Blizzard has had it's own Podcast for a while now. It is named Blizzcast. Since I got an iPhone last week I've discovered this. Listened to the first 3 podcasts already, 7 more to come.
The reason I am doing this though having stopped playing is that I am in heart a fan of their stuff, WoW still is the greatest game ever, and I am now working in the gaming industry. So by this I have a chance to learn some stuff from the, in my eyes, absolute masters.
It is really great to listen to some people who have a job that you would literally kill for, and you get to know them a bit better.
Then again listening back to what is being said I am a bit sad of the way Blizzard went with some stuff, being able to view the information given to me from a year later in time.
A few things I wanna talk to you about are in the 3rd podcast. I am really bad with names. I could not even identify a barbeque for a minute last friday. I kept on saying: That thing! and pointing towards a black oval shaped object. So you will have to forgive me if I do not name the person. Listen to it yourself or look it up. you will find it ;)
The words that inspired me to write this entry went something like this: "I would not panic if patchwork dies early on in the expansion, that's what he is there for"
Sure, ok, fine. I get that. But we took him in week 3 and others on our server took him in week 2 of WotLK and that included leveling to level 80, and I did not even play on one of the best servers there is. I don't know when Patchwork went down first, but in my turn I would not be surprised if he went down in week 1 of WotLK. After that the rest of the bosses were pretty easy and only tactic dependent, not so much depending on gear (which was what stopped my guild from killing Patchwork in week 2). So looking in hindsight, me currently not knowing when he went down, I, at that point would have been willing to bet that Kel'Thuzad went down in week 1.
Now these words spoken came from one of the lead instance/raid designers/developers from Blizzard. I think it is kind of sad that they apparently let a lot go of the ideas which they had for WotLK at that point in time (around the release of 2.4).
He also added that he often saw people in /2 going: "We absolutely need a shadow priest, or a frost mage to go blablabla..." He didn't like that aspect and thus later at a point came to the conclusion that CC was no longer something you would want in an instance, nor a raid and it resulted in the least amount of CC I have ever seen since the days I played. Making in fact the game boring instead of challenging tbh.
He also said: "We definitely want to do some unlocking of instances in some form". Seems he didn't find out what form. The instances are not as much aligned to factions as in TBC so that was hard to figure out (and in hindsight got scrapped). Attunement quests also got scrapped though. Unless I am mistaken there is 0 attunement in WotLK. So I feel bad they didn't get to do what they intended to do.
One of the cool things to learn is that, something I actually already knew, is said often in the Podcasts. "It isn't finished until it is finished". Meaning: we will not release it unless we feel it is ready. Kinda though feels that on some points they caved on that philosophy. They do not cave to the media, investors or whatever, but they do cave to the players. They give them what they want instead of making a good game.
That however must be taken in perspective. It has been a while since test versions could be played of Starcraft 2. They still have to set a quarter in which it will be shipped. They haven't picked a date yet, but they can't even say if it will be playable this year or the next or that we have to wait even longer!?
This all does build a myth. A myth they have to live up to not to disappoint a lot of people the day of the release. However it is something that I think they feel up to. And I believe they are. I have heard Blizzard people say that Starcraft 2 is gonna be the best game ever... Though that might be a lie, I think he wasn't lying.
World of warcraft is a bit different. It is a game with a LOT of people playing it already. They want new and more stuff. Blizzard says they can develop stuff much faster now then in the past, but that in my opinion is no reason to make easy mode on all content. I do understand it now though.
I would like to end with a quote, but it is hard to find the right one, so I will write my own quote. I am pretty sure some philosopher in the past said this before. If you can point me to that guy I would appreciate it.
The quote: "If you give a person too much of what he wants he becomes unhappy."
To clarify; I think Blizzard gave in to the wishes of people too rapidly without really thinking it through. Thus changing the game, removing a lot of challenges and handing all desires on a platter. As a result, for me, there was nothing left to want. What do you give a man who has everything? More of the same!... but in the end it is worthless.
I wonder how, compared to 2.x, the satisfaction of the people playing WoW is now. I think it is less. A cookie a day is better then a truckload of cookies delivered in your front lawn that will last the rest of your life. Dull lazy and bored is the result.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
I just logged in!
I just logged in to the server and was just in time to drink the brewfest achievement part brew. Tomorrow I dont have time and it would have been the last day that I could log in.
1 member of my guild was online. Someone who stopped raiding with us over 1.5 years ago and she was on her lvl 77 warlock.
Most sad of all, I still have currently a 54 minute cooldown left on ribbon dancing...
Go figure ;)
1 member of my guild was online. Someone who stopped raiding with us over 1.5 years ago and she was on her lvl 77 warlock.
Most sad of all, I still have currently a 54 minute cooldown left on ribbon dancing...
Go figure ;)
Monday, July 20, 2009
The train has departed...
This morning catching my train to work failed. I was 20 seconds too late. So I lost 30 minutes of my life.
I didn't really expect it but I did not ever felt the need to log back into wow. Cancelled my account today which will run till October 17th though. So I'll get the brewfest stuff done and the dragon from the festival stuff and I might get 75 pets since I am close already.
So I might write a few things here but this is it for me. I had hoped it would run a bit longer, but I am glad that at least some people found it interesting to read what I had to say here. I want to thank you for the time you spent reading my blog and I hope you enjoyed it.
Bye people, see you out there sometimes. And if you ever come across a character named Monedula, ask him if it is me ;)
I didn't really expect it but I did not ever felt the need to log back into wow. Cancelled my account today which will run till October 17th though. So I'll get the brewfest stuff done and the dragon from the festival stuff and I might get 75 pets since I am close already.
So I might write a few things here but this is it for me. I had hoped it would run a bit longer, but I am glad that at least some people found it interesting to read what I had to say here. I want to thank you for the time you spent reading my blog and I hope you enjoyed it.
Bye people, see you out there sometimes. And if you ever come across a character named Monedula, ask him if it is me ;)
Monday, July 13, 2009
The train is leaving the station
After I quit 2 weeks ago it has been 4 or 5 others who left a few days after (probably not due to my leaving though). Today there are 5 messages on the forum of people leaving including an officer and main raider.
Looks to me the guild is done for and dead. It held for 2.5 years or so. Pretty nice what we did accomplish though. We came from position 50 and it took to Ulduar to show the server how good we were. 3 server first kills and all horde first.
That was in some way I think the last drop for the guild though. We did what we wanted to do. No real goals left. WotLK raiding setup where you kill all in week 1 or 2 is sucky at best (you know my standpoint on that). So there is nothing left for us... well that is how a lot of people feel.
So a premature RIP for The Esoteric Foundation from me. Premature but in my opinion inevitable.
Looks to me the guild is done for and dead. It held for 2.5 years or so. Pretty nice what we did accomplish though. We came from position 50 and it took to Ulduar to show the server how good we were. 3 server first kills and all horde first.
That was in some way I think the last drop for the guild though. We did what we wanted to do. No real goals left. WotLK raiding setup where you kill all in week 1 or 2 is sucky at best (you know my standpoint on that). So there is nothing left for us... well that is how a lot of people feel.
So a premature RIP for The Esoteric Foundation from me. Premature but in my opinion inevitable.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
A little too relaxed...
Synopsis
This is the message I wrote on my guild's forum.
It has been fun.
Hey guys. I sadly have to announce that raiding is no longer an option for me. Last week I had to unsign all raids because of my newly started job which at that point drained all my energy.
Looking to the future I see other stuff coming my way, next to my new full time work, and I have not the time to spend on raiding as is required. Sadly I don't get too much joy from raiding in WotLK as I once did. If that was the case I might have been able to get energy from raiding, though currently it is draining more from me then I can give with my new irl situation. So this is it for me.
Being here from day 1 I feel at home in TEF and if you would let me I'd like to stay in the guild as a social member, though I can understand if you don't.
Good luck in Ulduar and I bet you will be at least horde first in 3.2 as well!
So what does it mean for this blog? Well basically I won't be raiding. I will have no drive to do hard calculations on what talent is best for what and what a certain development means for the future of druids in raids. Nor will you will get any valuable information (for as much that was the case before) about raiding.
This blog will become a more casual blog. Next upcoming post will be about the bearforms and cat forms I just saw on PTR and how disappointed I am in them. I might join a few raids or instances but most of the time I see myself doing non-raiding and non-pvp (hate pvp) achievements. Not as much game achievements though personal achievements. Leveling my 4 alts to 80, gearing them a bit, grinding mobs for that one drop (which believe it or not I think is fun and is taken largely out of WotLK), playing casual and just for the fun.
This is the message I wrote on my guild's forum.
It has been fun.
Hey guys. I sadly have to announce that raiding is no longer an option for me. Last week I had to unsign all raids because of my newly started job which at that point drained all my energy.
Looking to the future I see other stuff coming my way, next to my new full time work, and I have not the time to spend on raiding as is required. Sadly I don't get too much joy from raiding in WotLK as I once did. If that was the case I might have been able to get energy from raiding, though currently it is draining more from me then I can give with my new irl situation. So this is it for me.
Being here from day 1 I feel at home in TEF and if you would let me I'd like to stay in the guild as a social member, though I can understand if you don't.
Good luck in Ulduar and I bet you will be at least horde first in 3.2 as well!
So what does it mean for this blog? Well basically I won't be raiding. I will have no drive to do hard calculations on what talent is best for what and what a certain development means for the future of druids in raids. Nor will you will get any valuable information (for as much that was the case before) about raiding.
This blog will become a more casual blog. Next upcoming post will be about the bearforms and cat forms I just saw on PTR and how disappointed I am in them. I might join a few raids or instances but most of the time I see myself doing non-raiding and non-pvp (hate pvp) achievements. Not as much game achievements though personal achievements. Leveling my 4 alts to 80, gearing them a bit, grinding mobs for that one drop (which believe it or not I think is fun and is taken largely out of WotLK), playing casual and just for the fun.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Relax, take it easy
Damn I hate that song... rather the singer. Anyway. I am not playing much these days. Just started a new job. I feel relaxed about it, like it, knew I would like it, but getting into the rythm of getting up early and sunday to monday somehow only sleeping 1 hours has exhausted me a bit. I am not playing at the moment. The thought of anything else but sitting on the couch watching tv is exhausting enough. So I'll write a bit later I think.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Recent Comments
Check the left. New widget recent posts. Now I don't need to scroll anymore to check your comments!
Quick thanks to Andrew who you most likely know as Karthis who found this and implemented it in his own blog recently.
Got it here.
Quick thanks to Andrew who you most likely know as Karthis who found this and implemented it in his own blog recently.
Got it here.
Praat geen poep!
Synopsis
Sorry for the Dutch title. Translated it means "Don't talk shit". It is funny in Dutch because it is not usual word usage. The sentence in itself is a direct translation, word for word, from English to dutch.
Anyway it refers to Blizzard PTR patchnotes. It is talking shit.
What the hell does this mean: Ranks 4 and 5 base points reduced by about 11%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
??? Any idea anyone?
I think it might refer to a system like items. An item has x points to spread. Some in agility, some in stamina etc. If I am correct it means that in case of mangle, mangle is reduced by 11%.
If so I did a bit of calculation.
Instead of 5.9k dps on General Vezax I would do about 5.5k. The value was really close to 5% dps loss. One thing though, this os on a fight where you can non stop use the boss as a target dummy. Other fights, like Yogg where you mangle more then Shred and Rip, you will see more dps lost.
Still only guessing. Tell me if someone at Blizzard grew some brains and tried to explain to us how the internal point value of abilities is used. Bogus patchnotes imo.
Here is the (Dutch) "song" by Dingetje. I think I was 10 at the time this was a "hit". Prolly 20 years ago.
Sorry for the Dutch title. Translated it means "Don't talk shit". It is funny in Dutch because it is not usual word usage. The sentence in itself is a direct translation, word for word, from English to dutch.
Anyway it refers to Blizzard PTR patchnotes. It is talking shit.
What the hell does this mean: Ranks 4 and 5 base points reduced by about 11%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
??? Any idea anyone?
I think it might refer to a system like items. An item has x points to spread. Some in agility, some in stamina etc. If I am correct it means that in case of mangle, mangle is reduced by 11%.
If so I did a bit of calculation.
Instead of 5.9k dps on General Vezax I would do about 5.5k. The value was really close to 5% dps loss. One thing though, this os on a fight where you can non stop use the boss as a target dummy. Other fights, like Yogg where you mangle more then Shred and Rip, you will see more dps lost.
Still only guessing. Tell me if someone at Blizzard grew some brains and tried to explain to us how the internal point value of abilities is used. Bogus patchnotes imo.
Here is the (Dutch) "song" by Dingetje. I think I was 10 at the time this was a "hit". Prolly 20 years ago.
Quick balance update
Synopsis
Balance results.
Not raided yet, just been trying on a heroic target dummy. At the moment (only me) I have 2.9k dps on the dummy and non stop casting (no out of 5sr) I last about 7 minutes.
Is that ok? (Not using treants though)
Basically I spam wrath till eclipse, then starfire for the duration of eclipse. Then 3 or 4 more starfires (depending on when I have to refresh my dots), followed by wrath spam again.
I want one thing though, I want to see when eclipse is off cooldown. Meaning when I should stop starfire because I want the eclipse that is triggered by wrath, not the one triggered by starfire.
PS, on general vezax today I did 5.9k DPS and at some point was at 107% of the DK tank's threat :P We can use a bit of a nerf (patchnotes).
Balance results.
Not raided yet, just been trying on a heroic target dummy. At the moment (only me) I have 2.9k dps on the dummy and non stop casting (no out of 5sr) I last about 7 minutes.
Is that ok? (Not using treants though)
Basically I spam wrath till eclipse, then starfire for the duration of eclipse. Then 3 or 4 more starfires (depending on when I have to refresh my dots), followed by wrath spam again.
I want one thing though, I want to see when eclipse is off cooldown. Meaning when I should stop starfire because I want the eclipse that is triggered by wrath, not the one triggered by starfire.
PS, on general vezax today I did 5.9k DPS and at some point was at 107% of the DK tank's threat :P We can use a bit of a nerf (patchnotes).
Thursday, June 18, 2009
I hope...
Synopsis
Apparently the bitching got through to Blizzard.
The current normal/heroic/hardmode shit is fucked and people hate it. Well at least some people. Well at least me (and Darksend).
This is what I found on my guild's forum. Posted by my guildmaster:
Quote:
"Blizzard is getting ready to put the next raids on PTR, they're going to be the Crusader's Coliseum and they'll have an interesting twist to them. For the first time, we'll now see Heroic 25 man raids and Normal 25 man raids. Massive LFG-confusion is sure to ensue, but this is the list:
10-man
10-man Heroic
25-man
25-man Heroic"
I hope this means no longer hardmode/normal mode. I hope there will be different loot tables for each as well! We will see t9.10n and t9.10h, t9.25n, t9.25h.
I hope, I hope... So now (I hope) when you kill hardmode 25 you will be looking not the same as every (possible) noob out there. This also means people can still experience the game content. I hardcore raiders will be a lot more satisfied.
He goes on; quote:
"The new system in the coliseum is interesting, in Heroic Modes you get rewarded based on how few tries you use to kill a certain boss. You only have X pulls every week, and the sooner you kill the boss the better/more rewards (loot too, I assume) you get."
This means that say there is a boss like Flame Leviathan is now in Ulduar. And say it is way too hard. You can't get past him. After 6 (?) tries or so he will be gone. You can move on to the next boss.
Also this means that any group of green wearing level 80 players can see every fight (for a short period before they die) in a week and get 0 loot, still having seen the end boss.
I think that is fair. Good Idea from Blizzard. Everyone can learn all the fights easy mode (normal). When you go hardmode (heroic), after having done it in easy mode it will not fuck up the loot you get in reference to gearing players. This means that the problem blizzard had before is solved.
Example: You are able to kill boss 1 in an instance every week, but boss 2 needs some work. There is 4 (?) loots every week. That sucks for gearing people. You need to farm the first few bosses for weeks before you are geared to take the last one.
People used to solve that by farming trash. Go into Sunwell, kill the first pack of trash, loot it, get out, reset, go in and kill trash again. Dropping a few recipes, a few things needed to craft stuff and maybe a trash epic.
Now you can still get upgrades by killing it on normal (easy) mode. Then you can try and get some loot from hardmodes.
This all leads me to conclude there are no hardmodes. There are still achievements, though no hardmodes. Trying for hardmodes will require "wipenights". Those are definitely gone. After x tries the boss is gone. So if loot is gonna drop 6 (?) items for a oneshot and 1 (?) on the last possible try this means the following; Doing hardmodes fucks you over! Hardmodes need a few things; skill and gear. If you decide to do hardmodes early on you will not get gear. Others who decide to do hardmodes in week 10 will get lots and lots of loot and then do the hardmode easy in said week 10, where the ones trying hardmode from the beginning get no gear.
I hope Blizzard has seen the light. Achievements in raids suck. Achievements to get 100 horsies is nice, but don't integrate them as a requirement into PVE.
I hope... I hope...
Remember, this is hearsay from PTR which is not even "live" on PTR yet. So all may change, but I think it will change for the better.... I hope
Apparently the bitching got through to Blizzard.
The current normal/heroic/hardmode shit is fucked and people hate it. Well at least some people. Well at least me (and Darksend).
This is what I found on my guild's forum. Posted by my guildmaster:
Quote:
"Blizzard is getting ready to put the next raids on PTR, they're going to be the Crusader's Coliseum and they'll have an interesting twist to them. For the first time, we'll now see Heroic 25 man raids and Normal 25 man raids. Massive LFG-confusion is sure to ensue, but this is the list:
10-man
10-man Heroic
25-man
25-man Heroic"
I hope this means no longer hardmode/normal mode. I hope there will be different loot tables for each as well! We will see t9.10n and t9.10h, t9.25n, t9.25h.
I hope, I hope... So now (I hope) when you kill hardmode 25 you will be looking not the same as every (possible) noob out there. This also means people can still experience the game content. I hardcore raiders will be a lot more satisfied.
He goes on; quote:
"The new system in the coliseum is interesting, in Heroic Modes you get rewarded based on how few tries you use to kill a certain boss. You only have X pulls every week, and the sooner you kill the boss the better/more rewards (loot too, I assume) you get."
This means that say there is a boss like Flame Leviathan is now in Ulduar. And say it is way too hard. You can't get past him. After 6 (?) tries or so he will be gone. You can move on to the next boss.
Also this means that any group of green wearing level 80 players can see every fight (for a short period before they die) in a week and get 0 loot, still having seen the end boss.
I think that is fair. Good Idea from Blizzard. Everyone can learn all the fights easy mode (normal). When you go hardmode (heroic), after having done it in easy mode it will not fuck up the loot you get in reference to gearing players. This means that the problem blizzard had before is solved.
Example: You are able to kill boss 1 in an instance every week, but boss 2 needs some work. There is 4 (?) loots every week. That sucks for gearing people. You need to farm the first few bosses for weeks before you are geared to take the last one.
People used to solve that by farming trash. Go into Sunwell, kill the first pack of trash, loot it, get out, reset, go in and kill trash again. Dropping a few recipes, a few things needed to craft stuff and maybe a trash epic.
Now you can still get upgrades by killing it on normal (easy) mode. Then you can try and get some loot from hardmodes.
This all leads me to conclude there are no hardmodes. There are still achievements, though no hardmodes. Trying for hardmodes will require "wipenights". Those are definitely gone. After x tries the boss is gone. So if loot is gonna drop 6 (?) items for a oneshot and 1 (?) on the last possible try this means the following; Doing hardmodes fucks you over! Hardmodes need a few things; skill and gear. If you decide to do hardmodes early on you will not get gear. Others who decide to do hardmodes in week 10 will get lots and lots of loot and then do the hardmode easy in said week 10, where the ones trying hardmode from the beginning get no gear.
I hope Blizzard has seen the light. Achievements in raids suck. Achievements to get 100 horsies is nice, but don't integrate them as a requirement into PVE.
I hope... I hope...
Remember, this is hearsay from PTR which is not even "live" on PTR yet. So all may change, but I think it will change for the better.... I hope
Balance coming up... I think?
Synopsis
A head's up of my Balance adventures.
Yesterday I realized how much I like to dps when standing still. I so hate those huge like mobs without a real defined hitbox. Most of all the arms of Kologarn. I never know where the fuck I am. I have to watch my messages to see why the fuck I am not hitting him. "You need to face your target". With large groups I have one selected, doing Berserk and wanna swipe. Well the mob is either somehow behind me or too far in front of me. How fucking annoying.
So since we have a huge wave of newbies we are doing a lot of bosses easy mode. Next Wednesday I will go Balance if they let me. Would mean a 1.5k dps reduction or so, but that should not be that much of a deal on 25 man easy mode.
My gear is pretty much ok. A lot of gear that was being disenchanted (nobody greeded) I got, and instead of disenchanting I kept the caster gear, swapped it for crappier caster gear I already had and then disenchanted the crappy thing. The guild still had the shards, and my gear is very nice!
Yesterday I spent some time (too much time) configuring my gear. Don't know how well Rawr is for balance, but I used it to see where I could get upgrades. So now I have my 3rd t8.5 helmet. Now when fully gemmed I am hitcapped (266 rating, which is 3 above the cap I am told), I have 409 haste, but not too much crit though. Though I still have to see where I am at when I have respecced. My spellpower, coming from gear alone (and maybe some random feral stat) is at 1820. So that should be close to 2k selfbuffed in the correct spec.
Not bad for off-offspec gear. No?
PS I really want to see triple spec (Meaning dual spec + 1 extra).
A head's up of my Balance adventures.
Yesterday I realized how much I like to dps when standing still. I so hate those huge like mobs without a real defined hitbox. Most of all the arms of Kologarn. I never know where the fuck I am. I have to watch my messages to see why the fuck I am not hitting him. "You need to face your target". With large groups I have one selected, doing Berserk and wanna swipe. Well the mob is either somehow behind me or too far in front of me. How fucking annoying.
So since we have a huge wave of newbies we are doing a lot of bosses easy mode. Next Wednesday I will go Balance if they let me. Would mean a 1.5k dps reduction or so, but that should not be that much of a deal on 25 man easy mode.
My gear is pretty much ok. A lot of gear that was being disenchanted (nobody greeded) I got, and instead of disenchanting I kept the caster gear, swapped it for crappier caster gear I already had and then disenchanted the crappy thing. The guild still had the shards, and my gear is very nice!
Yesterday I spent some time (too much time) configuring my gear. Don't know how well Rawr is for balance, but I used it to see where I could get upgrades. So now I have my 3rd t8.5 helmet. Now when fully gemmed I am hitcapped (266 rating, which is 3 above the cap I am told), I have 409 haste, but not too much crit though. Though I still have to see where I am at when I have respecced. My spellpower, coming from gear alone (and maybe some random feral stat) is at 1820. So that should be close to 2k selfbuffed in the correct spec.
Not bad for off-offspec gear. No?
PS I really want to see triple spec (Meaning dual spec + 1 extra).
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Game within a game
Synopsis
At the moment I never ever fly from point to point on my own. I always use flightpaths. I even go out of my way to find a flightpath to fly to the closest flightpath near my destination... why? Here is why.
It cost you a few flightpath gold but...
Curse Bejeweled link
My highscores are:
- Timed 580 (about)
- Normal 111k (about)
Also check out Peggle!
Curse Peggle link
Currently got 6 / 12 completely cleared.
At the moment I never ever fly from point to point on my own. I always use flightpaths. I even go out of my way to find a flightpath to fly to the closest flightpath near my destination... why? Here is why.
It cost you a few flightpath gold but...
Curse Bejeweled link
My highscores are:
- Timed 580 (about)
- Normal 111k (about)
Also check out Peggle!
Curse Peggle link
Currently got 6 / 12 completely cleared.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Saturday night dailies - a story
Synopsis
How a DK can make your day.
Meet Drethen. I met him about an hour ago. As you can see he is fully epic and has 4 pieces of the Valarous set. If he would fight you at first you would think he would be able to at least do you some harm. No?
Well there I was, doing dailies. I was in Brunhildar village and I had to hit 6 lazy people over the head with a cane. Still doing that daily because I want the polar bear mount.
So I ran in there, hit 1, 2, 3 mobs. I never kill them. I just hit em, keep on running in catform and after I hit the last one I dash out of there. I don't bother killing them and they only get me down 3k health max or so.
After hitting mob nr 3 I ran past an ally. Didn't bother to check him. I suddenly noticed I had stopped running and had some ice chain thing around my ankles. I turned and saw him coming after me. I went bearform (which versus melee is the easiest to do I find, being in bear spec and gear already). So I started hitting him, swiping and in the process having 4 additional Vrykul on my ass.
To my surprise Drethen died really fast. He wasn't naked for as far as I could see. I don't know where his health went that fast, but it being Saturday night, I guess he was drunk :D
So he died. I swiped the Vrykul to death and was still at 80% of my health ^^. I laughed hard and then when he ressed next to me I decided to become a masochist. I was in cat, hit him a few times, 5CP Rip and then as he ran away I walked after him very slowly, making sure not to hit him, watching him die from the ticks.
I hid, killed him again. Then I went and finished my quest. On my way out I could not resist myself. I met him again, made sure I did a /laugh before I killed him and then went to turn in the quest.
What the hell was he thinking attacking a druid who was clearly wearing an Ulduar weapon... What the hell was he thinking. My lvl 70 hunter could have killed him.
This totally made my day.
If you ever read this Dreathen, thank you! ;)
How a DK can make your day.
Meet Drethen. I met him about an hour ago. As you can see he is fully epic and has 4 pieces of the Valarous set. If he would fight you at first you would think he would be able to at least do you some harm. No?
Well there I was, doing dailies. I was in Brunhildar village and I had to hit 6 lazy people over the head with a cane. Still doing that daily because I want the polar bear mount.
So I ran in there, hit 1, 2, 3 mobs. I never kill them. I just hit em, keep on running in catform and after I hit the last one I dash out of there. I don't bother killing them and they only get me down 3k health max or so.
After hitting mob nr 3 I ran past an ally. Didn't bother to check him. I suddenly noticed I had stopped running and had some ice chain thing around my ankles. I turned and saw him coming after me. I went bearform (which versus melee is the easiest to do I find, being in bear spec and gear already). So I started hitting him, swiping and in the process having 4 additional Vrykul on my ass.
To my surprise Drethen died really fast. He wasn't naked for as far as I could see. I don't know where his health went that fast, but it being Saturday night, I guess he was drunk :D
So he died. I swiped the Vrykul to death and was still at 80% of my health ^^. I laughed hard and then when he ressed next to me I decided to become a masochist. I was in cat, hit him a few times, 5CP Rip and then as he ran away I walked after him very slowly, making sure not to hit him, watching him die from the ticks.
I hid, killed him again. Then I went and finished my quest. On my way out I could not resist myself. I met him again, made sure I did a /laugh before I killed him and then went to turn in the quest.
What the hell was he thinking attacking a druid who was clearly wearing an Ulduar weapon... What the hell was he thinking. My lvl 70 hunter could have killed him.
This totally made my day.
If you ever read this Dreathen, thank you! ;)
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Zildjar's lament
Synopsis
A byebye post to a guildy with whom I go back a long time. He accidentally (?) removed his forum rights so I was unable to say something to him.
A lot of players have stopped playing in my guild. Most of them I can't remember how I met them. I just know they are there and I know who they are. Not Zildjar though. I remember meeting him explicitly.
So most of you wonder who this Zildjar is.
Armory link
He's a rogue and I met him in Vanilla. He was leveling while I was leveling my druid. He followed kind of the same road as I did. I was a healer back then so the best way for me to level was doing instances. I met him a lot. He was always 1 or 2 levels higher then me. I wanted to overtake him and hit 60 before he did, but he didn't let me.
When I was about level 40 I was bored of leveling without guild, I remembered Zild's tabard. It was black and I liked that so I asked him if I could join. My intention was to have a leveling guild, rather then a raiding guild at that time, though I never had to change guilds to get my raiding hours. A simple whisper to the guildleader of Brotherhood of Thrall was enough to get an invite.
One day later we merged with Nordic Chapter, keeping their name. Together we raided and when blizzard released all HWL gear for honor grinders we were about to hit BWL but never entered because we could not get the people needed.
In TBC we were still casual and we were raiding Kara (4 bosses in or so). The name Nordic Chapter was not RP apparently (???) and instead of choosing a new name, without much warning the guild split.
Difficult time because there were 2 guilds formed. I had to choose between friends. Zild wasn't one I considered in that (though he choose the same guild), but eventually I choose The Esoteric Foundation. We were an RP guild (lol) but later went hardcore raiding climbing up from server position 50 to 5 within the remainder of TBC.
Zildjar was known by many things. Glaiveboy (having a warglaive) was one of the first. The later one; Zild-can't stay alive-jar, because he used to go all out on trash and tank them while he could not :D
Later he conspired with other members to divert that name to Grunee by constantly misdirecting to him :D.
Grunee, who also stopped raiding, is a whole different story all together. In short; he is a DPS warrior, who used to be MT in TBC and got famous for constantly falling off the platforms at the Al'ar fight resulting in a wipe.
Anyway Zildjar now stopped and I just wanted to thank him for all the countless hours we spent together and I wish him all the best in a wow-less life.
A byebye post to a guildy with whom I go back a long time. He accidentally (?) removed his forum rights so I was unable to say something to him.
A lot of players have stopped playing in my guild. Most of them I can't remember how I met them. I just know they are there and I know who they are. Not Zildjar though. I remember meeting him explicitly.
So most of you wonder who this Zildjar is.
Armory link
He's a rogue and I met him in Vanilla. He was leveling while I was leveling my druid. He followed kind of the same road as I did. I was a healer back then so the best way for me to level was doing instances. I met him a lot. He was always 1 or 2 levels higher then me. I wanted to overtake him and hit 60 before he did, but he didn't let me.
When I was about level 40 I was bored of leveling without guild, I remembered Zild's tabard. It was black and I liked that so I asked him if I could join. My intention was to have a leveling guild, rather then a raiding guild at that time, though I never had to change guilds to get my raiding hours. A simple whisper to the guildleader of Brotherhood of Thrall was enough to get an invite.
One day later we merged with Nordic Chapter, keeping their name. Together we raided and when blizzard released all HWL gear for honor grinders we were about to hit BWL but never entered because we could not get the people needed.
In TBC we were still casual and we were raiding Kara (4 bosses in or so). The name Nordic Chapter was not RP apparently (???) and instead of choosing a new name, without much warning the guild split.
Difficult time because there were 2 guilds formed. I had to choose between friends. Zild wasn't one I considered in that (though he choose the same guild), but eventually I choose The Esoteric Foundation. We were an RP guild (lol) but later went hardcore raiding climbing up from server position 50 to 5 within the remainder of TBC.
Zildjar was known by many things. Glaiveboy (having a warglaive) was one of the first. The later one; Zild-can't stay alive-jar, because he used to go all out on trash and tank them while he could not :D
Later he conspired with other members to divert that name to Grunee by constantly misdirecting to him :D.
Grunee, who also stopped raiding, is a whole different story all together. In short; he is a DPS warrior, who used to be MT in TBC and got famous for constantly falling off the platforms at the Al'ar fight resulting in a wipe.
Anyway Zildjar now stopped and I just wanted to thank him for all the countless hours we spent together and I wish him all the best in a wow-less life.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
10 man hardmodes
Synopsis
Yesterday I joined a guild 10 man hardmodes try. To my surprise, I liked it a lot.
I haven't played a lot of 10 man. The days that there is no guild raid scheduled I tend to want to spent otherwise. Invest some time in real life and not play 50+ hours wow anymore. Also 10 man didn't appeal to me. There is nothing to get there. Most of the loot I want is in 25 man.
Since we are struggling with getting 25 man runs going, and some kills (Yogg) are very sucky without 25. So we yesterday (for Europeans last day of the raiding week) skipped 25 man. Left it for what it was and continued the 10 man hardmode run some of us had already started.
2 weeks ago a lot of hardmodes for unlocking Agalon were done already. So this week there were 2 left basically. Freya 3 watchers + Mimiron. How much as I hate Freya 25 man I really loved playing Freya 10 man. The raid consisted of a lot of the top notch best players from our guild. The discipline was amazing! All knew what to do, nobody making much mistakes. A little bit learning there was involved and we killed her.
Now I must say Freya 10 man is quite a bit easier then 25 man. But still.
We went on to try Mimiron. That fight is incredibly hard. I liked to really progress raid here. After 10 tries we managed to get to phase 2 with 10 people alive. We got him to about 40% when only our DK tank was still alive. He actually managed to get him to 33% before he himself died. Which was fun to see. Mimiron vs a DK for 2 minutes long!
Having some bosses left we decided not to wipe there endlessly and killed him normal mode. Nobody touched a mine... but me :( Achievement gone. It was phase 4 and I had seen the gap, went for it but the damn middle and top part obstructed my view. The thing above him there also doesn't count for a wall so you can (not) see right through. I hate the way this fight is in that manner. Next Time I better strafe out.
We then went for Vezax. We did his hardmode really close a few times but it ended up with the MT dying. Not because of mana problems, but because he wasn't healed enough. Sad to not have gotten him, but still amused by the enjoyment we had gotten from the fight, we killed him normal mode and moved to Yogg Saron. After a accidental wipe we then were well adjusted and did him hard mode (within 7 minutes) which wasn't really a chalenge and then went to finish off council, ending up oneshotting them hardmode with the big guy killed last.
Now you are thinking; "Ok. What is this post about?"
In reference to my previous post I am a bit confused. I liked 10 man hardmodes. I don't feel for 25 man hardmodes. Should I stop doing 25 man and only do 10 man? Why did I like 10 man so much? Because it was easy? Because it was attainable?
I think it is the following; We were a group of 10 very good players. If I have to name 6 of the top players in my guild they were all in that group.
So I think the conclusion in respect to my previous post, next to what was said in there (which was true), also the following is contributing to the fact that I dislike Ulduar (or Blizzards way of implementing instances now);
Blizzard made it "easy" for all to clear naxx. A lot of people joined in good raiding guilds, replacing some excellent players that just stop (it happens too), but aren't really that good. My guild tries to have only the best players but since they are spread too thin on my server we have the problem that we don't have the luxury to do it anymore. There simply aren't that many good players.
The one thing to hope for is that my guild holds out and some other top guild doesn't. Hoping a guild will fail is not really nice, but it is the only thing that is a real solution. There are 4 other horde guilds having the same problems we do. Not enough (skilled) raiders. If one of them tumbles we would get a couple of their players and get a full group of good players. I think that is one of the things that would make my joy in 25 man raiding come back.
Still next to the summer and people having vacation time Blizzard is to blame for this too. There is less skill required to play, making "bad" players go unnoticed. Rather then blame the players, I blame Blizzard's current implementation. The players don't have to improve themselves. It is simply not needed. Pre WotLK when we got a new player we knew we had to put some extra time in him/her. You would see him underperform. Currently you don't, meaning the whole group of players performs not as good as they should/could.
Yesterday I joined a guild 10 man hardmodes try. To my surprise, I liked it a lot.
I haven't played a lot of 10 man. The days that there is no guild raid scheduled I tend to want to spent otherwise. Invest some time in real life and not play 50+ hours wow anymore. Also 10 man didn't appeal to me. There is nothing to get there. Most of the loot I want is in 25 man.
Since we are struggling with getting 25 man runs going, and some kills (Yogg) are very sucky without 25. So we yesterday (for Europeans last day of the raiding week) skipped 25 man. Left it for what it was and continued the 10 man hardmode run some of us had already started.
2 weeks ago a lot of hardmodes for unlocking Agalon were done already. So this week there were 2 left basically. Freya 3 watchers + Mimiron. How much as I hate Freya 25 man I really loved playing Freya 10 man. The raid consisted of a lot of the top notch best players from our guild. The discipline was amazing! All knew what to do, nobody making much mistakes. A little bit learning there was involved and we killed her.
Now I must say Freya 10 man is quite a bit easier then 25 man. But still.
We went on to try Mimiron. That fight is incredibly hard. I liked to really progress raid here. After 10 tries we managed to get to phase 2 with 10 people alive. We got him to about 40% when only our DK tank was still alive. He actually managed to get him to 33% before he himself died. Which was fun to see. Mimiron vs a DK for 2 minutes long!
Having some bosses left we decided not to wipe there endlessly and killed him normal mode. Nobody touched a mine... but me :( Achievement gone. It was phase 4 and I had seen the gap, went for it but the damn middle and top part obstructed my view. The thing above him there also doesn't count for a wall so you can (not) see right through. I hate the way this fight is in that manner. Next Time I better strafe out.
We then went for Vezax. We did his hardmode really close a few times but it ended up with the MT dying. Not because of mana problems, but because he wasn't healed enough. Sad to not have gotten him, but still amused by the enjoyment we had gotten from the fight, we killed him normal mode and moved to Yogg Saron. After a accidental wipe we then were well adjusted and did him hard mode (within 7 minutes) which wasn't really a chalenge and then went to finish off council, ending up oneshotting them hardmode with the big guy killed last.
Now you are thinking; "Ok. What is this post about?"
In reference to my previous post I am a bit confused. I liked 10 man hardmodes. I don't feel for 25 man hardmodes. Should I stop doing 25 man and only do 10 man? Why did I like 10 man so much? Because it was easy? Because it was attainable?
I think it is the following; We were a group of 10 very good players. If I have to name 6 of the top players in my guild they were all in that group.
So I think the conclusion in respect to my previous post, next to what was said in there (which was true), also the following is contributing to the fact that I dislike Ulduar (or Blizzards way of implementing instances now);
Blizzard made it "easy" for all to clear naxx. A lot of people joined in good raiding guilds, replacing some excellent players that just stop (it happens too), but aren't really that good. My guild tries to have only the best players but since they are spread too thin on my server we have the problem that we don't have the luxury to do it anymore. There simply aren't that many good players.
The one thing to hope for is that my guild holds out and some other top guild doesn't. Hoping a guild will fail is not really nice, but it is the only thing that is a real solution. There are 4 other horde guilds having the same problems we do. Not enough (skilled) raiders. If one of them tumbles we would get a couple of their players and get a full group of good players. I think that is one of the things that would make my joy in 25 man raiding come back.
Still next to the summer and people having vacation time Blizzard is to blame for this too. There is less skill required to play, making "bad" players go unnoticed. Rather then blame the players, I blame Blizzard's current implementation. The players don't have to improve themselves. It is simply not needed. Pre WotLK when we got a new player we knew we had to put some extra time in him/her. You would see him underperform. Currently you don't, meaning the whole group of players performs not as good as they should/could.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
How Blizzard killed PVE
Synopsis
Lots of players leaving and others not enjoying WoW as much as it could have been. It has been talked about a lot, but I today realized exactly what it is and how. Though it is personal and some of you might have figured this out LONG time ago.
WoW is no longer the game it used to be. My guild has had a lot of people not feeling the drive anymore. As a result they are leaving. There are others that don't feel the drive too. Coinciding with summer (and no longer being locked inside to flee the cold) this is very bad for the raiding communities in WoW.
The reason for it is not that Ulduar is not what we expected it to be. It is exactly what we expect it to be. However WoW itself has changed drastically. WoW have become socialistic bastards. "We want more people to experience end game encounters". In other words; if you suck ass you will one day kill Yogg Saron. This makes good players sad.
It is an attempt of Blizzard to make even more money. However I feel it has destroyed the game completely. The main driving force behind new and more people starting to play WoW, I think, was the mouth-to-mouth talk from friends on how awesome WoW was. At the moment I would recommend nobody to start playing WoW. Try some game that is not dying. The game is dying and it is time for a reanimation force from Blizzard.
Ulduar is a great instance, and yet it sucks monkey balls. The bossfights are awesome, but then again disappointing. There is no progress. Or at least not like it used to be. Previously you would work one week on a boss and finally get him down. Now you work 2 hours on him and he is dead. Then you can spent some time working on hardmode. And this is where it goes wrong. If you raid with 25 people at least a few of them do not really care about hardmodes. This depends on the server though. The top guilds on a heavily populated pve server will get those people. But if you don't you are screwed.
Now as to what this change has accomplished. A lot more people will see Yogg Saron. Basically, if you want to you can. Yay, but it means it is totally unrewarding for anyone skilled.
Pre 3.0 there were no hardmodes. Or rather there were no easy modes. Freya would always have her 3 watchers up. Flame leviathan would be way one of the last (optional) bosses since you need to kill him with 4 towers always. Then downing Flame leviathan would mean something. We last week went for the "easy" achievements and with not even a full raid we got 2 easy achievments done. 3 actually, nobody dying (part of a meta), no repairs and no overload. Where is the challenge?
Pre 3.0 you used to be in a guild and hear some guild took boss x and boss y and you would imagine yourself killing them one day. If your guild would suck you could choose to join an other (how ever hard that choice may be sometimes). If you wanted to you could see all bosses in an expansion. If you were in a top guild you would be walking around with great gear and all would see how great you looked and envy you. That is something that gives satisfaction.
What is the satisfaction now? Everyone looks the same after 2 months of raiding. If you are in a crappy guild you will kill Yogg Saron eventually for sure, as long as you have a PVE focus. There is no room for self improvement. And good players, the ones hooked to WoW are finding less and less enjoyment in it.
This will result in the biggest "Yay! WoW!"-sayers to go: "Yeah... WoW :S"
I don't know about PvP but I think Blizzard should hurry up with the new MMORPG game (non Warcraft) of which I have heard rumors. In my opinion WoW is dying and they need a followup.
As a closing statement;
To reach for a goal is to get the ultimate. The thing you can't get or have to do a lot for to get. Once you have it and you can't set any new goals you get depressed.
WoW has lost any ultimate can't-get factor it had in PvE. No goals so depression sets in.
Lots of players leaving and others not enjoying WoW as much as it could have been. It has been talked about a lot, but I today realized exactly what it is and how. Though it is personal and some of you might have figured this out LONG time ago.
WoW is no longer the game it used to be. My guild has had a lot of people not feeling the drive anymore. As a result they are leaving. There are others that don't feel the drive too. Coinciding with summer (and no longer being locked inside to flee the cold) this is very bad for the raiding communities in WoW.
The reason for it is not that Ulduar is not what we expected it to be. It is exactly what we expect it to be. However WoW itself has changed drastically. WoW have become socialistic bastards. "We want more people to experience end game encounters". In other words; if you suck ass you will one day kill Yogg Saron. This makes good players sad.
It is an attempt of Blizzard to make even more money. However I feel it has destroyed the game completely. The main driving force behind new and more people starting to play WoW, I think, was the mouth-to-mouth talk from friends on how awesome WoW was. At the moment I would recommend nobody to start playing WoW. Try some game that is not dying. The game is dying and it is time for a reanimation force from Blizzard.
Ulduar is a great instance, and yet it sucks monkey balls. The bossfights are awesome, but then again disappointing. There is no progress. Or at least not like it used to be. Previously you would work one week on a boss and finally get him down. Now you work 2 hours on him and he is dead. Then you can spent some time working on hardmode. And this is where it goes wrong. If you raid with 25 people at least a few of them do not really care about hardmodes. This depends on the server though. The top guilds on a heavily populated pve server will get those people. But if you don't you are screwed.
Now as to what this change has accomplished. A lot more people will see Yogg Saron. Basically, if you want to you can. Yay, but it means it is totally unrewarding for anyone skilled.
Pre 3.0 there were no hardmodes. Or rather there were no easy modes. Freya would always have her 3 watchers up. Flame leviathan would be way one of the last (optional) bosses since you need to kill him with 4 towers always. Then downing Flame leviathan would mean something. We last week went for the "easy" achievements and with not even a full raid we got 2 easy achievments done. 3 actually, nobody dying (part of a meta), no repairs and no overload. Where is the challenge?
Pre 3.0 you used to be in a guild and hear some guild took boss x and boss y and you would imagine yourself killing them one day. If your guild would suck you could choose to join an other (how ever hard that choice may be sometimes). If you wanted to you could see all bosses in an expansion. If you were in a top guild you would be walking around with great gear and all would see how great you looked and envy you. That is something that gives satisfaction.
What is the satisfaction now? Everyone looks the same after 2 months of raiding. If you are in a crappy guild you will kill Yogg Saron eventually for sure, as long as you have a PVE focus. There is no room for self improvement. And good players, the ones hooked to WoW are finding less and less enjoyment in it.
This will result in the biggest "Yay! WoW!"-sayers to go: "Yeah... WoW :S"
I don't know about PvP but I think Blizzard should hurry up with the new MMORPG game (non Warcraft) of which I have heard rumors. In my opinion WoW is dying and they need a followup.
As a closing statement;
To reach for a goal is to get the ultimate. The thing you can't get or have to do a lot for to get. Once you have it and you can't set any new goals you get depressed.
WoW has lost any ultimate can't-get factor it had in PvE. No goals so depression sets in.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
How nelf cats should really look
Synopsys
Someone made this;
Quote: "I'm a little underwhelmed by the new elf cat models. I don't think they truly capture the essence of the Night Elf race so I went ahead and made a few improvements. I think you can see this is the right direction."
Someone made this;
Quote: "I'm a little underwhelmed by the new elf cat models. I don't think they truly capture the essence of the Night Elf race so I went ahead and made a few improvements. I think you can see this is the right direction."
Friday, June 5, 2009
Blizzard finally agrees. Allieds suck!
Synopsis
New catform lol.
Sorry to all you nightelves out there. About half of you play nightelves. Being Tauren I naturally hate allies for how pathetic they are when they have to kill me on an escort quest, fishing or whatever. I am sure a lot of you on pvp realms think the same about horde, though I am pretty sure a lot of kids play more allied and are more childish the horde. Though you nightelves think the same about horde ;)
[don't take this comment serious]
Anyway, WoW will be a lot more funny when 3.2 comes. I will laugh being ganked by a feral druid. My first reaction when I saw your catforms: "WHAHA! Your cats look gay!" (no offense to gay people).
Now still when I look at your catforms I am laughing my fat cow ass off. Putting a picture here just for the fun. Haha you are so hard screwed with these forms. If I were you I would petition blizzard not to change nelf druid form at all. I would prefer the old one over the new ones.
*snicker*
Oh forget snicker.... MOEWAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAA
Seriously though, I pitty you... WHAHAHAH
New catform lol.
Sorry to all you nightelves out there. About half of you play nightelves. Being Tauren I naturally hate allies for how pathetic they are when they have to kill me on an escort quest, fishing or whatever. I am sure a lot of you on pvp realms think the same about horde, though I am pretty sure a lot of kids play more allied and are more childish the horde. Though you nightelves think the same about horde ;)
[don't take this comment serious]
Anyway, WoW will be a lot more funny when 3.2 comes. I will laugh being ganked by a feral druid. My first reaction when I saw your catforms: "WHAHA! Your cats look gay!" (no offense to gay people).
Now still when I look at your catforms I am laughing my fat cow ass off. Putting a picture here just for the fun. Haha you are so hard screwed with these forms. If I were you I would petition blizzard not to change nelf druid form at all. I would prefer the old one over the new ones.
*snicker*
Oh forget snicker.... MOEWAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAA
Seriously though, I pitty you... WHAHAHAH
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Jerks are unfriendly...
Synopsis
Elitist jerks. I hope those people never have to review my tax return.
I used to be active on Elitist jerks. I don't like the guys.
I used one abbreviation and a misspell in the first post. I got flamed by a moderator for 3 things I had written wrong. Infraction. Although they guy admitted that on of those reasons was not valid and was his own stupidity I still got the infraction.
I was then pretty new to all druid mechanics. So some "stupid" post I made, of something I was unaware gave me an infraction.
I find that harsh. But ok, I get it.
Also being friendly doesn't get you much there.
Got an other for wanting to post a question. I went to the forum and thought I had to respond to someone else first. I could have ignored him, but I had some good advise for him (for which he thanked me in a personal message). I forgot what my own question was about so I left the forum. Later I remembered it and asked it. It was not one line and something completely different then my response. So I made a new post. WARNING WRONG WARNING! Double posting. Infraction.
Some more crappy things that I disagree with they gave me an infraction for.
Now today someone asked a pretty basic question in the simple questions section. If he had searched harder on the forum he would have found the answer. But since it was simple questions I gave him a response. So I got another infraction.
3 simple rules I learned from this.
1: Don't be nice;
2: Stay away from anyone who calls himself elitist;
3: Start your own blog and write any crap you WTFPWNED LOLOLOL you want to write yourself.
PS I know a lot of you are on there as well and I most likely agree with you and understand that there is a need to keep it strict, but to lack common sense is something else.
Elitist jerks. I hope those people never have to review my tax return.
I used to be active on Elitist jerks. I don't like the guys.
I used one abbreviation and a misspell in the first post. I got flamed by a moderator for 3 things I had written wrong. Infraction. Although they guy admitted that on of those reasons was not valid and was his own stupidity I still got the infraction.
I was then pretty new to all druid mechanics. So some "stupid" post I made, of something I was unaware gave me an infraction.
I find that harsh. But ok, I get it.
Also being friendly doesn't get you much there.
Got an other for wanting to post a question. I went to the forum and thought I had to respond to someone else first. I could have ignored him, but I had some good advise for him (for which he thanked me in a personal message). I forgot what my own question was about so I left the forum. Later I remembered it and asked it. It was not one line and something completely different then my response. So I made a new post. WARNING WRONG WARNING! Double posting. Infraction.
Some more crappy things that I disagree with they gave me an infraction for.
Now today someone asked a pretty basic question in the simple questions section. If he had searched harder on the forum he would have found the answer. But since it was simple questions I gave him a response. So I got another infraction.
3 simple rules I learned from this.
1: Don't be nice;
2: Stay away from anyone who calls himself elitist;
3: Start your own blog and write any crap you WTFPWNED LOLOLOL you want to write yourself.
PS I know a lot of you are on there as well and I most likely agree with you and understand that there is a need to keep it strict, but to lack common sense is something else.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Catforms
Just saying one thing, I have been playing with a pacman quality figure all this time compared to the new forms.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Dailies tactics
Synopsis
The "new" dailies are pretty easy for tanks. Well that is what I found.
Just something in between druid/raiding related posts. About the "new" dailies in 3.1.
I don't do dailies for money. I rather grind on my herbing/ming alt. I do dailies for other purposes. Those are in general 2 things, rep and reward/purchasable items.
With regard to rep, I have all faction rep maxed (at least those factions that have dailies) so there is no need to do it.
I recently stopped doing WG dailies since I got enough of those stone thingies to buy the pvp mammoth. Yes I know I don't run (have not ever done) enough heroics. But then again there was never a need for that really.
So what dailies do I have left? Ice bear mount. Brunhildar (if I write it correctly) village one. I still need that mount. Fishing (I just love to fish), cooking (need to cook some food sometimes, and I want that chef's hat).
Then there are the tournament dailies, new in 3.1. I do those every day, just to get the pets and mounts. These quests are really nice when you are a druid, or a tank in general.
First the obvious, Threat from above. 3 man quests that for any decent gear tanking druid is pretty easy (until some sad allied guy thinks it is funny to gank you). Luckily it isn't that much of a problem.
Now the non obvious one. Jousting. Winning from the champions while riding your mount. I am talking doing it solo, and not with you just keeping the shield down and an other player killing your mob instead of you.
My girlfriend sucks at killing the champions. Though she isn't a raider, I have found that a very effective strategy is kinda like tanking. It goes like this.
When you are fighting (close combat) from time to time the champion walks away. If you wait you can throw a shield breaking thing, but you have seldom the time to charge too, while the champion itself has time to do both. So a defensive (very slow) tactic is to charge as soon as possible, giving the champion not the chance to throw and charge himself.
Sometimes you charge and overshoot the champion you turn around and get the chance to throw a shield breaking thing afterwards.
Now to speed it all up this is where things we have learned by tanking comes in very handy. ALWAYS walk backwards. Kite him, something that comes natural to tanks for positioning purposes, whereas non tanks might always move by the mouse.
Walking backwards results in the following; You are in close combat, spam the 1 and 2 button. When he is too close you hit 1 and damage him. If he somehow stops moving for a sec you hit him with the shield breaking thing if possible.
Then he goes and walks away. You have to be not unlucky here where he walks away in your direction. If he walks away in any other direction, because you ware walking backwards you get to throw that thing WAY earlier. Then when GCD is down you charge him, and if possible, overshoot him turn around and throw one more shield breaker thing.
You will most likely loose 1 (seldom 2) shields. But that in no way weight up to the 2 or 3 the champion looses. Then in close combat refresh your shield. It is a can't fail tactic that is very fast.
Ps, while moving backwards use the left and right button to navigate.
The "new" dailies are pretty easy for tanks. Well that is what I found.
Just something in between druid/raiding related posts. About the "new" dailies in 3.1.
I don't do dailies for money. I rather grind on my herbing/ming alt. I do dailies for other purposes. Those are in general 2 things, rep and reward/purchasable items.
With regard to rep, I have all faction rep maxed (at least those factions that have dailies) so there is no need to do it.
I recently stopped doing WG dailies since I got enough of those stone thingies to buy the pvp mammoth. Yes I know I don't run (have not ever done) enough heroics. But then again there was never a need for that really.
So what dailies do I have left? Ice bear mount. Brunhildar (if I write it correctly) village one. I still need that mount. Fishing (I just love to fish), cooking (need to cook some food sometimes, and I want that chef's hat).
Then there are the tournament dailies, new in 3.1. I do those every day, just to get the pets and mounts. These quests are really nice when you are a druid, or a tank in general.
First the obvious, Threat from above. 3 man quests that for any decent gear tanking druid is pretty easy (until some sad allied guy thinks it is funny to gank you). Luckily it isn't that much of a problem.
Now the non obvious one. Jousting. Winning from the champions while riding your mount. I am talking doing it solo, and not with you just keeping the shield down and an other player killing your mob instead of you.
My girlfriend sucks at killing the champions. Though she isn't a raider, I have found that a very effective strategy is kinda like tanking. It goes like this.
When you are fighting (close combat) from time to time the champion walks away. If you wait you can throw a shield breaking thing, but you have seldom the time to charge too, while the champion itself has time to do both. So a defensive (very slow) tactic is to charge as soon as possible, giving the champion not the chance to throw and charge himself.
Sometimes you charge and overshoot the champion you turn around and get the chance to throw a shield breaking thing afterwards.
Now to speed it all up this is where things we have learned by tanking comes in very handy. ALWAYS walk backwards. Kite him, something that comes natural to tanks for positioning purposes, whereas non tanks might always move by the mouse.
Walking backwards results in the following; You are in close combat, spam the 1 and 2 button. When he is too close you hit 1 and damage him. If he somehow stops moving for a sec you hit him with the shield breaking thing if possible.
Then he goes and walks away. You have to be not unlucky here where he walks away in your direction. If he walks away in any other direction, because you ware walking backwards you get to throw that thing WAY earlier. Then when GCD is down you charge him, and if possible, overshoot him turn around and throw one more shield breaker thing.
You will most likely loose 1 (seldom 2) shields. But that in no way weight up to the 2 or 3 the champion looses. Then in close combat refresh your shield. It is a can't fail tactic that is very fast.
Ps, while moving backwards use the left and right button to navigate.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Fascinatingly logical
Synopsis
NEW DRUID CAT AND BEAR FORMS
That is pretty much self explanatory. I'll be one of many people making a post about. Hell I am not the first. I wanted however share my view on the implementation of it all.
The way it is implemented is as follows; The type of look you have depends on your hair color. Since Taurens don't have hair color they will be the only ones to go into a barbershop and change skin color. I think. Most likely it is restricted to Tauren druids, but could be something all Taurens will be able to do, or it might be that everyone will be able to do it.
But then again, it should stay Tauren only. They are currently the only ones not able to change haircolor while their whole body is covered with hair!
Bepending on that (for your faction) parameter your bearfrom and catform depend. They are linked and most likely not all combinations will be available.
I myself had thought of a couple of other ways it could be implemented. Have 2 extra item/form slots for each druid (bear and cat slot). If left empty you keep your current colors. If an item is placed in them you can get a different color. The item could be made by scribes, could be bought from vendors, be quest rewards, but the most awesome looking ones could drop from bosses.
The other was "aspect of the cat" or "aspect of the bear" where a druid would, quite like hunter's tame ability, assume the colors of the cat/bear selected. Target a polar bear and your bearform will be white. A white tiger and you will look like a tiger.
But those were not the case. Why not? I think I know the answer. "Lazy" programmers. being a programmer myself I know that the lazier we are the better. Never do more work then needed!
When someone gets in my range the server will submit my data to him/her. That data is a lot of things. Status (swimming, running, walking, sitting, casting, etc), what I am casting, which way I move etc. That is submitted to the player at the moment I am within range and I submit that information to the server. Those are the main part of all information submitted to players in my range.
Other things however that define the way I look work in exact the same way. Hair / skin color is also submitted to someone in my range. It can change just like everything else (when I change it in a barbershop). And upon change it is submitted to the server which on his turn submits that data to all players in range.
Next to gear, there is one more important thing that defines the way you look. Buffs. If I am hexed it doesn't tell the other player I look like a frog, it simply tells him I am hexed. The player will then render me as a frog. If I have baby spice the player will render me smaller since it also knows what effect baby spice has on someone.
Now to the part where this implementation becomes very logical.
If druids would get some extra thing that defines the way they look in catform / bearform it would mean a total change, or at least an addition to the data submitted. That could lead to bugs of all sorts. Now this part is completely avoided! It can work just like before. The only thing that has to be done is to change the way a druid with the buff "bearform" is rendered. No servers involved, just simple rendering.
Previously it was like this:
Catform -> getCatTexture() -> Display()
Now it will be like this:
Catform -> getCatTexture(Faction = Horde ? Skintype : Hairtype) -> Display()
Sorry for writing it in a sort of program style, but what it basically says is that instead of loading a default texture the texture now depends on a value already known. Which is really really really simple. Really!
"It is the only logical solution captain."
NEW DRUID CAT AND BEAR FORMS
That is pretty much self explanatory. I'll be one of many people making a post about. Hell I am not the first. I wanted however share my view on the implementation of it all.
The way it is implemented is as follows; The type of look you have depends on your hair color. Since Taurens don't have hair color they will be the only ones to go into a barbershop and change skin color. I think. Most likely it is restricted to Tauren druids, but could be something all Taurens will be able to do, or it might be that everyone will be able to do it.
But then again, it should stay Tauren only. They are currently the only ones not able to change haircolor while their whole body is covered with hair!
Bepending on that (for your faction) parameter your bearfrom and catform depend. They are linked and most likely not all combinations will be available.
I myself had thought of a couple of other ways it could be implemented. Have 2 extra item/form slots for each druid (bear and cat slot). If left empty you keep your current colors. If an item is placed in them you can get a different color. The item could be made by scribes, could be bought from vendors, be quest rewards, but the most awesome looking ones could drop from bosses.
The other was "aspect of the cat" or "aspect of the bear" where a druid would, quite like hunter's tame ability, assume the colors of the cat/bear selected. Target a polar bear and your bearform will be white. A white tiger and you will look like a tiger.
But those were not the case. Why not? I think I know the answer. "Lazy" programmers. being a programmer myself I know that the lazier we are the better. Never do more work then needed!
When someone gets in my range the server will submit my data to him/her. That data is a lot of things. Status (swimming, running, walking, sitting, casting, etc), what I am casting, which way I move etc. That is submitted to the player at the moment I am within range and I submit that information to the server. Those are the main part of all information submitted to players in my range.
Other things however that define the way I look work in exact the same way. Hair / skin color is also submitted to someone in my range. It can change just like everything else (when I change it in a barbershop). And upon change it is submitted to the server which on his turn submits that data to all players in range.
Next to gear, there is one more important thing that defines the way you look. Buffs. If I am hexed it doesn't tell the other player I look like a frog, it simply tells him I am hexed. The player will then render me as a frog. If I have baby spice the player will render me smaller since it also knows what effect baby spice has on someone.
Now to the part where this implementation becomes very logical.
If druids would get some extra thing that defines the way they look in catform / bearform it would mean a total change, or at least an addition to the data submitted. That could lead to bugs of all sorts. Now this part is completely avoided! It can work just like before. The only thing that has to be done is to change the way a druid with the buff "bearform" is rendered. No servers involved, just simple rendering.
Previously it was like this:
Catform -> getCatTexture() -> Display()
Now it will be like this:
Catform -> getCatTexture(Faction = Horde ? Skintype : Hairtype) -> Display()
Sorry for writing it in a sort of program style, but what it basically says is that instead of loading a default texture the texture now depends on a value already known. Which is really really really simple. Really!
"It is the only logical solution captain."
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Never buy mana drinks...
Synopsis
You don't ever have to wait to shapeshift after a spec change.
When respeccing you go all out of mana. That kinda sucks. You have to wait before you can shapeshift. But there are ways to avoid it.
You don't ever have to wait to shapeshift after a spec change.
When respeccing you go all out of mana. That kinda sucks. You have to wait before you can shapeshift. But there are ways to avoid it.
- Innervate, kinda self explanatory and it refenerates your mana to full now (new patch) in 5 or 6 seconds. Well if you are not earing any intellect items that is.
- Be in the shape you want to be in. Cat to bear spec: First equip tanking gear, heal to full, go to bearform and then respec. No need for mana.
- Eat! Nice if you have a mage with you, but if you are doing anythign else then a raid it is a waste to have mana food with you. And using buff food is not really needed and kind of a waste too.
- Lifebloom! Not having any lifebloom improvements it lasts 7 seconds. Cast lifebloom on yourself and if possible on someone friendly target. Get 3 stacks on both. Be sure to first do the friendly target, then yourself and immediately after (within 0.5 seconds, a bit longer with haste) respec. You will get about 500 mana returned from your lifebloom. Per stack. In total there are 6 stacks. So you get returned about 3k mana. Kinda nice I think.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
TEF is Recruiting
Synopsis
TEF is recruiting.
Hey all. Nothing about feral druids, but I guess sometimes some non ferals are reading this as well. My guild, The Esoteric Foundation, is recruiting atm, lots of classes. We had some people drop due to not raiding enough and some others just proved not good enough. Then of course there are the couple of people that have things going on in their personal life etc.
One thing. We are not really recruiting feral druids at the moment, but if you are a good player there is a decent chance you will get in.
Who is The Esoteric Foundation?
We are the nr1 horde guild, PVE progress wise, on the server at the moment, only 1 alliance guild is a bit ahead of us. So we expect pretty good skills and dedication. Everybody says that their guild is a friendly guild. I myself never was in many guilds, been a member of TEF for a long time now, but what I hear from people that have left us is that they really miss the atmosphere and the people in the guild.
TEF is playing on EU server called Defias Brotherhood, RP-PVP server, but there is not much RP going on there. Though If you would wish to idle some time in Dalaran and RP a bit you are more likely to find others to join you then on other servers of course.
So if you are interested and you got a rogue friend, a dedicated DK buddy or your wife is a warlock, or none of that all, check out our site and make an application on our forum.
http://www.esoteric-foundation.com/
Here you can check out all classes we are looking for (top left). At the moment we are looking for everything basically. Everything but hunters and priests.
Oh one thing. You must be able to take criticism by a somewhat pissed off raidleader from time to time... only if you fuck up of course. ;)
TEF is recruiting.
Hey all. Nothing about feral druids, but I guess sometimes some non ferals are reading this as well. My guild, The Esoteric Foundation, is recruiting atm, lots of classes. We had some people drop due to not raiding enough and some others just proved not good enough. Then of course there are the couple of people that have things going on in their personal life etc.
One thing. We are not really recruiting feral druids at the moment, but if you are a good player there is a decent chance you will get in.
Who is The Esoteric Foundation?
We are the nr1 horde guild, PVE progress wise, on the server at the moment, only 1 alliance guild is a bit ahead of us. So we expect pretty good skills and dedication. Everybody says that their guild is a friendly guild. I myself never was in many guilds, been a member of TEF for a long time now, but what I hear from people that have left us is that they really miss the atmosphere and the people in the guild.
TEF is playing on EU server called Defias Brotherhood, RP-PVP server, but there is not much RP going on there. Though If you would wish to idle some time in Dalaran and RP a bit you are more likely to find others to join you then on other servers of course.
So if you are interested and you got a rogue friend, a dedicated DK buddy or your wife is a warlock, or none of that all, check out our site and make an application on our forum.
http://www.esoteric-foundation.com/
Here you can check out all classes we are looking for (top left). At the moment we are looking for everything basically. Everything but hunters and priests.
Oh one thing. You must be able to take criticism by a somewhat pissed off raidleader from time to time... only if you fuck up of course. ;)
Monday, May 18, 2009
What happened to expertise?
Synopsis
I am starving for expertise right now!
I have a dilemma. Before 3.1 I used to be craving for hit rating. Now I got Twisted Visage and I probably won't get an other weapon. It has a lot of hit. Then all other items that dropped also have a lot of hit. Got a couple of items that used to be worth a lot to me. Now that I have this much hit rating those that have hit rating have devaluated a lot.
Now with t8.5 I find myself looking at the other cap. Expertise. My tanking gear can't miss anything though I am barely expertise (soft) capped. That isn't too bad. The items are still BiS (best in slot), or the best I have. So overall it is better.
Now for cat I am a bit more worried. I had balanced that gear around expertise cap. The items I have now are so much better that I really want to equip them but it makes me loose the expertise cap. Being below expertise cap is something I really don't want. There are a couple of bosses in Ulduar you can;t really dps from behind So now in Ulduar expertise is worth more then it was before I seem to be lacking it.
Only thing to do is to get the 226 level item trinket that also boosts haste from Malygos. I kinda feel trinkets in WotLK are made for that special reason; to fill in for those extra stats you want but can't get from gear unless gimping yourself a lot since they mostly only got 1 or 2 stats.
But since that boss is bugged now I probably won't get it any time soon.
Any of you experiencing the same?
I am starving for expertise right now!
I have a dilemma. Before 3.1 I used to be craving for hit rating. Now I got Twisted Visage and I probably won't get an other weapon. It has a lot of hit. Then all other items that dropped also have a lot of hit. Got a couple of items that used to be worth a lot to me. Now that I have this much hit rating those that have hit rating have devaluated a lot.
Now with t8.5 I find myself looking at the other cap. Expertise. My tanking gear can't miss anything though I am barely expertise (soft) capped. That isn't too bad. The items are still BiS (best in slot), or the best I have. So overall it is better.
Now for cat I am a bit more worried. I had balanced that gear around expertise cap. The items I have now are so much better that I really want to equip them but it makes me loose the expertise cap. Being below expertise cap is something I really don't want. There are a couple of bosses in Ulduar you can;t really dps from behind So now in Ulduar expertise is worth more then it was before I seem to be lacking it.
Only thing to do is to get the 226 level item trinket that also boosts haste from Malygos. I kinda feel trinkets in WotLK are made for that special reason; to fill in for those extra stats you want but can't get from gear unless gimping yourself a lot since they mostly only got 1 or 2 stats.
But since that boss is bugged now I probably won't get it any time soon.
Any of you experiencing the same?
Saturday, May 16, 2009
So long... friend?
Synopsis
Today (well yesterday for me at least) Karthis announced he'll stop playing WoW. The title is not to announce me stopping. I am addressing it to Karthis, if he'll allow me to call him a friend.
Most of you know Karthis or at least his blog, Of Teeth and Claws. I myself found him a couple of months ago and he was an inspiration for me to start this blog and a good source of information.
He is a friendly guy and I am sad to see him stop playing WoW. I might have seen it coming, might have known in the back of my head. It doesn't really come as a surprise to me, though I didn't know, as he mentioned, he had quit a few times before already for some periods of time.
I myself have quit playing WoW a couple of times too. Most of the times it seems to coincide with me moving. First time (was playing my lock back then, august 2005), I went from a student house to my own apartment and I stopped playing. Then after 6 months I realized there was nothing else that came close to WoW and came back. Then I stopped twice more. Both for about a month or 2 when I first moved in with my girlfriend, the second time when we moved to where we live now. I never stopped my subscription though. Moving was more important then.
After that I never stopped from the game, and only stopped raiding for a period of 6 months since it had nothing much to offer me. I had seen Illidan. We took him down (when I was not there) and the week after when I met him we had two 1% wipes. Mission accomplished. Never cared about Sunwell at all. The game was done. End boss killed. Basta.
Now I find myself in kind of the same situation as Karthis if I am honest. I am not planning to stop playing and I owe it to the rest of the guild to keep tanking, but I don't feel compelled to anything in the game really. Probably because I am working more these days. I tend to value sleep more then farming. I only raid and do some dailies. Today and 2 other days this week I didn't even bother logging in to do the dailies. Though on 2 of those 3 days there were raids, I could not join them because I had not enough time that day. I could have logged an hour for dailies only though, but to my own surprise I didn't.
So I wonder why? I realize that having everything I want from the game in 3 weeks of 3.1 is kinda demoralizing. In Naxx I wanted to get all those items, get all BiS items there were. Huge upgrades. Lots of loot drops! Yes! Gief!
Now it is like... Ok, I got full t8.5. I got the best staff. The rest, like boots are relatively big upgrades, but still minor ones compared to 3.0 upgrades. I don't want anything from the game anymore really.
So what does it have left to offer for me? Hard modes? I totally agree with Karthis there. It is nice yes, but it is so boring to do that week after week. I saw a real nice upgrade left for me. It only drops from hard mode 10 man Yogg-saron. Come on!? I have to strain myself to the max for 10 man? I have to hope for it to drop? I am not gonna do that. Screw em. So screw me.
The wait till 3.2 when a new instance is opened. That is actually what the game has to offer me. I hope I find some fun in stuff to come though. Maybe go balance instead of feral dps, though balance seemed to me incredibly dull those 3 days that I played it.
One last thing. I thought about what it would be like if I wasn't this geared. If we were at Mimiron or anything before that. What it would be like if my guild was like it used to be. Wiping on Prince while others were killing Kael'thas. Essentially I would have to step down and join a worse guild. I don't think I could do that though. The best way I think is to describe it with a metaphor.
It is like driving a Porsche that handles really well and makes driving easy and dull. So to make it exiting again you would sell your Porsche and buy a Toyota Corolla without power steering instead. But you would not be able to enjoy it at all, knowing what it feels like going from 0 to 100 kmph in 6 seconds in a Porsche.
The only option left is to keep your Porsche and go hard mode. Drive 200 kmph (where for non-metric the speed limit is 120) and dodge all speed traps and police cars.
So I guess it is the pedal to the metal for me then.
Today (well yesterday for me at least) Karthis announced he'll stop playing WoW. The title is not to announce me stopping. I am addressing it to Karthis, if he'll allow me to call him a friend.
Most of you know Karthis or at least his blog, Of Teeth and Claws. I myself found him a couple of months ago and he was an inspiration for me to start this blog and a good source of information.
He is a friendly guy and I am sad to see him stop playing WoW. I might have seen it coming, might have known in the back of my head. It doesn't really come as a surprise to me, though I didn't know, as he mentioned, he had quit a few times before already for some periods of time.
I myself have quit playing WoW a couple of times too. Most of the times it seems to coincide with me moving. First time (was playing my lock back then, august 2005), I went from a student house to my own apartment and I stopped playing. Then after 6 months I realized there was nothing else that came close to WoW and came back. Then I stopped twice more. Both for about a month or 2 when I first moved in with my girlfriend, the second time when we moved to where we live now. I never stopped my subscription though. Moving was more important then.
After that I never stopped from the game, and only stopped raiding for a period of 6 months since it had nothing much to offer me. I had seen Illidan. We took him down (when I was not there) and the week after when I met him we had two 1% wipes. Mission accomplished. Never cared about Sunwell at all. The game was done. End boss killed. Basta.
Now I find myself in kind of the same situation as Karthis if I am honest. I am not planning to stop playing and I owe it to the rest of the guild to keep tanking, but I don't feel compelled to anything in the game really. Probably because I am working more these days. I tend to value sleep more then farming. I only raid and do some dailies. Today and 2 other days this week I didn't even bother logging in to do the dailies. Though on 2 of those 3 days there were raids, I could not join them because I had not enough time that day. I could have logged an hour for dailies only though, but to my own surprise I didn't.
So I wonder why? I realize that having everything I want from the game in 3 weeks of 3.1 is kinda demoralizing. In Naxx I wanted to get all those items, get all BiS items there were. Huge upgrades. Lots of loot drops! Yes! Gief!
Now it is like... Ok, I got full t8.5. I got the best staff. The rest, like boots are relatively big upgrades, but still minor ones compared to 3.0 upgrades. I don't want anything from the game anymore really.
So what does it have left to offer for me? Hard modes? I totally agree with Karthis there. It is nice yes, but it is so boring to do that week after week. I saw a real nice upgrade left for me. It only drops from hard mode 10 man Yogg-saron. Come on!? I have to strain myself to the max for 10 man? I have to hope for it to drop? I am not gonna do that. Screw em. So screw me.
The wait till 3.2 when a new instance is opened. That is actually what the game has to offer me. I hope I find some fun in stuff to come though. Maybe go balance instead of feral dps, though balance seemed to me incredibly dull those 3 days that I played it.
One last thing. I thought about what it would be like if I wasn't this geared. If we were at Mimiron or anything before that. What it would be like if my guild was like it used to be. Wiping on Prince while others were killing Kael'thas. Essentially I would have to step down and join a worse guild. I don't think I could do that though. The best way I think is to describe it with a metaphor.
It is like driving a Porsche that handles really well and makes driving easy and dull. So to make it exiting again you would sell your Porsche and buy a Toyota Corolla without power steering instead. But you would not be able to enjoy it at all, knowing what it feels like going from 0 to 100 kmph in 6 seconds in a Porsche.
The only option left is to keep your Porsche and go hard mode. Drive 200 kmph (where for non-metric the speed limit is 120) and dodge all speed traps and police cars.
So I guess it is the pedal to the metal for me then.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Trashloot
Synopsis
Some mobs in Ulduar have guaranteed trash epix??? Do not miss them. Get em all!
Last wednesday when we were doing Ulduar 25 we went for Hodir. Now what happened there might be pure luck, a glitch or it might be intended.
The trash before Hodir consists of 4 different kinds of mobs:
Then a bit further in, the cave forks. At that point is the second giant. He dropped an epic.
Now here you go left, clear some other trash and you are at Hodir. WRONG! Go right. It is a dead end. No trash at all, except for 1 giant. And guess what? He dropped an epic too.
So whenever you are clearing towards Hodir, don't forget to clear the giant at the right.
Some mobs in Ulduar have guaranteed trash epix??? Do not miss them. Get em all!
Last wednesday when we were doing Ulduar 25 we went for Hodir. Now what happened there might be pure luck, a glitch or it might be intended.
The trash before Hodir consists of 4 different kinds of mobs:
- small snakes that spawn from heaps of snow;
- large stone elementals, who are accompanied by...
- .. 3 smaller stone elementals;
- big giants.
Then a bit further in, the cave forks. At that point is the second giant. He dropped an epic.
Now here you go left, clear some other trash and you are at Hodir. WRONG! Go right. It is a dead end. No trash at all, except for 1 giant. And guess what? He dropped an epic too.
So whenever you are clearing towards Hodir, don't forget to clear the giant at the right.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
I am so happy now!
Synopsis
It has been a bit quiet from me in posting. Was thinking about making a post on General Vezax dps (which is the best fight for me). But I think I'll wait for that a bit cause with my recent upgrade I might overagro the tank this week.
Pictures say more then words...
Today was a real nice raiding day. We had a few stupid wipes. Killed 7 bosses in Ulduar, all of the Vault and Malygos and Sarth2d, just for the loot. All withing a normal raiding time (4 hours... a bit more).
We killed Thorim, oneshotted him. I got my t8.5 helmet. Completing my whole t8.5 set. I am even hitcapped now in cps gear. Would like a bit more expertise tbh, but I am quite happy I have 18% spell hit rating on Growl ;)
And what I am even more happy about... I got the most imba weapon in the game at the moment (excluding the pvp one). Twisted Visage.
Kinda sad that the only upgrades I can get most likely will not change the way I look. So till 3.2 this is what I look like. Maybe I get a better tanking helmet.
It has been a bit quiet from me in posting. Was thinking about making a post on General Vezax dps (which is the best fight for me). But I think I'll wait for that a bit cause with my recent upgrade I might overagro the tank this week.
Pictures say more then words...
Today was a real nice raiding day. We had a few stupid wipes. Killed 7 bosses in Ulduar, all of the Vault and Malygos and Sarth2d, just for the loot. All withing a normal raiding time (4 hours... a bit more).
We killed Thorim, oneshotted him. I got my t8.5 helmet. Completing my whole t8.5 set. I am even hitcapped now in cps gear. Would like a bit more expertise tbh, but I am quite happy I have 18% spell hit rating on Growl ;)
And what I am even more happy about... I got the most imba weapon in the game at the moment (excluding the pvp one). Twisted Visage.
Kinda sad that the only upgrades I can get most likely will not change the way I look. So till 3.2 this is what I look like. Maybe I get a better tanking helmet.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Blogsourcing: How can I gain 118 times SD with 93 crits?
Synopsis
We switched from WWS to World of Logs. If looks much nicer. Was just looking at our 10 man Hodir wight where I was MT and noticed something weird about SD.
Here is the link:
Worls of Logs
If you look at the tab Buff Gained you will see that I have 118 times gained SD. If you look at damage done I did 93 crits.
Now 2 things can be here. 1 the data is not 100% correct. Though I find that strange. So how is it possible?
Also I can't find how often it is removed and total damage absorbed. Anyone less blind then me or is it not in there?
[edit]
Thanks to Yrkoonia; it is the lacerate ticks which in the statistics show no crits, just an average. 25 crits in 63 ticks seems about right.
[/edit]
We switched from WWS to World of Logs. If looks much nicer. Was just looking at our 10 man Hodir wight where I was MT and noticed something weird about SD.
Here is the link:
Worls of Logs
If you look at the tab Buff Gained you will see that I have 118 times gained SD. If you look at damage done I did 93 crits.
Now 2 things can be here. 1 the data is not 100% correct. Though I find that strange. So how is it possible?
Also I can't find how often it is removed and total damage absorbed. Anyone less blind then me or is it not in there?
[edit]
Thanks to Yrkoonia; it is the lacerate ticks which in the statistics show no crits, just an average. 25 crits in 63 ticks seems about right.
[/edit]
Friday, May 1, 2009
Epic Movie
Synopsis
This movie of Yogg-saron got me even more excited then the kill itself... and it is our kill!
This is truly the most epic movie I have ever seen on wow. I made bosskill movies on all bosses in TBC, except for 2 and SW. And though I thought they were great, this one beats them all combined. The music is awesome and the kill is good too. It is made by Stoke, our DK Tank who used to be our Lock. He is also responsible for the How to Paladin moview. It has a 5/5 rating on Warcraftmovies.com
Download the whole full thing. It is of superb quality.
If you don't want to, here is youtube embed too.
PS, I am the only cat in there. Easy to spot.
Link to Warcraftmovies.com
Part 1
Part 2
This movie of Yogg-saron got me even more excited then the kill itself... and it is our kill!
This is truly the most epic movie I have ever seen on wow. I made bosskill movies on all bosses in TBC, except for 2 and SW. And though I thought they were great, this one beats them all combined. The music is awesome and the kill is good too. It is made by Stoke, our DK Tank who used to be our Lock. He is also responsible for the How to Paladin moview. It has a 5/5 rating on Warcraftmovies.com
Download the whole full thing. It is of superb quality.
If you don't want to, here is youtube embed too.
PS, I am the only cat in there. Easy to spot.
Link to Warcraftmovies.com
Part 1
Part 2
Normal mode
Synopis
Ulduar 10 man cleared too.
Today we started raiding at a little past 19:30. There were not enough people available for 25 so we did 10 man. First time I was there 10 man. We had cleared all bosses by 2:20. Ok a bit late, so it is not a real one raid kill but it soon will.
Unbelievable how easy Ulduar 10 man is. I fucked up on Yogg-saron otherwise that too would have been a oneshot without death. We did about 4 hard modes/extra achievement things, gotten 6 boses oneshotted without a death. Ulduar 10 man is really easy.
I'll do it next week and the next and just simply farm achievements. There are a few really hard ones, but a lot of things are really forgiving.
Ulduar 10 man cleared too.
Today we started raiding at a little past 19:30. There were not enough people available for 25 so we did 10 man. First time I was there 10 man. We had cleared all bosses by 2:20. Ok a bit late, so it is not a real one raid kill but it soon will.
Unbelievable how easy Ulduar 10 man is. I fucked up on Yogg-saron otherwise that too would have been a oneshot without death. We did about 4 hard modes/extra achievement things, gotten 6 boses oneshotted without a death. Ulduar 10 man is really easy.
I'll do it next week and the next and just simply farm achievements. There are a few really hard ones, but a lot of things are really forgiving.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Ulduar cleared!
Synosis
Last night at a it before 23:00 we killed Yogg-saron and we officially cleared (for now) Ulduar.
Last week Tuesday we first saw Yogg-saron when we, after about 15 tries we managed to briefly see phase 2 before we all died.
This week after in total 2.5 wipenights this night resulted in a kill. The problem we had was mostly the switch between phase 2 and 3. We got that down 2-ce. The first time it was a 6% wipe where we got some real good practices on switching between the mobs. The last time it was an excellent performance..
I again got the t8.5 item. I have gotten so many items because of tanking loot prio (though I dps more often then tank recently) that I now have 4/5 items. When we stop with tanking prio it will be a long while before I get any item I ever want again.
Don't I look great?
Last night at a it before 23:00 we killed Yogg-saron and we officially cleared (for now) Ulduar.
Last week Tuesday we first saw Yogg-saron when we, after about 15 tries we managed to briefly see phase 2 before we all died.
This week after in total 2.5 wipenights this night resulted in a kill. The problem we had was mostly the switch between phase 2 and 3. We got that down 2-ce. The first time it was a 6% wipe where we got some real good practices on switching between the mobs. The last time it was an excellent performance..
I again got the t8.5 item. I have gotten so many items because of tanking loot prio (though I dps more often then tank recently) that I now have 4/5 items. When we stop with tanking prio it will be a long while before I get any item I ever want again.
Don't I look great?
Sunday, April 26, 2009
The value of Expertise and Primal Precision
Synopsis
If you can equip a best in slot item with expertise and are over expertise cap rather then equiping something else remove the talent point from Primal Precision.
Sadly there is no real alternative.
[edit]Corrected some math[/edit]
Recently I have heard from 2 different sides that Primal Precision (PP) is not really worth it. So I decided to do some thinking again.
The first was honest mistake. The person thought that the expertise cap was at 15 for tanking. It is however at 15% (generally accepted cap) which for druids is 60 expertise. If you are below 26 expertise any expertise is double the value since until you are dodge capped it counts towards both caps.
The second one was the following: It stated that when expertise capped by gear Primal Precision is not worth it. I wondered how much it was worth really.
So how can I see what it is worth? If you look at gems you will see that 16 expertise = 16 agility = 16 strength = 32 AP.
Now those gems all have different values for each class, making them perfect for one class, more worthless to an other.
If you look at enchants you will see that on gloves for instance 15 Expertise holds the same slot as 44 AP. You can not look at this for real though, since the expertise enchant is way cheaper. An expertise enchant on gloves is of would be a "green" enchant where 44Ap would be a "blue" enchant (as in green "uncommon" gems and blue "rare" gems). To have the same value expertise enchant it should be 22 expertise (if you follow me).
I did the comparison in a different way: I used Rawr (raidbuffed).
I am expertise capped by using Inevitable Defeat (78 exp). To make that useless I equipped Chestguard of the Recluse (83 expertise).
The dps value from Inevitable defeat dropped from 1583 to 1523. So 78 expertise is worth about 60 dps.
I did the same for Chestguard of the Recluse. I unequipped Inevitable Defeat and was still expertise capped. The chastguard's value went up from 314 to 385. That is 71 dps. So it is about the same.
1 expertise ~= 0.8 dps.
So 10 expertise = 2.5% = 2.5* 32 rating = 80 expertise rating.
PP therefore (for me) is worth about 80 dps on gear. When, and only when, you are expertise capped (26 expertise). If I would not have PP I would have to get it on gear loosing 60 dps.
Total dps is 6363 what rawr tells me. If I had to get that by gear alone I would have 6303 dps. 60 / 6303 = 0.95%%, that is 0.48% per talent point.
So that is not really much. It is that there are not really any other talent points for cat that are worth more.
Once again, don't be mistaken. When you are not capped by gear alone the talent point is worth much more since 1 talentpoint will increase dps with 2.5% alone (double parry and dodge cap). I am only saying that if you find a better place for your talentpoint and your best in slot items have expertise plenty... only then you can remove a point in PP.
If you can equip a best in slot item with expertise and are over expertise cap rather then equiping something else remove the talent point from Primal Precision.
Sadly there is no real alternative.
[edit]Corrected some math[/edit]
Recently I have heard from 2 different sides that Primal Precision (PP) is not really worth it. So I decided to do some thinking again.
The first was honest mistake. The person thought that the expertise cap was at 15 for tanking. It is however at 15% (generally accepted cap) which for druids is 60 expertise. If you are below 26 expertise any expertise is double the value since until you are dodge capped it counts towards both caps.
The second one was the following: It stated that when expertise capped by gear Primal Precision is not worth it. I wondered how much it was worth really.
So how can I see what it is worth? If you look at gems you will see that 16 expertise = 16 agility = 16 strength = 32 AP.
Now those gems all have different values for each class, making them perfect for one class, more worthless to an other.
If you look at enchants you will see that on gloves for instance 15 Expertise holds the same slot as 44 AP. You can not look at this for real though, since the expertise enchant is way cheaper. An expertise enchant on gloves is of would be a "green" enchant where 44Ap would be a "blue" enchant (as in green "uncommon" gems and blue "rare" gems). To have the same value expertise enchant it should be 22 expertise (if you follow me).
I did the comparison in a different way: I used Rawr (raidbuffed).
I am expertise capped by using Inevitable Defeat (78 exp). To make that useless I equipped Chestguard of the Recluse (83 expertise).
The dps value from Inevitable defeat dropped from 1583 to 1523. So 78 expertise is worth about 60 dps.
I did the same for Chestguard of the Recluse. I unequipped Inevitable Defeat and was still expertise capped. The chastguard's value went up from 314 to 385. That is 71 dps. So it is about the same.
1 expertise ~= 0.8 dps.
So 10 expertise = 2.5% = 2.5* 32 rating = 80 expertise rating.
PP therefore (for me) is worth about 80 dps on gear. When, and only when, you are expertise capped (26 expertise). If I would not have PP I would have to get it on gear loosing 60 dps.
Total dps is 6363 what rawr tells me. If I had to get that by gear alone I would have 6303 dps. 60 / 6303 = 0.95%%, that is 0.48% per talent point.
So that is not really much. It is that there are not really any other talent points for cat that are worth more.
Once again, don't be mistaken. When you are not capped by gear alone the talent point is worth much more since 1 talentpoint will increase dps with 2.5% alone (double parry and dodge cap). I am only saying that if you find a better place for your talentpoint and your best in slot items have expertise plenty... only then you can remove a point in PP.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Correction! iMangle does not own
Synopsis
Tarskin has pointed out that I forgot the difference in Maul and Lacerate dots when they get 4% MMS damage. So I did the math again. MMS is better by 1.3%.
Let me state first that this post is a comparison between a very popular tanking spec 0/55/16, holding SS and MSS, and an alternative spec 0/60/11 holding iMangle and no MMS.
I forgot Maul and Lacerate dots in the rotation. The damage for MMS and not MMS is different of course.
So I went back to rawr. Because some values had changed I redid the spreadsheat.
Some weird things I saw; Windfury totem changes the damage per maul. Of course it changes the total damage by Maul, but now also changes the average damage and threat done by Maul apparently. If anyone has an explanation for this I'd like to hear it.
New spreadsheet:
It shows that with WF totem the threat you loose with iMangle rotation is 105 threat per second. This is 1.3% threat loss.
So if you are looking for max threat, MMS spec is the way to go. Well, to be honest, drop something like IW and ask someone else to apply the same debuff. Get iMangle too. That does the most threat.
However you can also ask the few top dpssers to hold back a little bit or use some threat reducing effects (FD) or get hunters and rogues to misdirect to you.
Still, in the end, my conclusion stands I think. 1.3% threat loss on a boss is something not that bad. You get 5% more uptime from Idol of the Corruptor it halves it's downtime. That is worth it I think. If you can dodge an attack that otherwise would have killed you it saves you from a wipe.
PS. This all made me think to what things can you expect normally for being raidbuffed (25 man).
So my next post will hold the raidbuffs you can normally expect in a raid and should be checked while comparing items to eachother.
Tarskin has pointed out that I forgot the difference in Maul and Lacerate dots when they get 4% MMS damage. So I did the math again. MMS is better by 1.3%.
Let me state first that this post is a comparison between a very popular tanking spec 0/55/16, holding SS and MSS, and an alternative spec 0/60/11 holding iMangle and no MMS.
I forgot Maul and Lacerate dots in the rotation. The damage for MMS and not MMS is different of course.
So I went back to rawr. Because some values had changed I redid the spreadsheat.
Some weird things I saw; Windfury totem changes the damage per maul. Of course it changes the total damage by Maul, but now also changes the average damage and threat done by Maul apparently. If anyone has an explanation for this I'd like to hear it.
New spreadsheet:
It shows that with WF totem the threat you loose with iMangle rotation is 105 threat per second. This is 1.3% threat loss.
So if you are looking for max threat, MMS spec is the way to go. Well, to be honest, drop something like IW and ask someone else to apply the same debuff. Get iMangle too. That does the most threat.
However you can also ask the few top dpssers to hold back a little bit or use some threat reducing effects (FD) or get hunters and rogues to misdirect to you.
Still, in the end, my conclusion stands I think. 1.3% threat loss on a boss is something not that bad. You get 5% more uptime from Idol of the Corruptor it halves it's downtime. That is worth it I think. If you can dodge an attack that otherwise would have killed you it saves you from a wipe.
PS. This all made me think to what things can you expect normally for being raidbuffed (25 man).
So my next post will hold the raidbuffs you can normally expect in a raid and should be checked while comparing items to eachother.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Breaking news: iMangle rotation owns!!!
Synopsis
Get yourself to an iMangle rotation, even if you don't have the idol!
[edit]
See next post. The breaking news was broken. It is not true. Thanks go to Tarskin for that. Thank you very much. :-( XD
[/edit]
Either iMangle roation own, or rawr lies.
Inspired by Tarskin's post on Faerie Fire / iMangle rotation I took my head our of my ass and saw that FFF is huge threat. Definately do it every time you can.
I took his post and extended it a bit.
This is a screenshot of my calculations.
First of all the rotation. All rotations are based on a continues cycle. It doesn't say what you should start out with. They all start at the moment lacerate is renewed, thus the first action is Lacerate.
Instead of only looking at Mangle / Fearie Fire I took Lacerate into the cycle. Lacerate can not be allowed to drop, so do that at least every 9 actions. Atfer 10 actions it will have dropped.
6 sec Mangle:
If you are doing Mangle / FFF every 6 seconds, you have to do lacerate every 12 seconds. If you do that every 13.5 seconds if will inevitable collide with Mangle or FFF. It would mean the cycle you would have would be very long, and hard to execute.
That means the rotation would look something like this:
8 moves; 12 seconds: 2 Mangles, 2 FFF, 1 lacerate and 3 swipes.
For refreshing Lacerate it has to be done at least once every 13.5 seconds.
That is coincidentally exactly 3 Mangles. This gives us a 9 move cycle.
9 moves; 13.5 seconds: 3 Mangles, 2 FFF, 1 lacerate, 3 swipes.
It is not disputed that iMangle does more damage. However the fact that if you take iMangle means you will have to drop Master shapeshifter. And everything does less damage.
So from Rawr, using my own gear and fully raidbuffed I took the following average values. I took the average values because you have to count crits too. Here I only discuss threat though damage can also be seen in the spreadsheet:
iMangle spec:
An iMangle 4.5 sec Mangle cycle gives me 28078 threat = 3120 TPS
So taking iMangle over master shapeshifter is 100% the right thing to do and it even leaves 2 extra talentpoints you can spend somethere you like.
Unless ofcourse my rawr data is wrong.
Get yourself to an iMangle rotation, even if you don't have the idol!
[edit]
See next post. The breaking news was broken. It is not true. Thanks go to Tarskin for that. Thank you very much. :-( XD
[/edit]
Either iMangle roation own, or rawr lies.
Inspired by Tarskin's post on Faerie Fire / iMangle rotation I took my head our of my ass and saw that FFF is huge threat. Definately do it every time you can.
I took his post and extended it a bit.
This is a screenshot of my calculations.
First of all the rotation. All rotations are based on a continues cycle. It doesn't say what you should start out with. They all start at the moment lacerate is renewed, thus the first action is Lacerate.
Instead of only looking at Mangle / Fearie Fire I took Lacerate into the cycle. Lacerate can not be allowed to drop, so do that at least every 9 actions. Atfer 10 actions it will have dropped.
6 sec Mangle:
If you are doing Mangle / FFF every 6 seconds, you have to do lacerate every 12 seconds. If you do that every 13.5 seconds if will inevitable collide with Mangle or FFF. It would mean the cycle you would have would be very long, and hard to execute.
That means the rotation would look something like this:
8 moves; 12 seconds: 2 Mangles, 2 FFF, 1 lacerate and 3 swipes.
- Lacerate
- Mangle
- FFF
- Swipe
- Swipe
- Mangle
- FFF
- Swipe
For refreshing Lacerate it has to be done at least once every 13.5 seconds.
That is coincidentally exactly 3 Mangles. This gives us a 9 move cycle.
9 moves; 13.5 seconds: 3 Mangles, 2 FFF, 1 lacerate, 3 swipes.
- Lacerate
- Mangle
- FFF
- Swipe
- Mangle
- Swipe
- FFF
- Mangle
- Swipe
It is not disputed that iMangle does more damage. However the fact that if you take iMangle means you will have to drop Master shapeshifter. And everything does less damage.
So from Rawr, using my own gear and fully raidbuffed I took the following average values. I took the average values because you have to count crits too. Here I only discuss threat though damage can also be seen in the spreadsheet:
iMangle spec:
- Mangle: 4552
- FFF: 3434
- Lacerate: 1128
- Swipe: 2142
- Mangle: 4734
- FFF: 3434
- Lacerate: 1153
- Swipe: 2228
An iMangle 4.5 sec Mangle cycle gives me 28078 threat = 3120 TPS
So taking iMangle over master shapeshifter is 100% the right thing to do and it even leaves 2 extra talentpoints you can spend somethere you like.
Unless ofcourse my rawr data is wrong.
Invasion of the dutch!
Synosis
Too short a post for a synopsis.
A fellow dutchman, Tarskin, has started his own blog recently. Check it out!
http://tarskin.blogspot.com/
Too short a post for a synopsis.
A fellow dutchman, Tarskin, has started his own blog recently. Check it out!
http://tarskin.blogspot.com/
Ulduar WWS
Synopsis
Cat dps is really nice! Really nice. However some fights are not made for us.
My raidleader finally got to put up some WWS from fights.
First up General Vezax (last week). We did some wrong strategies on him to start out with. Ranged dps gets an imba buff but not for the fights where we were.
WWS Vezax tries
(Showing only Bosses, I was tanking on trash).
I do not have the Savage Roar glyph yet and in most of the fights I needed to mangle. In all fairness the DK often had to pull a cloud and the rogues were on interrupt duty. For the tries that we did with the tactic that got em down in the 4th try the next day, the WWS is bugged. There was more ranged dps at the top. The last try we took him down on I really screwed up my rotation. A try before that I was at nr1 damage done, 5.2k dps (recount data) 4 or 5 minutes into the fight.
Other fights are often not as nice for druids. Our main dps comes from Rip. We do ok, but when Rip comes in we go to the top. There are a lot of fights that have us on waves of trash. That is not nice for us.
This week we took down 10 bosses in 2 days already. I was there for all fights this time and tanked a lot. I listed the bosses below. Linked a WWS for most of em. (Those that are not linked you can find if you select different fights in the other WWS)
Flame leviathan
Fun fight, no traditional fight. So nothing much I can say about it.
XT-002
Cat; Was new for me. We 2-shotted him so I never got the chance to learn the fight. The rogues are up there so I should be near there too. However the boss completely becoming immune a couple of times in the fight means you loose all dots. My dps should be higher, though it is more suited for rogues.
Kalogarn
Cat; We 2-shotted this one too. So my dps is low again. I was learning the fight, while most knew what to do. Though the targets that are up are really good for cat DPS. When you are on the arm you will move away before it dies and let ranged finish it. In that time you can have Rip ticking while you focus on the main target.
Auriaya
The only boss we really had difficulties with that day.
I was tank here. You need 4 tanks to survive the 4 adds which die within a minute. Makes you pretty much useless for the rest of the fight. The main task I set before myself was to make sure nobody died. Whenever the large pack of little cats was nuking 1 guy I did Demoralising Roar. I think it is really helpful, though in later fights healers got it down and never let a person die again.
Something else I did was assist in killing the jumping add away from the raid. Taunting it too when the jumping was over. If he dies in the pack the whole raid is standing in a voidzone. This guy is really not tankable. Control of raid dps is a must here.
We then skipped a few bosses;
Hodir
Main Tanked him all the way. Full frost resistance.
Freya
Tanked adds here. We tried 3 tries with 1 tree up. That is really hard. Because it was late we took it down and killed Freya easily.
The next day...
Thorim
Tanking; The gauntlet was not that hard anymore (after wiping the weak before for a few hours). Get 2 mages to sheep the whirlwinding mobs that stun. Didn't do the gauntlet though, I tanked in the arena.
At first we tanked em in 3 groups (3 tanks). We didn't get the adds down, though that should not be really bad since you just need to survive till the gauntlet is done. However the less adds the better. Best to do is all aoe tank in the center. The tank who gets agro tanks the champions. These need to be disarmed and there is no real problem. All adds get aoe'd down.
Then when Thorim comes he does a real nasty debuff to tanks once in a while, that will get em easily killed. We started taunting and having alternative tanking by 2 tanks. Though phase 1 might not need that much tanks when all stay in the center, it is a nice thing to have 4 tanks so you can risk 2 dying. However we needed to battleress them too.
Mimiron
Cat; Something like last week. No WWS available. I managed to see dps I did in phase 1. 5.2k and top 3 for sure. Even with running in and out. In phase 2 you need to run to his back all the time and dps suffers. In phase 3 I stood under the head again. Doing nothing, just soaking blows from bomb bots bearform, cat gear and spec. Dps suffered there enormously.
Phase 4 I was again high on dps. When the tank died the lower part immediately turned to me and before I could go bear I died. Not my fault I died this time. Luckily our DPS DK tanked him till the end.
It was near the end of the raid day and with 30 minute trash killing ahead we went back and took some bosses we skipped.
Razorscale
Tanked adds; oneshotted him. Can't believe how easy he was. Of course most of us knew the fight already, but the tactics were so simple to learn and understand.
Ignis the Furnace Master
Tanking; The boss our guild knows the best of all guilds on my server probably. We had the server's first kill. This boss has been fixed and hugely nerfed. Kiting him, I only was in danger once (35% health) and I used Barkskin. Since nobody died in the fight we all got the meta-part for the immortal variant in Ulduar.
2 days of no raiding ahead. Getting some sleep, reading, replying to Tarskin. Sunday we'll get to Yogg-saron and hopefully/probably kill him on monday or teusday.
PS I have 3 t8.5 items now. The gloves. Using EPGP (dkp) system I will get such a low rating that after we stop with tanking prio it will take 3 months for me to get another item.
Do I now have 2t8 in cat? Sadly no. I have the gloves from Malygos (226) that have a lot of hit. Replacing that 226 gloves and nerfing the rest of my gear to get hitcapped again for another 226 item just for the 2t8 set... I don't know if I should do it. I rather save some emblems for the headslot item and get that enchanted properly.
Cat dps is really nice! Really nice. However some fights are not made for us.
My raidleader finally got to put up some WWS from fights.
First up General Vezax (last week). We did some wrong strategies on him to start out with. Ranged dps gets an imba buff but not for the fights where we were.
WWS Vezax tries
(Showing only Bosses, I was tanking on trash).
I do not have the Savage Roar glyph yet and in most of the fights I needed to mangle. In all fairness the DK often had to pull a cloud and the rogues were on interrupt duty. For the tries that we did with the tactic that got em down in the 4th try the next day, the WWS is bugged. There was more ranged dps at the top. The last try we took him down on I really screwed up my rotation. A try before that I was at nr1 damage done, 5.2k dps (recount data) 4 or 5 minutes into the fight.
Other fights are often not as nice for druids. Our main dps comes from Rip. We do ok, but when Rip comes in we go to the top. There are a lot of fights that have us on waves of trash. That is not nice for us.
This week we took down 10 bosses in 2 days already. I was there for all fights this time and tanked a lot. I listed the bosses below. Linked a WWS for most of em. (Those that are not linked you can find if you select different fights in the other WWS)
Flame leviathan
Fun fight, no traditional fight. So nothing much I can say about it.
XT-002
Cat; Was new for me. We 2-shotted him so I never got the chance to learn the fight. The rogues are up there so I should be near there too. However the boss completely becoming immune a couple of times in the fight means you loose all dots. My dps should be higher, though it is more suited for rogues.
Kalogarn
Cat; We 2-shotted this one too. So my dps is low again. I was learning the fight, while most knew what to do. Though the targets that are up are really good for cat DPS. When you are on the arm you will move away before it dies and let ranged finish it. In that time you can have Rip ticking while you focus on the main target.
Auriaya
The only boss we really had difficulties with that day.
I was tank here. You need 4 tanks to survive the 4 adds which die within a minute. Makes you pretty much useless for the rest of the fight. The main task I set before myself was to make sure nobody died. Whenever the large pack of little cats was nuking 1 guy I did Demoralising Roar. I think it is really helpful, though in later fights healers got it down and never let a person die again.
Something else I did was assist in killing the jumping add away from the raid. Taunting it too when the jumping was over. If he dies in the pack the whole raid is standing in a voidzone. This guy is really not tankable. Control of raid dps is a must here.
We then skipped a few bosses;
Hodir
Main Tanked him all the way. Full frost resistance.
Freya
Tanked adds here. We tried 3 tries with 1 tree up. That is really hard. Because it was late we took it down and killed Freya easily.
The next day...
Thorim
Tanking; The gauntlet was not that hard anymore (after wiping the weak before for a few hours). Get 2 mages to sheep the whirlwinding mobs that stun. Didn't do the gauntlet though, I tanked in the arena.
At first we tanked em in 3 groups (3 tanks). We didn't get the adds down, though that should not be really bad since you just need to survive till the gauntlet is done. However the less adds the better. Best to do is all aoe tank in the center. The tank who gets agro tanks the champions. These need to be disarmed and there is no real problem. All adds get aoe'd down.
Then when Thorim comes he does a real nasty debuff to tanks once in a while, that will get em easily killed. We started taunting and having alternative tanking by 2 tanks. Though phase 1 might not need that much tanks when all stay in the center, it is a nice thing to have 4 tanks so you can risk 2 dying. However we needed to battleress them too.
Mimiron
Cat; Something like last week. No WWS available. I managed to see dps I did in phase 1. 5.2k and top 3 for sure. Even with running in and out. In phase 2 you need to run to his back all the time and dps suffers. In phase 3 I stood under the head again. Doing nothing, just soaking blows from bomb bots bearform, cat gear and spec. Dps suffered there enormously.
Phase 4 I was again high on dps. When the tank died the lower part immediately turned to me and before I could go bear I died. Not my fault I died this time. Luckily our DPS DK tanked him till the end.
It was near the end of the raid day and with 30 minute trash killing ahead we went back and took some bosses we skipped.
Razorscale
Tanked adds; oneshotted him. Can't believe how easy he was. Of course most of us knew the fight already, but the tactics were so simple to learn and understand.
Ignis the Furnace Master
Tanking; The boss our guild knows the best of all guilds on my server probably. We had the server's first kill. This boss has been fixed and hugely nerfed. Kiting him, I only was in danger once (35% health) and I used Barkskin. Since nobody died in the fight we all got the meta-part for the immortal variant in Ulduar.
2 days of no raiding ahead. Getting some sleep, reading, replying to Tarskin. Sunday we'll get to Yogg-saron and hopefully/probably kill him on monday or teusday.
PS I have 3 t8.5 items now. The gloves. Using EPGP (dkp) system I will get such a low rating that after we stop with tanking prio it will take 3 months for me to get another item.
Do I now have 2t8 in cat? Sadly no. I have the gloves from Malygos (226) that have a lot of hit. Replacing that 226 gloves and nerfing the rest of my gear to get hitcapped again for another 226 item just for the 2t8 set... I don't know if I should do it. I rather save some emblems for the headslot item and get that enchanted properly.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Go for improved Mangle!
Synopsis
Is it better to get improved mangle or master shapeshifter? With Idol of the corruptor; I think so. iMangle here I come!
Today I just thought of this when I saw the following item on wowhead. Idol of the Corruptor.
As if it was it's destiny, today we got General Vezax down. And guess what he dropped. And guess who got the item. Yep yours truly has the idol now. Now I don't have the time to do this at some point, but I have to do it now, tomorrow Ulduar is waiting again. (Btw more on the Vezax fight later. It is a really nice druid cat fight).
I tested it very shortly, just before we went Yogg-Saron. I did it on cat, and it has no cooldown and a very high proc rate. I guess it is a copy of Idol of Terror, but then with way higher stats. Also there is no cooldown what soever. I think the Idol of terror used to have one. The duration is also 12 seconds and not 10.
Ok so we know it is nice. The thing is, is it worth it taking iMangle for it?
The proc rate for me calculating miss is 61.5%. (see math block 1 below).
With this we can calculate the uptime on a 6 sec cycle and on a 4.5 sec cycle with a 12 seconds duration. This is a really complex thing. I did an attempt to it (see math block 2 and 3 below). If you have real math send it my way!
6 second cycle:
9.1% downtime.
4.5 second cycle:
4.2% downtime.
The difference is 4.9%
Now simplified; (It is late):
What does it give: 2.44% dodge and 1.98% crit for me.
4.9% extra downtime comes to 0.12% dodge and 0.10% crit.
In bossfights you have to consider the fact that you will be not able to dps some time. Meaning the buff drops often. The sooner it can be up the better. It is a stab in the dark but I would double those values. Then it is pretty significant.
For iMangle we would sacrifice Shapshifter and Master Shapeshifter. You dont want to drop anything else really.
2 points in Master Shapeshifter give 4% damage done = 4% threat.
iMangle gives threat back in a dps cycle. Taking a quick look at an old post by Kalon we can see that iMangle does 2.8% more threat.
I don't now how valid the stats currently are. But I want to believe that what he posted then is in general true.
In total we would loose 1.2% threat and gain dodge and a bit more SD.
Also we can go back to 5/5 furor which is really nice since you can't always choose the moment the pull is gonna be. Having a 100% certain 10 rage can avoid some nasty stuff.
As I have seldom threat issues I am willing to trade the threat for some extra dodge, especially when progressing in Ulduar. This will be my spec as of tomorrow: Link
Below you will find the math I used to calculate the values as mentioned in Block 1, 2 and 3.
Math Block 1
First of all the proc rate. Idol of Terror is said to have 68% proc rate (wowhead.com) I did a quick test on a lvl 83 target dummy. For me I got 52 procs in 51 hits, 28 crits and 6 misses. On hit/crit for me that comes down to 52 / (51 + 28) ~= 66%. So I'll take the 68% as a fact for now.
I also, with current gear, miss 2.33% percent of the time. I get parried (15% cap) 7.25% of the time. So that is a 100 - 2.33 - 7.25 = 90.42% hit chance.
Total percentage of proc = 68% * 90.42% ~= 61.5%. The chance to miss is 38.5%.
Math Block 2
When it procs it has to be renewed within 6 seconds or 12 seconds. So there are 2 chances not to drop it. The chance it drops is when they both miss = 38.5% ^ 2 = 14.8%
Every time mangle is off cd it can be renewed at 38.5% chance.
1 time: 38.5% ^ 1 = 38.5%
2 time: 38.5% ^ 1 = 14.8%
3 time: 38.5% ^ 1 = 5.7%
4 time: 38.5% ^ 1 = 2.2%
5 time: 38.5% ^ 1 = 0.8%
Now there is a 0.8% is will go to 5 misses.
This means that there is a 2.2% - 0.8% chance = 1.4% chance it will only go to 4 misses. This has been implemented below:
So if it drops is will be down for:
30 seconds 0.8% of the time
24 seconds 1.4% of the time
18 seconds 3.5% of the time.
12 sec 9.1% of the time.
6 sec 23.7% of the time.
Average downtime calculation:
time * percentage
-> 6 * 23.7% + 12 * 9.1% + etc.
-> 6 * 0.237 + 12 * 0.091 + etc.
The result is the average downtime.
Average downtime = 3.72 seconds IF it is down. Chance on that is 14.8% so average downtime with 12 seconds is 3.72 * 14.8% = 0.55 seconds per 6 seconds = 9.1% downtime.
Math Block 3
When it procs it has to be renewed within 4.5 seconds, or 9 seconds. If not it can be renewed after only a 1.5 second downtime. So there are 2 chances not to drop it.
(Most of the math is the same as in block 2)
So if it drops is will be down for:
19.5 seconds 0.8% of the time
15 seconds 1.4% of the time
10.5 seconds 3.5% of the time.
6 sec 9.1% of the time.
1.5 sec 23.7% of the time.
Average downtime calculation (see block 2)
Average downtime = 1.70 seconds IF it is down. Chance on that is 14.8% so average downtime with 12 seconds is 1.70 * 14.8% = 0.25 seconds per 6 seconds = 4.2% downtime.
Is it better to get improved mangle or master shapeshifter? With Idol of the corruptor; I think so. iMangle here I come!
Today I just thought of this when I saw the following item on wowhead. Idol of the Corruptor.
As if it was it's destiny, today we got General Vezax down. And guess what he dropped. And guess who got the item. Yep yours truly has the idol now. Now I don't have the time to do this at some point, but I have to do it now, tomorrow Ulduar is waiting again. (Btw more on the Vezax fight later. It is a really nice druid cat fight).
I tested it very shortly, just before we went Yogg-Saron. I did it on cat, and it has no cooldown and a very high proc rate. I guess it is a copy of Idol of Terror, but then with way higher stats. Also there is no cooldown what soever. I think the Idol of terror used to have one. The duration is also 12 seconds and not 10.
Ok so we know it is nice. The thing is, is it worth it taking iMangle for it?
The proc rate for me calculating miss is 61.5%. (see math block 1 below).
With this we can calculate the uptime on a 6 sec cycle and on a 4.5 sec cycle with a 12 seconds duration. This is a really complex thing. I did an attempt to it (see math block 2 and 3 below). If you have real math send it my way!
6 second cycle:
9.1% downtime.
4.5 second cycle:
4.2% downtime.
The difference is 4.9%
Now simplified; (It is late):
What does it give: 2.44% dodge and 1.98% crit for me.
4.9% extra downtime comes to 0.12% dodge and 0.10% crit.
In bossfights you have to consider the fact that you will be not able to dps some time. Meaning the buff drops often. The sooner it can be up the better. It is a stab in the dark but I would double those values. Then it is pretty significant.
For iMangle we would sacrifice Shapshifter and Master Shapeshifter. You dont want to drop anything else really.
2 points in Master Shapeshifter give 4% damage done = 4% threat.
iMangle gives threat back in a dps cycle. Taking a quick look at an old post by Kalon we can see that iMangle does 2.8% more threat.
I don't now how valid the stats currently are. But I want to believe that what he posted then is in general true.
In total we would loose 1.2% threat and gain dodge and a bit more SD.
Also we can go back to 5/5 furor which is really nice since you can't always choose the moment the pull is gonna be. Having a 100% certain 10 rage can avoid some nasty stuff.
As I have seldom threat issues I am willing to trade the threat for some extra dodge, especially when progressing in Ulduar. This will be my spec as of tomorrow: Link
Below you will find the math I used to calculate the values as mentioned in Block 1, 2 and 3.
Math Block 1
First of all the proc rate. Idol of Terror is said to have 68% proc rate (wowhead.com) I did a quick test on a lvl 83 target dummy. For me I got 52 procs in 51 hits, 28 crits and 6 misses. On hit/crit for me that comes down to 52 / (51 + 28) ~= 66%. So I'll take the 68% as a fact for now.
I also, with current gear, miss 2.33% percent of the time. I get parried (15% cap) 7.25% of the time. So that is a 100 - 2.33 - 7.25 = 90.42% hit chance.
Total percentage of proc = 68% * 90.42% ~= 61.5%. The chance to miss is 38.5%.
Math Block 2
When it procs it has to be renewed within 6 seconds or 12 seconds. So there are 2 chances not to drop it. The chance it drops is when they both miss = 38.5% ^ 2 = 14.8%
Every time mangle is off cd it can be renewed at 38.5% chance.
1 time: 38.5% ^ 1 = 38.5%
2 time: 38.5% ^ 1 = 14.8%
3 time: 38.5% ^ 1 = 5.7%
4 time: 38.5% ^ 1 = 2.2%
5 time: 38.5% ^ 1 = 0.8%
Now there is a 0.8% is will go to 5 misses.
This means that there is a 2.2% - 0.8% chance = 1.4% chance it will only go to 4 misses. This has been implemented below:
So if it drops is will be down for:
30 seconds 0.8% of the time
24 seconds 1.4% of the time
18 seconds 3.5% of the time.
12 sec 9.1% of the time.
6 sec 23.7% of the time.
Average downtime calculation:
time * percentage
-> 6 * 23.7% + 12 * 9.1% + etc.
-> 6 * 0.237 + 12 * 0.091 + etc.
The result is the average downtime.
Average downtime = 3.72 seconds IF it is down. Chance on that is 14.8% so average downtime with 12 seconds is 3.72 * 14.8% = 0.55 seconds per 6 seconds = 9.1% downtime.
Math Block 3
When it procs it has to be renewed within 4.5 seconds, or 9 seconds. If not it can be renewed after only a 1.5 second downtime. So there are 2 chances not to drop it.
(Most of the math is the same as in block 2)
So if it drops is will be down for:
19.5 seconds 0.8% of the time
15 seconds 1.4% of the time
10.5 seconds 3.5% of the time.
6 sec 9.1% of the time.
1.5 sec 23.7% of the time.
Average downtime calculation (see block 2)
Average downtime = 1.70 seconds IF it is down. Chance on that is 14.8% so average downtime with 12 seconds is 1.70 * 14.8% = 0.25 seconds per 6 seconds = 4.2% downtime.
Monday, April 20, 2009
First Mimiron - an epic story
Synopsis
Last night we killed Mimiron. It wasn't pretty. But then it wouldn't be epic now would it?
Last night was the 4th day of raiding in Ulduar for our guild. We skipped Saturday and went at it again on Sunday.
We went back to the hotfixed Ignis and killed him, first on the server. We got the server first because we spent 3 hours wiping on him on Wednesday already (before the fix). After that we went to Mimiron, who promised to be a real challenge. I wasn't there for the most part. Wasn't online soon enough and the raid was full as we don't use signups while progress raiding. As soon as enough people are online we go at it.
I did get subbed in at Mimiron and then got subbed out (see my previous post).
Then I got back in and we got to phase 4 that try with half the raid alive. The next try we went to phase 4 again, but this time with all 25 people alive. This is where it became epic.
None of us had any real practice on phase 4. Though phase 4 is a combination of phase 1, 2 and 3. So we acted like it was phase 1, dodging the barrage and having a tank on the head.
However for me phase 4 ended very quickly. The lower part started to cast his aoe and I ran out. Hard to see where mines are (with the middle and top part stacked on top of the lower part) I managed to not hit any mine! I turned around and ran to his back again. Just at that time it occurred to me that he was doing barrage. Which is like Lurker but slower and only 150 degrees or so.
You might wonder: How did you notice the barrage then. Well I saw my fat Tauren corpse on the floor. That was pretty much it for me.
The fight continued though. One by one we started dying (I was not the first to die btw). Rockets, barrage, the top part killing our ranged tank, some melee getting hit by a mine, and of course the normal shooting an hitting of the middle and bottom part respectively.
All 3 parts have to die simultaneously (within 10 or 15 seconds), or they repair to 50%. So we were trying to coordinate that. First time ever we were doing that so it was 3 people yelling different numbers on vent. "Stop at 5!" - "It is at 3.5" - "Bottom part is at 2.1million" - "No stop at 5%"
When you kill them there is actually a small bar left. They are not fully dead. So it is kinda hard to see if a part is dead or not. Because of people dying we had to take them close to death or else we could not burst the last few to death.
The lower part died first, then the head, though it seemed the head had died first. The few people left were nuking all they had. At that point the lower part was at 20% health again. It had started repair! People on vent crying out in dispair when just at that moment: DING! 25 people had gotten the achievement. Apparently the lower part had not repaired fully yet meaning it was still dead.
The raidleader and tank were so overjoyed they accidentally ran into a mine afterwards and died. We had 6 people left standing.
Next up General Vezax.
Status: 10 bosses down, 3 server first kills, 10 horde first kills. Working on general Vezax atm.
PS. A lot is happening in wow now. Making a pretty large number of posts. Be sure to check if you didn't miss any.
Last night we killed Mimiron. It wasn't pretty. But then it wouldn't be epic now would it?
Last night was the 4th day of raiding in Ulduar for our guild. We skipped Saturday and went at it again on Sunday.
We went back to the hotfixed Ignis and killed him, first on the server. We got the server first because we spent 3 hours wiping on him on Wednesday already (before the fix). After that we went to Mimiron, who promised to be a real challenge. I wasn't there for the most part. Wasn't online soon enough and the raid was full as we don't use signups while progress raiding. As soon as enough people are online we go at it.
I did get subbed in at Mimiron and then got subbed out (see my previous post).
Then I got back in and we got to phase 4 that try with half the raid alive. The next try we went to phase 4 again, but this time with all 25 people alive. This is where it became epic.
None of us had any real practice on phase 4. Though phase 4 is a combination of phase 1, 2 and 3. So we acted like it was phase 1, dodging the barrage and having a tank on the head.
However for me phase 4 ended very quickly. The lower part started to cast his aoe and I ran out. Hard to see where mines are (with the middle and top part stacked on top of the lower part) I managed to not hit any mine! I turned around and ran to his back again. Just at that time it occurred to me that he was doing barrage. Which is like Lurker but slower and only 150 degrees or so.
You might wonder: How did you notice the barrage then. Well I saw my fat Tauren corpse on the floor. That was pretty much it for me.
The fight continued though. One by one we started dying (I was not the first to die btw). Rockets, barrage, the top part killing our ranged tank, some melee getting hit by a mine, and of course the normal shooting an hitting of the middle and bottom part respectively.
All 3 parts have to die simultaneously (within 10 or 15 seconds), or they repair to 50%. So we were trying to coordinate that. First time ever we were doing that so it was 3 people yelling different numbers on vent. "Stop at 5!" - "It is at 3.5" - "Bottom part is at 2.1million" - "No stop at 5%"
When you kill them there is actually a small bar left. They are not fully dead. So it is kinda hard to see if a part is dead or not. Because of people dying we had to take them close to death or else we could not burst the last few to death.
The lower part died first, then the head, though it seemed the head had died first. The few people left were nuking all they had. At that point the lower part was at 20% health again. It had started repair! People on vent crying out in dispair when just at that moment: DING! 25 people had gotten the achievement. Apparently the lower part had not repaired fully yet meaning it was still dead.
The raidleader and tank were so overjoyed they accidentally ran into a mine afterwards and died. We had 6 people left standing.
Next up General Vezax.
Status: 10 bosses down, 3 server first kills, 10 horde first kills. Working on general Vezax atm.
PS. A lot is happening in wow now. Making a pretty large number of posts. Be sure to check if you didn't miss any.
Great addons have lazy people behind it.
Synopsis
Go RPB if you are not hooked to TMW yet.
I have told you about TellMeWhen in this (link) post.
I have told you about macaroon being bugged, and the lazy programmer finally making a new version that now in 3.1 works (though there was no working version for the first 2 weeks of 3.0.8.
The same thing happened to TMW. The programmer was lazy. I posted on curse 2 weeks before 3.1 went live the following bug (on PTR);
The setting: Show me only if casted by myself was bugged. It should show Rip and Rake only when I casted it, but instead it will show any Rip and Rake casted by anyone. However if mine is active it will show mine before any others.
It really pissed me off because I got subbed from Mimiron because I was doing low dps. I got back in though after the other druid had to leave and we killed him! There was no other druid so the buggy addon didn't bother me much then, though my dps was still low because of me soaking bomb bot blows in phase 3 and doing little else.
This is the supposed fix: (didn't get a chance to try it yet).
elseif ( isMine or not icon.onlyMine ) then
replace it with:
elseif ( (isMine and UnitIsUnit(isMine, "player")) or not icon.onlyMine ) then
Also TellMeWhen doesn't always show Mangle (Cat)/Mangle (Bear). I need to test that and see if it works with what I posted in my previous post.
So if you are looking for using TMW or RPB, go for RPB. TMW is a great addon, but the programmer behind it is not really interested in making his product work.
Go RPB if you are not hooked to TMW yet.
I have told you about TellMeWhen in this (link) post.
I have told you about macaroon being bugged, and the lazy programmer finally making a new version that now in 3.1 works (though there was no working version for the first 2 weeks of 3.0.8.
The same thing happened to TMW. The programmer was lazy. I posted on curse 2 weeks before 3.1 went live the following bug (on PTR);
The setting: Show me only if casted by myself was bugged. It should show Rip and Rake only when I casted it, but instead it will show any Rip and Rake casted by anyone. However if mine is active it will show mine before any others.
It really pissed me off because I got subbed from Mimiron because I was doing low dps. I got back in though after the other druid had to leave and we killed him! There was no other druid so the buggy addon didn't bother me much then, though my dps was still low because of me soaking bomb bot blows in phase 3 and doing little else.
This is the supposed fix: (didn't get a chance to try it yet).
elseif ( isMine or not icon.onlyMine ) then
replace it with:
elseif ( (isMine and UnitIsUnit(isMine, "player")) or not icon.onlyMine ) then
Also TellMeWhen doesn't always show Mangle (Cat)/Mangle (Bear). I need to test that and see if it works with what I posted in my previous post.
So if you are looking for using TMW or RPB, go for RPB. TMW is a great addon, but the programmer behind it is not really interested in making his product work.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Mangle & Swipe
Synopsis
The names of Mangle and Swipe have been changed. But even with the new names they might not work in macro's. Here's the solution.
In addition of Karthis' post "Mangle - Skill name changes" I think it is important for people to be aware that his post was not fully complete (at least for Macro's and not RPB). I posted it as comment nr 6 there, but people might miss it. Therefore this post.
I use macro's to not cast Maul and make it easy to keep a cycle up, not having to spam buttons. Something Kalon brought to my attention in the first place.
This is the macro I used:
#showtooltip Mangle - Bear
/cast !Maul
/cast Mangle - Bear
This didn't work anymore. The reason being that the name has been changed to "Mangle (Bear)".
Still replacing "Mangle - Bear" by "Mangle (Bear)" did not work. To make it work you should be using the following:
#showtooltip Mangle (Bear)()
/cast !Maul
/cast Mangle (Bear)()
Same goes for Swipe, since that name has also been changed.
#showtooltip Swipe (Bear)()
/cast !Maul
/cast Swipe (Bear)()
This is probably a bug, something to be fixed by Blizzard later. I don't know if "Mangle (Bear)()" will stop working, though if I had to program it I would make it possible for both to be used so macro's with "()" will not stop working all of a sudden.
PS. This might very well be true for the cat versions too, but I am not using macro's for those. If you are keep this post in mind.
The names of Mangle and Swipe have been changed. But even with the new names they might not work in macro's. Here's the solution.
In addition of Karthis' post "Mangle - Skill name changes" I think it is important for people to be aware that his post was not fully complete (at least for Macro's and not RPB). I posted it as comment nr 6 there, but people might miss it. Therefore this post.
I use macro's to not cast Maul and make it easy to keep a cycle up, not having to spam buttons. Something Kalon brought to my attention in the first place.
This is the macro I used:
#showtooltip Mangle - Bear
/cast !Maul
/cast Mangle - Bear
This didn't work anymore. The reason being that the name has been changed to "Mangle (Bear)".
Still replacing "Mangle - Bear" by "Mangle (Bear)" did not work. To make it work you should be using the following:
#showtooltip Mangle (Bear)()
/cast !Maul
/cast Mangle (Bear)()
Same goes for Swipe, since that name has also been changed.
#showtooltip Swipe (Bear)()
/cast !Maul
/cast Swipe (Bear)()
This is probably a bug, something to be fixed by Blizzard later. I don't know if "Mangle (Bear)()" will stop working, though if I had to program it I would make it possible for both to be used so macro's with "()" will not stop working all of a sudden.
PS. This might very well be true for the cat versions too, but I am not using macro's for those. If you are keep this post in mind.
Drake ^ 2
Synopsis
What to do when you already have a Green Proto-Drake... ?
This is no photoshop. My GF got a Green Proto-Drake a week ago. She screamed so Loud I nearly forgot to tank Sarth. Then Teusday she had a new egg ready. And it contained ANOTHER Proto-Drake. It is like getting pwned by Blizzard. It is imba, but at this point it is sitting in her bank and is worth less then Aged Yolk. The egg and the Drake are Soulbound so she can't even give it to me or sell for a lot of money... Sigh.
What to do when you already have a Green Proto-Drake... ?
This is no photoshop. My GF got a Green Proto-Drake a week ago. She screamed so Loud I nearly forgot to tank Sarth. Then Teusday she had a new egg ready. And it contained ANOTHER Proto-Drake. It is like getting pwned by Blizzard. It is imba, but at this point it is sitting in her bank and is worth less then Aged Yolk. The egg and the Drake are Soulbound so she can't even give it to me or sell for a lot of money... Sigh.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Hey everybody come and see how great I look!
Synopsis
I GOT T8.5 !!!
Just a quick one. got little time. And any time I have I should be raiding but...
I am the first horde on the server to have t8.5 chest, together with a warrior from my guild. Probably the allied guild Revelations got that already. Good chance I am the first druid.
We killed Hodir. He was super easy really. First try we got him to 41%. We took him down third try. I MT-ed with full frost resistance (535).
Some DBM lag (I think) made the other tank die. I Taunted him off too late, though I taunted him as soon as possible. He was supposed to tank without much frost resistance. I don't know why we used 2 tanks to begin with. I tanked him solo the last 30%, though threat was a bit low (with 4 frost items with no offensive stats at all). But I held it ok.
More on Ulduar to come.
Status now: 6 bosses down. (Of course Heroic, what else is there).
First 2 bosses were server fists. The rest is horde first.
I GOT T8.5 !!!
Just a quick one. got little time. And any time I have I should be raiding but...
I am the first horde on the server to have t8.5 chest, together with a warrior from my guild. Probably the allied guild Revelations got that already. Good chance I am the first druid.
We killed Hodir. He was super easy really. First try we got him to 41%. We took him down third try. I MT-ed with full frost resistance (535).
Some DBM lag (I think) made the other tank die. I Taunted him off too late, though I taunted him as soon as possible. He was supposed to tank without much frost resistance. I don't know why we used 2 tanks to begin with. I tanked him solo the last 30%, though threat was a bit low (with 4 frost items with no offensive stats at all). But I held it ok.
More on Ulduar to come.
Status now: 6 bosses down. (Of course Heroic, what else is there).
First 2 bosses were server fists. The rest is horde first.
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