DPS a little bit. Tremor goes down if there’s a Warlock or if a team member gets hit with fear close to me. Earthbind’s a last resort that I keep open if there’s any kiting that needs to be done.

Within the first 10 seconds of the Arena gates opening, you should be able to figure out what classes are arrayed against you and what totems you need to drop. It’s especially important to position them in areas where it’s difficult to target. For example, if you get the bridge arena, place your totems under the bridge if you plan to engage up top. If you get pillars, you can even leave a few in the corner behind the pillars. For Lordaeron, consider placing them up close against the tomb in the middle of the map forcing the other team to run around and shoot it.

There is a lot of back and forth switching of players. You need to ensure that the opposing Paladin’s Greater Heal does not get cast or the Shadow Priest’s mana burn is interrupted with E. Shocks (I’d prioritize the shadow priest over healers). If Earthbind is on cooldown and you need to keep moving, jump, do a 180° mouse look, frost shock, and mouselook back to the original direction so you can keep running away.

Shamans do have a lot of potential in both raids and PvP. But there isn’t one specific area that they excel in. Except raid healing. Did I mention that already?

Priest Efficiency vs Overall Success

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There appear to be two schools of thought when it comes to Priests and raiding.

Old School: Mana efficiency, conservation, rhythms.
New School: Doing whatever it takes to keep the damn tank alive even if it means going OOM (Out of mana).

Back during the Pre-BC raids where there 40 people (25 skilled players and 15 afk players), Priests could get away with following the five second rule. With the decrease in raid sizes, I’m going to make the ultimate no duh statement and say that each player has a far greater and more noticeable impact then before.

A lot of Priests seem to discourage the use of Power Word Shield until they absolutely need to citing that it takes up far too much mana for a not-so-great return. I am one of the few priests who did not spec reduced threat (Silent Resolve) or Martyrdom. I placed my 2nd tier points into Improved Fortitude and Improve Shields. Shields are improved by 15% along with an additional 20% of your +healing attached to it. I will explain my thoughts on Silent Resolve in one of my Priest sections later on.

The damage prevention to mana cost ratio sucks: True.
This leads to an impracticality of spamming Power Word Shield: True.

But listen to my next point. Even though the damage prevention scaling is not the greatest, it is important to remember that as your gear is getting better, your mana regeneration increases. You’re gaining more mana back and you can afford to cast it more often. You don’t need to spam it every time the Weakened Soul debuff is active on the tank. But you can spam it on other members of the raid who need it. Good priests don’t have tunnel vision. Even if you cannot afford to expend the time or the mana to heal another raid member, you can blow a global cooldown and shield him and let another healer do it for you while you return to your healing assignment on the main tank.

I can understand in parties why you would be hesitant to do something like that unless it was a dire emergency. But raiding is not quite the same as partying and some players have difficulty grasping that. You have access to a lot more utilities with 25 players then you would with only 5.

Ways to regenerate your mana:

By yourself
Super Mana Potions
Food: Blackened Sporefish
Flasks: Mighty Restoration, Shattrath Flask of Restoration, or Unstable Flasks of the Physician (Gruul’s Lair only)
Oils: Superior Mana Oil, Brilliant Mana Oil (If you have the time to grab Large Brilliant Shards)
Elixirs: Major Mageblood and another elixir combination of your choice
Shadowfiend

By others
Shadow Priest: Vampiric Touch
Druids: Innervate
Shamans: Mana Spring Totem, Mana Tide Totem
Paladins: Blessing of Wisdom, Judgment of Wisdom
Other: Spellsurge Enchants

With all of those effects, there is a lot of mana being returned and Priests can last for a long time.

The stinginess amazes me. I’ve witnessed tanks or other important impact players go down because a priest wanted to let their heal cast finish. If your tank absorbs a huge hit which drops them from 100% to 15%, you better take a step forward and backward to cancel your heal and light up your Power Word Shield, Renew, and Prayer of Mending. Otherwise, that extra half a second that you wait to let your heal finish could mean the end of your raid. Don’t even think about it. Just react! It’s okay. I don’t think I’ve ever met a raid leader who would get pissed off at a Priest for allowing the tank to live. So what if he’s inefficient? So what if he doesn’t end up with full mana? What kind of Priest ends up with full mana at the end of a raid? A lazy one, that’s who. I would take an alive tank paired with an “oom” Priest over a dead tank and a topped off Priest any day.

This has been one of the few things that have constantly frustrated me. When I raid with another holy priest in Karazhan and we have separate healing assignments and his assignment dies, I ask him: Did you shield him?

His response: No, I don’t like PW:S. It’s inefficient.

Who cares if it’s inefficient? The end result justifies the means.

I remember during Blackwing Lair on the insane 30 minute Chromagus fights, Priests would take turn taking breaks from healing to spirit their way back to full mana. I consistently blew Major Mana Potions, Dark Runes, and Tubers to prevent players from collapsing. I don’t think many new players know what they were, but they’re just consumables which returned mana on different cooldown timers.

If you need to Shield spam your tank, then Shield spam your tank.
If you need to max rank Flash Heal spam your tank, then you do it.
If you need to pull aggro on other ads to keep your tank alive, then macro an unequip on your weapons and bite the bullet.
If you need to heal without mana, keep a stack of bandages handy (No joke, I’ve healed ranged DPS with bandages but it paid off with the guild first boss kill).

At the end of the day, if one person in your raid is left standing and that big bad beast of a boss is not moving, then you can relax knowing that you have succeeded. No matter what happens, your duty as a Holy Priest is to the health of your raid and your tanks. Everything else is secondary only to that primary goal.

Hydross of SSC has an approximately 9-10 minute enraged timer in which he goes berserk and starts going all Tie Domi on the raid. Innervate has a 6 minute cooldown. I know that I am able to last for a long time without an innervate until the 8-9 minute marks. I made a deal with my druid where I would blow as much mana as I could within the first minute or so of the fight. My 600 damage smites or 800 damage mind blasts aren’t going to pull aggro off our tanks. If they are, something is definitely wrong with the tanks and I should just gquit. After I finish spamming Shields, Smites, Renews, or whatever will get me down to about 60% mana, I whisper him to light up his innervate on me. Voila, I’m back to full mana, Hydross is down to 80% instead of 83% and I’m back to heal mode.

Be creative, guys. Think of ways you can help the raid even when there’s nobody to heal. Improvise and think on your feet. I will stress this one more time, do what you need to do to win (short of cheating or exploiting… those are big no no’s).

Fear Wards confirmed, and why you should never swear in trade chat

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You are a Horde Warlock being beaten upon by three Alliance players. Out of the corner of your eye, you notice Howl of Terror is now available for use. Your eyes narrow and you slowly grin. You activate it and watch your attackers flee befor- Oh wait, that Rogue is unaffected. You die and curse the Alliance a thousand times over.

Fear Ward.

The spell itself is an annoyance to Horde. It is the ability to 100% resist the next Fear effect from affecting a player. The Psychic Scream of Priests are one of the most powerful spells in their arsenal. Used properly, it can provide you with precious seconds to heal you and your allies. Improperly, and it will wipe the most battle hardened players.

Tremor Totem was the Horde response to Fear Ward. I suppose it did it’s job, but not as efficiently as Dwarves (and now Dranei). That particular totem wipes off fear every couple of seconds. Unlike a Priest’s Fear Ward which automatically mitigates and prevents the fear effect from taking place, the Tremor Totem continually pulses and removes the fear effect if you have it on you. Believe me, I’ve dropped my totems within 30 yards of tanks on Nightbane. I would gladly take Fear Ward over Tremor Totem in a heart beat. The damn totem only has 30 yards, but most players get feared out of range before the effect is removed! But bear in mind, I’m speaking strictly in the PvE sense. In addition to fear removals, it also removes sleep effects, Mind Control and the Seductions of a Succubus (As stated by WoWWiki). It’s best to drop the totem immediately when your mates are hit with fear and you still retain control of your character.

But fear not Hordelings, it’s been confirmed by the blue that Fear Ward will be given to all Priests. Of course, I can’t read French to confirm that, but the folks over at MMO-Champion have been able to translate it (Scroll down a post). It may not have as much of an impact on the PvE side of things because I’m positive that Horde players have been able to adapt to the absence of Fear Ward. I can only imagine what kind of an effect this will have in competitive play. All I can think of now is Alliance are screwed. There’s too much possible theorycrafting that it’s impossible to map it all. I predict more Horde teams will be dominating in the upper echelons of Arena play. If you think I’m wrong (I know there’s someone), please do tell me. I’ve played Alliance my entire WoW career and I know next to nothing about what the Horde can do (Besides what’s been done to me of course).

On another side note, here is the worldofmatticus.com misplay of the week.

There’s this Warrior on my server who decided to start some trouble in trade chat. He began swearing a couple of times and I guess some players made good on their threats to screenshot his in game chat and report it to the Blizzard GM’s. Several hours later, his Guild is busy in SSC tackling Leotheras. He’s one of their primary tanks. I’m sure by now you know where this is going. Leotheras is dropped down to 1%, and that Warrior all of a sudden stops moving and appears to be disconnected. The raid wipes without the tank maintaining control.

He got suspended.

So, if you ever get the urge to start swearing or cussing out other players on trade chat, bite the urge and leave town or move on. It’s not worth it at all.

EDIT 23:39: Anonymous comments enabled. Discuss, praise, and flame away. Too much of the latter and consider that removed. With great power comes great responsibility after all.