Handling Icewell Radiance

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Props to this guy for coining the term.

Daelo announced earlier in the day the implementation of raid wide buff called Chill of the Throne. What does it do?

The spell, called Chill of the Throne, will allow creatures to ignore 20% of the dodge chance of their melee targets. So if a raid’s main tank had 30% dodge normally, in Icecrown Citadel they will effectively have 10%.

Similar in concept to Sunwell Radiance, the reason it was implemented was to lessen the overall spikiness of incoming tank damage. Spikiness refers to something like a tank taking constant streams of 15k damage here, 14k damage there, and then suddenly plummet after a 44k hit of some sort. Sometimes it was predictable and in other cases it was not. It’s a large and often unpredictable hit that is capable of flooring a player.

I call it the Chuck Norris effect.

For present healers, the current way to deal with this is to use defensive cooldowns in tandem with tanking cooldowns. If tank avoidance isn’t high enough or if cooldowns aren’t used, they can easily get 2 shot in a manner of seconds.

With luck, this will be the last time we’ll ever see a buff like this in the game. Going forward into Cataclysm, the idea is to raise the health pool of tanks. Right now our overall approach to healing is to spam really fast heals, really large heals, or AoE heals depending on the situation.

While tank health pools go up, healing spells will scale up but not as sharply. The ratio of healing done on a tank vs tank health won’t appear to be the same as it is now. Let’s say a Greater Heal can cover 60% of a tank’s health right now. When Cataclysm hits, Greater Heal might only heal for 35% or something. The approach is to make overhealing a real risk to the point where healing spells can’t be spammed just to get through the boss fight.

That’s going to present an interesting change. It feels as if it’s going to be a hybrid between Vanilla-esque healing and TBC-era healing. I daresay those were the two extremes. In Vanilla, you had to rotate out with other healers and regen for a minute before tagging back in. In Burning Crusade, you could get away with Circle of Healing spam. It looks like in Cataclysm, they just might make overhealing mean something again since we can’t spam heals nor can we switch out with other healers to come in for us.

PTR: Fond Friend or Venomous Vixen??

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wizardmario

The PTR.  Public.  Test.  Realm.  It’s been our best friend and our worst enemy.  People will flock to it, and then people will cry outrage or joy at its contents.  Some avoid it like the plague, while others spend more time in its embrace than in the game itself.

I have a huge innate sense of curiosity.  I love learning things.  When it comes to this game, I try to learn everything there is to know (without delving into theory-crafting and copious amounts of number-crunching).  There are different healing styles, different add-on preferences, different philosophies on gameplay.  I’ve learned to love the variety of them all.

However, the idea of the PTR has me torn between love and hate.  I don’t harbour a global hatred for it, but I have my reservations about it.  It is both a blessing and a curse.  And I’ll tell you why.

Friend

Patch Notes have become a huge cornerstone of the WoW community.  We read them every chance we get.  We get Twitter updates about them; entire blog posts are dedicated to them.  They help us get accustomed to our class.  If we need to change our playstyle, we get a heads up.  If our class is getting nerfed to oblivion, we know to spend more time on an alt.

We can see what gear we have to look forward to.  We drool over gear models, agonizing over the ever-changing nature of new tier set bonuses.  Our dreams are peppered with new craftable items, new patterns, new glyphs, new gems/enchants.  It’s like waiting for (insert related holiday with presents)!

In this, I’m a huge fan.  I love having to save up money/gems/mats for new enchants, or re-speccing to take advantage of a new spell bonus or counteracting a nerf.

Foe

I’m averted to the large exploitation of the upcoming raids on the PTR.  I don’t “hate” it, because I understand its purpose.

I get a huge adrenaline high from facing a new boss on my server with my guild, without really knowing what to expect.  I have to think on my feet.  The raid has to be ready to adjust and listen to the raid leader for directions.

Remember the climactic scene of the movie “The Wizard”?  The kid and his nemesis are the in the final battle, about to play a game that no one has ever seen before.  The curtain is lifted….SUPER MARIO 3!!  I was a kid when that movie came out, and I just about crapped my pants.  Neither the kid nor his nemesis had any experience with this game.  Both were going in totally blind.  No tricks, no strategies, just shutup and play.

It’s that mentality that I crave for the community when it comes to releasing a new raid.  The new content is released and has been tested by a representative sample of the community under a confidentiality clause.  My team goes in on patch day, bags filled with flask/food, ready to conquer.  Our gold stash resembles Scrooge McDuck’s money pit in “Duck Tales”.  Let’s learn this boss our way.  We can be as hardcore as we want to be.

The Toss-up

In spite of all my rantings, I understand that living on the cutting edge of raiding needs every advantage.  World and Server Firsts are a big deal to a lot of guilds.  They need that edge–the ability to practice something, even if it’s not in it’s final form.  Guilds can strategize what needs to happen before the boss actually hits the live servers.

My proposal, though, is to assign a smattering of raiders the ability to do a closed testing of these bosses.  Start the difficulty of the bosses high and slowly bring it down as needed, but not so much to make the boss one or two-shottable.  Keep in mind it isn’t too interesting for us to go in and down bosses in our current gear.

My random thought of the day: Would we complain as much about the ease of boss killings if we didn’t have a head start?  A marathon is a piece of cake if you only have to run a small portion of it on the actual day, right?

What do you think?  Would you rather train in the PTR, or save the workout for after a new raid goes live?  How do you feel about the ability to test and learn a boss ahead of time?

ThespiusSig

PTR Live: Gunship Battle

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You can read my full impressions of the encounter over at WoW.com.

Hope this works.

16:54 – Clearing trash right now. Reminds me of faction champs.
17:20 – Two attempts on the boat.
17:23 – Going to zerg Saurfang
17:25 – Nevermind, Saurfang gains more health back than we can DPS.
17:27 – Yeah, encounter’s over. There’s no way we can finish it. The cannons are bugged. Don’t seem to be damaging the other boat.

Video clips at Ustream

Two Applicant Paths Diverged in an Azerothian Wood

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crazy

Once you decide you’ve reached the raid-ready threshold, it’s time to find a place to do that.  Aside from the risky and unpredictable nature of PUGs, the most plausable option is a raiding guild.  Whether casual, progression, or hardcore elite, you’re bound to encounter some form of an application process.

The process always varies from guild to guild.  Each one is slightly different, but I’ve always seen three common practices:

  1. (Trade Chat) “Lvl 80 LF Raiding Guild” -> “So-and-so has invited you to join the guild: Such-and-such”
  2. An application of varying length, seemingly focused on gear, skill, and experience.
  3. The Applicant Period -> Includes a formal application, and a “waiting period” or “trial period”.

The first of the three is relatively self-explanatory, and is usually frowned upon.  I don’t take raiders seriously that look for guilds that way, and I don’t instill a lot of confidence in raiding guilds that subscribe to that method.  This is all just from personal experience.

Just like I’d apply for a job to pay my bills, I’m applying to a guild to fulfill my raiding passion.  I want to know that the guild I’m vying to be a part of isn’t accepting just any ol’ package of pixels.  I’d be really worried about credibility if the guild just said “Yes!” without screening me or requiring any sort of “test drive.”

My personal preference is the 3rd option.  Every guild leader has their own preference, and that’s absolutely encouraged.  Each guild is obviously different.  My choice is based on permanence and personality.

I’m hugely averted to what are known as “guild hoppers”.  I’ve never been one, and I get a pit in my stomach anytime I come across someone that might be one.  I look at my guild as a family–people who work together to achieve a common goal because they enjoy that camaraderie and team work.  I invest in you, you invest in me.  Someone that sees guilds as stepping stones to higher echelons don’t interest me.  I feel it’s selfish and takes away from the “community” that I’m so fond of.

Secondly, if we are going to be spending large amounts of time together, I have to get along with you.  We have to be able to crack jokes, share stories, and simply enjoy each other’s company.  I’m not too keen on running with someone that is demeaning to other players or constantly fluffs their own ego at the expense of others.  Admittedly, if I don’t wanna hang out with you, I’m probably not going to jump up and down at the chance to raid with you.

As you know, I’m one of the Discipline Priests on Lodur’s healing team in Unpossible.  Their application process is a rather complex one, but its payoff is knowing they’re a great fit for me, and I’m a good fit for them.  It was because of their application process that I got excited, because it’s near identical to my casual guild, Team Sport.

To summarize, an interested Applicant must acquire a Sponsor.  This is done through gaming and socializing via a chat channel made specifically for the guild.  It is the Sponsor’s job to get the Applicant invited to off-night raids and bring them along on heroics or other guild activities.  This is designed to get the guild acquainted with the Applicant.

The Sponsor then solicits enough votes from the guild (along with the Applicant’s Class Lead) to invite the Applicant into the guild on a trial basis.  This begins a month period where the the guild and the Applicant get to know each other.  The Applicant can be invited into raids and has access to loot drops.  At the end of the month, the guild votes again whether the Applicant becomes a full member or not.

At any point, I can withdraw.  If I don’t feel like this guild is what I want, then I can move on.

What an application process like this does is allows me to know what I’m getting myself into before I’m fully in the mix.  It lets them sniff me out and make sure that I’m not a “guild hopper” or someone there to grab gear and run.  Like I said, I’m into the family-style guilds.  This, I feel, promotes that.

What about you?  What kind of guild process you feel best fits your style?  Are there certain styles that attract or deter you from joining a guild?

ThespiusSig

Two Val’anyr at WoM? That’s Unpossible!

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hammerbanner

First things first I’d like to congratulate Matt on his Hammer of awesomeness!

Matt and I were long talking about sitting on the 30 fragments and needing to get the mace completed.  Matt’s guild was not the only one to have problems deep into Ulduar. Unpossible on Zul’jin, my guild and my home was tearing through Ulduar. Fragments were dropping and loot was being passed all around. Then we got to Vezax, the guild was going full steam…until we lost some of our top dps and heals to burnout. A top dps DK, Hunter, and a few others just didn’t have any more juice left. They had been raiding you see since before BC. It happens, and I don’t fault them for it, but that meant Unpossible was recruiting. All my guildies hit the streets so to speak, spreading word that we needed people to bolster our ranks! I sent a call out across twitter and got a response from someone on the Firetree server. We began negotiations and talks almost daily for several weeks and in that meantime we would bring in non raiders from the guild to fill in gaps and try to keep raids going.

Eventually the Firetree crew transferred servers and joined our ranks, and we began the process of integrating raid styles and getting everybody on the same page. Shortly after that we got our first Yogg kill, with new players we felt quite accomplished. Now came the problem of farming the rest of the Fragments of Val’anyr. We gathered up steam and pushed forward until Trial of the Crusader patch hit. We now were faced with a difficult decision. Continue to farm content till we had all of our fragments or push on into ToC and place Ulduar on the back burner. We did what was best for the guild as a whole and made our way into ToC. After finally pushing through faction champions the rest was easy to clear. Standing on top of the corpse of one giant Beetle we set our sights back to Ulduar. We dove back in and lady fortune smiled upon us as we got the last of our fragments, Mimron was kind enough to let us have the last piece. The guild excitedly followed me to the Archivum where we activated the console, and listened and watched as the history of the mace unfolded before us.

Now we had met with another guild on Zul’jin back at Blizzcon and they had already completed theirs. Sympathetic to our recruitment dilemma and bringing people up to gear and speed they offered to help us complete the mace. After weeks of waiting to hear from them, we finally said and I quote,

“To hell with it, lets do it our own damn selves!”

And so into Ulduar we dove one last time, clearing to the watchers, only to find Thorim bugged for us. He would despawn when he jumped down. Frustrated we waited, until finally we got a good spawn. We pushed through Vezax with ease and made our way down into the prison of Yogg Saaron, or as we like to call him, Yoggles.

We strode in and began the pull, only to have Murphy rear his ugly mug and slap us around. Tanks DC’d in the middle of combat, losing spawn and immortals and clothies died in troves. Random lock ups and lag spikes caused people to be frozen in the path of so many clouds that we had too many spawns to handle. After 32 attempts in 3 days of attempts everything clicked into place. Transitions were smooth, no one disconnected or lagged out. Like Matt I died not once, not twice, but thrice. One soulstone and two battle rez’s were burned and we were up and running into phase 3. Yogg opened wide and I turned, threw in my hammer and then healed my rear off keeping everyone alive I could with my heal team! Then all of a sudden I started shaking in real life, the nerves, anticipation, adrenaline all came in one rush as I looked over and saw Yoggles at 2%. Down his life went and UP went the achievements!

3 Lights in The Darkness (25) completed as well as Drive Me Crazy (25)

Off to the archivum we went, I completed the quest and in my hands lay Val’anyr, and the cry went out over vent

“WOOOT! Now bubble me bitch!”

and Unpossible rejoiced.

here’s a link to the full image from the header, it’s possibly my favorite screenshot ever taken by me, it just looks cool

Awesome Unpossible Screenshot

And as an added bonus, here’s a video for you all to enjoy.

Now what does this mean now that Matt and I both have Val’anyrs? This means that truly World of Matticus is Legendary. Also since I’ll be a dwarf sooner or later maybe Matt and I can be “Hammer Brothers”!

Sig