News and Opinion

General news and opinion about WoW.

16 Suggested (and Unlikely) Priest Glyphs

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Image courtesy of Lucretious

We’ve seen evidence of what a few of the new Glyphs look like (lucky Druids). But what exactly would Priest glyphs be? Join me today as I use a combination of mad 8 ball skills, crystal balls, and fuzzy dice to predict what our class Glyphs could look like.

  • Glyph of Strengthened Soul: Empowers a Minor Glyph to reduce your Weakened Soul debuff by 3 seconds.
  • Glyph of Renewed Vigor: Empowers a Major Glyph to return 3% mana of your overall Renew cost per tick.
  • Glyph of the Matrix: Empowers a Major Glyph to grant your Greater Heal a chance to increase a player’s dodge rate by 25% for 3 seconds.
  • Glyph of Angelic Intervention: Empowers a Major Glyph to increase the effects and duration of Power Word: Shield, Prayer of Mending, and Renew by 20% if all 3 spells are present on a target.
  • Glyph of Certainty: Empowers a Lesser Glyph to increase the cast speed of your Flash Heal by 15%.
  • Glyph of Light’s Reach: Empowers a Major Glyph to increase the number of targets healed by Prayer of Healing, Circle of Healing, and Prayer of Mending by 1.
  • Glyph of Penance: Empowers a Minor Glyph to increase extra the duration of Shadow Word: Pain and Holy Fire by 6 seconds.
  • Glyph of Admiral Ackbar: Empowers a Major Glyph to increase all healing effects done by you by 75% if Power Word: Shield is active.
  • Glyph of Fortification: Empowers a Minor Glyph to increase player’s armor by 2000 in addition to the Stamina increase.
  • Glyph of Uncertainty: Empowers a Lesser Glyph to decrease a players movement speed by 20% if affected by Psychic Scream.
  • Glyph of Death’s Grip: Empowers a Lesser Glyph to grant a 3 second stunning effect to Shadow Word: Death and increasing the damage taken by the Priest by 50%.
  • Glyph of Mortal Recognition: Empowers a Major Glyph to grant your healing spells a 50% chance to ignore the Mortal Strike effect on a player.
  • Glyph of Focus: Empowers a Minor Glyph to avoid interruption, ignore silence effects, and reduce silence durations when casting Flash Heal by 20%.
  • Glyph of Veritas: Empowers a Minor Glyph to prevent the next 1000 damage a player absorbs if your Greater Heal or Flash Heal brings the player to full health.
  • Glyph of the Crouching Tiger: Empowers a Lesser Glyph to increase damage done by your weapons by 500%.
  • Glyph of Purity: Empowers a Minor Glyph to allow Dispel to remove an additional debuff or buff from friendly or enemy players respectively.

Don’t forget, these aren’t the real deal (yet). But these are Glyphs I’d love to see for Priests when they’re released although I admit some of these do seem a bit over powered. What about you? What Glyphs would you like to see for your class? Are they serious or just for kicks?

Myth: It Doesn’t Matter As Long as the Boss Dies

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It’s time for a good, old fashioned rant.

“It doesn’t matter, as long as the boss dies.”

Oh, but it does matter. It matters a lot.

It matters if you AFK trash.
It matters if you wipe on a farm-content boss.
It matters if people die unnecessarily.
It matters if the fight drags on for double its usual length.
And it matters because “as long as the boss dies” is the dumbest quote EVER.

Think about it. I understand the need for bio breaks, and taking an announced absence is a perfectly legitimate way to get a drink of water, relieve yourself, and be that much more focused when you return. But when you have a couple of raiders who consistently AFK their way through everything that doesn’t drop loot, it adds stress and resentment to the pressure cooker that is a raid. It’s lazy and inconsiderate. Worse, it sets a terrible example for not just new recruits but everyone else in the guild.

Anyone who’s ever wiped on a “Farm” boss can tell you that it is infinitely frustrating when that happens due to sloppy mistakes and lack of attention. It wastes valuable time, leads to full-on burnout, and can make a guild feel stunted and unsuccessful. Slacking off here can cause major problems, and even if the boss dies on the third try, that’s 30 minutes to an hour of 25 people’s time. Not to mention repair bills, wasted consumables, and loss of morale and momentum.

Okay, so say you didn’t wipe. Say the fight just lasted 12 minutes instead of 7. That’s only 5 minutes extra (Nevermind that it’s really 5×25.) Wrong. When fights double in length, the impact is the same as a wipe, just on a smaller scale. Consumables, cooldowns, and resources are STILL wasted, and more likely than not, players will die needlessly. Not to mention that’s 5 minutes worth of Arrows and Bullets. And you now have a raid-mentality that knows it’s in for a rough night, since the bosses aren’t dying smoothly. Beyond that, if you’re a guild in the position of both farming content AND making progression runs, the sooner you can get the old content finished the more time you can spend on the new stuff. Eating up minutes and hours when you have 14 bosses to get through before you can even get to the fun stuff is “srs biz”.

More than anything, I hate that this quote as it seems to embody the ultimate in epic-greedy laziness. As if there’s no difference between the boss dying in an unspectacular way vs. dying efficiently, with everyone putting out 100%. The reality is at the other extreme – the only thing the two events have in common is the dropping of loot. And if loot, rather than progression and improvement is your focus, I want you the hell out of my raid, out of my guild, off my server, and away from my game. Go play EverQuest with Jimmy.

Luv,
Wyn

AFKing with Etiquette: 4 Things to Remember

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Image courtesy of nintaro

It’s inevitable. Everyone needs a break at some point. It’s difficult for a vast majority of people to sit still for hours on end without having to get up at some point while raiding. There’s a certain set of hidden rules when you decide to disappear for some time. Following them ensures that you won’t be viewed as an ass and that you’ll be on top of the raid invite list.

1: Announce it publicly – Let the raid know you need to disappear for a while. No one appreciates it when a player stops all activity without warning. If you were in charge of something important like healing the tank, then announcing that you’re sitting out is crucial so that another player can temporarily fill the role that you had.

2: Provide an ETA – ETA stands for “estimated time of arrival”. In other words, how long is it going to take before you’re back in front of the screen and mashing buttons? In some cases, it can be difficult to gauge how long you’ll be gone. It’s still courteous to provide a quick estimate.

3: Give a reason (within reason) – Although it’s not necessary, it’s been an observation of mine that players want to know the reason behind actions and AFKing is no exception. Whether it’s to grab a drink or saving a cat from a tree, it’s reassuring to the other 24 players to know what’s going on.

4: Offer to bench yourself – If you’re going to be gone for a prolonged amount of time (over 20 minutes), offer to hearth out. This provides the raid with an option of bringing someone else in. If you’re in the instance AFK, you can’t exactly be kicked and auto-hearth’d out (if you’re saved to it). Don’t worry about getting back in since a recent patch allowed Warlocks to summon players individually into instances.

Even though WoW is a game, never forget the fact that there are real people behind the virtual characters. Show them respect for their time and I guarantee that it will be appreciated.

In Five Hours, the World Will End. What Will You Do?

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I’ve inadvertently inspired several bloggers when I interviewed Phaelia many months ago. Herein lies the scenario:

Let’s hypothetically assume Blizzard goes out of business and decides to shut down their servers and WoW for good. You have 5 hours before the server shutdown is permanent. What would you do in 5 hours?

It’s reached the shared topic of the week for Blog Azeroth and I’ve inkling it might be discussed in this weeks Twisted Nether Blogcast.

What others have said:

(Don’t mind if I borrow the list from the TNB post, Fim ;))

What would Matt do?

Simple. I’d make like Madonna and try to save it. Matt ain’t no quitter.

EDIT: In pure blogging irresponsibility, I forgot to link to the original post by Larisa.