List 3 to 5 things you want to achieve in your World of Warcraft play by the end of 2011! This can be anything!
For me, this would include:
1. Death of Deathwing
2. Grand Marshal Title
3. 5 Level 85 characters
So, what do you guys want to do?
Friday, December 31, 2010
Early Level PvP
I rolled a rogue just to see if my basic understanding of the talents lead to my hypothesized conclusions; that the sheer number of talents and abilities can create rogues that one shot other players. I've never been particularly fond of levelling the rogue class for reasons I never could understand: They play like any other class with more means of not-dying. However, I have enjoyed myself thus far on this new rogue.
My conclusions have also been proven correct. The subtlety tree lends itself to big ambushes. Shadowstep, the iconic ability of the Subtlety tree and the ability you pick up for speccing into the tree, increases the damage done by your next Ambush by 30%. By level 13, you have 3 talent points that increase the critical chance of Ambush by 60% and its damage by another 15%. By 19, you can increase that damage again by another 10%. When you break stealth, your damage is increased by 10%.
That means that Ambush's damage is increased by 55% with a 60+% chance to critical strike, via talents and abilities alone. No wonder rogues are one shotting people.
My conclusions have also been proven correct. The subtlety tree lends itself to big ambushes. Shadowstep, the iconic ability of the Subtlety tree and the ability you pick up for speccing into the tree, increases the damage done by your next Ambush by 30%. By level 13, you have 3 talent points that increase the critical chance of Ambush by 60% and its damage by another 15%. By 19, you can increase that damage again by another 10%. When you break stealth, your damage is increased by 10%.
That means that Ambush's damage is increased by 55% with a 60+% chance to critical strike, via talents and abilities alone. No wonder rogues are one shotting people.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
LUA Errors
I have been experiencing a lot of LUA Errors lately while using the World of Warcraft client. Particularly bad in the Baradin Hold fight against Pit Lord Algaloth. I am not sure if its game code conflicting with addon code or just gamecode conflicting with game code, but I'm leading towards the former.
And in all likelyhood, it's just that I haven't updated my Deadly Boss Mods. So, update your addons regularly and you will experience less errors!
And in all likelyhood, it's just that I haven't updated my Deadly Boss Mods. So, update your addons regularly and you will experience less errors!
Josiah Avery
I hope that the entire alliance thanks/blames Josiah Avery for biting every Gilnean Human that eventually turned into a Worgen. His reluctance to come out of the cellar that eventually leads to biting people, one at a time, would change the face of the alliance forever.
Here is to you, Josiah Avery: The Most Influential NPC in World of Warcraft.
Here is to you, Josiah Avery: The Most Influential NPC in World of Warcraft.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Posting from an iPad
Just thought I would make a brief post about World of Warcraft from my girlfriend's new iPad. This device is incredibly interesting despite the lack of flash capability.
I started tanking cataclysm dungeons today with my warrior. I guess I had over exaggerated the difficulty of normal dungeons when I did them on my mage as I had no problem with these instances on my warrior. While under confident initially, seeing problems with lack of crowd control from Pugged group members, I quickly gathered my wits and managed to have a lot of fun.
Hopefully, this fun I'm having warrior tanking doesn't take away from the fun I have had with my mage.
I started tanking cataclysm dungeons today with my warrior. I guess I had over exaggerated the difficulty of normal dungeons when I did them on my mage as I had no problem with these instances on my warrior. While under confident initially, seeing problems with lack of crowd control from Pugged group members, I quickly gathered my wits and managed to have a lot of fun.
Hopefully, this fun I'm having warrior tanking doesn't take away from the fun I have had with my mage.
Kelp Bulbs
The quest in Vashj'ir that forces you to collect Kelp Bulbs will lead youth to a biological fallacy. See the Kelp Wiki for proof.
Visions of the Past: The Incredibly Boring Questchain in Vashj'ir
When I first did the Visions of the Past quest line on my Mage, I thought that I disliked it due to its buggy nature and from the high population of other users frequenting the area. However, when I returned to Vashj'ir to do the quest line again on my Warrior, I discovered my real issue with the quest line.
It's boring.
There is little excitement involved with doing the quest line. You're rarely, if ever, in danger of dying as a Naga fighting the Kvaldir. I'm currently afk as I write this post, floating above a spawn point, and feel no need to log out or move position because I know when I alt-tab back to the WoW window, I'll be totally safe.
Worse yet, it's purely a lore quest for an area that I have no ascribed meaning to. If this were Uldum, I would be completely fascinated; anything to explain deeper the lore of the Makers is interesting to learn about. Learning about the sunken city of Vashj'ir is, above all else, uninteresting.
By the by, I found no snap peas in the zone on either character. Case dismissed.
It's boring.
There is little excitement involved with doing the quest line. You're rarely, if ever, in danger of dying as a Naga fighting the Kvaldir. I'm currently afk as I write this post, floating above a spawn point, and feel no need to log out or move position because I know when I alt-tab back to the WoW window, I'll be totally safe.
Worse yet, it's purely a lore quest for an area that I have no ascribed meaning to. If this were Uldum, I would be completely fascinated; anything to explain deeper the lore of the Makers is interesting to learn about. Learning about the sunken city of Vashj'ir is, above all else, uninteresting.
By the by, I found no snap peas in the zone on either character. Case dismissed.
Friday, December 24, 2010
T'was the Night Before Christmas...and I was testing Hurricane
When I got my new staff from heroic Grim Batol today, I decided I finally had a weapon worth enchanting with the new Hurricane enchant.
The following test is inconclusive due to the nature of what causes the Hurricane buff to exist.
I tested it as fire without buffs of any kind and did 250 Scorch casts that procced 107 ignite DoTs. Scorch has a cast time of 1.39 seconds on my Mage. Hurricane procced 9 times. I cannot assume that it only procced off of the Scorch Casts, as people have noted Hurricane proccing on any number of things (See the comments in the posted link).
If we total in ignite DoTs as a potential cause of the Hurricane procs, that would suggest that Hurricane procs roughly every 40 casts, or about once per minute.
The following test is inconclusive due to the nature of what causes the Hurricane buff to exist.
I tested it as fire without buffs of any kind and did 250 Scorch casts that procced 107 ignite DoTs. Scorch has a cast time of 1.39 seconds on my Mage. Hurricane procced 9 times. I cannot assume that it only procced off of the Scorch Casts, as people have noted Hurricane proccing on any number of things (See the comments in the posted link).
If we total in ignite DoTs as a potential cause of the Hurricane procs, that would suggest that Hurricane procs roughly every 40 casts, or about once per minute.
Node Battlegrounds: Creating Pressure
Often in battlegrounds, we see a lot of people saying "Fight on Flag," "Don't fight in mid," and things of the like. There is generally a lot of truth in the matter. If you're not fighting directly for a node or around one, you're not making a "hard contribution" to the battleground objectives, IE winning.
However, there is a time and place for "soft contributions," where you and your teammates create a favorable situation without necessarily taking control of a node.
First and foremost, there needs to be made a distinction. A dead player is of no use and a living player is always better than a dead player. A dead player cannot take nodes, create pressure, or kill other players. A living player can do everything I just mentioned.
When in Arathi Basin, Eye of the Storm, or Battle for Gilneas, the ultimate objective is to control the most number of nodes for the longest period of time. This involves a distribution of players defending nodes from the opposition.
The way the different battlegrounds are designed though, is that whichever team has the more nodes will have less players distributed and creates a situation where the opposing team can put more of their players onto a node, in an attack, to gain the node.
So, how does a game not become a tennis match? Well, generally superior level of play. If a player can kill 3 players during their time alive, then obviously those 3 dead cannot achieve anything and that living player can. In these battlegrounds, where controlling the most number of nodes for the longest period of time, the team that dies less generally wins more.
However, if you're finding that superior level of play is not on your side, a good way to play to psychological. In AB, EotS, or BfG, teams will have to respond to attacks for fear of losing nodes.
So, next time you are on defense and you successfully thwart an attack, do not rest up for another attack. Through attrition, you might be beaten and lose your node. It would be better to quickly attack while your opponents are dead (Unable to respond to your attack) and force your living-opponents to respond.
This does not mean run your whole team to their node. You should definitely succeed in taking their node but will probably fail in defending the other nodes. This also does not mean you should, alone, run to take their node. That is not a large enough scale-attack to gather attention. A small group, 3-4, will suffice.
This also doesn't mean kill yourselves. This applying of pressure should not be a suicide run. If you can kill a couple more of your opponents, maybe grab the flag. Then you should run. Surviving is more important that gaining a node that you may or may not be able to defend. But if you're drawing the opponent's attention, it will support your defense and therefore you will be able to maintain more nodes for a longer period of time.
And who knows, you might accidentally take all the nodes with the pressure being applied and win even faster!
However, there is a time and place for "soft contributions," where you and your teammates create a favorable situation without necessarily taking control of a node.
First and foremost, there needs to be made a distinction. A dead player is of no use and a living player is always better than a dead player. A dead player cannot take nodes, create pressure, or kill other players. A living player can do everything I just mentioned.
When in Arathi Basin, Eye of the Storm, or Battle for Gilneas, the ultimate objective is to control the most number of nodes for the longest period of time. This involves a distribution of players defending nodes from the opposition.
The way the different battlegrounds are designed though, is that whichever team has the more nodes will have less players distributed and creates a situation where the opposing team can put more of their players onto a node, in an attack, to gain the node.
So, how does a game not become a tennis match? Well, generally superior level of play. If a player can kill 3 players during their time alive, then obviously those 3 dead cannot achieve anything and that living player can. In these battlegrounds, where controlling the most number of nodes for the longest period of time, the team that dies less generally wins more.
However, if you're finding that superior level of play is not on your side, a good way to play to psychological. In AB, EotS, or BfG, teams will have to respond to attacks for fear of losing nodes.
So, next time you are on defense and you successfully thwart an attack, do not rest up for another attack. Through attrition, you might be beaten and lose your node. It would be better to quickly attack while your opponents are dead (Unable to respond to your attack) and force your living-opponents to respond.
This does not mean run your whole team to their node. You should definitely succeed in taking their node but will probably fail in defending the other nodes. This also does not mean you should, alone, run to take their node. That is not a large enough scale-attack to gather attention. A small group, 3-4, will suffice.
This also doesn't mean kill yourselves. This applying of pressure should not be a suicide run. If you can kill a couple more of your opponents, maybe grab the flag. Then you should run. Surviving is more important that gaining a node that you may or may not be able to defend. But if you're drawing the opponent's attention, it will support your defense and therefore you will be able to maintain more nodes for a longer period of time.
And who knows, you might accidentally take all the nodes with the pressure being applied and win even faster!
Follow up to I Am Victorious! ...Or not?
It is apparent that the buffs from Impending Victory and traditional Victory Rush are not stacking and the traditional Victory Rush is eating up both Victorious charges. This enforces that the talent is great for raid bosses but not necessarily for levelling purposes.
The changes stated at the end of I am Victorious! ...Or not? were to:
1. Combine the buffs, for a 25% of max health heal. This has no real implications for raiding, as generally when the boss has died there's no reason to worry about a slightly better heal but has better implications for levelling and PvP.
2. Turn Impending Victory into a stacking talent, where Devastates add stacks of the Victorious Buff that increase the healing benefit. This fixes the levelling issue, adds another level of play, but has serious implications for raiding as the warrior could, theoretically, heal himself a lot better through the stacks.
3. Scrap the talent. Worst option, always an option.
The changes stated at the end of I am Victorious! ...Or not? were to:
1. Combine the buffs, for a 25% of max health heal. This has no real implications for raiding, as generally when the boss has died there's no reason to worry about a slightly better heal but has better implications for levelling and PvP.
2. Turn Impending Victory into a stacking talent, where Devastates add stacks of the Victorious Buff that increase the healing benefit. This fixes the levelling issue, adds another level of play, but has serious implications for raiding as the warrior could, theoretically, heal himself a lot better through the stacks.
3. Scrap the talent. Worst option, always an option.
I am Victorious! ...Or not?
I've been levelling my warrior recently as kind of a breather from the heroic and battleground grind on my mage.
My warrior was my main during the Burning Crusade when Single-Minded Fury was the only spec for DPS until T6 equipment, and Titan's Grip did not exist. When Wrath of the Lich King dropped, I was going to continue to level my warrior and have him as my main during the expansion. However, I found that the lack of self-healing combined with no improvements in equipment was, to say the least, boring. He quickly made it to level 72 and was then dropped in favor of my paladin.
First, I want to point out that dropping a warrior for a paladin "out of boredom" is probably one of the biggest "What the fuck?" moments in my World of Warcraft career. I should have realized that the 3 button paladin specs would eventually leave a sour-taste in my mouth as I went through raiding.
I did level my warrior to 80 during Wrath of the Lich King and even attempted to start up some raiding with him in Naxxramas. However, he didn't have many of the perks that I had acquired on my paladin. No cold weather flying or dual speccing, no updated professions, and a lack of "utility," which to me just includes healing or crowd control options.
He was faction changed back and forth a couple times and generally ignored, sat in his level 70 gear and some questing / bought upgrades, and then collected a lot of dust all over his gnomish / tauren features.
So, when I faction changed him to a Worgen and decided to level him, to experience all the new changes that I had been hearing about, I was in a pretty bad spot. He was old and slow now, unable to remember what buttons did what and when; His gear was pretty much rotting off his body, so out-of-date that his health was a measly 19k in his DPS set prior to setting out on the mercenary ship for Vasj'ir; and confused with the talent changes meant.
I am going to post more about my warrior as time passed, but I thought I would point out what I call a design flaw in the Protection tree.
Impending Victory is a talent I grabbed just out of interest in a couple of the new self-healing mechanics. If you Devastate a creature at or below 20% health, you have a 50% chance to gain the Victorious buff, where you can then Victory Rush for 5% of your health.
So, one out of two Devastate hits on a raid mob below 20% health, I can heal myself? Not a bad concept at all. However, the trouble lies while levelling.
When your protection warrior Devastates a target at or below 20% health and you gain the Victorious Buff, but you don't get to Victory Rush the target because it's died, you will gain two Victorious Buffs. One of these buffs was gained through Impending Victory while the other was gained through traditional Victory Rush mechanics.
On the next target, when you are nearly forced to open with Victory Rush in order to use either of the buffs, you use Victory Rush once. Both Victorious buffs are dropped and a green number flies onto the screen. So I have a couple questions.
1. Are my Victorious Buffs stacking? Am I getting the full 100% Victory Rush from killing the mob combined with the 5% Victory Rush from the Impending Victory proc? If they are combining, then I have no qualms and this post was for nothing.
2. If they are not stacking, what could be done? Could they be stacked? Or could Victory Rush be used twice, kind of like a Fingers of Frost model of charges? Could the Victorious Buff be changed from its current model into a stacking model, where every Devastate below 20% adds another stack or any honorable/experience kill adds a stack? That would create some serious new possibilities in any case.
Anyway, there's my two cents on what is potentially a flaw in the Warrior Protection tree. More later as I level, and perhaps after my first instance tanked on my warrior since Heroic Ramparts was hard.
My warrior was my main during the Burning Crusade when Single-Minded Fury was the only spec for DPS until T6 equipment, and Titan's Grip did not exist. When Wrath of the Lich King dropped, I was going to continue to level my warrior and have him as my main during the expansion. However, I found that the lack of self-healing combined with no improvements in equipment was, to say the least, boring. He quickly made it to level 72 and was then dropped in favor of my paladin.
First, I want to point out that dropping a warrior for a paladin "out of boredom" is probably one of the biggest "What the fuck?" moments in my World of Warcraft career. I should have realized that the 3 button paladin specs would eventually leave a sour-taste in my mouth as I went through raiding.
I did level my warrior to 80 during Wrath of the Lich King and even attempted to start up some raiding with him in Naxxramas. However, he didn't have many of the perks that I had acquired on my paladin. No cold weather flying or dual speccing, no updated professions, and a lack of "utility," which to me just includes healing or crowd control options.
He was faction changed back and forth a couple times and generally ignored, sat in his level 70 gear and some questing / bought upgrades, and then collected a lot of dust all over his gnomish / tauren features.
So, when I faction changed him to a Worgen and decided to level him, to experience all the new changes that I had been hearing about, I was in a pretty bad spot. He was old and slow now, unable to remember what buttons did what and when; His gear was pretty much rotting off his body, so out-of-date that his health was a measly 19k in his DPS set prior to setting out on the mercenary ship for Vasj'ir; and confused with the talent changes meant.
I am going to post more about my warrior as time passed, but I thought I would point out what I call a design flaw in the Protection tree.
Impending Victory is a talent I grabbed just out of interest in a couple of the new self-healing mechanics. If you Devastate a creature at or below 20% health, you have a 50% chance to gain the Victorious buff, where you can then Victory Rush for 5% of your health.
So, one out of two Devastate hits on a raid mob below 20% health, I can heal myself? Not a bad concept at all. However, the trouble lies while levelling.
When your protection warrior Devastates a target at or below 20% health and you gain the Victorious Buff, but you don't get to Victory Rush the target because it's died, you will gain two Victorious Buffs. One of these buffs was gained through Impending Victory while the other was gained through traditional Victory Rush mechanics.
On the next target, when you are nearly forced to open with Victory Rush in order to use either of the buffs, you use Victory Rush once. Both Victorious buffs are dropped and a green number flies onto the screen. So I have a couple questions.
1. Are my Victorious Buffs stacking? Am I getting the full 100% Victory Rush from killing the mob combined with the 5% Victory Rush from the Impending Victory proc? If they are combining, then I have no qualms and this post was for nothing.
2. If they are not stacking, what could be done? Could they be stacked? Or could Victory Rush be used twice, kind of like a Fingers of Frost model of charges? Could the Victorious Buff be changed from its current model into a stacking model, where every Devastate below 20% adds another stack or any honorable/experience kill adds a stack? That would create some serious new possibilities in any case.
Anyway, there's my two cents on what is potentially a flaw in the Warrior Protection tree. More later as I level, and perhaps after my first instance tanked on my warrior since Heroic Ramparts was hard.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Camel
I purchased my camel today from the reputation vendor of Ramkahen. It is a tan camel. He has one hump, not two.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Welcome to Great Grandma Darbles' World of Blogs!
Hello, sonny. I see you've stumbled upon me and my rocking chair. Did you bring peas? I do love peas. Back in youth, before the World of Warcraft, I remember times of peas during picnics with my father. Snap peas, you see, were a dessert of some value. You had to be of proper stalk to afford snap peas. And how they would snap in your mouth, nothing like peas today. Of course, the delicacy is nothing without my teeth.
Speaking of teeth, my World of Warcraft character is named Wisdomteeth. And, I think at this point, I drop the charade of being a Great Grandmother and state my purpose.
I have played World of Warcraft for a long time (Starting my first characters prior to the release of the Burning Crusade expansion) and have developed as a player from not knowing how to heroic strike to a player who has successfully completed some, and definitely nowhere near all, of the most difficult feats in World of Warcraft.
I am also very interested in reading and writing. I hope to, with this blog, combine these interests in order to do a number of things:
1. Practice my writing, which is rusty
2. Illustrate my knowledge of the World of Warcraft, despite my inability to play it
3. Help developing players in areas of difficulty that are not covered in any help guide or tutorial
So, Welcome! To Great Grandma Darbles' World of Blogs! First post with viable and valuable information will be posted on Christmas Day as a gift to all!
Speaking of teeth, my World of Warcraft character is named Wisdomteeth. And, I think at this point, I drop the charade of being a Great Grandmother and state my purpose.
I have played World of Warcraft for a long time (Starting my first characters prior to the release of the Burning Crusade expansion) and have developed as a player from not knowing how to heroic strike to a player who has successfully completed some, and definitely nowhere near all, of the most difficult feats in World of Warcraft.
I am also very interested in reading and writing. I hope to, with this blog, combine these interests in order to do a number of things:
1. Practice my writing, which is rusty
2. Illustrate my knowledge of the World of Warcraft, despite my inability to play it
3. Help developing players in areas of difficulty that are not covered in any help guide or tutorial
So, Welcome! To Great Grandma Darbles' World of Blogs! First post with viable and valuable information will be posted on Christmas Day as a gift to all!
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