World of Matticus

Just a quick update on the podcast. Originally, we were planning a two week hiatus because of summer and all the different events that we individually had to deal with and such.

But then an update was released which affected some of the behind the scenes technological wizardry we had going on. As such, we’re going to be out of action for a brief while until that fix gets resolved. We have explored alternative options but nothing has really been appealing. I promise we’ll be back as soon as we can. Besides, it’s a great time for us to regenerate, recharge and revitalize our creative energies.

Penny Arcade Expo

Anyone hitting PAX next week? I’ll be at the convention myself and I’d love to meet and greet any fellow gamers/blog readers in the area. Games I’m looking forward to playing the most:

• League of Legends: Dominion
• Counterstrike: Global Offensive
• Guild Wars 2

There’s probably more that I’m missing. I’m not much into the table top stuff so I’ll be hanging near the PCs and console stuff. Any suggestions for other titles to check out? I’m primarily into shooters and RTS games.

Managed to take down Shannox, Beth’tilac, Lord Rhyolith and Baleroc in one night. The kills are a little rough around the edges at times, but every week shows a marked improvement. Learning Alysrazor once was a pain. Relearning it again is a trial by fire to be sure!

Also for all you budding young hunters out there. Never have growl turned on in a raid setting under any circumstances. The rest of the raid will be eternally grateful (and not want to injure you).

For recruiters, looking for players often cause anxiety because you never know if you’re going to find the right players to help you. There is a whole plethora of players still looking for the right guild. I’m not sure what the ratio of 10 man guilds to 25 man guilds are but no doubt there are way more 10s than 25s. There are players looking for PvP guilds, progression, casual, hard mode, RP and others!

We’re going to focus more on raiding guilds. When I’m out shopping for players, I generally shoot for overall experience as the biggest indicator. Gear is a secondary concern. If a player has taken down the first six bosses in Firelands, that tells me a lot more than his 370 item level. Players looking for guilds typically state what number of bosses they’ve killed in the current tier.

Example

6/7 Priest LF progression guild weekdays
2/7 Mage LF raiding guild weekends
7/7 Rogue LF hard mode guild only

With so many players looking for guilds, you could take the shotgun approach and reply to every single “LFG” forum thread. But that’s too tedious especially with the one post per minute limitation. Your time is precious and you can’t possibly visit every thread, track down every player in game, or add every individual on real ID. You need to manage your time better and maximize your returns! Naturally you’re not going to shoot for classes that you’re already stacked to the brim of. Nor are you going to go after people who can’t make your raid times or days.

There is one more indicator you can use.

Try bracketing

Experience matters a lot. You don’t want to pick up a player who is too far behind you. On the other hand, you don’t want to shoot for a player who is beyond your progression unless they explicitly state what they’re looking for in their ad. The first step is to determine how low you’re willing to go.

• A guild that is 6/7 Firelands might be willing to go for a player who is 3/7 or they could aim for a player who is 1 hard mode boss in.
• A guild that is 2/7+ Firelands (+ meaning hard mode kills) might go for a player with a low end of 6/7 normal modes and a top end of 4/7+.
• A guild that is 3/7 Firelands is okay with taking chances on new players who haven’t stepped foot into Firelands or players working on 5/7 or 6/7.

For your own sanity, do not waste the other player’s time. Don’t waste your own either. Don’t aim too high and don’t aim too low.

So what should the experience spread be?

Personally, I like to use a 4 boss spread. That is, I will actively pursue players who are either 2 bosses ahead of where I’m at or 2 bosses behind. If they don’t have kills, that’s okay. As long as they can demonstrate that they were working on some of those bosses and wiping to them, I’ll count that as experience. Obviously that spread is going to vary wildly depending on where you are on the progression path. It also depends on your guild’s current state of raiding. I think 2 is a nice number because if they’re 2 bosses behind, we can accelerate their learning a bit. Chances are they’re familiar with the unkilled bosses anyway and they ran out of time for it. If they’re 2 bosses ahead, they can offer some insight or little tricks to help your raid group get there.

If you’re having trouble with attendance and filling up raids, you might need to expand.

If your roster is stacked as is, you can tighten up the restrictions to a 1 boss spread (or even stating that you’re not going to pursue players with experience below what you’re working on).

One more thing

Make sure you scan LFG posts. Look for keywords such as their availability, preferred loot system and progression. Note raid sizes. In some cases, they’ll indicate rankings. Some players will even indicate specifically what guilds they’re looking for.

Here’s a few examples:

• US Top 100 only
• Must be active in PvP and raiding
• No less than 5/7 Firelands
• 25 man only
• Immediate core position for <class>
• Must be able to accept all 3 of us
• Professional environment
• No female officers*

* Not making this one up. Actually saw it in an LFG post on the official WoW forums. 

Not sure what any of that means? Don’t worry! In an upcoming post, I’ll help you interpret the subtle needs that players say they’re looking for but what they really mean.

There was a great post last month on Plus Heal wondering what the minimum requirements for getting into tier 12 are. That’s not an easy question to answer because you can’t pin a magic number. I entered tier 12 with many heroic item pieces from tier 11 with an average item level of around 370. But that’s not indicative of what the lowest stats are. The poorly geared or skilled the healer, the more powerful the rest of the raid needs to be to offset it. Tanks have to have amazing survivability. DPS players need to make devastating impacts and be incredibly nimble in taking only unavoidable damage.

It’s a good thing I have multiple Priests.

Going into Firelands with an item level of around 358, I was able to secure attempts and kills on Shannox, Beth’tilac and Lord Rhyolith. So if you’re worried that your gear isn’t good enough, here’s a rough idea of where you should be at:

• Item level: 359
• Stamina: 5200 (or around 118000 health)
• Intellect: 5100 (or around 105000 mana)
• Spirit: 2600 (or around 3200 mana regenerated every 5 seconds while in combat)

Mind you, those are the approximate stats for my alt Holy Priest. These aren’t precise but generally if you can ballpark those figures, you’ll be fine. Those figures don’t include things like stats gained from buffs, feasts or flasks. You can factor those into consideration as well.

What about my skill score?

That’s a harder question to gauge. If you were able to make it through all of tier 11 unscathed, there’s nothing new here that’s overly challenging. A lot of these encounters just take repetition and exposure to get down. Alysrazor is a multi-phase encounter and you just need to keep healing it and watching for all the little gimmicks that are going on before everything “clicks”. There is a ton of fire all over the place. Plan ahead on where to stand before you start casting your spells.

The ability to respond and dodge stuff is an excellent skill to have (Shannox traps, Magma Flows on Lord Rhyolith, just about everything on Ragnaros). I like to play League of Legends to keep my reaction time as quick as possible.

Alternatively, if you have a few minutes to spare, check out some of the different reflex games over at Mission Red.

Looking for more reading material? I’ve been covering for Dawn (WoW Insider’s resident Priest columnist) and you can read up more on playing Discipline as Atonement in Firelands.

Playing a discipline priest is all the rage these days, it seems, especially now that many raiders are busy messing around in Firelands. There is a small selection of discipline priests who exercise the Atonement and Evangelism style of healing to great effect. In the past, I wasn’t really a fan of it at all because I felt that there were better options. The buffs Blizzard made to Atonement back in patch 4.1 involving Holy Fire made it increasingly more attractive. Maybe I didn’t give it enough of a chance.

Spiritual Guidance: Playing Atonement

It’s been my biggest belief that my ideal healing team would consist of players who could tackle any healing assignment without too much difficulty. 

When it comes to setting up healing in raids, we like to lump healers into different specializations. We have players who strictly tank heal or raid heal. In some cases, there is a specific role they need to play within the encounter (like kite healing). Blizzard has done a great job of trying to equalize the healing classes to the point that they can do everything competently. Even then, we continue to instinctively place the different classes into specific healing roles. If you are a healer who has traditionally done only one type of healing, then it is time to diversify.

Raid Rx: The All Purpose Healer