Raiding Needs an Off Season

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It’s that time of year again.

Hockey’s over and congratulations to that-team-that-must-not-be-named for taking out my boys in blue in round 1 and then taking out the second and third seeds en-route to the cup finals before winning. Now it’s going to be another few months before hockey picks up again. This is the time when players, agents, and GMs start figuring out what kind of deals to make to bolster their teams for next year.

If WoW were to have a raiding off season, I’d say it’d kick in effect in the month leading up to Mists of Pandaria. But, the sooner there’s a release date, the better. Raiding activity seems to be at a low. Even in my guild, I’ve lost 2 players to Diablo 3 or other games because they needed a break (However, one of my legendary wielding players is coming back off reserves so that’ll help).

Like it has been in previous expansions, I’m expecting activity to pick up in that crucial month. That’s when many players will slowly start trickling back in after they find out that [flavor of the month MMO] wasn’t quite the game they envisioned it to be. It’s when players will be leaving and joining new guilds and jockeying for a good, stable position once Mists debuts.

And it needs to get here soon.

Priest Talent: Divine Star

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We looked at Halo the other day and here’s the other level 90 talent: Divine Star. If you play League of Legends, you’ll notice it’s eerily similar to one of Ahri’s abilities. The Priest shoots out a glowing ball which returns after a short distance. Whenever it passes through someone, it heals or injures them depending.

I haven’t noticed an AoE healing cap on the spell. But then again, I haven’t been able to use it in a raid environment or anything. Still, it’s a way cool spell. Can’t wait to put it through it’s paces.

Pointers

  • This spell connects twice. Make sure you’re close enough to your targets so that Divine Star double-hits. It appears as if only one heal is applied if the target is at the peak of Divine Star (Need to confirm).
  • Divine Star will always follow you on its return path. Work on your movement and strafing.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMcb5n6lLdM

Social Cost of Leading

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Mistborn trilogy came in the mail. Thank you everyone that made the recommendation, I can’t wait to dive into it.

Today I want to address any would be or wannabe GMs out there. On this blog, we’ve mentioned the different aspects to consider if you plan on going for the job. Yeah there’s some cool perks and being able to set a direction and manage your own team is cool. But there’s something I like to call the social cost that seemingly saps the strength and will out of you.

It’s hard to keep friends.

Is it possible for a manager to be friends with a subordinate without showing any signs of favouritism? I don’t know, it seems like a fine line to walk. Maybe one of you management types can field that one. You know, you work so hard to be fair when it comes to all matters of policy and loot.

There’s times where you have to make that call that ends up going against the interests of your buddy. A good instance here is handling a loot dispute. Objectively, you can’t side with them because you know an item will be in far more capable hands. When you do render that decision, they’re not going to like you very much for it.

One could argue that if they really were friends with you, they’d  understand the tough spot and respect whatever outcomes you decide.

In the past, I’ve killed friendships.

Regrets? Oh yeah, you bet. But to stifle the whispers and the locker room talk, something needs to be done. It sucks because now you’re letting other players “dictate” who you’re friends with. Friends with the opposite sex? Man, that’s another can of tuna entirely. Being accused of doling out loot for BJs is quite a laughable stretch (the guys and girls in the guild would burst out laughing just thinking that, “Matt? No way!”)

In almost 5 years helming the guild, I have not once been prepositioned (propositioned?) with “favours” for loot. It’s one of the few things remaining on my GM checklist, actually (being propositioned, but not actually accepting). But, I digress.

Back to my main point, it’s difficult to be friends with everyone when you’re not able to side with them all the time. Not going to say impossible because I’ve bumped fists and (attempted to) get my drink on. Friends expect you to have their back, even if they’re wrong and it’s hard to consistently do that unless you can say with certainty that they’re never wrong.

Just keep in mind what you’re getting into if you still plan on doing it this upcoming expansion. Be prepared to live with any regrets. Best anyone can do is learn and move forward.

Level 90 Spell: Halo

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At level 90, you gain access to Beyonce-inspired spell, Halo.

It’s an AoE healing (or DPS) type spell depending on your spec. The healing scales depending on the distance between you and the rest of your targets. The biggest impact occurs to players that are 25 yards away. That’s going to be a little tricky for you to eyeball. Would be nice if AVR was still around so that you had a HuD telling you how far exactly 25 yards away was.

Halo isn’t a spell that’s targetable. It uses you as the main point before emanating outward.

You can see it in action below.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zp10FrESsGE

The Pandaria Plan

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With the recent opening of level 90 and all the assorted events, you know that we’re drawing ever closer to a Mists release. All that’s left to do is tuning numbers of abilities, finalizing both PvE and PvP content, and polishing the rest of the glitches still in the game.

Personally, I’m ballparking the expansion to debut at some point late in the summer (or September). I hope they don’t shoot for a Christmas release again.

Every GM is thinking about (or at least, gave some thought) to what their guild is preparing to do for launch. Some have strict time tables, others a little more lax. After getting through two solid expansions, our raiding plans aren’t going to change much.

Every raider will be instructed to get to max level as quickly as possible. Those that can pull off the all nighter grind can and those that need a little more time can do so. Our bottom line is that the sooner we have 25 players available to raid (with a respectable composition), we’re going to raid.

The 10 man plan

Before that, we’ll dispatch the first 10 players into raids quickly. They’ll be able to gain two things:

  • Experience: A better understanding of mechanics. They can see and interact with various bosses. They get to be familiar with the little nuances and how to get through different phases and then pass that knowledge on to others as they level.
  • Gear: It’s all the same ilevel still between 10 man and 25 man encounters. If one of our healers gets a trinket or a weapon in 10 man, it’s one less item the raid’s going to need when we hit 25 man. It could also mean one less epic item to craft. Even if the drop isn’t the best in slot, at least it’ll be high enough that it can still do the job. No sense in replacing epics with epics so early on when the rest of the raid can benefit.

Realistically speaking, it’s going to take roughly a week to get everyone up to 90. It’s also going to take at least another week before the raid has the collective gear and stats. That’s the way it’s been for us in the past, and I don’t foresee that changing.

What about raid finder?

The raid finder tool wasn’t present at the dawn of Cataclysm. Here’s where it’s going to get fun. I can’t recall if raid finder was going to be enable at the start or not. My guess is that it’ll be available, but there’ll be some sort of cap or limitation imposed (as in, no access to end bosses or first half of instances only). Raid finder means that both 10 and 25 man raiding guilds have the option to provide their guilds with another avenue to get raid ready loot.

Obviously isn’t going to be as good as the normal quality stuff in raids. But it’ll be superior to the dungeon heroic items we get.

What I think I may do is gather as many max level characters as possible for a massive group queue into raid finder. Maybe do that on a Monday to buy people as much time as possible to get to 90. Good way to get in there and get the lay of the land and see at least some of the challenges we’re going to be up against, even if it is going to be slightly weaker than the real thing. After that, establish a group for 10s and continue to develop characters that way as well until we have enough players to run 25 man consistently.

The opening weeks are going to be interesting.