News and Opinion

General news and opinion about WoW.

Halfway Through Summer

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Guild still alive?

Raids are firing?

Congratulations! We’re halfway through the summer before school comes back and everyone returns from vacation (yay). This is one of the most brutal summer raiding tiers for us but we’ve been fortunate. Certain players were granted the ability to switch roles and characters which helped keep us afloat. Right now we’re looking to add an additional DPS/tank hybrid (of the plate variety). Our latest kill was heroic Horrion (two weeks ago) and we’ve set our sights now on Tortos. With our best attempt at a little under 50%, we’re poised to crack his shell sometime this week.

I really want to see a return to winged raids though. Mists consisted largely of linear raids. Our raids were cut short tonight because of the absence of a third tank. Even though we can power through Jin’rokh, we’re not in position to two tank heroic Horridon right now which means we’ve lost a day of raiding. It would be nice to have the option to move around and jump ahead to a different boss that we can logistically work on with two tanks. I suppose it’s possible to bypass Horridon on normal mode but that means giving up 6 items plus whatever coin rolls and our goal is to equip our players with gear that will set us up for Siege of Orgrimmar.

Rather not though.

In other news, I’ve reached 90 on my Paladin and decided to try my hand at tanking for the first time ever.

What Matt learned while tanking

  • I see nothing but boss crotch all day, everyday.
  • Threat gets ripped like nobody’s business.
  • AoE tanking can be a cluster.
  • I can’t heal myself while I’m tanking.
  • I can’t tank more than 45 mobs at the same time in a mash of green and blue gear.
  • Queues are really instant. Faster than my healing queues.
  • If a pet taunts, I’m not taking it back because they’re generous enough to distribute the load.
  • Don’t bubble with low health.
  • People really do single target DPS on different mobs.
  • I would die of a heart attack if I tried to tank a raid.

Yeah. I mean it’s fun with people you know. I’m absolutely certain my guild gets a kick out of hearing me scream and shout when I tank. But oh man. I can’t believe I’m going to use this character and tank for flex raids.

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[VIDEO] Immerseus on Flex Mode

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I took the liberty of running the Flex Mode version of Immerseus over the weekend. Did manage to kill it within a few attempts. Our gear was scaled to 506 item level. Our group consisted of 10 players so we didn’t get a chance to check out the dynamic scaling in action. Players that are deep in the normal mode of Throne of Thunder shouldn’t have much difficulty with this boss. Check out the video and make note of the healing tips.

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Why the Flex Raid is a Boon

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I recently purchased a Flex plan from my cell company where I’d be charged monthly based on the amount of data I actually used. I don’t know if I’ll always be near a wireless access point or not but at least the charges will scale accordingly.

Speaking of Flex plans, Blizzard’s taking a page out of that book and introduced a new type of raiding: The Flex Raid difficulty.

  • We can bring anywhere from 10 – 25 people and the bosses will scale.
  • We can invite friends from other realms via battle tag
  • Item level is between raid finder and normal but loot will be handled via raid finder loot system
  • Separate lockout from raid finder, normal/heroic

I’m still digesting the news. Usually my raid will run through raid finder once a week. We’ve started bringing in and carrying our alts. People are still running raid finder to grab their Titan Runestones at the start. Raid finder is great if I just want to mind numbingly get my way through an instance, gear up an alt, and just generally not have to think but mash buttons. I can eat every void zone, stand in every fire, miss every interrupt, and can live (most of the time).

What kind of example am I setting, right?

Why it’s good

This is great for guilds and cross realm raid groups. Players don’t have to transfer their characters from server to server to raid. I know there’s players out there who have a whole train of alts with assorted professions designed to support their main. If that player is satisfied with raiding on the flex plan, then they can still see the content in the game without committing money to move their supply train.

Second, from a recruiting standpoint, this is a huge tool for a prospect to raid with a potential guild and see if they’d fit in. Right now, we run livestreams and invite possible recruits on to our Mumble in order to give them a look at our raids. I can see a day set aside where recruits can jump in and raid with the team – And the beauty is a whole 25 man team isn’t going to be needed either.

Third, what about guilds that are looking to scale up from 10 to 25 man? This is another excellent way for them to gradually expand. It’s often a nightmare to make an immediate jump from a 10 man to a 25 man raiding guild. Sometimes the pool of player availability isn’t always there. The flex raid allows them to slowly (but surely) change their raid size until a consistent 25 raiders is found for the inevitable shift to normal modes.

But at the end of the day, Flex Raid isn’t a normal raid. It will never carry the prestige or reputation that normal and heroic kills grant. I doubt it’ll be taken seriously but maybe that’s what the main point of the flex raid is. It’s not designed to be cutting edge or challenging. It’s supposed to bring you, your family, and your friends together to raid where you don’t have to deal with potential morons in raid finder. You get to raid on your terms with whoever you want with relaxed restrictions.

Will you flex?

I’m still weighing the costs and benefits of working in Flex raiding for Conquest. I’d remove guild sanctioned Raid Finder from the list of activities and swap to this instead. At minimum, I would have to have at least two tanks available for this. With Raid Finder, I’d be able to go in with whatever composition I had available. The potential drops are better than raid finder anyway. I imagine my current raiding gear from Throne of Thunder will be better than the Raid Finder and flex drops in 5.4. If anything, Flex will be used to help ease our way into progression raids or on nights where half the raid is unable to attend.

Where does the flex raid factor into your guild’s raiding plans? What about your raiding plans? I’ll end up changing my Wednesday night raid finder to the flex raid instead.

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BlizzCon 2013!

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Two years between BlizzCons is such a long time! Our regularly night guild LFR group was temporarily halted. We opted to run part 4 of LFR first. Ultimately we wiped to Lei Shen at the end (largely because we didn’t have a full guild group, oops). Right about the time we wiped, my cellphone alarm went off and we told the raid that we were going to take a quick break and pause attempts while we attempted to purchase tickets to BlizzCon. Of course, several of the pug players were pissed off. But they could either wait 15 minutes for us to finish or wait 30 minutes for the queuing debuff to wear off. This one rogue in particular was so pissed off that he pulled Lei Shen and wiped everyone again before rage quitting.

Oh well.

All that time spent in League of Legends clicking and using skill shots paid off. I managed to get in line at position 1702 (and using the drop down box to select 4 tickets simultaneously *flex*).

My guild mates were also able to secure tickets. The Conquest contingent will consist of around 20 players (at least)! This is going to be our largest meetup yet! It’s going to be damn tough to find a place where we can simply relax and lounge around at. I figure everything within walking distance of the convention center’s going to be snapped up anyway (or really difficult to accommodate). Next thing I need to do is get some shirts made for everyone. Remember how in school they created printed hoodies for every year’s graduating class? Might just do something like that annually. Speaking of which, any shrewd GMs out there that are looking to recruit should consider making some business cards. Conquest recruited some solid and steady players just by networking there. Someone suggested Conquest branded shot glasses, but I think that statement was made as a joke.

Even though it’s months away, I’m already stressing out about the event. I’ve already met a number of players from the guild in previous events. But we’re going to have some new faces this year. Are we going to be able to get along in real life as we do online? Am I going to get overwhelmed with a bunch of guild business about ideas on how to improve the guild? Are they going to sneak sedatives into my drinks so they can sharpie my face when I pass out?

I’m almost tempted to put together a disguise actually. Every joke and remark I’ve made at a guldie’s expense is probably going to come back and haunt me when I run into these clowns at Anaheim. I’m pretty sure no amount of asskissing I do is going to offset whatever beatings may come my way so I may as well keep making said remarks. I mean how much worse can it get, right? Even though I’ll never admit it to them directly, they’re a good crew to have and I’m happy to play alongside such an excellent team. The players that have left for various reasons will always be considered my guildies to me regardless of what tag they have and they’ll always be welcome here.

I still hate them all though.

In all due seriousness, BlizzCon is such a short time. I wish an extra day were added just so I can see more people from the community. I remember meeting Ceraphus and Xia (she has way too much energy) last time from The Sundering podcast. Looks like Fimlys from the Twisted Nether will be there too! And of course, all my friends and colleagues from WoW Insider. We’ve all attended these conventions year after year and it’s virtually the same crew. We’ve started with greeting each other with handshakes and have since moved on to hugs. If my understanding is correct, I’ll also get an opportunity to run into Medros from All Things Azeroth, one of the longest standing community members around. I’m also looking forward to meeting Twizz (from the Twizzcast).

Anyone else going? It’d be awesome to meet even more people this year! I promise, my guild won’t bite if you run into them (but they have a hell of a bark).