News and Opinion

General news and opinion about WoW.

Patch 3.2: Crusader’s Coliseum Reactions

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In case you haven’t heard, some details of Patch 3.2 have been released. The biggest change that appeals to me is the Crusader’s Coliseum. We’re not even done Ulduar yet and already there’s another instance being released.

What is it?

It looks to be the new instance hub that 3.2 will offer.

Let’s stop for a second. Lots of reactions on Twitter have been knee-jerk negative reactions.

“I don’t want to 25 man joust!”
“What? A PvP instance?”

Take a step back and start analyzing. We don’t know anything about this instance yet. All we know is that:

  • There is an instance
  • It will come in 5-player, 10-player, and 25-player varieties

I want to stress that we do not know what type instance it’s going to be inside.

Speculations

I love raiding. I love looking at the lore behind it and the mechanics, the environment and so forth.

I don’t think the Coliseum is any sort of PvP type instance.

What I think will happen is that a raid group is going to march in there and engage in gladiatorial combat against raid bosses. Think of an instanced version of the Ring of Blood quests that we first saw in Nagrand and then in Zul’Drak.

Are we going to see mounted combat? It’s a possibility. Maybe half the raid is on horseback and the other half is on their feet. I honestly have no idea.

New Battleground: Isle of Conquest

A new large-scale siege Battleground where Horde and Alliance have to battle head-to-head for control of strategic resources to lay siege to the keeps of their opponents.

Not quite death match. Sounds to me like it’s another control-the-point battleground with vehicles (large-scale and siege). Now I wonder if it means large-scale as in 15 player or large-scale as in 40 player.

Yeah. Alterac Valley in siege tanks.

Also, note that it’s called Isle of Conquest. (The island part, not the Conquest part, although it’ll be corny to jump in there and go “GET OFF MY ISLAND!”, because you know my guild’s name is Conquest, hah.). This leads me to wonder if we’ll get access to naval units. Maybe drivable ships or something to attack from the water in addition to laying siege on land.

Final Notes

Don’t perceive that this is what’s actually going to happen. Take a step back. We’re only seeing pieces of the puzzle here. There could be more stuff coming out. Actually, there will be more stuff coming out.

What do you guys think? How’s my reasoning? Sound? Terrible? Are you looking forward to any of these? (Bloggers can link and trackback here too!)

Which Came First? The Aegis or the Shield?

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pws-vs-da

On my daily patrol through the Plus Heal forums, I came across this thread with one very important question by Sundotz.

If I proc Divine Aegis ( for 12 sec) and then apply PW: S (15 sec after absorbed), which shield is absorbing damage first?

I could have commissioned a study on this with the assistance of guildies. But I decided to take matters in my own hands and test it out only in such a way that true Dwarves would do it.

I’d tackle the Molten Colossus of Ulduar after activating both shields in an attempt to see which happened first. Here’s 5 combat logs with different cast sequences. Log’s been trimmed somewhat.

Test 1:

Mallet casts Power Word: Shield at Mallet.
Mallet is afflicted by Mallet’s Weakened Soul.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Borrowed Time.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Renewed Hope.
Mallet’s Flash Heal heals Mallet for 1977.(4306 Overhealed) (Critical)
Mallet’s Borrowed Time fades from Mallet.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Inspiration.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Divine Aegis.
Mallet gains 300 Mana from Mallet’s Darkglow.
Mallet’s Flash Heal heals Mallet for 0.(4185 Overhealed)
Molten Colossus’s melee swing hits Mallet for 18720 Physical.(8103 Absorbed) (3247 Overkill)
Mallet’s Power Word: Shield fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Divine Aegis fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Power Word: Fortitude fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Inner Fire fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Weakened Soul dissipates from Mallet.
Mallet’s Inspiration fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Renewed Hope fades from Mallet.
Your equipped items suffer a 10% durability loss.
Mallet died.

Test 2:

Mallet gains Mallet’s Divine Aegis.
Mallet’s Flash Heal heals Mallet for 0.(5915 Overhealed) (Critical)
Mallet casts Power Word: Shield at Mallet.
Mallet is afflicted by Mallet’s Weakened Soul.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Borrowed Time.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Renewed Hope.
Molten Colossus’s melee swing hits Mallet for 16490 Physical.(9530 Absorbed) (12804 Overkill)
Mallet’s Divine Aegis fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Power Word: Shield fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Inspiration fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Weakened Soul dissipates from Mallet.
Mallet’s Borrowed Time fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Renewed Hope fades from Mallet.
Your equipped items suffer a 10% durability loss.
Mallet died.

Test 3:

Mallet casts Power Word: Shield at Mallet.
Mallet is afflicted by Mallet’s Weakened Soul.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Borrowed Time.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Renewed Hope.
Mallet gains 300 Mana from Mallet’s Darkglow.
Mallet’s Flash Heal heals Mallet for 2330.(1824 Overhealed)
Mallet’s Borrowed Time fades from Mallet.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Forethought Talisman.
Mallet’s Flash Heal heals Mallet for 0.(6049 Overhealed) (Critical)
Mallet gains Mallet’s Inspiration.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Divine Aegis.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Effervescence.
Molten Colossus’s melee swing hits Mallet for 16490 Physical.(9895 Absorbed) (6884 Overkill)
Mallet’s Power Word: Shield fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Divine Aegis fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Inner Fire fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Weakened Soul dissipates from Mallet.
Mallet’s Forethought Talisman fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Renewed Hope fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Inspiration fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Effervescence fades from Mallet.
Your equipped items suffer a 10% durability loss.
Mallet died.

Test 4

Mallet gains Mallet’s Divine Aegis.
Mallet casts Power Word: Shield at Mallet.
Mallet is afflicted by Mallet’s Weakened Soul.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Borrowed Time.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Renewed Hope.
Molten Colossus’s attack misses Mallet. (My agility and dodge is strong)
Molten Colossus’s melee swing hits Mallet for 16490 Physical.(7968 Absorbed) (13299 Overkill)
Mallet’s Divine Aegis fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Power Word: Shield fades from Mallet.
Ragadast’s Leader of the Pack fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Inner Fire fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Inspiration fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Weakened Soul dissipates from Mallet.
Mallet’s Borrowed Time fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Renewed Hope fades from Mallet.
Your equipped items suffer a 10% durability loss.
Mallet died.

Test 5

Mallet casts Power Word: Shield at Mallet.
Mallet is afflicted by Mallet’s Weakened Soul.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Borrowed Time.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Renewed Hope.
Mallet’s Flash Heal heals Mallet for 5654.(Critical)
Mallet gains Mallet’s Effervescence.
Mallet’s Borrowed Time fades from Mallet.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Inspiration.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Divine Aegis.
Molten Colossus’s melee swing hits Mallet for 15100 Physical.(7651 Absorbed) (21476 Overkill)
Mallet gains 300 Mana from Mallet’s Darkglow.
Mallet’s Power Word: Shield fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Divine Aegis fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Weakened Soul dissipates from Mallet.
Ragadast’s Leader of the Pack fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Inspiration fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Effervescence fades from Mallet.
Your equipped items suffer a 10% durability loss.
Mallet died.

So in conclusion, while not technically a scientifically valid test, I’ve conceded that the order in which the different absorb effects are used are based on which one happens to land first. If a DA activates before a PW:S, then the DA gets consumed. If a PW:S lands first followed by a DA, the PW:S gets chomped alive before the DA.

A simple, easy, and cheap test. 5 minutes. 45 gold.

Done.

But also incorrect. So take this entire post with a grain of salt.

Hello to wow.com!

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I am no longer a contributing editor to WoW Insider. We’ve changed to WoW dot com! You can now find us over at wow.com (which is 7 characters shorter to type, I might add). I’ll still be anchoring Spiritual Guidance and Raid Rx (when the ideas come).

I received a lot of private questions about this and I wanted to get a post out about it quickly to help alleviate the strain of my inbox and Twitter DMs.

What exactly is wow.com?

It’s your same news and opinion blog coupled with some extra features. One of the biggest things is that it comes with souped up user accounts. Think of it as WoW Insider meets social networking. You can attach characters to your accounts. You can have your own wow.com blogs. There’s also an addon that you can download which tracks your activities in game so that you can share with everyone else who might be curious. There’s a nifty feature where screenshots you take in game can be uploaded for display on to wow.com as well.

Remember, it’s still in beta. There’s still more features coming.

Why can’t the Europeans get in on this? Do you hate us?

No. It was stated earlier in the introduction post and later on again that European support is on the way. Put it this way. Let the US server guys bust their ass and break things so that you get a better experience when it’s ready.

How did you guys get wow.com? Isn’t it Blizzards?

From what I understand of the story, the address wow.com was purchased by AOL many millennial ago during the War of the Ancients well before the events of World of Warcraft. They’ve had it for a long time even before World of Warcraft even came out. It wasn’t until recently that it was decided what it should be used for.

Why do I have to use an AOL login? I don’t want to

WoW Insider is owned by AOL Inc. It made sense to utilize AOL accounts. Facebook support is also there. Are there intentions to branch out and expand with other login types like Open ID? I have no idea. If you’re vehemently opposed to AOL or AIM or Facebook and don’t want to use it for whatever reason, you don’t have to. You can still access the news and posts that you would normally get but will not be able to set up profiles and such.

If you’ve noticed, the real estate of the posts themselves have actually increased widthwise. I find that much more easier reading.

What’s your WoW Profile?

I reserved the user name of matticus. You can also find Lodur there as well.

Looking Back at Raiding 1.0

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bwl-load-screen

I am not the most “old school” player in existence. The extent of my experience in Vanilla WoW extends to the first boss of AQ 40 after clearing out Ragnaros and Nefarion.

Often times, I run across players in trade or forums who want to try MC or AQ in their old state of glory having never truly “experienced” it themselves. Even now, there are players who are craving a return to the way raiding was. The game is more enjoyable and accessible now than it was years ago and I personally think of that as a good thing.

Let’s take a look back at history.

First we have raiding 1.0. This was the maiden year of World of Warcraft. We saw the appearance of Molten Core, Blackwing Lair and Onyxia. Raids consisted of 10 really good players, 15 okay players and 15 “ugh” players. There was no Recount then. No sense of accountability. I remember a story where a healer received positive comments when all they did was heal themselves at the front entrance of Molten Core while the rest of the raid took down Lucifron.

Entry level raids Mid-level End game
Zul’Gurub Blackwing Lair Naxxramas
Molten Core Ahn’Qiraj 40  
Ahn’Qiraj 20 World bosses  
Onyxia    

Farming and raid preparation

Preparing for raids often took more time than the actual raids themselves. There were so many cooldowns and consumables that players could get. Higher end raiding guilds made farming of said consumables mandatory.

Whipper Root Tuber – Riding around Felwood really late or really early in the day and picking up these roots
Demonic Runes – Leveling Demon areas in Felwood
Dark Runes – Endless Scholomance farming
Blasted Land food buffs – Involved killing a billion Basilisks and Buzzards (Needed eyes and scales to turn in)
Various weapon buffs in the form of sharpening stones and weapon oils.

Sometimes it felt like farming for raids took longer than the raids itself.

Biggest pain in the ass: Blasted Lands buffs by a land slide.

Attunements

In order to enter some of the raid instances, players had to prove they were worthy in the form of attunements. This meant embarking on some long winded quest to get some key or item. My sympathies go out to Horde players. Getting attuned for Onyxia must have really sucked. Had to penetrate the depths of Blackrock Depths to get a core fragment. The entire world had to cooperate to open the gates of Ahn’Qiraj. Naxxramas required gold and other things in order to get in courtesy of the Argent Dawn.

Biggest pain in the ass: Getting Ony attuned for Horde.

Now lets talk about the actual instances themselves.

Pulling setup

I remember players having to assist Priests and Hunters to get targets. We didn’t have lucky charms to mark mobs with at the time. I believe that came later. But the pulls were so specific. Sometimes it took as long as 10 minutes just to set up a pull every single time. Remember Garr? Lots of Mind Vision while tanks assisted to ensure that all targets were accounted for. When organizing kills for Rag, players had specific areas that they had to stand in. The gauntlet leading up to Broodlord was demoralizing in Blackwing Lair. Rogues were a requirement to trip switches. If they weren’t, then players would suffer from a massive slowing debuff.

Garr

Summary

  • Longest fights: Chromaggus (30 minutes)
  • Most treacherous run back: The walk of shame to Nefarian’s room. AQ40 is a close second but at least you had mounts.
  • Guild breakers: Razorgore, Vaelstrasz, Patchwerk
  • Most frustrating fights: Twin Emps, Four Horsemen (Lack of 8 T2 geared tanks)
  • Biggest pain in the ass: Gothik (Way more mobs than what we know now)
  • Most unforgiving: C’Thun (1 or 2 players down spelled a whole wipe. Losing half raid on a BWL boss was still doable)

I don’t miss the farming or the raid preparation. I sort of wish some attunements were still present. Perhaps not in the shape of lengthy quest chains, but like an account wide “Kill these bosses” sort of thing. Guild wide attunements would be interesting to see where guilds accomplish a set of objectives to gain access to some area. I suppose that would see the end of pickup groups.

I will say this. The success of every boss kill felt magnified. Maybe it was because of the number of other people that were involved. But killing bosses felt much more satisfying. Can’t quite seem to place a finger on why.

Anyway, I’ll take a look back at raiding 2.0 sometime in the week.

Images courtesy of WoWWiki

Surviving Blizzcon! : Getting Ready

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checklist

So, the first round of tickets has come and gone, and some were lucky enough to get tickets to the grand old event. With the con rapidly approaching, it’s time to get things set to make the most out of the convention.

Clothing

First thing I want to talk about is the area the convention is taking place in. Anaheim California. Anaheim is a wonderful city, lots of fun things do to there and lots of great sites to see. The biggest concern is going to be the weather of the season. August is a hot time in CA. The average temperature in August is about 86ºF / 30ºC. It’s also  a pretty dry time, not a lot of rain. You’re going to want to make sure you pack some lighter clothing. Trust me, nothing says bad like showing up and standing in line to get in while being overheated!

On the topic of clothing, bring some really comfy shoes. I can’t stress this enough. There are a lot of lines, and a lot of the panels become standing room only. There is a decent chance you’ll spend the better part of the day on your feet. A couple of my guildies made that mistake last year, and there were a lot of sore feet and one of my guildies received an ongoing back issue as a result.

If you are planning to attend in costume, you may want to consider when you want to show up in said costume. Last year a few people came to opening ceremony dressed to the nines. The vast majority showed up in normal clothing, went back to the hotel before any good panels opened (usually about an hour after opening ceremony) and came back in garb. This seemed to be the preferred method for the majority of the people I ran into.

Accesories

This is for all the technophiles out there. Blizzard has a list of items that they deem acceptable or not acceptable to bring into the convention. This list is updated yearly and you can find it among the FAQs for blizzcon. You can bring video cameras and phones as well as backpacks into the convention, but there are a few exceptions. You cannot video tape any game play footage or the closing concert on Saturday. iPods, iPhones and MP3 players are premitted but are not allowed to be hooked up to any test machines. Seriously don’t try it. I saw someone get their iPhone taken away last year trying to hook it up to a Diablo 3 test machine. Laptops / computers are NOT allowed. Don’t bring them they will not let you in if you try to bring one in. Bring them if you want but make sure you leave them in your hotel room. If you are coming in costume, do not try to bring any sort of weapon with your costuming, it’s not allowed. Essentially don’t bring anything that may potentially hurt someone else.

I will say it’s a good idea to bring something capable of entertaining yourself with. Nintendo DS, Sony PSP and iPhone or iPods are good ideas. I found myself last year in line thanking the fact I had my guildies around me to talk to while waiting. If you’re not going to have that luxury I suggest bringing something.

Food

Anaheim has a wonderful selection of eateries very close to the convention center. Downtown Disney is also a stones throw away and offers restaurants like House of Blues. My suggestion would be to explore these places rather then buying convention food. Food at the con is good, but it is also very expensive and the lines are pretty long. Last year we waited in line for a sub for close to 45 minutes. In that same amount of time I could have walked to a Subway restaurant, eaten and stopped for an energy drink. I suggest checking sites like Yelp or Urban Spoon. If you have an iPhone there is an app for each. There’s so many places to list that I wont make suggestions on where to go, but I will suggest that in the mornings if you’re looking to do breakfast before the convention, to plan carefully. The places around the convention center filled up really fast last year, and this year with even more tickets being sold, I can only begin to imagine how this year will shape up.

This category should also cover post convention gatherings. Lets face it, you’re going to be amped up and not ready to go to sleep right after the convention, you’re probably going to want to find a place to honker down and meet-up with guildies  or just have a beer. There are several places that will be able to fill that role as meeting place. Again, I refer to Yelp or Urban Spoon or the Internet in general to help find places. Keep your eyes peeled here at World of Matticus, rumor has it we’ll be finding a place to group up with any of your readers who will be in attendance.

Attacking the Convention

Now that you’ve got yourself prepared with trinkets and clothing and a list of places to eat and drink, it’s time to start thinking about what you’re going to do at the convention itself. First on most peoples list are the panels. There are three main intellectual properties that Blizzcon centers around. Lets see what each has this year.

Diablo3

  • Heroes and Monsters – This is a look into the design process of the monsters  and heroes of the game.
  • Lore – Fairly self explanatory here. You get the story so far, and some new bits of the story to come.
  • Art – Basically this is the entire process of creating the look of sanctuary.

Starcraft 2

  • Gameplay – The devs take you on a journey through making and tuning of the game mechanics. This is a great panel to visit if you’re planning on going into game design.
  • Lore – The story up to now and where the story is going to go.
  • Art – From designing the Protoss armor to kerrigan’s luscious (and deadly) curves, it’s all here.

World of Warcraft

  • Class Discussion – This is a great panel, it will explain how each class has evolved over time and how things are balanced and tweaked as time goes on. They reveal their big plans for classes here and how they view things as they stand now. This is a must I feel this year simply because Ghostcrawler has been saying that he wants to change the face of healing. If that announcement comes from anywhere, it’s going to come here!
  • PVP – If you’re big into battleground and arenas, this is your place of happiness. Last year they revealed the two new arenas and how they planed to balance things like ratings and match ups.
  • Art – A wonderful discussion of all that goes into making the World of Warcraft so visually stunning. There is lots of talk about how far we’ve come since the days of painted on armor. Artists on hand will tell you how they conceptualize different things from the landscape down to the tiniest critter running around.
  • Dungeons & Raids – This is the one I’m sure the vast majority of you are waiting for. Last year was the announcement of the Hard Mode encounter. Sarth 3D to be exact. There was much oooo and awwwww ing at this panel and for good reason. The devs explained the balancing of the instances from 40 man encounters of old moving forward to the 10’s and 25’s we have today. They explained last year how variable raid size would work. Needless to say there was little disappointment. This year comes at a time where Ulduar has dropped, by the time the convention comes around we’ll likely be ready for another update and I have a sneaking suspicion we’ll hear a bit about icecrown and then goal beyond. This is a must go to for the inquisitive raider. (pretty sure Matt and I will be fighting for seats on this one)
  • UI & Mods – This is a discussion about the evolving UI and mods that we’ve all come to learn and love for WoW. Last year centered around the creation of the Achievement window and the Rune pane for Death Knights. This year I think things will be a bit more exciting, and this panel may potentially run longer then it did last year. With all the changes to the Mod policy and the changes blizzard has informed us of (item rack built in for example) I’m sure this will be much more lively then it was last year.

Blizard Entertainment

  • Cinematics – Get to know the people who wrote the stories and created the movies we’ve grown to embrace over the years. (as a side note, all the cinematics play on a loop throughout the convention. It’s kinda awesome!)
  • Sound & Music – Interested in audio engineering? How about just composing vast symphonies? This is the panel for you. Learn how the scores and sounds were created and how it helped to shape the games. This will span all three properties. I liked this one a lot last year, hearing how they created things like the Lament of the Highborne and other very moving pieces in the game, gives you a different appreciation. After this panel I turned the game music back on.
  • DVD\Video Production – Much like cinematics you’ll get to see how the videos were created in and out of game. Here though you’ll also get insight into the editing process and how much work truly goes into making a final cut. I’ve heard some of the machinima makers found this useful last year.

That’s it for this installment of Preparing for Blizzcon. Check back often for updates as information is released. In the meantime I charge you with a task. Let us know what you want to know.

Have questions you want the WoM crew to ask at Blizzcon? Have any questions you need answered for getting ready to attend? let us know!

Until next time,

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